nuclear power plants
 

are you for or against. on one side it is a very clean and efficient source of power, on the other side it has one heck of a byproduct.

well, 2 sentances, is that a record for a topic starter?

I'm absolutely against it. They're now planning to build a fifth nuclear power plant in Finland and I think the vote will be soon. I just hope that most people will vote against it..

Clean? In what way?

Nuclear power is great, way better than just about any power. Cheaper than coal without nasty smog, pretty safe when you think about: I can count all the "meltdowns" that killed people probably on one hand. The Point Beach power plant is very cool place to visit and employs lot of people in Wisconsin. Sure if you cut corners it is dangerous, but isn't that true of a lot of things. Nuclear and water power all the way! And George bush, the Yucca Mountains is a great dupming spot, perfect for great bootled waste. Believe me, ooze won't pour out of the mountains destroying pristine wildlife, it is as safe as mother' s milk. Up with nuke-yoo-ler power, down with terrorist organizations!

Surprisingly, I have very little against Nuclear Power. As it stands, it is unsafe, and we shouldn't rush into anything, but if handled correctly and safely, it has the potential to be a highly efficient, clean, and safe power source.

It all depends on whether you're talking about Fission or Fusion, which are totally different things, in environmental terms. With Fission, you get Meltdowns and Nuclear Waste, but with Fusion, you don't get either. Unfortunately, Fusion is not as well-documented as Fission, so people are reluctant to develop it...

Cheaper? May be.. but is that the most important thing? Safe? *hmm* Well sure there haven't been so many meltdowns, but those that have been killed many people and are still polluting and effecting the generations to come.. And the toxic waste? Wont pour out, eyeh? How can you be sure of that? And if it keeps on coming, where can you put all that?

Yeah.. I know that fission and fusion are a two different things and i know what they are. It would be great if we could use fusion, but isn't it impossible for now? They're just studying it..

:( Sorry, didn't mean to sound patronising, there... Twice in as many minutes, I really ought to stop it...

Oh.. no offence taken. I don't think everyone knows what fission and fusion mean. I just wanted to point out that I'm wise enough to know.. :o

(inaccurate) info
 

Since we are talking about nuclear fission and fusion, could I add a brief description of both, just to add more content to the subject? Please note that the informations below may be completely inaccurate, I'm just telling what I can remember right now)

Nuclear fission is performed by breaking atoms into smaller ones, releasing a great amount of energy in this process. The best elements to be used in nuclerar fission are instable isotopes of heavy atoms (uranium and plutonium, mostly). Unfortunately, the wastes of those atoms are very radioactive, and can cause many diseases to living beings. Those elements would decay to a non-radioactive atoms after thousands of years, and that's the main issue when we talk about where we should store them after their use in nuclear plants.

Nuclear fusion is the reverse process. It is known to happen inside our sun, in the other stars, and in Hidrogen BOmbs.It performs the junction of lighter atoms into heavy ones, releasing a huge amount of energy. The best element to be used in fusion is Hidrogen and its isotopes, and when the fusion is performed, the resulting elements are almost 100% Helium. Both elementts are not radiactive and therefore can't make harm to living beings.

We can see that nuclear fusion is radioactive-free, and is far more productive than nuclear fission. Unfortunatley, nuclear fusion is a very damn dificult process to handle in a controled experiment, such as a nuclear power plant. Plus, nuclear fusion needs a great amount of energy to happen, because the Hidrogen only "melts" into Helium at around 10 million Kelvin. that unbelievable heat can only be achieved inside the core of stars and nuclear fission bombs, that's why the trigger of a nuclear fusion bomb is, in fact, a nuclear fission bomb.

Conclusion [B](again, it may be totatlly inaccurate)[B]: Although Nuclear fusion would be much more economically viable to produce eletric energy in power plants, it wouldn't be a "clean" procees, since nuclear fission is still needed to produce nuclear fusion.

Because of this, I'm against nuclear power plants on Earth, there are other alternative energy source that are safer. When humans settle colonies on Moon, though, I think it could be a great source of energy over there. :)

Well, there may well be other ways of initiating Nuclear Fusion, other than Nuclear Fission. After all, it is an untested method...

In fact, if anything, I'd say it was more Clean than Economically Viable, considering the energy required to heat the process initially...

lampion: actually for the moon because it doesn't have that much of an atmosphere it would be very efficient to use solar power exept durring (terra?) eclipses. now if only we could find a way to get rid of earths atmosphere...... j/k.

"Lunar Eclipses"