DV82XL said:

Nuclear power supplies a sixth of the world’s electricity. Along with hydropower (which supplies slightly more than a sixth), it is the major source of “carbon-free” energy today. The technology suffered growing pains, seared into the public’s mind by the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, but plants have demonstrated remarkable reliability and efficiency recently. And indeed, more than 20,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity have come online globally since 2000, mostly in the Far East.

Yes, nuclear power and hydroelectric power are by far the two largest and most viable sources of carbon-free and sulfur/heavy metal/smog/nitrous free energy (and by the way I support the use of hydro power to the maximum extent reasonably possible, as long as it is within reasonable local enviornmental margins). However between nuclear and hydroelectric, which one has a **worse** record of catastrophic failures resulting in mass casualties and loss of property???

By far and away it’s hydroelectric. There are numerous examples of events which have claimed hundreds or thousands of lives in one swoop. There have also been numerous close-calls and narrowly averted disasters. There are also many facilities which are considered an eminent danger of failure

Can you imagine if this were the state of nuclear energy facilities? People are all up in arms every time a nuclear plant has a transformer fire or any kind of incident, no matter how minor! Meanwhile there are dams which are experiencing structural issues or seeing flood gates become stuck or jammed and areas evacuated due to concerns during heavy rains.

        David Lee said:

Why would you want nuclear power?

It is danger as it is.

Nuclear power supplies a sixth of the world’s electricity. Along with hydropower (which supplies slightly more than a sixth), it is the major source of “carbon-free” energy today. The technology suffered growing pains, seared into the public’s mind by the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, but plants have demonstrated remarkable reliability and efficiency recently. And indeed, more than 20,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity have come online globally since 2000, mostly in the Far East.

As scary as the “what-if” scenarios for a nuclear reactor failure are, the reality has — so far — proved much less so. The World Health Organization (WHO) carried out several studies after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster; one, conducted 19 years later, concluded that 75 deaths could be directly attributed to the accident. Other WHO findings: 28 deaths among first-responders in the year after the accident could be directly linked to acute radiation sickness; there was a large increase in highly treatable thyroid cancers among young people and no clearly demonstrated increases in leukemia or other non-thyroid solid cancers; and the lifetime risk of cancer deaths among those exposed to Chernobyl radiation was about 3 to 4 percent higher than average. (You can find the complete digest report here.)

Furthermore, natural uranium resources are plentiful, secure, and expandable. In fact, there is 600 times more uranium in the ground than gold and there is as much uranium as tin. There has been no major new uranium exploration for 20 years, but at current consumption levels, known uranium reserves are predicted to last for 85 years. Geological estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that at least six times more uranium is extractable – enough for 500 years’ supply at current demand. Modern reactors can use thorium as a fuel and convert it into uranium – and there is three times more thorium in the ground than uranium. In addition, with the development of the next generation of nuclear technologies such as fast neutron reactors with closed fuel cycles, this figure rises to tens of thousands of years.

It should be pointed out that nuclear waste is solid, robust, self-contained, relatively small in volume and gets less toxic with time. Compared with other widely dispersed toxic materials like mercury, lead and PCBs, which have been responsible for large scale health problems, nuclear waste is pretty good, as waste goes.

Claims that geological sequestration is a technically challenging problem is just untrue. More than 1.5 billion years ago a nuclear fission reaction took place off and on – for hundreds of thousands of years in an underground uranium deposit in Oklo, Gabon, Africa. These natural reactors generated fission products very similar to those produced by modern nuclear power plants that have lying in Mother Nature’s repository for about a billion years. This provides remarkable evidence of the effectiveness of this method for the disposition of radioactive waste.

Technically, there appear to be no show stoppers for a considerable expansion of Nuclear Power throughout the world. It is a low carbon energy source with abundant fuel supplies. The technology works and has much potential for growth. And grow it will. the only question really is how far behind the countries that don’t want reactors wish to fall before they realizes this.

I read on here how solar is not as good as it seems. That’s not good and I see the point. But what else is there? Maybe if that is the way it is then we should just except that we will be causing damage with coal and gas but it’s all we have. So we should try to cut back as much as we can but if you ask me it is better then what a nuclear power plant could do to everything. It is not worth the risk. Maybe with cleaner coal and more damns and wind power and if we conserve enough we can get by. Nuclear is a last option that we should, I hope, never use. It is danger as it is.

        Chuck said:

This is the first result after 10 seconds on Google.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-power31-2008jul31,0,96741.story

In general I see though that most environmentalists like gas more than other fuels. Naturally there will always be a few that will oppose anything without thinking, but in general when I search Google I see mostly support.

The issue is that the Pickens plan which claims that CNG will somehow get the US off of forign oil is bull. Even if it were an ideal motor fuel it’s not like there is enough of it and it is already being imported. Also, it would have its own issues with raising the price of fertilizer or other products as mentioned.

Replacing gasoline with methane accomplishes nothing.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-power31-2008jul31,0,96741.story

        Chuck said:

N The biggest problem with using natural gas for electricity generation is getting permits to build the plants and pipelines past the environmentalists. We use coal and diesel because environmentalists won’t allow us to use natural gas.

The biggest issue with natural gas is pushing production wells down fast enough to meet demand. I don’t believe I have seen environmentalists freaking over gas too much, although there may be some local exceptions, as pipelines usually follow existing utility right-of-ways

It is clean burning and readily available. The biggest problem with using natural gas for electricity generation is getting permits to build the plants and pipelines past the environmentalists. We use coal and diesel because environmentalists won’t allow us to use natural gas.

Gasoline is clearly the best solution currently for transportation.