Nuclear Plants?

Question

Why is it that so many enviromental soldiers or "hippies" are so against nuclear energy? It's clean, effecient, and provides tons of power to surrounding areas cheaply. Not to mention, it will provide a lot of jobs. I just don't understand why people are against them.

Answer 1

Back in the late 60's and early 70's the press and Hollywood (with the help of "enlightened environmentalists") decided that peaceful uses of nuclear energy must be stopped. Thus was launched constant propaganda/scare tactics in the press, books like "We almost lost Detroit" and movies like "The China Syndrome". This brainwashing by these self proclaimed enlightened people has taken its toll.
If you ask the average American they will have a general feeling of skepticism towards nuclear energy, this is reasonable given all the years of misinformation that has been feed to us for decades. Ask that same American: Why? and that American will have little to no clue how a Nuclear Power Plant works.
The Hippy environmentalists now find themselves in a quandary. Admit Nuclear Energy is a great idea, or continue their fight against Nuclear power because they cannot admit decades of being wrong. Unfortunately these "enlightened people", with an occasional exception, continue to support horse drawn plow days because they cannot be wrong.

Answer 2

I'm an "environmental soldier", Hippy" and certainly very much an "informed" citizen. I'm not a scientist per se, but I sure as heck know enough about what's going on!

Nuclear power is inherently unsafe. Plutonium is THE most deadly substance that the human species has ever made. There is NO safe way to dispose of the waste products. Ok, I agree that the threat of terrorism is probably a non sequiter and that there has only been one accident (Chernobyl DID get out of the town. The fallout rained down all across Europe. There are still problems with things like the edible snail populations, herb farms and the French truffle crop is pretty well stuffed for all time), but that's no reason to consider it "safe"!

The two things that everyone has missed so far are that nuclear power is NON - RENEWABLE! The uranium ore comes out of the ground. It WILL run out, just like oil will. There are HUGE problems with the safety factors involved in mining and transporting even now. Just look at a mine in the Northern Territory of Australia called Rum Jungle for an example of the horrific effects that a mine can have on a fragile tropical ecosystem - there are massive amounts of toxic run-off getting into a wetland area. So much so that the Government just put the kybosh on another mine close by - one called Jabiluka.

The second factor to consider is that a nuclear power plant costs an enormous amount of money and time to build, operate and maintain. We need a good, clean, safe and NOW form of energy. Not the apparent "quick fix" that nuclear energy is touted as - something more like a fully renewable source such as hydro, wind, tidal or solar. All these are renewable. Admittedly, there are still a few problems (such as the land use with hydro) but they're much less than those of Nuclear!

The time factor is something else. There is no way we can suddenly start tapping into nuclear energy tomorrow - even if the debate was to achieve a resolution now, best estimates are that we'd be looking at 2030 or so before even 10% of our energy was replaced by nuclear generated power.

There is a lot of work being done in Europe on a thing called the Thousand Roofs project. This project is covering the roofs of suburban houses with solar panels to generate power...which is one of the "smart" directions in which we need to start looking, rather than to the 1970's "dinosaur" of the non-renewable, inherently unsafe and very costly idea of nuclear fuel generated energy sources.

Love and Light,


Jarrah
btw. Patrick Moore - the cofounder of Greenpeace - sold his soul to the devil. He is now an apologist for anyone who will pay him to discredit anything green. He is a hypocrite of the WORST kind because he KNOWS what's going on and does NOT care if the paycheck is big enough.

Answer 3

Traditional it was safety worries. Then it was disposal of radioactive waste. Now it is worries that terrorists will be able to get nuclear material more easily if there are reactors all over the world in places like Iran, North Korea and Libya. I must say I have to agree with that last reason. But the other 2 have been largely solved. New designs are safe, not like Chernobyl at all, and we do know how to safely store the waste so that it has no chance of being released for the thousands of years that it remains dangerous. Basically it is processed into a glass like substance that does not dissolve in water and can be handled safely with bare hands and then buried in deep places with no history of earthquakes or other geologic activity.

Answer 4

They would point to disasters like Chernobyl as an answer to your question. Although it was an isolated incident, it's results were truly horrific. Combine that with the waste material that it creates, and there is cause for concern if there are no checks and balances to make sure everything is being handled correctly. This is another reason to be wary of nations that are just getting into the nuclear energy game...it can produce material for creating WMD's in addition to being an ecological nightmare if they cut corners or try to sweep the waste material "under the rug".

You are correct, though. With the proper standards in place, nuclear energy is among the best answers to our energy needs. Wind energy is great, but can create a dangerous environment for birds, they're an eyesore, and they can create a lot of noise. Solar energy is great as well, but the solar cells can be expensive and are fairly fragile. Unless you place them on the roof of your house, they are hard to provide room for, and even if you do place them on your roof, they require regular cleaning to provide optimal results.

Answer 5

People get freaked out by the spent nuclear fuel. They think that a terrorist group could steal it and build a nuclear weapon or something.
It's called "spent" for a reason- it would take so much effort to get it back to weapons-grade uranium. For a terrorist cell, it would be a lot cheaper and easier just to buy or steal a fully operational weapon from Iran or N. Korea.

People are also paranoid about meltdowns. New plants that are being proposed for the US have been called meltdown-proof. I live 30 minutes away from Limerick Power Plant in SE PA and still manage to sleep at night.

I believe it has to do with the general population's scientific illiteracy. They do not understand the procedures and safeguards used by nuclear power plants and therefore fear them. Other countries are pulling ahead with nuclear research, and all our brightest nuclear engineers are going overseas to meet the demand. What's not right with that image?

Answer 6

It is because of media coverage of issues like Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl. They have no idea how they work, or what they do. A friend of mine was flying into Detroit a few years back, and they flew near the cooling towers of the reactor there, a woman looked out at the steam, shook her head and said "look at all that radiation." Where she got that that steam was "radiation" is beyond me. That's pure water, not radioactivity at all in there. But the general public has this fear of nuclear power, fueled by the media, since they can't understand how it works.

We need to start building lots of them, or California will be in blackout soon.

Answer 7

Even Patrik Moore, co-founder of GreenPeace has seen, that nuclear energy is better than fossile energy
(see the article of washington post in the url below)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html
You can understand because the fear of nuclear is irrational : less dangerous the chemistry and with a lower impact on the environment. In fact the human have now no alternative.

A recent study in Switzerland/France/Austria showes that only the pollution due to the traffic in this 3 countries is responsible for the death of 40'000 people (The cumulated population of these 3 countries is about 80 Mio). It is time that people compare this horrific number of victims with the 56 death of Chernobyl.

Answer 8

All those eco-nazis are against nuclear power because they've been brainwashed into thinking its bad. I feel its the only thing that will truly lower our dependence on fossil fuels. So when any of them protest against nuclear power and say there is global warming they are contradicting themselves. Its just another sign that the global warming debate is just another way for scientists to get their grant moneys renewed because they need a new Mercedes or BMW.

Answer 9

The principal reason is fear of radiation leakage, either from a failure of containment systems (such as at Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl) or from used fuel rods. The question of what to do with radioactive waste from power plants has been a political football for decades.

Answer 10

Well, people are still really scared about nuclear plants. They are a big unknown.
In my opinion you're right. Less pollution, cheaper power, etc. They only issue is storing the waste... and they're going to open that storage facility in a few years...