Nuclear Exodus
Right now there are more people connected to the Internet than there were on the planet when WWII began. And we all started doing a very special thing... we started sharing everything, with everyone, everywhere. We shared what we loved, what we hated, we shared fashion, music and art, we shared what made us laugh, what made us cry... we even started sharing money. And for the first time in history a united global culture emerged.
A culture independent of race, borders, and nationalities who realized we are all one species that shares one planet... except there was one dirty, "little" problem - POWER. There are presently 432 nuclear reactors operating worldwide: 54 in Japan, 59 in France, and 104 in the United States. How many people were affected by Chernobyl exactly, and what kind of health impact can we expect to see from Fukushima? Well, that really depends on who you ask. According to George Monbiot's figures Chernobyl has killed about 43 people.
The governments of the world, those that lead the United Nations and comprise the UN Security Council, would like you to believe that the number of people afflicted with cancer, birth defects and other radiation related illnesses from the fallout of over 2,000 nuclear weapons detonations is statistically insignificant. But in order for that to be the case the United Nations would also need you to believe that a full scale nuclear meltdown like Chernobyl would only kill about two people a year.
However, bear in mind that the average nuclear warhead only contains about 20 pounds of nuclear fuel, and nuclear power-plant, such as Fukushima, contains thousands of tons of nuclear fuel. And this is the reason why just one nuclear meltdown has the capacity to destroy an entire nation. A single nuclear disaster, such as the ongoing possibility at Fukushima's reactor units 3 and 4, can release more radiation than the combined radiation of all the nuclear weapons tests ever conducted.
According to the filmmaker of this documentary, the first two hours are a nightmare beyond description, a journey through hell and back, but if you stay the course the final hour will offer you a truly glorious solution.
Cool fear mongering with half truths. What a load of trash.
this vid should be getting much higher ratinga - in time it will
If you watch any of this, min 33:00 to min 35:00 is epic. The monologue at 34:00 couldn't be better and still holds true in so many aspects today
An absurdly farcical propaganda piece. Your intelligence will drop a point or two from watching it.
industrial civilization, it will never be possible to safely shut down all 450 operating nuclear reactors and recover or maintain control of perhaps thousands of nuclear waste facilities around the world. And our obligation is to provide safe and secure storage for all that radioactive waste for a million years. Mankind has still to build a structure which will last 50 thousand years, let alone a million.
Sadly the most arrogant commenters operate from the least and mistaken information. It would seem Naoto Kan former president of Japan, among many other experts, would have the proper information to determine as they have stated, that the safest nuclear power plant is NO nuclear power plant. Terrorism or natural disaster makes us all vulnerable to existing spent fuel rod storage, even if all nuclear reactors were shut down.
It seems that situation will not be fixed until those who own and promote nuclear energy are required to and forced to live right next to those nuclear plants. Sadly the same is true for fossil fuel pipelines (and processing plants). Until their owners and promoters are forced to live on top of them, will they be made safe. And how can they be made safe in unstable earth areas (slides, earthquakes, etc.)
So the mistaken rebuttal by the arrogant operating from limited information, is "nuclear and fossil fuel are the only thing we have that is capable to provide us enough energy".
Nikola Tesla (not Tesla auto of Elon Musk) solved this problem over 100 years ago, as have a number of others right up to present day.
There is a reason you don't do some of Tesla's 100+ year old experiments at any level in our BanksterCorproGovtMedia indoctrination system they call education. It would cut out their mega Billions in profits. The same reason Tesla himself was shut down by JP Morgan. If he cannot put a meter on it and charge for it then they don't want it.
If you don't believe that such inventions exist and refuse to go outside the major media and so called education system to educate yourself about those, with a few clicks of your internet, fine. There are low tech much better alternatives to what we use now, even older, used prior to fossil fuel and far safer.
The whole country, vehicles, power plants, homes, office bldgs, etc. could have their energy source from Ethanol. Which is essentially liquid solar energy. Yet, the Powers That Be have put out lies about Ethanol since it is a direct threat to their mega Billions of income. It is no wonder they have propagandized against it. And of course the teachers and authority figures buy into such propaganda.
The claim that Ethanol uses more energy to produce it than you get, is a bald faced lie disproven by the Brazilians who report 6-8 times energy out as in, including manufacturing the farm tractors. Prime food growing farmland is not necessary. Algae grown at sea could be done if necessary, which it isn't at all.
If you care about the human condition which includes the environment, as so many claim (but do you really by any action?), then even the cost of a particular energy source should not be the only factor. If Ethanol is spilled in water, it mixes and dissipates. It is carbon neutral consuming the CO2 in growing the crop to be converted to Ethanol. It is a far safer and superior fuel to petroleum in every stage of production as use. Processing plants would be between the growing areas and the use. Larger farms would have their own. There is little danger as with petroleum refineries. The smaller scale widely distributed approach makes us far less susceptible to any natural disaster or terrorist attack. Especially if a manual system of control were included in case of any computerized failure occurred. This would be likely any way to check computer sensors. The process is rather simple.
The largest reason Ethanol is despised? Anyone can make it. That means profit margins will be low and they cannot manipulate the supply. Both diesel and gasoline vehicles can run on it, airplanes, power plants, etc.
Next the promoters of the status quo will state that your car will get less mpg. Not in vehicles designed for it. Nor in certain vehicles that can be properly tuned for it. Only the vehicles which are only modified minimally to run on Ethanol would see a bit less fuel economy and not all of them. And so what, compared to all the benefits, if you truly care about the human condition and taking the power back from the psychopaths?
Wars would not be fought over Ethanol. Anyone can make it. Add in the cost of the military and its casualties and hospitalization to your petrol mpg that you pay in taxes and national debt.
This is an excellent
TMI didn't explode, nor does it belong in a discussion about Fukushima and Chernobyl, unless it's being used as an example of the one time a meltdown was actually stopped. You don't need to know much about nuclear power to see that engineers from in or near the Philadelphia region who could speak freely (a polite way of saying we have big mouths) were able to work things out better than a hierarchical society like Japan or a totalitarian society like the Soviet Union. Japan did much better than the Soviet Union, of course, but even they got slowed down by the tendency to put organizational structure over action and common sense. Their teamwork was impressive in the end, though, and I do think they learned from their mistakes. I'll leave the technical stuff to the experts, but I think the difference between how people responded to the situation in each case is something that needs to be explored before a country that isn't really big on free speech (like China) has an accident.
I picture hypothetical aliens studying us and saying:
"Well, they've learned about nuclear fission...and they're using it to boil water..."
While I do believe the harnessing of nuclear energy could be a good thing, I also believe we achieved this far too early in the stages of our species.
First of all, we rushed this in order to make it happen. And when science is rushed and not fully tested in a safe, and long term study.
If we did not have the need to make this as a weapon, or if the people and corporations who desired to use it as a device for profit, would we have rushed something of this level of danger?
I think it is a good thing to harness power from nature, but we as a species are not responsible enough to do so. There are far too many flaws in using this power, and nothing but flaws in using it as a weapon. And IF there is intelligent life out there, I can only imagine that if they were to ever make it to our solar system in a million years or more from now, would they pass by this brown/red planet that once harbored life? Would they even know that what we did for the sake of money ended up destroying us? Or would they stop and dig out the records o our species from the dust and realize that we were nothing more than talking monkeys that had stumbled upon something so powerful that we, like children, decided to do it without considering the cost?
Those people over there that butchered that poor little boy's tonsils have no business being in the medical field... If I could I would go over there and find them and kill them one by one... slowly, so they would suffer the same.
This is an excellent, and unflinching Documentary film...
Only reason it is rated low is for the pipe dreamers don't appreciate that it evaporates any support to their belief in nuclear power.
I usually love watching documentaries but this one is too long. A simple sentence is shown for 5 seconds, followed by a compilation of interviews, news reporting and other TV footage. In the first 30 minutes I learned nothing new. The message was the Chernobyl and Fukushima were bad. Guess what....I already knew this.
A sentence for 5 whole seconds? My god. And you're right, I can't believe that this documentary would have the audacity to include interviews with MULTIPLE people. What kind of documentary does that?
may be I worded it wrong. It was more like a compilation of news coverage. And I have watched documentaries where they heave done that as well, but they asked the viewer to look at it from a different angle. I was shocked for example to watch Iraq war coverage that I had seen many times before at my own ignorance - when they pointed out the (Showdown in Iraq) headlines and the tattata...music background and showed the interiors of the great military airplanes. This one might have a great point in the end but a bored viewer will not watch through this if the point made won't be revealed for so long.
My next car is going to be a Tesla, if I can help it. And I'll rejoice on the day they put Ford, GM and Chevrolet out of business. Out with the old, indeed!
This felt like two different documentaries stuck together with emotion, not solutions that match the scale of our conundrum. The first two hours were tough, but the last hour a bit unrelated to that experience. While I have huge admiration for the entrepreneurial spirit of Elon Musk, Teslas are more about maintaining our fatal addiction to the sexy private automobile than just keeping the lights on and the fridge running while we monitor rising radiation levels.
Colonizing other planets will only work if we keep Earth fully habitable for the next 500 years, and it's already debatable whether we've got the luxury of even another century of ecological overshoot at the current exponential rate we are mining the planet's carrying capacity. Dreams of exploration are great, but we already have a serious near-terminal crisis on this planet that needs our full attention ASAP.
It's also quite disappointing that there's no mention at all of geothermal energy as a viable baseload alternative to nuclear, and that's something Japan has in spades, sitting on a subduction zone that could use some cooling down. After all, the Earth is a molten ball of iron and magma with a thin cool skin. Nuclear energy has just been a crazy complex and dangerous way to boil water and make weapons, and using the immense core heat of the planet to supply the "minuscule amount of energy humans actually need" sure seems a lot simpler.
Yea it's disappointing the documentary didn't have enough time to get into geothermal, but I think the point of the potential of renewables was well made... A blazing fast car that can run on pure sunlight now exists. Also I think the point about colonizing mars was mainly about "life insurance" for life as we know it, and I think people often overestimate how hard colonizing mars would be once we can actually get there reliably.
Living in the vacuum of space in some thin metal box we call the international space station is actually much harder. Mars actually has everything we need, plenty of water locked in its soil, and fuel. Solar power, robots, and a self constructing greenhouse could offer a great start up base...
Then once you get methane production started you could power real factories and such... that could all get started up pretty fast, easily within 50-100 years, especially if our robotics keep advancing the way they seem to be.
But in any case all of the technology needed pretty much exists... the biggest hurdle would be the re-usable rocket part. If Elon can get that then we really can get life insurance in case a solar flare or something happens to a bunch NPP's, or some other catastrophe. Life insurance for life as we know it sounds like something we should get started on asap... especially if we can do it economically as Elon suggests we can... some small fraction of the GDP. Slightly more than we spend on lipstick and other nice, but otherwise frivolous stuff...
So in that context I think this documentary offers a perfectly logical set of solutions. Plus what could inspire a generation of young scientist more than a Mars mission? I think it's just what the human race needs... As Elon said... LIfe has to be more than about solving problems, we need stuff to inspire us...
" A blazing fast car that can run on pure sunlight now exists."
Assuming you're talking about anything similar to say a Tesla charged by a rooftop of solar panels.... and if that's right...
God damn it's arguments like that that infuriate me and I offer have been even less helpful than oil companies lobbying conservatives in Congress to claim AGW is fictional.
The transportation solution you mention has more gross damage to the planet than probably 100 60's muscle cars all needing a tuneup. That's right, all the chemicals used in producing the solar panels- some are 17,000 times more damaging than CO2. The Tesla used 18650 batteries in banks which were intensely laborious and impractical to manufacture and have serious disposal issues.
Finally as an expensive exotic built on Lotus chassis which were shipped one at a time from the UK, the manufacture was so much more energy and resource costly... Like Jay Leno claiming his EcoJet is "green". I want to strangle him, every part is a hand made one off that had to be machined and painted, etc. Compared to a Honda Civic where 200,000 copies are stamped of every part.
So why am I mad? Because people like you so flippantly dismiss all the realities that make this "alternative" a complete failure- no even worse than that counterproductive. And use that to support "git 'er done" legislation that will be exploited by people like Al Gore (who made $35mil on smart meters) and corporations who channel capital to third world (so called non annex 1 under kyoto) countries who then increase their conventional pollutants AND IN THE END MAKE THINGS WORSE.
You, in the same post, say this video presents "perfectly logical solutions" and to support that
(in not so many words) use the Tesla to support that. And people who haven't done the research about solar panel production and nitrogen trifluoride and heavy metals disposal blindly eat up that rhetoric and support legislation for loans and tax breaks for the next Tesla or Fiskar.
You've done far more damage than the guy who happily drives his '69 Mustang and says global warming isn't happening. Far, far more if he's had that car for 45 years instead of eat up the corporate marketing of Toyota selling him a new Prius every 7 years.
See it's not so simple at all. But don't take this as a rant on you specifically as I could direct this at any poster in the thread and you seem intelligent enough. Hopefully also objective enough to not just look at one side of the issue when you read about PV solar panels or Li-ion battery powered exotic cars being solutions worth discussing.
They aren't and people will use them to flippantly dismiss the enormous hurdles because that easy dodge is human nature.
You have many flaws in your logic, and are often just plain wrong in some cases. For example, you assume that because nitrogen triflouride is 17,000 times more potent a greenhouse gas than c02, that its worse than a "100 60's muscle cars," disregarding the actual amount of NF3 produced per PV panel... or the lifespan of a PV panel which could last decades.
If you really want to mount a serious argument for PV causing more greenhouse gas damage than fossil fuels... then you can't just make stuff up like "100 60's muscle cars". It seriously damages your credibility, and makes people who use your argument sound like some sort of fossil fuel shill. For example, the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology published a peer reviewed study entitled Life-Cycle Nitrogen Trifluoride Emissions from Photovoltaics... which found the contribution of the nitrogen trifluoride to the CO2-budget of thin film solar cell production is compensated already within a few months by the CO2 saving potential of the PV technology.
Secondly, battery "disposal" isn't even a problem since they just recycle all of their batteries... which is by far the most cost effective method for them. In fact if something happens to your battery, Tesla will just replace it... you don't have to go figuring out a way to dispose of your batteries yourself. There isn't gonna be some massive dump full of electric car battery banks.
Lastly, Tesla's new Model S isn't built one at a time on a Lotus chassis. That should be pretty much obvious by just looking at the dimensions of the car... it can seat 7.
No offense, but the fact you don't know something so obvious about today's flagship electric vehicle really eliminates any credibility you had left after your "100 60's muscle cars" comment. Sorry, just cannot take you seriously after so many misrepresentations and flaws in your logic.
Hi windship,
"Nuclear energy has just been a crazy complex and dangerous way to boil water and make weapons, and using the immense core heat of the planet to supply the "minuscule amount of energy humans actually need" sure seems a lot simpler."
I agree! It *has* been all those things, but today it is a lot simpler and safer. Have you looked up documentaries on the LFTR? There's a thorium in 5 minutes documentary, you should watch that. There are *thousands* of ways to do nuclear, and those that use water as a coolant are dangerous, and mostly a by-product of the Pentagon's need for plutonium to make bombs. LFTR's were invented in the 60's but abandoned. Guess why? No bombs.
After the second hour many people simplistically dismiss the documentary as an "ad" for tesla motors or something to that effect. And then because they feel like they're being "sold to", they completely miss the fact that the documentary is simply highlighting the absolutely historic and revolutionary nature of that car, and everything Elon Musk is doing.
It would be as if you were doing a documentary on the historical impact of Henry Ford right when the Model T debuted in 1908, and people said "oh you're just trying to sell cars, stfu." So in a big way this documentary is just ahead of its time. A few tremendous chapters in history are being written by Elon Musk as we speak...
Uh guys? "After the second hour many people simplistically dismiss the documentary as an "ad" for tesla motors"
And were are the tesla cars going to get the electricity from?
Quick, and not cheating ,,, tick tick tick... buzz. From power plants.Those are burning coal, oil, nuc, (sort of), etc.
For now, overall, the most affordable and best designed are what we have now. A trip to Grandmoms from pittsburg to philly could not be done in a tesla or any other EV. At least not if you are also planning to take her out for dinner.
Then drive home in comfort.
Not happening. Yes I can do it in my '98 mercury villager comfortably, in all weather, and for less than $60 gas can probably also get home on cruise control.
Why take that capability away from the masses? Or is that not part of your calculations?
Should they be excluded?
Mass transit is part of our freedom and mobility that makes us such a dynamic and vibrant country.. and economy.
Why eliminate that from the equation and the citizens of the USA?
Oh so you're saying you didn't watch the documentary, or you're really dense... because that whole " where are you getting the electricity from, coal, oil, nuke" argument is completely demolished in the documentary.
Right now you can buy a Tesla and charge it for free, for life, at their solar charging stations. That's not some pipe dream, if you wanted to you can drive the Tesla on pure sunlight today, for FREE. Plus a Tesla can drive from LA to Vegas on a single charge. That's an enormous leap forward. If you want to whine about the once a year trip to grandmas or something, ignoring the fact new generations of these cars are going to have even better mileage etc...
That's a historic leap forward anyway you cut it.
Do not need to watch the whole documentary and to your points.1) What does a tesla cost? 2) what is the charging time on a tesla? 3)What is the room in a tesla, can it seat 7 and all their luggage?
4)What is the maintenance cost on a Tesla like monthly, yearly?
5) What is the end of life cost to dispose of a Tesla?
6) Where are the Free(?) charging stations?
On all levels they are more expensive than a gas engined vehicles and have no where near the same room as a gas engined vehicle. Like "CFL" light bulbs they are a toxic waste hazard and require special (meaning expensive) handling to dispose of. Most electric vehicles also require special handling if they are involved in an accident that cracks or breaks open the battery cases.
By all measures they are more expensive to buy, own, and dispose of.
They can carry less weight and smaller sized cargo/passengers, and the resale market takes all that into account so they return less of the original cost to the owner.
Modern internal combustion engined vehicles are far more a better buy on useability, cost to run, and every other measure than EV's.
And NO electricity is free. The cost of solar panels, is expensive. The cost to the environment of a water dam is expensive (that is why you must get a local, state, and federal impact study before you dam any body of water. And coal, oil, and other fueled power plants can be hazardous and expensive to build, maintain, and fuel.
So there is NO FREE ENERGY anywhere for the Tesla or any other EV.
Solar is not a reliable option in most states and regions in the USA, or as the European's are finding out anywhere in the world.
So ALL the "solutions" you mention or the documentary might mention are more expensive to the owner, user, and society as a whole than modern internal combustion engined vehicles.
So grow up, live with, and face those realities cause for now they are the best available.
Just like global warning which is a way to control or tax the average person. AGW is a myth or at least is NOT man made. Just ask that boat load of "scientists/activist" that were/are trapped in the EXPANDING ice of Antarctica! It is causing far more GW to either fly down there or ice break the way down there than if they had stayed home and faced realities of living.
We can not control the sun which is the major reason for any GW and climate change we are experiencing now.
Yeah, you actually do need to watch the documentary because you're asking all these stupid questions which are clearly addressed in the documentary. Let's take these one by one...
1) What does a cost?
2) what is the charging time on a tesla?
3)What is the room in a tesla, can it seat 7 and all their luggage?
4)What is the maintenance cost on a Tesla like monthly, yearly?
5) What is the end of life cost to dispose of a Tesla?
6) Where are the Free(?) charging stations?
1.) The Tesla model S is a premium sedan, they needed a car that they could make in lower volumes and still make a profit from, which is why its priced where it is at 70-90k. It's just extremely hard for a new car company to make high volume, low cost vehicles with brand new technology. It just takes an enormous capital investment in machinery etc... In any case the car has the highest safety rating for any car ever tested, and their next gen car after the model x is supposed to be priced in the 30k range... affordable for the everyman.
2 & 6.) The charging time at a FREE solar powered Tesla supercharging station is about 45 mins, they are building them all over the country. Right now you can drive all throughout California on nothing but FREE solar power, and soon you'll be able to drive completely cross country. However, most people usually have a full battery all the time because they just charge their cars like their cell phones when they're not using them. So as Tesla owners report, in real life the major difference between gas and Tesla electric is that you just never have to go to the gas station. Imagine if you always had to go to a gas station to charge your cell phone. You'd want to kill someone.
3.) YES. It can seat 7 and all of their luggage. It's has an enormous amount of interior space since the battery pack is all at the floor, and electric motors are extremely small and simple compared with internal combustion engines. Plus the torque curve of an electric motor just destroys an internal combustion engine.
4.) The monthly maintenance costs on a Tesla model S are FAR lower than that of a regular car which has so many more moving parts in its drive train. Even the Tesla's brakes take a lot less wear and tear because of its regenerative braking system. Combine that with all the money you save on gas and the day to day costs of owning a tesla vs a regular car is no contest. Electric wins.
5.) The battery of the Tesla is recycled completely and turned into new batteries for Tesla. And since an EV doesn't have a transmission, the disposal costs are much lower.
Even if the Tesla relied solely on fossil fuel power plants, it's still much more energy efficient than all of these internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels.
I've seen a lot of documentaries, particularly on nuclear issues, and this documentary basically puts the best of all them and then some into one solid piece. If you could only watch one documentary on nuclear issues, this would be it. It's long, but it covers the actual science in great depth, and at the same time it packs a hell of an emotional punch. I gotta admit I'm a grown man and I wept at parts on this documentary. It is not for the feint of heart.
The second hour is basically the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. Most people cannot imagine the horrors that happen when a countries medical system cannot cope with a nuclear disaster.
But the third hour actually manages to lift you out of that darkness, showing that a really fantastic future is truly at our doorsteps.
So if you're feeling bummed out towards the middle of the documentary just know there is some real light at the end of the tunnel, pretty much just like the documentary said. It almost seems like it might be going over the top warning you twice, but after you're done with the 2nd hour you will know why...
Peace and love to all,
Ed Harris
I should also add the opening earthquake tsunami sequence alone is worth the price of admission. I've seen a lot of that footage since it came out, but holy s**t the way that was put together was just epic!
Again not for the feint of heart tho,thousands of people lost their lives there. R.I.P.
My daughter is an officer in the US Navy and was on a DDG there when it happened and on that ship it was a decent ocean swell...but more than survivable. Not even a good coaster ride at most theme parks here.
For those that CHOOSE to live there, sadly it was their choice and accepted risk to do so. That is the sad reality of any coast land that borders the Pacific.
During normal times it is a beautiful place to live. And they have reasonable access to great seafood at very decent prices.
But they CHOOSE to live there the rest of the time.
Respective and realities are the names of the game there.
Our mom used to always say "you pays your money and makes your choices."
anyone who has ever wandered into a fluid dynamics lab has seen that a fluid in motion will follow the path of least resistance to flow. that, in case you didn't realize it, means "wind will avoid large scale wind farms if a less resistive path exists". grand scale solar will eventually create a "low temp/low pressure" atmospheric condition above itself due to the lessened radiant heat reflected back into the atmosphere due to the forced cooling of the array. that, in case you never pondered it, means the plant will produce conditions that cause cloud cover to form above it (condensation of vapor in the cooler air). those "free rides" also steal energy from the engines that drive our climate. diminished efficiency through use AND direct impact on the energy that drives weather, both as a result of the "harvesting" method used, would tend to negate their "green" status. tidal power is even worse, as it steals energy from the orbit of our moon.
fossil fuels have obvious negative impacts, finite supply, and increasing costs of both harvesting, and use. the environmental impact of their use is well documented. they are also obviously NOT a viable long term solution to our energy needs.
hydro-electric power is efficient AND cost effective, yet fought tooth and nail by "tree-huggers" (because of the obvious environmental impact of damming rivers), and "paleo-huggers" (as evidenced by the court battles in brazil to prevent construction to "preserve traditional lifestyles of the indigenous tribes"). it also renders vast tracts of land unusable for anything but boating.
so, that leaves ONLY 2 choices: geo-thermal, and nuclear. for those "lucky" enough to live on the slope of a volcano, geo-thermal is a very cost effective, efficient, and (thus far) environmentally benign energy source. but, the vast majority of humanity DON'T occupy the slopes of volcanoes (for what should be fairly obvious historical reasons). that leaves us with "the power of the atom", like it or not, to provide for the energy needs of the majority of humanity. to condemn the technology because the political machinations of the 70s and 80s left much of the world in a position where the ONLY plants in existence are relics of the infancy of the technology is ridiculous.
LOL @ tidal power stealing energy from the orbit of the moon! hahahaha! Again, this is usually the level of intelligence pro nuclear people operate on.
ed, i guess you should look at the results of the test-bed tidal power station the netherlands government built in the 70s. it measurably slowed the orbit of the moon, yet produced only around a mega-watt of electricity. granted, the effect was minimal, but, so was the output of the plant. there are NO free rides, energy harvested from a dynamic system ALWAYS steals energy from that system
Tidal power isn't even mentioned in the documentary, and the effect is so minimal that I had to laugh at how far you're reaching. To claim that nuclear and geo thermal are our "ONLY 2 choices", based on such specious reasoning is plain funny.
perhaps you would be good enough to enlighten me as to the other choices besides wind, solar, hydro-electric, fossil fuels, tidal, geo-thermal, and atomic? "zero point"? perhaps you have a plan to exploit the 8 hz "hum" of our magneto-sphere? build a "free range" space station that collects solar and somehow transmits it to earth? have us all run a dynamo with bicycle tech? bovine flatulence collection? hamsters on running wheels fed a diet of bath-tub meth? use of arable land to "grow fuel"? choices that are realistic are incredibly limited, given our current technology, and the realities of our universe
Right, the "only 2 choices" are geothermal and nuclear... this guy named Harry Nutzack on the interwebs haz done the calculations!
should i take your non informative reply as "i genuinely have no clue as to other alternatives, so i'll just sling some mud"?
Well I used to think that solar was a viable option, then you told me about how you wandered into a fluid dynamics lab and discovered tidal power steals the moons energy.
So now the only possible conclusion I could come to is nuclear or geo thermal. That's how science works amirite?
IF you have no concern as to cost, solar does indeed have a place, only that place is in small scale reduction of demand, not grand scale production. the same goes for wind, and, to a lesser extent, tidal (with a greatly reduced economic disincentive over solar). no matter how you slice it, our society requires large scale production of power, and always will. so, what are YOUR ideas as to a viable (both in the realm of physics, and economics) replacement for our current reliance on fossil fuels for that grand scale production? i'm all ears. "go paleo" is NOT viable, as that means starvation for the majority of humanity, as well as a fairly crappy existence for those that do survive. "steal energy from the environment" is no less foolhardy than our current situation. you outright reject the most abundant, and energy dense available source because of the limitations of 70 year old technology, meanwhile ignoring that we are still using that tech ONLY because of politics, and fear.
Your "cost" argument is a joke. Nuclear is by far the most expensive form of power, even the proposed 4th generation reactors. You know who has done a TON of research into 4th gen reactors? General Electric, which has historically been one of the biggest nuclear players. Here is what the C.E.O. said:
"It’s just hard to justify nuclear, really hard. Gas is so cheap and at some point, really, economics rule. So I think some combination of gas, and either wind or solar… that’s where we see most countries around the world going.” Jeffery Immelt - C.E.O. General Electric
Or perhaps the you'd prefer the words of John Rowe...
"I'm the nuclear guy, and you won't get better results with nuclear. It just isn't economic, and it's not economic within a foreseeable time frame. I'm not fond of investments that don't pay off before I'm capable of comprehending it." Chairman and C.E.O. (2003-2012) Exelon Corporation, largest nuclear utilities owner in the United States
once again, the constraints of 70 year old technology. yet france seems happy enough to produce upwards of 70% of their domestic energy needs from nuclear (because they never had a moratorium on construction of plants, unlike the us). CEOs are constrained by, and ONLY concerned with, short term profit. yes, the "break even" date of a gas fired plant is earlier than that of a fission plant. why would GE pursue production of a technology they have no market for (due to political constraints), when they also produce the gas fueled turbines (which have far fewer political challenges), the (currently quite politically popular) solar collection arrays, and the controller tech for wind power? why would Exelon choose to champion tech that will (in our current political environment) cause their holdings to stagnate (as they have already built on ALL their "grandfathered" sites)?
the post 3 mile island political backlash against atomic power in this country killed the largest potential market for the technology, and with it the potential profits. that killed development incentive in our corporate world. the corporate world will not build what they cannot sell, and the buyers that do exist embrace russian and french systems that are NOT mired in technology of the late 40s.
if your local political regulations only allow you to sell replacement parts for the hudson hornet, after 3 decades of building ONLY those few hudson hornets that had been approved before a government imposed "production moratorium", would you develop modern autos to sell in an ultra-competitive foreign marketplace full of competitors that have a 3 decade "leg up", or would you concentrate your production on other products you have parity with the competition on, and just build the odd hudson hornet that some foreign customer decides to order?
The french government heavily subsidizes their nuclear industry, primarily in a power hungry quest for an ever growing nuclear weapons arsenal. That's the only real reason why any country embarks on such a ridiculous technology.
Again you pro nuclear advocates have no answer to the fact if there is WAR, NPP are extremely vulnerable. The only reason why countries are willing to make that wartime gamble is that it gives them access to nuclear weapons, which acts as a deterrent.
However you pro nuke advocates keep claiming that the new reactors will be impossible to weaponize (which is false.) But if that is true... then that makes any country who builds one just an absolute sitting duck. It's just a stupid thing to do from a military standpoint. Not to mention the fact that mother nature's fury can exceed that of even mans... so you're gambling with everything just for the hope of slightly cheaper power one day.
While the cost of solar continues to drop year after year, and you can actually get that installed on your roof for FREE depending on how much energy costs where you live.
You guys live in a some nerdy fantasy nuclear world.
I "live in a fantasy world"?? in case you missed the news, "war", as it is currently practiced, is geo-political bullying of the weak, by the strong. this has been the case for almost 70 years.
the ONLY nations that would have the technology to threaten our "NPPs" are our ALLIES. the last GENUINE threat to our shores occurred in 1812, when we were invaded by canada. in the 6 plus decades we have fielded atomic powered warships, exactly NONE of them has been lost to "act of war", yet they would seem a much tastier (and available) target for "enemy aggression", except in your paranoid delusions.
china, russia, britain, and france are the ONLY possible "aggressors" with the technology to threaten our infrastructure. even in their cases, that threat is ONLY from nuclear weapons. in the real world, it hardly matters what sits beneath a 20 megaton nuke's mushroom cloud, whether "NPP", or alpo factory, or city. the results would be pretty much the same in all 3 cases: lots of dead americans, and a nation scrubbing retaliatory strike with OUR nuke stockpile. in short, your scenario is suitable for a bruce willis movie, but lacks the realistic incentive for war (unless you see being wiped off the face of the earth as a "political gain", of course). play the scenario out ANYWHERE on the planet, and the aggressor nation, as a whole, runs the real risk of treaty required complete removal from both the gene pool, and the real estate rolls.
Look at how egocentric you are, who cares about the United States or where you live specifically. According to you guys these new breed of NPP's will be cheap enough to power the whole world, third world countries included. So they'll be building them everywhere right? What if a war breaks out in one of those countries?
Or will "those" countries not be able to afford it? So nuclear power isn't going to be as cheap as you claim?
Either way, you lose this argument.
that's the problem...he's trying to make a point, and you're trying to win.
I think he's made some very good points, whilst you've just blustered and ranted.
That's because I owned you with the exact same points below. Now you just want to some company in your loss. Again... you guys want to build nuclear reactors all over the world... then you're only concerned with a war breaking out in the USA? That's simple logic I owned you with... a child could understand that.
lol...you're trolling me right? Nobody could possibly be that stupid...you're messing with me!
It's a pretty straightforward argument. You guys want to build nuclear reactors all over the planet because you think they are super safe and efficient. Yet you don't seem to account for the fact humans get into wars and blow each others stuff up all the time.
If you think that somehow doesn't make sense... well that speaks volumes about your intelligence, and the intelligence of the type of people who support nuclear power after Fukushima. You're digging your own grave here buddy.
No ones brought up Thorium based nuclear reactors yet? Have a bias free suggested google of "Thorium"
Whaat? Canucks invading the Yanks? No, Canada was protecting its shores from the invading US.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812
You don't consider the Cuban Missile Crisis was a threat (danger) to the USA?
And what's all the fuss over North Korea more recently been about then?
I'd suggest most wars, going back at least to ancient Egyptian times, were 'geo-political bullying of the weak, by the strong'. Isn't that really what every Empire we've built was about?
hes thought about it in a lot more depth than you have
I agree the solutions are limited right now but we are making progress, Here are 2 possible solutions over the long haul.
Algae fuel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
Doesn't need arable land but lots of water and sunlight.
Artificial photosynthesis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis
We are years away from mass production if possible.
Interestingly enough, both seem to be carbon neutral or might even help decrease the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
bio-fuels that don't use arable land, or anybody's drinking water are a great idea (one of the lipid producing kelps has been used to brew diesel in experimental conditions). so are such ideas as artificial photosynthesis. the "fly in the ointment" is that currently, as far as production of power is concerned, they are equivalent to fusion power, if a bit closer to fruition. everybody trying to use a bit less power is also a great idea. but, in the "here and now", the reality is, undoubtedly, at least from an engineering standpoint, nuclear is the practical answer.
solar and wind are practical in rural situations where you don't have huge energy demands by area. the exact opposite is true in urban industrialized areas.
the shop i work in uses a few thousand horsepower an hour between electricity and propane. multiply that for the industrial area that is within a mile, and it adds up to several million horsepower per hour. such 4 square mile industrial warts are peppered through the city (fort lauderdale), and county.
our tri-county region (palm beach, broward, and dade) is fed by 4 nuclear sites, totaling somewhere around a dozen reactors, with between 4 and 8 actually running at any given time. they are all GE junk, yet they operate reliably, and safely. they have been hit by hurricanes, small tornadoes, and our patented southeast florida coastal flooding. they just keep humming along, aside from the expected switch failures and such in the distribution network.
most cities worldwide see such density of energy demand. "solutions" that can't practically meet such demands can't possibly displace nuclear. solutions that require oil burners to return to the urban environment (no matter what kind of oil it burns) won't be met with smiling faces by the populace or politicians, whose "vision of the future" rarely includes a skyline studded with smokestacks.
Interesting post on the situation in sunny Florida. Comforting to read 12 reactors hit by hurricanes, tornadoes and flooding survived without damage.
i know exactly what you mean...the environmentalists are ironicly the biggest enemy of renewable resources as well as it's greatest proponent.
They sit there and scream out for renewable resources, but every time someone tries using the technology needed to develop it (say Geo thermal boreholes, which can be created with Fracking) they turn up en masse to protest it rather than try and figure out how best to work with it.
Personally i think the environmentalist movement has been hijacked by hipsters and egotists who only care about being seen to protest, because their methods are so unhelpful to the cause, so counterproductive you have to wonder what their actual plan is...or if they even have one..
The people are right to be extremely wary of any new energy projects, especially when they are dealing with dangerous technologies like fracking of which the corporations keep down playing the dangers.. When bechtel or haliburton or some other military industrial cronies "wins" the contracts for one of these projects... you just have to wonder how they are going to fleece you and screw the whole thing up.
You actually sound like you're the egotist, offering up superficial and dangerous solutions like nuclear just because you want to sound like you're the smartest guy in the room...
"Oh those stupid environmentalists, if only they had brains like me to understand the physics behind nuclear power"... that's usually the type of emotional thinking that drives pro nuke advocates...
ok first of all, can you explain a bit more about what you mean by Fracking being dangerous technology...could you point me toward a source for that please.
I also fail to see how nuclear is dangerous either...have you seen the actual statistics? You're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to die of a nuclear related incident...It's very easy to poo-poo opinions you don't like, but if you're going to do it your objections need to have some sort of basis in fact.
LOL @ your statistics... did you get them from the IAEA? And if I have to actually direct you to sources about the dangers of fracking... I don't know what to tell you. You simply don't know how to research. All you know is how to google with confirmation bias when you get into arguments.
Well, in america more people were killed by accidents on wind farms than as a direct result of nuclear energy...you can try and argue as much as you want but that's a solid fact i'm afraid...It's amazing...every time i ask somebody to provide proof of the dangers of Fracking that's what they say..."There's loads, find it yourself, waah waah waah"
If there was so much evidence lying about you'd think it would be a simple matter of posting a link...yet none of you ever do...i wonder why?
Personally i think you're mistaking hear say for facts...If you're going to try and laugh off my statistics at least have the common decency to post your own in retort.
Actually that's not at all fact. You rely on sources that assume that Three Mile Island for example had no casualties. However studies have shown that there were thousands of cancers as a result of TMI, by Dr. Steve Wing for example. Settlements for millions of dollars were reached provided the plaintiffs keep quiet via gag order.
Furthermore there was a meltdown in Simi Valley which was widely believed to be many times worse than TMI, and also many people were able to successfully sue over cancers from that too.
It really hard to make the nuclear industry admit any deaths, cancers, birth defects as a result of radiation poisoning because the latency period is so high, and they can always just say.. "oh it could have been second hand smoke, or lead paint... PROVE IT" while they have an army full of lawyers behind them... But it has been done.
You are being extremely naive and covering for the sins of an industry you don't even understand because you have this fairytale fantasy of man controlling the atom like some sort of god. But we're still pretty much a bunch of stupid apes if you haven't noticed.
Sorry,I didn't realise three mile island exploded last year.
At the end of the day, hysterics like you will attribute cancers that clearly have nothing to do with radiation (your opinions on second hand smoke gave that away) using your own dimly lit logic it looks like you're covering for the tobacco companies...
Who said TMI exploded last year? Are these childish semantic arguments the best you've got left? lol.
you did when you tried to use it to counter my statistic (which to be fair to you wasn't quoted, but they're from 2011) If you had any idea about statistics i'd have thought you may have worked that out though.
statistics are the gathered data.
My statistics don't take into account the casulties from three mile island, because they are statistics from 2011, and only include the data from that year, but even if you look at it from a wider timeline, the statistics for harm from nuclear energy are ridiculously low when compared to any other source...
We certainly are still a bunch of stupid apes...i'm talking to one that doesn't understand the most basic principles of statistics.
Oh, I'm guessing the casualities from TMI magically stopped in 2011 because that's how long lived radionuclides work when released... Or better yet you can believe that there were never any casualties from TMI ever at any point in history... nor will there ever be. Then you can say you have statistics that "prove" nuclear power is safe. And in case you don't understand the sarcasm, let me put it plainly....
The nuclear industry, and all of these so called experts and scientists... HAVE BEEN LYING TO YOU AND OUR WORLD LEADERS. Don't take my word for it...
"When experts say nuclear power generation is safe and doesn't cost much and this is the only way to go if we want to stop relying on coal, well, we believe them. But they've been lying to us for years. And the point is, we've never really known anything about nuclear power generation. We had little interest in it before 3/11, and we certainly had no idea how difficult it is to control nuclear energy." - Junichiro Koizumi 87th Prime Minister of Japan.
any evidence that they've been lying? Or am i supposed to take your tin foil rantings at face value?
Sure there is a ton of evidence. Just look at whats happening at Fukushima. The nuclear industry said that was impossible, even though they had conducted studies which showed their Mark 1 containments were fatally flawed. Google nuclear engineer Dale Bridenbaugh, who used to work for GE, he conducted studies on the safety of mark 1, containments decades ago. When they found out they were flawed GE basically told them that if they didn't push forward anyway it would be the end of the nuclear industry. Bridenbaugh and others actually quit in protest over this.
There is a ton of other evidence too, but you've actually blinded yourself to all of it because you want to be right, facts be damned. Typical.
you do realise that Fukushima was hit by a tidal wave and an earthquake before it melted down right? and even after all that there were still no mushroom clouds in the sky! As far as i can see that's a testament to it, not a condemnation.
your "Evidence" is little more than say so seen through a very biased lens...I could basicly just copy and paste the end of your comment and fire it straight back at you, because that's exactly what you're doing as well.
"Oh, I'm guessing the casualities from TMI magically stopped in 2011"
I live and have lived across the river from TMI in New Cumberland PA. Now I am 55 and was here all through the melt down and I seem to be just fine.
As I grew up in the Harrisburg PA region I was at times with in 6 or less miles continuously.
There is has been no effect on me despite my proximate to the "disaster" /not!
I come from a family of 9 and all of us are fine. My parents are in their late 70's and just dandy. So where is the nuclear boogie man you think struck us all dead, crippled, or with cancer?
It did not happen, and is not happening.
I am sure the effects to those with more immediate exposure are tough on those who subject themselves to higher exposures, but to all of us (our family of 9) if you are looking at viable test group, it was not that bad at all.
We can still see the steam from the cooling towers every day and have NO FEAR to this day.
Nuclear power is still the most cost effective source of power so split baby split (atoms) and keep giving us the cost effective and reliable power we need in our society.
There are a ton of people from TMI who experienced all of the classical symptoms of radiation sickness after the meltdown, the nuclear industry paid out a lot of settlements out of court provided the plaintiffs keep their mouths shut via gag order. Dr. Steve Wing and others conducted research that showed there were thousands of extra cancers after TMI... As far as your claims to it being so clean and safe...
""I foolishly once believed the myth that nuclear energy is clean and safe. That myth has completely broken down. Restarting nuclear reactors while we still have no place to dispose nuclear waste is a criminal act toward future generations" Morihiro Hosokawa, 79th Prime Minister of Japan.
Three Mile Island was handled by Halliburton... seems that company has been cleaning up messes for a while. I have video of TMI clean up I used for an article I wrote over 5 years ago. I read all the comments, however, felt this had a place in here.
now...I'm a socialist. I'm quite left wing, but i don't see the problem with Fracking, Considering it's been done for so long and nobody thought it was a problem until the environmental movement needed a new bandwagon.
By reducing the Fracking argument to a left/right argument you're actually misrepresenting what's going on. Much like this argument we're having it's about science vs anti science.
Fracking can be used to develop Geo-Thermal power sources for example...however the Green movement seem to be happy ignoring this fact, because being reasonable and trying to do something constructive with the technology doesn't get as many newspaper column inches as campaigning to try and ban it does.
I don't think environmentalists are stupid and i never said it, but i think a lot of them have been misinformed by leaders that are struggling to keep the movement relevant now that every other political party has taken the climate change argument on board and talks about Green issues.
You're the one reducing this to "left/right" arguments. I never once brought any of that up. You're a delusional troll who doesn't even understand he's a troll. You're going to troll your whole life away without even realizing it.
oh i see, so my reasoned arguments make me a troll do they? I suppose everyone who disagrees with you is a troll huh?
I have to agree with you, as James Hansen and his team of climate scientists wrote in their paper "Assessing "Dangerous Climate Change": Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature"
"Environmentalists need to recognize that attempts to force all-renewable policies on all of the world will only assure that fossil fuels continue to reign for base-load electric power, making it unlikely that
abundant affordable power will exist and implausible that fossil fuels
will be phased out."
It's a great paper on how fast we need to react to stop irreversible climate changes, I recommend everyone google it.
i see it more as a parallel to our american "2nd amendment" types. a very similar "not one inch!!" policy and mindset, reality be damned. very similar "drama queening" during media "face time". it's the modern "face of dissent", irrational monotonous whining, lol.
I never considered this before! It makes a lot of sense.
Was this a 3-hour advertisement for Solar City? Or was it a documentary showing that there are many children in Belarus who are suffering from abandonment and poor healthcare. Or was it an anti-nuclear rant? Or was it an encomium for Elon Musk?
It had moments where it felt documentary-like where it seemed to try and present some balance and objectivity, but those moments were fleeting. After viewing many pro- and anti- nuclear documentaries, this one presents very little new information and relies upon the same anti-nuclear non-experts, such as Helen Caldicott and Michio Kaku, as other blogs and videos. And in some balance, uses the opinions of other non-experts such as George Monbiot and Stewart Brand from Pandora's Promise to provide a pro-nuclear bent.
However, the film uses horrible depictions of Belarusian hospitals and orphanages using an onslaught of images of pitiful children suffering from cancer and birth defects. While many of those shown may indeed be suffering from radiation induced health problems such as thyroid cancer, the film disingenuously tries to leave the viewer the impression that a widespread cause of children suffering from poor healthcare is directly attributed to radiation induced problems. It is far from balanced. Viewer be warned: there is a shocking sequence where a crying child is tied to a chair and is given what my un-expert eyes believe was a bloody tonsillectomy without anaesthesia. This provides nothing but shock value and had to turn the screen away from others in the room with me.
There is little original journalistic groundwork in this film and while there are some facts to be presented, they are indistinguishable from the exaggerations and distortions the film largely represents.
I find your review to be extremely superficial. For example, the documentary clearly states that the Belarusian government has to spend over $200 billion trying to clean this catastrophe up, large tracts of their land are uninhabitable... It's completely destroyed their economy and their medical care system has suffered enormously.
The doctors in the country only make a few hundred dollars per month. What type of health care do you think you're going to get after a nuclear disaster? The doctors said, they have to perform those unanesthetized surgeries EVERY DAY. The least the audience could do is sit through one.
As far as the last hour and its "commercial" aspects go, I enjoyed that immensely. People often talk about affordable alternative energies and electric cars and stuff as if they are some pipe dream off in the distant future. The commercially type aspect was awesome because it was like
"HEY THIS STUFF IS HERE. NOW. YOU CAN ACTUALLY BUY IT."
Although a superficial person mind find it distasteful, its brilliant because you cannot argue with it. The future is here, and it is solar.
Unless you want to listen to junk science which claims that the nuclear power industry is going to save us all from global warming.
Reactor 4 has not been inspected as it is running at 1,000 C and melts the cameras..search the USS Ronald Reagan ... think it is too late???
so it hasn't been inspected...but you know what temperature it's running at and there are cameras on it...something about that doesn't add up.
Reactor 4 has been inspected, its core was completely off loaded into its spent fuel pool, where they are attempting to extract all of the fuel right now. Of all the damaged buildings reactor 4 is actually the least problematic right now... and it's still a hell of a problem.
Ok didn't know depends how much and long it has been inspected..this is could be a world changer and we will see over the next few yrs.
People in this forum that support radiation really don't give a $h!+ about the planet , they are more concerned if their 55 inch plasma TV turns on. They will often use words like cheaper,efficient,safer, and every time a serious accident happens they seem to disappear. And that lame excuse about wind and sun not being reliable or easily to store is just another cop out by someone who can't go one day without getting online or using a blow dryer. On those days you stop whining about not being able to use your toaster and just light a candle and read a book like the real men who founded this nation.
You obviously never ran out of power for a long time. I went off grid for a month during the 1998 ice-storm up here in Quebec. Once you lived for a month in sub-freezing temperatures having to boil your water over a woodstove to wash yourself, you will change your mind about books and candles. After 2 weeks we could run a fuel generator for a few hours a day and it was a serious relief. Sure we can return to the forefathers way of life, riding horses and hand harvesting the fields if you prefer. Don't forget we will have to reduce the world population to a fifth of what it currently is if we hope to feed everybody.
My comments were directed at the MTV and young adults who expect Science to make life easier for them at any cost. And I am sad you had to endure a life of suffering in your frozen hell. please post any updates of your situation if it improves..But for the rest of the planet to have to worry every time there is an earthquake or terrorists attack on a nuclear energy plant And wondering if their children will be born with a mental disorder I'm sure they would not think twice to have to suffer a few weeks in the cold then a lifetime of medical treatments and pain. (my opinion) Just out of curiosity did the sun ever shine or the wind ever blow durring your ordeal?
Solar doesn't operate under 4 inches of ice and a foot of snow in winter and wind turbine seize when there is 4 inches of ice on them if they don't simply collapse so it wouldn't have mattered.
We are lucky enough to get our electricity out of hydro up here so we don't need nuclear. In Quebec, we are the lucky ones that get affordable clean electricity in North America.
Our neighbour province Ontario has to use Nuclear and fossil fuel plants to provide enough electricity to heat buildings in winter. Solar is not a viable solution with the little light and climate we get in winter. I have no idea how they could replace the 49 Twh produced by their nuclear reactors with wind power fast enough to shut them down before they are retired and how they would store that energy to be used when the wind doesn't blow.
Solar and Wind are good solutions for certain areas, definitely not for areas with extreme winter temperatures. Saying they will power the whole of mankind anytime soon is ludicrous.
considering wind is already cheaper than nuclear, and solar will be cheaper than nuclear in the next 3-4 years i think we will naturally switch to these types of energy it would be pretty dumb not to. Germany at midday actually produces 40-50% of its energy from solar (this includes gas for transportation). the main problem is that most people are misled by the existing power companies because they don't want to go out of business. not a very good documentary though to preachy the best way to get people to change their minds about something is to lead by example, America has been doing it for 100 years why now when we are finally discovering a potentially limitless source of energy Americans are trying to fight this instead of using it to their advantage dumbfounds me. i think america will be left behind if its not careful.
The main problem with wind and solar is you can't easily store the energy. Nuclear is ready to go at night on a calm day in December.
true but there are solutions like setting up a solar power stations on the sea where you can make hydrogen through the electricity generated. but im not objecting to nuclear full stop i think thorium is a awesome way to generated nuclear power i just think that sooner or later nuclear material reserves will also start to run out its like borrowing from peter to pay paul. i dunno i guess im an idealist but i dont think its a bad thing to want the cleanest energy possible and our current nuclear system can fail it may be rare but when it does happen it affect thousands of people.
I agree that moving to renewable is the solution over time, just don't think it can be done fast enough to maintain our current energy consumption levels. We will get there, probably not in my lifetime though. I think it's ludicrous to want to put a full ban on nuclear right now because of 2 incidents. Coal and petrol should be phased out long before nuclear, they cause a lot more deaths worldwide
So you think it would be easier to figure out a way to store nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years, than to be able to figure out how to store power overnight? This is usually the level of logic that pro nuclear people use.
I don't think it's that hard to store, just drill thousands of shafts a few kilometers deep and store little quantity of it in each. After all this is where the uranium came from in the first place. The nuclear waste scare is highly irrational. I have not read of a single serious incident with nuclear waste since mankind uses Nuclear reactors.
That's simply because you don't read enough. For example the Kyshtym nuclear disaster at Chelyabinsk 40... which has prompted many scientists to say its the most contaminated place in the world. Or how about the on going problems at Hanford, Washington... which prompted the governor to say 'The entire Columbia River is at risk.'
If it's so easy to store nuclear waste, why didn't the US just create a permanent waste repository decades ago instead of just letting the waste collect in spent nuclear fuel pools? Of course the answer is that it's not easy, humans have NEVER attempted something on such a time scale.
But sure... storing solar overnight is going to be harder to figure out huh? You sure are confident in nuclear power for not knowing anything about it.
And you don't read the whole information, the Kyshtym nuclear disaster was a plutonium nuclear weapons waste disaster, not a civil nuclear plant incident.
And Hanford was a plutonium plant too... As far as I know we don't use plutonium to make electricity, do we?
Every commercial nuclear reactor produces copious amounts of plutonium, a long with a bunch of other transuranic elements, as a result of their normal operation. Furthermore some commercial reactors, like Fukushima daiichi unit 3 were burning special MOX plutonium fuel... which is making matter much worse over there now.
To not understand this simple fact is exemplifying your ignorance on this subject.
Typically about one percent of the spent fuel discharged from a reactor is plutonium, I wouldn't call it a copious amount.
MOX is not pure plutonium but a mix of nuclear fuel that contains more than 1 oxide of fissile material. Using MOX is actually a good way to get rid of weapons grade plutonium instead of storing it. About 30% of the plutonium originally loaded into MOX fuel is consumed by use in a thermal reactor. What's best, storing plutonium from nuclear weapons indefinitely or using it to make electricity?
The 2 incidents you provided, were from plutonium reactors built in 1944 (Hanford B Reactor) and 1948 (Mayak Plant Reactors). Both were military, not civil and from an era when scientists knew very little about nuclear waste storage. Heck at Hanford, the water was discharged into settling basins, then returned to the river after allowing time for the decay of radioactive materials and the settling out of particulate matter.
You're talking about tons and tons of plutonium per power plant. That sounds pretty copious to me. Also you claim that...
" I have not read of a single serious incident with nuclear waste since mankind uses Nuclear reactors." - Fabien L'Amour
Aside from the ones I already mentioned, are you not aware of the enormous problems at the spent fuel pools at Fukushima units 3 and 4?
If that's the case, why are you even attempting to comment on this documentary? You're just googling things I type to make it seem like you know what you're talking about.
You claim that storing nuclear waste in the earth will be easy because that's where it came from... But before man made nuclear reactors, aside from extremely tiny trace amounts, there never was large amounts of plutonium or the other transuranics...
Trying to store hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear fuel for hundreds of thousands of years is nothing but a science experiment. Geologists discover new fault lines and other dangers every day...
The documentary is on civil nuclear reactors used for electric power being extremely dangerous, I didn't read any major incident concerning civil nuclear waste storage. I admit I didn't write civil in my first post but I never once thought anyone honest would bring up military reactors in the conversation.
As for the pools at the Fukushima plant, the circumstances of were extraordinary. The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami were a once in a lifetime event. There were 15,883 deaths, 129,225 buildings totally collapsed, with a further 254,204 buildings
'half collapsed'. It's actually amazing the plant survived. I am confident you will not see similar conditions leading to such an accident anytime soon.
You are wrong in that statement : "But before man made nuclear reactors, aside from extremely tiny trace amounts, there never was large amounts of plutonium or the other transuranics..." As you see below, 5.4 tonnes plus 1.5 tonnes is NOT TINY TRACE.
The ability of natural geologic barriers to isolate radioactive waste is demonstrated by the natural nuclear fission reactors at Oklo, Central Africa. During their long reaction period about 5.4 tonnes of fission products as well as 1.5 tonnes of plutonium together with other transuranic elements were generated in the uranium ore body. This plutonium and the other
transuranics remained immobile until the present day, a span of almost 2
billion years. Obviously, 2 billion years greatly exceeds the hundreds of thousands of years you require.
As for storing nuclear waste deep under the earth, many scientists agree there are several geological stable salt beds on the planet that would be adequate and it's not that complex to achieve.
The main problem is that the public can't view the difference between nuclear waste and nuclear weapons so politicians can't go ahead with it without serious damage to their reputation and chance of re-election even if it's an excellent solution.
The Ft. Calhoun nuclear reactor experienced flooding which almost led to the same exact situation. All that is required for a plant to meltdown is a loss of offsite power and something to happen to its diesel generators. The same thing nearly happened at Oyster Creek during Hurricane Sandy. Furthermore, the nuclear power plant at San Onofre in California nearly experienced a huge disaster after they tried running their reactors with unapproved modifications... which led to its closing.
And as was clearly stated in the documentary, the spent fuel pools at all facilities are extremely vulnerable to attack. An earthquake, or even a serious tornado could cause catastrophic damage to them.
And what if there is a war? If the proverbial mad major decides to just throw some good ole fashioned conventional ordinance at a NPP its game over. Building more of these all over the place is insanity.
Nuclear power plants are built to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. Do you seriously think these scenarios weren't taken into account by nuclear plants engineers???
If there is a war, nuclear facilities will be some of the most well guarded facilities on the planet. It is very doubtful anyone with conventional ordinance can make it anywhere near a nuclear reactor now or in wartime. Sure, an hostile nation can fire missiles at a nuclear plant but if we reach that point, we will have other worries with nuclear armaggedon to deal with.
Reactors being built nowadays have passive safety systems on top of pumped coolants systems (ESBWR, AP1000, VVER-1200). It would actually increase safety to build new reactors to replace older models.
Hey did you know that Fukushima daiichi was built to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis? Guess what caused them to meltdown and explode?
Earthquakes ant tsunamis.
Poor placement and subsequent failure of the emergency generators was the cause of the meltdown. Without the tsunami, the reactors would have been fine.
Sounds like all you're doing is making excuses for the nuclear industry and the future accidents that are going to happen.
And of course you're ignoring the tons of radioactive waste that have been dumped into the ocean... Irish fisherman are furious with England for contaminating the Irish Sea with Sellafield, which has led many researchers to call it the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world.
It lead Greenpeace to issue that statement. Interestingly enough, a founding member of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, supports the use of nuclear power along with renewable energy sources.
He argues that any realistic plan to reduce reliance on fossils fuels or greenhouse gas emissions need increased use of nuclear energy.
I guess people you call wackos on this site are not the only ones that take a pragmatic view of nuclear power risks compared to fossil fuels risks in a world where we can't magically replace fossils fuels sources with renewable sources over the weekend.
If you were paying attention, in the documentary Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan clearly stated that a fire at the spent fuel pools would cause the evacuation of Tokyo and Northern Japan... Gorbachev also said in his memoirs that trying to contain Chernobyl was the true cause of the fall of the Soviet Union ...
Once nuclear power plant could cause the destruction of an entire country. No other fuel source poses such enormous risks.
Storage batteries, if the market demanded more, would reduce in cost and increase in capacity. As it is, those 6 volt golf cart batteries when connected together, can store a lot of energy.
If there were a government policy push to have most every house equip with a solar array and, maybe, wind turbines and an associated grid-tie inverter, the collective energy would reduce the need for more expensive and dangerous forms of energy. But the energy corporations don't want that since they lose control over production and profit increases. (you reduce use, they raise rates to compensate)
Liquid fuels are harder to deal with. They are either dangerous to extract of the process takes too long to produce enough quantity for a growing population. It's not like people will want to set up a bio-digester next to their house.
The solar/wind turbine with batteries solution can work in southern rural settings right now if willing to pay the extra cost. It's a serious investment though unless you have lots of cash or a bank is willing to back you. Also the space to install the system must be available. It's out of the picture for most. It's not a solution possible for most suburbs and cities where most of the demand is.
Peak demand for power is in winter for most populated areas in the Northern emisphere when light availability and climate make solar produce a lot less energy. Unless batteries technology changes drastically, I don't see how it would be possible to heat settlements during December and January without another source of energy.
I think it's a more appropriate solution to try to build power plants that don't have a big carbon footprint instead of hoping everyone will switch to green generation at home with subsidies. Many countries have electric generation managed directly by the government like Canada and France were this would be easier to accomplish. Up here, Hydro Quebec will buy extra electricity if your home green system can connect to the grid, it's still extremely marginal.
Try to watch the whole documentary, the tech is not the fault, but the way we human run it is the problem, short cuts nn cost saving leads to trillions of dollars problems......That mom, she got a life sentence to take care of her child, with no fault of her is the problem....Her child wl die but so is her, it is sad.........Profits are short gain long pain......
Nonsense, at 44:31, the speaker says Chernobyl caused a million deaths.
Highest number of children diagnosed with Thyroid cancer in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia since the accident I could find was 7000.
Thyroid cancer, a very rare disease in children, can directly be attributed to radiation. The American Cancer Society survival rate for stage 1 and 2 diagnosis for most forms is nearly 100%. Only 2 forms have a survival rate of less then 50% and that is for stage 4 diagnosis.
In the UK, the current annual incidence rate for that cancer is 0.4 cases per 100 000 males aged 15 to 19 years old. (Incidence is 1.5/100000 for females but I used the lowest number) So according to my conservative calculations a minimum of 500 of those 7000 diagnosis would have occurred in Ukraine only without Chernobyl. I didn't bother to calculate for Belarus and Russia but you get the gist. Chernobyl had an effect but it certainly didn't kill 1 million people!
Right... because thyroid cancer is the only disease caused by radiation. Have fun doing your calculations, seems like a great use of time... : /
I used it because it's one of the few cancers that can be directly attributed to radiation exposure as it is extremely rare in the non adult population thus making it a perfect tracer of the carcinogenic effect of the Chernobyl accident.
There are several false statements in that "documentary" including that Chernobyl killed 1 million people that needs debunking with scientific facts.
The documentary covers the discrepancy between the UN's "official" death toll of 43 and independent scientists death toll of a million in great depth. Your grade school calculations don't qualify as " debunking scientific facts".
The independent scientists death toll study of a 996000 used in the "documentary" was not backed by their own institution.
The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences issue “Chernobyl:
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,”
therefore, does not present new, unpublished work, nor is it a work
commissioned by the New York Academy of Sciences. The expressed views of
the authors, or by advocacy groups or individuals with specific
opinions about the Annals Chernobyl volume, are their own.
The editor of Annals of the NYAS has also indicated that the publication has stopped printing the book.
Outside reviewers highly criticized that book. Here are some examples :
The list of cited references in the translation (Yablokov et al. 2009)
indicates that the authors avoided the most respectable papers of
Russian-language authors, which received serious international peer
review and were published in respected journals.
In the volume under review, Prof. Yablokov and his coauthors give
extensive references to the media, commercial publications, websites of
public organizations, or even unidentified ones, to justify their ideas.
The author proposes so-called ecological or geographic technologies, in
which health indicators in areas with similar environmental, social, and
economic conditions, but with different levels of radioactivity, are
compared. However, international experience in radiation epidemiology
has repeatedly demonstrated that this approach leads to erroneous
conclusions, and the volume under our review demonstrates this once
again.
I am done discussing with you, you think that "documentary" is great, I think it's a piece of fear-mongering propaganda garbage full of erronerous information. It's obviously a sterile conversation.
As the documentary shows, even Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the UN, admits that over 9 million people are still suffering every day as a result of what happened at Chernobyl.
To believe the UN studies that Chernobyl only killed 43 people, and all of the deaths from nuclear weapons fallout were "insignificant" is to drink the radioactive cool aid.
The nuclear industry was obviously very mad with that study, and they have a huge public relations arm that funds tons of bogus studies, junk science, and even internet websites that claim to "debunk" stuff..
One of the high ranking members of the NYAS was actually connected the nuclear industry, and the other scientists at the NYAS actually had to wait until the guy went on vacation to publish it. When he got back he was mad and tried to do some damage control.
This documentary lays out the information exactly as it should have been.
I give up, you have obviously too much information about everything that is going on at the NYAS and behind the scene in the nuclear industry. You can also predict that a rogue in the military will fire a missile at a nuclear power plant and that a nuclear accident will happen soon. Seems the only correct information for you comes from alternative websites that are obviously not backed by the green lobby. Needless to say you probably also know thousands of nuclear scientists that will back up that video. I wonder why it got a rating of 5 out of 10 stars if it's so accurate and establishes so many facts.
It's obviously a very controversial issue, and half the planet seems to buy the BS propaganda that claims that the nuclear power/weapons industry is going to save us all from global warming. Believe it or not, those people that control the militaries and nuclear arsenals of the world have quite a bit of influence over the media outlets of the world, not to mention universities and other institutions.
Agreed, you should probably stop paying attention to RT (A nuclear arsenal and fossil fuels country controlled media outlet) to get information about what's going on at Fukushima Daichii.
"even Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the UN, admits..."
You mean that bastion of honesty and integrity? THAT Kofi Annan? You are an effing joke. You are one argumentative, ANGRY troll who pretends to know everything. This guy is handing you your a$$, but you JUST WON'T HAVE IT!! Too funny.
The Cheronobyl disaster is quite difficult to tal about, because every single case of cancer in the area was automatically attributed to the disaster without investigation...If a smoker got lung cancer, Chernobyl got the blame.
Anti-nuclear protesters have used these skewered facts to their advantage ever since then, and it looks like they continue to do so with Fukushima (which remember was hit by a tidal wave and an earthquake and still didn't explode!).
The author of the documentary doesn't even seem to reaise that nuclear power stations and nuclear warheads are powered by two completly different materials.
Weaponised uranium is a highly concentrated substance, it's an expensive and arduous process to turn uranium into a bomb worthy material...this is why North Korea and Iran have had such trouble creating it in the first place.
Nuclear power is the safest and most efficient means of powering the future. And it is pretty much the only thing that makes renewable energy a viable option, dispite the lies, misrepresented facts and misinformation portrayed in this "documentary" which is basicly just a big infomercial for solar power, a technology that is so inefficient at the moment that fully converting the developed world to it would essentially kick us back into the dark ages (literally since the lights would all go out.)
I presume the maker of this documentary has a shed load of shares in a solar panel factory or something.
It is true that old fashioned nuclear reactors are dangerous, but much better and much safer reactor designs already exist, and are already in operation. The Fukushima and Chernobyl plants were both ancient designs that should have been shut down years ago. A bigger problem is that Uranium is not the best nuclear fuel for power generation because of danger and inefficiency. Thorium power IMHO is the only way we can comfortably solve the energy crisis. Thorium reactors are a LOT less dangerous that Uranium reactors -- they can't melt down at all. The whole world could live the "American" lifestyle for several centuries with Thorium without damaging the earth burning fossil fuels, and we would have the energy to produce and install solar panels and wind and sea turbines everywhere easily. These ignorant fearmongers act as if there are no alternatives to the poorly designed, dangerous, old, outdated, inefficient reactors that were designed and built 40-50 years ago. Furthermore, all uranium reactors create tons of dangerous waste after using only 1% of the energy in the uranium -- 99% of its energy potential is wasted and then usually is improperly stored in barrels. Thorium is 100+ times more efficient per gram because all of it can be used, and there is 4 times as much of it as uranium and no waste disposal issues. Our government cancelled existing and planned Thorium reactors and research only because we can't use them to make nuclear weapons. This decision was made WAY before the energy crisis happened during the early cold war, and it needs to be reversed. Watch the Thorium documentaries and join the movement! IMHO Our military could implement and build and regulate thorium reactors -- after all we don't want just anybody handling nuclear material, and finally bring energy security and peace to this world.
Right on, Michelle.
Are you familiar with the Thorium Energy Alliance? You would fit right in. Why not check it out.
What's going on with Thorium, I saw a documentary about it years ago and it seemed a very viable solution. Why hasn't venture capital jumped on the bandwagon yet? Didn't seem that costly, am sure a billionaire somewhere could finance it...
The start of this documentary comes off as very disingenuous. It basically says at the start, that watching this will get you into the "heavens". Did god give you that key? If you want free thinking people to hear your point of view you cant lead with, i am god, listen or else!
Your world view is not "Correct". Neither is mine. The world is a constantly changing place that is almost impossible to fully predict. The best we, as people, can do is find a way to provide our knowledge, skill, and passion to help the world.
Nobody has the mind of god. The mind of god is something we are not capable of knowing. God is us. God is matter, God is energy. God is a wacky arm flailing inflatable tubeman spaghetti monster.
Granted i have not watched the film yet, only the beginning, and i may still yet watch it depending on my time frame but 3 hours is a sizable commitment to view a bunch of distorted information.
to see what that they did to that little kid tied to a chair was just sickening... and all for uncontrolled power, its exactly the same as GMO's these so called scientists know not what they do..their vision is tunnel vision, and they do not see that EVERYTHING is connected and dependant on each other.
i take it you don't eat corn or carrotts or anything like that then? Or do you have a special tin foil hat that allows those particular Evil GMO's to not turn you into a lizard person?
The documentary gives a pretty clear road map to colonizing Mars, not to mention a tremendous push for solar... I'd say the heavens were never more tangible.
lol, of course it does...time to take your medicine and go back to bed...Nonono, don't drink the cool aid, just stick with water for now.
I have never seen such a distressing film... it needs to be compulsorily shown to our supposed leaders ,to ban Nuclear Power immediately...
Corporate power companies need to have their families exposed to this radiation, then lets see if they feel its worth the collateral damage in peoples and land for their profit.
i would use the term fearmongering over distressing.
2 hrs about nuclear screw-ups and a 1 hr Tesla ad plus a bit of solar promotion.
Perfect description Bob Fearn.
You clearly didn't really watch it... if anything it was much more of a spacex and solar ad.