Should we use nuclear power as energy source anymore?

[skq]

A lot of countries announced that they want to stop using nuclear power as energy source. What's your opinion?

 

[Linc]

fission and/or fusion

 

[Northern Light]

Once battery technology improves we will not need nuclear and can instead rely on green energy. The problem has always been storage capacity and efficiency. Nuclear power is better than oil but only if there's no accidents. One major meltdown and the global biosphere gets contaminated for potentially thousands of years, if Chernobyl and Fukushima are any indication. The risk of incident is low but single incidents carry huge consequences.

 

[sookster]

We can easily power the world combining various methods of green energy (wind, tide, solar, wave, geothermal). It just boils down to finances. Solar is getting to be cheap - India is already cancelling 14 coal burning power plants because solar is so cheap now.

 

[joG]

We can easily power the world combining various methods of green energy (wind, tide, solar, wave, geothermal). It just boils down to finances. Solar is getting to be cheap - India is already cancelling 14 coal burning power plants because solar is so cheap now.

Yes. Solar is getting quite cheap on sunny days.
Thing is, batteries are expensive at night.

 

[joG]

A lot of countries announced that they want to stop using nuclear power as energy source. What's your opinion?

If that's what they want....

 

[skq]

And interesting result so far, in some European countries, an overwhelming majority opposes the using of nuclear power plants.

 

[WillyPete]

One option I wish we'd see some action on is better nuclear.

I'm a big fan of thorium reactors, as they have many advantages over uranium based designs:

It doesn't have the same potential for run away reactions as uranium.
The fuel is more plentiful.
It can be used to recycle existing spent uranium fuel.

 

[Cigar]

I'm sure there was a lot of resistance to Henry Ford from Horse Ranchers.

 

[BillRM]

Once battery technology improves we will not need nuclear and can instead rely on green energy. The problem has always been storage capacity and efficiency. Nuclear power is better than oil but only if there's no accidents. One major meltdown and the global biosphere gets contaminated for potentially thousands of years, if Chernobyl and Fukushima are any indication. The risk of incident is low but single incidents carry huge consequences.

Sorry but chernobyl was no indication as it was a plant with a 1950 design employing carbon rods that is not in used for power generating anywhere in the west and in order to get it to melt down they needed to take every safety device off line while running tests.

The Japanese plants was of most more modern design and ended up harming no one even if the cost of clean up is out of sight.

 

[Kal'Stang]

A lot of countries announced that they want to stop using nuclear power as energy source. What's your opinion?

Not really a "yes/no" answer to this to be honest. There are advantages to nuclear vs green energy.

Ideally no, we shouldn't use nuclear to power our homes. Green energy would be best. Solar panel roofs combined with energy derived from local resources (such as wind in windy areas, tides for coastal ares etc etc) should be enough to power all our home power needs.

That said, green energy is not as reliable as nuclear power. Solar panels only work on sunny days, wind power only works on windy days (and even then it depends on how much wind is going through the area), tide power only works in areas along the coast line and would not be enough to power an entire country and geothermal power is not near advanced enough to be cost effective in even the slightest of ways and even then you have to watch out where you're getting the geothermal power from as you certainly don't want to drill a hole in the Earths crust at a fault point.

In the end, nuclear power should be used until such time as all the green energy is made far more reliable and cost effective than what it is currently.

 

[BillRM]

And interesting result so far, in some European countries, an overwhelming majority opposes the using of nuclear power plants.

I love that in the 1960s people who have no clue concerning safety issues concerning nuclear power plants would go out to protest having them build in the US.

While happily living down wind of coal plants that beside everything else one coal plant was putting more radiation in the air and ground water then a hundred nuclear plants all together by way of the coal ash containing uranium and thorium.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/


Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * [See Editor's Note at end of page 2]
At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.
Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.
In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants.
The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.
McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.
Dana Christensen, associate lab director for en

 

[Helix]

Should we use nuclear power as energy source anymore?

sure. perhaps we should look into thorium technology and build the power plants via public / private partnerships in order to remove the red tape and buffer the startup cost obstacle.

 

[Fenton]

A lot of countries announced that they want to stop using nuclear power as energy source. What's your opinion?

Absolutely, just dont build nuke plants on coast that are vulnerable to Tsunami's

 

[JamesBY]

Miniaturization of batteries is the answer.

 

[Cephus]

Not only should we, we should use it a lot more than we do.

 

[Cardinal]

A lot of countries announced that they want to stop using nuclear power as energy source. What's your opinion?

Yes. Solar and wind aren't enough on their own.

 

[Northern Light]

Sorry but chernobyl was no indication as it was a plant with a 1950 design employing carbon rods that is not in used for power generating anywhere in the west and in order to get it to melt down they needed to take every safety device off line while running tests.

The Japanese plants was of most more modern design and ended up harming no one even if the cost of clean up is out of sight.

I'm not really speaking to the design but to the risks. Even if there is only a 0.01% chance of a nuclear plant melting down, a single meltdown will affect the environment for centuries. The Daichi plant at Fukushima was considered top notch, except for the fact that it was built near a fault line. That plant is still gradually melting down. The core is seeping into the sub terrain and contaminating the ocean. The media doesn't talk about it much anymore because what is there to say about it? We can't contain it.

We don't even need to look at nuclear plants to understand the contamination risks of nuclear. The U.S. government has detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons within its own borders, in remote regions like the Nevada desert. We know the lingering nature of radiation, what it does to the environment. For all we know the increasing cancer rates of the past 80 years in North America are because of those detonations. What is not really understood is how radiation gets taken up into the atmosphere and distributed globally.

Assuming humanity continues on its technological progression, in 100 years we will be looking back at this energy economy and shaking our heads. Oil, nuclear, gas, and disposable plastics. These 50-60 years of consumerism and energy consumption are going to take hundreds if not thousands of years to rectify and many ecosystems are already permanently damaged beyond recovery.

 

[molten_dragon]

Yes, absolutely. Nuclear power is an excellent transitional technology to help move us off fossil fuels.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Once battery technology improves we will not need nuclear and can instead rely on green energy. The problem has always been storage capacity and efficiency. Nuclear power is better than oil but only if there's no accidents. One major meltdown and the global biosphere gets contaminated for potentially thousands of years, if Chernobyl and Fukushima are any indication. The risk of incident is low but single incidents carry huge consequences.

Coal mining, burning, and waste disposal on any given year results in more environmental damage and human health costs than dozens of Fukushima's.

 

[celticwar17]

We would be incredibly stupid not to use it. The only reason why anyone cares is because of Nukes, Fukushima and Chernobyl. Which both those instances were incredibly rare and did not have the same safety standards reactors do in the U.S. The risks are overblown in the civilian populations eyes.

 

[DaveFagan]

I love that in the 1960s people who have no clue concerning safety issues concerning nuclear power plants would go out to protest having them build in the US.

While happily living down wind of coal plants that beside everything else one coal plant was putting more radiation in the air and ground water then a hundred nuclear plants all together by way of the coal ash containing uranium and thorium.

I'm a 60's dinosaur and I remember in 3rd grade (1953) the class was discussing Nuclear Energy. The issue of nuclear waste generated by these plants was the major issue. As third grade students we voted not to do Nuke plants until a solution for the nuclear waste was presented. General Electric, a huge Corporate profiteer from nukes, initiated a TV/PR campaign that stated their Engineers were confident that they would solve the waste issue within six months. That was a lie and GE knew it. If it takes a million horsepower to create a waste product, it will take a million horsepower to uncreate it. No problem, all those high level fuel rods and low level whatnot will become public property when the Nuke Plant is no longer operable/profitable and bankruptcy will follow, as surely as those little brown balls follow rabbits around. In short, the Nuke policy has never had a mitigation policy for the waste. Create it. Bankrupt the last Corporation to hold title and baptize the state it is in with the waste problem. The NUKE Corporate executives still retain their obscene profits and salaries. This is all caused by that well known Opiate called Centralized Distribution of Energy (power lines), better known as Centralized Collection of Monies and is the power behind the throne in preventing 100% Renewable Energy in the USA. They rent politicians to pass law to prevent renewables. They love windmills because they plug in to the existing grid (centralized collection of monies) and huge solar fields for the same reason. They are totally enemies of local Renewable wind and solar because they are permanently cut out of the Centralized Collection of Monies loop. It is always about "follow the money." Nuclear waste at a high level is a case of total Corporate ngeligience. They create a danger to society that will linger for thousands of years with only profit as the driving force and their responsibility ends with bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a common Corporate practice with non-performing assets. It's the taxpayers problem then, don't ya' know?
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[longview]

I see Nuclear power as both a great base load power, and as a stepping stone to later advances.
Energy storage is the key, and batteries, short of some major technological break through are not going to do the job.
In Science, many times people look to see how Nature does something.
For the storage of energy, nature mostly uses hydrocarbons, (some ammonia).
We can make our own hydrocarbon fuels!
If the energy source and the carbon source for those fuels is carbon neutral, so is the fuel.
To replace the energy from our current fossil fuels will require about 1300 new Nuclear plants,
or almost every roof in the country being covered by solar panels.
It will take several decades to have every roof covered with panels, so Nuclear will need to fill the gap.
Several plant designs were rejected early on, because they did not produce enough waste.
I know this sounds odd, but the waste could be refined into weapons grade material.
Some of the newer versions of those rejected designs, could use the current waste as fuel.
deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2

 

[Nilly]

We should be using nuclear for two reasons:

1. As a base load power that supplements renewable energies and their inherent intermittency and replaces fossil fuels.
2. To ensure research towards nuclear fusion (the panacea of energy) and space travel continues - renewable energy is pretty useless in space!

 

[earthworm]

I'm sure there was a lot of resistance to Henry Ford from Horse Ranchers.

And, this resistance exists today - we seem to be no smarter ?? I favor a combination of all, even coal ..The big thing we must work HARD on is education .. and truth ..