Which set of people have you been listening to? According some people, nuclear power is so safe you should ask it to move in with you; according to others, it is so dangerous they are surprised the planet is still here. The spread of sincere, if sometimes not well informed, opinion on this is is probably greater than that on any other non-religious subject. My opinion, or what little it is worth, is that the power plants can be made as safe as any other heavy industry generating massive amounts of power (refineries explode, mines pollute and collapse, coal emits radioactive pollutants...). Paradoxically, they would be a little safer if people ware *not* so worried about them; in the current state of paranoia, those running have a tendency to deny everything because there have been so many false alarms. This makes them sow to react to a real alarm. The real problem I have is waste disposal. I think it irresponsible to build any new new stations until we *know* how we are going to dispose of the waste, not make plans to know one day Real Soon Now.

I believe so, watch this when you have time, it's 1 of 3

Nuclear plants have very few accidents, but the problem is that when they /do/ have accidents, it's catastrophic.

nowadays nuclear power plants are pretty safe. there have been 6 large accidents in nuclear power plants since they have been operating. 1952 Dec. 12, Chalk River, nr. Ottawa, Canada: a partial meltdown of the reactor's uranium fuel core resulted after the accidental removal of four control rods. Although millions of gallons of radioactive water accumulated inside the reactor, there were no injuries. 1957 Oct. 7, Windscale Pile No. 1, north of Liverpool, England: fire in a graphite-cooled reactor spewed radiation over the countryside, contaminating a 200-sq-mi area. South Ural Mountains: explosion of radioactive wastes at Soviet nuclear weapons factory 12 miles from city of Kyshtym forced the evacuation of over 10,000 people from a contaminated area. No casualties were reported by Soviet officials. 1976 nr. Greifswald, East Germany: radioactive core of reactor in the Lubmin nuclear power plant nearly melted down due to the failure of safety systems during a fire. 1979 March 28, Three Mile Island, nr. Harrisburg, Pa.: one of two reactors lost its coolant, which caused the radioactive fuel to overheat and caused a partial meltdown. Some radioactive material was released. 1986 April 26, Chernobyl, nr. Kiev, former U.S.S.R.: explosion and fire in the graphite core of one of four reactors released radioactive material that spread over part of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and later Western Europe. 31 claimed dead. Total casualties are unknown and estimates run into the thousands. Worst such accident to date. 1999 September 30, Tokyo, Japan: workers added seven times the required amount. Radiation was released to the surrounding areas. The three workers performing the operation were exposed to high levels of radiation and were treated. Thirty-nine workers were exposed in total. the problem is that when something does go wrong it is BIG.

Ask the folks in Chernobyl. I guess the official death toll is 31, at least that is the number that died in the actual explosion. But from what I heard a few years ago, people are still dying of radiation related diseases in that area. Many first responders died within a few years of radiation sickness. I don't think they were included in that count. The problem with nuclear power is that when something goes wrong, it usually goes catastrophically wrong. Not only is there a death toll at the time of the accident, there is a contamination of the surrounding area that will last thousands of years. Radioactivity decays at a very slow rate. Rather than building nuclear power plants, it would probably be better if we all conserved electricity. Remember, electricity has only been around a very short period of time. My grandparents grew up with kerosene lamps in the twenties, not far from NYC. They went to bed early and got up early to maximize daylight hours. Ben Franklin said that early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Know why? Because lighting costs money and resources. So does heat, and you don't need as much when you are in bed. If more of us adopted his philosophy, we wouldn't need as much electricity. Rather than build dangerous nuclear plants, why don't we just try to use less?

I do much of my cooking in a crockpot, as it uses about as much energy as a 100 watt bulb. Almost all the bulbs in my house are compact flourescents. We turn off lights when we aren't in the room. I grow a vegetable garden in the backyard. Much of our staples are bought in bulk from the Mennonites, to cut down trips to the store.

See, you are assuming a lot. You are assuming first of all that I am ignorant. I didn't say explode a reactor by it's own natural processes, I mean explode a reactor with explosives, like what the Koreans did with their cooling tower last week. You know, statistics can be made to say anything, just like you are doing with yours.

For those of you seeking answers, check this out. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18300710?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=5&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed Don't be fooled that it says this study doesn't establish a causal link to TMI. It is nearly impossible to design a study that definitively establishes causality. Just ask yourself, what else has happened in recent decades in Dauphin, York and Lancaster Counties that would cause such a spike in thyroid cancer, especially since it is commonly the first place radiation shows up. That is why they are monitoring that particular type of cancer.

Here is another one http://www.tmia.com/accident/whatswrong.html

Here is another one http://www.radiation.org/spotlight/sr90concentrations.html Bottom line here, you don't have to search very far to find evidence of radioactivity persisting in the TMI area. And you don't have to search very far to find evidence of a cancer cluster. Don't forget that one of the Thyroid cancer victims was my next door neighbor and best friend. One of the Leukemia victims, who didn't survive was also a good friend of mine.

Here is another piece of evidence. http://www.radiation.org/spotlight/reactorclosings.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010304442.html This is the lovely nuclear power plant south of Lancaster. Still think some nutcase couldn't find a way to blow it up?

It seems pretty safe, and they have stepped up safety measures after Chernobyl. The only thing that concerns me is where to put the waste

OOPS, it did it again.

Well, if you compare the statistics,...all the coal miners who have died in mine explosians..cave-ins,etc., and all the oil-field casualties, the natural gas-well explosians,...it is a pretty safe thing, so far. People are afraid of nuclear power for one and only one reason,...they associate it with a "bomb". The type of nuclear "reaction" that is involved in a nuclear bomb is a totally different deck of cards than a nuclear powered reactor. People want a "clean" alternative to hydrocarbon energy. Well, the only one that will work and replace hydrocarbons is nuclear. All the others;.. solar, hydro, wind, are just little side-shows. They will never provide all the energy we need.

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Despite the nay-sayers, nuclear power IS a viable energy source and is safer than any other comparable source. Comparable meaning able to meet the large energy demands of our society. Safety, as a desciptive factor, is a RELATIVE term. Absolutely nothing is 100% safe. We can only compare safety in relation to something else. Occupational radiation and contamination exposures are probably the most closely tracked statistics in the industry, simply because it is the only reliable way to gather information on the long term effects of low level exposures. The effects of acute doses of high radiation and contamination exposures are much easier to track. We have been gathering this information since the beginning of our research, development, and operational nuclear power and weapons industry, a period covering more than six decades. However, there are no real occupational radiation & contamination exposure tracking programs for other industrial power producing facilities that we can directly relate to those of the nuclear power industry. And before you ask, YES, workers in facilities like coal powered plants are exposed to significantly higher levels of radiation & contamination than those at nuclear powered plants. However, the risks due to other occupational hazzards as coal powered plants are so much higher that the effects due to radiation exposure are insignificant. So the exposure statistics we continue to gather in the nuclear power industry we compare to the statistics we gather for other things; like smoking, medical and dental exposures, natural background radiation levels at various altitudes and land locations, occupational hazards in other industries, health statistics in all areas over long periods of time, and so forth. The consequences of a catastrophic accident at a nuclear plant, however, are much higher than with a catastrophic accident in, say, a coal powered plant. But design, fabrication, and construction factors, combined with the way the nuclear plants are operated, work to make this type of accident extremely rare and, should one occur, the containment facillities themselves are designed to minimize exposure to the general public. As for conspiracy theorists and coverup scare tactics with respect to the effects and dangers of nuclear power, they hold little water with me for a variety of reasons: 1) I am WELL versed in nuclear power, effects of radiation & contamination exposure, and the track record of the industry, civilian and military, in the U.S. 2) Cover-ups and conspiracies of the level most nay-sayers assign to nuclear power is either impossible or so unlikely in our society that I discount most because of this: there are too many independent people with the capabilities to measure, quantify, and track the actual physical evidence usually being cited as existing for any organization to cover up. And such 'evidence' usually provided by nay-sayers is readily apparent as mis-leading, inaccurate, or outright false to those who understand how nuclear power REALLY works. Unfortunately, intentionally providing incorrect or mis-leading information has the effect of discrediting the credibility of these people, so when they DO have a point, it is often ignored. 3) If nay-sayers are obviously NOT experts or accurately educated in how nuclear power works, then what they say makes little, if any, sense to those who DO understand it. And it's obvious to us. In the United States, our biggest problem with nuclear power as an industry is that we have, though various reasons, either shutdown or neglected our abilities to deal with the waste issue. Dealing with nuclear waste isn't just a disposal issue. It's a control, storage, and elimination issue. Burying it doesn't make it go away. And contrary to public opinion, all those hundreds or thousands of tons of waste are NOT highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Only a small fraction of the radioisotopes have half lives that long. The vast majority of the bulk of the nuclear waste have much shorter half lives and decay to stable isotopes within a period of seconds to decades. Spent fuel can be reprocessed to remove the unused fuel and separate the long lived isotopes from the short lived isotopes and dramatically reduce our long term storage demands. Proper storage and inventory can allow us to further reduce our radioactive waste in the future by allowing future retrieval and treatment. Unlike chemically toxic compounds, which NEVER loose their toxic properties, radioactive isotopes DO decay away. Eventually, their radio-toxicity is reduced to natural background levels. Designing more efficient nuclear plants, plants which use nuclear fuels which naturally produce fewer long lived radio-isotopes than Uranium, and plants designed to utilize Plutonium to deplete our weapons grade stock are also viable alternatives. Nuclear reactor design has progressed far enough that we can construct a core which CANNOT melt down, even if all coolant is lost. When compared to our major sources of electrical power (coal and petroleum fired plants), the impact of nuclear power on our envirnment and our population is SIGNIFICANTLY less, even if a nuclear accident should occur. Here is one source of information on the web. I would provide more, but if you are capable of reading this forum on a computer, you are also capable of googling additional information, beyond that which I provide. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf103.html#5

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grrrrr

No, don't build it in my backyard..We have enough chemical waste from 3 steel mills and a tape factory and an arsenal all within our city limits, oh yeah, they just tore down a plastics factory that made platex junk...We have enough to kill us already, than you.

Skepticism is a good trait, don't get me wrong. But some things just can't be done. How many 70 year olds do you think still have their baby teeth? If you can't recreate something, you can't recreate it. But there is a certain level of evidence at which it becomes hard to refute. I try very hard not to think about this. I don't intend to sue anyone and it wouldn't do me any good if I did. However, I don't want to leave a country full of these things for my daughter either. We are talking about civilian reactors, which don't have the same standards of behavior as military, and even those aren't perfect. It only takes one idiot.

Actually it is. Providing they actually inform of any hazards publicly. Which they sometimes don't and the hazards become bigger. Arizona has the biggest US nuclear plant located on the desert. This is an exception. No body of water to protect and flood the core in a melt down. Plan is to have everyone in Phoenix to flush in such an event.