I have had an awakening

For my entire adult life I have been a supporter of nuclear power generation. However the events of the last few days have made realize that dangers associated with it are not worth the benefit.
We need to shut them ALL down now and consider other options. Natural gas and wind are just two of many options we have. No amount of benefit is worth turning our country or any country into a wasteland.
To any members of DU, whom I may have insulted in recent days, please accept my most sincere apology.

Peace All,
John S. Churchin

Oil. Gulf of Mexico. Natural Gas. Fracking and contamination of groundwater. Coal. Wholesale stripping of mountaintops. Nuclear. Spent fuel rods are stored in the water coolant next to the reactor core. We get about 20% of our electricity from nuclear power. Trying to replace that with a "green" method (which will be far less efficient, at least over the short term) is going to be a problem. Fusion power is the ultimate key, but no one has cracked that one yet. Or maybe someone has and the oil companies are strangling it. Any replacement technology for nuclear will take decades to implement. It won't be overnight. It does need to be done, though.

the hot air in DC as a power source, we would not need anything else!

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

perils of various fossil fuels. The one question I haven't heard discussed is how the cost for renewables and conservation would stand up to nuclear and fossil fuels if all the incentives and secret price controls were removed. For example, there's no pressure to buy a fuel efficient car when the US government steps in to stabilize the price of gasoline whenever there's a shortage. And that's even before we look at second order questions, like how much of our energy use goes to maintain a military whose chief purpose these days seems to be to guarantee our oil supply!

product marketing and distribution? Without the US Navy patrolling the Arabian Gulf and the US Army protecting freedom wells on the ground in the ME...how cheap would the oil be? We ought to be delivering an annual bill to Exxon Mobil, et al, for around $200BB, instead of giving them tax breaks. Sure, they'd pass it on to the taxpayer by way of higher fuel prices...but then we'd damn well find other sources of energy and/or transportation modes to avoid the real costs of gas.

And lets hope a solar farm in the desert is never shattered by an earthquake--someone might cut their foot on the glass.

Yeah, these perils are very similar.

some of which have almost negligible externalities. Furthermore, fossil/nuclear fuels are not that "efficient" once you take into account their externalities, the energy required for extracting them, refining them, process them, distribute them, never mind the massive amounts of subsidies, etc, etc, etc.

There is no need for "fusion" there are plenty of methods to generate electricity, right now, that are practical and far more safe. The problem is that unlike fossil, fission, and yes even fusion, those methods are far more "democratic" and can't be controlled for profit as easily. Which says a lot.

"Every method of generating electricity has its perils."

In one sense, you are correct. Every method of generating electricity...in fact, every action you take in life has its perils. the difference with nuclear power is that the consequences of failure are so utterly catastrophic.

Each of the other energy resources are problematic in their own way. Fracking should be totally outlawed, IMO. But when (not if) a nuclear power plant fails the results can mean the deaths of tens of thousands of people, either immediately or years later, birth defects, and making uninhabitable vast swaths of the planet, essentially for all time to come (the half-life of Plutonium is 24,000 years).

And all in order to boil water. It's insane. Unless, of course, one recognizes that these plants are a necessary component in the nuclear weapons cycle. Makes one wonder, doesn't it?


edit> typo. I need a new keyboard.

After the catastrophe in Japan, I'm out. No more nukes, and shut down the ones we already have.

:grouphug:

doesn't involve shutting off your heat or lights though right?

That's the Teabagger way--shut down the government, cut everything to the bone and keep cutting, privatize everything.

However, let's end Price-Anderson, and move Big Oil subsidies to NREL.

down my local nuke plant. In other countries they only turn electric on a few hours a day. I think we could find a way to share some sacrifice here if that's what it takes to shut down the existing plants and rebuild a different system.

but because it would take this type of real sacrifice for mankind to move away from all unsustainable or unsafe sources of energy.

Better to make these choices willingly before being forced to make them later IMHO.

:thumbsup:
:grouphug:

so we can get to building alternatives. and lots of them

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change".

There is a line in a song by the band "Yes" called "Heart of the Sunrise" that I really like.

This is the line:

"As truth is gathered, I rearrange".

Welcome aboard, John!

:thumbsup:

The reward is not worth the risk, given the availability of alternatives.

who derided those of us who were anti-nuclear energy. I strongly suspect you are not the only one who is changing their mind, though you might well be one of the few, honest enough to admit it. Good for you.

And support. I truly appreciate it.

:kick:

decedents will thank you.

no such thing as ... "safe".
There is merely reduction of risk to an acceptable level.
And, most importantly of all, I like my electricity. And solar and wind and wave are not there, no where near there yet, and quite possibly never will be.
Ergo ...
dc

the average household could be run on about 10% of the energy we now use with an improvement in services. Every insulated wall, double-paned window, efficient appliance puts us on that path.

Wind is now the cheapest energy source when all factors are added in, solar is getting cheaper rapidly. We need to spend our $ making the grid friendly for distributed power sources and working on small and large energy storage systems for intermittent supplies of power.

I'm all for getting rid of Nuclear power if we can replace it renewable sources. I think we need to aggressively support alternatives, but like you said, "I like my electricity". Hopefully, through technology and investment in non-Nuclear sources we will get there, but until that we are basically stuck with Nuclear power.

There shall be some risk. Even in My Own Back Yard.
dc



There is nothing that is 'safe'. There is no such thing as 'safe'.

:hi:

Eventually you will get bit. If we go further down the nuclear road, eventually we will get bit worse than we did at TMI. I say we begin to retire the existing nuke plants and replace with wind and solar.

Nuclear or no. I'm afraid every other being on Earth besides humanity will pay, many with their total existence. It is the dirtiest evil in the universe what we will agree to do to this world. We will work together to do it, and Hate on the few who care and want the growth to stop til the rest of life can get even a chance to make it.

I am sick.

I actually always knew there were problems with it, but I pretty much confined that belief to human problems (not enough regulation, insufficient waste management) but what happened in Japan is a grim reminder that some things are better left in the ground, not mined, refined, and placed in a precarious position where they require constant maintenance to keep from poisoning us (and a few hefty guys with shovels can't take care of the job by themselves). That means any emergency of a certain scale is a potential long-lasting disaster. Can you imagine if a war with carpet bombing the scale of Iraq or WWII took place between nations with nuclear plants? Disaster in the making.

I still think it's priority 1 to get off coal, but any new energy should be wind, solar, and a couple of other newer technologies (like ocean turbines). The focus should be on getting off coal and nuclear, cutting out coal first then nuclear, in my opinion, and it should all happen very, very fast.

And by the way, this would be a HUGE boost to the economy. Anyone still care about the economy?

We Americans need to be more economical and more efficient.
We must redistribute our energy supplies via wind and solar and be more conservative.

Once we understand the real costs, as you have now realized, the decisions needed will become easier to be made. Our opposition is the centralized power holders who don't want to give up their monopolies, but they must. We will need some mass suppliers but those can be supplies that are ever more cleaner and far safer than nukes.

Sorry that it takes such an overwhelming situation to bring people over, but that is the way of the world, eh? Anyhow, let's get to work.

:)

Give peace a chance. Go solar now.

The war between the oil and nuclear industries for dominance is a mutually assured destruction of the planet.

I never thought pro-nuclear power people were fools, I could see the appeal of that position. But I also always knew that people are far more perfect on paper than we are in real life where our flaws and arrogance are not so easily whitewashed away.

Put in a nutshell, if we as a nation are unwilling to take a risk of losing Los Angeles or New York City to an unexpected, who could ever have foreseen it type nuclear disaster in order to have nuclear power available as a means of generating electricity, we should not use nuclear power. Because that risk is real, the only debate is over how small or large that risk actually is. And humans have a marked tendency to be unrealistically optimistic about our ability to bend nature and fate to our will.

but they are going to need to find a better way to extract Natural gas or we are going to be in the same boat. Check out Gasland documentary on drilling for Natural gas. It is eye opening. i think solar and wind and water will be our best bets. And maybe a way to recycle waste into reusable energy. Sometimes when you have the technology it is not always good to use it.Nuclear Power. there is no where to dispose of the waste product. How many mountains will we hollow out? How much fossil liquid gold must run upon our seas? How many coal mines will capture the heart of a young man's demise?

from this dude in Nigeria and I'm going to start leasing sun rays to those interested in solar.

Anyone want to invest?

Shouldn't take me too long to get my 250K back and hopefully, if this works out like they said in the email, we can take all Nuke reactors off line very soon~

Good for you for allowing yourself to grow.

I think we have to put the alternatives on-line first, then shut the reactors down, if we can generate enough electricity from the alternatives.

Otherwise, we might have to schedule rolling blackouts, outlaw air-conditioning (and many of our windows aren't built to open), any number of severe power restrictions.

We might even have to turn off some of these internets.

:hi:

Because we have no good solution for nuclear waste I have never been a supporter. But I admit I have generally assumed modern reactors could be made safe. A disaster affecting a modern nuclear plant wasn't something I ever expected we'd see again. It seems the biggest threat at the moment with Fukushima is, in fact, the waste stored on-site. But even so I'm no longer confident in the safety of modern reactors as I once was. This event was a perfect storm: Earthquake damages reactor, tsunami swamps backup generators AND destroys all the roads which might have helped with supply and repair. Now I see the plant in my state is rated to withstand a 7.0 earthquake. WTF?

:thumbsup:

Glad to have you!
:)