Nuclear versus coal

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Mark Wainwright said:
How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources
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The problem with any article or study like this is that it is not giving the complete picture. It touts the clean air act as the greatest life saving legislature of all time. The truth is the clean air act was written because of acid rain and sulfur and nox emissions which where later proven to be much ado about nothing because they didn't have the source correct. Also they are using China and other unregulated coal burning countries as an example while the technology exist to burn coal cleanly. There is currently more BTU's in the Illinois and Ohio coal basin than there is in all the proven oil reserves of the world.
 
Don't think solar or wind is the answer. I cant see coal burning power plants going away anytime soon. I work in the air pollution monitoring field and I've talked to the guys at the plant responsible for the windmills and they say that they're a maintenance nightmare and they're always breaking down. Also if there's not enough wind they don't work, too much wind and they have to lock them down. They have been known to catch on fire, people have been killed while performing maintenance and getting trapped by fire. There's also the animal rights people, birds are hitting into the blades and getting killed. The birds are also at risk with solar. Some of the solar farms use mirrors to direct sunlight into the cells. Birds flying through are bursting into flames mid air. Coal power plants are getting a bad rap from the environmental groups. What you see coming out of smoke stacks these days is mostly steam. The smoke from th he boiler passes though electrostatic precipitators the trap a lot of the soot. It then goes through a scrubber where it is washed down with water (hence the steam). Also the plants use ammonia injection to reduce nox emissions. Its popular these days to do a public relations move and say "FOLKS FOLKS FOLKS, LOOK AT US, WE'RE SHUTTING DOWN DIRTY COAL FIRRED PLANTS!". What we are heading for here is rolling brownouts. Everyone wants to be environmentally conscious but at the same time we want the lights to come on when we turn on the switch.
 
Don't think solar or wind is the answer. I cant see coal burning power plants going away anytime soon. I work in the air pollution monitoring field and I've talked to the guys at the plant responsible for the windmills and they say that they're a maintenance nightmare and they're always breaking down. Also if there's not enough wind they don't work, too much wind and they have to lock them down. They have been known to catch on fire, people have been killed while performing maintenance and getting trapped by fire. There's also the animal rights people, birds are hitting into the blades and getting killed. The birds are also at risk with solar. Some of the solar farms use mirrors to direct sunlight into the cells. Birds flying through are bursting into flames mid air. Coal power plants are getting a bad rap from the environmental groups. What you see coming out of smoke stacks these days is mostly steam. The smoke from the boiler passes though electrostatic precipitators that trap a lot of the soot. It then goes through a scrubber where it is washed down with water (hence the steam). Also the plants use ammonia injection to reduce nox emissions. Its popular these days to do a public relations move and say "FOLKS FOLKS FOLKS, LOOK AT US, WE'RE SHUTTING DOWN DIRTY COAL FIRRED PLANTS!". What we are heading for here is rolling brownouts. Everyone wants to be environmentally conscious but at the same time we want the lights to come on when we turn on the switch.
67Dart273 said:
Regardless, it is pretty difficult to argue against the tragedies in Japan and Russia...............Just imagine the chances if there were "that many more" nuke plants

I still think the long term solution some day will be solar and or wind, and water
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We’ve had pretty good luck with reactors on submarines for the past 60 years or so.

Wonder how solar panels would do in the northern US between the months of October and March?
 
tjpatte said:
We’ve had pretty good luck with reactors on submarines for the past 60 years or so.

Wonder how solar panels would do in the northern US between the months of October and March?
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Some have sank. Including Russian ones, and the radiation doesn't care where we live. I think they managed to retrieve a Russian one before the salt water breached the core. I doubt they can decommission the reactor on a sub so they are either stacking up somewhere, being scuttled, or maybe both. I don't know. I don't follow the Navy around. Just more nuclear garbage with the same attributes of all the rest of the waste, including the stuff in Australia. That crap may be in the fires or maybe not. No one is saying anything.
 
Bodyperson said:
And the Elephant in the room. Spent rod Disposal.
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magnumdart said:
No such thing. That stuff will be around to the ends of the earth.
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I'd just like to point out that we don't magically make uranium; it already exists naturally in deposits, still emitting radiation. All we do is refine and concentrate it.


France has managed to do nuclear power so well because all of their plants are run by the government. When they want to build a new plant, they improve the most recent design and have it built to the same standards. In the states, each plant is offered as a contract and so there's no consistency in design or procedures, each plant is its own creature. I think if the US could do nuclear the way France does, we'd be pretty well off. In the current political climate however, I don't think that will happen anytime soon.
 
Chained_360 said:
magically make uranium;
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Yup, it is fairly safe. You can carry the stuff around. We enrich it. Still fairely safe. We make fuel cells, still fairly safe.Then we create a reaction and form hundreds of elements that are not safe with 15 million year half lives.
I think France may be getting rid of their reactors. Seems they had a drought that took up tons of the countries drinking water for cooling. Remember, if they run out of water what happens next isn't an if, it's a given.
 
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magnumdart said:
Some have sank. Including Russian ones, and the radiation doesn't care where we live. I think they managed to retrieve a Russian one before the salt water breached the core. I doubt they can decommission the reactor on a sub so they are either stacking up somewhere, being scuttled, or maybe both. I don't know. I don't follow the Navy around. Just more nuclear garbage with the same attributes of all the rest of the waste, including the stuff in Australia. That crap may be in the fires or maybe not. No one is saying anything.
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For the two of ours that sank back in the 60’s, USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, the radiation at the wreckage is the same as the ambient levels, there is no leakage.
 
tjpatte said:
For the two of ours that sank back in the 60’s, USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, the radiation at the wreckage is the same as the ambient levels, there is no leakage.
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Yup. Saltwater hasn't breached the cores yet.
I'm getting too deep into this.
Words like luck, if ,they, maybe, think, are all just scary. Suffice it to say how much luck we have, or what we think, are not variables that any sort of fission cares about.
I forgot one thing, many don't know. All reactors leak, more than many would imagine.
 
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Chained_360 said:
I'd just like to point out that we don't magically make uranium; it already exists naturally in deposits, still emitting radiation. All we do is refine and concentrate it.
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kinda like fossil fuels
its allready in the earth, we just refine it
and we never had a spill or accident with those, have we?
 
magnumdart said:
Yup. Saltwater hasn't breached the cores yet.
I'm getting too deep into this.
Words like luck, if ,they, maybe, think, are all just scary. Suffice it to say how much luck we have, or what we think, are not variables that any sort of fission cares about.
I forgot one thing, many don't know. All reactors leak, more than many would imagine.
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While they may leak, according to radiation monitoring around reactors, the amount absorbed by the body is less than you get by being in the sun.
 
tjpatte said:
being in the sun.
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Nope. I can't agree. We are talking about things that don't exist on the sun.
And while it can take years for us to get sick, everybody forgets there are other life forms that cannot survive the exposure levels we can.
You do not eat sunlight in its raw form.
There are no safe levels. One active particle that you eat or breath in can harm you...drastically.
Like I said. The stuff does not care how smart we think we are, what failsafes we can conjure up in our minds, how lucky we think we can be, nothing. It's what it does. Like the Terminator.
I drove my '18 Ram 115,000 miles in a little over a year. In days gone by I would have had to clean billions of bugs off the windshield and hood area. There were so few this year that the ratio would work out close to zero.
 
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Mark Wainwright said:
Apparently the radiation is less than having eaten two bananas
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Maybe, hadn’t see that comparison.

I do know that if you fly on a plane with your TLD (monitor you wear while on a sub to measure radiation absorbed) and have it measured afterwards everyone freaks out:lol:
 
Mark Wainwright said:
Apparently the radiation is less than having eaten two bananas
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Look up how many sick people live near reactors.
Potassium 40 does not fission at 9000 degrees...if it did they would build reactors out of bananas.
To put it into perspective check out the temperature of the sun...then compare that to the temperature of a thermo nuclear weapon at detonation.
 
tjpatte said:
they may leak,
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See what I mean. While we are thinking may leak, the atoms do not care. They will leak whether we think they may or not.
Do you fire up a new 440 because you think somebody MAY have installed the camshaft correctly?
 
magnumdart said:
Nope. I can't agree. We are talking about things that don't exist on the sun.
And while it can take years for us to get sick, everybody forgets there are other life forms that cannot survive the exposure levels we can.
You do not eat sunlight in its raw form.
There are no safe levels. One active particle that you eat or breath in can harm you...drastically.
Like I said. The stuff does not care how smart we think we are, what failsafes we can conjure up in our minds, how lucky we think we can be, nothing. It's what it does. Like the Terminator.
I drove my '18 Ram 115,000 miles in a little over a year. In days gone by I would have had to clean billions of bugs off the windshield and hood area. There were so few this year that the ratio would work out close to zero.
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What are these “things” and “stuff” you are talking about?

Just out of curiosity, you said you were a “nuc”, what field of nuclear power did you work in? Sounds like you might be on the theoretical side of things?
 
magnumdart said:
Look up how many sick people live near reactors.
Potassium 40 does not fission at 9000 degrees...if it did they would build reactors out of bananas.
To put it into perspective check out the temperature of the sun...then compare that to the temperature of a thermo nuclear weapon at detonation.
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Sick people live everywhere, not aware of a specific place where they are concentrated.
magnumdart said:
See what I mean. While we are thinking may leak, the atoms do not care. They will leak whether we think they may or not.
Do you fire up a new 440 because you think somebody MAY have installed the camshaft correctly?
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You said they were leaking, I said they might as I can’t prove that they never have.

I have no idea where you are going with the 440 thing?
 
tjpatte said:
What are these “things” and “stuff” you are talking about?

Just out of curiosity, you said you were a “nuc”, what field of nuclear power did you work in? Sounds like you might be on the theoretical side of things?
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Yea sorry, I've really said enough and I'm getting sloppy. I haven't had much of anything to do with that industry for a long time. Too much bs. My physics training happened at Mare Island.
Things is just my way of saying elements. Stuff is just different isotopes, waste, just junk in general.
There are people with far more knowledge than I could ever hope to have.
 
tjpatte said:
Sick people live everywhere, not aware of a specific place where they are concentrated.


You said they were leaking, I said they might as I can’t prove that they never have.

I have no idea where you are going with the 440 thing?
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illnesses near nuc generators are well documented. Many have been around for a long time.
They must be vented, to outside air.
I just tried to make a correlation between what may happen at a reactor and what may happen to an engine...I just picked 440. The point is someone may have installed the cam properly, so to ascertain that it is you would fire it to see?
Now, time to go nuc dinner.
 
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