Is nuclear power now safe – with problems of dismantling aged plants and containing leaks solved?
If they havent been then I feel we should not create more nuclear power plants. If they have been solved – however – then they are a zero pollution solution to global warming and expensive fossil fuels. This is a very emotional entrenched debate. It is important to know the truth. What is the truth?
Not to mention the problem of disposing of spent fuel.
August 15th, 2010 at 3:21 am
Nuclear power plants have been pretty safe for years.
Just ask the French! Chernobyl was a weird accident involving a plant that was behind the times even then, AND the Soviets were running a relatively dangerous test at the time. Smooth
The production of waste simply isn’t as bad as often fictionalized(again, the French aren’t rolling in radioactive waste)
August 15th, 2010 at 4:14 am
Sure, its safe. Just have to get all the emotional folks out from under their beds. Its safer than walking across a street. If you worry about all the things that might or could or maybe could happen, you wouldn’t drive or fly. Total fatalities at Three Mile Island was zero. From all causes. Big press, scared a lot of folks, but nothing really happened. We are burning a lot of coal. Know the injury rate in coal mining? Compare it to the nuclear industry, all countries combined.
Time to wake up and stop being scared. Get rational.
August 15th, 2010 at 5:00 am
Its safe.
Have you noticed that Fuel Rods at North Korea plants are being dismantled with no danger?
In fact, the world has been concerned about the safety of nuclear power. Therefore, before the first plants were built, people already had a draft of safety procedures.
Firstly the plants would have to be designed in a way that it can be built and dismantled safely. The nuclear waste would be dumped underground or encased and buried below the seabed.
For more information, go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
Cheers!
August 15th, 2010 at 5:53 am
No its not safe. The US itself is in trouble about this. We have already enough to fill this dump that is currently still in construction in a mountain. The waste from these plants are extremely dangerous and the affects of such are very hard to control. Try as we might this is not a real viable source of energy as far as the long run is concerned. The risks of the common good far out weigh the benefits of it. Do some digging on this topic. There’s way too much info about this for me to put it here.
August 15th, 2010 at 5:54 am
Since you must be a pre-teen to ask this question, I’ll put it to you this way: In the US about 30,000 people die on the highways each year. Driving is considered “very safe”, by most. Using that as the yard stick, nuclear power is very safe.
On the otherhand the State of califonia uses a 1 in 100,000 criteria to determine some safety issues, so with a population of 320,000,000 we would need to keep deaths to about 3200 per, say, hundred years or 32 people a year for it to be considered safe. I’d say it could be made almost that safe. The problem is that people cut corners, are lazy, tired, angry, inattentive, ignorant, depressed and easily distracted. So, it is unlikely without much careful planning and follow up (especially follow-up) that nuclear power will be safe.
Of course, when you’re starving because there is no fuel to run our farm tractors and machinery, perhaps 30,000 a year will be ok. What is “the truth”? It is aphilosophical or religious term that you need to go elsewhere to “find”. Scientists deal with facts and conclusions – go to you clergyperson if you seek “truth”. Any authoritan figure will be happy to pour the “Truth” into your vacant head. As witnessed by some of the answers here.
August 15th, 2010 at 6:20 am
Jack, there is no such thing as safe energy. Coal plants have exploded, Natural gas and propane have the potential yield of a tactical nuke, Geo-thermal emanates from active volcanic activity. Even Electricity has a litany of catastrophes.
I do find it interesting that Admiral “Hymie”Rickover has turned his back on nuclear power. I still remember him driving around in his golf cart at the Navy Nuclear Power School. I don’t think it is so much an issue that it is dangerous, because all forms of energy have serious draw backs. We don’t put spent fossil fuel into containers. We spew it into our atmosphere. We can enrich radioactive materials, I wonder if we can reverse the process.
The problem is Political… The Nation with the most power tends to dominate. Have you noticed what is going on in China today?