Japan changes mind about nuclear power

[campbeji]

I'm not a fan of nuclear power. I know that it is a 'green' energy in as much as it dosnt produce carbond it also produces lots of electric etc etc, but I just can't get into a power source that could melt your face off at 5 miles range if something goes wrong

I guess the Japanese are starting to think the same - industrytap.com/japan-building-a-mega-solar-power-and-wind-energy-plant/

[cye]

that's interesting. the japanese public are fairly green already and there are a huge number of domestic solar pv installations.

i used to work in the fujitsu lab in tokyo where the reactor simulation and control programs for those power stations were developed. but i guess they never considered such a catastrophic wall of water would swamp the backup generators. their enthusiasm for nuclear power always struck me as odd, given the nation had first hand experience of radiation from nagasaki and horishima.

if it weren't for the demand for weapons grade material, the thorium reactors would probably have been developed. Th228 and Th234 have really short half lifes and a disaster on the same scale with a thorium reactor would have had much less long-term significance.

in UK, the cost of dealing with the long term storage is unquantified:

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9659714/Warning-over-Sellafield-waste-plans.html

[campbeji]

The pro nuclear people all make very good arguments for the use of nucler power, and some of them I even agree with, for example I don't think there is any doubt that they would reduce the carbon output for energy production. However there are a few things that put me off, the cost of building, maintaining and decommisioning the reactors, dealing with the waste products and the potential for a disaster.

I have read in various places that nuclear power is safe, or at least safer than it was, obviously a use of the word safe that I am not familiar with. Who knows what can happen, with natural disasters, terrorism and of course peoples incompetence.

I was once involved (on the very outskirts) in an industrial accident where there was a chemical spill and the plans that were put into place to combat this didn't work quite right (as I remember it there was a sticky valve and a greater than expected exothermic reaction), the result was that 100's of people were taken to hospital, 100's of people were evacuated from their homes, and one poor guy died due to gas escaping from drains through a dry toilet bowl.

The way it happened and the results were unexpected because it was a situation that was caused by an accident that had contingency plans in place, and they were put into place in a timely way, it just didn't work the way it was supposed to.

Luckily it was just a chemical treatment line and not a nuclear power plant. That was just an accident but imagine what could happen if there was a terrorist attack, or in a worst case scenario an employee who flips out and decides to go out with a bang.

So, not a fan of nuclear

I thought it funny that a link at the bottom of the page you pointed to links to a story about the Darwin awards (awarded to people who remove themselves from the gene pool by killing themselve in stupid ways), and it made me wonder if the residents of the 23rd century will be awarding a Darwin to the residents of the 21st century. I can imagine them saying 'They thought nuclear power was safe'.