Comments on: Why nuclear power is not an option

By: Red Craig

Red Craig — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:44:51 +0000

Thanks for the link, Jagadees. As most of the commentators noted, the article is a one-sided opinion piece crafted to push people’s emotional buttons while leaving out the pertinent facts that show his analysis is wrong. In particular, he argues against a form of reprocessing that was invented for the weapons program and which wouldn’t be used in a commercial energy program. In commercial reprocessing, weapons materials would remain mixed with the actinides that render them ineffective and unavailable. His argument is based on false premises and leads, consequently, to a false conclusion.

By: jagadees

jagadees — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:38:00 +0000

pls read this article scientific america about nuclear fuel reprocesing

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuel-recycling&page=1

By: Red Craig

Red Craig — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:01:31 +0000

With reprocessing and recycling, the uranium just in high-grade ores will last the world for thousands of years. Thorium is three times as plentiful as uranium. Lower-grade ores will extend the supply to tens of thousands of years. Fusion should be up and running is something less than a thousand years.

Sun’s heat is worth what you pay for it. You never can count on it: sometimes it’s available, sometimes it isn’t. If you don’t need energy, solar works fine. If you need energy it doesn’t.

By: jagadees

jagadees — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:30:51 +0000

Nuclear and fossil are not renewable.

What we will do if all the uranium get exhausted? All the investment done on nuclear plants get wasted.

So why going for a costly technology. Sun’s heat is free of cost. Why we are not utilizing it properly?

By: Red Craig

Red Craig — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:40:56 +0000

Efficiency can always be improved. Eliminating energy sources will not force people to become more efficient, it only will force greater dependence on other energy sources. Nor will eliminating energy sources force wealthy people to give up extravagant lifestyles. The history of the last fifty years proves both these observations. While the supply of nuclear energy has grown only slightly in the last thirty years the world’s consumption rate has grown exponentially.

There are only two energy sources that can meet the future full-time needs of a modern world, nuclear and fossil. Nuclear energy’s safety and environmental records are equal to the records of any alternative energy source. To give it up on the basis of fabricated propaganda from political groups will force the world to use more coal. Our children will inherit a fatally poisoned planet.

If nuclear energy is used instead, the waste products can be reduced to miniscule proportions that can be safely isolated for the time required for them to lose their hazardous properties. Coal waste, in contrast, is vast in quantity and stays toxic forever.

By: jagadees

jagadees — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:36:32 +0000

In US, it is estimated that the vampire energy( http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/how-can-we-save-power/ ) accounts for electricity produced in 16 power plants.
Can we improve our energy usage efficiency?
Automobile engine runs at 15% efficiency http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/ic-engine-efficiency/. Can we use electric vehicles and better public transport?

Its not about anti-nukes. Its not about erstwhile Soviet Union or Communism.

Its about choosing a technology to boil water. Its about efficient use of taxpayers money. Its about how we care about our children. We dont want our children to clean up the waste generated by our luxury and stupidity.

By: Red Craig

Red Craig — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:43:20 +0000

Thank you, jagadees. Eventually, anti-nukes always show their real motive, which is to impose an authoritarian regime that dictates the standard of living for everyone. Well, except themselves. As the managing elite they naturally have to maintain a higher living standard in order to fulfill their responsibilities. Everyone else can live in unheated hovels, grow their own food, weave their own cloth, travel by foot, and wait for the elite to decide their lives for them.

Your vision won’t work because elected representatives won’t vote for it. If any did they wouldn’t be representatives after the next election. Your vision didn’t even work in the Soviet Union because the system stifled initiative and creativity. Here’s a better vision for you to consider: a vision in which all the people of the world can have comfortable homes, adequate diets, education, health care, and even a chance to travel.

This vision is possible. All it takes is intelligent decisions based on good information instead of stupid decisions based on misinformation from unprincipled demagogues.

By: jagadees

jagadees — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 06:11:10 +0000

we cannot isolate a nuclear power plant from its real whole life. Its starts from mining of uranium to disposing the spent fuel. Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in “spent” fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millennia.
We cannot say its not the problem of the plant or its the problem of uranium. What is the reason for the spent fuel appeared in this planet. Its because we used that in a nuclear power plant. We need electricity so we used it. So its a pollution from the plant.

Actually we need heat to boil water for electricity production, thats more correct. Is this the only way to boil water. If so then the plant is a necessary. But if we have other options then its a waste. I still think that there is more better alternative to boil water. And people know about it from 212 B.C.

What is the reason for pollution? The greed of corporate is the reason. Its not because of population. US has less population, but its the top most polluter in this planet. So how to combat it. Reduce our consumption. Reject consumerism.
Save electricity. Its better than building a new plant.

By: Red Craig

Red Craig — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:21:05 +0000

jagadees, you’ve just got to look for better information sources. Nuclear plants don’t pollute 90000s of years.

The world is getting pressure from two sides. Billions of people are working hard at improving their living standards, even while the population is continuing to grow. But the strain on the environment is weakening Earth’s ability to support all of us. There is no reason to believe people will choose low-quality lifestyles; history shows that in the absence of nuclear energy people will simply continue to use fossil fuels and environmental destruction will follow inevitably. Worldwide, more millions of people will die from pollution, soil and waterways will continue to be poisoned, and the climate will be irreversibly altered.

By: jagadees

jagadees — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:44:18 +0000

pollution from coal is not an excuse for nuclear plants to pollute 90000s of years.

http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/french-nuclear-leak-authorities-ban-water-use/