[deepinthewoods]

the thing about uranium mines is they are rare and the source of the ultimate military weapon, as such they arent really in the sanme league as a coal mine, you cant make a coal bomb that will wipe out  half a country.
as such they cause massive political strife in the countrys they exist. like the congo. like the uranium rush earlier this century in america, the brave new world of the jetsons.... israel has a uranium mine. funny that......
 
there are millions of Depleted Uranium bullets lieing in areas such as the balkans and the warzones of iran and iraq,(remember gulf war syndrome?) syria etc. du is the tank buster shell, it cuts through armour theyre buried in buildings, buried in the soil. releasing radiation . that is the impact of nuclear power stations. that is what they are used for. electricity generation is just part of the reason for them.  chickens give you eggs, but their manure gives you cucumbers!!!

[escapedtothecountry]

You suggest my comparison isn't valid - just as your comparison to nuclear power in tsunami regions or in the neglected Soviet nuclear programme is not a valid comparison to to nuclear power here.





So we will have to agree to disagree. There is no such thing as any safe or indeed clean energy. Of course given how much France relies on nuclear power you would also have to convince them to give up their reliance on something you are arguing against on safety grounds, as if they had issues it would impact on the UK as if it was on our own shores.

[deepinthewoods]

 the example of fukushima, with its vulnerabilities, served to examine the recklessness with which this technology is used, im sure the same perfect logic was used when placing the 5 nuclear power stations now out of action following hurricane sandy.
 
your answer does not address my main point about the legacy and byproduct.
 
hence, you cant compare uranium mining with coal mining.
 
im not prepared to 'agree to disagree', thats a cop out. my arguments are well proven and you have offered nothing in the way of offering solutions to the problems that ive demonstrated with good evidence.
 
 

[escapedtothecountry]

No - the example of fukishima serves in your opinion to highlight recklessness. In my opinion it highlights given we will not experience a tsunami that argument is not a valid one to bash nuclear power in this country. Having lived in the US and experienced Hurricanes first hand that argument against nuclear power in this country - bring up Sandy - is also a straw man argument.


I counter your Uranium argument and say why not use Thorium? You seem knowledgable.


Solutions to what problems? Waste is buried - that is an adequate solution. There is no solution to the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning which will cause more environmental damage to me than nuclear will. The solution to that is population control - but that won't be electorally palatable.


You say your arguments are well proven - again an opinion. Not a fact. Just because someone says it is so does not make it thus.

[deepinthewoods]

Solutions to what problems? Waste is buried - that is an adequate solution. There is no solution to the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning which will cause more environmental damage to me than nuclear will. The solution to that is population control - but that won't be electorally palatable.

two key points here, 'environmental damage to ME' 
 
im worried about my children's childrens' children.
 
 
''the solution to that is population control''      wow. ok.
 
 
legacy and byproduct still not answered. ummm
 
 
ive done some research on thorium, i will get back to you....
 
 

[escapedtothecountry]

There is environmental damage from every energy production method that's my point.Hence why I mentioned Acid Rain in my very first comment. CO2 emissions from all fossil fuel burning. Legacy of burning fossil fuels? That has never been answered. You do know the life expectancy of people living near airports drops noticeably due to the emissions from airplanes - and their fossil fuels. Does that not effect your children? Fracking for shale gas? The list goes on. It isn't as simple as nuclear bad everything else OK.


The comment about population control is simply to point out that the more the population of the world grows the more energy is required and the more damage that will do.


I assume you have researched how much concrete is used to build turbines - and we all know the damage concrete production does.


Glad to hear you have done some research on thorium. I stand by my view that nuclear is needed in our energy mix. In a democracy you will be able to vote for a party that doesn't support it. I will be free to vote for one that does.


Disagreeing on an issue doesn't make either of us right. These are opinions.

[deepinthewoods]

whilst concrete is not terrilbly environmentally friendly, it is recyclable.
there is so far, always an environmental issue with all energy generation. however nothing else produces waste that we dont know what to do with! and is instead used for weaponry. that is MY major argument against nuclear power.
 
you know what, sometimes, you do have to be right.
 
 

[escapedtothecountry]

Ah so you big issues is nuclear weapons? Well I support our nuclear deterrent so again we will disagree. If you are confident in being right get yourself elected and change things. I for one am turning off the power and going to bed.

[deepinthewoods]

 
 
i'll save it .....
 
done the thorium thing now. 
 
good night

[mab]

I counter your Uranium argument and say why not use Thorium? You seem knowledgable.

last i heard thorium was still theoretical - I've yet to hear of a working thorium cycle power station. Even if it becomes a reality, it still needs a conventional reactor to start the thorium cycle.

population control is a good solution, but tptb are not going to promote that in a hurry.

...given we will not experience a tsunami that argument is not a valid one to bash nuclear power in this country.

Umm.. where does it say we will not experience a tsunami in this country? - granted it's rare here, but they have happened in the past (severn estuary and northeastern scotland have both been hit by significant tsunamis that I know of).

(I can't keep up with you two - I'm about 3 posts behind you  )

[deepinthewoods]

hes gone to bed....
 
''
So we're talking about two different risks, here: the risks associated with an innovative form of nuclear power based on a very abundant and safe material versus the risk of a three-degree-Celsius, let's say, rise in global temperatures over the next 50 years, within, you know, my son's lifetime. So, as a society, I don't think we're very good at calculating risk. And so to hone in on these pretty technical issues of, well, there might be some proliferation risk with thorium, there's no question that thorium - liquid-fueled thorium reactors can be used to consume the existing waste from conventional reactors.
It's unpressurized liquid chemistry. We are really good at that. And one thing we haven't mentioned yet is the whole issue of nuclear accidents. And so I'd like to dwell on that for a moment, as well.
FLATOW: Well, I've only got about a minute or so to go. But you brought it up, and let me get a reaction from Dr. Makhijani.
MARTIN: Of course.
MAKHIJANI: I have a favorite molten salt reactor. My reactor is free. It's in the sky, 93 million miles away. You can store its energy in molten salt. It is being done today. You can generate electricity for 24 hours a day. The - so the impermanency problem has been solved.
I don't know why - I'm still trying to understand why photovoltaics are still so expensive in this country. But you know Germany - I was at a seminar yesterday at the Heinrich Boll Foundation about the Germany decision to get out of nuclear. They're going to have a completely renewable system maybe by the time thorium reactors become commercial.
This isn't going to happen tomorrow, even if you pour money into it. It would take 10 years for the NRC to understand and write regulations for this thing. And it would take 10 years before that to build the reactors, do the experiments and produce the data so you can regulate this thing, because all of our regulation is based on light water reactors.
Six years ago, I might have agreed with Mr. Martin that maybe, you know, impermanency is a big problem. Somebody said you haven't looked. You really should do a study. So I did an honest, unbiased look, not thinking we could do renewable energy. And I found out that my hunch was wrong: We can do 100 percent renewable energy, and the Germans are actually aiming for it.
You know, they have an export surplus with China, and we have a huge export deficit. Maybe they know something we don't know.
FLATOW: Last word, Richard, quickly?
MARTIN: Sure. I think Arjun has brought up a very important point, which is that this is not going to happen in the United States because of the licensing issues he just mentioned. It is happening in China. It is happening in India. It is happening in certain countries in Western Europe. And so our choice in this country is whether we are going to be left behind on the next big energy technology, or whether we are going to take advantage of a technology that was developed right here at Oak Ridge and that has been proven out. And that's really the choice before us.
And the thorium revival is inevitable. The question is whether the United States is going to be a follower or a leader.

[northfifeduckling]

the question of waste management came up. As an example, Germany has been storing nuclear waste in Gorleben, and the PR machine has been busy busy trying to disprove that there are cracks and holes in the rock and salt . No geological feature can be guaranteed to be permanent in its structure for how many years exactly? Seismic shifts, earthquakes, ....Generally, there is a movie "The age of stupid", that sums it up. It covers climate change, btw.

[jaykay]

Waste is buried - that is an adequate solution. There is no solution to the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning which will cause more environmental damage to me than nuclear will

Waste being buried is not an adequate solution. It's going to be dangerous for thousands of years. Who can say what the land will be needed for by then. Would you want to live on the top of somewhere that had buried nuclear waste or eat stuff farmed there? The more waste is produced the more land we damage, for a very long time to come.

As for there being no solution to CO2, the challenge is to find good carbon capture mechanisms. We're being terrified by 'global warming' to accept something we know, now, is dangerous and produces waste we've got no hope of managing.

[in the hills]

Has anyone read the "Zero Carbon" document produced by The Centre for Alternative Technology?
 
Interesting ..... worth looking at.

[deepinthewoods]

if you are still under the illusion that nuclear power is safe. please take the time to read this linkywinky properly,
 
 
http://enenews.com/9pm-special-edition-exactly-happened-fukushima-going-njs-oyster-creek-except-reactor-refueling-gundersen-audio