nuclear power - classic or dud?

Nuclear Power - C/D

D'OH

Ineviable really, government, and this one especially was always going to go for the 'safe' (I.e. We've done it before - safe). Given that they weren't going to take the risks of a massive renewable investment it's probably our best bet of a low carbon future. I don't have a particular problem with fission power per se, but no one has come up with a decent solution to the waste problem and no one has a particular track record of building nuclear stations on time and on budget.

Tracer, commercial ac electricity is always made by something turning a turbine. In a hydro plant it's water obv, wind power spins giant blades, but nuke, coal fired, oil fired, and gas fired all make high pressure steam that's used to spin turbines. It works on Faraday's principle - moving a conductor through a magnetic field generates an electrical current in the conductor.

The nuclear waste problem is bad news. Nuclear reactors make stuff that is comprehensively poisonous to just about every form of life and it stays poisonous for thousands of years. If you are responsible for making such shit, you are responsible for what happens to it.

You can't detoxify it. You can't safely dilute it. You can't store it anywhere it won't escape from eventually. And when it escapes, it's not only that some living things will die, but that a whole area on earth will die.

Massive dud.

i nominate luton

That's the alarmists' take, yes.

i heard they put it all in massive and impenetrable metal containers and buried it a long way beneath the earth's surface

I have some real estate near Chernobyl I could sell you, Kerm. That's where the smart money is going these days.

i nominate luton

yeh, nobody would notice. (i was born in luton, fwiw; we left when i was two, but my one visit since then suggests that even moving to fucking blackpool -- as we did -- was an improvement.)

buried it a long way beneath the earth's surface

No, no. That was a Jules Verne novel.

http://www.sciencefictionmuseum.org/Images/Movie%20Posters/The%20Core%20Poster.jpg

Comparing the nuclear waste storage problem to the Chernobyl disaster is a bit like comparing pineapples to pineapple grenades.

nukes are not the answer. insanely costly, impossible to clean up, incredibly dangerous. saying its "better" than greenhouse gas emitting technologies is like saying getting shot in the head is better than being decapitated.

Ah, then, I see. Hmmm.

Alternatively, you could volunteer to have a pond in your backyard full of spent fuel rods. Safety would be a simple matter of keeeping the pool topped off to make up for the evaporation. Just be sure the concrete never develops a crack or the water might all leak out while you slept, or were on vacation. Then the situation would get stickier.

So, of course, it would be wise to be sure the ground beneath the pool is pretty stable, so it wouldn't settle under the wieght of the concrete and water. No real problem there.

I'm sure you'd be glad to do it as a public service. And to obligate your descendents to keep things up to snuff. It's not much good if you die and the whole place goes to wrack and ruin. About 10,000 years ought to cover it. OK?

Aimless - luckily, the private sector will ensure that none of these things ever happen, and no-one will ever cut any corners.

Significantly more research and investment is required before naysaying can become a reliable source of clean energy.

I am not a naysayer, I work in the energy industry

If nuclear waste is "clean" I will eat something improbable.

That's it! We feed it to the masses and kill two birds with one laser cannon!

Nuclear Power - C/D

u dix

'clean' my sides my sides

Here's another idea. Since the only way in which nukes can be made worthwhile is to a) either build them by the state or more usually, guarantee prices for a 25 year period to encourage private 'investors' to put in. How about we guarantee those prices for renewables. We also have a taper tax for standard energy. Maybe call it a feed-in tariff. Watch renewables grow. Watch as economies of scale kick in. Watch as competition stimulates research bringing greater efficiencies.

Or just give major corporations lots of cash under the guise of nukes somehow being carbon neutral (more rofls).

This thread is full of dumbshit liberal arts hippies

I am for nuclear power and my grandpa died in one of America's first nuclear fallouts (in Idaho).

I am not for nuclear weapons, but who is really.

I wish the U.S. had such ambitious plans about nuclear power. I listened to a Naked Scientist where they visited a power plant in the U.K. and they all seemed so calm about it. I was so jealous!

Comparing the nuclear waste storage problem to the Chernobyl disaster is a bit like comparing pineapples to pineapple grenades.

Kerm OTM.

no nukes -> no defcon :(

Oh shit, THAT was what I wanted to buy myself for xmas! Thanks DG

everyone else should buy it too! support yr local independent game developers

is it fun to play at real time scale?

can be, 2x is usually the best