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Moderator
The news is full of all kinds of conflicting info.But the bottom line is...should there even still be a question?If a couple of reactors meltdown in Japan there will be far reaching consequences.The jetstream would make life very difficult for a lot of people downwind of the meltdown.
I watched a great David Suzuki documentary a few days ago,and he talked at great length about saving trees in BC for times spans of up to 500 years.What will we do with nuclear reactor waste over the same period of time? We are such a greedy,shortsighted society.I'm not doing a "chicken little" thing,but the sky could fall on this poor little planet.
"If ya want me,I'll be in the bar"
Ric Waterloo
1800 Goldwing
2009 1100S Hypermotard (for sale)
944 Ducati track the "Blueberry Muffin"
We're doomed anyways.
The world is apparently set to end Dec 12th of this year .. lol..
But inregards to the Nuke situation in Japan, one reporter had a great comment on that situation.
He said they are currently more worried about the situation and life in Japan, as they are in trying to look after their Nuclear station.
www.thetoyhauler.ca
Inferno is the new GTAM P.I.M.P.
What other options are there?
we may be short sighted but it has been the cheap energy from Nuclear and clean coal that has gotten us to our lifestyle we have today. Dalton is shutting down the coal plants so the choices are either 10X the cost of electricity and go green or have brown outs/black outs. People are conserving more energy but that can only be done to a certain point. This week alone I have had 2 children with the stomach flu and the amount of wash has probably doubled my electricity bill this month.
No one can afford to replace every single item in their house with the newest most energy efficient every time new tech comes out. I'm all for other options but judging by the backlash to the increase to our hydro costs due to a small amount of green energy, people aren't willing or can't afford to pay more. I know when I take a look at my paycheque after bills and taxes their isn't much room for thinking of thousands of years down the road.
Don't believe what you are reading in the papers and on the news, most of it is uninformed fear mongering.
Interesting read about the chain of events and how they were handled, and also about the radiation levels and impact: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...iima_analysis/
Update as of Tuesday: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03...pdate_tuesday/
Most of what I've been reading lately are public statements as reported through the Japanese media from the Japanese Prime Minister, official Japanese government and nuclear industry spokespersons, and the company that owns the plant itself. Allowing for their need to soothe and reassure the nation, even their tempered statements don't offer a lot of assurance that they have a good handle on things as they progressed.Originally Posted by Lunatic
It may not be doomsday, but there is still a lot of room between "don't worry be happy" and "the world is about to end".
Nuclear power is far more safer than burning coal. burning coal puts out 100 times more radioactive waste directly into our atmosphere (in addition to the green house gases and other carcinogens associated with burning fuel) than a nuclear reactor. http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-nuclear-waste
the situation in japan isn't as bad as the fear mongering media makes it out to be. yes, there are elevated radiation levels. considering that you can count nuclear incidents on one hand (nrx, three mile island, chernobyl and now japan) we're doing pretty good. chernobyl was 25 years ago and by far way worse than the japanese incident is capable of being (just because of the way the containment is designed.
every generating method has it's draw backs, wind has a tendency to kill birds, solar (photovoltaic) does generate some toxic waste in it's construction and reflector dishes (concentrating heat in a central point like a magnifying glass) has a tendency to kill birds as well. hydro electric dams destroy vast tracts of land (look at the james bay project) and the decaying flora and fauna from the creation of the reservoir releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, they also present a threat to those down stream (as experienced by those in the australia floods this year). natural gas is cleaner burning than coal or oil but the process of extracting it is not good for the environment.
yes we should use less electricity but as oil (and other fossil fuels) become scarcer we will have to rely more and more on electricity. electric cars, electric heating.... solar can't supply this country's power, this power is going to have to come from some where and we are already in the situation where we occasionally ask more from the grid than it can provide. designs like our candu reactors which will burn some reactor's nuclear waste reducing the amount of time that waste is radioactive will be what we need until we can find a new energy source.
x
so we had the twin towers incident and in part of their testing and design when these buildings were going up with the idea that a plane might fly into them...so why is it this nuclear reactor station, there is no mention of testing towards tsunami's because of it's close proximity to sea level and where it is facing...i mean, you lose A/C power from damaged power grid, so the plant runs in a blackout mode, but then the diesel generators get knocked out too...maybe not as much planning as they thought...could have been a lot worse, and who knows, maybe something will happen...i don't follow the news enough obviously, but people in general have to get their mindset around energy usage because after we fight over oil and water, energy is always there...
Real risk is the product of probability of occurrence times consequences arising out of occurrence. The potential consequences of nuclear mishap can be devastating, as Chernobyl showed.
This may not be Chernobyl, but Chernobyl was one reactor going out of control. Japan has now seen 4 reactors get seriously out of hand so far with two more reactors having cooling issues with potential to get worse. Several levels of redundant safety systems all failed. Engineers now at the site are basically flying by the seat of their pants with jury-rigged responses trying to address each new unexpected complication as it occurs. By the way, the Japanese reactors currently in harms way are GE Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors. You point to their containment design as being of some sort of reassurance, but there have been concerns about the containment ability of this design since the 1980s. http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/bwrfact.htm
Where is all this fearmongering that people are talking about? And why is everyone so eager to claim that everything is OK before the situation is even stable? Sure, alamists are annoying but I don't see that here. All I see here are appeasers, which can be just as annoying.
There is no planet B.
The Nuclear industry has done a good job of white washing, or even, if you will, green washing their image. The truth of the matter is, as evidenced by this week's horrible events in Japan, it is not IF but rather WHEN nuclear accidents will happen. In the case of Ontario plants, here's an interesting and kind of terrifying tidbit of information. Early on, the nuclear industry was unable to go to the marketplace to find liability insurance for their activities. Presumably, all of the underwriters found the magnitude of the exposure far too risky. In order to make the industry viable, and provide you with cheap power, special legislation had to be out in place limiting the per-episode nuclear incident liability to $75M. Let’s clarify. In Ontario, if there is an accident, the insurance holders on the plant have had their exposure limited by legislation to $75m.
So let's think about that for a second. If Pickering had a major accident, everything within about a 30-mile radius would be contaminated. I live about 15 miles away on the edge of the Beach. Down near the water where the swells live, let’s say below Queen Street, the houses are quite costly. Take Balsam Avenue for example. If there was a major incident of contamination, and homes were a total loss, the $75M in insurance coverage that falls under the cap would pretty well take care of Balsam Avenue, below Queen Street. One long block of homes. The rest of the around 1400 sq miles of homes and businesses and shops etc are all S.O.L. for insurance coverage. Check your homeowners policy. I bet it specifically does not cover you for Nuclear contamination.
So that is the worst-case scenario. In daily operations, the Nuclear plants are no green dream. The extraction of Nuclear fuel is a decidedly NOT green activity. You cannot go out and dig up a lump of uranium. It takes the processing of tons and tons of uranium ore to produce fuel. This tons of uranium is extracted using many millions of gallons of diesel, and leaves a legacy of dirty mines. Uranium is not green in any way.
And finally, there is the top-most concern. What to do with the spent fuel? It only lasts around 150,000 years, so what’s the big deal? You can bury it in mines, you can sink it in the ocean, you can put it in special containment bunkers, but all of these seem wither kind of sneaky, or plain silly.
The Nuclear industry in my opinion is simply insupportable. I have likened it to that crazy lover you somehow just can’t leave alone. You know that eventually you’re going to get in trouble, but in the meantime he/she is so seductive that you can’t resist.
So what to do?
Support renewable energy initiatives. When I see wind generators, I see the future. The NIMBYism that is opposed to wind power in Ontario drives me crazy. It just makes no sense when the alternative to this clean, nearly impact-free power is the burning of coal or gas, or risking more nuclear accidents as described above.
Conserve. We can all do better. I know that conserving power has a diminishing return and a certain endpoint, but if all pay attention, we can all live better.
"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines."
General "Buck" Turgidson, (George C. Scott)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2007 R1200GS with an identity crisis.
If you close the existing coal plants and the nuclear plants how many wind turbines would be needed? I have no idea but is it even possible?
Clean coal isn't as bad as its made out to be as a temporary stop gap while finding or funding research to alternative energy generation. The new scrubbers work pretty good. Not clean by any means but livable in the short term. Regardless we could close all of our coal plants and still have massive pollution because of the winds bringing all of the pollution from the Ohio valley up here. Until we start billing the Americans for the clean up costs of their pollution traveling up here all closing the coal plants are doing is adding extra cost to each house hold with many on the brink of income vs expenses as it is. We have massive brown outs as it is in the summer and that is with our current generation ability when we close a few more plants will summer now be months of black outs? Energy efficiency isn't keeping pace with green energy production. You need to have green generation in place before you close down conventional generation methods.
When I stand on my flat roof in Toronto and look at all the exposed roofs one could dream of each house as a mini solar generation station but the fact is that the technology isn't efficient enough and the costs are out of most peoples grasps.
i don't disagree that cleaner coal sounds good, but I think, like hybrid vehicles, it is only a stop gap measure.
As for the rooftops, small solar is about to see a boom as a result of Ontario's forward-thinking FIT and microFIT programs. These programs guarantee a rate for all the power that smal operators can produce for a period of 20 years. This guaranteed rate, plus the reliability of hours-of-sunshine models make small solar a surefire deal. The OPG was so inundated with applications for contracts for small operators that they had to stop taking apps for a time.
I would like very much to put a plant on my roof. It would pay for itself in about 10 years, and after that, I get to keep all the revenue. It would be like a great annuity for my retirement. The actual panels have an expected lifespan of some 30 years before there is appreciable degradation in their output, and even after that they could produce most of their original rated capacity. The only part of the system that requires updating or replacement is the DC/AC conversion transformers, and even these are relatively inexpensive for their perhaps once-per0decade replacement.
Yeah, I am a big fan of small solar.
Along with the additional generating capacity that small installations represent, there are a couple of spinoffs. First, these new technologies generate jobs. Lots of jobs. Both the installation and maintenance of these systems require skilled technicians. And the jobs are sprinkled all over the place, anywhere there is such installations going on. Another benefit that we do not think about is the additional security/reliability of the whole generating system when it becomes de-centralized. If something happens to a major installation right now, we're in a pickle. In the future, when generation is widespread, when a small installation goes down, it's not such a big deal.
Of course, the problem is, in the near future there is great cost to this plan. The whole electrical system was engineered decades ago to send power outward from centralized sources, not to feed the grid from here, there and everywhere. One of the reasons your power bills are going up is not merely social engineering (though I believe that is a big part of it-to get you to conserve) but also to refit the whole grid with new switching and refinements to local capacities.
Blah blah blah. Sorry. I am passionate about this topic.
"Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines."
General "Buck" Turgidson, (George C. Scott)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2007 R1200GS with an identity crisis.
It is OK, relax...
Everything is gonna be alright
Resident Loudmouth
We aren't close to any major fault lines, no worries!
Maybe not a "major one", but we had a 5.0M quake last summer on an active fault line near Ottawa and the Chalk River nuclear reactor. http://www.thestar.com/article/82742...n-toronto?bn=1
Arguably, even the Pickering and Darlington nuclear stations are near an active fault line.
Johanna Wagstaffe, a CBC seismologist and meteorologist, said earthquakes in this part of Canada are rare, "but we do have them."A brick chimney was damaged at a building near Ottawa City Hall. (CBC)She said there are small fault lines along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, as well as a relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley.
The last comparable earthquake on that fault line was a 5.4-magnitude temblor in 1998, she said. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...arthquake.html
Last edited by turbodish; 03-15-2011 at 12:43 PM.
Wow...will the fear mongering never end. The last serious nuclear incident we had more than 20 years ago (Chernobyl) and the reactor itself is basically from dinosaur times. 3 Mile Island caused no serious long term effects and nobody died. Compare that to the devastation that occurs with Oil tankers and coal mines.
NOMFuP, Not My ****ing Problem. - Malcom Tucker
They had to stop taking applications because they Ontario government couldn't pay out what they had promised even when they increased the cost to consumers. To support small solar on an entire province scale our hydro rates would have to increase by 10X. Even some of those promised a certain rate and have taken out loans for wind turbines and solar farms got screwed when the province changed the expected rate of payment for their generation after they started the process.
I do agree clean coal is a stop gap but they are closing the plants down before the solution is there to fill that gap. That is dangerous IMHO. My father works for OPG at Lambton so maybe I'm biased but crunching the numbers of how much coal generated to what they are filling the void with there appears to be some serious short sightedness.
I have a few friends who are going to school in Kingston for this. I have crunched some numbers with them on trying to fit my house and it just isn't feasable not to mention as my family grows I won't be in this house 30 years down the road. It is still unclear how a homebuyer would see this sort of investment. Is it akin to a rental suite or more like custom mods on a bike and a deal breaker for buyers. Maybe the government could offer interest free loans to get the ball rolling but most people don't have the capital to pay it and don't want to commit to many years of debt before they get a payoff from the investment.
I know I sound negative. I really would love to see mass solar but its just too expensive for large scale.
Not to mention that it took the largest recorded earth quake to cause this damage to the Japanese plants. A once in thousands of years occurance. We are not in a known area for large earthquakes and our plants are designed to survive all but the worst which isn't going to happen here.
The Chernobyl thing was their own fault. Complete operator error during risky tests which shouldn't have been attempted. And your right the tech was also completely outdated.
The Japanese quake was a 9.0 M. Many of the largest quakes recorded tend to fall in a similar geographic region. I'm not sure I would call it a once in a thousand years occurrence.
Location Date UTC Magnitude Lat. Long. Reference
1. Chile 1960 05 22 9.5 -38.29 -73.05 Kanamori, 1977
2. Prince William Sound, Alaska 1964 03 28 9.2 61.02 -147.65 Kanamori, 1977
3. Off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra 2004 12 26 9.1 3.30 95.78 Park et al., 2005
4. Kamchatka 1952 11 04 9.0 52.76 160.06 Kanamori, 1977
5. Offshore Maule, Chile 2010 02 27 8.8 -35.846 -72.719 PDE
6. Off the Coast of Ecuador 1906 01 31 8.8 1.0 -81.5 Kanamori, 1977
7. Rat Islands, Alaska 1965 02 04 8.7 51.21 178.50 Kanamori, 1977
8. Northern Sumatra, Indonesia 2005 03 28 8.6 2.08 97.01 PDE
9. Assam - Tibet 1950 08 15 8.6 28.5 96.5 Kanamori, 1977
10. Andreanof Islands, Alaska 1957 03 09 8.6 51.56 -175.39 Johnson et al., 1994
11. Southern Sumatra, Indonesia 2007 09 12 8.5 -4.438 101.367 PDE
12. Banda Sea, Indonesia 1938 02 01 8.5 -5.05 131.62 Okal and Reymond, 2003
13. Kamchatka 1923 02 03 8.5 54.0 161.0 Kanamori, 1988
14. Chile-Argentina Border 1922 11 11 8.5 -28.55 -70.50 Kanamori, 1977
15. Kuril Islands 1963 10 13 8.5 44.9 149.6 Kanamori, 1977
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...gest_world.php
LOL so what's the expectation here people? Everything should be designed to withstand a 9.0 quake followed by a 100' tsunami wave? Every building should be designed to withstand the strike of a fully loaded 747?
It's easy to scold people's designs in hindsight but during the design process the reality of budgets, time constraints, and technological constraints tends to build up pretty quickly. LOL at everybody in this thread who thinks they know better than the trained engineers and technicians who worked on these facilities. And LOL at the concept that solar power or any other truly green power source would be able to replace nuclear power in terms of raw output vs cost.
'92 gixxer 750 - Jupiter
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