nuclear power

i wish that we didn't have to depend on nuclear, coal, or oil energy. this will just keep f**king up the enviroment. just because you sweep something under a carpet doesn't mean it's not there. if it becomes a habit, then it will just keep building up. why can't we invest into hydroelectric, solar, wind, and recharchable battery power. it is cleaner, that's for sure.

 

Well fusion power is much cleaner fuel that about anything else, its on par with solar energy in terms of cleanliness, and has no possibility for meltdown.

I don't think that traditional nuclear fission is good in the long term, but in the short term, it may be benificial.

There is much research going into alternative fuels, and now, there are some projects that are showing promise of efficiency.

Heres just one example of a project in Australia.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66694,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

 

Ok, I heard somewhere that fusion requires the use of platinum, and there's only so much platinum on the earth, and we'd eventually face a "peak platinum" crisis. Since I know very little about fusion, is this true, or what?

 

Do you have a better idea? Hydroelectric and wind just can't meet the demands for energy. Solar is not efficient. Rechargeable battery power? With what will you recharge them?

 

No, fusion requires no uranium, it requires an easily synthable isotope of hydrogen called Deuterium. Fission requires uranium, fusion requires Deuterium.

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

 

Nope. All you need for fusion is water, or more specifically hydrogen. Although technically, you could use any element below iron on the periodic table, and still produce more energy than you consume.

 

yo dude, i said platinum, not uranium. And i didn't mean as fuel, but as some vital component. I'm not saying I'm right, it's just something I heard, thought i'd ask.

 

Uranium and plotonium are both fissionable elements, so its unlikely with the amount of power they produce that they'd ever be in short supply in the near future if fission was adopted as an energy source.

To fuse elements, you need a lot of heat. The way we've done it thus far is to create a nuclear (fission) reaction as a catalyst.

So a small amount of fissionable material (uranium or plotonium) is needed to start a fusion reaction, after the reaction is started, no more fissionable materials are needed.

The effects of fusion on the quantity of fissionable matireal are negligible. There's enough fissionable material on earth to start fusion reactions for tens of thousands of years.

This can also be used to change water into hydrogen cells for smaller energy needs such as automobiles.

 

Plutonium is not naturally occuring (in useful amounts, anyway). Substantially ALL of it is made by bombarding uranium with neutrons in a reactor. And only a small fraction of natural uranium is fissionable.

In a thermonuclear bomb, yes. A plutonium fission bomb is used to generate high temperatures, extreme pressures, and neutron/X-ray radiation which cause tritium and deuterium to undergo an (uncontrolled) fusion reaction. This is the ONLY type of fusion reaction that can currently produce more energy than required to start the reaction.

In a fusion power reactor, intense bursts of laser light or other radiation on tritium "pellets" are used to start the reaction, and strong magnetic fields are used to attempt to contain the reaction. Unfortunately, the energy needed to pump the laser and run the containment magnets is more than the energy released by the fusion. Current technology is unable to contain/maintain the reaction long enough to pass the "breakeven" point.

 

Oh, I see, thanks for clearing that up... I knew there had to be a more controllable method to starting the fusion reaction.

This is true with current applied technology, although we now have evidence of how its possible to get about ten times the output of energy that is put into the magnetic field.

You should check out the ITER project, its fascinating stuff.

http://www.iter.org/index.htm

 

Dammit, read what I'm typing! Not uranium, not plutonium, but PLATINUM. Sheesh...

 

Oh, what no, you don't need platinum for fusion... not at all.

No part of the construction of a strong electromagnetic field nor the fusion of hydrogen isotopes requires platinum.

 

Back to fission, isn't roughly 2/3 of the energy released in nuclear reactors lost in the cooling towers? Given such gross inefficiency, massive expense, risk of accidents/sabatoge, and the dangers inherent in transporting and disposing of radioactive waste, I can't see how conventional nuclear power is a viable solution to our energy problems.

 

well thats cos your figures are all over the place hahaha... where did you here that 2/3rds of the energy is lost in the cooling towers? No power station would waste that amount. everything is fed back in as much as possible. And as far as efficiency goes, there is no other viable option at the moment that produces so much energy for so little waste. And until fussion is sorted there are new thoughts on the waste anyway:

http://www.britishnucleargroup.com/index.aspx?page=72

that shows that alot more of the rods are being reused, so an even smaller amount of wasted is produced. I agree radiation is a problem, but as everyone knows its danger, then there is huge sercurity and safety measures in place. Infact the biggest danger of radiation is mobile phones at the moment. A worker went up one to repair something and the company had forgotten to turn one dish off, he was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks later. So how come your so worried about something so controlled and safe which is confined, rather than something buzzing around all the time?

 

Probably because cellphones emit NON-IONIZING radiation, that has NO KNOWN MECHANISM to damage DNA or otherwise produce cancer? Until you get well up into the UV range, electromagnetic radiation simply don't have enough energy to do any damage beyond simple heating.

If RF fields could cause cancer, it would have been apparent long before cell phones came on the scene. There would have been an epidemic of cancers among TV and radio station engineers, RADAR techs, and others who work in proximity to powerful transmitters and equipment.

 

Infact there are alot of cases of such things. Thats why there are now very strict rules about working on rasars, radio masts and other such equipement.

http://www.rfsafe.com/article446.html

http://www.starweave.com/fifetetra/

now im not saying they are gonna kill us all but the levels of radiation around a nuclear power station when there is no leak is much much lower.

 

The illnesses mentioned on the "RFsafe" site DO NOT INCLUDE CANCER. There are hazards associated with working around high power RF equipment (I used to work on broadcast xmtrs for a living), but they have to do with avoiding RF burns, electrical shock and other thermal effects, NOT CANCER.

Intense microwave fields cause heating of body tissues (that's how a microwave oven works, afterall), and standing in a RADAR beam or something similar is particularly bad for the eyes (causes cataracts by cooking the cornea and lens) and testes (causes temporary sterility by overheating and killing sperm). But the problem is simply being COOKED, not a risk of CANCER.

Again, there are NO conclusive studies showing a CANCER risk associated with RF exposure. There is no known biological mechanism for such a link to occur. Any such conclusive study would likely earn the author a Nobel prize, for discovering something that has never before been seen. But extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, which simply doesn't exist in this case. In order to cause cancer, the chemical bonds within DNA need to be broken, and even the highest power RF signals don't pack the energy needed to do that. You need to go much higher in frequency (and energy level) than the RF spectrum, from short wave ultraviolet, up through gamma and X-rays to get enough energy to break chemical bonds.

The general public hears "radiation", and ASSumes that everything from powerline EMFs to nuclear waste poses the same hazard. But this simply isn't true.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3390807.stm

http://www.careprovider.com/mast.htm

Mobile phone masts and radio masts do cause cancer if you are in one while its working. As the 2 reports there show, it is less of a risk living near them, but still not conclusive. Im saying they are dangerous, probably not hugely as you need to be pretty close to be affected, but it is a risk. While nuclear waste is so wel controlled no one gets close enough to be affected.

 

People are constantly worrying about the cell sites (towers), but they absorb FAR more radiation from the phones themselves. Field intensity falls off with the square of distance (inverse square law), so a several hundred watt transmitter 50 feet away can give you less of a dose than a 250 mW transmitter held right up to your head! The same comparison can be made between powerlines and electric blankets. But trying to explain this to most people (especially here in scientifically illiterate AmeriKKKa) is like trying to herd cats...

Neither of the sites you gave have ANY conclusive scientific studies showing an RF/cancer link. Anecdotal evidence does NOT substitute for a controlled study. An increased incidence of cancer around a military installation could easily be due to any number of chemical pollutants they commonly dump into the air and water, and have NOTHING to do with radio towers of any type.

If RF fields cause cancer, then exposing lab animals to such fields under controlled conditions should induce cancer. But no study has been able to do so in any repeatable, statistically significant matter, despite millions of dollars spent studying the issue. Obviously, one can NEVER prove a negative, but there has been to date no proof of a positive link between RF and cancer. The primary cancer risk from a cellphone would seem to be toxic compounds leaching out of the plastic housing...

 

I think we are actually agreeing on the same point here. The masts are only dangerous and can cause cancer if you are on them, but with all theses studies around on the causes then they haven't proved they don't cause cancer from a distance. Just it is less dangerous. As all these studies don't prove it either way ill agree to saying they may or may not cause cancer from a distance. hehehe my original point was just that there are other types of radiation that are dangerous which are less controlled than a nuclear power station. Im in England and there have been cases where radio mast people have got cancer from the dishes not been turned off during works. I can't find a site with it on but it was in the paper a few years back. But nice arguing dude