Wind turbines kill bats

[280plus]

Funny, just found out one of my bullseye pistol teammates designs the fuel rods for reactors. I got a pretty good lesson in reactors the other day. 

[LAK]

You miss the point. Nuclear plants do not kill ANYTHING. Seabrook is surrounded by wetland marshes, silent and pristine.

Chernobyl? Three Mile Island? What about all the nuclear waste storage - how long before that stuff becomes a real problem?

---

RE: the bends

Bends is only a potential problem when surfacing from depths below 33 feet using normal compressed air. You can stay down at 30 feet all day and surface without any decompression stops.

Trimix is oxygen, nitrogen and helium. Deep dives use oxygen and helium.

-----------------------------------

http://ussliberty.com/oldindex.html
http://www.gtr5.com
http://ssunitedstates.org

[Firethorn]

What faulty construction/design?  I always thought it was due to human error, and for the most part wiki seems to support this.

Well, if you count approving and building the plant in the first place as 'human error'.   

To wit, the reactor had what's called a 'positive void coefficient'.  This is a very bad thing.  What it means is that when a bubble forms, IE water transforming to steam, the reaction in that area goes UP.  Because the reaction goes up, the heat goes up, and you get MORE bubbles.  This can lead to a runaway reaction.

Plants in the USA are required to have a negative void coefficient - bubbles reduce the reaction, creating a self-regulating situation.

The second would be the lack of a secondary containment structure - no dome to contain the radioactive materials after the breach of the primary vessel.

Either of which would have most likely prevented the release of radioactive materials into the environment.

I do agree though, that nuclear power is a good thing overall.  We just need to figure out how to store the waste, because as many know, Hanford is not a very fun place to be downstream to. 

Chernobyl? Three Mile Island? What about all the nuclear waste storage - how long before that stuff becomes a real problem?

Nuclear power waste isn't actually that big of a deal - for one thing you can reprocess it to recover 90-95% of it to be used as fuel again.  The rest becomes much less radioactive much faster.  As a bonus, you'd be able to keep a couple hundred years of waste for a plant in an area about the size of a football field, including shielding.

Thus, with some reprocessing/recycling Yucca Mountain becomes more of a temporary staging point than a facility that needs to last tens/hundreds of thousands of years.

Our current policy actually makes some sense - let the raw waste sit for 40 years and it's a lot easier to reprocess as it's nowhere near as hot as when it came out of the reactor.  This reduces expenses.

As for Hanford - I make the distinction of 'nuclear power' for a reason.  Hanford was primarily a weapons making facility - and I have to admit, we really screwed up environmentally wise during the cold war.

[Manedwolf]

You miss the point. Nuclear plants do not kill ANYTHING. Seabrook is surrounded by wetland marshes, silent and pristine.

Chernobyl? Three Mile Island? What about all the nuclear waste storage - how long before that stuff becomes a real problem?

Chernobyl? Don't build an inherently dangerous Soviet-era graphite moderated reactor with no containment structure and then crew it with drunks.

Three Mile Island? Tech has advanced SO much since then. You'd be comparing the safety level of an early 1970's car to a modern one. And the newest pebble bed design is incapable of runaway. If cooling stops, fission will stop too.

Nuclear waste storage? Throw out the STUPID Carter-era rules that prohibit reactors that re-use that waste, and it wouldn't be a problem! Breeder reactors are banned because of asinine laws from back then. Anything that is left, you put in Yucca Mountain.

Do some research, please, instead of trotting out the same tired and already-debunked arguments people like the Clamshell idiots here used when they bankrupted PSNH and prevented the construction of Seabrook 2, which would have made NH completely energy-secure for all time.

[280plus]

What about all the nuclear waste storage - how long before that stuff becomes a real problem?

Shoot it into the sun. 

[richyoung]

What about all the nuclear waste storage - how long before that stuff becomes a real problem?

Shoot it into the sun. 

Vitrify, seal in stainless steel canisters, cover that in conctrete or ceramic, place on old warship, sink im Marianis Trench.   One old aircraft carrier a decade should be plenty...

[Firethorn]

Vitrify, seal in stainless steel canisters, cover that in conctrete or ceramic, place on old warship, sink im Marianis Trench.   One old aircraft carrier a decade should be plenty...

At this point, 1 carrier a century would be enough.  Meanwhile, I say we keep the stuff available until we're willing to go through the effort to recycle it.  Uranium's going to get more expensive at some point, and I don't want to explain to my kids why we sunk all that usable fuel at the bottom of the ocean.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

say what you will about their country the french do nuke power right

[Manedwolf]

say what you will about their country the french do nuke power right

They're the only part of Europe where the lights would stay on if the gas and oil tap were turned off.

[MicroBalrog]

Chernobyl? Three Mile Island? What about all the nuclear waste storage - how long before that stuff becomes a real problem?

Not a single person was killed by the accident at Three Mile Island.

And that was the worst nuclear incident in US history.

Thank you for making a beautiful, cogent argument for nuclear energy.

[280plus]

I'm telling you, if you want to laugh your ass off get a copy of "China Syndrome", liberal Hollywood BS at it's finest.

[Antibubba]

Let me put it this way:

A small amount of birds are killed every year by passing aircrft. Some are even rare birds. We don't stop flying.

A small amount of animals are killed by combined harvesters. Do we stop growing grain?

Is the damage to bats great enough to stop us using wind turbines?

Micro,

   You are using logic when cute little fuzzy flying brother mammals are being killed!   

Does Israel have the "Animals are People Too" contingent?

[French G.]

Cost v. benefit. There is a lot of difference between a farm wind generator and something 400 feet tall fracturing habitat and cluttering the landscape. Around me they want to put them on mountaintops. That means fractured habitat, stream run-off issues from the roads, dead wildlife like the golden and bald eagles that inhabit the area, adding up to a loss of the only money maker we have which is tourist revenue. For what? Estimated 200K per year tax revenue to the county and one man getting rich from gov't subsidy. Subsidy that will come on the front end since the estimated cost is 65 million. If these turbines make nameplate capacity and they are put up on budget with zero interest loans they will pay themselves off  in 11-12 years. Realistically they will probably not be paid for in their 20 year service life.

Meanwhile, we have our 200K tax revenue. Of course we lost meals, lodging, sales tax revenue from the motorcyclists who descend like locusts to ride our scenic mountain roads and the bird and nature lovers. Nobody wants to look at a 400 ft wind turbine or 20 so land prices go in the toilet which lowers our real estate tax base, so we raise the assessment. Less tourists, more taxed land means less people making a living. The few people we have will move away. It's already happening and wind turbines might be built here in 3 years. Our real estate market tanked 1.5 years ahead of the national market as soon as this BS got approved.

Take all the steel, copper and concrete that go into putting up wind turbines and build some nuke plants.

I have not even addressed the energy that goes into making all these green wind turbines or the piss poor nature of their power as in they usually don't put out much power midday in the summer when it is 95 deg and the wind is dead and the AC is running...

Wind is a joke. Pull away all the renewable portfolio BS, the tax credits or any cap and trade scheme and see how wind competes.

Build nuke plants.

[MicroBalrog]

Let me put it this way:

A small amount of birds are killed every year by passing aircrft. Some are even rare birds. We don't stop flying.

A small amount of animals are killed by combined harvesters. Do we stop growing grain?

Is the damage to bats great enough to stop us using wind turbines?

Micro,

   You are using logic when cute little fuzzy flying brother mammals are being killed!   

Does Israel have the "Animals are People Too" contingent?

Oh yes. Yes it does.

No hunting licenses have been issued to citizens of this country since 1996.

[280plus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

[Regolith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

Looks like that's not the only thing you have to worry about with windmills...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N4HQv-UyUo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKkTUY2slYQ&feature=related

So much for being "carbon neutral." 

[280plus]

"Houston, we have a problem."

 

[LAK]

Firethorn

Nuclear power waste isn't actually that big of a deal - for one thing you can reprocess it to recover 90-95% of it to be used as fuel again.  The rest becomes much less radioactive much faster.  As a bonus, you'd be able to keep a couple hundred years of waste for a plant in an area about the size of a football field, including shielding.

Sure, it's been old hat for decades.

Manedwolf

Do some research, please, instead of trotting out the same tired and already-debunked arguments people like the Clamshell idiots here used when they bankrupted PSNH and prevented the construction of Seabrook 2, which would have made NH completely energy-secure for all time.

Research? I have lived through fifty years of nuclear power generation history here, and in europe. This is nothing new; general knowledge 101.

The record is just not that good. And speaking of clamshells, getting time sensitive full disclosure from the nuclear industry about anything is like dealing with clamshells. The leak at the Thorp plant (now closed) in the UK is a shining recent example.

Advances in technology are fine; however it is not any lack of technology that has put people at risk and caused mishaps - 1970s cars were just fine thank you. It is a pattern of corporate practices and management, shortcuts and "cost saving" during constructions, operation etc. The usual suspects in the corporate world of any industry. That is the problem. With nuclear fuels however low the risks, the potential consequences are extremely high.

RichYoung

Vitrify, seal in stainless steel canisters, cover that in conctrete or ceramic, place on old warship, sink im Marianis Trench. One old aircraft carrier a decade should be plenty...

Yep; that' a clever idea - a future disaster waiting to happen. That is actually a good ending point for a discussion on nucler power generation safety.

[Manedwolf]

LAK, you're talking about the UK, which is one step from the Soviet Union in terms of nuclear safety oversight. That's the UK's fault, not nuclear power.

You've got decommissioned reactors that look like Half Life, where they just dumped waste, lubricants and "hot" equipment into spent-fuel pools to rust in a swamp of noxious chemicals. You've got a test hole used for another equipment dump that they just kept dumping uranium residue and hot cooling system discarded parts into, and now they're worried it could reach critical mass.

The pond in which the waste is stored is known officially as B30, but nicknamed "dirty thirty" by Sellafield workers. It emits so much radiation that for safety reasons people are only permitted to work near it for less than an hour a day.

The pond was built in 1959 to store and unpack uranium fuel rods burnt in Britain's first generation of military and civil reactors. The hot fuel was stored under water to keep it cool, and to shield workers from its intense radiation.

After some fuel started corroding in the 1970s, the pond was phased out and eventually closed down in 1992. But it has been left with a huge legacy of nuclear waste under the water, which is slowly leaking into the surrounding air and earth.

Yes, it's an OPEN POND with tons of plutonium in "impenetrably murky" water. In Dounreay, they just stuffed it all down the mentioned water-filled shaft, where it could form a lump of critical mass, and it's also leaking radiation all over the coast, now. Who allowed that idiocy?

A 65-metre deep shaft used for intermediate level nuclear waste disposal is contaminating some groundwater, and is threatened by coastal erosion in about 300 years time. The shaft was never designed as a waste depository, but was used as such on a very ad-hoc and poorly monitored basis, without reliable waste disposal records being kept. In origin it is a relic of a process by which a waste-discharge pipe was constructed. The pipe was designed to discharge waste into the sea. Historic use of the shaft as a waste depository has resulted in one hydrogen gas explosion[3] caused by sodium and potassium wastes reacting with water. At one time it was normal for workers to fire rifles into the shaft to sink polythene bags floating on water.[4] There are fears that accumulated material might represent a potential critical mass

That's the fault of your idiotic government who allowed that sort of nonsense. Look at other countries instead.

[richyoung]

RichYoung

Vitrify, seal in stainless steel canisters, cover that in conctrete or ceramic, place on old warship, sink im Marianis Trench. One old aircraft carrier a decade should be plenty...

Yep; that' a clever idea - a future disaster waiting to happen. That is actually a good ending point for a discussion on nucler power generation safety.

Explain how vitrified, sealed waste 35000 feet down is a "disaster waiting to happen".  You DO know that radioactivity is a naturally occuring phenomenon, right?  You DO know a coal-fored power plant emits MORE radiation than a nuke plant, right?  Nuclear waste, while toxic, is small in volume and easily contained, unlike coal plant waste, which we breath.

[Gewehr98]

Once you uncork the nuclear genie, you cannot put it back in the bottle.  Period.  Messy stuff, worse than oil spills, coal mine collapses, you name it.

Not a single person was killed by the accident at Three Mile Island.

And that was the worst nuclear incident in US history.

Thank you for making a beautiful, cogent argument for nuclear energy.

A little (subtle) hint.  Look at the big bird below - I was responsible for flying it and sister ships almost 20 years.  See the thingies on the fuselage? Hint: It's a WC-135W.  Not a lot of people know they exist, or that the mission exists. Go google why it exists, and why I flew my ass off on many sorties, including Chernobyl, Tokai Mura, a couple Russian subs that had boo-boos, nuclear powerplants that oopsed, and why we were on 30-minute standby for any and all nuclear weapons tests and accidents throughout the world. Our yearly budget for such an operation was/is staggering, but we were deemed essential enough to keep two of these big birds flying through 2040.  Go figure.  Radioisotopes in the atmosphere - genetic diversity at its finest, keeping the gene pool fresh for generations to come, and keeping at least one agency of the U.S. Government gainfully employed for the indefinite future. 

[Manedwolf]

I am aware of Constant Phoenix aircraft, yes. I would imagine they were mostly called into play for, as you said, SOVIET problems.

The Soviet Union did not make nuclear safety a priority. Chernobyl, and all the reactors like it have a horrible graphite-moderated boiling water design with no containment and horrible excuses for safety systems.

I don't think what the Soviets did has much to do with current Western reactor design, especially the sort all over the place in France, or the newest pebble bed that is completely incapable of thermal runaway...

There are hundreds of reactors that have been operating cleanly and efficiently for decades, and they're not Soviet commie-corner-cutting designs at all.

[Tallpine]

Chernobyl - it almost worked. 

[Gewehr98]

I am aware of Constant Phoenix aircraft, yes. I would imagine they were mostly called into play for, as you said, SOVIET problems.

Nope - common misconception.  Domestic or foreign, we were tasked to respond.  The DOE just doesn't have big airframes with the speed, collection capability, or loiter time to track, size, analyze, and stay with the nuclear debris clouds.  Hence a 4-engine Boeing WC-135, or an 8-engine B-52H with Giant Fish front bomb bay sampling pod, or a U-2/TR-1 with Olympic Race sampling pod. We had/have the legs and horsepower to provide immediate reconnaissance, activity readings, cloud sizing, and then relay the bad news back to Mom real-time. 

If the White House Situation roomed called our Watch Officer with tasking, we went.  It didn't matter if it was a Soviet nuclear sub in the Atlantic that caught fire, NASA's Cassini satellite breaking up on ascent, or a domestic reactor "oops".  We get the call, we go, trailing a tanker or three if we need them.

[MicroBalrog]

First let me say I very much respect Gewehr98, and thank him for his service to his country.

Second, I am sorry, but the existence of these aircraft does not detract from my point:

Three Mile Island is generally agreed to be the biggest nuclear accident in American history, and yet not a single person (at least according to the Wiki) has a serious health problem directly attributable to it.