TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail?

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TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 12:55:11 PM

pahunkboy

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Many Americans learned about the accident at Three Mile Island from the evening newscasts of the television networks. Millions, for example, watched as Walter Cronkite led off the CBS Evening New:

"It was the first that in a nuclear nightmare; as far as we know what this hour, no worse than that. But a government official said that a breakdown in an atomic power plant in Pennsylvania today is probably the worst nuclear accident to date…"

/snip/

http://tmia.com/accident/28.html

http://tmia.com

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 12:56:27 PM

pahunkboy

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 12:57:45 PM

pahunkboy

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http://tmia.com/accident/false.html <--falsifies reactor leaks

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 12:58:54 PM

pahunkboy

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http://tmia.com/history/tmi2chronology.html <-- the timeline

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 1:00:01 PM

pahunkboy

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http://tmia.com/photos/ <-- very little coverage of the stange effects to plants.

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 1:38:33 PM

farglebargle

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Nuclear Power CAN BE a stop-gap measure until we get the Solar Satellites all online. And I expect some backup capacity will always be required in some situations.

Of course, until we get the ability to sling shit at Geosync for decent prices, we can't dump the radioactive waste into the sun.

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It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 1:47:47 PM

EPGAH

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What about a core dump? Drill down to a lava vein and have the planet itself melt down our trash...As a bonus, if properly designed, the smoke/steam rising off it could power a geothermal turbine...This would be perhaps an "extreme recycling" program?

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 1:51:37 PM

farglebargle

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The current Gen III+ reactors like are all pretty much passively safe.

When something goes wrong, they just stop.

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It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 1:55:46 PM

EPGAH

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That's true, and the previous disasters are supposedly caused by operator error, rather than a failure of the technology (Although Russia denied it to the death, both there, and in the later "sinking sub" fiasco)
Still, our society/societies are constructed such that it is never the people that fail, it is the technology that is failed/"evil"!
I'm a computer-repairman, so my livelihood is more or less based on that perception...

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 2:28:40 PM

awmslave

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Interestingly Russia and Arab countries are planning expansion of nuclear power production. The reason for them is to be able to sell more gas and oil. From global perspective nuclear power is not really "green". It taks lot of energy and gasoline to mine and enrich the nuclear fuel.

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 3:08:45 PM

EPGAH

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When has mining NOT taken fuel--correction, mining a substance whose innate power could burn the flesh right off you, slowly? Coal could be mined by hand-operated pickaxe, but coal is the most polluting fuel-source right now.
China only uses it because it's cheap and plentiful...They buy oil, then, for what? To keep us from getting it? Just to piss us off? Or perhaps because they are experiencing an upsurge in people wanting CARS, the primary accoutrement of First World living?

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 3:13:26 PM

HaveRopeWillBind

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TMI was not the first nuke meltdown in the US. Few people are aware that Fermi I had a meltdown on a smaller scale years before. Fermi I & II are located in such a way that a radiation leak could reach, Detroit, Toledo, or Cleveland depending on the prevailing winds if a leak should occur. Wonder who thought that was a good idea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi_Nuclear_Generating_Station

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 4:46:42 PM

thornhappy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Hi there pahunkboy--

An excellent read is The Truth About Chernobyl by Grigori Medvedev. Amazon shows it available used in paperback. The translations can be a little stilted in spots (i.e. high differential worth instead of high neutron flux) but it's an excellent failure analysis by a local, so to speak.

thornhappy

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 6:00:06 PM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: HaveRopeWillBind

TMI was not the first nuke meltdown in the US. Few people are aware that Fermi I had a meltdown on a smaller scale years before. Fermi I & II are located in such a way that a radiation leak could reach, Detroit, Toledo, or Cleveland depending on the prevailing winds if a leak should occur. Wonder who thought that was a good idea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi_Nuclear_Generating_Station

Fermi I was no big deal as far as accidents go. Nobody died and no radiation was released.

I'm always shocked that more people don't know that a US nuclear reactor did suffer a steam explosion, go prompt critical and then melted down, killing three men immediately. The US Army SL-1 blew up on Jan. 3 1961.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 6:06:07 PM

Politesub53

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While it need handling with care, surely nuclear power is way better for the planet than oil fired power stations. All the new technology being talked about like wave and wind power wont ever be able to produce enough electricity to fill the worlds needs.

Adds.... there is a town in Holland where all the gases from the coal fired power station are used to supply hot water for the whole towns needs, maybe this idea is a way forward.

< Message edited by Politesub53 -- 10/31/2007 6:07:44 PM >

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 7:51:35 PM

CuriousLord

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Nuclear power, in the form we currently us it, isn't a holy grail. Not enough of it to supply the world for long if we relied on it.

Three Mile Island was a nuclear scare. Nothing really bad, if memory serves. Just lots and lots of scared people.

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 9:29:32 PM

hermione83

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quote:

Nuclear power, in the form we currently us it, isn't a holy grail. Not enough of it to supply the world for long if we relied on it.

This isn't true. The technology now available is simply amazing, and plants can be built that run themselves governed by the laws of the universe, and involves zero human error. Even in the past, they were far safer than most power sources. My brother is a Ph.D. nuclear engineer who does hard core research in this field with his massive brains. :P The U.S. is insane not to utilize nuclear power far, far more than they do. It is actually a saving grace for our world, despite popular opinion. Do some research and you will find the truth for yourself. It's just a fact.

< Message edited by hermione83 -- 10/31/2007 9:35:59 PM >

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 10/31/2007 10:51:34 PM

farglebargle

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Well, the US has it's head up it's ass for not deploying Space Based Solar, so it's not surprising they've got it's head up it's ass about what to do until you're just beaming down the free sun-juice.

SOME would suggest, however, that we are seeing the most efficient exploitation of the existing resources. Of course, at the expense of National Security, and the chance of the Language of Choice in the rest of the Universe being English.

When the Chinese LET US into outer-space, it's going to be as Slave Labor.

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It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

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RE: TMI and nuclear, is it the holy grail? - 11/1/2007 4:13:57 PM

thornhappy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: HaveRopeWillBind

TMI was not the first nuke meltdown in the US. Few people are aware that Fermi I had a meltdown on a smaller scale years before. Fermi I & II are located in such a way that a radiation leak could reach, Detroit, Toledo, or Cleveland depending on the prevailing winds if a leak should occur. Wonder who thought that was a good idea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi_Nuclear_Generating_Station

Yep, I ran across that back in the day while writing a paper on nuclear power in high school. Few know that the first one (that melted down) was a fast breeder. Root cause was a loose piece of zirconium lining the reactor vessel - not indicated in the drawings.

Now, TMI had an equipment failure (pilot-operated relief valve). A combination of poor user interface design and "cognitive lock" led to the water in the reactor vessel going so low that it exposed the core. An IEEE Spectrum article from the '80s did a great failure analysis of the whole fiasco.

Chernobyl was caused by stupidity and exacerbated by the reactor's design.

thornhappy

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