Quote from BSAM:
Nuke plants should be banned in the USA.
In fact, they should be banned worldwide.
Yeah, I know how much you just looooove your air conditioner.
How much you gonna love it when you and your loved ones are dead?
This is an area that I know something about, having worked in the earlier part of my career at the scientific end of reactor fuel development, and having had an opportunity to become familiar with the design of various types --steam turbine, gas turbine, breeder, sodium cooled, etc. --nuclear reactors and their spent fuel disposal/reprocessing problems.
I just want to make a few comments that I hope will still be of some interest though I have been away from that industry for many years now.
The safety record in terms of human health, so far, of nuclear power generation is pretty good so long as you exclude Chernobyl. Even when you include Chernobyl the safety record of nuclear power holds up fairly well to that of the coal mining/coal fired plant record. It is very difficult to get an accurate handle on the health effects of fly ash, sulfur oxides, and radioactive C-14 CO2. Granted the history of coal fired plants is a much longer one, so that should be taken into account in any safety comparisons.
Coal fired plants release more radioactivity to the atmosphere than a properly operating nuclear plant, which releases none. Traditional Coal and Natural Gas fired plants release huge amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, nuclear plants release none. There are tremendous reserves of coal but much of it is low grade, high sulfur. This kind of fuel releases both CO2 and sulfur oxides, chiefly SO2 and SO3 which become H2SO3 and H2SO4 when they react with atmospheric moisture. Capturing these sulfur oxide emissions significantly raises costs. Newer fossil fuel plants that capture some or all of the CO2 emissions are being proposed, but they cost still more and may make nuclear plants cost competitive. Your electric rates will go up either way..
At the time I was involved years ago, the amount of waste from power plants was insignificant compared to the radioactive waste from the weapons program, but I don't know if that is still true. Nevertheless the waste from the weapons program is significant.
Mishaps in U.S. commercial nuclear plants so far have demonstrated an excellent safety record with regard to human safety, but have been rather disastrous with regard to cost. Three-mile island being the worst in this regard.
Public fear of reactors and particularly resistance to less costly, but safe methods --in my opinion-- of spent fuel disposal have increased the total cost of building new U.S. reactors tremendously, and kept them non-competitive with coal and natural gas fired plants.
The French, who are virtually 100% nuclear, have an excellent safety record. For years, they disposed of their waste by concentrating and sealing it into glass casks and dropping it into deep ocean trenches. I don't know if they are still doing it that way.
Back in the early 1970's it was said that if you took all the waste from commercial reactors and put it in 55gallon drums it would occupy and area about the size of a football field -- can't recall if that was one drum deep or two. There would be a few football fields worth now.
At the Univ. of California's Los Alamos Lab we disposed of our radioactive chemical waste by absorbing it into vermiculite and mixing it into concrete. The concrete blocks were then piled up outside in a "hot dump".
The event in Japan makes clear that the siting of reactors is a very important adjunct to safe operation.
There have been some extremely bad decisions by power company Boards when it comes to selecting reactor designs and size of reactors. The customers of these companies have been "burned."
The Grand Gulf reactor in Port Gibson Mississippi would be an example of such a mistake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Gulf_Nuclear_Generating_Station
Personally, I would like to see hydroelectric, solar, and wind generation wherever practical. But when it comes down to coal or nuclear I think it is roughly a tie at present -- though coal seems to have a slight edge on initial cost and a huge fear factor edge. Perhaps newer reactor designs can improve still more on both safety and cost effectiveness. Even considering the waste disposal aspect, they have a large advantage over fossil fuel fired plants if environmental damage is to be considered.
