Nuclear Power debate.

[Martin]

Nuclear wastage is a serious issue and not to be taken lightly. Radioactive isotopes such as Uranium-238, which is used in most common nuclear fission reactors as fuel has an average half life of 4.5 billion years roughly. Granted though this is naturally occuring in smaller doses but when used in reactors the concentration of it is much higher. In the event of a meltdown it's lethality is devastatingly high.

Even when refined into weapons or fuel-grade Plutonium 239, a more common isotope - it still has a incredibly slow rate of decay of about 24 thousand years. Simply burying these underground is not an option. Blasting it into space is also naive. If we are going to use nuclear as a practical future energy option then we have a responsibility to ensure we can dispose of it's wastage efficiently, fairly and with minimum impact to the environment.

[midgetbob]

Blasting it into space is also naive. If we are going to use nuclear as a practical future energy option then we have a responsibility to ensure we can dispose of it's wastage efficiently, fairly and with minimum impact to the environment.

Which makes me think my off hand remark about the moon as a waste storage spot isn't too bad of an idea. The moon is just a hunk of rock, so the damage to the environment is not a factor at all. The only risks being taken would be company men willing to work on a moon storage facility. I don't think there is really a safe way to store such radioactive materials (along with other wastes that are super hazardous to the environment) on earth with out some kind of leaking happening.

[Heartless Angel]

Nuclear Power is by far the best energy solution we have at the moment. It's cheap, and extremely effective. And very safe with current technology. I took a Nuclear Science and Energy class my senior year, taught by a guy who works at Oakridge National Lab. Our class actually made Nuclear News for being the first high school nuclear science course in the States taught by someone in the field. This class made me decide to go into Nuclear Engineering as a profession, so this is a subject I'm passionate about.

First I'll talk about cost. A SINGLE Uranium Fuel pellet is the energy equivalent of 1 ton of coal, 2.5 tons of wood, 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 3.5 42 gallon barrels of oil. And Uranium is barely 100$ a pound. That means a fuel pellet is about 1.50$. 1.50$ for 3 and a half barells of oil? Sounds like a pretty awesome price to me. And it gets better. If the price of , let's say natural gas doubled: The price of power from a natural gas power plant would go up about 40% assuming they maintained the same profit margin. Assuming the cost of Uranium doubles, the cost of nuclear energy would go up about 5%, just because such a small ammount of it is used in relation to the power it puts out.

Safety. Everyone's big concern with Nuclear power. People like to talk about Chernobyl all the time in this debate, so I'll start out by saying that argument is idiotic. I could just as easily say cars are unsafe now based on the performance of the Ford Model T. Believe it or not, we have made some improvements to technology since 1986. Every Nuclear Power plant operating currently is much safer than Chernobyl was. They've got redunandant systems with redundant backups for redundant backups. If i recall, ours has 6 redundant systems. Meaning They'd need 7 complete system failures to be in danger. The one near my house draws power for its main systems from itself, and 2 other sources for redundant systems, so a power failure wouldn't even cause problems. The building and containment building are both rated with withstand an F-3 tornado or a 7.0 Earthquake with no danger of a nuclear disaster at all. Not to mention All the systems can be shut down completely in a few minutes. They do alot of radiation testing on surrounding areas for safety reasons. You take in more radiation eating a banana than you would living next door to our Nuclear plant for a year. The containment is excellent.

Alternatives. People Love to talk about alternative enegy sources like hydroelectric and wind energy because it sounds cleaner than Nuclear. The energy itself from Hydro and Wind may not produce dangerous emissions, but producing the turbines and dams and all that crap does. And in terms of cost efficiency, most alternatives are terrible. A wind turbine, in it's entire lifetime of use, will probably not even pay for itself at current prodution costs. Not to mention they rewuire costly maintainance and ridiculously expensive replacements on the blades and turbines. Not to mention they eat space. The only alternative I really see as a long term solution is biodiesel from Algae. If someone gets a decent Algae farm going, (and really, the shit can grow damn near anywhere) we've got amazing power production potential, but it still can't hold a candle to nuclear energy. Though this is going to be the best solution for things like cars, since at the moment having a nuclear reactor under the hood just isn't plausible.

Further advancements. Nuclear is ALREADY this far ahead of any other means of making power we have. And it's still being developed further. The day a scientist figures out cold fusion is the day we never need to worry about energy again. Ever. And the semi-joke in the paragraph above about reactors in cars, that's only given current technology. If we keep making advancements, we very well may see the day hwere you just go buy a 1.50$ Uranium fuel pellet for your car and are good to go for several hundred, possibly thousands of miles. The possibilities are endless. You know that giant mass of burning hydrogen that keeps the planet warm? That thing runs on Nuclear fusion. And it puts out more power in a day than we use on earth in a year.