Why are so many people opposed to nuclear energy?

[Nibb31]

Coal is something you can produce from wood(closed CO2 cycle). Nothing bad about it.

Oh come on. It takes millions of years for the plants that absorb CO2 to turn into coal. We will be long gone by then. Nobody seriously considers coal as a renewable energy source.

[Aghanim]

Coal is something you can produce from wood(closed CO2 cycle). Nothing bad about it.

You actually meant charcoal, right?

[lajoswinkler]

Pretty much, yeah, "Nuclear" is a buzzword. The second people hear it they start running and screaming, thinking their faces are going to melt off and that the planet will be irradiated to hell. That, and the fact that people think a reactor is just a bomb in a facility that churns out power, and if someone flicks the wrong switch, then you have another Hiroshima, or Nagasaki. Which is of course, completely wrong. (It would take a lot of flicks of the wrong switches, coupled with incompetence, and basic human stupidity, along with a Homer Simpson styled mentality.) While I can understand the argument against N power through the waste perspective, if we were to manage to work with it more efficiently, and more cleverly, that argument would be null and void also. Fusion is cleaner, to the point that it just irradiates the reactor to hell, rather than leaving around mostly spent fuel rods.

Your general tone is right, but let me correct some of the things you've stated.

First, no amount of switching switches, stupid Homers and incompetence can turn a nuclear power plant into a nuclear bomb. It is physically impossible. The worst case scenario with Western second generation reactors (standard containment, negative void coefficient, etc.) is what happened in Fukushima 1 power plant, and that's waaaaaay less worse than what happened in Chernobyl. Mind that Fukushima was rocked by a stupidly powerful earthquake and covered with like 15 m tsunami wave, which is quite frankly the worst realistic thing that could happen to a power plant, aside from getting bombed by an atomic weapon.

Realistically speaking, an usual Western PWR, situated on a lake or a river, has the worst case scenario of Three Mile Island: partial core collapse and controlled release of radionuclides through the stack. A national economical problem if it happens in a country which has few power plants.

Fission waste that we keep in our spent fuel pools is not a waste. It can truly be used more because most of the fuel is left inside. So they're not mostly spent fuel rods, but mostly non-spent.

Only after recycling you get waste which is things like radioeuropium, radiostrontium, radiocaesium, etc. That either doesn't have to be waste, but today we don't have much use for it. It's meant to be vitrified and buried. The amounts of waste left after recycling is laughably small.

[theend3r]

@Elthy you are absolutely right.

There is an strong pro Nuclear lobby but nobody of them mentions that N power is one of the most costly.

Nobody mentions that if we switch energy economy to N the uranium reserves won't even last enough for this century.

Every one of them is playing down the risks. And every one of them is not even considering other possibilities.

People which do automaticly are called green terrorists and such without delivering any facts that prove their claims.

Yes right now the prices for power have raised in Germany but that is something i am paying gladly if i know that i can do something for the enviroment.

[h=1]When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money[/h]

1) Thorium is about as common as lead.

2) Green terrorists do not provide any facts.

3) The case of Germany is a sad one. They're actually trying to destroy their environment. Nuclear energy is the cleanest energy there is. Coal ash is far more radioactive, in fact the radioactivity levels around coal powerplants are many times higher than around nuclear powerplants. The production of wind turbines and solar panels and their impact on environment is actually pretty large too, aside from destroying the terrain.

I guess ignorance is bliss.

[rtxoff]

You actually meant charcoal, right?

You are right.

[rtxoff]

1) Thorium is about as common as lead.

2) Green terrorists do not provide any facts.

3) The case of Germany is a sad one. They're actually trying to destroy their environment. Nuclear energy is the cleanest energy there is. Coal ash is far more radioactive, in fact the radioactivity levels around coal powerplants are many times higher than around nuclear powerplants. The production of wind turbines and solar panels and their impact on environment is actually pretty large too, aside from destroying the terrain.

I guess ignorance is bliss.

Seriously, are you taking drugs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

So so, coal powerplants produce more radioactivity then nuclear ones?

Yeah ignorance is really a bliss.

[theend3r]

Seriously, are you taking drugs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

So so, coal powerplants produce more radioactivity then nuclear ones?

Yeah ignorance is really a bliss.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

Yes, they do. All n.p.p. release is steam.

Ad ignorance - I'm glad you agree with me

Edited June 8, 2014 by theend3r

[lajoswinkler]

Yes, coal power plants release more radionuclides into the environment than nuclear power plants. That is a fact.

Additionally, they release heavy metals and carcinogenic organic compounds, too.

[ZetaX]

1) Thorium is about as common as lead.

2) Green terrorists do not provide any facts.

3) The case of Germany is a sad one. They're actually trying to destroy their environment. Nuclear energy is the cleanest energy there is. Coal ash is far more radioactive, in fact the radioactivity levels around coal powerplants are many times higher than around nuclear powerplants. The production of wind turbines and solar panels and their impact on environment is actually pretty large too, aside from destroying the terrain.

I guess ignorance is bliss.

2) is just ad-hominem, 3) is lacking any evidence so far, so add some (solar cells have some chemicals involved, but wind or solar heating should be pretty clean).

[rtxoff]

Yes, coal power plants release more radionuclides into the environment than nuclear power plants. That is a fact.

Additionally, they release heavy metals and carcinogenic organic compounds, too.

Fact is that this information is spread by pro nuclear forces. Why they are not telling that no coal power plant is releasing fly ashes into the atmosphere anymore. Out of the chimneys of modern coal power plants CO2 is the only stuff coming out.

At least in Europe this is true, don't know about murica. Maybe their regulations are'nt that tight.

[YNM]

Out of the chimneys of modern coal power plants CO2 is the only stuff coming out.

At least in Europe this is true, don't know about 'murica. Maybe their regulations aren't that tight.

Or China. They have MORE coal plants.

Anyway, why nuclear when you have winds ? Geothermal ? Fusing hydrogen at 1,5 x 10^(11) m away ?

Edited June 8, 2014 by YNM

[ZetaX]

Can both sides finally stop to use an ad-hominem every second post¿ Just to clarify: you are doing an ad-hominem fallacy if you are not giving arguments for your cause, but instead discredit the other side's sources. Just the two latest examples:

- "Green terrorists do not provide any facts": so what¿ Facts against your side where given in this thread, yet you choose to claim that some group which is irrelevant for this discussion does not give any facts (and you did not even provide evidence for that claim). This is probably also a strawmen argument and a non-sequitur as well. Good job :-Þ

- "this information is spread by pro nuclear forces": this is almost a tautology, as obviously a pro-nuclear argument is mostly used by pro-nuclear people. And as the above, the truthfullness or wrongness of "coal produces more radioactive waste than nuclear" does not depend on that.

In general: it is completely irrelevant if your assumption that the claim was made by evil people is right. Being right or wrong needs to be decided using objective facts, i.e. by science. So you have to restrict to that.

[lajoswinkler]

Fact is that this information is spread by pro nuclear forces. Why they are not telling that no coal power plant is releasing fly ashes into the atmosphere anymore. Out of the chimneys of modern coal power plants CO2 is the only stuff coming out.

At least in Europe this is true, don't know about murica. Maybe their regulations are'nt that tight.

You can attenuate the release, but you can't stop it. Also, countries in Asia don't follow that rules. China, for example, releases godawful amounts of it into the air, so that you could buy your precious solar panels for a low price (yes, it is high - it would be way higher if they were made in Europe) and pretend to care for the environment.

Thing is, coal is the main thing that releases poison and CO2 into the environment.

Or China. They have MORE coal plants.

Anyway, why nuclear when you have winds ? Geothermal ? Fusing hydrogen at 1,5 x 10^(11) m away ?

Because there's something called base load energy, which can not be substituted with wind and solar (thermal or electric) because the world is not Sim City. It's not enough to make n number of power plants of certain type. If it was, the world would not need energy experts.

Also, because enough geothermal is available only in few places like Island.

[theend3r]

Can both sides finally stop to use an ad-hominem every second post¿ Just to clarify: you are doing an ad-hominem fallacy if you are not giving arguments for your cause, but instead discredit the other side's sources. Just the two latest examples:

- "Green terrorists do not provide any facts": so what¿ Facts against your side where given in this thread, yet you choose to claim that some group which is irrelevant for this discussion does not give any facts (and you did not even provide evidence for that claim). This is probably also a strawmen argument and a non-sequitur as well. Good job :-Þ

- "this information is spread by pro nuclear forces": this is almost a tautology, as obviously a pro-nuclear argument is mostly used by pro-nuclear people. And as the above, the truthfullness or wrongness of "coal produces more radioactive waste than nuclear" does not depend on that.

In general: it is completely irrelevant if your assumption that the claim was made by evil people is right. Being right or wrong needs to be decided using objective facts, i.e. by science. So you have to restrict to that.

Yes, that green terrorist thing was a mistake on my part. I apologize. I stand by the rest though.

[Elthy]

Yes, coal power plants release more radionuclides into the environment than nuclear power plants. That is a fact.

Thats a fact as long as everything goes right. But what do you do when a plane crashes in a nuclear powerplant, by accident or by terrorists? The chances are very small, but the results are so devastating that no matter what its not worth the risk. One time bad luck and half of germany could be inhabitable (it would be way worse here than in the USA since everything is crowded) and you have millions of people homeless, workless and hungry (since the fields get contamiated, too). All that because something went wrong and the wind was in the wrong direction (Fukushima was very lucky, Japan is even more crowded)...

[YNM]

Because there's something called base load energy, which can not be substituted with wind and solar (thermal or electric) because the world is not Sim City. It's not enough to make n number of power plants of certain type. If it was, the world would not need energy experts.

I get it, but substituting some burning plants with them is fine... After all, wind is predictable (to an extent), and the Sun continues shining for long (until we are eaten by it), clouds will just make the irradiance slightly lower.

Anyway, if that's the case, then why the 'muricans ordered to create soo many wind turbines ?

EDIT : For solar power, you may look further in this - it's quite scientific (and economical). There's a slight talk around standard power plants in the opening. It is lower (35% compared to 15%) - but as things improves... just continue the sentence yourself.

Edited June 8, 2014 by YNM

[ZetaX]

@Elthy

a) Your general nuclear power plant is safe against most air planes.

A nuclear disaster is unlikely to contaminate such a huge area.

[Elthy]

a) Your general nuclear power plant is safe against most air planes.

Nope. At least the german powerplant are NOT safe against anything larger than a small sportplane (some are only shielded by 50cm Beton), to stop something like an A380 on full throttle you are going to need much more. They considered reinforcement, but that was to expensive and the plants wont be profitable anymore...

[theend3r]

Anyway, if that's the case, then why the 'muricans ordered to create soo many wind turbines ?

Becase of politics. That's the answer to this whole thread and pretty much everything else.

Nope. At least the german powerplant are NOT safe against anything larger than a small sportplane (some are only shielded by 50cm Beton), to stop something like an A380 on full throttle you are going to need much more. They considered reinforcement, but that was to expensive and the plants wont be profitable anymore...

And what would happen if A380 crashed into such powerplant? Would it explode? No. It'd be quarantined and pretty much nothing would happen.

[ZetaX]

@Elthy

That's the outer hull, there are several more, and I am unsure how much that 50cm would already absorb as planes are not very heavy (yet fast).

And while it might be possible that some radiation is released that way, a catastrophy would need more than that, like failure of shut-down (by the core being directly hit or some error), overheating (similiar than the former), some way to distribute the radioactive stuff into the atmosphere (e.g. by an explosion). One should probably do a test...

But even in the worst case the range would not cover half of germany.

[diomedea]

Unfortunately this thread has turned pretty ugly, since a number of ideological stances have begun to emerge. There is a reason if community rule 2.2.b "Discussions of a political, ideological or religious nature" exists, that is to prevent the flaming that always comes once posters begin to defend their own positions against any other, instead of peacefully discussing while keeping open to the possibility that the other sides may be right.

Of course a number of posters here did not, but who did take such ideological positions showed why this and similar threads are always a danger. We better have it closed to avoid the climate get any hotter (so, even worsening the troubles due to the energy sources debated here).