Closing of all Nuclear power plants in USA?

[Tony97]

I read an article on MSN that Germany projects to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 and that the US is quick to follow. This is due to the Japanese power plant's failure, AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI! I hate to say it, but our country is a SHEEP to follow another country for something that happens about every 30 some years! We showed our safety measures during the Three Mile Island accident wich released little to no radiation! What do you people think about this topic? Don't forget, 20 percent of our country runs off of nuclear power.

[M.M.A.A.]

first of all, it depends on where the location of the plant, so if it was in hazardous area then, Of course! u need to close it down! (atleast till the hazard goes away) u never know wat might happened and u end up with three eyes and a green arm sticking out ur back the next morning! radiation causes mutation u know and u don' want to have cancer or a child with mutated genes mutated

P.S. i am not talking only about US but all parts of the world so its best to have a different knid of energy source and at the same time to have a nuclear power station, again it depends on the conditions. also if possible, transporting the radioactive materials to another place temporarily can be of help

and again this is my opinion, i hope i don't or i didn't offend anyone :)

[Robodl95]

I think that Japan just shows us how to better review our safety codes. I don't know enough about nuclear energy to have much of an opinion but I think it's a little rash to close them all (at least now) until we have ways to produce just as much power cheaply and safely. Each station should be looked at by it's risk, I think that most on the west coast should be closed down but when was the last time their was a giant disaster in Maine? Earthquakes, rare; tornadoes, rare; hurricanes, rare. I think it would be very bad to rely of nuclear power for a long time but for the time being and until we find something better I guess I'm for keeping them open.

[kustirider2]

first of all, it depends on where the location of the plant, so if it was in hazardous area then, Of course! u need to close it down! u never know wat might happened and u end up with three eyes and a green arm sticking out ur back the next morning! radiation causes mutation u know and u don' want to have cancer or a child with mutated genes mutated

and again this my opinion, i hope i don't or i didn't offend anyone :)

No offense, but you clearly don't understand how mutations or carcinogenic issues are created.

I think this is a stupid idea. If they close nuclear plants, they're going to have to build a hell of a lot of wind/wave power (Or coal plants, but coal is slowly running out too). It's going to be a very costly process. Decommissioning a plant can cost upwards of $325 million..

[whiterider]

Germany has been on the road to closing down its nuclear plants for some time now - they have a strong anti-nuclear lobby which has been pushing for this for a long time. All they're doing now is speeding up the already existing plan.

Where did you get the information about the US? The US has 104 active nuclear reactors, more than any other state in the world, and twice as many as the country with the second highest number of reactors (France, with 58), so I sincerely doubt it'll be closing them down any time soon.


Map of nuclear reactors: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13159407

[HystericalParoxysm]

Erm, I found this on MSN:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43323929

"US President Barack Obama maintains that nuclear power will play an important role in United States energy going forward. "We're going to incorporate those conclusions and lessons from Japan in design and the building of the next generation of plants," he explains."

[smorbie1]

No one can plan for every contingency. There is risk in everything in life. Yes, Japan suffered a tremendous triple blow with the gigantic earthquake, Tsunami, and subsequent meltdown of the nuclear plant. (For anyone in Japan, I'm praying for ya'll.) But overall, nuclear power is still safe. It's like saying because one car suffers a blow out, that all tires are unsafe and should be banned.

[Mistermook]

Everyone knows that nuclear power plants in the US are in clear and present danger from being swept away by earthquakes, tsunamis, and GM food! If we only all built forty foot windmills in our backyards, worked in our backyards after work to grow our own vegetables and tended our livestock (for manure only! EVERYONE MUST BECOME VEGETARIAN OR THE EARTH WILL EXPLODE!!!), recycled our urine, and never, ever fight over anything ever again we'd obviously...

/sarcasm. Man, I can't even keep it up when I'm kidding.

The US is not Europe. We're not getting rid of our nuclear power plants. Anyone who suggests such a thing is full of shit. We can't. We need the power. Even phasing the things out would take twenty to fifty years and we'd have to build horrifyingly enormous coal plants to meet demand for replacing them, which would no doubt make our quality of life absolute garbage. Roll in the black lung and all that.

If we're actually worried about environmental catastrophes for our nuclear power plants we've got plenty of real estate available to place nuclear plants in that's about as safe, statistically speaking, as it is anywhere on the planet. We could shut down the risky ones, replace them on the normal schedule with ones in Idaho, upgrade our remarkably outdated power infrastructure to modern standards, and everyone leaves happy except the lunatic fringe.

[ElementMK]

... If we only all built forty foot windmills in our backyards ...You know my stance on nuclear power, but I just wanted to single this out and show an interesting comic I passed by.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2lt0p4y.jpg

I really wish they didn't show a nuclear power plant exploding, but what's a guy to do?

[M.M.A.A.]

Originally Posted by Element Leaf
I really wish they didn't show a nuclear power plant exploding

actually its good they did since it also causes some sort of pollution :| and a hazard :alarm:

[Oaktree]

It's not as hazardous as people like to portray it to be. In modern nuclear power plants, it pretty much takes a disaster of the magnitude of the one in Japan to cause problems. And disasters of that magnitude are not common.

[qpldmff]

I hope not. Closing nuclear plants will place an enormous burden on the United States' energy needs, and lawmakers will inevitably turn to coal before a wind farm.

[pinketamine]

I read an article on MSN that Germany projects to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 and that the US is quick to follow. This is due to the Japanese power plant's failure, AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI! I hate to say it, but our country is a SHEEP to follow another country for something that happens about every 30 some years! We showed our safety measures during the Three Mile Island accident wich released little to no radiation! What do you people think about this topic? Don't forget, 20 percent of our country runs off of nuclear power.

Your statement is false, to start with. Germany didn't decide to close all the nuclear plants in 2022 due to the Japanese failure, this had been planned various years ago and the only thing they recently did was assigning a limit date. People in Germany have been concerned about nuclear power for years, so if population does not want nuclear energy and they can live with other energetic sources I think it is fine. I read that Germans will have to pay 6% in their energy bills when nuclear plants close, because other kinds of energy are more expensive, but I don't think it is a big difference.

I don't know about USA as I'm not from there and I'm not really informed about the energetic policy there.

No offense, but you clearly don't understand how mutations or carcinogenic issues are created.

I think this is a stupid idea. If they close nuclear plants, they're going to have to build a hell of a lot of wind/wave power (Or coal plants, but coal is slowly running out too). It's going to be a very costly process. Decommissioning a plant can cost upwards of $325 million..
In fact, if they have given a date, it is just because it will be totally possible for them to have the energetic needs totally covered with other sources, so I don't find it silly at all.

[iCad]

As I understand it (and I'm not an expert), nuclear power is the safest, cheapest, and cleanest means we have of producing energy in any massive, widespread way. It's far cleaner than coal, produces far more energy than wind/solar/etc. can with the infrastructure in place and that is realistically feasible to implement (in the US, at least), and, as others have said, it takes a lot to have a "disaster."

How many disasters have there been? Well, there was Three Mile Island, which ultimately didn't do much damage at all. There was Chernobyl, which did a lot damage that will have effects for decades yet...but the entire thing was caused by rather unwise and mishandled "testing" (meaning, experimenting with new cooling methods) on one of the reactors. If they hadn't screwed around with it (If it ain't broke, don't fix it, guys), there wouldn't have been a problem. Now there's Japan, and it took a massive quake and a massive tsunami to cause that, and those things don't happen all that often. Although I might advocate only building plants in areas that are relatively stable, geologically and meteorologically...Well, as far as I'm concerned, until we develop something nifty like fusion power, bring on the nuclear plants. I've got solar panels on my house which help with my own electric bill, but I can't see "green" energy ever being implemented to the point that it can "feed" the energy demands of the whole world. Maybe that's cynical of me, but I just don't see it happening. Other than that, nuclear would be the generation method I'd pick.

[Mistermook]

What's ridiculous is that the Germans closing nuclear power plants won't stop them from using nuclear power, it will just mean they'll have to buy their nuclear power from France.

[whiterider]

Well, that is how the EU started - why break a habit?

[SpookyOkyBatGirl]

If they close the Nuclear power plants, almost everybody in my family is out of the job. No joke, almost EVERYBODY on my father's side of the family, including my father, works at the nuclear power plant since they first existed! It's a family thing that I'll be sad to see ending.

[kattenijin]

actually its good they did since it also causes some sort of pollution :| and a hazard :alarm:
The point of the complaint was that nuclear power plants don't explode they melt down, and cartoons like that perpetuate this mistaken belief of explosion.

[Mistermook]

Your family could always move to France? France, at least, seems to have sensible ideas about nuclear power.

[ElementMK]

Your family could always move to France? France, at least, seems to have sensible ideas about nuclear power.Yeah, but those French people smell terrible. Talk about a bad trade-off.

[kiwi_tea]

It's not as hazardous as people like to portray it to be. In modern nuclear power plants, it pretty much takes a disaster of the magnitude of the one in Japan to cause problems. And disasters of that magnitude are not common.

Which is exactly why private plant operators like TEPCO don't bother to implement expensive and sufficient checks against such disasters.

(But I can afford to dismiss nuke power. NZ has heaps of renewable energy sources.)

[rcranger9]

People always flip out when something goes wrong from extreme circumstances that rarely ever happen. Yes, it can be dangerous, but, like people said, only a huge disaster could cause it to become harmful. Nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, and cheapest energy we can mass produce at the moment. until they come out with hydrogen engines (they are very, very close too), then Nuclear plants are the best option.

[kiwi_tea]

Very much depends on the region, rcranger9. Nukes are definitely the best sources for densely populated areas with moderate or few renewables, but in some regions (like New Zealand) wind, tidal, hydro, and natural gas are really all you need, and they carry none of the nuke risk (hydro can be quite destructive, though).

And again, it has to be stressed, businesses are seldom prepared to put up the capital to protect the Average Joe from the consequences of RARE disasters. I have friends whose families are bound up in TEPCO and they are simply not returning to Tokyo anytime in the next few years.

[tomomi1922]

If nobody had brought this up yet, I may want to add that there is a huge difference between Japan and US when it comes to selecting location for a nuclear power plant. Think of Japan is a tiny apartment with 5 people living in it while US is a country farmland with enough room for about several hundred cattle. US simply has way more options when it comes to open isolated land far far away from any human dwelling areas. All the protests about the opening of Fukishima DaiIchi way back then simply wouldn't happen in US because US doesn't have to build a nuclear power plant right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, simply put.

I had a chance to visit that area last year (but somehow I didn't go, now I wish I had gone there). It is sad about what happened. But if there is anything good coming out of it, it is the pressure for the industry to put heavier emphasis on safety and contingency plans to deal with massive natural disasters like earthquakes, landslides, tornado ... you name it. The sad truth is the industry is run by business men, not scientists, so this is, in a way, a positive pressure for them to step up on their games.

Face it, with the grow of economy and technology, and more demand of going green, nuclear power is possibly the cleanest and most efficient energy source human race can have at the moment. I am an environmentalist at heart, and I will cheer on all wind/solar energy. But let's face it, those technology's power ouput ratio and efficiency comparing to nuclear energy is heaven and earth. For Japan, nuclear power is at a dead lock right now. But US has a whole horizon for nuclear power.

Not everyone will see things this way, and out of fear, ignorance, or concern, they might vote to shut down nuclear power plants in US and have us go back to heavy oil dependency. Oil business is sketchy, dirty, and more or less responsible for a lot of violence around the world, to say the least.

[rcranger9]

Very much depends on the region, rcranger9. Nukes are definitely the best sources for densely populated areas with moderate or few renewables, but in some regions (like New Zealand) wind, tidal, hydro, and natural gas are really all you need, and they carry none of the nuke risk (hydro can be quite destructive, though).

And again, it has to be stressed, businesses are seldom prepared to put up the capital to protect the Average Joe from the consequences of RARE disasters. I have friends whose families are bound up in TEPCO and they are simply not returning to Tokyo anytime in the next few years.




Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant in the US where there isn't too much alternate energy to use. Right now, I think Iceland has it right. They are lucky enough to live in a volcanic region so they can use basically free thermal energy.

[Mistermook]

Iceland has so much free thermal energy the volcanoes are trying to give away more than the people want right now. If they keep it up all of Iceland could easily be buried under tons and tons of free thermal energy. Well, that and ash and rock - but you can't pick and choose.

[Kathwynn]

My only problem with nuclear energy.. Is how to dispose of the waste in a sane and safe manner.. Sorry sticking in a salt mine is no answer. It only puts off the inevitable. What to do with the waste. SoI remain cautiously in support, but would like more research on how to dispose and eliminate the waste in a sane and safe manner.

[Mistermook]

Putting off the inevitable isn't an option? What's wrong with it? It's no worse than using coal or petroleum. Or breeding. Or breathing and eating, for that matter.

[kattenijin]

My only problem with nuclear energy.. Is how to dispose of the waste in a sane and safe manner

Drop it into the sun of course. What's a few tons of depleted uranium added to the vast nucular furnace already there gonna do?!

[iCad]

Drop it into the sun of course. What's a few tons of depleted uranium added to the vast nucular furnace already there gonna do?!

Or bury it on the moon. (Or just stick it on the dark side where no one will see it from Earth, anyway. ;) ) The moon won't care. It's a ball of rock, and it's closer than the sun. Then again, I guess the waste could just be shoved toward the sun from some sort of orbital staging platform. It'll get to the sun eventually, if it doesn't get nabbed by Venus or Mercury...which also won't care, given that Venus is a nasty (albeit not-nuclear) furnace itself and Mercury isn't much different than the moon, except that it's tidally locked to the sun, not to the Earth.

Then again (again), is it a good idea to add heavy elements to the sun? Can it fuse such things? I thought it could only fuse up to iron, but I don't know for sure. Not enough of an astronomy geek, I'm afraid.

Anyway, the point is that if we (as in humanity as a collective) get up off our ass and actually develop a space program again and make it not just scientifically-oriented but commercially-oriented...Well, it'd solve some problems. We're already moving in that direction with all the satellite communication and entertainment stuff. Should commercial space travel happen, waste really wouldn't be a problem. And even if that doesn't happen...Well, frankly, I'd rather have radioactive waste safely buried in concrete sarcophagi than having crap floating around in the atmosphere, which is the result of burning fossil fuels. :P

[RoseCity]

I'm seeing a problem with the 'launch the radioactive waste into space' solution and that would be the huge amount of energy needed and astronomical cost of getting it out of the Earth's atmosphere.

[Mistermook]

My problem with it is that it's wasteful. We don't know what we could do with it right now, but who knows what we could figure out to use it for in the future? This is especially pointed given possible advances in breeder reactors - if we ever get those things working really well we're going to want to put the lemon rinds back into the juicer again and use that waste to make power. It's recycling. That's good, right?

[tomomi1922]

I'm seeing a problem with the 'launch the radioactive waste into space' solution and that would be the huge amount of energy needed and astronomical cost of getting it out of the Earth's atmosphere.
You stole my response to this. :) But yes, it is definitely a huge bill for garbage disposal, imagine it costing more than your mortgage. Imagine you have to fly to Africa monthly to dispose your garbage.

It's a great idea to dispose such waste, or any waste for that matter, toward the sun. The sun itself is big enough to handle any amount of waste we send to without raising the environmental concern. Or the moon itself is not even a bad idea (until human start settling there). The big question is "getting there" that deems illogical, cost wise. Until our technology matches what is depicted in Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Gundam, or any of your favorite sci-fi where a fly around space is as common as public buses, this "great idea" will remain in, and only in, your favorite sci-fi. Especially with the current world economy now, Egypt is threatened to go under this July 2011, and European financial nightmare will begin, and constant bickering about US budgets and debts ... It is like asking a beggar to fly first class, not happening. :rolleyes:

[Shadowside]

I'm seeing a problem with the 'launch the radioactive waste into space' solution and that would be the huge amount of energy needed and astronomical cost of getting it out of the Earth's atmosphere.

I would think that the problem with "Launch radioactive waste into space" would be more of a problem in the fact that a disturbingly high proportion of ships we launch end up exploding. If a ship with radioactive waste exploded over a populated area... :blink:

[Mistermook]

It wouldn't really have to be a populated area. Even underpopulated areas are usually the home to something that we eat/use/move vehicles through/find value in.

Still better to look into recycling the stuff. If you recycle it enough it stands to reason eventually the waste product's going to be something fairly innocuous because we've wrung all the exciting stuff out of it.

[kattenijin]

Drop it into the sun of course. What's a few tons of depleted uranium added to the vast nucular furnace already there gonna do?!


I can't believe this has been taken so seriously, can we say "facetious" boys and girls?

[HarVee]

Instead of closing the plants down, why not relocate them all in Nevada?

(I'm being sarcastic).

[Mistermook]

Instead of closing the plants down, why not relocate them all in Nevada?

(I'm being sarcastic).
You shouldn't be. Nevada wouldn't be a terrible place to relocate all of the nuclear capacity for the US, assuming we'd upgrade our existing power infrastructure to take advantage of advances that have happened in the decades since we last put a significant amount of money into such things. With the exception of the area around Yellowstone, once you get "past the Mississippi and Tornado Alley, but before the California quake zones" you're looking at an area on the map that's remarkably safe from issues with natural disasters. Centralizing such a capacity would bring other sorts of issues, but it's doable and it waves away a lot of criticism for the placing of plants in places like in California or Miami, for instance.

It's part of the reason we were talking about the region as a place to shove all the spent nuclear fuel underground - it's really stable, farther away from people than most places, and oh hey, the government already owns vast portions of it.

[RoseCity]

I can't believe this has been taken so seriously, can we say "facetious" boys and girls?
Sorry - I should have known it was a joke.
Speaking of breeder reactors, it was a surprise this morning to see in the NYTimes that Japan has a fast breeder reactor in Fukui prefecture that's also in trouble because a '3.3 ton device crashed into the reactor's inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods at its core.' This happened last August. The reactor is also on an active fault (but that's not what caused the accident).
It's a good article and talks about how Japan is lacking in energy sources which is driving them to take these risks with nuclear power. Link: In Japan, Another Nuclear Reactor Tests a Nation's Will (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/world/asia/18japan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all)
Also AlJazeera had a good article about Fukushima (http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html). I like this quote from Dr. Shoji Sawada, 'Dr Sawada says that the creation of nuclear fission generates radioactive materials for which there is simply no knowledge informing us how to dispose of the radioactive waste safely.

"Until we know how to safely dispose of the radioactive materials generated by nuclear plants, we should postpone these activities so as not to cause further harm to future generations," he explained. "To do otherwise is simply an immoral act, and that is my belief, both as a scientist and as a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing."
Also from Arnold Gunderson: "Units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, that has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn't exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor."

[CmarNYC]

As long as we continue to consume energy at our current and increasing rate, nuclear power will be an economic necessity. Sure, it would be nice to shut down the nuclear power plants and avoid the (very small) risk - but then we have the choice of serious energy conservation, which both businesses and the public would never go for; or increased use of fossil fuels which cause pollution, harm to the environment, and global climate change with the consequent deaths and destruction. Renewable energy like wind, solar, etc. can't pick up the slack for the foreseeable future. IMO the potential real answer is nuclear fusion - if it can be developed to the point of being practical it'll be safe since a failure would only result in the reaction shutting down, would produce little or no pollution, and the waste decays quickly so there's no major storage problem. It's unlikely to happen in my lifetime, but maybe in many of yours.

[SeverusBlack]

too emotional topic for me, so just try to be short and reasonable: everything made or controlled by a human is known to break; nuclear energy eruption is great danger to a wide amount of people in a large zone And time apart from the event; recovering from a nuc catastrophy is few times more expensive than building the station, shutting it down and starting using sun\water\wind power instead. and, the worst part, you don't start thinking about all this till you face with it one way or another.

[rcranger9]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43475479/ns/us_news-environment



I'm waiting to see how everyone flips out in the comments after this article.

[Tempscire]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43475479/ns/us_news-environment

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.
Dammit, this is why we can't have nice things/nuclear energy.

[Mistermook]

So leaks that are not a health risk and we are aware of them and presumably have rules declaring that the leaks must be fixed? Uh, that's what we're supposed to have. That's how engineering and maintenance works. The only thing scary about this is that presumably with Republican budget cutting we're going to end up with a lot less oversight for things like this, and less money in grants to fix them.