How accurate is this documentary?
Safe Nuclear energy?
Posts
Total:
62
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@Greyparrot
This is a better link.
Guess you are susceptible to bad sources of evidence. At least I can correct your "documentary" as even a source for nuclear energy when there is a better source for information like this link.
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@TheRealNihilist
Why are you such a small person to resort to personal attacks in the science forum? Childhood abuse? Really I don't care. If I asked for ad-homs instead of an analysis, I would have called you a bunch of pejoratives before I started this thread.
Anyway I'll just wait for a real reply. Not a reply filled with a bunch of "you"
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@Greyparrot
I gave you a reply with an credible link. Don't tell me you don't know what good evidence is.Anyway I'll just wait for a real reply.
It'll be a long-term viable fuel source once we can develop thorium reactors, but conventional nuclear reactors utilizing the latest industry technologies could probably work out in the meantime. Developing electric cars is the right direction because it would allow compatibility with these.
The problem, of course, is that if every country does this then all countries will be one step closer to developing a nuclear weapon. That is true. However, economics will shift more towards using uranium for fuel rather than for weapons that probably won't be used, a "swords for plowshares" kind of situation.
Some countries, like North Korea, are well-suited for using such renewables as hydroelectric power to supply their energy needs, so they don't require nuclear reactors. In addition, their small size and high density would make a meltdown even more catastrophic, so these would have reason to pursue alternative means.
And some, of course, will still be mostly dependent on oil, which we can't really do anything about.
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@Swagnarok
What do you think about the claims in the documentary. Are they accurate?
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@Greyparrot
Haven't watched it. Sorry.
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@Swagnarok
The problem, of course, is that if every country does this then all countries will be one step closer to developing a nuclear weapon.
Nuclear weapons are on rise again, just ask Trump for starters or do internet search or watch tv.
That is true. However, economics will shift more towards using uranium for fuel rather than for weapons that probably won't be used, a "swords for plowshares" kind of situation.
Nuclear weapons sword for plowshares? Wed definitely not moving in that direction and in fact were moving in the opposite direction.
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@Greyparrot
What do you think about the claims in the documentary. Are they accurate?
If they do not consider nuclear waste issues, then, they lack a comprehensive grasp of nuclear powers short and long term consequences that include irradiating humans and the ecological environment that sustains humans.
It does not take a nuclear bomb to wreak havoc on a nuclear waste site and spred irradiation on surrounding peoples and ecology.
Ok, lets see now. The French are big on breeder reactors to paratially solve nuclear waste issue. Does the documentary consider breeder reactor issues?
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@TheRealNihilist
OMG! Lord { or some cosmic intelligence } helps us.
....In contrast, in October 2016, the chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission announced that the country’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) will be commissioned next year, with six more breeder reactors planned. Projections for the country’s nuclear capacity produced by India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) call for constructing literally hundreds of breeder reactors by mid-century. For a variety of reasons, these projections will not materialize, making the pursuit of breeder reactors wasteful"....
...."In October 2016, Japan’s science and technology ministry announced that it was going to start decommissioning its Monju fast breeder reactor in 2020. Monju had a troubled history, and the decision to shut it down was in line with decisions in the United States and Western European countries to cancel their breeder reactor programs—which had come to be seen as unnecessary, unsafe, or uneconomical. (When something as expensive as a nuclear reactor is shut down, countries typically do not explicitly use words like “unsafe” or “unnecessary” or “uneconomical” in their official statements. Nevertheless, one can read between the lines of the documents issued by their public relations departments.)
So India plans 6 new breeder reactors. OMG! Lets hope they make good with Paklstanis in the comning 1000 years.
Any chance of that?
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@mustardness
The video does not discount the dangers of nuclear waste, it simply states fatalities compared to fossil fuel waste and solar panel waste and puts them in perspective by comparison. Are the comparisons accurate?
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@Greyparrot
Nuclear reactors don’t go wrong very often, but when they do it has a substantial impact. They don’t kill or even injure many people, compared to other types (coal and oil are through air pollution - solar via the manufacturing process and people falling when installing them). As a result, the deaths from solar are mostly mitigatable - deaths from nuclear are surprisingly minimal.
Gone are the days that reactor techs are impaled on the ceiling by steam propelled control rods.
In my view the issues with nuclear power are not safety related, but frankly economical. Current power stations burn through uranium, and there’s not enough of that left to be economical with a major upswing in nuclear power after maybe 20-30 years. Fast breeder and Thorium based reactors are much better for economy - but even the current ones aren’t great.
The only long term economical power plants are 10-20 years out even with substantial investment into R&D.
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@Greyparrot
They cannot count fatalies or detriment to environment in future scenarios where anything can happen to those wastes and especially considering the on-site storage that is happening currently and that currently is in place because no one has figured a good way to deal with waste for thousands of years.The video does not discount the dangers of nuclear waste, it simply states fatalities
There are no on-site coal waste storage that will irradiate people 500-1000 years from now.
This is where the some believe the breeder reactors come in as, part of nuclear waste solution. So UCC Scientist dont believe that Indias 6 breeders will ever be completed. So does that leave France to be leaders of fast breeder reactors? Any chance of France having issues with breeder reactors from whatever sources?
It is one thing to have a bunch of hydrogen bombs --or electronic blasts or other--- go off around the world and it is another thing if those happen with the addition of tons and tons and tons of nuclear waste storage sitting around on site or even in underground cave that is hopefully far from underground freshwater aquifiers.
The bottom line is, we have way too many humans for the systems we have in place, and you and others have only a narrow short-sighted view ability anticipate what issues may occur or may occur in future.
Take away condoms and sex education free safe or paid for sex between consenting adults and where does that leave humanity? With their head in the ass hoping Jesus will save them or that good Chuck Norris types will swoop in save all of humanity from the bad humans types.
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@Ramshutu
Any issue with the accuracy of the statistics from the documentary?
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@mustardness
Since North Korea (an ongoing situation), no new country has attained nuclear weapons. The Nonproliferation Treaty is holding, for now.
If, say, South Korea or Japan went nuclear tomorrow (and there's no evidence that that's happening), it'd be a positive rather than negative development, because North Korea needs deterring besides from just the United States government. There's always going to be the question of whether we'd seriously risk making the US homeland a nuclear target to avenge Seoul or Tokyo, so these countries need deterrent forces of their own.
There have been rumors that Saudi Arabia is considering pursuing nuclear weapons in response to Iran (whose nuclear program the Obama Administration failed to adequately negate and which Trump is trying to handle now), but at this time that is just that: a rumor.
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@Ramshutu
The only long term economical power plants are 10-20 years out even with substantial investment into R&D.
..."Breeders that produce commercial power don’t exist. There are only four small experimental prototypes operating.
Nuclear power and all of its potentials for irradiating the ecological environment that sustains us and the longer term effects. Ex radiation from underground at Fukishima that has been leaking into the ocean.
CHernyoble has been enclosed in a 8 billion dollar stainless steel. There is a reason they covered Chernyoble ---cause radiation is dangerous-- and specifically stainless steel ---cause they need to last at least 100 years without people having to go inside { and get irraidiated } and prime and paint the metal surface if it was just plain old steel.
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@Swagnarok
..."Taking all these developments into consideration, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has decided to set its “doomsday clock” to two minutes to midnight, the closest to catastrophe it has been since 1953."...
Read my lips/text
..."India recently commissioned its second ballistic-missile submarine, launched an Agni-5 ballistic missile that can strike targets throughout Pakistan and China, and tested nuclear-capable BrahMos and Nirbhay cruise missiles.
.....Pakistan now has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear stockpile, including low-yield warheads on Hatf-9 missiles for use against Indian troops and armored vehicles. Israel is expanding the range of its Jericho III ballistic missiles and deploying cruise missiles with nuclear weapons on submarines.
...France and the United Kingdom are developing replacements for their Vanguard and Triomphant ballistic-missile submarines. China is about to introduce Dongfeng-41 ballistic missiles that will be mounted on trucks, loaded with up to ten nuclear warheads, and capable of reaching anywhere in the United States.
....Russia is building a wide range of new missiles, bombers, and submarines that will carry nuclear weapons. The R-28 Sarmat missile, nicknamed Satan-2, will carry up to sixteen nuclear warheads—more than enough for a single missile to destroy every American city with a population larger than a million people. Russia plans to build forty to fifty of the Satan-2s.
....Three other countries—Iran, Japan, and South Korea—may soon try to obtain their own nuclear arsenals."...
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@mustardness
The main issues with nuclear power plants are mainly melt downs, and reactor steam explosions due to reaction runaway. The damage and irradiation caused by Chernobyl wasn’t due to the way the usage of fast or slow neutrons, but the fact that the runaway heat of the core flashed the water to steam to such a high pressure that containment failed and the reactor exploded.
There has been a runaway reaction at the SL-1 one reactor, where it appear the single control rod of the reactor was jammed, and the operator tried to unjam it to attach it to a control mechanism - ending up extracting it too far, and got impaled in the ceiling by said control rod after a steam explosion.
3 mile island and Fukushima were not issues with reaction runaway - this can’t really happen in any modern design - but due to latent decay heat: even if a reactor is shut down, the radioactive decay of remaining fission products still produces substantial heat.
Fortunately steam explosions are not an issue in FBRs as they tend to be molten salt cool : operating at the higher temperature means much lower pressure.
Also, ironically, FBRs are worse for the purposes of nuclear chain reactions, as slower neutrons are actually much easier to produce a fission reaction - hence the need for moderators.
So no - FBR is not particularly more dangerous than other nuclear power plants - which are increasingly safe.
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@Ramshutu
So no - FBR is not particularly more dangerous than other nuclear power plants - which are increasingly safe.
I'm not convinced that your belief is"particualry" correct.
..."Both conventional reactors and fast breeders produce large quantities of high-level nuclear wastes that stay dangerous for at least 100,000 years.
...Breeder reactors are more dangerous than conventional reactors, because:
(1) they produce more plutonium-239, with half-life of 24,000 years, which can be used to make nuclear weapons;
(2) they use as a coolant liquid sodium, which is a very dangerous metal: e.g. it explodes when it comes into contact with water.
The major pronuclear report by MIT (2003), "The Future of Nuclear Power" -- see http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/ -- considers that fast breeders will not be a significant part of the nuclear industry for several decades, because they are even more expensive than conventional nuclear power stations. One of the reasons why they are more expensive is that they are more dangerous.
—Dr Mark Diesendorf, Institute of Environmental studies, UNSW....Breeder reactors are much closer to being bombs than conventional reactors – the effects of an accident would be catastrophic economically and in the number of lives lost if it failed near a city (Wolfson)."....
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@mustardness
Yeah - everything I have said is factually accurate. Unfortunately for you.
Steam explosions are the most dangerous way a reactor can catastrophically fail. The use of sodium or molten salt eliminates that possibility by running the primary loop at much lower temperatures.
Your issue with FBR producing more radioactive material is the entire point of FBRs. You put in fuel, and the reaction and neutron breeds more fuel - it converts more U238 to plutonium 239 intentionally so that the Pu 239 will be subsequently used as part of the next reaction. It means the fuel lasts longer and has a higher percentage burn up.
But if you want to eliminate the possibility of proliferation, you should go with LFTRS, they can burn up radioactive waste, and use U233, which is a hard gamma emitter and can’t be used in nuclear weapons.
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@Ramshutu
Yeah - everything I have said is factually accurate. Unfortunately for you.
Apparrently via two sources and now a third{ below } there are those who do not share you beliefs ergo I do not share you beliefs either and that is not even considering the much broader comprehensive set of issues associated with all nuclear energy as the rational, logical common sense and most safe answer to humans energy problems.
..."Problem: conventional reactors are cooled by light or heavy water , but FBRs are cooled by liquid sodium, which is inherently dangerous. Liquid sodium reacts explosively with both air and water. Hence, even a tiny leak of sodium coolant can cause a fire. Fukushima shows that the unexpected can always happen despite precautions. When Fukushima overheated, the Japanese pumped in sea water and bombarded the reactors with water cannon to bring down temperatures.
...But such use of water would be impossible in any accident at an FBR—the water would react explosively with the sodium coolant. So, the real lesson of Fukushima is that FBRs are inherently risky. "...
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@mustardness
I have graduated from the US Naval Nuclear power school, and I have seen nothing that Ramshutu has claimed that could be construed as inaccurate.
Cold water accidents are the worst kind of accidents which can lead to a steam explosion with high particulate. Loss of pressurizer bubble would be the second worst leading to a steam explosion with less particulate.
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@mustardness
You and I’m sure others, have beliefs, what I’m talking about are matters if material fact.
Lets cover them:
- Low pressure coolant reactors are much safer due to lack of possible steam explosions.
- The higher heat reservoir for higher temperature afforded by molten sodium or molten salt mean cooling mechanisms of spraying water on the reactor are less necessary.
- No hydrogen explosions either.
- Many thorium breeding cores can’t be used for proliferation as U233 is a hard gamma emitter.
- The extra plutonium generated is not a problem, it’s what breeders do. Breed new fuel.
- Sodium is more dangerous when exposed to air, but is less problematic than dealing with super high pressure radioactive steam and water at super high temperature.
- Positive void coefficients are only one part of the equation as long as the reactivity of the core as a whole is negative, it’s not a problem. It’s certainly not large enough to be able to cause an uncontrolled steam explosion due to thermal runaway.
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@Ramshutu
....- Sodium is more dangerous when exposed to air..
You left out water and like most of your kind have short-sided, short-term and narrow viewpoints that all less considerate of more comprehensive set of factors regarding humanities long term existence on Earth.
....you have a circuit full of sodium which cools the core, but there is also a circuit of water, and it was an engineering challenge to make sure the water and sodium were separated because they are so reactive. There were a number of incidences around the world where accidents happened because the sodium and water combined."...
..."Breeder reactors are more dangerous than conventional reactors, because:
(1) they produce more plutonium-239, with half-life of 24,000 years, which can be used to make nuclear weapons;
(2) they use as a coolant liquid sodium, which is a very dangerous metal: e.g. it explodes when it comes into contact with water."...
..It is time to give up on breeder reactors. Since the dawn of the nuclear age nuclear energy advocates have dreamed of a reactor that could produce more fuel that it used. More than 60 years and $100 billion later, that vision appears as far from reality as ever.
.."However, the reactors are complex and must be cooled with substances such as liquid sodium or molten salt. The chemically intensive recycling process produces plenty of its own hazardous waste. And the closed fuel cycle also would establish a global market for plutonium, the stuff of atomic weapons, raising proliferation concerns. Perhaps most important, the world is in no danger of running out of uranium. So some experts doubt fast reactors will ever become mainstream."...
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@Ramshutu
To clarify, you are saying that salt is used as the primary medium of heat transfer between the reactor and the steam boiler?
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@Snoopy
..."But sodium has significant disadvantages, too. On contact with air, it burns; plunged into water, it explodes.
...The use of sodium, which occurs naturally only as a compound in other minerals, presents huge challenges, however.
...The Nikkei business daily reported that France had informed Japan it would halt research into the ASTRID (Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration) project in 2019, with no plans to allocate a budget from 2020."....
..."Japan has finally pulled the plug on Monju, an experimental fast breeder nuclear reactor that has been plagued by accidents, cover-ups and cost overruns. But why did Monju fail and is there still a future for fast breeder technology? Molly Lempriere finds out."....
And the list goes on, and the list goes, FBR's pounding rythms to the brain, la de da de, la de da de da...sung to Sonny and Cher tune
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@mustardness
meanwhile...50 years operating 57 nuclear reactors in France and not a single death.
90 USA reactors and not a single death.
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@Greyparrot
meanwhile...50 years operating 57 nuclear reactors in France and not a single death....90 USA reactors and not a single death.
You can believe and state all kinds of non-truths all day long. Hot air.
We dont know how many people have been exposed to ionizing radiation from and nuclear power plant and subsequently had damage done to their RNA-DNA with resultant malformities in their children or death of the individual.
Nuclear industry just like the coal industry do a cost-benifit-analysls{?} that takes into consideration the number of possible deaths associated with producing energy to see if the benifits out-wigh the risks to population.
Not to mention, that, once again, you short-sighted mind-set can only see that data and not the great picture that has so many more factors involved in a comprehensive set of considerations for what possible pathways forward are best for humanity in long term not just the short term.
1} population { reasonable amount in consideration of following set },
2} standard of living,
3} cost-benifit-analysis,
4} fossil fuel based technology, { fracking, coal, uranium, gas etc }
5} renewable sources { wind, solar, hydro },
6} world energy grid that connects day and night sides of planet and doubles amount of available energy
7} nuclear byproducts balanced against many factors ex unforseen terrosim or acts of nature { ex tusnami that hit Fukashima }, these byproducts existence on Earth greatly enhance potential detriment to humanity and the ecological environment that sustains them,
8} more I cant think of off top of my head, and I have to run and errand,
9} a united humanity under one global flag vs division/splintering into more and more factions pitting against each other with some trying to gain rich wealth over the others. This is no best way forward
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@mustardness
a united humanity under one global flag vs division/splintering into more and more factions pitting against each other with some trying to gain rich wealth over the others. This is no best way forward
I'm curious about your time frame. How long do you think it will take the people of every country to join the United States?