Energy Crisis: Do you fear Nuclear Energy? - why?

[Trapper John]

We are like the proverbial ostriches with our heads in the sand. An energy crisis is looming, in fact it's here and all the 'alternative' and 'green' methods of producing energy won't come anywhere near taking up the slack being left by dwindling stocks and the forced reduction of the usage of fossil fuels, let alone replace them.

The world's population is increasing expotentially and by 2030, just 12 years time, we will have added another 1.2billion people to our planet, by 2050 - well within our children's lifetimes - the increase will be 2.5 billion.

All these extra people will need power in one form or another and as we cannot even produce enough to satisfy today's demands, what hope do we have of finding a solution to future ones?

Of course there are lots theoretical solutions but even if they were found to be practical and started right at this very moment, it would take decades to even get them to a prototype stage, we simply do not have that time.

There is something though that could save our world descending into a 'power' mad anarchy, something we have already tamed, something which can produce clean, efficient, practical, almost limitless energy - Nuclear Power by fisson.

We have almost 100 years of theoretical and practical experience in it's usage, it's not a pipedream like fusion, or wind and wave power it's a proven technology that works, so why are people so afraid of it?

We need to be told the truths about nuclear power by fission because at this moment there seems to be a huge anti nuclear lobby coming from all directions and with varying reasons for stifling it's use, fuelled by misleading propaganda and preying on the fears of the ignorant.

We need to push nuclear power to the forefront now, not in ten years time because nuclear power stations take many years to build and every day we leave it, is a day closer to the civilistation we know falling into total collapse.

[Trapper John]

I guess most people's fears about nuclear energy stem from knowledge of the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the reported experiences at high profile accidents in peaceful civil usage like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and more recently Fukushima and the awful 'R' word that is inextricably linked with nuclear anything - Radiation. I know mine did.

That was until I looked into it all further and discovered things were not quite as bad as I been led to believe, not nearly so. It might interest people to know a few facts about those civil disasters which are not reported widely.

Chernobyl for instance, one of the biggest nuclear accidents of our time, world wide and long lasting publicity made it a perfect example of why we should avoid nuclear power.

Yet the only people whose deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster were the 28 first responder, site firemen who so bravely gave their lives by rushing to the scene in full knowledge they were going to their deaths and putting out the fire. They were all dead within a week after receiving massive doses of concentrated radiation.

In fact, in the hospital of the nearby town of Pripyat - now an abandoned ghost town - where they were taken afterwards, their clothes and boots still lay strewn on the floor of a basement room and record 10,000 times normal background radiation even after more than 30 years. Frightening.

There were some other casualties of the fallout of radiation, 15 children from the area died of thyroid cancer, rare in young people and so investigated in depth. It was found that the release of radioactive Iodine 131 in the fallout immediately following the accident, fell from the sky in rain, laid on the grass which cows ate and then drunk by the children in their milk.

So contrary to popular belief, just 43 people died as the result of the nuclear radioactive fallout attributed to Chernobyl.

Fukushima a more recent but no less publicised accident caused by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami helped fuel the anti nuclear lobby's argument. It resulted in Japan and then Germany halting their nuclear power programmes and closing down all of their existing ones. Yet of the 16,000 people who died at Fukushima, all were victims of the natural event, not one person to date has died from exposure to radiation from the Fukushima power plant.

So is nuclear energy dangerous? yes. The radiation it produces will kill but only in huge, concentrated doses over a short period, the more it spreads the less life threatening it becomes, the less you come into contact with the more able your body is to repair any damage caused by it.

As the the lady professor whose name escapes me, head of the radiation studies at UCH London says, "Radiation has always been a part of our lives, our bodies are perfectly adapted to cope with it in small or larger irregular doses, it is probably why we are here today. Evolution is just another way of saying mutation, which is what radiation does to us on a cellular level."

[Trapper John]

Many ordinary people also believe that an accident could happen at a nuclear power station whereby an explosion the likes of a nuclear bomb would lay waste to a vast area and kill hundreds of thousands of people - that just cannot happen.

The Uranium 235 used in nuclear weapons is not the same as the Uranium 238 used for peaceful means. Uranium 235 is massively unstable it's 92 protons and 143 neutrons are in constant flux just waiting to be disturbed into a chain reaction resulting in a catastrophic explosion.

Both Uranium 235 and 238 atoms are held together by the strongest force in the universe, only 235 though can be split, not naturally but by man as we know to devestating effect.

It could be argued that WW2 began as a result of Nazi Germany's nuclear weapons programme being that the only source of Uranium in Europe is in Czechoslovakia and Hitler was desperate to get his hands on it.

The point is only Uranium 235 is able to be split and as it is not used in peaceful nuclear use, it is an impossibility a devestating explosive accident could occur.

[Trapper John]

Lastly in this group of posts which I hope will make people think about nuclear energy being a force for good and something we should embrace, even though with care, because it is the only option on the horizon which has any chance of averting the greatest catastrophe mankind has ever faced.

Opponents of nuclear energy make great use of the the word 'clean energy' not only about it's advantages to mankind, mostly their own of course, but also by using it as a stick to beat it with, saying it can't be called 'clean energy' when it produces vast amounts of deadly waste we have no hope of disposing of in millions of years.

That is true, vast amounts of nuclear waste exist in stockpiles around the world, we have our own and other people's at Sellafield and America has 72,000 tonnes of the stuff lying in various places across it's continent.

The waste is aptly called waste, because it is a waste that only 5% of the nuclear energy contained in a fuel rod is actually used for some reason, the rest is discarded, hence the waste. Now that is pretty awful by anyone's reckoning.

Though what if I said that a process already exists, based on proven technology which can extract almost every atom of energy from that waste fuel and convert it into usable power much the same as the power stations of today do?

What if I said these power stations actually do produce clean, cheap energy without any danger because the natural processes involved in creating it, would automatically shut the process down in the event of anything interupting it's cycle?

What if I said these new power stations could run cheaper than coal or oil fired power stations, that without digging another gram of Uranium out of the ground, they could power the entire world, even taking into consideration population growth, for the next 72 years?

This technology exists now, the designs for the power stations exist now, the design of the power plant and it's processes exist now, proof that it's cycle of energy production has been validated exists now, all it takes is someone, some nation, some government to get off the fucking fence and start building them, instead of worrying about what their voters might think or the financial interests of the current 'power' brokers.

[Trapper John]

I suppose after that last post I should mention that the technology these new nuclear fission power stations use, has a proven record on a smaller scale going back to the 1950's and without going into the 'science' which I couldn't hope to understand anyway, it's been updated to the enth degree as technology has moved on.

In brief they are known by some as Liquid Fluoride Reactors and are based on the Thorium reactors used to power the early nuclear submarines of the 1950's.

Obviously much has developed and changed in the near 70 years since and the difficulties they had then have been solved and technological thinking and advancements have been able to scale it all up to a fully workable power station.

I can't tell you much more without scrambling my brains but rest assured the technology exists already to solve our immediate and longer term problems of power usage and waste.

[Trapper John]

Just a bit of off topic information about Uranium, it was absolutely worthless until the 1930's and the biggest concentrations on earth are in Australia. Now it's one of the most precious minerals/ elements on Earth.

In fact the few hundred aborigines left who own the land with some of the biggest deposits, turned down an equal share of $5billion for the mining rights because the land is sacred to them and they believe the rocks are containing a mighty dragon that if unleashed would destroy the world. Strangely enough Oppenheimer and the other scientists working on the Manhattan project termed working with Uranium 235 for the atomic bomb as 'tickling the tail of the dragon'

How's that for prophecy and ancient knowledge. The area around is covered with ancient hand art and paintings, some depict people with growths that look like tumours on their arms and legs, they knew even in early times that something wasn't right about the place.

[Guest]

Where did you cut n paste all this from?

[Trapper John]

Where did you cut n paste all this from?

Does it look like a cut and paste? I only cut and paste quotes

it's not hard to digest something then try to explain it in your own words, you should try it sometime it's quite satisfying.

Now you got anything valuable to say?

[Trapper John]

I can tell you how an atomic explosion happens in my own words too if you like, fascinating stuff. All you need to do is read, watch or listen to something, absorb most of it without too much thought and tag the bits you find amazing and relevent. Then you can write it all down and voila' you have a post.

[Stooo]

Have you been reading about the horlicks that is HPC?

The reason why we don't have a lot of nuclear energy is because it takes ages to build and costs a fortune. HPC is being built by the Chinese and French.

[Guest]

Where did you cut n paste all this from?

Does it look like a cut and paste? I only cut and paste quotes

it's not hard to digest something then try to explain it in your own words, you should try it sometime it's quite satisfying.

Now you got anything valuable to say?

Yes.

Fuck off paper boy.

[Rolluplostinspace]

https://www.globalresearch.ca/search?q= ... ma&x=0&y=0

[measurer]

Girstl, 31 die in Chernobyl. T

[measurer]

Girstl, 31 die in Chernobyl. T

[measurer]

Firstly, 31 die in Chernobyl. Two on site then 29 right after, BUT there are many more cases and they are still ongoing. Cancers of the throat in babies being fed by mommy to this day? I think we won't know the true figure for years, as the radiation will take a toll on many others.
116K lived there and were evacuated, that won't have saved them, as is proving the case.

Why would we want this risk rather than sea and wind power?