Nuclear Power.

[RyanL]

As far as tritium releases go nuclear plants are allowed to release trtium. There are EPA established limits for how much tritium a nuclear plant can release. A similar tritium leak cause a large amount of press at the Braidwood station in Illinois (1,600 picocuries Source: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/tritium-radiation-fs.html) This tritium leak was the equivilent as one one thousand the level of background radiation. So it was 1000 times more dangerous to be alive anywhere in the US (except at higher elevation, you are exposed to more radiation at higher elevation) than drink water from the release site. Tritium releaeses are typically used to scare people away from nuclear, but in a scientific way have not shown any significance. I am not familiar with the levels that were released at Vermont Yankee but I would assume it is similar to Braidwood.

People who work in the nuclear industry know we are one accident away from having all plants shut down. Due to this there is a really strong safety culture. I dont know why someone would lie about any issues knowing it could have such large concequences. I am not making excuses, but if you have ever seen a diagram of pipes in a nuclear plant it is HUGE. A nuclear plant costs between 5 and 10 BILLION dollars to build without fuel. That is a HUGE amount of pipes. It is possible that someone at a plant wasnt aware of a pipe they are not responsible for and misspoke.

Also all ground water has tritium, but I believe ocean water has a higher percentage of tritium but there is tritium in all water. So you drink tritium everyday (as well as walk past tritium filled exit signs, americium smoke detectors, and breath radon filled air etc). You are exposed to radiation all the time, the press just doesnt focus on thing like flying causing you to be exposed to a higher level of raditation because it doesnt make as good of a story.

[softbootsurfer]

As far as wastes goes the technology to recylce the waste has been around for about 40 years. This reduces the waste about 95%. You can also reuse the fuel in breeder reactors, which is a technology that the US is just starting to really look at.

Also billions of years ago there was enough uranium in africa to start a chain reactor, basically a naturally occuring reactor. After a few billion years the plutonium has moved about 10 feet or so. So if you opened up a waste container and spilled it on the ground the chemistry is such that most of the isotopes wouldnt move far.

Source:

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

Another thing to remember is that everything around us is radioactive. So no matter how much reprocessing or recycling you cant get waste to 0 radioactivity, but then again everything around us has radiation in it.

But like I said before no technology is perfect and the waste is a problem that needs to be looked at. I dont think we should have only nuclear, but nuclear is a cheap, no carbon emitting, baseload energy source that we should use.

Thanks Ryan...

I must say that I think the problems need to be "solved" as opposed to "looked at" prior to any more construction.

With Yucca Mt. no longer a place to Store the waste, as it piles up at the various reactor sites, waiting to be shipped...

I remember seeing films of our first Nuclear explosions were we parked troops to watch...later the cancer rates for

them went through the roof but like agent orange the Gov't denied culpability...The current oil spill is another example

of Industry saying no problem...Chernobyl was a Gov't saying no problem and accidents will and do happen.

Hopefully you are or will be in a position to make a difference in a positive way to solving some of the current problems.

Thanks again...

[bobdea]

I am not familiar with the levels that were released at Vermont Yankee but I would assume it is similar to Braidwood.

this was a big thing in VT, my grandfather and his brothers were on the crews that built the place and know some of the engineers who basically said at the time and later that there were problems in the design and also were some of the people insisting that some of the pipe that the company was claiming are not there did in fact exist.

basically, it was not built to last and it's been in use longer than the people who designed it meant it to be.

tell us more about these breeder reactors? do they live up to the hype?

[Petrol]

as with all energy, waaaaay to much emotional "thinking" being done...

[Gecko]

France and Jaoan had at times operated Breeder reactors commercially, I believe France has shut it's down though I think Japan has just restarted it's.

I spent 20 years in the Navy around Westinghouse reactors, I trust them because I have seen them work and I have seen the dedication of those who work on them. Nuke power is just one of a number of options we need to use to expand our power generation here in the USA. it's not like our consumption is decreasing and "Clean Coal" isn't the panacea that it's purported to be. NIMBY attitudes are a bigger strain than anything though

[dingbat]

Hydrogen Cyanide, Giant Hog Weed, lightning bolts, volcanic eruptions, deadly snake venom. etc. - All naturally occurring. Naturally occurring doesn't make something safe.

Numbers in ground water around VT. Yankee have been reported up to 2.7 million pCi per litter by opposing sources and up to near 1 million pCi per litter by sources friendly to the plant.

EPA claims "safe" exposure levels are assumed to be 20,000 pCi per litter assuming an average rate of water consumption and assuming you are not exposed to any other source of radiation.

I have had some experience doing ground water remediation. Every site I worked at was far worse that what went down on paper.

Again, in concept I think Nuke is great. In practice, not so much.

It doesn't even mater if we solve our energy problems. Our resources are finite. Eventually we will have to reduce the population. Why not start now through restraint rather than waiting for starvation, disease, and war?

Oh wait....:rolleyes:

Soylent Green is people.

[Petrol]

Less people = problem solved..

:lol: who says it's not 1937

[Alaskan Rover]

Hydrogen Cyanide, Giant Hog Weed, lightning bolts, volcanic eruptions, deadly snake venom. etc. - All naturally occurring. Naturally occurring doesn't make something safe.

Numbers in ground water around VT. Yankee have been reported up to 2.7 million pCi per litter by opposing sources and up to near 1 million pCi per litter by sources friendly to the plant.

EPA claims "safe" exposure levels are assumed to be 20,000 pCi per litter assuming an average rate of water consumption and assuming you are not exposed to any other source of radiation.

I have had some experience doing ground water remediation. Every site I worked at was far worse that what went down on paper.

Again, in concept I think Nuke is great. In practice, not so much.

It doesn't even mater if we solve our energy problems. Our resources are finite. Eventually we will have to reduce the population. Why not start now through restraint rather than waiting for starvation, disease, and war?

Oh wait....:rolleyes:

Soylent Green is people.

Excellent points, Dingbat! It is always good to get some counter-points...such is the essence of discourse, and discourse is the genesis of change (unfortunately, discourse has sometimes broken down into tribal infighting and been catalytic to war).

Perhaps there are no true panaceas. Every engineered 'panacea' turns out to be a pandora's box of associate problems.

I think, actually, there IS one true panacea, short of the suggested population decrease, and it is to start living within our ENERGY means.

By that I mean that heretofore, as a society, we have lived without thinking of the consequence of our continued thirst for more and more energy. In essence, we are overspending our energy resources, running our energy budget amuck and living our lives as if energy were a credit card that never needed repaying.

Well, I think we are slowly beginning to see that indeed the bills actually are starting to come due. The Gulf is just ONE of those bills. There will be more.

It seems we are addicted to that 60 hertz hum, and it DOES sing a very inticing song...but isn't it about time we started lessening our addiction, lest we get altogether consumed by it?

I've got a sticker on the back of my rover...it says "Live Simply, so that others may simply live." I try to live by that. I'm not always successful, but I try.

By the way, Solent Green was one WEIRD movie, even for back in the late sixties when weird movies were the norm.