Is Nuclear Power Green? part 1

[xcd48gtf3]

This argument is invalid; nuclear waste can be placed in heavily shielded interim storage caskets or reused as valuable fuel in a fast spectrum reactor such as PRISM. The waste from these reactors lasts only 300 years which is a reasonable containment period.

As for renewables, size is relative. When Vogtle reactors 3 and 4 are completed, they will be the equivalent of all wind and solar generation in the US combined. Do the math, nuclear is the only meaningful producer of green electricity.

[griptick]

How much of a FUCKING RETARD do you have to be to stand next to nuclear wast? Honestly, if your that stupid, then nature has selected you to die. Scond, there is no fucking possile way to "stand next to nuclear waste" in an unprotected mannrer because of the way its contained. You can ride the nuclear containers like a bull and not recieve any extra radiation.

Third the battery in a hybrid car will kill you in a split second if your exposed to the acid in side of it.

fucktarded video

[conradmillermd]

Containers are not adequately tested, sorry to say, my profane friend. Casks were tested to burn at 1475 degrees for half an hour. Unfortunately, diesel fires burn at 1800 degrees, and often burn for days. If there is an accident or a spill and your daughter comes riding up on her bicycle, yes, exposure of 10 seconds from 3 feet away would prove fatal within 2 weeks. See Nuclear Monitor, Issue 643, Page 5 for more info. Any more profane comments will be removed, so ease your hate and anger,

[cheesebone82]

@conradmillermd But what is the likelihood of these tragic events resulting in my potential 3 year old daughter being victimized by an accident or spill? The amount of waste created through nuclear energy is so small that transportation of this waste would happen infrequently already! I'd have a better chance of my daughter burning up because of a gasoline pump exploding due to ESD. I can find videos of that all over youtube... you see any footage of overturned nuclear waste trucks here?

[conradmillermd]

@cheesebone82 These shipments have not started yet. Expect 20,000 to 70,000 shipments by mostly rail and truck to run through 43 states to get to the dump that might be designated to accept them - perhaps in Utah. High level waste can be 'small' in size but remember that it emits toxic levels of radiation. Also remember that radionuclides like plutonium can cause cancer with just one microgram being the lung-cancer causing dose, .

[cheesebone82]

@conradmillermd

I just can't see any logic in this. And where do you get 20-70k shipments from? Do you know how much waste from nuclear energy actually exists right now? You're trying to protect people from the almost-impossible at this point... More people die every day due to normal lifestyle hazards like choking and falling over than could possibly ever be effected by this. By this logic, we should also outlaw electricity because there's constant potential for death via electrocution.

[SplittingAt0ms]

And when, exactly, does one find themselves standing 3 feet away from exposed radioactive waste??? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Think of it this way, would you rather have your hazardous waste vented to the atmosphere for you and your children to breathe? Or would you rather have your waste superconcentrated, managable, and containable? Waste from reactors are spent fuel rods not some green glowing slime. It will not create giant killer ants or spiders!

[conradmillermd]

See above. Also, with venting of the noble gases like krypton-90 and xenon-137 from nuclear power stacks, which constantly occurs, these go around the neighborhood and who knows how far away with the drift of the winds as they decay into strontium 90 (bone cancer and leukemia) and cesium-137. Radioactivity causes mutations and cancer if it strikes the DNA of humans, animals or plants. There is still no safe longterm containment known to main that will hold such radioactivity for 100,000 yrs.

[DollarAtheist]

Lookfz likefff dish guy didn'tt do hizf resherch oon how shafe it is.

[razoredge45]

Sharpened pencils are dangerous! We need to get rid of them! why doesnt anyone stop this! think of all the kids that are injured around the world daily..running around with sharp pencils just think of the trees we could save to! chaulk is the way to go! much safer! have you ever herd of anyone ever being hurt by chaulk! NO! Not Ever! just think of it sharpen it throw it at someone..and maybe a welt!..isnt coal like chaulk? coal must be good!

[conradmillermd]

Some things are more dangerous than others. Nuclear waste and nuclear power probably constitute the most dangerous things on this Earth. Pencils just stick you, and you buy your own usually (or use someone else's) and you won't die from cancer or radiation illness from them. There are better ways to skin a cat. Energy wise wind and solar power can power this country and create thousands of jobs and an Earth-friendly industry that will help us sustain future generations rather than destroy..

[griptick]

@conradmillermd no, they fucking can not. If wind could power this country, it already would be. Not with the technology as it is today

[conradmillermd]

Wake up, grip, get one (a grip). USA put up 10,000 megawatts of wind in 2009. That's equal to 3 nuclear plants in one year without venting, leaks, radioactive accidents or radioactivity worries period. USA has been called 'The Persian Gulf Of Wind' & indeed is NOW the Number One windpower country on planet Earth. If we continue @ this rate by the time those 2 already NRC-rejected Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors the powers-that-be want to erect in Ga would be, 70,000 MW wind be erected=24 nukes

[14cav]

We don't store the waste where people can stand next to it you moron!

[conradmillermd]

no, it's usually shielded as it is in nuclear plants - but if there is an accident and it is not shielded just 10 seconds of exposure from three feet away IS enough to kill you - via radiation sickness - as many of the Japanese A-bomb victims experienced. Dying over a 2 week period with their hair falling out, their gums bleeding, their immune system imploding. Transport casks have not been tested to required standards so a train or boat accident could compromise such casks and expose YOU

[griptick]

@conradmillermd are you a fucking idiot? the videos of trains slaming into the containers sideways are some of the most popular videos on them. They are over precautions in every single way imaginable

[conradmillermd]

See comment to your previous profane remark above, thank you. Be civil henceforth, please.

[conradmillermd]

Spills. Nuclear spills from accidents. See above comments and reference to Nuclear Monitor 643 page 5. Please check that.

[dshct]

That is why they put the waste in a thick as fuck container.

[conradmillermd]

See above comments please and Nuclear Monitor #643 page 5.

[jjjb93]

whats with the mustache????

[SirFoggy2Doped]

And how many canisters of waste are now sitting on the ocean floor??

Even if not a single one leaks it's still a COMPLETELY bad idea!!!

Who else realizes that cluttering up the ocean with ANYTHING is a flat out bad thing?

[nexus8126]

This guy is a one way thinker. If France can produce more then 75% of their energy with Nuclear Power then certainly any half-wit country with half a set could manage to do the same. Nuclear power is NOT more expensive than wind. That guy needs to do more research. I would tell him how it is but he was already forced feed one set of B.S. and will ignorantly regurgitate every faddish liberate claim as it becomes in style.

[NorskeDivision]

Don't get me wrong, wind power is fine. But if you're serious about cutting CO2 we need reliable forms of base load generation. Wind should be constructed in areas where it can be coupled with hydro-power, since hydro can be started quickly during periods of low wind. But being anti-nuclear means we'll end up with the "alternative" form of base-load generation, coal. Look at Germany, they're anti-nuclear, pro-renwable, and building more and more coal plants. You can't escape reality...

[HiTekVagabond]

Base load generation is a myth. The grid could care less where the electricity comes from. Base load does not have to be produced by nuclear power or coal. In the Northwest, base load is created by hydroelectric. But nuclear power and coal is used as base load because it cannot be dispatched. Baseload is simply the minimum level of demand on an electrical supply system over 24-hours: the load that exists 24 hours a day. Wind can provide the base load just as much as anything else.

[gsxjimg]

In The 37 seconds I watched this video, I realized this MD knows absolutely nothing about Radiation. He should go back to school

[HiTekVagabond]

I agree it's a very short video. But do you really think you can hang around high level waste for an afternoon and survive?

[yedrellow]

There may be a problem called nuclear waste, they are stored in huge fucking impenetrable vats, and are in small quantities. Also, we have thousands of kilometres of uninhabited land in both Australia (where I live) and probably about as much in the US.

The fact is that the danger from coal fired power is far greater than anything modern nuclear power; including lethality.

[conradmillermd]

Last statement not quite right. Chernobyl nuclear accident killed 300,000 so far. Cancers in kids especially around nuclear plants discussed in latest literature. Wind and solar are best, & can supply all the electricity necessary. 2.5 megawatt Clipper turbine can supply electricity for 675 homes.

Extrapolate that for your town in Oz, mate.

YOur country supplies mucho uranium, & what about miners & diseases contracted plus uranium tailings? Potency of casks is immense, not impenetrable.

[yedrellow]

The reason people are afraid of nuclear people is that rather than killing people continuously, it kills people in single events. Unfortunately, fly ash from coaled fire plants is quite dangerious. It not only contains high levels of radioactive elements such as thorium, Radium, Radon and Uranium, it also contains arsenic selenium and mercury. With the high level of dispersion, fly ash actually causes higher levels of exposure to radiation than nuclear sources.

[117wolf]

WRONG, it didn't kill 300,000. From direct exposure only 56 people died. Radiation biology experts reported that an additional 4000 died from cancers caused by the radiation. TOTAL = 4056 people. Your off by about 295,944 people.

[LifeLibertyLove]

Ever hear of refining? You can refine the nuclear waste to non-weapon grade plutonium to be recycled back into the reactor. They don't want to do this because then there would be free energy.

[conradmillermd]

Not good idea to use plutonium as a fuel. One millionth of gram can kill you over time as your lung cancer develops. 400-1000 pounds of plutonium produced in average 1000 megawatt nuclear plant. We have 104.RAdioactivity not destroyed by incineration.

Radioactivity & leaks cause cancers and mutations (which can lead to spontaneous abortions of non-viable fetuses). Wind & solar better alternatives 4 electricity. Dr. David Goodstein of CalTech: solar power can supply all USA's electricity.

[jimdelriobkr]

Hear Hear!!! FINALLY someone is getting to the real issue. ONE DROP of radioactive waste can kill you. And there are already barrels upons barrels of this stuff leaking.

Great vid. 5 stars.

[HiTekVagabond]

Hogwash. High-level radioactive waste is not stored in barrels.

[jimdelriobkr]

To HTV... Pray tell, it's stored in containers. Call them barrells or whatever. It has leaked and will continue to. The other big problem with nuclear power is one that is largely overlooked and that is the mining of the stuff in the first place.

[Rickdeckard2020]

Solar, Wind and Geothermal are better alternatives

/watch?v=HYsRl9Mh6yE

[jrock714]

mr. "Libertarianist" believes that:

A) Nuclear "Engineers" can predict 1000 years into the future

...and

B) A plane can fly into a nuclear power plant and it would be just as dangerous as if they flew into a coal plant.

[NorskeDivision]

1000 years? That's pretty easy. Geological formations have in many cases not changed for BILLIONS of years. The pilbara craton has granite layers which are virtually undisturbed (besides being buried by dirt and soot) for over 2.7-3 Billion years.

A plane could fly into a nuclear plant without great danger? Sure. Unless it came down from above the force is deflected by the rounded tower. A flimsy aluminum plane stands no chance against a rounded tower made of reinforced concrete.

[HiTekVagabond]

The pilabara craton is in Australia .. how does that help the nuclear waste problem in the US? I bet that Australia is really happy to ship the raw uranium to the US but won't want the spent fuel back.

[NorskeDivision]

Because Australia is on the same planet as the US we can draw conclusions about the geology of earth based on data gathered in Australia. That's how science works HiTekVagabond.

[HiTekVagabond]

Geology is not a hard science like chemistry or physics. Layers exposed in Australia are not necessarily exposed all over the world. They may not even exist in other parts of the world. The Pilbara Craton is the only remaining areas of pristine Archaean crust on Earth. The Pilbara has faults through it and is probably not suited for disposal. Clearly, the geology of Australia is not the same as the geology of the United states. Ask a geologist, they will set you straight.

[NorskeDivision]

Actually it would have been a great place to dispose of spent fuel through most of its history. It wouldn't be today, obviously.

The point here is that one can learn about the earth's geology by looking at how it functions in specific places. Based on the Pilbara Craton, we know there are places on the earth which are geologically stable over at least the period of time which is required for spent fuel disposal (100 times longer actually) Ask a geologist, they will tell you how science works

[HiTekVagabond]

My dad happens to be a geologist. I don't need him to explain to me how science works.

[NorskeDivision]

Cool, then we really don't need to argue about anything. Your father can explain how and geologically stable places appropriate for long term storage do exist, though he should be aware that it it only takes the spent fuel 10,000 years to reach levels of radioactivity comperable to the originally mined uranium (which is also radioactive). Ontop of that it's vitrified, so the whole worry about groundwater is extremely overblown. Good stuff, I'm glad we can have a sensible discussion.

[HiTekVagabond]

The 10,000 year period selected by the EPA violates the Energy Policy Act because it is not "based upon and consistent with" the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS report had recommended standards be set for the time of peak risk, which might approach a period of one million years. Two long-lived fission products, Tc-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and I-129 (half-life 17 million years), dominate spent fuel radioactivity after a few thousand years.

[conradmillermd]

But plutonium-239 is radioactively hazardous for 240,000 to 480,000 years, and the lung cancer causing dose is one millionth of a gram (454 grams in a pound) so theoretically

20 lbs could kill every human being on Earth if dispersed in small enough particles to be inhaled. Would take up to ~20-30 years for your unlabelled lung cancer to develop. Crashing into a nuclear plant could disperse all sorts of radionuclides that can produce cancer & mutations, >500 radionuclides result from fission.

[grraadd]

What about mountains of ashes from burnt-out coal????

What would you propose to do with that radioactive waste. Only it's growing in volume every day and it can be easily picked up by the wind...

In countries with coal power plants they were even making bricks from that shit, and people live and die in these houses, what about smog and dust they have to inhale???

[HiTekVagabond]

What about all the homes made with "cinder blocks" made from uranium tailings? That country is the US. Many of these people's homes are filled with radioactive radon gas thanks to the nuclear industry.

[117wolf]

What about them? Most homes in the us are not made of radioactive cinder blocks. Most people will get radiation doses from naturally occurring radon gas accumulating in there basements. They will also get a dose from garnet counter tops. Are you suggesting that we ban those to?

[HiTekVagabond]

It is true that most homes are not made of radioactive cinder blocks. But some near the uranium mines in the southwest are. The point is that some homes are too full of radon to be inhabitable due to radioactive cinder blocks. Their radon levels are too high in the whole home, not just the basement.

You are correct that in some areas people will get radon in their basement, but they really don't live there. Granite counter tops do produce some radon, but far less than uranium tailings.

[117wolf]

Oh well some homes aren't usable, that's to bad. However some homes being built from radioactive cinder blocks doses not invalidate the fact that nuclear power is the best form of power generation as of yet devised by man. In the long term future Fusion power will become the dominant source. Nuclear in the mean time is the most reliable, efficient, environmentally friendly, cheap, and ready to go major power source that will carry us on.

[HiTekVagabond]

I really don't buy

1) Friendly - it's a very complicated way to boil water.

2) Cheap - it's more expensive than wind these days.

3) Ready to go? - it takes more than 10 years to build a nuclear power plant.

Fusion ... it still has radioactivity problems. Don't kid yourself.

[NorskeDivision]

More expensive than wind, in nameplate capacity (the figure you are doubtless qouting), cost per kwh or actual cost of grid integration (aka, reality)?

tinyurl . com / 3bhyt6

Sometimes across all of Germany actual wind power production is 1-2% of capacity. That means that at least 98% of windmills need base-load backup, that's expensive. Nuclear doesn't take 10 years, even the slowly progressing Finnish EPR will be under 7 start to finish.

[HiTekVagabond]

I agree with you. Nuclear power is more expensive than wind, even if you include the capacity factor. Wind is far cheaper per kWh delivered. The capital costs of a nuclear power plant are too high.

Our one last nuclear power plan in the northwest goes down once a year in spring for refueling. It needs wind, coal and gas to make up the difference. If we did not have a nuclear power plant we could survive without it perfectly well.

[NorskeDivision]

Where did I say nuclear power is more expensive than wind? Wind is not cheaper per kWh delivered, not to mention the fact that the cost of integration for wind is much higher since the production is not under human control. And actually, your electrical grid could not survive without nuclear power given current production capacity, plants are brought down for refueling at times of low demand (sping). There's a reason they don't do it in the middle of the summer when everyone is running their AC.

[HiTekVagabond]

"More expensive than wind..."

New wind is cheaper today at the bussbar (delivered) than new construction nuclear power. This is a fact.

Our electrical grid in the Northwest does survive when the one nuclear power plant goes down for maintenance every spring. Very few people have AC in their homes here. Nuclear power here in the Northwest only accounts for 5% of the electricity provided.

[NorskeDivision]

producers wouldn't run capacity for no reason. When that plant is down for refueling, it's either during a period of low demand or the power is instead coming from expensive natural gas turbines. Yes, there is an over-capacity in the grid, that's to prevent stuff like the rolling blackouts of California in 96. If you operate with 101% of required capacity, and 2% goes down, you'll suddenly need to pull nuclear power from illinois, but the transmission capacity isn't there for that = blackout.

[NorskeDivision]

Where are sources that "new" wind is cheaper per kWh generated (not to mention the actual cost of grid integration). Wind requires more raw materials input for the same real capacity:

tinyurl . com / 5cxzbp

German real world experience:

tinyurl . com / 6m6oxd

Are you going to build them ontops of mountains, otherwise it's not very windy in the northeast:

tinyurl . com / 6aryut.

How about instead of shutting down your nuclear plants, you shut down a COAL PLANT.

tinyurl . com / 5bcb3

[waynenoo]

Uranium is dirty all around, from the moment it is extracted from the ground it becomes poisonous to all forms of life, from the radon gas to the tailing that stay behind for the rest of us to inhale, consume and drink( because all atemps to contain them have proven to fail)Economic gains seems to overpower the health and lives and well being of the publics the very same that pay their taxes to be poisoned by their own government, it seems we are as dispensable as tooth picks.

[xoxqueenofsheba]

It doesn't matter... we get radiation from everywhere, just by being on this planet, in this universe, in fact. It comes from the soil, radon in the air (that the earth emits). It also comes from TVs, appliances, and, of course, X-rays... So do you also recommend removing all of those?

Until someone figures out fusion this is the best we can do. Think of the polar bears!!!

[Libertarianist]

Sniff, sniff, I love the smell of bullshit in the morning.

[xoxqueenofsheba]

Funny that all you say is "nuclear waste is not green" and give some unclear example of radiation sickness... Is that all you know how to say??? XD

[conradmillermd]

Dear Queen, This is a snippet of the fuller explanation. See the 4:49 video "Is Nuclear Power Green???" please. Nuclear waste is radioactive and can cause cancer for hundreds and thousands of years. There are over 500 radionuclides produced every day in every nuclear plant. There is still no safe way to store them. Just a millionth of a gram of plutonium can cause lung cancer as one example. 454 grams in one pound=454 MILLION possible lung cancers in just one pound of plutonium.

[Libertarianist]

"There is still no safe way to store them."

That is 100% false. The industry could easily spend 100 million dollars per fuel bundle on disposal, the possibilities are endless.

"Just a millionth of a gram of plutonium can cause lung cancer" Just one radioactive atom of potassium can cause cancer too. Your argument is even more fallacious than arguing that one banana could kill everyone on earth 100,000,000 times over.

[LifeLibertyLove]

cigarettes cause cancer. Plus how is the uranium going to leak? If it never overheats? Also they can recycle the nuclear waste.

[conradmillermd]

Fission causes great heat. Overheating is what happened at Chernobyl. In less than one minute the reactor went from 7% of full power to 100 times 100% of full power and steam explosion resulted & fires that burned for 10 days, spreading radioactivity all over Europe, Byelorus. Dr. Yablokov book claims 300,000 people have died from radiation released - so far. Have to wait 10 more years to get more comprehensive death toll.

Recycling or reprocessing causes more nuclear waste streams, horror

[LifeLibertyLove]

NICE propoganda! Horrible example ounce again! May I suggest you watch this series of university videos and a physics professor pretty much making fun of people who use these kind of examples and spread this kind of misinformation.

here is the link

youtube(dot)com/watch?v=fnY_Ug­0DabM

chernobyl is a horrible example. The radiation shure activated some cancer here and there but it did not make thousands of people drop dead left and right. Besides that is just a guess at best.

[grraadd]

sorry wrong link... But user Bushvision has few movies on that topic. Climate Change - Is CO2 the cause? - Pt 1 to 4

[LifeLibertyLove]

Chernobyl had no saftey measures and was set at a higher level then it should have. Chernobyl was a "test" practically. Nuclear waste is not a problem.

[HiTekVagabond]

Chenobyl was not a test reactor. There are about a dozen RBMKs like it that are still up and running.

Sure nuclear waste is a problem. Why do you think that Yucca Mountain is still not open? They can't even keep a steel container from rusting in 10,000 years, much less hold the nuclear waste for a million years.

[LifeLibertyLove]

Hahaha! Maybye you are unaware of how the meltdown came to be in the first place hahaha! Of course it was a prototype there was ZERO backup systems hahaha!

[HiTekVagabond]

You really don't know what you are talking about. Chernobyl was not a prototype. The first production reactors (to make plutonium for nuclear weapons) were built in 1948. The prototype of Chernobyl was a 5 Mw reactor in Obninsk. Leningrad was the first RBMK-1000. Chernobyl is one of more than a dozen RBMKs built.

[HiTekVagabond]

The disaster happened because the reactor was tested in an unstable state and these reactors had a positive void coefficient - a lack of cooling water causes the reactor to run faster. The control rods had melted by the time they wanted to drop them into the core. RBMKs have been modified to have a negative void coefficient since.

There were plenty of serious accidents with graphite reactors in the west. e.g. Windscale.

[CaptainFudges]

Are you a fucking moron? When the control rods are retracted, they can't melt. They melted when they were introduced in the hotspot, BECAUSE of the graphite TIPS of the rods which increased for a moment the heat in the hotspot. That's why they melted you fuck.

[117wolf]

You clearly are a product of a failed education. Because you should know that the steal rotting away would do nothing in the means of shielding compared to the thousands of tuns of very dense rock on top the rods.

[HiTekVagabond]

I have an education. You don't; you are a kid.

[117wolf]

You are clearly uninformed, and brainwashed. For Chernobyl to happen, all the safety systems had to be deactivated(impossible in modern plants), and the plant design inept to cope with disaster (Chernobyl at the time it was build was considered to be shit). And 300,000 people didn't die from it, only an estimated 4056. Modern plants, hell any plant not built by the Russians, have so many safety systems build into the plants that it is impossible for that to happen again.

[HiTekVagabond]

You are the one that has been throughly brainwashed by the the NEI. Nuclear power plants do all sorts of tests all the time. Albeit, the test they did on the Chernobyl RBMK was very risky and it uncovered a serious design flaw which has been corrected in the remaining RBMKs which still run today. There are many studies that predict how many people will die from Chernobyl that are much worse than the accepted 300,000. The soviet union "accidentally" destroyed its Chernobyl health records.

[117wolf]

Radiation Biologists aka people smarter then you, have studied Chernobyl in depth and concluded as direct results of whole body radiation 56 people were killed. Several survived due to bone marrow transplant. An estimated 4000 new cases of cancer will occur in the population exposed. The number 300,000 is including the amount of cancers that would have happened anyway.

[HiTekVagabond]

You are right, epidemiologists are the experts on this subject. As a systems engineer with a Master's degree, I refer to papers from the experts to base my opinion. You are citing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organisation report that say that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster, and that, at most, 4,000 people may eventually die from the accident on April 26 1986. This report does not report all the deaths that have already occurred.

[117wolf]

What are you talking about? Deaths that have already occurred? The study of the radiation effects on the population starts tracking from the moment the accident happened.The IAEA have followed this very closely because data on whole body radiation on humans is very hard to come by. You can count on one hand the number the viable studies on the subject which forms our current understanding of radiation effects on humans.

[HiTekVagabond]

Yes, many deaths already have already occurred, but this has been covered-up by the Soviet government. Chernousenko, a Ukrainian nuclear physicist involved in the emergency cleanup, asserts that between 7,000 and 10,000 volunteers have already died from high intensity exposure.

[HiTekVagabond]

You don't even know the difference between two simple English words "then" and "than". How can you possibly be able to read a report written by epidemiologists? The 4000 you quote is from the IAEA report which is at the very low end of predictions. Other reports predict many more deaths. The real number will be somewhere in the middle that might not fit in with your viewpoint. You would be better off considering more than one opinion when making up your own mind.

[117wolf]

I major in this topic my systems engineering friend, if you really are. The most reliable reports accepted by the medical science community are the BEIR IIV, and the WHO annual report. Both of which have estimated that around 4000 (3%) people will die from radiation induced cancer. The WHO report stated that the biggest health threat to the people affected is fatalism, a mental condition which is self inflicted.

[HiTekVagabond]

Congratulations on your choice of career. At 21, you are barely through your pre-med. You cannot possibly be taking any med school yet. Someday, you will be through with your MD and then will be qualified to be an epidemiologist.

I'm a Systems Engineer and have a Master's degree. But, I am no expert in epidemiology. I have to rely on what I have read.

I am well aware of the WHO report. It blames the majority of deaths on lifestyle and fatalism.

[HiTekVagabond]

There is no consensus in the scientific community about Chernobyl and thus the WHO report is not the only opinion and finding out there. Read this one:

ECRR Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident European Committee on Radiation Risk Documents of the ECRR 2006 No1

Edited by C.C.Busby and A.V. Yablokov.

tinyurl . com / 5hftnz

[117wolf]

As for plants doing tests, it doesn't pose a thereat. Because plants in countries not operated by inept communist governments don't turn the reactor safety systems off. Your argument is a red herring at best.

[HiTekVagabond]

We all know that safety systems were deactivated at Chernobyl. They were deactivated at TMI as well. Many accidents happen and people die because safety systems are disabled. Generally, accidents happen when people deviate from the established procedure. If you were really educated and had real-life experience, you would know that there is no such thing as "impossible". The probabilities of another accident are unfortunately pretty high. Near misses happen pretty much on a regular basis.

[117wolf]

TMI was not running with the safety off. TMI was a result of mechanical failure of the primary water gauge for the reactor. The backup gauge on the other side the control room was not read until the last minute which is what averted disaster. The total amount of radiation released was so low it was less than a chest x-ray. The probability of being killed on the highway is greater then being killed sleeping underneath a suspended torpedo in a submarine.

[HiTekVagabond]

At TMI operators turned off a pump that was designed to cool off the core. That pump is part of a safety system is it not?

[bogon5dot]

At least 500,000 people—perhaps more—have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine, said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine (Guardian, 3/25/06).

[117wolf]

The UN WHO and IAEA report along with the BEIR IIV report have shown that only 4000 of the people exposed will die. They are far more reliable reports then the Guardian. Far more people will die from the stigmatization of being classified as victims.

[HiTekVagabond]

ECRR Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident European Committee on Radiation Risk Documents of the ECRR 2006 No1

Edited by C.C.Busby and A.V. Yablokov.

tinyurl . com / 5hftnz

[NorskeDivision]

Chernobyl? Not relevant, it had no containment dome or respectable 1960s safety equipment. It had some safety measures, but they were poorly designed and required human intervention. In the EPR (European pressurized reactor) the control rods are by default 100% in, it requires constant power and intervention to NOT shut the reactor down - aka failsafe. Even if a meltdown happened, it'd be contained in the CONTAINMENT dome (chernobyl also lacked). Also wind needs more steel and concrete per kwh!

[conradmillermd]

You cannot smell or taste nuclear waste tho.

And minimal amounts can kill you with minimal exposure. Tho a third of a pinky sized piece of high level enriched uranium can produce 3 barrels worth of oil's electricity, it also can kill you if you are standing 30-40 feet away from it. The bull can gore you, but it's excreta will not hurt you, unless it too is radioactive. Look a little deeper, my friend.

[Libertarianist]

So don't roll around in radioactive waste. You act like they're sprinkling the stuff in the drinking water. You are incredibly ignorant.