Penn and Teller on Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Energy from Penn and Teller's Bullshit. This is not the whole episode but just a small clip. Penn and Teller generally don't mind the extra publicity from a clip up on youtube. Hopefully Showtime won't get all mad thought.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Penn
• Teller
• Nuclear
• Energy
• Bullshit
• Enviornment
• Hippies

[FarmerGriff]

Chernoybl had zero shielding and was in a converted Coal power plant. Zero shielding, coal plant. Great place to put a poorly designed and made reactor. The failure was entirely human created to. They shut down cooling, pulled the control rods and tried to get that reactor to its hottest. Realizing it was too hot, they tried to scram it and get the rods back in, and well, the rods cracked and jammed meaning there was no way to slow down the reactions combined with no containment, boom.

[techcafe]

and then the uranium ore (or thorium in today's 'modern' nuclear reactors) must be enriched into radioactive fuel pellets/rods. the processes involved to mine, refine, enrich, manufacture, safely/securely store, and so on, is costly and energy intensive, plus it produces tons of lethal waste (spent fuel) which remains deadly forever, often ending up in the hands of military contractors and arms dealers, who use the radioactive waste to make depleted uranium bullets, bombs and WMDs. just lovely.

[JhonGul]

@techcafe Those plants that were shut down prematurely obviously would have a lower cost efficiency, since they faced their decommissioning cost before the end of the lifetime of the plants. All those old generation I and II reactors in the US that are obviously incurring no further construction costs and are getting 20+ life extensions are only going to make nuclear more competitive, not to mention the next generation designs.

[Sumoto999]

too bad that Reid shut down Yucca mountain. Politicians will do anything to re-main in control. Lucky ppl still want it open and a storage facility.

[techcafe]

link i posted to the playlist appears to be broken, so try this instead:

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL49­3BEFF01B873017

[techcafe]

bad news for nuclear advocates..

nuclear power, as it turns out, is even more expensive than we thought:

grist.org/nuclear/2011-09-29-g­ermanys-phaseout-reveals-the-t­rue-costs-of-nuclear-power

[Hairysteed]

@techcafe Oh, and DU is way less radioactive than natural uranium... practically not at all. DU is dangerous because of other reasons (toxicity, carcinogenic...)

[Hairysteed]

@techcafe DU is made in the enrichment process. Not in the reactor. The only way to make a WMD with nuclear waste is to use it as the radioactive material of a dirty bomb

[techcafe]

When the Dust Settles

the impact of depleted uranium weapons and the international campaign against them

/watch?v=UlGPtBX0IRY&hd=1

[techcafe]

Fallujah: Hidden Massacre

youtube.com/user/techcafe#grid­/user/493BEFF01B873017

[techcafe]

Depleted Uranium (DU) Munitions

used by U.S. and Israeli militaries against enemy personnel and civilians

/watch?v=6tJVFDmHaH8&hd=1

[techcafe]

@Hairysteed - the 'spent fuel' from nuclear power plants retains something like 99% of its radioactive isotopes (dangerous ionizing radiation) even after the fuel rods have been 'spent' and removed from the reactor core. the arms industry LOVES nuclear waste, b/c they use it to manufacture DU (depleted uranium) ammunition.

LISTEN

/watch?v=6tJVFDmHaH8&hd=1