Japanese only now starting to admit how bad the meltdown at F ukushima really is.....

[Calaber]

I wish the Greens here allowed us to use Hydro. Alas. They only support Wind and Solar.

Yep. Wind, because the Greens are full of it, and solar because they all think it shines out of their alimentary canals. With some of them, methane might be a more appropriate renewable........

I'm with Grennan on this one. Our political phobia about going nuclear is preventing us from developing advanced power generation and locking us into coal when it is obvious that coal fired power generation is using obsolete technology. This vast continent of ours is kidding itself it if believes it can meet its future base load requirements from solely renewable fuels, in the next 50 years or so, at least. Eventually, technology might catch up with demand and provide a truly large capacity, environmentally friendly power source but during those 50 plus years, we need a substantive substitute for coal. I don't think sun and wind alone can do it.

We live on the most stable portion of the earth's crust. Our "earthquakes" barely tickle the Richter scale. Tectonic plate movements barely affect us because we sit on one complete plate. Our most recent volcanic activity is measured in millions of years. Few countries can boast the geographic stability of this continent. Politically, we are small beer on the disruption scale, as our society and governance is basically stable - no chance of political/military juntas or overthrows, no civil wars. In other words, given the advanced state of technology of modern nuclear power plants, what exactly is it that stops us from going in that direction? Why are the opponents of nuclear power so stridently opposed to it, given its environmental advantages? Hell, we don't even have to import the fuel - it's here in abundance, like just about every other essential natural element, so controls on its extraction and processing can be closely controlled too.

We even have state governments that are prepared to accept nuclear waste from other countries to be stored at remote dump sites, because of the financial benefits to those States for accepting the stuff.

So, why don't we do it?

 

[Eevo]

It is clear that the operator ignored warnings about the tsunami risk as well as the wider nuclear industry to a large earthquakes.

to be fair, it wasn't just TEPCO who ignored those risks.
also, the plant stood up to the earthquake fine.

 

[Skydrol]

Chernobil was a SNAFU to the highest degree. Perfect example of Murphy's Law.

However, the technology is so far ahead that is safe. The French use Nuclear Power far more than any country and so far they have a great track record. The Military use Nuclear Power for their ships. You bet that will not be used if is unstable and dangerous. Even was an attempt for a Nuclear Powerplant on a Convair B35 Peacemaker Bomber.

There is an episode of Top Gear were the boys went to Chernobil. Interesting enough... they drove by the reactor, right on the street. They still alive.

That is bad yes it is; how bad? Imagine the truth is 1, the media paints the reality 100 times worse.

 

[Skydrol]

Just to add a bit on Coal Powerplants. Do not know in Oz but in the USA they are very efficient. Most of the "smoke" is water vapor. They burn so efficient that smoke does not comes out and they do use Cat Converters which the byproduct is turned into Water and CO2 (plant food); and next to nothing NOX and CO.

With the right lense and filters (usualy is amber to give a dramatic hot, doom and gloom poluting look) it can look very very ugly like some nasty smoke stack.

The eyes tells you what you want to hear.

 

[Immortality]

to be fair, it wasn't just TEPCO who ignored those risks.
also, the plant stood up to the earthquake fine.

Agreed, but the nuclear plant that was situated closest to the epicentre of the earthquake had a much larger/higher flood defence wall that withstood the tsunami.......

I would be fairly confident in saying that the primary reason the ###ushima plant didn't get the larger flooding defences was based on dollars.

Chernobil was a SNAFU to the highest degree. Perfect example of Murphy's Law.

However, the technology is so far ahead that is safe. The French use Nuclear Power far more than any country and so far they have a great track record. The Military use Nuclear Power for their ships. You bet that will not be used if is unstable and dangerous. Even was an attempt for a Nuclear Powerplant on a Convair B35 Peacemaker Bomber.

There is an episode of Top Gear were the boys went to Chernobil. Interesting enough... they drove by the reactor, right on the street. They still alive.

That is bad yes it is; how bad? Imagine the truth is 1, the media paints the reality 100 times worse.

True, but they could only stay close to the reactor core for a short period of time and they wore dosimeters of some sort to make sure they weren't exposed to to much radiation. The reactor core is now also totally encased in concrete if I'm not mistaken.

There isn't much point comparing military to civilian tech as military stuff is generally built to much better standards, except for maybe the Russians, they had that accident with the submarine_K-19 that had a problem when the primary cooling system sprung a leak and no back up systems......

 

[Skydrol]

Is not the point to weaponize some under tax payer's expense and use the tech on civilian markets? I said that to prove the point that is safe on some that is going to be shot at, why not use it in the civilian sector? Should be pretty darn safe.

I do favor Nuclear Energy as a cost effective and safe alternative.

Search on Molten Salt Thorium Reactors, interesting read.

 

[Immortality]

I'm not arguing the point that nuclear energy can be safe, my point is that in the current capitalist society the western world lives in everything is built and operated to a price and make a profit, add in the human operator factor and we have a much larger potential for disaster.

Yeah, i've done a fair bit of reading on nuclear reactors of late.

 

[Eevo]

I would be fairly confident in saying that the primary reason the ###ushima plant didn't get the larger flooding defences was based on dollars.

im half confident the wall would of been built within 5 years but i do agree

 

[Skydrol]

Think of money as energy.

Energy production has to be profitable. Is not for the people to carry the burden of any hidden cost. If the Gov (any world Gov) lend money is to have a return; just like any business. Is all of us money, why not?

The problem with modern socialists, is to screw the public with some utopic pipedream and shift the wealth to the few cronies in power. Just like the book "Animal Farm", the Pig living in the house eating peaches and cream, while the rest work their rears off, carring the burden for the so called greater good.

The bad reputation from Foock-O-Shltma is more about bad publicity to help the Greenies (as pro green/eco whatever). No signs of radiation in the states beside the normal levels out there produced by the sun and the earth itself The media keep saying that we are in danger.

Have anybody read the UN Action Plan Agenda 21? Another inresting read on what it can do.

 

[Immortality]

Governments don't lend money any more, they borrow it from the large corporations and banks that now run this world, governments then bail out those banks and corporations when they fail with tax payers money which is used to pay large bonuses to the executives of said banks and corporations. No matter how you look at it, the average consumer/tax payer is getting screwed.

I don't mind paying a fair price for a product or a service but I get the feeling that these days we are getting ripped off and in many instances big business and is doing so with the blessing of the government which is there to serve us, if indeed that government isn't screwing us over directly.