Nuclear and alternative power generation methods
 

MOD EDIT: This thread has been split off from the Japan Earthquake thread.


I have said for ages that in order for the events of Chernobyl to repeat themselves, all that needs to happen is for the cooling system of a power plant to fail and for the reactor to overheat. And I'm really, really hoping for their sake that it hasn't happened - Can you imagine how terrible that would be ontop of an earthquake and tsunami?

Hopefully the superior construction of this power plant compared to the one at Chernobyl means that they can better contain radioactive material. But seriously, this is case and point of why we should stop using nuclear power - Sure, not every country is vulnerable to earthquakes, but does it really need an earthquake for the cooling system and backup generators to fail?

What?! Chernobyl only happened because they were OVERCLOCKING THE REACTOR! Even if there was a meltdown from this power station the blow would be a lot lot lot less severe.

You come up with a viable alternative to nuclear power that does it's job efficiently (wind mills are bullshit for their money, so is solar at this point) and we'll get on that right away.

What I've been screaming for years is that all countries should be pumping a LOT of extra money into cold fusion research. Hell, if the US had spent the money they used for the Iraq war on cold fusion research we'd have a functional plant right now.

At Chernobyl, they shut down the cooling system before doing their silly experiment - They didn't notice the reactor was getting hot because the plant was built hastily and cheaply and their heat detectors were dysfunctional. They first removed the control rods for the experiment, then stuck them back in - Control rods initially made the reactor create more heat when they were meant to slow the reaction down. That pushed it over the edge, and it boiled the water causing a build up of steam pressure, and it blew apart the reactor.

Although the situation in Japan isn't as severe as this, apparently it's similar - There isn't a working cooling system. The reactors are overheating/have already overheated, boiling water and creating lots of steam pressure, and there's bugger-all they can do about it. Just their plants are better built than Chernobyl so shouldn't spread vast amounts of radioactive material everywhere.

I think the future is solar energy - It makes a lot of sense considering it's a large contributing factor to life being on Earth. It just needs a lot of investment which people don't really seem prepared to do.

Parabolic mirrors or lenses which focus the suns energy to a point (link) may be the way forward with that - You can set many of these up in desert areas, though you'll have to keep the mirrors and lenses clean. You can even have solar towers for generating power where there isn't as much sun. As for transporting the energy - You can use this power to generate hydrogen gas locally in the desert areas and transport that around the world for burning.

Think it's unsafe and impractical? Think about how complex nuclear power is, how we transport flammable gas around the world, and the massive, massive amount of money that we pour into gathering coal and oil. Yes, you need water to generate hydrogen, but it doesn't have to be clean water as far as I know. You can pipeline or transport that from afar, like we do with oil.

If you want to be more radical, people are even talking about setting up solar panels on the moon (link), which gets a lot of sun and doesn't have an atmosphere, then beaming the power back to Earth using microwave energy. And apparently you can create the solar panels by using materials that are already on the moon.

Cold fusion is a wild goose, there's no evidence that it is even a thing. It's falsification is a textbook case of the scientific method at it's best. Hot fusion we know is possible, there's just a technical hurdle in the way of constructing controlled fusion reactors for commercial purposes. They are completely safe, because fusion requires many precise conditions to work and any damage or problem would cause the process to immediately cease, and without fusion there is no radiation.

@Darkhood: You would need many many solar plants to even come close to the power production of 1 nuclear plant. And even if there is plenty of room in the desert you still have to transport it to actual cities. Creating hydrogen gas takes energy as well. Transporting it costs energy. Burning it costs energy. It wouldn't surprise me if the process you described costs more energy then it yields.

@ Havoc - What about the tar sands in Canada that take one barrel of oil per every 2 barrels extracted? And that doesn't include transporting the stuff. Fossil fuels and nuclear fuel need a ton of energy to produce - Your argument could also be applied to them.

My point was that you can harness the power of the sun to create energy with parabolic mirrors and focal beams - It's something that is being done already but IMO not being done on a large enough scale. That energy can be used directly as electricity or converted to another form or energy (eg. Hydrogen) to transport it to distant areas that don't have as much sunlight as desert areas.

EDIT: Oh yeah, to keep on topic: According to this news report, I was right, one of the buildings surrounding a reactor was destroyed, but the reactor itself is still intact within its steel container. Apparently anyway. I hope that's correct for their sake.

I saw designs for solar power plants for the Australian outback. They consisted of two kilometre wide (or radius) discs, which collect the heat and funnel it to a kilometre tall tower in the centre, full of turbines. It was magnificent.

I thought that Chernobyl was just almost every single person working at the plant simultaneously not giving a shit about safety for some reason and fucking it up big time?

Although new alternative source project are going into process really fast, applying it to the cities and surroundings is very, very slow, due to the actual state of the world. Every world government should approve some alternative energy to Nuclear plants, but this seems to be a taboo subject in parliament.

No, this.

Now that is an interesting idea.

Not really efficient if you ask me. A 1000m high tower and an area of 38(!!!) square kilometers (I keep thinking I read that wrong but it says it right there) is enough for only 200.000 houses.

I tried doing the math on how much room it would take to power one single house, but I kept coming to weird numbers.

38.000 x 38.000 = * / 200.000 = *

I'm not sure if I'm using the right logic there but whatever.

It would have to be build where the land value is very low. There are no shortages of such places. Were we could harness the Sahara, it could power the world.

You say that as if it's a small thing. Do you have any idea how many failsafes have to break down in modern nuclear plants in order for cooling systems to completely fail? The problem with Chernobyl was not just that they were overclocking the plant, it was that a seperate team had disabled part of the cooling system for maintenance and the Soviet beaurocracy meant that neither team was aware of what the other was doing.

What's more, plants being built today use lead as heat transfer medium rather than heavy water, so that if it leaks it will just cool off and solidify, rather than evaporate and spread in to the atmosphere. And Chinese researchers are working on using pellets of uranium enclosed in steel balls, which means that the plant can never overheat - if it gets too hot, the balls expand and thus increase the distance between the uranium blocks, slowing down the reaction.

Nuclear power is actually very safe and relatively eco-friendly due to the extended half life of Uranium and Plutonium. People seem to think that every power plant is a nuclear bomb in a building. This is only the second dangerous melt-down. In 50 years of history.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned radioactive waste so far. the main reason why I am against the massive use of nuclear power.

It's less destructive than fossil fuel emissions. It's just scarier because it's RADIOACTIVE, WOOOOO

Exactly, and they literally bury it a hundred metres underground, where it can finish it's half lives without effecting the World massively. It's only a problem if say the whole World only used nuclear power.

So say the whole world used only nuclear power. What then?

If we imagine that there actually is an either-or situation, do you think accumulation of nuclear waste underground is worse than the accumulation of greenhouse gases above our heads?

this is a total bullshit answer. you only divert my point by assuming that I endorse fuel emissions. It's important to think in larger scales. most of the radioactive waste will last for 100 000 years. and it's still legal to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. that's terrifying! can you imagine how much that fucks up the ecosystem?
this is politics. and politicians don't think more ahead than for their own life span. I mean, I don't like the fact that such immense decisions have been taken above my head and I can't do shit.

I don't like it when people go out and say 'zomg nuclear power is bad, ban it now!' without actually looking at the situation at hand and coming up with an alternative.

In about 50 years we'll be completely through all our fossil fuels. We'd have thousands of coal and oil plants completely useless and the only way to power massive cities like New York will be nuclear power. That's a simple fact, solar or wind power or even hydro dams won't provide nearly enough power for their money.

If at that point we still haven't found a good alternative, then yes the whole world would be using nuclear power and we'd just have to deal with it unless you want to get used to living without energy.

Nuclear power is as safe as any other fuel, as long as it is treated with the expertise safety that is required. Chernobyl was a clusterfuck of human errors. The reactors in Japan had to endure a 9.0 earthquake and even given the current circumstances non of the plants have gone meltdown yet. And even IF they go meltdown, a good 80% of the radiation will be contained in the structure itself, meaning it would not be nearly as bad a disaster as Chernobyl was.

I'm sure the entire world would love an alternative to nuclear power, but at this point there simply isn't one. Someone should slap the anti nuclear power protesters in the face with a nuclear power plant manual so they can actually see how many safety measures there are in place, instead of ignorantly following the horror stories of the media.

What? I was just being a dick.

Well at this point it's either fossil fuels or nuclear power, since there's no other viable alternative.

I'd imagine it's much less than spewing greenhouse gases into the ecosystem, since it doesn't create huge holes in the ozone layer and doesn't melt the polar ice caps.

CFCs are pollutants, but not greenhouse gases. They break down in ultraviolet light, which produces the free Chlorine radicals that break down thousands of ozone molecules into Ozone. They're a product of the manufacturing industry, not the energy industry.

Also, what is this? Could you run the country then. If you want an input int your countries affairs go and bloody well become an MP or whatever your equivalent is. I'm studying law for a vaguely similar reason.

EDIT: sorry, forgot to actually make a topical insight there. Apparently, we can use bio fuels to produce fuel and that only puts Co2 into the atmosphere that was already in the Earth in well, shit. In Africa a massive source of power is shit burning, I forget the correct term.

Methane collection?

Usually biofuels are vegetable oils. It is essentially solar power, and you need a lot of land to make it worthwhile, which puts strain on food production and water supplies, and I suspect that growing and transporting it requires more energy on our part than is produced. I don't have the figures, but it is not at present particularly viable. Methane biofuel is most useful as a low-tech solution where other options are not available.

Oh fair enough, what about hydrogen though, it is relatively stable under the correct conditions and could be used to power vehicles. Safeties and issue though.