Matt_B wrote:EDF have just received a ticking off for safety breaches at UK plants:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... y-breaches

I don't think that'll do their cause for constructing new ones much good.

an Edinburgh-based nuclear consultant and editor of the no2nuclearpower.org.uk website

ConnyRaSk wrote:for all the nuclear power supporters, you do realise that it was the break-down of the power supply that led to this disaster in Japan. How can you be so (f- cock-) sure that the power supply is fail-safe for all other plants around the world, even the so-called up-to-date plants?

Jumbo wrote:It took a huge natural disaster to wipe out multiple layers of safety features. Most other plants in the world will almost certainly never face such a level of devastation. Plants work on a philosophy of layers of safety features and its only because of the vast scale that all were overcome in this case. Even then the results were hardly catastrophic for the outside world.

The reality is that this is a non-trivial issue but that a far more important one is that most of the politicians and public servants who have looked at the numbers properly have concluded that nuclear power is a bad idea.

no - they are spineless and as ill informed as you are.

France, Ontario, Japan all have solid, safe and cost effective nuclear programs and China thanks to it's command economy is just getting on with building.

It's NIMBY plain and simple.....even the founder of Greenpeace got fed up with the lies and misdirection and flat out wrong headed idiocy of the tree huggers and is now a nuclear lobbyist.

Dr. Barry Brook is first a foremost a climate scientists, so is James Hansen = they and others who most of all understand the risk coal represents have looked the alternatives and on a science and economic basis realized there is only one alternative to coal for an industrialized society and that is nuclear.
Barry has no economic interest whatsoever nor does Hansen or the others. They recognize where true risk lies and that is in NOT deploying reactors quickly to eliminate coal stations.
They are scientists - as is Patrick Moore - they know the risk the planet is under from carbon use as fuel......you clearly do not.

France understood that a while ago.

Nuclear is expensive, a large part of that expense can be laid directly at the door of fear mongers like yourself.

Nuclear could have moved forward far faster and be in a cookie cutter stage were it not for irrational fear of radiation - which health experts rate as the most negative outcome of events like 3 Mile Island - the fear itself.

Did you actually look at this chart?
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

People in this forum generally are well informed and have a science or engineering base and some even have worked with the nuclear industry.

Notice the numbers and then ask yourself why they overwhelmingly support nuclear power.

Then go inform yourself.

Moore in his own words....

Patrick Moore, avid environmentalist and co-founder of Greenpeace, makes the
case for nuclear energy.

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That conviction inspired Green-peace’s first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of US hydrogen bombs in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels while satisfying the world’s increasing demand for energy.

Today, 441 nuclear plants operating globally avoid the release of nearly 3 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions annually—the equivalent of the exhaust from more than 428 million cars.

My views have changed because nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels while satisfying the world’s increasing demand for energy. —Patrick Moore

To reduce substantially our dependence on fossils fuels, we must work together to develop a global nuclear energy infrastructure. Nuclear energy is clean, cost-effective, reliable and safe.

In 1979 Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon both won Oscars for their starring roles in “The China Syndrome.” In the film, a nuclear reactor meltdown threatened the survival of an entire city.

Twelve days after the blockbuster film opened, a reactor core meltdown at ThreeMile Island sent shivers of fear through the country.

At the time no one noticed Three Mile Island was a success story. The concrete containment structure did as it was designed to do: it prevented radiation from escaping into the environment. While the reactor was crippled, there was no injury or death among the public or nuclear workers.

This was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States. There hasn’t been a nuclear plant built since.

In the USA today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering 20% of America’s electricity. About 80% of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them. That high approval rating doesn’t include the plant workers who have a direct personal interest in supporting their safe, well-paying jobs. Although I don’t live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp.

I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists and thinkers in changing my mind on the subject. James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory and leading atmospheric scientist, believes nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue and holistic ecology thinker, says the environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. The late Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of Friends
of the Earth UK, was forced to resign when he penned a pro-nuclear article in a church newsletter. Such opinions have been met with inquisition-like excommunication from the anti-nuclear priesthood.

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull481/htmls/nuclear_rethink.html

the anti-nuclear priesthood.

ain't that the truth - no science just plain fear mongering.......just sub in nuclear hell visions for fire and brimstone....

The nations most responsible for C02 emissions are ALL nuclear powers - yes it will cost money - there is no choice in the matter or we will continue to burn all the coal reserves and do damage to the ecosphere that will not reverse for 100k years.

Already we have altered the climate a couple thousands years out....if we burn it all the place will be unrecognizable in another millenia and perhaps unliveable.

If we continue BAU even by the end of this century the changes will be catastrophic and we begin to see the signs now.

But your ilk have blinders on to that.....just completely irrational fear of something you clearly, patently do not understand.

Think about why the 80% flat out support in this forum and ask yourself why - and then ask them to inform you

Jbags wrote:But what about other nations? I'd certainly be a lot more nervous if Mugabe were to state he was building Zimbabwe's first nuclear power station. Would we be able to stop him if he wanted to?

TEPCO: Black smoke rises from No.3 reactor
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says black smoke was seen rising from the No.3 reactor building at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant at around 4:20 PM on Wednesday.

TEPCO told reporters that it received a report 1 hour later that the smoke had gradually cleared.

The company said that the level of radiation near the main gate of the plant, 1 kilometer west of the No.3 reactor, was 265.1-microsieverts-per-hour at 5 PM. They added there had been no major change in the levels after the smoke was observed.

On Monday afternoon, gray smoke was seen rising from the same reactor building. TEPCO said that the plumes turned white before disappearing.

The power company evacuated workers from the control room of the No. 3 reactor, as well as firefighters from Tokyo and Yokohama preparing for a water-spraying operation.

The firefighters had to abandon their planned water spraying operation for the day..cont.http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/23_33.html

Kaieda sorry for threat to 'punish' firefighters who balk at nuke plant
Kyodo News
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda apologized Tuesday over reports that he threatened to "punish" firefighters if they didn't carry out an operation to spray water into the No. 3 reactor building at the Fukushima No. 1 plant...cont.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110323a4.html

The company said that the level of radiation near the main gate of the plant, 1 kilometer west of the No.3 reactor, was 265.1-microsieverts-per-hour at 5 PM.

It’s nuclear power or it’s climate change
Posted on 24 March 2011 by Barry Brook

I was asked to reflect very briefly (<400 words) on the implications of Fukushima Daiichi to my local city newspaper, The Adelaide Advertiser. The focus was on what it means for Australia, but the basic message resonates for any number of other countries.

—————————–

If you study the history of modern energy, there is only one conclusion you can reach. You can have fossil fuels, or two alternatives: nuclear power and hydroelectricity.

A number of countries in Europe rely almost exclusively on either nuclear power (France), hydro (Norway), or an even mix of the two (Sweden, Switzerland). These are truly low-carbon economies.

What of Denmark, which has taken the wind route? It only gets 20 per cent of its electricity from wind, but must also sell it cheaply to the rest of Scandinavia when production is higher than demand, and buy in coal-fired electricity when there is little wind.

Even with 20 per cent wind, Denmark has among the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person in Europe. France has among the lowest.

Australia has no access to large-scale hydro. We do have abundant uranium, and a high technology society in a geologically stable region, all perfect for the deployment of nuclear power.

Or, we can burn more coal and gas. It’s nuclear power, or it’s climate change.

What of the solar and wind dream? I sure hope they work out, and can provide a lot more energy for us in the future. But history is not on their side. No country has displaced its fossil fuel fleet in the past by using these energy sources, for a number of practical engineering and economic reasons.

jez9999 wrote:

Matt_B wrote:EDF have just received a ticking off for safety breaches at UK plants:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... y-breaches

I don't think that'll do their cause for constructing new ones much good.

Oh wow, The Guardian, that unrivaled bastion of non-bias when it comes to nuclear power, decry the incredible danger caused by one pump failure in an array of redundant pumps, and by a seaweed blockage.

But at least they quoted some unbiased experts to back them up, eh? Like the SNP, whose irrational hatred of nuclear power has been held almost as long as their irrational hatred of England and obsession with their pathetic little Scots Gaelic language. Or maybe the non-partisan Mr. Pete Roche,

an Edinburgh-based nuclear consultant and editor of the no2nuclearpower.org.uk website

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.