Are you for or against the use of nuclear power generators? Do you feel they are safe? effective? Are they needed? Are they more or less environmentally sound than coal/oil/other electricity production?

Not at present. The risk is far too great.

I don't know enough about it at the moment. I'll reserve my judgement until people start posting articles and info to read.

I am frankly for, it, compared to using fossil fuels for production. Nuclear energy is mostly safe and highly efficient.

Here is some information:
http://optics.org/articles/news/9/8/12/1


Lasers tackle radioactive waste
14 August 2003

A 360 J laser pulse transmutes an isotope with a half-life of 15.7 million years into a lighter isotope with a half-life of just 25 minutes.


A lot of people got all scared about nuclear power plants because of a movie called the China Syndrome that was produced in the late 1970s. Many of the "facts" presented were exagerated. With today's technology Nuclear power is indeed one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy. I think that if the eco nuts would let technology do its job, there wouldn't be any "energy crisis." Instead there are so many restrictions, people don't want power plants or lines near their homes, so the grid is failing and then they turn around and blame the govt..... [/end rant]

It's actually much more dangerous and polluting than people think, but that's due to the lobbying by the nuclear industry.

If people were aware of even half the major accidents that occur al the time around the country they would be against it.

Imagine a Chernobyl here in the states somewhere, all so we cab boil water.. What a crazy way to do so..

CA-

But in 50 years, have we had a chernobyl? what major disasters have there been?

3 mile Island, right?

Nuclear power is great and all, but I don't trust the technology just yet.

Originally posted by Manu
CA-

But in 50 years, have we had a chernobyl? what major disasters have there been?


There have beenmany small leaks and stuff, nothing big yet.

There have been many close calls with disaster, but the nuclear industry keeps a lid on it, why wouldn't they?

And before Sep. 11th. 2001, how many huge terrorist attacks happened inside the US? Who was worried about it prior to it happening? I'd say not very many people..

The nuclear industry, just like any other, is profit driven, which means cost cutting and not spending the proper amount on safety.

Remember a couple years ago when the NRC was able to gain access to the majority of nuke plants? I remember in some of them they made it into the control room before being caught. And those were just tests, imagine if they had been highly motivated heavily armed terrorists.

And it's all to boil water, it just seems so silly that we'd radiate the Earth for millions of years for some short term electricity production.

This notion that it is "clean energy" or that it "doesn't pollute" has got to be one of the most effective pr schemes ever. From the day the Uranium is mined and emits CO2 and leaves Uranium tailings around for the next several thousand generations to the minute it is used it pollutes.

And look at the waste issue, now they want to send it all to Yucca mountain, by the time Yucca mountain is full, the nuclear plants around the country will be at their waste holding capacity again. Then what?? In the year 8945 the people of this planet will still be guarding the waste we produced, it's just not feasible.

I remember reading back in Summer of 2001 that if the entire country had voluntarily conserved the amount of electricity that California did during the energy swindle it would make up the difference if we shut down every nuclear plant in the country.

Heck, if we just put half the money and the effort into renewable energy we could do without nuclear power. Just a few weeks ago there was a news story of some European country that produced a new solar cell that is much more efficient and cheaper than the current ones we have. Whatever happened to the Solar cubes?

Also the more nuclear power plants there are out there provide more opportunities for terrorists to get ahold of weapons grade Uranium.

Nuclear power requires perfection, humans aren't perfect, and neither is the world around us. We should be focusing on stuff that doesn't have the ramifications nuclear power does.

I support nuclear energy.

I think the need will be there someday, sooner or later.

Unless fusion or some other means is better.

I think oil is worth dying for. Think about it. :|

I'm for Nuclear Energy. In most cases it is cleaner and more efficiant then any other powersource we have at the time.

The major downside is the waste that the plants produce, spent plutonium rods, and such. However these can be recycled, and used in differant applications.

Originally posted by Corporate Avenger
It's actually much more dangerous and polluting than people think, but that's due to the lobbying by the nuclear industry.

If people were aware of even half the major accidents that occur al the time around the country they would be against it.

Imagine a Chernobyl here in the states somewhere, all so we cab boil water.. What a crazy way to do so..
chernobyl would never happen in the united states because the plants here are built differently.

Originally posted by jadatrack

chernobyl would never happen in the united states because the plants here are built differently.


Differently and we can still have a meltdown, the way some of the corporations that run US powerplants is scary...

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_davisbesse.html

Originally posted by TheGreatMonkey
I'm for Nuclear Energy. In most cases it is cleaner and more efficiant then any other powersource we have at the time.

The major downside is the waste that the plants produce, spent plutonium rods, and such. However these can be recycled, and used in differant applications.


Check out my link :) They found a way to reduce the radioactivity of spent rods so that now there won't be the mass waste that there used to be .

Oh, and CA... If the eco weenies would quit their lobbying then the people that build nuclear power plants could build new ones with up to date technology and be able to upgrade the old ones making them safer.

I know a lot of people talk about "small leaks" of radiation and what not. We have a huge hole that lets radiation in all the time, its called the sky. The "leaks" that have occured fall under approved guidelines that do NOT harm or impact people or wild life. There is more radiation that comes from our friend the sun than from those leaks so give over.

Originally posted by Jay13



Check out my link :) They found a way to reduce the radioactivity of spent rods so that now there won't be the mass waste that there used to be .

Oh, and CA... If the eco weenies would quit their lobbying then the people that build nuclear power plants could build new ones with up to date technology and be able to upgrade the old ones making them safer.

Refering to people who are aware and concerned about the madness of nuclear power as "eco-weenies" shows to me you don't care much about the issue other than to paint everybody opposed to big polluting industries as some sort of environmental extremists.

For the record the only thing stopping the nuclear industry from carrying out safety upgrades is the fact they don't want to spend the money to do so..



I know a lot of people talk about "small leaks" of radiation and what not. We have a huge hole that lets radiation in all the time, its called the sky. The "leaks" that have occured fall under approved guidelines that do NOT harm or impact people or wild life. There is more radiation that comes from our friend the sun than from those leaks so give over.


You can't be serious.. There is documented proof of this radiation ending up raising cancer rates and being found in places like the teeth of children.


"U.S. health officials have not monitored radioactivity in humans since 1982. Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program of reporting barium-140, cesium-137, and iodine-131 in pasteurized milk for each of 60 U.S. cities ceased in 1990 after 33 years of operation. (15) While the last worldwide atmospheric weapons test was detonated in China in 1980, the presence of nuclear power reactors has grown in the past two decades. From 1982 to 1991, the number of operating U.S. reactors increased from 72 to 111, providing power in 32 of 50 states (in which 85% of the 1990 U.S. population resides), and electricity generation by these plants increased from 278,000 to 613,000 gigawatt hours, before leveling off in the 1990s. (16) During this period, cancer incidence in 11 U.S. states and cities rose 40.4% for children age 0-4, and 53.7% for those under one year, a time when average levels of Cs-137 and I-131 doubled. (17)

Continuing measurements of in vivo radioactivity in other nations have revealed unexpected and significant trends. West German researchers documented a ten-fold increase in Sr-90 in baby teeth for children born in 1987 compared to those born in 1983-85, due to fallout from the Chernobyl accident, a relative increase comparable to that observed in St. Louis from 1954-64. (18)"


http://www.radiation.org/ijhs092000.html



"The cancer-causing radioisotope Strontium-90 (Sr-90) has been found in the teeth of children born in the 1980's at levels equal to those of the middle 1950's when the US and the former Soviet Union were conducting routine aboveground bomb tests.

(520.5098) RPHP - Directors of the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), who today released an initial report from an ongoing study of baby teeth, said their findings indicate that Americans continued to absorb radiation for years after all atmospheric nuclear testing ended in 1980.

The scientific paper based on the RPHP results has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Health Services. A second paper has been accepted for presentation later in October at an international meeting of scientists in Italy. "The early results are quite alarming," said Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and co-director of the study which played a key role in the scientific debate that led to the original banning of bomb tests. "The levels of Strontium-90 should have dropped down to near zero once humankind stopped exploding nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Instead the levels stayed essentially the same as during the bomb-test years, or in some areas they even increased."

The RPHP researchers correlated one increase in Stronium-90 during the 1980's in Suffolk County, New York, to a corresponding rise in childhood leukemia and cancer (which also have been on the rise nationally since the early 1980's). Studies linking Strontium-90 to childhood cancer caused widespread health concerns during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, resulting finally in the historic Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the US and the USSR in 1963. The Treaty prohibited aboveground testing.

The new higher-than-expected levels of radiation were found in 515 teeth measured thus far, most of them of children born in the states of New York, New Jersey and Florida. Many of the areas where the teeth were collected are near nuclear power plants with a history of unusually large radiation releases


http://www.antenna.nl/wise/520/5098.html



You'd think people would want to err on the side of caution rather than dismissing everything that doesn't fall on the side of nuclear industry propaganda..:shrug:

When I refer to "eco weenies" I mean people who use environmentalism to advance their own intrests or those who take it to extremes like the folks who burn SUVs to protest the pollution they "cause." I do not mean people who are genuinely concerned about pollution and like nature.

I say again: If scientists were able to build facilities that were safer, they would. But there hasn't been a new nuclear plant built since the 70s I think. Oh, and there are other polutants in the atmosphere and our environment that are contributing to disease besides nuclear power.

Originally posted by Corporate Avenger
Differently and we can still have a meltdown, the way some of the corporations that run US powerplants is scary...

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_davisbesse.html
ok, it's been two years since i learned about all this, so i don't remember the exact details. chernobyl was built opposite from the plants here, so if there was ever an error and the rods fell, they'd fall on something bad and big explosion go boom! or the rods wouldn't fall at all and something would hit them and big explosion go boom...here, if there's a problem, the rods fall and then everything shuts down. no big explosion go boom. i used to have pictures somewhere...

ROFL, Jadatrack, do you honestly believe that American nuclear plants cannot meltdown? Hmmm.... :|

CA pwns dis thread!

Originally posted by JoeyNormal
ROFL, Jadatrack, do you honestly believe that American nuclear plants cannot meltdown? Hmmm.... :|

no. um, i actually don't know what my point was there. i'm tired and brain dead :(

The carbon dioxide problem is enough to seek nuclear power. Much of the rest of the world already has. The USA is one of the places with the least nuclear power generation. We should look for better ways to deal with the waste and slow down global warming.

Originally posted by JoeyNormal
ROFL, Jadatrack, do you honestly believe that American nuclear plants cannot meltdown? Hmmm.... :|

CA pwns dis thread!

I don't know about the existing nuclear power plants in the USA, but modern power plant designs are meltdown-proof.