(no subject)

[technoir]

So I had an interesting discussion last night with my grandfather at dinner concerning global warming and nuclear power. This led me to an see what other people think on the subject. Now there is very little doubt at this point that the data definitely points to global warming is occurring. Now there may be some debate as to whether it is caused by normal cycles of climate for the planet or is it caused by human industrial byproducts. Lets assume it is caused by humans. A sizable portion of the greenhouse gases in the world is from our power generation in coal burning power plants. This could easily be replaced by switching to nuclear power. Now there are other alternatives but each of them have large obstacles. Wind power, so far is of an efficiency that would make it impractical to have fields large enough to produce enough power for everyone who wants and needs it. Solar power despite having a better efficiency still is only producing during the day and it also not as great a power output as nuclear power. Hydroelectric makes a huge ecological impact by reshaping the water ways but it has good efficiency, but there are only so many rivers you can plug up. So Nuclear power is the only mature technology that could produce as efficiently or even more so than coal power that is available to us now. Which would you prefer, nuclear power or greenhouse gases? Now I tend to support Nuclear power. It is a technology that has not finished cooking perhaps but it is if done correctly it is actually quite safe. there is still debate as to whether 3mile island caused more than a couple of fatalities and it was about as bad as american nuclear power plans can get. Chernobyl was bad. Real bad. But it was also the result of an outdated design and a deliberate experiment in trying things outside the safety margins. There are some research lines to actually reduce the waste to almost nothing by extracting and reprocessing the usable isotopes and re burning them in the reactor. I am interested in what other people seem to think on this though.

Comments

[digital-avatar.livejournal.com]

I would normally vote Nuclear, simply because I like the sound of having a Nuclear run world. It's a step towards alternative power sources, and makes me happy to know that technology is at least being put to use.

But in the case of pollution, I'd rather have green-house gasses. Yes, eventually they will boil the earth and destroy all life, but I really don't see how much different that would be with what waste is left over from a nuclear plant (nukr-u-lar, as my president says). If I happen to fall into a dumping site for nuclear waste, and let's say that there was a leak* in a barrel or something, I would more than likely die a long horrible death from toxic levels of radiation poisoning. Green house gasses simply try to take over the world slowly.

I wouldn't mind there being enough Nuclear plants that there was a serious amount of excess energy available. I'm more on par with more Nuclear plants, running well under full power, than few plants that are being overtaxed with energy requirements.

Babbling again.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

Burying those wastes that cant be reprocessed down more than a mile below the surface actually would never effect any life even if someone designed a shoddy container(which I doubt highly). The metals in the waste are heavy and have a tendancy sink not rise.

[hapersmion.livejournal.com]

No, no, if you fall into the nuclear waste dumping site you get super powers. Everyone knows that. It's an important argument in favor of nuclear energy.

:) I agree with hoshiadam. Nuclear power is good, but don't rule out wind and solar power. Hydrogen is promising too, I think. And as to nuclear waste, I think we can eventually find ways to neutralize it if we try - and the scariness factor of nuclear waste makes us more likely to try.

Cold fusion, anyone?