Myth: Nuclear Energy is Dangerous

[Myrtone]

Does such radiation occur naturally?

[ubuntuibex]

@Myrtone absolutely! Elements such as Uranium are naturally occurring and are mined as rocks known as PitchBlende. Potassium-40, a beta-emitting radioactive element is most common in bananas and other fruits. Carbon-14 is a naturally occurring radioactive isotope that exists in your body. In fact every second over 4000 atoms radioactively decay in your body.

[darthvader5300]

The Russian Brest reactor simultaneously produces new nuclear fuel as it start consuming it's initial start up nuclear fuel and it's own nuclear wastes. The Brest reactor recycles nuclear fuel indefinitely. The MSR reactor can literally burn all kinds of nuclear fuels and radioactive wastes. Both reactors were designed and built to be passively self-cooling by natural convection and conduction to use the heat and dissipate waste heat. Makes you wonder why no news of them in the mass media?

[sownzgr8]

Makes sense, if you are loaded with live toxins, and radiation kills it, you WILL feel better, coz you will BE better. That's maybe why getting out in the sun helps toxic people.

[33rdPatriot]

Three Mile Island was CREATED. It happened 12 days after the multi-million dollar blockbuster CHINA SYNDROME was released. No problem before or since on that scale, then BA-BOOM, predictive programming highly-marketed mega-movie followed by (manufactured) reality. Result: nuclear power was sullied and soiled, while oil was made to keep hold and benefit the entrenched big oil interests.

[vmelkon]

What the heck? People are going into uranium mines and sitting there? Get me some of those rocks for my collection.

[daltonagre]

French electricity is 100% hydro or nuclear.

[MelkorHimself]

On my 2nd Class midshipman cruise I spent two weeks on a ballistic missile submarine. I slept between two nuclear missiles every night, and I was always within 200ft of the reactor, and yet I only absorbed 1 milirem of radiation. Fancy that.

[neemguy81]

@MelkorHimself Thats one hell of an RCT lookin out for ya! (lots of shielding too). Wow, thats even less than the exposure on the surface of ~450 milirem/year. Sounds to me that you were safer on that sub than on the surface!

[vargulf19]

Radiation cures Cancer. That's the most common cure for it. 

[KyuubiNaruto1337XD]

@vargulf19 >_> they use Radium and Cobalt 60 radiation which is beta and alpha particles

it is Gamma radiation that gives the majority of cancer

[vmelkon]

@KyuubiNaruto1337XD Co 60 releases beta and gamma but they use the gamma in medicine. Co 60 is also used to scan the insides of large trucks and containers. I don't think radium is used anymore since it is expensive to extract it from natural sources.

[captinseperoth]

@vargulf19

thats bullshit,as we all know radiation is like the devil >.>

[mid1989]

light is radiation -_-

[Xintaido]

This is the hardest thing about being a Health Physicist. People are afraid of what they have been told to fear when there really is no harm. I get exposed to higher doses and I am still living well. When the radiation is concentrated on a specific area then there is some concern, but how often are you going to have some radioactive source directly on your forehead for over 24 hours?

[neemguy81]

@Xintaido Howdy, Im studying to be an RCT/HP and graduate in December...one thing confuses me about your comment...aren't HP's and RCT's supposed to treat radiation like it is poison to keep it ALARA, And not dismiss it as something that does no harm? Im being taught that ANY amount of radiation is doing some biological damage...Opinion of an experienced HP: am I being taught wrong? Should radiation not be feared by workers?

[puncheex]

@neemguy81: The trouble is that all of our information about radioactive effects on humans were essentially culled from Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. There is a curious hole in our knowledge about low doses, as it seems there were none in Japan - actually, there were, but it apparently wasn't harmful, and those cases never come to the authorities for help. Experts are still trying to fill that hole, but data is elusive. Without proof, many health experts simply linearly interpolate known data.

[peru2246]

go nukes yeah

[M11ty]

you cant reason with hippies the only reason they are against nuclear energy is because of the word nuclear

[dan020350]

The question is how are we going to store the bi-products ( plutonium ) if we use nuclear energy?

[populartechnology]

95% if it can be recycled,

Google: "Recycling Nuclear Fuel: The French Do It, Why Cant Oui?"

[crusherman84]

I agree, people should do there research before posting dumb comments. Our planet does not have time for us not to turn to nuclear energy.

[jhtrico1850]

@populartechnology What about the other 5%?

[populartechnology]

@jhtrico1850 Recycling produces much lower volumes of highly radioactive waste, and the French deal with it effectively - placing some waste in short-term, interim storage or preparing the rest for long-term storage.

[jhtrico1850]

@populartechnology I read that the radioactivity of the waste that is left after 40 years is less than 1% of the original radioactivity so that's good. But still, it will have to pile up eventually..

[hotFusionReaction]

@jhtrico1850 Yes but it piles up INCREDIBLY slowly compared to every other current Base Load technology. All of the spent Nuclear rods accumulated during the entire history of the United States Commercial Nuclear Power Industry (starting from the early 50s till today) could be contained in a single Football Stadium.

Now compare that to the TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of tons of Coal Ash (with billions more each year) that are produced from the Coal-fired Power Generation Industry.

[RJMooreII]

@jhtrico1850

Much of it can be used in medical isotopes or for industrial purposes, or as materials for the reactor. The rest is sealed in a room and rapidly decays into inert forms which are not very radioactive at all.

Contrary to popular belief, most radioactive materials are not any more dangerous than ordinary heavy metals. The ones that are (Plutonium, Polonium) are so incredibly valuable there's no way they'd let it slip out of their hands.

[kyleg5359]

@jhtrico1850 the other 5%? The other 5%? it goes to chuck Norris to sprinkle over his cerial...

[v12tommy]

@jhtrico1850 We can bury it deep underground. We already do that with old nuclear weapons. We could also use the radioactive parts of old weapons and turn them into fuel rods as well, taking an already waste product and using it for energy before turning it into even less waste.

[bbphnix]

@populartechnology you can recycle nucealr waste? thanks dude! this will be interesting

[studolf]

@populartechnology You put it in a rocket and send it to the sun.

[Fordi]

@dan020350

We lift the ban on reprocessing and fashion it into new fuel elements. Plutonium is a fine reactor fuel for LWRs, as are 235-U and 236-U. 238-U is quality breeding material for making more fuel. The remaining 3% of the spent fuel is fission products, and will fade to background levels in under 300 years, and will have generated nearly 1 MWy/kg - meaning a 1 GW plant generates ~1 tonne of fission products per year.

So each plant needs 300 tonnes of storage. That's doable.

[hotFusionReaction]

@Fordi It's a common misconception that reprocessing is still legally banned in the United States, it is not (and hasn't been since Reagan's first term in office -- he lifted President Carter's Executive order banning it).

The reason we don't reprocess right now is because it is cheaper to simply buy new Uranium that reprocess the old after it is spent.

Now that won't always be the case (which is why I am anti-Yucca Mountain -- no reason to seal it beyond touch), but that's in the future.

[puncheex]

@dan020350: Low order wastes (handling gear, contaminated clothes and so on) can be buried. High order wastes can be stored until we have a better solution, which includes uses for them in the future. Much high-order waste will be valuable in the future; it can also be "burned" in breeding reactors to actually become fuel. Right now, all the high-level waste created in the US in the last 60 years could be stored on a football field.

[gamble180]

@dan020350 Fission it and make more power.



[jackson32]

Watch "Exposing Nuclear Reactions" for a great video about the science of nuclear energy. The truth is nuclear energy is clean, safe and efficient. If you don't know the real science behind it you don't know anything.

[TheFluffyDuck]

I love nuclear power. Mum just had some radioactive dye just two days ago. Without it they might not have been able to diagnose her broken foot.

Go nuclear.

[Ihatejohnashton]

John Stossel is a great skeptic!

[fishontuesday]

John stossel is a genius! :)

[elbuggo]

Most people doesn't have the faintest clue about radiation and nuclear bombs.

As usual, Pentagon et al needed some huge threat to justify the enormous spending. And we also have the usual media DESEPTION. Dont believe everything the government and MSM want you to. Lots of indoctrination is done in the school system too.

If you are interested in some reality, please read:

Zbigniew Jaworowski, Radiation Risk and Ethics, Physics Today 1999

[Manwitharuinedface]

nuclear energy is the way forward

[fishontuesday]

Im with ya all the way! Go greenspirit!

[grraadd]

Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity with John Stossel - great stuff!

look for it (and other Stossel videos) on P2P networks. In USA DVDs are available, but I could watch them thanks to YouTube and sharing programs.