[beamthegreat]

I don't understand why people hate nuclear power. Although the cost of building the plant is expensive, it is cheaper than using coal power in the long term since an extremely small amount of uranium can power the whole city for years. Additionally, it does not produce any green house gas and is extremely clean. The methods of transporting and burying the spent fuel is also very safe. The only reason I cash think of is that they are afraid it will explode which is extremely rare. It also doesn't happen in modern nuclear plants. The recent meltdown in fukushima happened because the plant was built 40 years ago. If they replaced the plants every 20 years or so, no accidents would happen.
 
I have no objections against enviromentalist but these freak are complaining without thinking. They do not want nuclear power since they are afraid of it. They do not wan't Hydropower since it kills fishes and destroy forest. They are against wind power since they kill birds and bats. So what energy source do they want that can replace ANY of the above.

 

[Head Injury]

We should be moving toward renewable sources of energy. Nuclear power can and should be used as a stepping stone between fossil fuels and renewable sources. Unfortunately, with all the regulations that must be followed, the initial cost to build a plant is so large that returns can only be made over the long term. That discourages the progression toward renewable sources. If we focus too much on nuclear power, we'll be as reliant on it as we are fossil fuels because no one will want to invest in the next step. If we ignore it completely, we'll run out of energy long before we can get any other infrastructure in place.
 
So we're screwed either way 

 
But I think the term nuclear proliferation mostly applies to nuclear weapons, not energy generation.

 

[mark2410]

Quote:

 
But I think the term nuclear proliferation mostly applies to nuclear weapons, not energy generation.

x2
 
 
but no, nuclear may on average be safe, but when it goes bad it does it in the most spectacular ways.  also from the typical types of reactor the waste products last a length of time that is beyond our comprehension.  its longer than we have existed for as a species.
 
that said id be all for thorium reactors

 

[christophrowley]

 
Personally, I'd rather take a risk with nuclear power than see climate change do its worst. Given our power needs, renewable energy sources just aren't dense enough. I like to think we'll see nuclear fusion in my lifetime but maybe that's the optimistic nerd in me. 
 
Saw this a while back. Pretty interesting TED talk with Bill Gates. Might be worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I
 

 

[maverickronin]

Mini-rant time...
 
I hate when people say "renewable" energy.  No such thing has yet been discovered.  The only question is how long the supply lasts.
 
On topic, more nuke plants would certainly buy us time get fusion reactors working which are probably the "greenest" thing on the horizon.  I'm skeptical of large scale usage of solar power and wave generators.  On a large enough scale to replace fossil fuel power plants I can see the large amounts of redirected energy changing weather patterns just like extra CO2 can.  Someone more knowledgeable than me would have to crunch some serious numbers to find out what the effect of pumping large quantities of solar energy out of the worlds deserts would be.  OTOH removing large amounts of energy from the oceans with wave generators could cool it slightly and mitigate sea level rise via thermal contraction but could cause other issues as well.  Numbers need to be crunched there too.
 
There's probably a happy medium where it all works out by using different methods of energy generation but that balance will likely be difficult to find and even harder to implement worldwide.  Basically if we just go with one method its likely to cause trouble in the future.
 
On a much longer time scale the intelligent inhabitants of Earth (which may not even include Homo Sapiens by then) will probably have to find a way to cope with the waste heat of rising energy usage and the increase of solar luminosity over time.  Possibilities include forcibly scrubbing the majority of greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere, developing a way to radiate waste heat into space, or just moving to a different planet...

 

[grokit]

Yes, I want nuclear proliferation everywhere. I want a nuclear powered automobile, computer, headphone amplifier, and toothbrush. It needs to be made safer but there's too many people anyways and if we keep going with petroleum we'll all choke from carbon monoxide poisoning. Small-scale nuclear power is the future.

 

[Enter Darkness]

Where i live we use hydro power. Other then damming a river and causing vast man made lakes i feel more confident with it's safety then nuclear power. However we have to realize that the way we live cannot go on forever and we will eventually run out of power. For example we only have approximately 40 years left of oil.

 

[christophrowley]

Quote:

Where i live we use hydro power. Other then damming a river and causing vast man made lakes i feel more confident with it's safety then nuclear power. However we have to realize that the way we live cannot go on forever and we will eventually run out of power. For example we only have approximately 40 years left of oil.

Depends how you define running out of power. We'll run out of energy we can obtain from fossil fuels, as you say, but fusion would be able to sustain our power needs for millennia. That is assuming we ever get to a stage where we can control it. 

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Where i live we use hydro power. Other then damming a river and causing vast man made lakes i feel more confident with it's safety then nuclear power. However we have to realize that the way we live cannot go on forever and we will eventually run out of power. For example we only have approximately 40 years left of oil.

There are only so many rivers you dam up like that and in fully industrialized countries they've pretty much all been exhausted.  If one of those dams happens to break the damage can be just as bad if not greater than a nuclear disaster.  There are actually very safe reactor designs available today as well.

 

[logwed]

In the sense of the proliferation of nuclear weapons (which as HeadInjury has said, is the standard use of the phrase), I do not support nuclear proliferation.
 
As far as increasing the share of power generation, I definitely am for more reliance on nuclear energy. Nuclear disasters have been overstated (with the exception of Chernobyl, which was purely human error). Three Mile Island, the containment vessel functioned perfectly, in Fukushima, the reactors were hit by an earthquake and a tsunami, anything will fail given those conditions.

 

[pigmode]

Whatever's needed so I can party like its 1999.

 

[fubar3]

Nuclear power comes with risk of something bad happening. But if the risk is not accepted and mitigated, then something bad will certainly happen.  For instance, China will dig all the coal out of Mongolia and turn the sky black. Not to pick on China, the US cuts the top off mountains.

 

[Deathdeisel]

While i think nuclear power is somewhat of a good thing its also quite bad. Too much toxic waste is produced that will essentially be forever untouchable. And of course if something ever went wrong with one anywhere in the US, it would essentially be un-inhabitable for the next couple hundred years. Wind so far is the most renewable resource, and safest. I wonder if there were ever a way to harness the power of electromagnets into a proper force. 

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

While i think nuclear power is somewhat of a good thing its also quite bad. Too much toxic waste is produced that will essentially be forever untouchable. And of course if something ever went wrong with one anywhere in the US, it would essentially be un-inhabitable for the next couple hundred years. Wind so far is the most renewable resource, and safest. I wonder if there were ever a way to harness the power of electromagnets into a proper force. 

Wait, the U.S. would be uninhabitable? Don't you think that's an exaggeration? Japan is way smaller than the U.S. and the vast majority of the population isn't being troubled by Fukushima.

 

[grokit]

Quote:

I wonder if there were ever a way to harness the power of electromagnets into a proper force. 

Seeing as electromagnets require electricity I'm not sure what the point would be.
 
Now if you had some rare earth magnets that generated electricity is stasis you would really have something. Unfortunately all you would likely get out of it is a visit from some men in black.