Worldwide Support For Nuclear Power Drops 324
ProbablyJoe writes "A poll for the BBC shows that worldwide support for nuclear power has dropped significantly in the past 6 years. However, while support has dropped in most countries, the UK has defied the trend, where 37% of the public support building new reactors. Unsurprisingly, support in Japan has dropped significantly, with only 6% supporting new reactors. The U.S. remains the country with the highest public opinion of nuclear power, though support has dropped slightly. Much of the decline in approval has been attributed to the events in Fukushima earlier in the year, although a recent Slashdot poll indicated that many readers' opinions had not been affected by the events, and there was an even split between those who found the technology more or less safe since the events. With reports on the long lasting effects in Fukushima still conflicted, is nuclear power still a viable solution to the world's energy problems?"
I hate the press. (Score:2, Informative)
The press will screw up the world just to get headlines. Nuclear power is incredibly safe.
Thorium (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fukushima proved nuclear cannot be made safe (Score:2, Informative)
All Fukashima proved was that building a nuclear power station next to the sea in an area prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, then building a defence wall that might be a little bit low and placing the backup generators at a level that would be "below sea level" if the wall failed is a bad idea.
Re:Doesn't really tell the full story... (Score:5, Informative)
You mean it's less dangerous, don't your?
Take all the people who died from Chernobyl [wikipedia.org]. Add the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima [wikipedia.org]. Still killed fewer people than hydro power [wikipedia.org].
Nuclear power is safe. (Score:5, Informative)
Safer than coal [scientificamerican.com], anyway.
There is plenty of evidence of coal mine disasters, OK there are a few uranium mining disasters as well [energy-net.org], but I don't want to minimise the mortality from either if I can help it: the simple fact of the matter is, you're 4,000 times more likely to die from a coal-related power generation cause and 1,000 times more likely from oil-related power generation than you are from nuclear-related power generation [the9billion.com]. It all carries risk, but the protocols and procedures surrounding uranium handling mitigates the risk to the point where people who actually work it tend to worry less. Fukushima was, in my opinion, unfortunate but avoidable; OK the tidal barrier was inadequate. It could have been higher and it might have diverted the tsunami but that wouldn't have helped with the ground subsidence. The location probably wasn't that well thought out, being that close to one of the deepest ocean trenches on the planet. It was probably the wrong type of reactor to have built there even if it was proved that the location was suitable for a power plant that could potentially (and as it happens, did) crack and go critical after just one good shake and a deluge of salt water. Lessons learned, we all hope, but I wouldn't like to try and assure the surviving families around the plant of that.
Re:Doesn't really tell the full story... (Score:5, Informative)
When the Banqiao Dam in China collapsed, 26,000 people died immediately. This is the worst accident in the history of hydroelectric. Chernobyl had 31-56 direct deaths and this is the worst nuclear power accident. In both cases they were from direct negligence. Banqiao continued to kill more, just like Chernobyl. Banqiao killed 145,000 additional people within a few years and Chernobyl killed/will kill ~6,000 eventually (various estimates change). Banqiao directly effected 11 million people and Chernobyl displaced the entire town, 49,400 people, and it's a mere fraction of Banqiao. The fact is the deaths from nuclear power is significantly less than hydroelectric and always will be. A nuclear power plant does not blow up like in video games such as Red Alert 2, Chernobyl was the absolute worst case scenario (for one reactor, Chernobyl would be worst if all reactors that were there blew).
The Three Mile Island incident shows the lack of education for the public. People continue to "monitor" Three Mile Island but what they don't know or are too dense to know is that their basements have more radiation than Three Mile Island outputs.
Oh, lets note that Chernobyl continued to operate the other reactors until 2000.
Banqiao Dam source [archive.org]
Re:Doesn't really tell the full story... (Score:4, Informative)
And lets not forget how reliable and predictable it is. A nuclear reactor is certain to output a set amount of energy in a certain configuration no matter what. Not a single one of these "renewable" sources are capable of that. None of the current replacement suggestions are worth it.
Re:Less radiation, more calcium. (Score:5, Informative)
Even worse, there are all the issues that happen from coal *mining*. Never mind what happens on the burning end, coal mining kills people and ruins huge areas of land.
If you're comparing basically anything to coal, coal is worse.
Re:Less radiation, more calcium. (Score:5, Informative)
people seem to forget that >25k people died in the Tsunami - the effects of Fukushima are trivial compared to that.
Re:Less radiation, more calcium. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah. Let's talk about coal mining deaths.
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2006/01/us_coal_mining_.html [typepad.com]
Nearly a thousand in the US since 1980.
Now let's look at China's track record over the last decade.
Nearly 53 THOUSAND people dead mining coal.
How many people have nuke plants killed again?
Re:Less radiation, more calcium. (Score:5, Informative)
Compare deaths per terawatt produced between coal and nuclear.
OK, Deaths per TWh [nextbigfuture.com]:
Coal – world average: 161
Coal – China: 278
Coal – USA: 15
Nuclear: 0.04
Re:Thorium (Score:5, Informative)
arguments I've heard
- never built one to scale
rebuttal - it doesn't matter - build 1000 tiny ones instead if big ones don't work.
- continuous reprocessing has never been tested and may be impossible
rebuttal - you don't know unless you try, and it seems feasible.
- they still spit out the same long half-life, long decay elements as conventional reactors :
rebuttal - most of these can be reused or salvaged for medical devices, and it burns 97% of its fuel instead of 3% or less. Also you will find almost as much naturally occurring "waste" where the Thorium came in the first place. Here is a breakdown from http://energyfromthorium.com/lftradsrisks.html [energyfromthorium.com]
read that again - can be used to "burn down" waste from an LWR - so in addition, we can get rid of a lot of the waste from the inefficient reactors we have.
- they are really Uranium reactors and they require a seed reaction
rebuttal - true reactors like this are Uranium - they convert Thorium to Uranium and then split, however the base fuel is still Thorium and the seed can be reused. It is also possible to continuously feed them if the equipment can filter out impurities. No physical research has been done here.
- Thorium is uneconomic, and costs far more than Uranium
rebuttal - Thorium is much more plentiful than Uranium, easier to mine and therefore if a market emerged, would likely drop from current ~$5000/kg to potentially $10/kg or less. That is compared to enriched Uranium, which is over $1600/kg after an expensive processing and/or reprocessing. Total cost of operations is also much less - estimated at 30-50% of a LWR.
- Thorium is bad for selling weapons grade elements to the government and charging massive reprocessing fees and kickbacks that line the back pockets of reactor owners.
um, exactly.