John McCain has been leading the charge for more nuclear power plants for years. VOTE GREEN - VOTE MCCAIN

OOoooo....that guy is gonna get ELF'ed....

Greenpeace like PeTA is nothing but a bunch of attention whores more interested in raising money than actually doing anything for the world.

They're almost as up to date as the Catholic Church.

This link is green.

This guy is correct, but only if it is done right.

This nation needs to follow Canada's lead by creating a standardized reactor design. Canada did it starting in the 1960s with their CANDU reactor design, so such a principal is not unreachable.

Such a design would be good for a number of reasons. Parts could be mass produced, construction contractors could get experience from repetitive builds, training could be standardized and design flaws could be more easily detected and corrected.

The guy is right about the costs associated with natural gas fired turbines. Natural gas is getting very expensive - my gas bill for the water heater, cooktop and furnace (which I use 3 months out of the year here in Arizona) is going up at a rate faster than inflation. The supply of natural gas is somewhat fixed, yet the power industry is adding a huge load onto existing capacity. That sucks.

That's why I left Greenpeace: I could see that my fellow directors, none of whom had any science education, were starting to deal with issues around chemicals and biology and genetics, which they had no formal training in, and they were taking the organization into what I call "pop environmentalism,"

Only took him 15 years to figure that out. I guess there is hope.

Nuclear energy is the best way to curtail global warming in the immediate future. But all you hear is whining about Chernobyl and dirty bombs.

Too bad he changed his mind way too late. It seems that there are laws on the books in most countries that make it illegal to do anything with radio active waste so no one can do any research on it, they can't move it, they can't reprocess it and they can't even store it. Those laws are almost all a direct result of Greenpeace and their misinformed lobbying efforts.

Dinjiin: The guy is right about the costs associated with natural gas fired turbines. Natural gas is getting very expensive - my gas bill for the water heater, cooktop and furnace (which I use 3 months out of the year here in Arizona) is going up at a rate faster than inflation. The supply of natural gas is somewhat fixed, yet the power industry is adding a huge load onto existing capacity. That sucks.

But still, isn't there a lot of cost involved with nuclear when you decommission the stations? So I've been told anyway.

If this is the guy I'm thinking of, he's been noting their asshattery for quite a few years now.

the power plant my uncle works at has been operational since the 70s. the government said they would come every 10 years to take the waste from the facility to a safe storage location. so far they have shown up 0 times. all the waste that that plant has ever created is still there. they've had to redesign their storage area a few times to safely hold that much waste in such a small area without risking it going critical.

I guess they finally figured out that nuclear waste tends to be much smaller in volume and way more localized than the pollutants being spewed out of smokestacks everywhere.

where will the nuclear waste go? i doubt yucca mountain will be available anytime soon. Link (new window)

BMFPitt: If this is the guy I'm thinking of, he's been noting their asshattery for quite a few years now.

Yeah--is this the one that realizes they're just a bunch of anti-corporation asshats?

Greenpeace needs a few more visits from the fine men and women of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure.

Excellent.

Bucky Katt: where will the nuclear waste go? i doubt yucca mountain will be available anytime soon. Link (new window)

There's plenty of places we could store it where any damage it causes would be negligible - Oregon, Berkeley, San Francisco . . .

Thank you!



Signed, every radworker in the United States

If hydrogen energy (fuel cells and the like) is going to be in any way practical, nuclear reactors will be needed to produce cheap electric power and hydrogen. In southern maine they tore out the nuclear power plant, and now they are thinking of putting in a coal plant. I cant think of an example much worse than that. Granted it was old and the coal plant is supposedly clean, but its still a step in the wrong direction.

nuclear power, f*ck yeah, comin' to sh*t on the motherf*cking a-rabs, nuclear power, f*ck yeah,...

'Bout Goddam' time

I met someone who claimed that there are only 30 years or so of known uranium reserves for nuclear fission, and this was his main argument against nuclear. Is this true? Any info would be appreciated.

Bucky Katt: where will the nuclear waste go? i doubt yucca mountain will be available anytime soon. Link (new window)

Renew, reuse, recycle. It's silly that we don't reprocess fuel in this country.

Funk Brothers: Excellent.

While I'm not opposed the nuclear power at all, it should be noted that Patrick Moore is now in the employ the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear power lobbing group who pays him to create these stirs.

There also exists a lot of controversy among other Greenpeace founders about whether Moore was himself a co-founder, or simply an early member.

So basically, he's just an old environmentalist who changed his mind about nuclear energy, and now the industry pays to wheel him out as though he were an "expert" on the subject.

Nuclear energy: what could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah...



But it's totally worth the risk -- that iPod isn't going to charge itself!

Err, "lobbying group."

Bucky Katt: where will the nuclear waste go? i doubt yucca mountain will be available anytime soon.

"Nuclear waste" is exactly what it says: Wasted energy that could have been put to better use. Until Jimmy Carter unilaterally shut down all US efforts in the area, domestic research into reprocessing was moving nicely. Now, I'm sorry to say, the French pretty much have things working smoothly... but it's still banned in the US. Here's how it works:

* Take used fuel rods out of the reactor.
* Melt all the old fuel rods from lots of reactors together.
* Run the combined mixture through the same enrichment processes used originally to create the fuel.
* Pull out the newly-enriched reprocessed fuel and cast it into new fuel rods.
* Throw away the extra part that isn't radioactive anymore. Called "nuclear ash", this part is actually less radioactive than generic dirt.

fifth_of_november: I met someone who claimed that there are only 30 years or so of known uranium reserves for nuclear fission, and this was his main argument against nuclear. Is this true? Any info would be appreciated.

Based on the 2004 nuclear electricity generation rate of demand the amount is sufficient for 85 years, the study states. Fast reactor technology would lengthen this period to over 2500 years. (new window)

MrEricSir: Nuclear energy: what could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah...

But it's totally worth the risk -- that iPod isn't going to charge itself!

multilevel-FAIL

He's been saying this for years.

MrEricSir: Nuclear energy: what could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah...



But it's totally worth the risk -- that iPod isn't going to charge itself!

Except there's virtually zero risk of a meltdown anymore...

fifth_of_november

Longer than thirty years, but yes, fission has to be a stop-gap measure.

or as Bush says "nuculer"

Good. I completely understand the concern about waste, but other countries have been able to make it work. We should too.

Yes, nuclear power is fine. I mean if something goes wrong and a meltdown happens (it's a small chance I know) you only end up with miles and miles of irradiated wasteland along with a radioactive cloud that will drift to who knows where. People can just move out, they did with Chernobyl. And that spent nuclear fuel waste that takes 100,000 to decay - who cares! That's something future generations can worry about.

global wombats: Funk Brothers: Excellent.

Winner.

You guys sure spell nukular funny.

Bucky Katt: where will the nuclear waste go? i doubt yucca mountain will be available anytime soon. Link (new window)

yucca is all booked up even before it opens, so is the waste isolation pilot plant in new mexico (waste being temporarily stored above ground). these are the only two sites in the us qualified to safely store high level and transuranic waste.

theres nowhere to put that stuff, well, there's always hanford:


mid-90s era photo - green as can be.

i advocate geothermal energy.

Barakku: MrEricSir: Nuclear energy: what could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah...

But it's totally worth the risk -- that iPod isn't going to charge itself!

Except there's virtually zero risk of a meltdown anymore...

Oh, so they've finally fired Homer?

Ny-QuilDriver: Yes, nuclear power is fine. I mean if something goes wrong and a meltdown happens (it's a small chance I know) you only end up with miles and miles of irradiated wasteland along with a radioactive cloud that will drift to who knows where. People can just move out, they did with Chernobyl. And that spent nuclear fuel waste that takes 100,000 to decay - who cares! That's something future generations can worry about.

2/10, and you only get the 2 for above average grammar and spelling.

Dinjiin: This guy is correct, but only if it is done right.

This nation needs to follow Canada's lead by creating a standardized reactor design.

Just buy from Canada.

Ny-QuilDriver

What, do you prefer your radiation delivered by coal power stations?

Ny-QuilDriver: Yes, nuclear power is fine. I mean if something goes wrong and a meltdown happens (it's a small chance I know) you only end up with miles and miles of irradiated wasteland along with a radioactive cloud that will drift to who knows where. People can just move out, they did with Chernobyl. And that spent nuclear fuel waste that takes 100,000 to decay - who cares! That's something future generations can worry about.

Hear hear! Don't these fools realize that we can power everything we need to just from the energy of our own personal smug?

/idiots

Barakku: Except there's virtually zero risk of a meltdown anymore...

There has always been "virtually zero risk of a meltdown," yet we had already had two in the first thirty-five years of nuclear power.

DewdropsOnTheGrass: Barakku: MrEricSir: Nuclear energy: what could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah...

But it's totally worth the risk -- that iPod isn't going to charge itself!

Except there's virtually zero risk of a meltdown anymore...

Oh, so they've finally fired Homer?

I think they did a long time ago; I've been in and out since season ten or so.

/He woulda pulled a homer anyway.

Ny-QuilDriver: Yes, nuclear power is fine. I mean if something goes wrong and a meltdown happens (it's a small chance I know) you only end up with miles and miles of irradiated wasteland along with a radioactive cloud that will drift to who knows where. People can just move out, they did with Chernobyl. And that spent nuclear fuel waste that takes 100,000 to decay - who cares! That's something future generations can worry about.

Yeah, just like what happened when we had the core damage at Three Mile Island! Oh wait...

Chernobyl is in no way comparable to the nuclear plants constructed in the United States.

MrEricSir

Sorry to burst your bubble, but a nuclear reactor is not capable of reaching critical mass. With proper design and shielding (Which the Russians neglected...) nuclear energy is perfectly safe.

Sooner or later it's going to be the major power source for the world, maybe it will be 50-100 years before the price of fossil fuels becomes so high that the economic damage outweighs the "Fear" of nuclear power, but there simply are no other options on the horizon for places without substantial hydroelectric potential.