| Author | Message | ||
     Bigblock |
An interesting summary w/ references. Also, all claims of radiation "inoculation", or the "observed effect" of either lower cancer rates or increased longevity of certain sectors of radiological workers, only have ever, to the best I have been able to find so far, taken external radiation into account. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/ nuclear-apologists-radiation> | ||
| Whisperstealth |
I've been told my tin foil hat will protect me from radiation as well, so I'm good to go  | ||
| Hughlysses |
Any time someone starts off an argument labeling their opposition as "apologists", I pretty much automatically discount everything they say. An opposing viewpoint by someone with the credentials to know what he's talking about: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/04/07/lessons-nucl ear-quake-tsunami/ | ||
| J2blue |
I certainly would not dispute the factual content of Dr. Sacks article, I would caution anyone to avoid extending the "hormesis effect" without truly understanding what it means. For example, there are many people using the hormesis effect to sell snake oil in the form of radioactive rocks that one would wear near some part of the body that is "sick". All that the hormesis effect can tell us is that an apparent beneficial correlation exists between a certain range of background radiation and a suitably large population sample. The precise mechanism that would explain this effect is still not known(though in the article he ambiguously suggests there is). In the hands of less knowledgeable, but generally favorably inclined spokespersons for the nuclear industry the referral to hormesis can quickly be misused and do more harm than good. It becomes the same, but opposite type of irrational reporting the undermines public trust on the topic. On the other hand, in the hands of those who are deemed knowledgeable, and responsible for generating rational guidelines, Dr. Sacks makes an excellent point. The LNT model was meant to provide a safety factor at an earlier time when much less was known about the effects of radiation. We should be moving to a more realistic model that does explain the apparent hormesis effect and provides a more realistic hazard potential for varying population sizes and other factors. I think it should be said, and I am willing to say it here, that whatever the hormesis effect is, it isn't the same as saying that radiation is harmless in relatively small doses. The reason is simple, other factors and individuality mean that it is impossible to provide a single dose range that is beneficial to each and every individual in a population. What may be beneficial to me may very well kill you! What we may be able to say in the future is that for an increase in X type of radiation by a factor of Y over a well defined population group we may see Z number of cancers that can only be attributed to the XY event. When we can articulate the actual hazards of radiation and compare it to other environmental hazards we can argue publicly, and with confidence, that people are fools not to make use of nuclear energy out of fear for what harm it may do. The Fukushima incident, ironically, will help provide the datapoints necessary to reach these goals. In the end, whatever harm it will cause people and the environment will likely pale in comparison to the testable data it provides that will save lives. We can't get such data otherwise! | ||
| 86129squids |
GODZILLA!!! | ||
| Bigblock |
You pro nuclear people are unreachable. While you are dying of thyroid cancer,you will deny it had any connection to radiation. This link you posted has some merits, for sure, but to draw any conclusions whatsoever about the ONGOING disaster at Fukushima, which is no nearer to being under control than it was the day it happened, is stupidity at it's worst. Which, by the way, has just been upgraded to a 7 on the Nuke disaster scale. That's the highest number, people. It could get a lot worse there, but let's hope not. I don't wear a tinfoil hat, either. | ||
| Slaughter |
Tinfoil is just a ruse promoted by the government. To prevent thought reading, you need iron or steel - even better, lead. The government wants to give you a false sense of security by wearing a foil hat when they KNOW they can READ YOUR MIND STILL! You have been warned! | ||
| Bigblock |
Bwahahahaha! Nobody like Slaughter to inject a bit of sanity into a contentious thread! Nuclear energy is a loser on profit alone. Every site in the US runs at taxpayer expense. I have yet to hear of one that generates a profit. Prove me wrong, I dare you! or better yet, please. And that doesn't include the eventual cost of decommissioning. Just to clean up TMI took 12 years and almost 1 billion dollars, the plant has yet to be decommissioned. ANd what about the thousands upon thousands of tons of WASTE? Take care of the waste, safely, for the thousands of years required( or is that thousands of GENERATIONS?) Make it profitable, and actually improve the safety record to something that even approaches what is claimed. (Just divide the number of reactors worldwide by the number of known and possible meltdowns, nuclear reactors start to look pretty shady.) And then, guess what, I'll be the nuclear industries biggest cheerleader. | ||
| Froggy |
Thats the first time I've ever heard that, I will have to go and do some digging now. It is directly the opposite of the "best bang for the buck" that I've always heard about nuclear.
Why would they decommission it? It is working fine.
You mean the 2000 tons of nuclear waste that the US produces each year? Some of it gets recycled and reused for other applications. What about the waste of coal? I don't think I need to tell you about how "the average coal plant releases 100 times more annual radiation than a comparable nuclear plant."
This is an easy one. How many people have died from nuclear accidents? Ever since Chernobyl, which was a poor excuse for a nuclear power plant, there have been only 7 deaths from nuclear accidents. Coal plant polution kills 30,000 people every year, plus thousands more deaths each year from mining the coal. No power solution is perfect, but other than a half assed attempt by the Soviets, nuclear has a fantastic track record. Think about it, it took one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded plus a massive tusnami to cause this disaster. They had counter measures in place, but nobody could have predicted this absolute worst case scenario. | ||
| Strokizator |
Bigblock, you seem well versed on the subject. What are you offering as an alternative? | ||
| Bigblock |
TMI is alledgedly planned for decommission 2014. It's a two reactor system, one reactor is in operation, the other one is not. The bad one will have to be decommissioned eventually, even if the operable one could be made to safely function forever. There's thousands of tons of waste piling up in this country each and every year. Most of it is NOT reused or recycled, it sits onsite at the plants in many cases. Worked out real well for Fukushima. 7 deaths since Chernobyl? You're joking, right? You mean Chernobyl, where there's no consensus if there were 50+ or wait, is it 980,000 + deaths? There's some very compelling evidence from Russia that could lead a sane person to believe there could be possibly up to a million deaths attributable to Chernobyl. To think there was only fifty some odd deaths you could "link" to Chernobyl is just ridiculous propaganda. History keeps proving, and just has again, that the "unimaginable worst case scenario" sure seems to happen an awful lot. I'm not defending coal, or any other type of power. I don't know what the answer is. I am not an expert on any of this, nor do I claim to be. I can read, though, and do a bit of research, and draw some common sense conclusions for myself. I tend to not believe the story from either end of the spectrum, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Solar actually has a pretty good track record. There's a large scale solar array in the SoCal desert that's been churning out electricity for a couple decades now. Still in business, must be making money. The technology has only gotten better, especially recently. Some neat new advances in turbine technology are being made, too, which could really help things in that department eventually. However, nuclear ain't gonna save us baby. It's so far cost us a whole heck of a lot of money, though. And the results of this ongoing accident in Japan, well, it's a far cry from being over, a bit too early to start talking body count, and using that as some sort of gauge to show how "safe" it is and how few people have died from nuclear power. In fact the whole thing stinks. That's one of the big problems with it, it's the whole "plausible deniability" of the radiation effects, it makes it very very easy to deny harmful effects and quite hard to show the detrimental effects. | ||
| Aesquire |
Chernobyl was a graphite reactor, run by the Soviets. In perspective, that's a pine house furnace. Run by people that couldn't escape to get cab driver jobs in NY. TMI didn't kill very many people. The coal tailings near the Bebe (coal) plant are hot enough to mutate your grandchildren. "Brains!" I don't put a lot of faith in "hormesis effect", it's a bell curve artifact. Zero radiation exposure is a myth. Granite exists. The Sun exists. Cosmic rays exist. I fly in planes, and have x rays. ( more than some, less than others. ) Nuclear waste is, by law, to be reprocessed, as it is in Japan & France. Congress passed the law, then failed to fund the job. Who is the Senator for the mountain we've dumped millions into, not to use? Any time you concentrate chemicals from nature to make them industrially useful, you have potential issues. Look at the wastelands of China & the old Soviet Union. Lead is a bigger issue than Plutonium. Plutonium goes away, lead is forever. Anti-nuclear hysteria has many sources. Some ignorant, some deliberate lies. Some truth. ( the best way to lie, tell a touch of truth ) Some propaganda.... well, lots of propaganda. no dose of radiation is safe, however small, including background radiation; exposure is cumulative and adds to an individual's risk of developing cancer. again, a bell curve artifact. Everyone gets cancer if you don't die first. Every male, if he lives to 100, will have prostate cancer. You're gonna die. Sorry. And someday the Sun will swell and burn civilization off the face of the planet. That's nuclear too. | ||
| Court |
>>>>And that doesn't include the eventual cost of decommissioning. And the WORST, by a huge magnitude, is Wind Power. Before we went before the feds for initial permitting applications . . we met with the Siemens folks. I had a list of questions prepared, about 45 of them, as we set about learning some facts prior to trying to move ahead on America's largest wind project. Bottom line is that, and don't expect many folks in my "Wind Power Users Groups, to tell you this, but wind costs MANY times what you are paying for power now and that's WITHOUT decommissioning of the physical facilities. Siemens hemmed and hawed and avoided putting any quantifiable facts or numbers on the decommissioning costs . . .it **appears** it will cost more to take the facilities out of service than put them in. Nuclear won't save us . . but, at this point, it's light years better than things like solar and wind. . . . and, sure enough, nothing is better than good old Wyoming low-sulfur coal. One bright spot, here in NYC, is that we are America's "greenest city" in terms of carbon footprint since we get such a large percentage of our power from nuclear. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Not to minimize the huge problem with the nuclear power plant in Japan right now, but keep perspective. They had an extreme earthquake, *and* a devastating tsunami, and both clobbered the plant. It was a disaster, and it was disastrous, and lots of stuff got screwed up and destroyed and will need a lot of money to clean up and fix. Also, a lot of the things that turned out to be problems in the earlier designs used in the Japan plant had already been fixed in newer designs. On the other hand, those bravenewclimate folks, while they have some great technical background, always seem to start with "this cant have happened, and this is why". Then they find out it did happen. Then they say "well, this is why this happened, but this next thing won't happen, and this is why". They are reasonable, but they seem awfully optimistic in the face of entropy to me. And why on earth build a nuclear power plant in an active earthquake zone and on the coast without accounting for the "10,000 year quake" magnitude? Seems like stupid high risks to me. (Message edited by reepicheep on April 12, 2011) | ||
| Aesquire |
Don't forget, the plant in Japan, the one hit by multiple earthquakes and a devastating tsunami, would be fine if the generators for backup power hadn't been wrecked. Everything scrammed and worked as designed. It's a real old design too. We could build better, safer more easily fixed & recycled ones today, but the propaganda mongers won't let us. Safer is blocked by those who don't want you to have cheap power, because it makes them more money to rip you off. ( or gains them more power ) Where in Japan is there not an Earthquake zone? It's a Volcano chain. | ||
| Sifo |
For clarity's sake... Congress had nothing to do with the US's policy on reprocessing nuclear fuel. It was banned by President Carter in 1977 via a Presidential Order. That ban was reversed via another Presidential Order by GWB. The problem is that it is a political hot potato because the reprocessing produces weapons grade plutonium. The ban could be put in place again at the whim of any President with the stroke of a pen. Given that sort of unknown in policy, there's just no way that any company is going to invest in the technology to reprocess the fuel. The simple act of investing in a plant will make you a target for those opposed to reprocessing. Until it is set in law (which would prevent a ban by Presidential order), I don't see anyone taking on that investment risk. From congress's point of view, it's currently legal, so no law is necessary (and no need to spend the political good will on a controversial issue). Do we have any source of energy that isn't supported with tax breaks? It's an honest question that I don't know the answer to. We all know that people complain about the tax breaks that oil companies get, so clearly petroleum gets breaks. Wind and solar get huge support from the government. They are both big losers in the energy game. I'm not sure about coal though. Coal may not get the breaks on the basis that it can compete on it's own. I would bet that there are coal related companies that get some breaks though. My point here is that regardless of how we produce energy, the government is picking the winners and losers. In the end, the customers must pay the price of whatever the government picks as the winners. That will guarantee that we spend more for energy than we would in a true free market. As far as my fear of nuclear reactors, I don't see the Zion or Byron reactors in my area suffering a 9.0+ quake followed by tsunami. Yes we should learn from what has happened in previous nuclear accidents and apply that knowledge accordingly. | ||
| Bigblock |
The facts are just as distorted by the pro nuclear crowd, if not more so, as they are by the knee jerk anti nuclear brigade. Fact is the nuclear lobby, power plant contractors, and etc. have a huge financial stake in making nuclear power look attractive, and huge sums of money tend to make the truth take a back seat ride. Solar is looking better every year, and I suspect (again, I am no expert) it is a better option than wind, which admittedly has issues. Decentralization I think could be key in many areas, and help take a huge load off the grid over time. It should be mandatory, or at least STRONGLY encouraged, in CA and other sunny places, new residences should include some solar panels at the minimum. New construction can also be built to a very high energy efficiency standard at a fairly small percentage increase in construction price. Combine some simple practices like this, and the grid load could be cut way down. Oh, but wait, is that not the American way? The heck with efficiency, let's just use more power, and find ways to produce more power?! Gross stupidity and unsustainable in the long run, in my uneducated, common man common sense way of thinking. Of course, if you're producing power at home, sort of takes away the production/distribution problems, doesn't it? Don't even need to cut down. Of course, this applies mostly to suburban and rural areas, and would have to be approached differently in urban areas. Naaah, pie in the sky, not in America. Too much money being taken out of the hands of your "friendly neighborhood" utility Co./ Gov. | ||
| Bigblock |
Again, let me reiterate, I don't claim to be an expert, ( although I found out today that I am about to start a house that will have some high energy efficiency and solar features, with consultation from an expert) and I am just trying (heh, somewhat successfully so far  ) to get a real open and balanced discourse going here. I think we all have a real stake in this, it is OUR future, after all! Interesting times... | ||
| Strokizator |
Bigblock, why do you suppose my "friendly neighborhood" utility (aka EVIL CORPORATION) gave me a 20% rebate check for the cost of the solar system I had put in? What sinister motive would they have? To think that the population can continue to grow and we can just simply conserve our way out of future energy shortages is foolish. | ||
| Sifo |
Bigblock, do you own a home? Got solar on that? If so what has your experience been? I read recently that one of the northern European countries (I forget exactly which one) got burned pretty bad on pushing solar. They apparently were just a tad optimistic about how much energy they could produce during the short winter days with the sun low in the sky, when you are lucky enough to have sun at all. | ||
| Sifo |
I just took a look at the link in the first post. As soon as I saw the name George Monbiot a red flag went up for me. The guy is a lunatic IMO. There's no question that he has a long history of distorting facts to suit his purposes. Refuting his claims is very different from refuting claims made by a responsible person. Picking him as the focus of this article is certainly picking the easy fruit. Makes me wonder about this article too. I would guess that the truth lies elsewhere. | ||
| Sifo |
Here's an interesting chart on radiation exposures... http://xkcd.com/radiation/ I find it kind of interesting that living in a brick building for a year gets you about the same exposure as if you were living within 10 miles of Three Mile Island. Your yearly dose from natural potassium in your body is close to 5 times that of living 10 miles from TMI. Anyone care for a banana? | ||
| Madduck |
Convincing anyone that low levels of radiation are not harmful and in fact may be beneficial usually leads to unpredictable consequences. I had occasion, after three mile island, to take a local TV crew through a grocery store to show them that radiation was everywhere at about the same level. Bananas can indeed be demonstrated to show their level of radiation in comparison to say an apple. The most impressive is the comparison of the two main salt substitutes. One replaces the sodium with a natural potassium which is slightly radioactive, the other uses a man made potassium which is not radioactive. Picture a physicist ( with geiger counter ), a four person TV crew and a crowd of shoppers in a Jewel food market. The demonstration went perfectly, everyone learned which food products would be clearly lethal and I was called upon to measure every food product in the store the very next day. The news segment was very highly rated and both of my professional societies were shocked at my cavalier attitude to educating the general public. Stragely enough, in a few short months attitudes had shifted and the news story was re-run with a more appropriate emphasis and I would like to believe an educational effect. Pointing out dangers is as rewarding as educating about dangers. People will make up their own minds about relative risk rewards no matter what the source of information. Seeking to elicit a reasonable response will be as easy as training pigs to fly or turtles to touch type. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Solar is what you use to feel good or you have no other choice. I build the systems to expensive too fragile I live in storm country. payback of the energy used to produce them takes years. If you really want a solar system get a solar water heater pool or domestic. The best system is a heat recovery unit on your air conditioner. In So Fl you can use recovered energy for hotwater 90% of the time | ||
| Aesquire |
If you are building new, passive solar features are a major good thing. Superinsulate, good thing. Some active solar is good, but some takes longer to pay back than it will last. Retrofitting a house is much harder. Simple, cheap and effective things, like window position, shade from eaves or solid awnings, solar rooms with stone floors, etc. are much cheaper and effective in new construction. Sometimes you just can't orient the house the best way, or use some features because of local zoning & homeowners ass. My house is just oriented wrong for a south facing solar collector, or sun room. The layout is wrong for solar awnings. i'd save a lot if I could rotate the basement 37 deg.  Conservation is good. I'm pro nuke. Grew up with it, walked over the cooling ponds, seen the blue glow. Besides, we need the Plutonium for Orion drives when the Asteroid comes. ( and you can burn plutonium in a pebble bed reactor. ) Kenm123t, I keep getting 10 thousand dollars, ten years payback on any kind of solar, except some passive/semi passive thermal stuff. About what your are seeing? (Message edited by aesquire on April 12, 2011) | ||
| Aesquire |
Oh, when the tinfoil gets hit with neutrons, it gets radioactive. Do not wear foil hats OR jocks. Seriously. | ||
| Bigblock |
everyone wants instant gratification. Of course payback takes years. Initial investment = future return. During which time you take a significant load off the grid. I don't own a home, and don't have solar on the house I rent. A good friend of mine on the North fork of L.I. has solar panels on his roof, as well as hot water. He runs his fishing business out of his home, and has a heavy-duty ice machine, 2 electric smokers and a small walk in fridge. His bill, with all the same equipment and set up, was 300 to 900+ dollars a month, depending if he was fishing or not (Spring summer and fall higher versus winter vacation) Now the highest his bill gets is 300, and he usually gets a check from the power company. I was there in the fall on a cloudy day, and watched the meter running backwards while the ice machine was running. 2pm, and you could not see the sun through the clouds, but it was not "dark and cloudy" This system was installed around 6 years ago, so not state of the art today. 30,000 installed, the state payed around 30% if I remember right, average savings about 600 a month. Savings, 42,300 in 6 years. Paid for itself and pocketed 12,000 even if the state gave him nada. Yah, solar sucks. My Parents house is passive solar, south southwest facing, big windows, proper overhang to shade in the summer and let sun in in the winter. Wood heat, and solar, all plumbed into the water heater. Very cozy. My dad loves to burn firewood, and there's no other heat, like electric or gas, so it is difficult to quantify any type of savings, since the house was built this way. Suffice it to say, it is very comfy, and basically he just pays electricity for lights, refrigerator and to run his shop. Oh yeah, and the irrigation pump for the garden in the summer. Not very expensive, I think he averages well under 75 bucks a month. | ||
| Bigblock |
There you go Ken, heat recovery on your a.c., the squire too with some good ideas. There's some real neat stuff with insulation, sealing and heat recovery/ventilation systems just being introduced now. A contractor friend who has built two houses using these methods will consult for the owner on my new job and this should prove fun and interesting. We may also install solar electric panels, I am hoping, and we'll see what else he has in his budget. Strayed a bit from the radiation thread, but what the heck, this is way better! I still think radiation isn't something you want to eat, though! And by radiation, I am not referring to the garden variety naturally occurring background radiation. Although even radon can be bad for you, heck, they make home test kits for that. | ||
| Bigblock |
And don't you think my tinfoil hat is stylish, come on, your all just jealous, aren't you? WHoops, it's getting late, just a wool cap, nothing to see here, move along... | ||
| Bigblock |
An op-ed story I liked, the thoughts apply as well to many types of energy and really any type of production today. <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la- oe-shukman-chernobyl-20110403,0,1898317.story> My Uncle is an M.D. in Sweden, and he says something similar about Chernobyl, now that people have been excluded from the "zone" for so long now, it has become a very lush wilderness in short order. |
