45 nuclear plants holy shit

[postmanisu]

McCain's plan, wow that would make us real vulnerable to an attack..

[patrice]

1. Financed on the backs of tax-payers.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. For millennia

What will happen to the tonnes of radioactive waste that these nuclear plants would produce? Waste that will be highly toxic for thousands of years?

[lakeguy]

10. waste will get reprocessed.

if it's radioactive, that means there is energy in it.

what will happen to all the CO2 that coal plants emit? what about all the mercury. china mines coal waste for radioactive material for other uses. what happens to ours?

unless you think politicians will end their careers short by telling americans to cut their energy consumption by 50-75%, you need either nuclear or coal. alternatives have yet to break 1% of annual world consumption. they may be able to keep up with population growth, but certainly can't be deployed and used by everyone in this century.

do you want coal or nuclear? that's basically the choice in the short term.

flame all you want but first, compare france to germany and what germany is now proposing thanks to a freeze on nuclear plants. hint, 26 new coal plants in an area the size of montana. look at france's waste reprocessing and where they expect to be by the end of the decade with that.

just because mcsame proposes something, doesn't mean it's a bad idea. a broken clock...

[TechBear_Seattle]

16. Typically not

Normal reactors are fueled by rods of uranium-235. U-235 makes up only about 0.72% of all uranium found on the planet, and to work, fuel rods must be around 4% U-235. (Some newer designs can work with U-238, which makes up about 99.28% of the uranium on the planet.)

The fuel rods are bombarded with neutrons, which cause the atoms of uranium to split. This releases more neutrons which split other atoms, leading to a nuclear chain reaction. This reaction is controlled through the use of materials that absorb neutrons and dampen the chain reaction, commonly ordinary or heavy water or rods of graphite. This produces heat which is used to boil water. The resulting steam is pressurized and used to turn turbines, in exactly the same way that petroleum is used to produce electricity.

Eventually, much of the uranium is converted into other elements, typically krypton and thorium along with small amounts of uranium-236. While still very radioactive, these elements cannot be used to sustain a chain-reaction and so are useless for power generation. These spent fuel rods can be processed to separate the different elements for storage. The U-236, which is relatively non-radioactive (relative being a key term), is the basis for depleted uranium alloys used in munitions to poison vast stretches Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq; along with being radioactive, it is a highly toxic heavy metal and highly carcinogenic. The rest of the waste elements are stored, and will remain dangerous to life for anywhere from 60 years to almost 1000 years.

Most power reactors operate by fissioning uranium, that is, by splitting atoms of uranium into lighter elements. So-called "breeder" reactors are designed so that the chain-reaction occasionally results in heavier elements, typically plutonium. While plutonium can be use in small quantities for power generation, it is actually too radioactive to be used widely: it easily starts chain reactions that are difficult to control. That is why plutonium is much more commonly used in bombs (uncontrolled chain reactions.) Also, the waste products of breeder reactors are much more toxic and long-lived than the waste products of normal reactors; they can be dangerous for as much as 7,800 years.

Without major advances in nuclear theory and power plant design, each nuclear power plant will produce several tons of radioactive and highly toxic material every year. This material cannot just be thrown away: it must be secured and stored for very long term. If any of it ever got into the hands of a terrorist... A few pounds of thorium waste from a nuclear reactor and some conventional explosives could poison most of Manhattan and make it unliveable for decades.

[Selatius]

23. See, this is why France derives 80 percent of its power from nuclear.

They don't piss off everybody else on the freaking planet. If we built that many power stations that we were fueling 80 percent of the grid off of nuclear, we would have to deal with terrorism. Maybe if we had a much more isolationist foreign policy, we would have nuclear as a viable option, but at the current rate, all I can say is Americans did it to themselves.

[TechBear_Seattle]

25. France also has a host of problems wrt nuclear waste

In the late 70s through the 80s, attempts to create underground storage facilities were met with riots. So now, thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste are exported via train to Russia every year. If the US were to switch to nuclear power on a similar scale, we would need to dispose of millions of tonnes, and I don't think we could get away with exporting it.

[Selatius]

28. Actually, most French citizens accept nuclear power. It's popular there.

A 2001 Ipsos poll done in France recorded 70 percent of the people having a "good opinion" of nuclear power, with about 63 percent wanting France to remain a nuclear leader. A variety of factors led to its popularity in France from cultural interest in large engineering projects (such as France's bullet train network to the Concorde project), lack of indigenous oil and coal resources, a sense of national independence and pride, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production.

As far as disposal of waste goes, the gov't has now planned to dispose of the waste in the Meuse/Haute Marne Underground Research Laboratory as opposed to shipping it to Russia, which has seen relations go downhill quickly following the war in Georgia and the chilling of relations between Russia and the entire NATO alliance. They've already started digging out tunnels for future disposal.

[tekisui]

3. I want to see a list of where he plans on putting them.

And, then air ads in each of those markets. Nobody wants that in their back yard.

[Serial Mom]

4. At a cost of $7 - $10 BILLION each, how's he gonna pay for them??

[postmanisu]

6. china owed and runned

he never said Americans would run them.. contract them out

[HughBeaumont]

9. Easy.

How do we pay for anything else in this country?

[Viking12]

19. Where can you find a bargain like that? CTry closer to $20 billion per

[SayitAintSo]

30. Rate payers will pay. The BLRA - Base Load Review Act gives utilities...

the authority to raise rates to pass the cost on to the consumer.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Not To Mention The NIMBYs...

So where is he gonna build these plants? At his 7 or is that 8 or 15 houses? And what about the many aging nu-clear plants that need upgrades? It sure sounds good until the voters find out that they're planning to build one of these one-eyed monsters in their backyard. Many aren't worried about an attack as much as another TMI...a meltdown.

[Junkdrawer]

7. You think we're a Police State now? Wait until waste and reprocessed fuels...

start being routinely transported. And there WILL be fuel reprocessing.

Central, capital intensive power in the hands of a small ruling class.

Say, aren't those wind turbines ugly?

[Serial Mom]

8. And costs to DECOMMISSION nuclear plant is about $3 - 5 BILLION

All while he cuts taxes to the rich!

[iamthebandfanman]

11. big bang baby

it's a crash, crash, crash

[Zombie2]

12. Ouch!

:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:

[nc4bo]

13. Frightening isn't it? I typed this up yesterday since I had the same thoughts...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6987143&mesg_id=6987143

[conspirator]

14. Not wanting to defend mccain, but isn't nuclear one of the alternatives to oil? nt

[Serial Mom]

15. but at what cost?

[Imperialism Inc.]

20. Actually no.

There aren't any nuclear powered cars and electric plants aren't run on oil.

[Selatius]

22. You just need cars that run on electricity made at nuclear power stations.

If they can make an electric car, such as the Tesla Roadster, then that car wouldn't care if the power is coming from a coal-fired plant or a nuclear power station.

[davepc]

21. No, but i'd rather breathe the steam from a nuke plant then the coal exhaust of the coal plant.

[ladjf]

17. Raging lunacy.

[seemslikeadream]

18. Just think of all the Homland Security money that will be needed to protect them

[slackmaster]

24. France has 59 of them and an excellent safety record

...that would make us real vulnerable to an attack...

But reduced dependence on foreign oil should offset that by easing tensions with Middle East oil providers.

[pitohui]

26. i wasn't aware that france is owned and operated by halliburton

the safety record of the nuclear industry in france has no bearing on the safety record of the nuclear industry in a nation famous for its corruption in high places -- BTW the largest providers of foreign oil to the usa are mexico and canada, the trumped-up war in iraq is to boost the price of oil by fooling the stupid people and apparently it has worked very well since people don't look closely at where foreign oil actually comes from -- they just hear "foreign" and their brain shuts off because "foreign" equals "evil bad naughty" i guess -- we really need to get the right wing propaganda out of our own heads -- our "problem" with foreign oil was created by bush/cheney and deliberately created to line their own pockets -- if you think that crowd can't create just as much problems/profits with nuclear you are barking!


another issue -- there isn't the same hurricane or fire/earthquake risk in france as there are in many states of the u.s. -- we have a high rate of natural disasters, they have a relatively low one -- so the risk just ain't the same

when we look at how the nuclear industry works, let's compare apples and apples -- the u.s. compares to a large corrupt nation w. multiple causes of risk (natural disaster, war, corrupt officials and corporations) -- hence our risk surely correlates more strongly w. the "successful" nuclear industry in the former soviet union than it does with a small, compact, relatively "accountable" nation like france!

more nuclear plants is more welfare for big energy -- at the cost of my health and my home -- everyone who is "pro" nuclear should be forced to pay into a fund that will compensate the
victions of nuclear disaster since we can't buy any insurance to protect ourselves BY U.S. LAW!

where would we be today if united 93 had gone a few minutes further and crashed into a containment vessel at three mile island? oh that's right it wouldn't have cost the taxpayer a dime since insurers do not have to compensate people for losing their homes to nuclear disaster! so that's all cool, then? because the pro nuclear crowd is always confident that it will be somebody else who is hurt "it can't happen to me because bad things don't happen to me" -- terrible logic, terrible reasoning, by the time you find out you're not holy and disasters can happen to you, well, it's too late

put on your thinking cap -- i find if you accept that if the GOP is strongly backing something, then it is NEVER because of the good of the nation and ALWAYS because of their own personal profit, mccain backing this should be good enough reason to investigate further and find out WHO PROFITS from this potential disaster in the making -- too many people are STILL unwilling to admit that the GOP is at heart an evil entity that exists for the profit of the view, they think they are being balanced and rational, what they are actually being is refusing to learn from experience

if it quacks like a duck for 30 freakin' years wake up and accept that it just might be a duck...

[Terry in Austin]

29. Gives a whole new meaning to "french fry" nt

[hunter]

27. Over Grandma's cold dead body!

Okay.

If our dependence on natural gas isn't a big gaping hole in our national security, nothing is.

[Greyhound]

31. Not to mention that we can't afford to build that many, staff them, or dispose of the spent

fuel rods. The only benefit that this "plan" provides is that it keeps the parasites in control of our energy generation and distribution systems.

A distributed base makes manipulating supply and price too difficult for them.