Is nuclear power safe?

Quote from nobama : Let us know how it works out for you with wind power when the wind doesn't blow, and solar power when the sun doesn't shine at night or during inclement weather

There are mitigation strategies for both scenarios.

Quote from loop610bob : There are mitigation strategies for both scenarios.

Such as?

Quote from nobama : Such as?

It's basically the same idea as financial portfolio diversification. You want to go where there is the greatest potential return for investment (ie solar in the southwest, wind in the midwest, geo wherever) but you also install at lesser producing sites that would provide a reasonable hedge position. You also can hedge at each site. For example if rain is falling, there is a significant opportunity to capture wind at the same site to minimize localized impact. If all of those somehow are knocked out, your portfolio of wave energy should be performing quite nicely.

Quote from loop610bob : It's basically the same idea as financial portfolio diversification. You want to go where there is the greatest potential return for investment (ie solar in the southwest, wind in the midwest, geo wherever) but you also install at lesser producing sites that would provide a reasonable hedge position. You also can hedge at each site. For example if rain is falling, there is a significant opportunity to capture wind at the same site to minimize localized impact. If all of those somehow are knocked out, your portfolio of wave energy should be performing quite nicely.

ok let me go one step further

let me know what mitigating strategy there is for the US to start adopting these strategies, and China/India ignoring conservation and increasing their energy use.

Quote from azianai : ok let me go one step further let me know what mitigating strategy there is for the US to start adopting these strategies, and China/India ignoring conservation and increasing their energy use.

I take it to mean your question is an environmental one. If I understand you, you're asking if there is a hedge against environmental damage due to their increasing fossil fuel use. There isn't one on the face of it. From an economic stand point, energy is far and away the most constraining factor on the world economy. I think we will experience a great leap forward when we are able to decouple the price of oil and gas from the cost of doing business. I think that the price of oil would become far more elastic and it will price itself accordingly to remain competitive. But then the countries that are built on high oil inelasticity will fall. It will become more trouble than it's worth to deal with them when alternative sources have no political consequences (well, none compared to the monstrosity that oil/gas is).

Just my opinion.

BTW, I originally had thought that it was the earthquake that had damaged the water pumps that supplied the cooling water to the core, but it was actually the tsunami that broke them by submerging them. There was no structural damage to any of the reactor facilities as part of the earthquake. Lesson: don't put your water pumps in a location where they can be damaged by seawater in the case of a tsunami - either put them above sea level or contain them with something like a levee.

Great explanation of why the Fukushima accident is/was not the crisis it has been made out to be:

http://theenergycollective.com/ba...xplanation

Quote from riptide_slick : Great explanation of why the Fukushima accident is/was not the crisis it has been made out to be: http://theenergycollective.com/ba...xplanation

The author seems to be a Supply Chain expert.

http://web.mit.edu/oehmen/www/

I'm not sure why he's writing as a nuclear power expert.

Other scientists commenting on the thread are disputing some of his information.

Hopefully this incident can lead to a safe integration of nuclear power into a national policy of increased renewable sources and decreased fossil fuel sources. Good luck finding any populated area willing to allow the construction of a new plant though.

Reactor #2 just had an explosion, worry that the containment vessel is damaged
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/t...6021613072

Quote from Radeck : 14 people killed in a NYC tour bus accident [yahoo.com]...let's ban tour buses because they are unsafe. 19 killed in a coal mine blast [foxnews.com]...let's ban coal mines too. sadly, as others have stated, people in the media and (generally) on the left with a blind anvirowacko / anti-nuke agenda don't care about facts...just sensationalist headlines and claims to further their own warped logic.

Those are stupid analogies, nobody would give a rats ass about nuclear power if it only posed a danger to the people inside and around the plants, the way a tour bus and coal mine do. When something poses a risk to hundreds of thousands or potentially even millions of people in a huge radius when there's a catastrophe, that's pretty damn significant. If that tour bus held the capability to force an evacuation 20 miles wide in the Bronx that day exposing hundreds of thousands to dangerous radiation, I'm pretty sure people might be thinking about banning tour buses.

Quote from riptide_slick : So what? The Hindenburg disaster killed lots of people too - should we ban the Goodyear blimp or maybe have we learned from some of our past mistakes? It might be logical to look at the worst case scenario if no significant time had passed since that event and technology and knowledge hadn't progressed, but it has. There is no way anything remotely resembling what happened at Chernobyl would ever happen today.

Actually the Hindenberg disaster wrecked the potential of airship travel, nobody turned around and continued filling huge airships with volatile Hydrogen gas. The Goodyear blimp is a HELIUM airship. Helium is a noble gas and inert. If you can find an "inert" nuclear option, I'm sure the public will be plenty happy to make that an option.

Any resident meteorologists care to chime on jet stream patterns? Good, bad and ugly please. There's a dearth of quality information coming out Japan... It seems like we are getting gold nuggets every time a reactor explodes. And with the 'trend being our friend', I am expecting the 4th to blow it's lid...

TIA

Quote from shhaggy : Actually the Hindenberg disaster wrecked the potential of airship travel, nobody turned around and continued filling huge airships with volatile Hydrogen gas. The Goodyear blimp is a HELIUM airship. Helium is a noble gas and inert. If you can find an "inert" nuclear option, I'm sure the public will be plenty happy to make that an option.

I'm well aware of the differences between the two situations, and that's why I used them as examples. The point is that we learned from the Hindenburg disaster and made that particular form of air travel safer, just as we've learned from accidents like Chernobyl and we're going to learn from the accidents in Japan.

There is no perfect energy production solution - none of them come without some kind of danger or environmental cost. As soon as we find one I'll stop advocating for nuclear and start advocating for that. But we're not there yet and nuclear is the best option we have. If you're looking for proven track records for nuclear, you need look no further than our US Navy. But of course there are plenty of other examples as well.