Quote :

""

is this gif of the cooling tower they imploded at the savannah river site a couple years ago?

[Edited on May 30, 2011 at 8:49 PM. Reason : hm....yes, it is.]

5/30/2011 8:43:20 PM

it seems to be the K-area reactor cooling tower. that was such a fucked up waste of money it wasn't even funny. Spent however many million to build it. Turned it on once, then shut the damn thing down and never used it again. Your tax dollars at work!

Quote :

"In stark reversal to the previous position of the Merkel government, Germany becomes the latest industrial nation to abandon nuclear power."

yep. Apparently there are other countries that like spending three times as much on electricity for no god damned reason. Have fun with the wonderful blackouts that relying on wind and solar brings

5/30/2011 9:03:36 PM

Europe is always 10 years ahead of us.

5/30/2011 9:18:38 PM

riiiiiiiiiight. If they feel like paying three times as much for electricity, and they think will be *good* for their economy, then I say to let em fuck themselves. This is why the environmental movement is so fucked up. Hey, let's get rid of the ONLY method we have that ca make us not dependent on carbon-based fuel, because we wanna save the environment. wait, wat?

5/30/2011 9:20:50 PM

Germany suffered terribly from the Chernobyl disaster.

5/30/2011 9:42:37 PM

Does this mean it will cost more to buy a BMW or Porsche now

5/31/2011 10:37:49 AM

Quote :

"Germany suffered terribly from the Chernobyl disaster."

If I thought this was true I would be anti-nuclear myself.

5/31/2011 10:54:56 AM

^



Nuclear Disaster Now Includes Oil Spill
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110601a3.html

6/1/2011 12:15:38 AM

Quote :

"According to the utility, the two tanks, whose capacity is 960,000 liters each, were hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the tanks themselves or pipelines sustained damage, probably causing the oil spill."

Oh the horror. Won't someone think of the birds?

6/1/2011 1:25:28 AM

Italy will hold referendum on nuclear power ban. Corrupt Berlusconi is championing nuclear energy.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j4uXUyYBgWHqF_T8nWpOktRtwNog?docId=CNG.5d549c333d4735278292b7398273a031.6d1

6/1/2011 12:34:30 PM

First death from Fukushima by a worker who dies from... a heart attack
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/worker-dies-after-collapsing-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant

6/1/2011 8:46:02 PM

Quote :

"Germany suffered terribly from the Chernobyl disaster."

And liberals cause the suffering of baby seals. I, too, can make outrageous and unfounded claims.

Quote :

"Italy will hold referendum on nuclear power ban destroying its economy. Corrupt Berlusconi is championing nuclear energy."

FTFY

[Edited on June 2, 2011 at 10:41 AM. Reason : ]

6/2/2011 10:41:01 AM

Authorities announced today that they have been lying for months. All three reactors suffered total meltdowns on the day of earthquake. The official radiation release estimate was doubled today. Many workers are now thought to have received excessive radiation doses. Japanese exporters are clamoring for radiation testing since their customers are refusing to accept their goods.

The people in charge of nuclear energy in Japan have demonstrated that they are not trustworthy. There's no reason to believe that Americans would have behaved any differently.

[Edited on June 6, 2011 at 7:05 PM. Reason : .]

6/6/2011 7:05:14 PM

Quote :

"There's no reason to believe that Americans would have behaved any differently."

Basis for this statement??????????

6/7/2011 10:24:00 AM

American cars are inferior to Japanese cars.

American engineers are inferior to Japanese engineers, and twice as corrupt blinded by their faith in nuclear energy...willing to lie to the public to protect it. You nuke lovers in this thread have proved it.

6/7/2011 10:27:47 AM

Quote :

"American engineers are inferior to Japanese engineers"

eh depends. Having worked directly with lots of Japanese engineers specifically in their nuclear industry I definitely don't agree with this statement. Maybe it depends on the industry though. They work "harder" and "longer" but are definitely not outright superior and are almost moreso "stuck" in their ways and more stubborn to change with nuclear design...even if it means moving to safer, cheaper options. They are much more "by the book" and most of their plants are based around or actually are American designs.

And I'd like you to find just one example of how someone in this thread proved they are willing to lie to the public about nuclear energy. And that proof has to come from someone who has actually is knowledgeable with or has worked with nuclear energy.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:33 AM. Reason : .]

6/7/2011 10:31:26 AM

^^ Which nuclear sites have you worked at?

6/7/2011 10:34:02 AM

People are people. When shit hits the fan at a U.S. powerplant, they WILL lie to the public. They WILL wait too long to sound the alarm in an effort to save face. They WILL under report the severity of a crisis. The only solution is to dismantle them now, while we still can.

6/7/2011 10:34:23 AM

^ Which nuclear sites have you worked at?

6/7/2011 10:35:32 AM

^^ I'm not arguing that some people aren't corrupt or stupid. Most of the safety issues with anything are a result of negligence or people trying to save face/money by not reporting problems (look at the BP incident). But you can't just make arguments without backing anything up.

You specifically accuse engineers in this thread of being willing to lie to the public. If you have the balls to do that, have the balls to back it up with facts. Not "oh well...uh...ummm...when stuff goes wrong...people lie!"

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:39 AM. Reason : .]

6/7/2011 10:38:31 AM

^

edit: also, as an active member of our site's emergency response team, I can damn well guarantee right now that we will overreact to any possible threat. Our culture compels us to do so just as much as our procedures and policies - which are driven by federal law.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:41 AM. Reason : smc is a brilliant troll or a goddamned moron]

6/7/2011 10:39:08 AM

exactly. Maybe for me I'm a little caught up in it as I work for an engineering/construction company with about the best (if not the best) safety record of any company our size but safety is a big part of any design I am a part of. And I am not "nuke lover." I'm all for lots of energy that moves us away from some of the old standards. I'm working part-time on a bio-diesel project right now. But I do also see nuclear as a viable (and needed) option moving forward. It is one piece of the puzzle, not the only solution.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:43 AM. Reason : .]

6/7/2011 10:42:55 AM

Quote :

"People are people. When shit hits the fan at a U.S. powerplant, they WILL lie to the public. They WILL wait too long to sound the alarm in an effort to save face. They WILL under report the severity of a crisis. The only solution is to dismantle them now, while we still can."

The same goes for most industries. Industry blows up quite regularly in this country, killing lots of people every year. We tolerate it because the alternatives are worse. That said, you clearly have a point when it comes to nuclear plants on the coast in tsunami zones, a relatively short list. Of course, it seems an even better idea would be to retrofit them to survive the new worst case tsunami.

6/7/2011 10:44:00 AM

^ The thing is it is NOT true for the nuclear industry.

None of you have any idea how much oversight there is at a US nuclear plant, from industry groups and the federal regulator itself. The scrutiny applied to the simplest day-to-day activities would numb you.

There IS a huge cultural difference between us and the Japanese. We've been discussing it since March. Their approach to this has baffled us all.

At least where I work, it would be flat out impossible to hide anything or to lie to the public. Irrelevant, because no one has any desire to.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:53 AM. Reason : ]

6/7/2011 10:51:23 AM

So let's say the Japanese did everything correctly. This disaster, the worst in 20 years, was simply an unavoidable act of god.

But it's not an act of god. It's an uncontrolled reaction that can't be shut down. A disaster entirely of man's own creation. No amount of oversight will prevent disasters. The repercussions of even a single accident are enormous.

The only solution is to shut down the industry. An idea which is rapidly gaining traction, with glorious Germany leading the way as the rest of we savages blindly destroy ourselves.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 10:59 AM. Reason : Mein Fuehrer!]

6/7/2011 10:58:03 AM

^^Wasn't Metropolitan Edison indicted for falsifying data and destroying documents after Three Mile Island?

6/7/2011 11:30:33 AM

Quote :

"The 1979 investigation strongly criticized Babcock and Wilcox, Met Ed, GPU, and the NRC for lapses in quality assurance and maintenance, inadequate operator training, lack of communication of important safety information, poor management, and complacency, but avoided drawing conclusions about the future of the nuclear industry.[56] The heaviest criticism from the Kemeny Commission concluded that "fundamental changes were necessary in the organization, procedures, practices 'and above all – in the attitudes' of the NRC [and the nuclear industry.]"[57] Kemeny said that the actions taken by the operators were "inappropriate" but that the workers "were operating under procedures that they were required to follow, and our review and study of those indicates that the procedures were inadequate" and that the control room "was greatly inadequate for managing an accident."[58] The Kemeny Commission noted that Babcock and Wilcox's PORV valve had previously failed on 11 occasions, nine of them in the open position, allowing coolant to escape. More disturbing, however, was the fact that the initial causal sequence of events at TMI had been duplicated 18 months earlier at another Babcock and Wilcox reactor, owned by Davis-Besse. The only difference was that the operators at Davis-Besse identified the valve failure after 20 minutes, where at TMI it took 80 minutes; and the Davis-Besse facility was operating at 9% power, against TMI's 97%. Although Babcock engineers recognised the problem, the company failed to clearly notify its customers of the valve issue.[59] Upon his return to Dartmouth, Kemeny addressed Dartmouth college students. When asked what caused the meltdown, he replied that the proximate cause would probably never be known. The Government Affairs Vice President confirmed that the Metropolitan Edison Company, which operated the company, had shortly before received a warning from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that Babcock and Wilcox reactor valves were vulnerable to failure under certain conditions. He said he had sent it on to the Vice President of Engineering, who confirmed that he had read it. Shortly after that, the two men met at the water cooler where the Government Affairs VP asked the Engineering VP a question. The Government Affairs VP remembered the question as "Is there a problem here?" The Engineering VP thought the question was "Have you solved the problem?" Both VPs agreed that the answer was "no". One walked away believing that the problem was solved. The other believed that he had informed his bosses that there was a problem. The issue was never resolved. Kemeny told the students that he believed it never would be. The proximate cause of the meltdown remains unknown and no proof of negligence was ever uncovered."

Quote :

"On Friday, January 20, 2006, FirstEnergy(formerly Metropolitan Edison) acknowledged a cover-up of serious safety violations by former workers at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station, and accepted a plea bargain with the U.S. Department of Justice in lieu of possible federal criminal prosecution. The plea bargain relates to the March 2002 discovery of severe corrosion in the pressure vessel of the nuclear reactor, contained within the plant's containment building. In the agreement, the company agreed to pay fines of $23 million, with an additional $5 million to be contributed toward research on alternative energy sources and to Habitat for Humanity as well as to pay for costs related to the Federal investigation. In addition, two former employees and one former contractor were indicted for purposely deceiving Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspectors in multiple documents (including one videotape) over several years, hiding evidence that the reactor pressure vessel was being seriously corroded by boric acid. The maximum penalty for the three is 25 years in prison. The indictment also cites other employees as providing false information to inspectors, but does not name them. In 2005, the NRC identified two earlier incidents at Davis-Besse as being among the top five events (excluding the actual disaster at Three Mile Island) most likely to have resulted in a nuclear disaster in the event of a subsequent failure."

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/04/post-4.html

Quote :

""I think the numbers on the NRC's website are off by a factor of 100 to 1,000," he said. Exactly how much radiation was released is impossible to say, since onsite monitors immediately went off the scale after the explosion. But Gundersen points to an inside report by an NRC manager who himself estimated the release of about 36 million curies -- almost three times as much as the NRC's official estimate. Gundersen also notes that industry itself has acknowledged there was a total of 10 billion curies of radiation inside the reactor containment. Using the common estimate that a tenth of it escaped, that means as much as a billion curies could have been released to the environment."

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:52 AM. Reason : .]

6/7/2011 11:43:39 AM

you guys really really REALLY need to stop feeding the troll

6/7/2011 12:51:39 PM

It's hard to argue against human nature; greed, deceit, incompetence and the unstoppable uncertainty of nature. Arguing that nuclear energy is infallibly safe is an insurmountably difficult undertaking.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 2:22 PM. Reason : .]

6/7/2011 2:21:28 PM

Just a reminder that we still have no long term storage option for nuclear waste, and it's being trucked into Holly Springs regularly. The Yucca mountain site was deemed safe in 2002, but no one is willing to actually open it. Instead waste will be stored in above ground containers for the "interim" period, expected to last decades.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/radioactive-politics-over-nuclear-storage-at-yucca-mountain/2011/06/03/AGiNJQLH_story.html

Quote :

"“I’m embarrassed,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.)."

You call this safe? You think this is sustainable?

6/7/2011 9:46:24 PM

Quote :

"The Yucca mountain site was deemed safe in 2002, but no one is Democrats aren't willing to actually open it."

6/8/2011 9:01:15 AM

Quote :

"You call this safe? You think this is sustainable?"

Quote :

"Just a reminder that we still have no long term storage option for nuclear waste, and it's being trucked into Holly Springs regularly."

6/8/2011 1:03:16 PM

don't you see the third arm growing out of the torso on that guy on the left? it's OBVIOUS!!!

Quote :

"[quote]The Yucca mountain site was deemed safe in 2002, but no one is Democrats aren't Harry Reid isn't willing to actually open it."

[/quote]
FTFYFY

also, it's funny that you reference TMI as being evidence that shit is bad, when TMI changed OVERNIGHT how the nuclear industry in the US is run.

6/8/2011 3:54:59 PM

How damaging to the biosphere is a complete nuclear meltdown compared to, say, the detonation of a nuclear bomb?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk

6/13/2011 11:36:56 AM

Italian Voters Ban Nuclear Power
94% Majority Oppose Nuclear Energy

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/06/10/international/i033623D81.DTL&type=business

Now let's get an American referendum going!

[Edited on June 13, 2011 at 1:15 PM. Reason : .]

6/13/2011 1:12:50 PM

i know smc is trolling and that's all fine and dandy...

but what sources of power do you recommend to replace nuclear? coal?

6/13/2011 2:59:21 PM

^^I'm smiling too, b/c it gives America a competitive advantage.

[Edited on June 13, 2011 at 3:10 PM. Reason : caret]

6/13/2011 3:10:31 PM

Quote :

"but what sources of power do you recommend to replace nuclear?"

6/13/2011 4:37:49 PM

why unicorn farts and tire-pressure gauges, of course!

I'm glad to see that Italy feels like paying three times as much for power, lol

6/16/2011 5:33:05 PM

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html

Quote :

" Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind. TEPCO announced that the accident probably released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record. A recent newspaper poll in Japan shows nearly three-quarters of respondents favour a phase-out of nuclear power in Japan. Why have alarms not been sounded about radiation exposure in the US? Nuclear operator Exelon Corporation has been among Barack Obama's biggest campaign donors, and is one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was senator. ... Obama also appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. Most of the reactors in Japan were designed by US companies who did not care for the effects of earthquakes. ... Until we know how to safely dispose of the radioactive materials generated by nuclear plants, we should postpone these activities so as not to cause further harm to future generations," he explained. "To do otherwise is simply an immoral act" "

6/16/2011 8:00:42 PM

Spike in infant mortality in the northwest UNITED STATES in the weeks following fukushima disaster, possibly from fallout. An increase of 35% vs. national average of 2.3%.

http://sfbayview.com/2011/is-the-increase-in-baby-deaths-in-the-northwest-u-s-due-to-fukushima-fallout-how-can-we-find-out/

6/16/2011 8:05:52 PM

Q: is-the-increase-in-baby-deaths-in-the-northwest-u-s-due-to-fukushima-fallout?

A: No.

6/17/2011 12:35:08 AM

Quote :

"I'm glad to see that Italy feels like paying three times as much for power, lol "

they may have to actually start conserving

6/17/2011 6:20:11 AM

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/massive-snowmelt-pits-wind-turbines-against-water-power/240373/

Quote :

"Spring runoff has caused rushing waters in the Federal Columbia River Power System, making massive amounts of water power possible. In fact, there is too much power available to the northwest's power grid, threatening service and rate stability. Some generation has to be slowed or shutdown, or buyers outside the region found for the electricity. The Bonneville Power Administration, which manages power transmission in parts of eight Western states and sells hydropower from federal dams, has decided to curtail windpower to solve its overgeneration problem. [...] This year, with weather warm and rivers raging, thermal producers -- coal, nuclear and natural gas producers -- have already powered down, and BPA said it has had no choice but to cut wind power off the grid next. But unlike thermal power generators, wind farms lose money in the exchange. When hydropower is so abundant there is little financial gain to producing more, thermal producers save money by conserving fuel. Wind companies, however, have no fuel savings, lose money from power sales, and also lose lucrative federal and state incentives tied to production. As of June 13, wind companies had curtailed 74,114 megawatt hours of power during select overnight hours, worth $1.6 million in production tax credits alone."

6/17/2011 6:58:00 AM

Quote :

"Nuclear operator Exelon Corporation has been among Barack Obama's biggest campaign donors, and is one of the largest employers in Illinois where Obama was senator. ... Obama also appointed Exelon CEO John Rowe to his Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future."

LOL at them trying to make it look like Obama is pro-nuclear energy

6/17/2011 10:17:02 AM

Obama is a conservative, after all, so he strongly supports nuclear energy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-support-for-nuclear-power-faces-a-test/2011/03/18/ABQLu8r_story.html

6/17/2011 3:02:32 PM

15,000+ deaths from the earthquake

1 death from the nuclear accident (heart attack)

6/17/2011 3:31:40 PM

^Troll.

6/17/2011 3:40:12 PM

^Troll.

6/17/2011 4:56:36 PM

I'm the way forward. You all are living in the past, and hurtling towards a bleak future.

Senate Grills NRC and Doesn't Like What It Hears
http://www.thenation.com/blog/161511/cold-comfort-senate-nuclear-safety-hearing

Quote :

"the NRC had never really considered the possibility that multiple reactors or even multiple plants could fail at the same time... Commissioners also had no answers about how to fix backup power systems that continue to cool nuclear material in the event of a major power outage. The batteries at Fukushima ran for only eight hours—not nearly long enough. In the United States, the standard length is only four hours. During the 2008 campaign, President Obama called it(the NRC) “a moribund agency…captive of the industry it regulates.” ...the NRC held a secret vote urging the Justice Department to intervene and force Vermont to allow the nuclear plant to continue operations. Through two rounds of questions, Sanders asked each commissioner if they participated in such a vote, and how they voted. Each commissioner refused to answer his questions. “You’re independent. So when I hear you say that there’s a safety issue, you want to hear both sides, that troubles me...perform your own inspections.""

Omaha Reactor Currently Flooded


[Edited on June 17, 2011 at 5:40 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2011 5:25:47 PM