midgeman wrote:
Is nuclear energy safe? Look at what happened to Japan during the tsunami. Look at the near scare in Harrisburg. What about Pripyat, Ukraine?
There's two things people hate; change and the way things ARE. I'd rather live with a gas well on my property that supports a natural gas power plant, than have a nuke plant.
No matter what, right now in our industrialized state of human existence; the hydrocarbon is most important reason that continues our growth.
Nuclear power is in fact far safer than gas extraction..and cleaner. The Chernobyl event and TMI were both blown far out of proportion. TMI released levels of radiation that are background radiation for most and maybe more like a medical exposure of some sort for a few. The type of designs used in Chernobyl are not even allowed in our country, so what happend there is impossible. Our plants shut themselves off if they lose cooling. And the immediate deaths associated with Chernobyl were from the workers dealing with the aftermath. The effects to the environment or human health were not as dire as people believed. Japan was a primarily a tsunami death toll. That country has some history with this energy and they still pursued it in the 70s when the oil shock came.
A single 1,000MWe reactor can push out enough power for over 550,000 people in a year. That is contained in one small area. Very small relative to the amount of land that needs to be fracked to meet an equivalent amount of gas energy. You would need about 60 billion cubic feet of gas to meet the same energy goals with all its roads, water, dehydration, compressors, pipes, fragmentation, truck trips AND mixing of chemicals with water. Gas is also the game of scarcity.
Interestingly, France gets 80 of their electricity from nuclear power and they banned fracking in their rich fields. Everyone else, in Eastern Europe, does not want to play Russian games for that gas, so they of course are looking at sustainable production like France. Vermont generates 70% of its electricity from nuclear power and they banned fracking, however, their gas reserves are low. Quebec banned fracking, a country with French ties.
Quebec gets almost all of its power from hydroelectric and is now being sued by a natural gas company for 1/4 billion due to violating NAFTA. So a province who supplies their power needs with water, is now being sued to let gas companies use that water to extract a fossil fuel. And, interestingly, Quebec had 1 nuclear reactor that worked for over 20 years and is now being shut down.
