There Has Been An Error!

[Requia ☣]

Um, they use uranium, the *byproduct* is plutonium.
A great deal of the US reactors (all but one iirc) are of the old shitty design as well (if not as shitty as Russia's, but even then they had to manually override the safeties during a meltdown to cause the disaster).

[Jasper]

Um, they use uranium, the *byproduct* is plutonium.

Oh, then never mind.  Clearly that makes my whole point wrong.

[Requia ☣]

On the list of nuclear accidents in the US, is a there a comparative list of coal power plant accidents?  Industry in general doesn't have the best safety list.

I also find the 'exposed to radiation' line kindof amusing, I mean, turning on a lightbulb exposes me to radiation without knowing how much it's hard to say if its significant at all.

[Jasper]

On the list of nuclear accidents in the US, is a there a comparative list of coal power plant accidents?  Industry in general doesn't have the best safety list.

I also find the 'exposed to radiation' line kindof amusing, I mean, turning on a lightbulb exposes me to radiation without knowing how much it's hard to say if its significant at all.

Didn't find anything, but there's this from Scientific American:

estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Under optimum operation, nuclear is vastly superior in safety and efficiency to coal. I don't think the debate is between coal and nuclear; I think the debate is between nuclear and sustainable sources of energy.

Of course, when things go wrong with nuclear (or when Really Bad Ideas are treated as business as usual, as in the case of Hanford) they have much farther-reaching and devastating long-term effects than when something goes wrong with a coal plant.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

However, watching this go upriver was pretty neat:



Of course, I also have to admit that living in an area which has had a high rate of failed nuclear projects and a high level of contamination, I'm a little biased.

[Jasper]

It's sad how irresponsible the people who run nuclear power plants are.  Chernobyl happened in large part because of an overzealous stress test, and ignoring obvious warning signs, aside from it being a rushed construction.

NIMBY, but only because they can't seem to find properly vigilant operators.

[East Coast Hustle]

Umm, what trail of "epic disaster" are you talking about? Chernobyl? Once incident, which was the result of a shitty reactor design that's no longer in use?

Learn 2 Science.  

O.K. MR. "SCIENCE"

          look into Washington.

OR

          go swimming in the Willamette.

What about Washington? Are you saying that some contamination at Hanford constitutes an "epic disaster"? That's lulzy. One of my best friends worked there. He was, essentially, Homer Simpson IRL. And even HE couldn't fuck that thing up. And as previously mentioned, WPPS was just an expensive boondoggle, but that had nothing to do with a nuclear diaster, that was a financial disaster.

Tell me, what definition of "epic disaster" are you using?

[Requia ☣]

It's sad how irresponsible the people who run nuclear power plants are.  Chernobyl happened in large part because of an overzealous stress test, and ignoring obvious warning signs, aside from it being a rushed construction.

NIMBY, but only because they can't seem to find properly vigilant operators.

It happened because somebody shut down the safeties.  During a meltdown.  Pure stupidity (or maybe malice, they aren't around to ask).  The others led up to it, but if the safeties had been left on the plant would have shut down.

[Jasper]

It's sad how irresponsible the people who run nuclear power plants are.  Chernobyl happened in large part because of an overzealous stress test, and ignoring obvious warning signs, aside from it being a rushed construction.

NIMBY, but only because they can't seem to find properly vigilant operators.

It happened because somebody shut down the safeties.  During a meltdown.  Pure stupidity (or maybe malice, they aren't around to ask).  The others led up to it, but if the safeties had been left on the plant would have shut down.

The point stands.  Incompetent operators are the largest risk in a nuke plant.

[Requia ☣]

In a properly designed plant the incompetence risk is reduced a bit, since you can't shut down the last layer of failsafes, the rods are held above the reactor bed, and if it gets too hot the bits of metal holding the rods up melt, the rods all fall and the reaction shuts down.

Doesn't keep them from dumping crap into a lake though 

[Jasper]

In a properly designed plant the incompetence risk is reduced a bit, since you can't shut down the last layer of failsafes, the rods are held above the reactor bed, and if it gets too hot the bits of metal holding the rods up melt, the rods all fall and the reaction shuts down.

Doesn't keep them from dumping crap into a lake though 

Amazing.  They've even engineered away the need for competence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Umm, what trail of "epic disaster" are you talking about? Chernobyl? Once incident, which was the result of a shitty reactor design that's no longer in use?

Learn 2 Science.  

O.K. MR. "SCIENCE"

          look into Washington.

OR

          go swimming in the Willamette.

What about Washington? Are you saying that some contamination at Hanford constitutes an "epic disaster"? That's lulzy. One of my best friends worked there. He was, essentially, Homer Simpson IRL. And even HE couldn't fuck that thing up. And as previously mentioned, WPPS was just an expensive boondoggle, but that had nothing to do with a nuclear diaster, that was a financial disaster.

Tell me, what definition of "epic disaster" are you using?

Hanford wasn't exactly an accidental disaster. Well, there were accidents, but the bulk of the disaster was long-term policy.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Hanford/publications/overview/columbia.html

It's not the technology that's the problem, it's all the human beings in charge of the technology and the policies behind operating the technology.

[Requia ☣]

In a properly designed plant the incompetence risk is reduced a bit, since you can't shut down the last layer of failsafes, the rods are held above the reactor bed, and if it gets too hot the bits of metal holding the rods up melt, the rods all fall and the reaction shuts down.

Doesn't keep them from dumping crap into a lake though  

Amazing.  They've even engineered away the need for competence.

They aren't *that* good yet.

Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water. In April 2005 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fining plant owner First Energy 5.4 million dollars for their failure to uncover the problem sooner (similar problems plaguing other plants were already known within the industry), and also proposed banning System Engineer Andrew Siemaszko from working in the industry for five years due to his falsifying reactor vessel logs. As of this writing the fine and suspension were under appeal.

For one example.  The checklist of things you'd have to do to get a Chernobyl type disaster in a well built reactor is very long, but lower scale disasters are easy to come by.

[Reginald Ret]

It's not an epic nuclear disaster without a crater.
brown outs will cause more deaths than nuclear accidents.
alternate solution is cutting down on power usage (BWAHAHA)