Very powerful

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-lan...ter27.html

Interesting find. The map he showed was too close up for me to get a good understanding of the size invovled. The map on this site lets you zoom out & see just how big the areas that were affected are.

http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php?navID=2#

Very interesting site. Much appreciated. Here's the link to chapter one. Might as well follow her journey from the beginning. Her comments and photos near the plant and Ghost Town were the most interesting IMO. Good stuff.

Chapter One.

This is why nuclear should be the last option.

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

No, it's not.

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

(04-19-2010 03:48 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

I hope you are close to the new nuke plant being built in Georgia.

(04-19-2010 03:48 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

I'm also pretty sure we don't turn off the safety mechanisms for testing.

(04-19-2010 04:04 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:48 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

I'm also pretty sure we don't turn off the safety mechanisms for testing.

Bingo.

(04-19-2010 04:04 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:48 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

I'm also pretty sure we don't turn off the safety mechanisms for testing.

Not a nuclear plant but we did have a gas plant blow up during testing recently in Connecticut.

(04-19-2010 04:12 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 04:04 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:48 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

I'm also pretty sure we don't turn off the safety mechanisms for testing.

Not a nuclear plant but we did have a gas plant blow up during testing recently in Connecticut.

This is a good argument of why Nuclear is safer technology than gas or coal (as the coal mining incident also shows).

Chernobyl is an important reminder of the scale of mistakes with nuclear power, but it is also a good warning to not do really stupid things with dangerous toys. All of the Chernobyl-type reactors have now been shut down and most western designs fail by shutting down, not by exploding.

(04-19-2010 04:12 PM)SouthGAEagle Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 04:04 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:48 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(04-19-2010 03:45 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  This is why nuclear should be the last option.

We have better technology than the Russians.

I'm also pretty sure we don't turn off the safety mechanisms for testing.

Bingo.

Even if the risk is 0.00000001% ... the cost of failure is incredibly high. History is a litany of man getting sh*t dead wrong. I prefer to err on the side of caution -- regardless of how small the percentage is.

Oh -- and uh -- Three Mile Island.

Nuclear is our last best option. We do operate more safely today, than TMI or Chernobyl. Hell the supercollider in Switzerland is a risk but they built it anyway.

The real problem with nuclear power is nuclear waste storage.

What was the human toll of Chernobyl?

(04-19-2010 06:20 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Even if the risk is 0.00000001% ... the cost of failure is incredibly high. History is a litany of man getting sh*t dead wrong. I prefer to err on the side of caution -- regardless of how small the percentage is.

Oh -- and uh -- Three Mile Island.

That is a naive statement and it seems that you are evaluating risk based on emotion rather than reason. Risk should be assessed based both on the likelihood of a bad outcome and the damage inflicted by that outcome. If TMI is your standard, then nuclear is far and away the safer option. Look at the risk of coal mining. It is a certainty that miners will die in the US in accidents, that people will be exposed to more radiation from coal fired power plants than they will be from nearly every nuclear plant in operation worldwide sans two - TMI and Chernobyl (and I'm not so sure about TMI). The negative consequences from soot are a certainty and pose significant harm to those around coal fired plants. The potential negative consequences of nuclear accident in the absence of all lessons learned over the past 40-60 years is bad, but the likelihood is still very low. The realistic negative consequences of a TMI type incident are comparable to the certain negative consequences of every coal fired plant in operation every year.

The likelihood of a Chernobyl type plant experiencing another Chernobyl type incident is now nil - the last of those plants has been shut down, IIRC. If risk of accident is your standard of whether to build new nuclear plants, then they compare very favorably with coal and natural gas.

Regarding human toll of Chernobyl, it has to be calculated by actuarial tables - I think estimates ran around 60 immediate deaths and 3-4000 premature deaths due to cancer - per the links above, 7-8,000,000 live in the region affected by the fallout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_d...man_health Wrote:It [the Chernobyl Forum] also concluded that a greater risk than the long-term effects of radiation exposure is the risk to mental health of exaggerated fears about the effects of radiation:[129]

Quote:The designation of the affected population as “victims” rather than “survivors” has led them to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future. This, in turn, has led either to over cautious behavior and exaggerated health concerns, or to reckless conduct, such as consumption of mushrooms, berries and game from areas still designated as highly contaminated, overuse of alcohol and tobacco, and unprotected promiscuous sexual activity.[130]

Fred Mettler commented that 20 years later:[131]

Quote:The population remains largely unsure of what the effects of radiation actually are and retain a sense of foreboding. A number of adolescents and young adults who have been exposed to modest or small amounts of radiation feel that they are somehow fatally flawed and there is no downside to using illicit drugs or having unprotected sex. To reverse such attitudes and behaviors will likely take years although some youth groups have begun programs that have promise.

Why do the French feel so confortable generating 80% of their power from nuclear? Because it's safe and clean.

(04-19-2010 09:29 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Why do the French feel so confortable generating 80% of their power from nuclear? Because it's safe and clean.

I once heard an interview on BBC with the French minister of energy and the environment, who was a member of the Green Party.

When asked how he, as a Green, could support the extent of French nuclear power, he replied, "Look around, do you see any oil wells?"

(04-19-2010 08:09 PM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Nuclear is our last best option. We do operate more safely today, than TMI or Chernobyl. Hell the supercollider in Switzerland is a risk but they built it anyway.

The real problem with nuclear power is nuclear waste storage.

What was the human toll of Chernobyl?

Add up all the deaths, then add up all the displaced, then add up the greater incidence of cancer and birth defects in the greater region, then add up the equipment lost, then add up the cost of relocation of everything, then add up the GDP for the entire exclusion zone the last year before the disaster and, adjusting for inflation and natural population growth, multiply it by however many CENTURIES it takes to become livable again ... and you have the cost.

Nuclear is the best option for moving forward with electrical production. It creates real, long term, jobs in construction and it creates even more work when it is online.

Comparing what would happen now to Chernobyl is also very naive. Remember we were more advanced than the 80's USSR back then and we are definitely more advanced than the 80's USSR nowadays.

OK GTS, what is a safer & more cost-effective power source?

(04-20-2010 11:57 AM)GrayBeard Wrote:  OK GTS, what is a safer & more cost-effective power source?

Safer? Damn near everything.

More cost effective? If you factor in the cost of long term storage of nuclear waste, coal is cheaper. Quite a few renewables are cheaper in niche markets (solar-thermal in the desert, hydroelectric along rivers, wind in the great plains, geothermal in places like Yellowstone and Iceland, etc). More over, over the long term as uranium becomes increasingly scarce (it is a finite resource, you know) nuclear will begin to climb a hockey stick curve of cost as supply and demand maintain equilibrium.

The solution to our power problems will come in the form of cold fusion or super cheap and highly efficient photovoltaics.