Nuclear power - the green option?

oscarBravo

I was quite surprised to read in this month's Reader's Digest that James Lovelock, the author of the Gaia hypothesis, is strongly in favour of nuclear power. Apparently he's been saying this for some time.

On the surface, it appears to make sense. What do people think? I've often thought that nuclear power, if properly managed, was a good idea. Pebble bed reactors, anyone?

Saruman

Yes but when a reactor goes bad.. it goes BAD!!!
chernobyl being the obvious example!!
And only about 13% of the radioactive material actually escaped in chernobyl .. imagine if 50% or 100% had!!!!

Doper Than U

why nuclear power isn't a solution

At present there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build 2000 large, 1000-megawatt reactors. Considering that no new nuclear plant has been ordered in the US since 1978, this proposal is less than practical. Furthermore, even if we decided today to replace all fossil-fuel-generated electricity with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically viable uranium to fuel the reactors for three to four years.

Capt'n Midnight

James Lovelock is some one who has a very interesting solution to nuclear and toxic waste like heavy metals etc. Dump it in the amazon rain forest and other wildlife refuges. The idea is that having a contaminated habitat free from people is better for the animals than having humans wipe out thier habitat.

Fossil fuel technology is very similar to that using bio-fuels. Nuclear fission isn't exactly applicable elsewhere.

Pebble reactors can be made small , very small and so could proliferate , every small town could have one, wouldn't take a huge effort to develop a breeder reactor from it IMHO and that's the last thing you want - nuclear plants need heavy security.

breadmonkey

i'm confused:

1.Nuclear Facility + Uranium/Plutonium
2.Power
3.Radioactive waste
4.--->???<---
5.Green?

CathalMc

I guess disclaimer first off, I'm a technophile with no great aspirations to "green ideals" or the like, but merely some conscientious views on some of the more obvious debates. I'm all for nuclear power, we were having a discussion about future of power in the engineering board which i'll cross reference for ye: [HTML]http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=194148 [/HTML]

Unfortunately, the whole nuclear debacle of the last century has left a nasty taste in alot of peoples mouths regarding it, and with considerable reason too, no doubt about it. However, current research in China is in pebble-bed reactors as the grandparent mentioned, and I suspect this may be the start of a rebirth of nuclear power across the world. And this is good, this technology is designed to be "walk away safe", as in there is no highly delicate adjustments of control rods, no huge domes of concrete and steal to contain any meltdowns because meltdown prevention is an intrinsic property of the engineering principles behind this. Assuming that the production of fuel elements (silicon carbide covered cells of uranium) and safe disposal is sufficiently intelligent in design, this whole endeavour seems exciting on a lot of levels.

Capt'n Midnight

Anyone remember the village smelters / furnaces idea in China ?

And there is always the problem of waste disposal. Ignore all the stuff about geological stability - what is the economic and political half life of areas with nuclear power ?

First the economic life - the breakup of the USSR means that lots of reactors in lots of different countries under different regiems not all will be able to allocate sufficient resources to decomissining on an on going basis.

As for political stability http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/yugoslavia/yugoslavia109.html

Krsko, Yugoslavia's first nuclear power station, was designed by the United States firm Westinghouse; it began transmitting power from its site in eastern Slovenia in 1982

India and Pakistan have been at war, Iran & Iraq. 60 years ago any reactor/processing facility in europe, japan , much of china and south east asia and large parts of the middle east would have probably have been targeted.

The pebble reactors mentioned would probably be air transportable in an Anatanov, which can land on grass etc.