Is Nuclear Energy Good or Bad?

[cyberclark]

Seems we have degenerated into a breeding debate. A wise man once said we can generate enough electricity to make the planet glow red and suggests we do a lot of things to cut back on our energy needs.

Back to the point. Hooked on power how are we going to attain it and at what expense hidden or otherwise.
Nucs are good. Far more expensive to set up than Water, Coal or gas. Very much cheaper to operate on the long long term.
As to safety? What mankes you think the other resources are more or less safe?

The Nuc waste thing is more sensational than it is real.

In planning emergency response one plays "what if" mapping out potentional losses. Then, some one says "What if a 747 lands on your house" and that brings the meeting to an end.
Some where up the road, you will hear the possiblity of teh 747 landing on houses as being a real possibility. The risk factors are not identifed.

 

[Cobalt_Kid]

The Nuc waste thing is more sensational than it is real.

Depends on what level of waste you're talking about, High Level Waste produced in fission reactors is nasty stuff and will stay so for thousands of years.

It's only a deep ingrained mindset that makes us think of energy in terms of a central production source.

Like I've been pointing out we already have all the energy we'll ever need constantly available. All that's required is redesigning our construction and energy sector investment, the solar power technology is already here, some of it has existed for over a hundred years.

1. Solar powered water heater have been around for over 100 years and countries like China and Japan use them on a widespread basis.

2. Building designs tailored to local climates that use sunlight to provide natural lighting and heating have been around since ancient times.

3. Photovoltaics are fairly new and are being developed at ever greater effieciencies allowing sunlight to be converted directly into electricity.

4. Solar condensers can be used to power traditional steam generators to produce electricity.

5. New battery technology allows for storage of solar power for times when sunlight isn't available.

6. Molten material storage systems (often using salts) can be used to store solar energy for heating or power production.

7. Passive thermal mass heating.

8. Solar cooking also has a long history.

Nuclear power has serious risks and costs that will never be reduced to zero, as we've seen with Three Mile Island and Chernobly. HLW is also a serious issue.

When is the last time you heard of a serious solar power accident?

 

[Zzarchov]

That argument always loses something on me given that the people using up the most resources and causing the most pollution are societies which are currently reproducing at a rate below replacement.

Thats because with our lower birthrate, we have the resources to spare.

Everyone drew their own little lines and dirt and said "this is my country, that is your country" and decided how to allocate their resources and how many people they should have living in the country.

Its not a surprise that only countries with declining populations have sustained, truly long term growth.

Its simple math. If 2 people have 2 or fewer children, then everything they worked in their life to build (infrastructure, buildings, etc) gets passed down directly to their offspring. Anything the offspring build and create is simply adding on top.

If you have more than 2 children, you have to split your lifes work among more and more people, who then have to spent several years of their life just building back up (new infrastructure, new buildings) just to get to where there parents where.

We waste so many resources because we have so many to waste. If Canada had half a billion or more people in it, we wouldn't use many more resources than we do now, simply because we wouldn't have more to spare. We'd just have abject poverty and spend our time blaming everyone else since they somehow have resources to throw away...