60,000 in Tokyo protest government plans to restart nuclear power

Jun 03, 2013 Adam Westlake Features, National 107

Approximately 60,000 people rallied in Japan’s capital of Tokyo on Sunday, June 2nd in order to protest recent government plans to restart the country’s idled nuclear reactors. People gathered in Shiba Park and later marched towards the parliament building. Among the organizers was Kenzaburo Oe, a Nobel literature laureate, who called on the Japanese government to leave the nuclear power plants in suspension out of fears for safety.

The Japanese government has previously stated that it will most likely allow those reactors to return to power which have been approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), whose new safety guidelines are scheduled to be adopted in July. One of Japan’s largest-ever protests saw 170,000 people gather in a similar fashion in July 2012, around the same time that then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda decided on the first two reactor restarts since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster. As of now, the anti-nuclear protestors say they have collected over 8 million signatures of those opposed to reactor restarts.

As they marched through the streets, the protestors carried signs and banners that had messages such as “No Nukes! Unevolved Apes Want Nukes!” As of today, the two reactors that were restarted last summer, located in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, are the only ones out the country’s 50 that have returned to operation. While Sunday’s rally was organized between three different groups, Kyodo news reported that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had put the number of protesters between 20,000 and 30,000.

[via UPI]

Anti-nuclear, Fukushima, Government, Kenzaburo Oe, Nuclear, Nuclear Regulation Authority, Protest, Tokyo

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Alasdair Lumsden

As an Environmentalist, I can only come to the conclusion that Nuclear Power is essential if we are to avoid runaway climate change and the acidification of the oceans. I’m pro Wind and Solar, but without significant subsidies, the resultant electricity is 3-6 times more expensive than fossil fuels or nuclear – a price that the market just won’t accept. This means that decommissioning Nuclear will just result in far more coal and gas plants, the exact opposite of what we need. We need to be reducing CO2 emissions, not increasing them!

The statistics on Nuclear are actually the precise opposite of what many people might think. Nuclear has an excellent safety record. Coal is the real killer – it kills over 100,000 people annually worldwide due to respiratory illnesses, 13,000 in the US alone. Coal mining kills over 6000 people each year. These figures are vast. Excluding Chernobyl (which was a soviet-era nuclear plant with no safety features, including no concrete containment building), there have been zero deaths worldwide as a result of Nuclear power. Most importantly, nuclear power has pumped precisely 0 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

We should be decommissioning old unsafe Nuclear plants and building new safer plants. We also need to seriously consider building Molten Salt Reactors, which have none of the disadvantages of current Light Water Reactor designs:

http://youtu.be/P9M__yYbsZ4

As a CO2 free technology, Nuclear should be a natural ally of the Environmental movement. Japan needs nuclear, we all do.
- Zach
  
  You are no an environmentalist but a paid nuclear industry troll.
  - Alasdair Lumsden
    
    Hi Zach,
    
    I can assure you I’m not being paid by the industry. I run my own web hosting business in London. I’m far more worried about CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming than I am about Nuclear.
    
    I’m definitely not trying to troll here – I’m trying to be constructive. This is a serious issue with serious ramifications for humanity.
    
    Perhaps you could argue with me based on facts, and the content of my post, rather than make accusations?
    - billbob
      
      You sir are in the most electricity wasting industry on the planet right now. Unless your servers have natural water reservoirs under them no amount of green credits can make your business any cleaner.
      - Alasdair Lumsden
        
        Actually the Datacenter we host in sources 100% of it’s energy from renewable sources. I’ve already told you – I’m an Environmentalist. I choose renewables when I can, because I can afford to do so. It’s the right thing to do. We also use the highest density virtualisation technology available (Solaris/SmartOS Zones) on the most efficient servers we can purchase.
        
        As for electricity wasting, if you have an iPhone or Android phone or use Google and the Internet, you are also using electricity. So please don’t be a hypocrite.
    - Gio Makyo
      
      You ignore the CO2 emissions produced during mining uranium.
      You ignore water needs of the reactors (for cooling) which are huge, and which will be unsustainable over time as water becomes a scarcer resource as well.
      You ignore the fact that the disposal of spent fuel/radioactive waste is a problem that still hasn’t been solved over the course of over half a century now.
      You ignore the fact that –at least here in japan — nuclear is only “cheap” because costs such as waste disposal or accident clean-up are not considered in the equation, and that alternative energy remains expensive because the power monopolies have conspired to prevent independent developers of such from gaining cost-effective access to the grid.
      You simply write off deaths from the Chernobyl accident, don’t even mention the documented rise in a huge range of illnesses all over the affected regions. The effects of such accidents are debatable, but it is clear enough that the substances released in these events are a hazard, and they stick around for a long, long time –the more of these accidents we have, the more the accumulation will lead to greater health risks.
      You also ignore the fact that the nuclear industry — not just in Japan –has had a cavalier attitude towards safety, and that’s quite well documented, The likelihood that we’ll get more accidents due to lack of investment in safety and lifespan extensions on aging reactors is far higher than the idea that we will see “new safer plants”.
      - Alasdair Lumsden
        
        Hi Gio,
        
        Thank you for taking the time to respond and I agree with some of your points, but not all of them. I’ll look at them each objectively:
        
        “You ignore the CO2 emissions produced during mining uranium.”
        
        I don’t ignore the CO2 emissions produced during uranium mining. Mining of all kinds produce CO2, including the mining of rare earth metals used in the construction of Wind Turbines and Solar Panels, and indeed in your laptop and phone. I see no reason why Uranium mining would produce more CO2 than any other kind of mining.
        
        However as I mentioned previously, if we used Thorium instead of Uranium, this would not be a factor – Thorium is as abundant as lead and found in almost all earth – it’s a byproduct of existing mining and people will pay you to take it away, making it a cheaper than free source of energy.
        
        “You ignore water needs of the reactors (for cooling) which are huge, and which will be unsustainable over time as water becomes a scarcer resource as well.”
        
        There is a difference between fresh water and sea water – fresh water is a scarce resource, sea water obviously is not. Nuclear Power plants use Sea Water.
        
        Fracking and the mining industry uses VAST quantities of water, far far far in excess of that used by the Nuclear industry. Coal plants use the same quantities of water for their cooling requirements too.
        
        With a Thorium MSR reactor the waste process heat is high enough such that it can actually be used to desalinate water to produce fresh, clean drinking water. So actually MSR designs can make this situation better, not worse.
        
        “You ignore the fact that the disposal of spent fuel/radioactive waste is a problem that still hasn’t been solved over the course of over half a century now.”
        
        This is sort of true and sort of not true. Unfortunately the world chose to pursue solid fuel water cooled reactors in the 50s and 60s for political and nuclear weapons reasons. There was another technology developed, called the Molten Salt Reactor, where a prototype was operated at Oak Ridge National Labs. This burns over 99% of the nuclear fuel, leaving a tiny amount of waste, and thanks to the radioactive isotopes produced, is no longer radioactive after just 300 years rather than 100,000 years as present today.
        
        MSR reactors can also actually consume existing spent nuclear fuel waste, which would reduce the worlds waste piles to virtually nothing. A company in the US called TransAtomic Power plans to do precisely this. Another, TerraPower, invested in by Bill Gates, also proposes to do this. So there are solutions.
        
        Sadly MSR reactors are attacked from all sides, the greens, the fossil fuel industry, AND the existing Nuclear industry, because the technology is so disruptive it has the potential to challenge them all. This is why we all need to come together in support of the technology.
        
        Thankfully China is pursuing it at their National Academy of Sciences – the project is being headed up by Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin. So this extends right the way to the top of politics over there. They’re putting serious money into this, $350M and around 1000 staff. If China is successful, this will be the biggest game changer in energy in the last 50 years.
        
        “You ignore the fact that –at least here in japan — nuclear is only “cheap” because costs such as waste disposal or accident clean-up are not considered in the equation,”
        
        You are correct in that the cost of decommissioning often isn’t considered in the equation. This is very bad and needs to be rectified – the cost should be paid for by the companies operating the Nuclear plants. However as I’ve outlined, MSR reactors don’t have this issue because they produce hardly any waste.
        
        “alternative energy remains expensive because the power monopolies have conspired to prevent independent developers of such from gaining cost-effective access to the grid”
        
        I’d like to see evidence of this, but I will err on the side of caution and grant you that yes, it seems possible that anyone who seeks to lose from the success of renewables would seek to make it more expensive.
        
        However if Solar and Wind were cost effective, factories consuming large amounts of energy would put Solar panels on their roof and put up Wind turbines. The fact is they don’t do this, because the energy cost is higher. Private industry have no ties to the power market, they simply seek cheap power – right now they can get this from the grid.
        
        My argument is that to win this, we need a clean, cheap safe source of energy that can produce it at a cost cheaper than coal. Then market forces will adopt it. What technology can do this? Molten Salt Reactors can.
        
        “You simply write off deaths from the Chernobyl accident, don’t even mention the documented rise in a huge range of illnesses all over the affected regions. The effects of such accidents are debatable, but it is clear enough that the substances released in these events are a hazard, and they stick around for a long, long time –the more of these accidents we have, the more the accumulation will lead to greater health risks.”
        
        You ignore the fact that Nuclear has saved over 1.8 million lives worldwide as a result of reducing our use of Coal (google “nuclear saves 1.8 million”). Coal is a real killer. Coal causes over 100,000 deaths annually due to respiratory diseases; 13,000 in the US alone. Coal mining kills over 6000 worldwide annually. A coal plant pumps out vastly more radiation and toxins into the atmosphere than a Nuclear plant does because coal contains radioactive elements and heavy metals which are released as fine particles during the burning process.
        
        Chernobyl was a terrible terrible accident and the loss of life was absolutely shocking and abhorrant. I have great sympathy with the victims. But Chernobyl was a terrible Nuclear plant – it had *no concrete containment dome* over the reactor. The plant was used to produce plutonium for the Soviet nuclear weapons stockpile. Modern plants bare almost no resemblance to the Chernobyl plant.
        
        Further, MSR designs are completely different. They have inherent safety features – they can’t melt down as the salt is already molten, and if the reactor gets too hot, the salt expands and the reaction slows down – the physics/chemistry of it is inherently self-regulating requiring zero outside intervention, eliminating operator error. Because they operate at atmospheric pressure (unlike existing pressurised water reactors which operate at 300 atmospheres and have huge potential for steam explosions, which happened at Fukushima), they can’t explode, and any leaks result in the salt solidifying into a lump that can be scooped up and put back in the reactor.
        
        You might ask “Is Nuclear Safe?” Well, which kind? There are hundreds of ways to do Nuclear. Is a car safe? Well, which one? Car accidents kill over 22,000 people per year in the USA alone yet people aren’t terrified of their car.
        
        Humans are emotional beings and our brains are not well adapted at analysing and looking at risk. We are far more likely to die of a car accident, or from smoking and drinking, or from crossing the road, than we are from radiation or Nuclear Power.
        
        “You also ignore the fact that the nuclear industry — not just in Japan –has had a cavalier attitude towards safety, and that’s quite well documented, The likelihood that we’ll get more accidents due to lack of investment in safety and lifespan extensions on aging reactors is far higher than the idea that we will see “new safer plants”.”
        
        I agree with you that some companies have had poor safety track records. We definitely do need to have strict Nuclear safety, and we do need to decommission existing nuclear plants. I agree with you fully on this point. But after Fukushima, governments and international agencies the world over started heavily reviewing existing Nuclear plants to review designs and safety features, and this will have reduced the likelyhood of further accidents.
        
        But all of this only highlights the importance of us developing modern designs such as the Molten Salt Reactor – this is something I am a big advocate of and that I’m pushing as hard as I can. The MSR technology has the potential to completely revolutionise how we produce energy and is something we simply must pursue.
      - Barry
        
        I need to go to bed, so I will only respond to one point here. That point regards the Rare Earth Elements, or REEs, used in the production of solar panels and wind turbines.
        
        These REEs are geologically linked to an element called Thorium. Thorium, element #90, is a fertile isotope. It is naturally radioactive (in fact, it and uranium are the reason life exists on Earth!), but at such low levels that I have safely held a piece of pure thorium in my hand. You CANNOT get REEs, which are essential to the production of solar/wind energy, without also getting thorium.
        
        Thorium, coupled with the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) mentioned by Alasdair, has the potential to relieve all of the criticisms previously mentioned about nuclear power. Its fuel cycle produces essentially zero waste (except isotopes used for cancer treatments and deep space exploration), while allowing for the burnup of existing waste for even more energy.
        
        The MSR is also passively safe, which means that the basic laws of physics will shut the reactor down in an emergency. It cannot melt down, because the molten salts are already liquids — “melted.” It operates at atmospheric pressure (no explosive flashes to steam) without water.
        
        For a quick briefing in MSR technology, see the YouTube video “LFTR in 5 minutes”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY
        
        Alastair — I am going to friend request you on Facebook. Expect a request from someone named Barry. It sounds like you and I need to network — I did just come home from the Thorium Energy Alliance Conference in Chicago, after all
      - Barry
        
        Scratch that last bit about Facebook — we met at the conference! Hahaha.
      - esolesek
        
        Fine, you go and change the entire nuclear industry. I wish you a lot of luck in that regard. Support an industry that will have us all getting cancer in no time, along with their pals in the fossil fuel industry. Go be their patsy, and enjoy cancer from radiation, because you’re karmically begging for it.
      - debris54
        
        what nonsense … READ … STUDY … and if you insist on replying to posts … say something intelligent … I won’t bother trying to do the same … as it appears to be a waste of breath … ‘all getting cancer in no time’ … did you READ THE POSTS? what a jerk
- eastergrass
  
  When the free market supports it, I will reconsider my opposition. As it stands, in the US the nuclear industry is subsidized by taxpayers, from cradle to grave. I’m opposed to this form of socialism – socialized risk, privatized profit.
  - Alasdair Lumsden
    
    Can you remind me what paid for the US Interstate? Oh yes, the federal government. It has been referred to as the “largest public works program since the Pyramids”. I hope you’ll oppose those.
    
    Also you might want to stop using any electricity at all, because your Coal plants are subsidised by Federal coal subsidies.
    
    So check this out. Between 2002 and now, the US has given $70.2bn to Oil & Gas, $16.8bn to Corn Ethanol, $12.2bn to traditional renewables and $2.3bn to Carbon Capture and Storage. I struggled to get a figure for Nuclear because there are no direct cash subsidies, most of it involves mitigating risk through insurance etc.
    
    So anyway, you’d better unplug all your appliances, buy a small aeroplane and buy some solar panels to avoid all those hippie communist tax credits.
    - eastergrass
      
      Can you remind me of what we did with all of the nuclear waste generated by the US interstate? A bad example dude, seein’ as how they’re public roads. Surely a paid shill like yourself can distinguish the difference between taxpayers paying for infrastructure that benefits everyone, and paying for a private nuclear plant that benefits the shareholders. The taxpayers not only pay to build and insure the plant, they pay to decommission – AND they for the exorbitant cost of the power generated by the nuke. I live in a state that has the highest electricity costs in the northeast because of a nuclear plant.
      
      The rest of your screed is just condescending insult aimed at distracting me from the fact that you cannot deal with the point that I made. The nuclear industry is not supported by the free market. It’s socialized risk and privatized profit.
      - Alasdair Lumsden
        
        I have no clue what Nuclear waste was generated by building the Interstates. But you’re right – the Interstates were a bad example. I hadn’t considered the “public subsidies for public good” vs “public subsidies for private profit” angle.
        
        But you’ve glossed over the subsidies for the coal, natural gas and renewable energy plants. What about them? Also what about the hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic ash that the coal plants spew out?
        
        “a paid shill like yourself” – this is still so hilarious it’s beyond comprehension.
        
        Sounds like you’re a paid shill yourself. By the wind and solar industry.
      - eastergrass
        
        Hardly. I work for a religious non-profit. In NH, where we have the highest electric costs in the northeast, thanks to Seabrook Station, a nuclear plant that was supposed to give us electricity “too cheap to meter.”
        
        The reason we aren’t discussing coal, natural gas, etc, is because the topic is nuclear power and the nuclear industry, something you appear desperate to avoid, else you wouldn’t be working so hard to change the subject.
      - Alasdair Lumsden
        
        What is the stated goal of the religious non-profit you work for?
        
        Yes, Wikipedia says: “The construction of Seabrook Station was completed ten years later than expected, with a cost approaching $7 billion. The large debt involved led to the bankruptcy of Seabrook’s major utility owner, Public Service Company of New Hampshire. At the time, this was the fourth largest bankruptcy in United States corporate history”. What a total disaster. It’s no wonder you have high electricity prices.
        
        Why I’m quite happy to discuss nuclear. The reason I keep mentioning coal is because when Nuclear plants get shut down they have a tendency to be replaced with Coal plants. Thankfully Natural Gas is cheaper now, they seem to have a tendency to be replaced with Natural Gas plants. Let’s hope the scientists are wrong about CO2!
        
        Also many people on this thread bang on about the dangers of radiation and the deaths and cancers it causes, but completely ignore the fact Nuclear Energy has killed 0 people in the United States in its 60 year history, and killed 0 people in Fukushima. Yet Coal kills 13,000 people in the US every year.
        
        Did you know a 1GW coal-burning power plant releases up to 5.2 metric tons per year of uranium (containing 74 pounds (34 kg) of uranium-235) and 12.8 metric tons per year of thorium into the atmosphere as particles that can be breathed in? So really, which is the dirtier industry?
        
        I’m all for Wind and Solar, but can we deal with the Coal and Gas plants first. CO2 is the single biggest issue facing humanity and I am shocked at the attitude of some of the people on this thread. There is a total disregard for the science and the statistics.
      - billbob
        
        No one is arguing about coal or gas (I don’t like either)! I am pretty sure the topic is about nuclear power and giving one corporation the ability to set rates. Nuclear WITHOUT tax incentives is more expensive than wind to produce. Plain and simple facts from the department of energy and not some random website.
        
        I am not 100% sold on solar (we need to develop new tech) because of the rare earth metals used in it but I know one thing, Unless we really plan on “maintaining” and paying for large nuclear plants repair bills while they gouge us then we are all as crazy. Few reports are coming out how we are not even maintaining the plants we have to withstand anything like Japan faced.
      - eastergrass
        
        In other words, you’re still nattering on about anything other than my point, which is that the nuclear industry is not supported by the free market. Nuclear plants are entirely subsidized by taxpayer funds, and those taxpayers pay for the plants from the cradle to the grave. No insurance company will cover a nuke, so the Price Anderson Act provides for taxpayers to insure nuclear plants. Taxpayers pick up the tab for the plants, shareholders reap the profits, and ratepayers pay the outrageous cost of the energy produced by those plants.
        
        I’m not the other people on the thread, and I’m not interested in your tapdance of distraction and diversion. You and I both know that there is no response – the nuclear industry IS socialized risk and privatized profit. The nuclear industry is largely unregulated. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a cheerleader for the industry, now working to extend the licenses of old, leaky nukes.
      - Jortiz3
        
        noooooo eastergrass don’t buy into it. The NRC is an incredible agency – they are why the US nuclear industry is the safest industry of any sort to work for. For instance it is significantly more dangerous to work in an office job than it is to work for a US nuclear plant. I learned this from a good source – the Los Alamos National Laboratories Radiological Worker II training class, from a guy who literally spent two decade in the seventies and eighties working at a plant. The class was on Occupation Health and Safety Association guidelines to radiological safety (OSHA), other agencies too. Office jobs could actually be statistically dangerous – i don’t know, sort of doubt it – but the point is that this “Safety Culture” thing they adopted in the nuclear industry really works. You should tour a reactor and see what I am talking about! They do tours all the time, and they are not hard to get into because, as you can imagine, people aren’t very interested. But you can see first-hand what I am talking about if you do. I think Youtube has videos. Their safety culture is absolutely nuts, and its world-famous. Your impression is common, but it is certainly not accurate.
      - eastergrass
        
        That’s a whole lotta gobshite, son. My perception is based on FACT, not some kiddy engineer pipedream.
        
        Look into the NRC giving an extended license to an old leaky nuke in Vermont. The company denied there were buried pipes – yet sure enough there were and they were leaking. Then there was the fire. And the cooling tower that collapsed. A terrific bet for a 20 year extended license. Same kind of reactor as the one at Fukushima, by the way.
        
        Of course if everything you learn is from the industry – and in your case it is, it’s no wonder you’re such a good little propaganda parrot.
        
        My impression is based on ACTUAL fact – not the industry cow patties you’ve been chowing down on.
      - Jortiz3
        
        Oh really? Actual fact? Wow. I wish I knew where to get that. I’m just a physicist and engineer, I should have really known that I have just been taught coherent garbage from my University of Washington education, its garbage physics professors and experimentalists, Los Alamos National Laboratory managers of nuclear weapons and fundemental physics projects, LANL safety trainings, Griffiths and Feynman textbooks, the ethics of logic from Carl Sagan, propper forecasting by Nate Silver, and anything else I have found to be logically sound. I suppose that you are probably right, that in spite of spending my whole life trying to find correct physically-supported prediction-supported descriptions of how the world actually works, I am probably wrong, and you probably understand way more about reality than I do.
        
        You have no idea who you are talking to, don’t pretend you do.
      - eastergrass
        
        You’ve been taught the facts of the nuclear industry, sparky. If you’re all that, why are you screaming hysterically at me? Have you studied the negative effects of nuclear power? I’m betting Helen Caldicott wasn’t part of the education you’re so proud of.
        
        Instead of screaming about how brilliant you think you are, and how stupid I must be because of course only a boy with an expensive education could possibly know anything, why not try addressing some of my points.
        
        Hey, how ’bout those containers in Hanford, Washington leaking plutonium etc. into the groundwater out there? Use that big brain to explain logically to me how GOOD that is for the environment, and how that is not an epic fail of the nuclear industry – even though it’s a gummint program.
        
        Then maybe you could explain to me why it’s a good thing to give an aging, continually leaky nuke that has had fires, and cooling tower cave ins a 20 year license extension. Explain that to my poor silly girlbrain, please. I’d really enjoy hearing your informed, and superior perspective on Vermont Yankee
      - Jortiz3
        
        There are cost estimates to the negative effects of nuclear power. One comes from the three major accidents, this is around 400 Billion dollars. There are physical quantities too: about 5 grams CO2 per kilowatt hour (vs 800 for coal). There is the increased river temperatures that cause all sorts of problems. There is a controversy in the health effects of low-dose chronic exposure to radiation, estimates range from 0 to 20,000 people developing cancer from Fukushima for instance. (the linear threshold controversy).
        
        Containers at Hanford: Hanford did NOT GENERATE ELECTRICITY. IT GENERATED PLUTONIUM FOR THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS LOS ALAMOS CURRENTLY IS STEWARDS FOR. COMPLETELY UNRELATED. as to why they were allowed to leak, try poltical gridlock and the NSA not having to operate under NRC guidelines.
        
        License extentions reflect the consensus from the NRC that something is likely to function well. You should do some research on the requirements of license extentions before you are so quick to conclude something is doomed. The NRC had plenty of reasons apparently to conclude an extension was permissible, and I’m sure there are caveats regarding maintanance, upgrades, and other things. They are engineers, physicists, staticians, with over four-hundred reactor-years of experience, over fifteen-hundred if you consider lessons learned from other countries experiences.
      - eastergrass
        
        It is droll that someone who claims to be brilliant and well educated is such a failure at reading comprehension.
        
        AGAIN, if you bothered to read, you might have noticed that I didn’t say anything about Hanford generating electricity. I know goddam well what Hanford was, and what it did. Given how much crap is leaking into the ground, the groundwater, and the Columbia River, I’m not surprised you’re running away from that topic like a scared bunny.
        
        As for Vermont Yankee, clearly you don’t know fuck-all about it, and weren’t interested to bother, just to give me a patronizing the-industry-knows best answer.
        
        Had enough of you, sonny. Your mama’s calling.
      - esolesek
        
        There’s always a new generation of punks to get schooled, not by their sheit elite universities, but by the age-old lessons of life and humanity’s failings. These punks know what’s coming for them – that’s why their in such denial.
      - eastergrass
        
        Oh, how naughty of me to not bow down at your feet. I don’t give a flying donut who you are, kiddie. You may think you’re incredibly important (undoubtedly your mommy told you so) but to me, you’re just another ignoranus. That’s not a typo. Go look it up, Rocket Boy.
      - Jortiz3
        
        Lol your insults are quite creative, a little out of date, but…
        Look, I will fill you in on something. You could make money off these energy transitions if only you knew what were to happen. To see what the future holds, you have to be willing to step outside your preconceptions, and focus on good data, figures, and sound economics. I would suggest if you have money investing in Babcock and Wilcox, for instance, but since you are so against nuclear, you will choose not to in disbelief of my advice. Reactors of the future, the ones I want to design and the ones currently being designed, often are completely different than the water reactors of today. Caparison of their risks to previous design’s risks would be foolish.
      - eastergrass
        
        As a person of values, I would never invest in the nuclear industry. What do you know about uranium and where it comes from? Only grossly unprincipled people support uranium mining.
        
        It’s true – your advice doesn’t interest me, any more than your focus on money rather than the lives of people or the planet. You have shoddy values.
      - esolesek
        
        Typical hispanic, ready to sell out to support 7 children. Enjoy eating irradiated lettuce.
      - esolesek
        
        Shut up douchebag. Enjoy the apocalypse coming screaming at you.
        Trust me, we had a better time than you will. Now go get some Michael Douglas throat action if you can.
      - debris54
        
        where’s your ‘facts’ ???
      - esolesek
        
        You’re an idiot who supports mining. Enjoy facing the apocalypse with your tech skills. That’ll help you well with an armed mob coming for food.
      - Jortiz3
        
        I’m sorry, whaaat? You have some funny ideas about how the world works if you think cheap electricity benefits less people than highways do, if you think carbon-free electricity benefits less people than highways do. Why do you think you are even alive? Why do you think your plastic bag was free at the grocery store? Why did you have to work ten minutes to earn yourself a pound of beef? Energy is fundemental to the costs of products. The more advanced the product, the more it relies on electricity to manufacture and operate. This is not a coincidence. Electricity’s usefulness stems from physics, that you can do far more with electrons than you can with gears and belts. You might live in a house, go to work in a car, see the office, but your existance is propped up by MASSIVE amounts of infrastructure. There are a thousands motors, a thousand miles of cable, a billion transistors, hundreds of tons to earth lifted from the ground, etc. to provide you with your modern life. This is why you are living a better life than your great grandparents. Energy has become so distributed and so cheap that infrastructure is able to convert from the Earth and the atmosphere basically dirt into the products that define your way of life.
        
        A 4500 Megawatt reactor will produce over 200 billion dollars of electricity over its 60 year operating life. THIS IS FUNDEMENTALLY WHY REACTORS ARE SO PROFITABLE. This is the upper-end of estimates for the clean-up costs of Fukushima. This is why Fukushima’s greatest economic impact was when the Japanese public shut off every reactor in Japan. This is why the Yen has been tanking, why their economy is demanufacturing. They are losing their ability to use cheap electricity to offer the products competitively that we enjoy so immensely. Manufacturing is leaving, capacity for production is dropping, costs rise everyday the yen sinks and gas and coal are imported.
        
        This is an illustration of what I am talking about. People think the risks are X. They may certainly be X. But X doesn’t mean anything when you talk about it out of context. So instead of arguing with you that you are overestimating the risks of nuclear energy, lets say you are correct, and that your correctness is demonstrated by history. Three accidents, four-hundred-billion-dollars of damage, over the last 40 years. Wow it sure looks like you have good reason to think this is a horrible energy source. Except for one thing. Over that time period, low-carbon (1% CO2 of coal) electricity was being produced by four-hundred reactors. the resulting low cost energy being used to leverage the Earth’s resources into crafting the world as it is today. Each year at six-cents-per-kilowatt hour these reactors are churnning out carbon-free over 200 BILLION DOLLARS OF ELECTRICITY PER YEAR. This electricity is raw – its ultimate use will be in turning the air and dirt into buildings, cars, highways, networks, boats, everything you see around you.
        
        Thus the risks associated with nuclear, just be estimation, are orders-of-magnitude lower than their benefits, and thus since the risk is so small in comparasson with the benefits, any expanssion on nuclear power is justified (expecially considering generation II reactors are obsolete, the learning-curve, lessons-learned, other reasons to suspect this risk estimate is too high).
        
        Am I making sense? We NEED YOU EASTERGRASS!!! WE NEED YOU ON OUR SIDE!!!
        
        Signed, a physicist, engineer, and environmentalist, albeit age 20.
      - eastergrass
        
        Sorry about your reading comprehension problem. Since you clearly didn’t understand or weren’t interested in what I wrote, I see little reason to bother with your hyperbolic rant.
      - Jortiz3
        
        You probably have little reason to bother with my rant because its not worth it to you to think that perhaps you came to quickly to your conclusion. The first sign I actually make sense, you have the option to actually consider what is being said seriously and begin to see how real economics and risk analysis work, or you ignore it so you can be comfortable with your opinion that considers the risks of something completely out of context with its benefits. Its a rhetorical technique – it doesn’t hold up in the sciences. I detest rhetoric, statements that sound like they support an opinion but have not been put up to real world tests. I value numbers, real-world data, mathematics, physics, economics, risk vs payoff. These are the figures that ultimately determine energy generation methods, not rhetorical arguments regarding how frightening something is.
        
        You would rather continue to trust in your own opinion rather than learn some actual facts about how to apply risk analysis and economics very simply to energy generation. I know your dismissal is deliberate ignorance. And I comprehended what you said fully, addressed your value of highways over energy infrastructure directly as public works projects in terms of payoff, addressed your qualitative estimations of risk with a quantitative analysis that is really not very hard to do, where you consider the historical negative concequences of nuclear power against their historical possitive concequences, in terms of dollars and CO2.
      - eastergrass
        
        You’d be wrong about that. If you weren’t so intent on screaming about your own superiority, you might have bothered to read what I wrote. You might have damped down on the condescension and patronizing, too.
        
        As for ignorance – shut the hell up, kiddie. I lived through the entire debacle of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl – both things that took place before you were even born. I’ve also lived through the entire history of the disastrous nuke built in NH that is falling apart, and being protected by the NRC. I live fairly near the leaky nuke in Vermont that’s also been covered up by the industry with a helping hand from the NRC. You’re sitting in an office or a lab, thousands of miles away from the reality of nuclear plants, listening to a bunch of economic fairy tales that appear to have little basis in reality.
        
        And so, you can stick your risk analysis right up your santorum, sparky. When you move in to a house next door to an aging, leaking nuclear power plant I might have a little interest in your shrieking. Your hysteria is off putting, at the very least.
      - Jortiz3
        
        See, I didn’t live through those events. I was born in 1992. Emotional connections make for a horribly biased analysis. I will be spearheading what will undoubtedly terrify you.
      - eastergrass
        
        A guy who screams about how important he is and how EDUCATED HE IS is calling me emotional? Your momma lied, sparky. You aren’t all that and a bag of chips.
        
        Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
      - Jortiz3
        
        Can you please stop reverting to the position that I am screaming? If you think I am screaming its because your brain, upon reading what I am typing, is putting on a “screaming” voice in your attempts to view my positions as biased emotionally. I have stated actual figures and compared them on economic grounds and physical grounds. You have repeatedly reverted to the position that I am screaming and that nuclear is dangerous. I agree nuclear is dangerous, but I disagree that that leads to the conclusion it should not be used in energy generation, based on sound economics and physics. Your position is simply nuclear is dangerous, thus it shouldn’t be used. My position is nuclear is dangerous, but upon consideration of basic economics and physics, it is inevitable that it WILL be used massively.
      - eastergrass
        
        Oh, please. Go back and reread your posts. You were at such a high pitch there for a while that only dogs could hear you.
        
        My favorite part of your post: “I agree that nuclear is dangerous, but I disagree that leads to the conclusion that it should not be used in energy generation based on sound economics and physics.”
        
        Translation: IT IS DANGEROUS BUT I AM SO BRILLIANT THAT I CAN BEND IT TO MY WILL.
        
        There is nothing economically sound about nuclear energy. If there were, it would be supported by the free market. It isn’t.
        
        Your naivete about the NRC is laughable. Seriously laughable. There is a culture of craven dishonesty and coverup, which is far more important to them than safety. They tell you they are wonderful and careful and you believe them. That you’ve been brainwashed doesn’t occur to you. They relicensed that disaster of a nuke because there is MONEY in it. That’s all this is ever about, MONEY. The nuke is making money for the shareholders right now, and what the hell – if there’s an accident, the taxpayers pick up the tab.
        
        Get your head out of the NRC’s shorts and read some Arjun Makhijani.
      - esolesek
        
        What a typical youthful braggart you are. Don’t worry, history will teach you lessons you won’t forget. Enjoy staring the apocalypse in the face,
      - esolesek
        
        Since you don’t care about history at all, I suppose you don’t give a crap about the religious cluelessness of hispanic history and how the anglo-saxons destroyed your empire with brains, instead of babies.
      - Whirled Peas
        
        You have some very good points, but it’s better to leave out the insults to Hispanics. It just detracts.
      - esolesek
        
        Methinks someone did not get a science degree, but nice try with the coloquial approach to real scientific problems.
      - Jortiz3
        
        University of Washington, Comprehensive Physics, 2013
        University of Washington, Mechanical Engineering, 2015
        Los Alamos National Laboratories LANSCE UCN Source 2012
        
        If you understood a fraction of what I did, you would eat your own words. Indeed you will in time.
      - esolesek
        
        Nice job on your education. Too bad you’re working for Satan – the US nuclear program.
      - Jortiz3
        
        I don’t see how in-situ leaching of Uranium looks anything like “tearing the landscape to shreds.” Open-pit mining does resemble that, but in-situ leaching certainly does not. Neither does underground mining, except for the tailings pond.
        
        The United States has proved with over fourty years of over a hundred operating reactors that the NRC is a competent regulatory authority, and the reactor operators are a bunch of brilliant safety-orriented people. The safety record in the US nuclear industry, exceeding in safety almost every other possible work environment including office work, is remarkable. The US has proved that given an agency like the NRC, nuclear powerplants become the safest form of energy generation on the planet, even if reactors are not designed “inherently safe” currently.
        
        The problem of waste is simple, as it is with Carbon Dioxide, toxic chemicals, or any other sort of unwanted waste, except it is far easier to track due to its radioactivity, and is far smaller in size due to its energy density. Engineering-wise, this problem is trivial. Hire some geophysicists, geologists, petroleum engineers, materials engineers, mechanical engineers, and give them design parameters. Don’t want to see the waste for 3 million years? They can do that. Want to temporarily store it awaiting the arrival of fast reactors for possibly two hundred years? They can do that.
        
        Any exothermic nuclear reaction will release neutrons, its statistics implied by quantum mechanics. So rad waste is generated with any nuclear power scheme, fusion or fission, because neutron absorption causes nuclear instability, whether the target atom is an actinide like uranium or something more organic, like carbon, potassium, or oxygen. There will always be some material that will get neutron-baked and turned into rad waste. But it turns out technologically its straight-forward to deal with the waste, given that you have sufficient technical know-how, money, and a value for safety.
  - Toboe
    
    “socialized risk, privatized profit” is not exactly socialism, as socialism would demand “socialized profit” too.
- AmIJustAPessimistOrWhat?
  
  Only 6 times more expensive! What a deal! And the following 600 generations won’t even have to pay again (and again, and again) for cleaning up and minding our mess!
  
  “Environmentalist” LOL. Actually, I am not anti-nuclear, I just wish the actual long term costs of NE were honestly calculated, and let capitalism take care of the rest.
  - Alasdair Lumsden
    
    Actually the reason Japan wants to start their Nuclear plants again is because their economy is being damaged by high energy prices. If it was economically viable for them to just buy Solar and Wind turbines, they would, but right now to keep manufacturing in the country and not suffer serious economic harm, they need to turn their Nuclear plants back on.
    
    The Nucler Waste produced by Nuclear Plants is volumetrically not that huge. Coal plants produce significantly larger quantities of highly toxic ash with many poisonous heavy metals including arsenic, lead, and indeed uranium, which can all pollute water supplies. In fact 40% of the mercury in the ocean has come from the burning of coal. Mercury poisoning is a serious health issue.
    
    Nuclear Waste is also misnamed. Because solid-fuel reactors only burn 1% of the fuel, “Nucler Waste” is technically “Spent Nuclear Fuel”. It could easily be reprocessed for use in a Molten Salt Reactor. As such, a fleet of MSRs could eat up existing stockpiles of waste, reducing the problem of what we do with it all. Furthermore, after burning it in an MSR, the resultant small quantity of waste is only radioactive for 300 years, far more manageable than the 100,000+ year waste we have at the moment.
    
    So don’t think of waste as “waste”, think of it as future fuel waiting for MSR technology to come online.
    - AmIJustAPessimistOrWhat?
      
      In your first paragraph you are merely describing the human shortcoming of being concerned only about today, odd that you forgot to mention about ignoring the future.
      
      Second paragraph:
      > In fact 40% of the mercury in the ocean has come from the burning of coal.
      
      This investigation concludes otherwise:
      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/12/031205053316.htm
      It’s a minor point however: coal burning is a major source of greenhouse gases. I am no fan of coal either.
      
      Third paragraph:
      >As such, a fleet of MSRs could eat up existing stockpiles of waste
      
      This is only the best case possible outcome from research which has not been completed; it is not realistic to state it as a fact.
      
      Actually, technologies for nuclear power are not the major obstacle to safety: it is the seeming inevitability of human error. Human design error and human moment of crisis error.
      
      As an example of design error we can see how the threat of tsunami was ignored, and cost was made a higher priority.
      
      As an example of moment of crisis error, the TEPCO management ordered the sea water cooling No 1 to be shut off. Fortunately for Japan the manager of the Plant, Masao Yoshida, silently disobeyed his superiors orders, because he understood the danger of doing that. The order was rescinded after several hours. The reason for ordering it off was simply because the sea water would corrode the plant and render it useless.
      
      It is entirely possible for fallible humans to put together a new moneymaking plan to build a “fleet of MSR’s” before they have adequately researched and tested, and cutting corners on safety to save money.
      
      Do you have any plan to safeguard against human carelessness and greed? It is the most difficult obstacle of all.
      
      More about Yoshida:
      Three months later in June, Yoshida’s disobedience came to light and he was verbally reprimanded. 9 months later he was diagnosed with throat cancer. TEPCO’s official stance on the throat cancer when questioned is that it is impossible that the cancer is related to the nuclear accident because the incubation time for cancer before it becomes full grown is several years. (Never mind that most people studied have not been working weeks on end in a highly radioactive environment).
      
      To dream, plan, research, explore, and build, these things are the essence of man. The worst thing is to use these as an excuse to rob future generations of land, health, and life.
    - esolesek
      
      You have the vision of a typical CEO – zero. If corporate leaders put as much money into finding a solution as they do into refusing to find one, we would find the answers – but they would be removing themselves from power, power that uncle tom apologists like you give them. Prepare for combat and gardening being your future.
- Robert
  
  Actually Chernobyl had lots of safety features, its the fault of the operators who removed more fuel rods then the required amount. also the Jack ass who pumped in too much water that made them remove rods to create steam/power, take it from a Chernobyl expert.
  - Alasdair Lumsden
    
    If you’re a “Chernobyl Expert”, then please explain the lack of a concrete containment dome around the core, a standard safety feature on all non-soviet reactors? Had Chernobyl had one of these, the accident would have been a completely different story. Without the containment dome, the graphite moderator burned, spewing radioactive elements straight up directly into the atmosphere, creating the worst nuclear accident imaginable.
    - esolesek
      
      Exactly, Nuclear power can’t be trusted to corporate execs and bureaucrats. Proven by history to be too dangerous.
- Toboe
  
  What about the problem of radioactive waste? Have i missed the moment a safe permanent storage solution has been found?
  
  Because as far as i know so far there are no storage solutions that guarantee that no radioactive waste is spilled into the environment.
  And as far as i know spilled radioactive waste goes against the idea of environmentalism.
- esolesek
  
  If you’re not lying then you are a moron beyond help. Nuclear is NO alternative. All uranium on earth could run our power for ten years, and its extraction, waste, and apparent inability to be used safely by squads of morons, will destroy the planet.
  THat is not an alternative, so stop lying or being clueless.
  
  Localized solar, conservation, and new zoning of urban areas alone could solve a huge part of the problem. Even if we need to burn the dirtiest carbon on earth to make up the difference and suffer through global warming, its still better than nuclear which remains a threat for centuries down the road. NUclear is also not global-warming neutral, although I guess if we seed the clouds with enough radiation, it might help, right?
  
  I dont know who you are, or what your agenda is, but
  you are painfully malinformed or just a baldfaced paid shill.
Qaz Janssen

It saddens me to read Alisdair’s comment, in which he claims to be an environmentalist and at the same time calls for more nuclear power. Nuclear energy is not as environmentally friendly as it seems: uranium doesn’t grow on trees, and has to be dug out of the earth. More importantly, used fuel cells cannot be disposed of in a safe manner, and may be reused (abused) in creating nuclear weapons. Alisdair’s conveniently leaves out the worst nuclear disaster yet while boasting nuclear energy’s safety record. Also, he fails to notice that the Fukushima disaster leaves a significant area in Japan unsafe to live in, spoiling food resources (fish!). The claim to be environmentalist seems highly ridiculous to me.
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  Hi Qaz,
  
  So you would favour more Coal plants, which kill vastly more people? You want runaway climate change? Because that’s what we’re talking about as the alternative. Climate Change will displace millions of people, climate change will kill millions of people. Fukushima was a terrible accident, but please, put things in perspective. Nobody died as a result. These two outcomes are not even slightly comprable.
  
  Chernobyl was a ridiculously unsafe plant which was used for the manufacture of plutonium for the Soviet Union. It had no concrete containment around the structure, a feature present in all other Nuclear plants. This was a unique plant that should never have been built or allowed to operate, and bares little resemblance to Nuclear power today.
  
  I call myself an environmentalist because I care about the future of the planet that our children will inherit.
  - Qaz Janssen
    
    Dear Alasdair,
    
    Although I share your concerns about massive amounts of CO2 being blown into the air, I wholeheartedly disagree with your stance on nuclear energy. Please read Anthony Kocken’s reaction again, and do take his concerns seriously.
    
    The approach you choose towards the energy problem is outdated. You ask the question “should we use fossile fuels or should we use nuclear energy”, as if these are the only two alternatives available. That is a fallacy, and the answer to your question is: neither.
    
    We are finally learning to use solar and wind energy. The fact of the matter is, that the availability of nuclear energy, cheap in production but with all kinds of hidden costs for the future, is an obstacle to real progress. More solar power plants (totally environment friendly) and wind mills (which are still evolving, as we speak) are needed for a chance for a really clean future.
    You rightly state that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. That is why additional technologies for the storage and distribution of energy in other forms (i.e. by using the generated electricity to make H2 out of water; and subterraneous heat storage) must and will be developed further.
    - Alasdair Lumsden
      
      Hi Qaz,
      
      I’m glad we agree that CO2 is a serious threat that we all need to work on together to solve. I also am a fan of renewable energy and conservation – I myself purchase my electricity from Ecotricity in the UK, a supplier who sources as much of their energy as they can from renewable sources.
      
      The challenge however is one of economics – Ecotricity is more expensive, and only a portion of their electricity comes from renewables, the rest comes from mostly fossil fuels plus some nuclear. Many people I speak to who claim to care about the environment and support wind and solar neither have solar on their roof nor purchase their power from renewable energy companies. Why? Because it costs too much.
      
      By most estimates, Wind and Solar are 3 to 6 times more expensive than coal/gas/nuclear. This is a price that the market won’t accept. Market Forces sadly drive the world, which is why over 1000 new coal plants are planned world wide. These plants basically amount to mass genocide for many of the worlds poorest citizens.
      
      We should definitely be promoting Wind and Solar, but right now, Wind & Solar account for less than 3% of worldwide energy production. We need solutions today, whilst continuing to work on renewables. I view Nuclear as a natural compliment to renewables, an excellent bridging technology, with risks, but acceptable ones compared to the alternatives.
      
      As I’ve previously stated I’m not a massive fan of existing nuclear designs but they are sufficient to work as a bridging technology.
      
      Ultimately technologies such as the Moten Salt Reactor have huge potential to revolutionise worldwide energy production – abundant, completely safe energy with tiny amounts of short lived waste. MSRs have the potential to cheaply desalinate water to provide safe, clean drinking water for the world. With glaciers in many areas almost gone, lack of fresh melt water is set to become a major environmental catastrophe for millions of people worldwide, and MSR technology has the potential to save millions of lives from this one area alone. Please do watch this video, it changed my perspective massively on how Nuclear can be done: http://youtu.be/P9M__yYbsZ4
      
      On the deaths by energy production front, I implore you to read this:
      
      http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/04/02/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/
      - Qaz Janssen
        
        Dear Alasdair,
        
        I watched the video “Thorium: An energy solution – THORIUM REMIX 2011” from your link above. It was worth the long sit, and made me curious about the matter. I will look up whatever I can to try and understand what he’s selling, and – if it’s that good – why we aren’t using it yet.
        It was nice to see that the speaker (Kirk Sorensen) agrees with me on the rejection of conventional nuclear technology.
        For the moment I maintain my position that we should learn to live with the energy that the sun gives us, in all the forms we can use to harvest it – which includes solar energy and wind mill energy. As said, I will look into this Thorium-option to better understand it, and I might change my position when I do.
        Greetings, Qaz.
      - Alasdair Lumsden
        
        Hi Qaz,
        
        Thank you very much for watching it, and for watching the whole thing – it’s very long! It’s certainly a very interesting technology, with a lot of potential.
        
        I think we both agree that existing nuclear is unsafe and dirty. I still think it’s a better option than coal for all the reasons outlined, but if someone can afford to use Wind and Solar energy then that is the better option. I think I mentioned, I use a green wind power electricity company called Ecotricity in the UK.
        
        My main concern is that companies and industry will always try to buy the “cheapest” energy because of market forces, and right now the cheapest option is coal. If MSR/LFTR tech can really be safer, cleaner and most importantly, cheaper, then it’s definitely worth investigating as it can then displace coal from the market.
        
        Kind Regards,
        
        Alasdair
      - Qaz Janssen
        
        Dear Alasdair,
        
        While I’m still pondering MSL/LFTR technology, it seems only fair that I give you an insight on some of my thoughts on energy matters.
        
        I live in a country that was won from the sea using (in our eyes) primitive wooden wind mills to do a job that thousands of slaves couldn’t have done. Since the arrival of energy from coal and petrol the idea of using the power of wind was practically abandoned. Only adventurous sailors use a sailing boat to get from A to B these days.
        And now, as these marvelous wind machines are being reinvented to (partly) replace fossil fuels, of which we have started to understand the dangers, all I hear is that wind mills are ‘ugly’. Local authorities have been preventing wind mills from being built because they look bad. They should really re-assess the beauty of those mills: we had better learn to love them, because they’re a necessary part of the energy solution, just like they have been a necessary condition for the wealth of our nation (The Netherlands).
        
        On solar energy the developments are rapid, and the potential is not nearly scratched. Germany is leading the way on this, and I think that any country that can afford it should pledge to put at least as much effort into it as Germany has. The sad truth is that there has not nearly been enough political will to act: a roof without a solar panel is much more common than a roof with one where I live.
        B.t.w.: Also think of the yet unexplored possibilities of using uninhabitable places like the Sahara for massive scale solar energy farming. For storage and transportation of the energy from such remote places some kind of energy conversion may be necessary, but I’m convinced that that problem can be solved.
        
        Greetings,
        
        Qaz.
      - Qaz Janssen
        
        Dear Alasdair,
        
        I’ve been reading some more on LFTR technology. Though the principle behind it seems quite compelling, I noticed that there are not one or two, but many difficulties that have to be overcome before thorium reactors can actually be used. Actually, I was overwhelmed by the number of concerns, as written in Wikipedia:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor#Disadvantages
        
        Why should we try to make all that work, with all the risk factors mentioned, when all man’s energy needs may be met by solar energy? The information I saw suggests that solar farms covering an area the size of France would suffice to provide the whole world with all the energy we need.
        
        Greetings,
        Qaz.
  - esolesek
    
    You’re not an environmentalist. You’re actually a joke.
- TJ Francis
  
  Sometimes we gotta choose the lesser of 2 evils.
- billbob
  
  Click his name below… 100% nuclear on all his comments. He is spouting random facts about cost when you can just go on the department of energies website and read the cost to produce. Nuclear is not by far the cheapest and gives one company power over the market while forcing the government to pump money into it to maintain it. I can see Japan has realized part of the island is not inhabitable now and the world is nervous about its fish.
  
  I still visited and enjoyed it all
  - Alasdair Lumsden
    
    You’re on a boat that is sinking. Many people on the boat are removing the water with tea spoons, whilst others are removing the water with glass buckets. The boat is going to sink unless vastly more teaspoons and buckets are built.
    
    One day a glass bucket shatters, causing injury. The people holding the tea spoons shout “We need to stop using buckets! They’re unsafe!”. Many people stop using buckets and start building teaspoons, meanwhile the boat sinks faster.
    
    Someone suggests making plastic buckets. The people holding the tea spoons shout “No, buckets have proven to be unsafe!”.
    
    So what choices do the people on the boat have? It’s sinking fast.
    
    In case you didn’t work it out, Tea Spoons are renewables, Glass Buckets are existing nuclear, and Plastic Buckets are Molten Salt Reactors. The water on the boat represents CO2, which in the real world is coming from the coal & gas power plants.
    
    My argument is that we need to manufacture as many teaspoons and glass buckets as we possibly can, whilst trying to build plastic buckets – once the plastic buckets come online we can phase out the glass ones. Once we have enough teaspoons, perhaps we can phase out the plastic buckets too (although there may really be no reason to if they’re safe).
    
    Is that not a logical argument?
    
    Or do none of you believe in runaway climate change?
Anthony Kocken

Thank you Qaz, it is exactly my idea as well when I read with great amazement how someone can call him (or her-)self an environmentalist… and be in favor of nuclear power. As you quoted, the mining of uranium has already triggered quite a few wars, actually there is still one going on about this matter.., and the production of nuclear waste and the transport and storage of this waste is still not at all under control. I know with long time experience that thousands of barrels of radioactive waste have been dumped at sea all over the planet, without any kind of monitoring, recent research by deep sea robots revealed terrible results: broken, cracked or even completely opened barrels are all over the ocean floors.. And then the Fukushima disaster.., I live in Fukuoka at the moment and follow all the news about the disaster that is still going on today..: thousands of liters of radioactive waste water are still washing out to the sea each day…, polluting the Pacific Ocean in such a way that the state of Hawaii is getting pretty upset about the northern current that brings all that outfall to their islands.. and also to the shores of Canada and Western US and Mexico… so what do you mean that nuclear energy is safe and doesn’t kill…, please have a closer look at this disastrous way of energy…

Another point is that in Fukushima the owner of the Tepco plant is already getting pretty nervous about the years to come: they have no idea what to do with the ever still warming up kernels of the plants.. they don’t have the means to keep them cooled down in the (near!) future: in other words: Fukushima is still a time bomb that can explode any moment from now on and create another enourmous disaster many times worse than 2011 or Tchernobyl….

So please, let’s get our forces together to get as much renewable energy as possible, I came to Japan to see what I could do about installing as many solar panels as possible to help out resolving the energy crisis Japan is in at the moment, the problem I face here is that there is hardly any entry possible to do so, I cannot get a foot aground to start installing, the Electric Company here in Kyushu didn’t want to spare some time to let me try to explain how things are done in Germany and other parts of Europe: Germany is already that far with its energy solutions that it can run on renewable energy almost completely in sunny days in summer!! The worldwide research to energy storage will be of great help to establish more confidence in this technology and the great example of Chinese producers of solar panels (today most of them of excellent quality..) that provide panels for extremely low prices should be followed worldwide, creating thousands of jobs everywhere to install these panels and make our world less dependent on fossil fuels or nuclear power.
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  Renewable Energy is 3-6 times more expensive than fossil fuel plants and Nuclear. The wind doesn’t blow all day, nor does the sun shine 24×7. Look at the maths behind them. Opposing Nuclear does one thing – it results in countries and governments building more coal and gas powered plants, which pump out vast quantities of CO2. I’m all for conservation, I’m all for renewables, but please, the numbers don’t stack up – they are not dense sources of energy. Our worldwide energy use is set to increase 50% over the coming decades. It can’t be met through renewables alone – it just can’t. I implore you to research the figures on this.
  
  Also, not all Nuclear designs are equal, I think current water-cooled solid-fuel reactors are a terrible terrible design. You should check out the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR)/Molten Salt Reactors(MSR), which have none of the design flaws of existing Nuclear technologies.
  
  Because the fuel is disolved in a molten salt, it can circulate, achieving 99% burnup, reducing waste to just 1%. MSRs can use Thorium as a fuel, which as abundant as lead and a byproduct of mining – people will pay you to take it away, meaning MSRs have the potential to produce energy cheaper than coal, with zero CO2 emissions – exactly what we need. What’s more, MSR reactors can even burn existing spent nuclear fuel, reducing the worlds stockpiles of waste!
  
  Existing LWR reactors operate at 300 atmospheric pressures and use water as a coolant, meaning they can melt down and release steam and hydrogen/oxygen, which can explode, as happened at Fukushima. MSR reactors on the other hand operate at atmospheric pressure, meaning they can’t explode, and as the salt is already molten, they can’t melt down. They’re inherently walk-away safe.
  
  The world needs to pursue MSR – it’s clean, cheap and safe. The same cannot be said of existing reactors. Anyone interested in this technology should search for “Thorium Remix” on youtube.
  
  China has recognised the potential and is aggressively pursuing the technology at their National Academy of Sciences. The project is being headed up by Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin. So this extends right the way to the top of politics over there. They’re putting serious money and effort into this, $350M and around 1000 staff.
  
  But for now, existing modern Nuclear plants are the best bet we’ve got to avoid runaway climate change. If you can propose a viable and cost effective alternative, I’m all ears.
  - disqus_ECUdemSpVy
    
    Tesla coil could power the whole world. Humanity is still so feeble in that it may say wants clean energy but really wants money. When will we value life over money? Not in my life time I don’t think.
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  Hi Anthony,
  
  I rushed out my reply earlier but now I have some more time I’d like to openly discuss the points you’ve raised.
  
  “As you quoted, the mining of uranium has already triggered quite a few wars, actually there is still one going on about this matter..”
  
  I haven’t heard about this, so I googled and have struggled to find info on it. Wikipedia’s page on Uranium Mining doesn’t mention any wars specifically related to mining of Uranium. However you are right, Uranium is a rare element, as valuable as silver, so it makes sense that if there are wars over gold and silver there would be wars over Uranium. This is unfortunate. However there are alternative nuclear fuels, such as Thorium, which is as abundant as lead – every cubic metre of Earth contains at least 1 cubic cm of Thorium. It’s a by-product of the mining industry and people will pay you to take it away, making it free.
  
  “and the production of nuclear waste and the transport and storage of this waste is still not at all under control”
  
  I agree that this is a concern. It’s very unfortunate that existing Nuclear plants burn less than 0.5% of the fuel they consume, leaving 99.5% as spent fuel. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Look at the Molten Salt Reactor design which was prototyped in the 60s. This can burn over 99% of the fuel. Not only that, but it can burn existing nuclear waste, reducing existing stockpiles. The waste that comes out of a MSR is also only radioactive for 300 years. So there are fantastic solutions to this problem. Beyond just the MSR design, TerraPower, a US company invested in by Bill Gates, also wants to consume existing nuclear waste as a fuel.
  
  It’s worth mentioning that existing Nuclear reactors have been consuming the uranium and plutonium present in Nuclear warheads. The US has been purchasing Russia’s stockpiles of Nuclear warhead material for use in Energy. So Nuclear Energy has done more in the world to reduce the threat posed by Nuclear Weapons than anything else has.
  
  Nuclear waste is hazardous, but by volume, it’s a tiny quantity, compared to the huge quantities of radioactive and toxic mercury containing ash produced by Coal plants, which produce millions of tonnes per year. All Industry produces toxic byproducts.
  
  Radiation can be dangerous, beyond 50mSv it can kill you, but in small quantities it is safe. Bananas are radioactive due to the potassium contained in them. Flying in a plane will give you a dose of radiation higher than you would get standing next to the Fukushima Daiichi buildings. We are bombarded all day by high energy particles from the Sun. Low level radiation has actually been shown to trigger the body’s cell repair mechanisms which can actually reduce one’s risk of cancer. This effect is known as hormesis (please research this). Radiation must be managed but it is not as scary as people make out. There are estimated to be zero deaths as a result of Fukushima worldwide. Again, please research this.
  
  “I know with long time experience that thousands of barrels of radioactive waste have been dumped at sea all over the planet”
  
  Again I was curious to know what the figure on this was. Wikipedia has a page on this, Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste. Yes, it looks like some reprehensible countries did this until it was banned in 1993. This is terrible. But it has been banned and isn’t a consideration moving forwards. Also if we used MSRs as outlined above, the waste problem becomes significantly reduced.
  
  “broken, cracked or even completely opened barrels are all over the ocean floors”
  
  This is terrible and should be cleaned up.
  
  But, really, I’m more concerned about mercury in the ocean, which is present the world over and in almost every fish. 40% of the Mercury in the ocean comes from, oh look, Coal power plants. Mercury posioning has caused far more deaths worldwide than radiation. Please, again, research this. It’s all there on Wikipedia and google.
  
  “thousands of liters of radioactive waste water are still washing out to the sea each day”
  
  On the Fukushima Disaster Cleanup page on Wikipedia, in December 2011 150 litres of water contaminated with radioactive strontium escaped into the sea. On April 2012, 12,000 liters of contaminated water were released. There doesn’t seem to have been any other major leaks. So your claim that it is washing out to sea each day seems overblown. It is unfortunate that radioactive material has already leaked out to sea, which highlights that unsafe designs such as Fukushima must be fixed or shut down. I think we can all agree on this point. Not all Nuclear plants are like Fukushima, and as I keep pointing out, different designs, such as the MSR design, can’t release material in this way. With an MSR the nuclear fuel is in a molten salt. If containment is lost the salt freezes into a solid which can be scooped up and put back in the reactor. Because they don’t use water coolant, a leak can’t escape into the environment.
  
  “polluting the Pacific Ocean in such a way that the state of Hawaii is getting pretty upset about the northern current that brings all that outfall to their islands.. and also to the shores of Canada and Western US and Mexico… so what do you mean that nuclear energy is safe and doesn’t kill…, please have a closer look at this disastrous way of energy…”
  
  Again this has no basis in fact. Please read the Wikipedia page Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties. There are risks with all industry. There have been more deaths from installing Solar panels on roofs for heavens sake! Look at the numbers! Numbers don’t lie!
  
  “Another point is that in Fukushima the owner of the Tepco plant is already getting pretty nervous about the years to come: they have no idea what to do with the ever still warming up kernels of the plants.. they don’t have the means to keep them cooled down in the (near!) future: in other words: Fukushima is still a time bomb that can explode any moment from now on and create another enourmous disaster many times worse than 2011 or Tchernobyl”
  
  This is simply not true. Please provide evidence for this. The plants are no longer in a critical configuration – the fuel rods are immersed in water and are being kept cool. If water cooling is lost, then the fuel will melt, but it is contained. This hysteria has no basis in fact.
  
  “So please, let’s get our forces together to get as much renewable energy as possible, I came to Japan to see what I could do about installing as many solar panels as possible to help out resolving the energy crisis Japan is in at the moment, the problem I face here is that there is hardly any entry possible to do so, I cannot get a foot aground to start installing, the Electric Company here in Kyushu didn’t want to spare some time to let me try to explain how things are done in Germany and other parts of Europe: Germany is already that far with its energy solutions that it can run on renewable energy almost completely in sunny days in summer!! The worldwide research to energy storage will be of great help to establish more confidence in this technology and the great example of Chinese producers of solar panels (today most of them of excellent quality..) that provide panels for extremely low prices should be followed worldwide, creating thousands of jobs everywhere to install these panels and make our world less dependent on fossil fuels or nuclear power.”
  
  That is a very noble effort and I am supportive of it. I too am in favour of renewable energy and we do need to install more of it. But as I’ve stated in my other replies, renewables do not have the energy density of other forms of fuel and are therefore always going to be more expensive than coal, gas or nuclear. The market demands cheap energy and will not pay 3-6 times more for electricity. This means without Nuclear that the market will adopt coal, which is disastrous. You have more to fear from Coal and CO2 than you do from Nuclear, honestly.
  
  I believe the world needs to unite on pushing new nuclear technologies such as the Molten Salt Reactor. Have you even looked at this technology? Please, search for “Thorium Remix” on Youtube. It will open your eyes to the possibilities out there.
john.snow@gameofthrones.com

I side with Alasdair on this. Though green energy gives people a sense of moral superiority, it’s just not affordable. Nuclear energy is the most affordable (and least polutant) of energy sources right now. Many assume that just because green technology exists that it should be used by all, but solar and wind technologies are still too expensive. And until wind and solar energy technologies are innovated to a point were they can be cheaply mass produced and provide a sufficient source of energy, nuclear is the best bet. That is, unless you’re a fan of fossil fuel energies.
billbob

I keep reading these messages about the cost of energy from renewables being 3x the cost of nuclear. Before you assume it’s fact because of some comment try googling it and then you can ignore the industry paid spokesman. Try also looking up the cost of nuclear power subsidies.

Plain and simple, we need to focus on research in alternative energy and not taxpayer fund large ominous potential catastrophic problems.
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  If I’m an industry paid spokesman, perhaps you’d like to Google who I am? My name is Alasdair Lumsden and if you google me you’ll find I have nothing to do with the Nuclear industry. Look up EveryCity, the company I run in the UK.
  
  I could just as easily claim you’re paid by those who seek to discredit Nuclear energy. But do I do this? No, of course I don’t, because it’s alarmist nonsense.
  
  There are plenty of articles pushed by the renewable energy industry which show it’s “cheaper than coal” – just as there are plenty of articles showing that coal is vastly cheaper than wind and solar. Many players in each respective industry seeks to portray their energy source as the cheapest.
  
  However if you look at independent reports that consider all factors, including the cost of supplying to the grid, the real world capacity factors of the generation systems (i.e. how much of the time the systems are producing energy in the real world, not on paper, how their intermittent power is compensated for by fast-acting inefficient natural gas turbines), solar and wind come out quite expensive.
  
  But you can hardly accuse me of being an industry spokesman when I myself use Ecotricity in the UK, a Wind power electricity company. Thankfully it doesn’t cost me too much more because the cost is borne out by all the other power companies through wind power government subsidies:
  
  “Wind farms are made profitable by subsidies through Renewable Obligation Certificates which provide over half of wind farm revenue.[109] The total annual cost of the Renewables Obligation topped £1 billion in 2009 and is expected to reach £5 billion by 2020, of which about 40% is for wind power.[110] This cost is added to end-user electricity bills.”
  
  This is from the Wikipedia page Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom.
  
  You’re right, existing Nuclear power is a disaster in the UK – the UK government has completely failed to come up with a comprehensive policy on it, which has scared off investors, meaning subsidies are necessary. The green movement has also been successful in legally delaying the construction of new nuclear plants. So great, we’ve been building new Gas and Coal plants – more CO2 and more air pollution, more mercury pollution, yay!
  
  If £1bn of that was directed into researching Molten Salt Reactors, we’d have CO2 free safe clean energy that was cheaper than Coal. If I was an industry spokesman I wouldn’t be advocating MSRs because the existing nuclear industry is against them too – this technology is disruptive and would completely put them out of business.
  
  Please, if you care about the environment, research Molten Salt Reactors. The best way to start is to search for “Thorium Remix” on Youtube or watch Kirk Sorensen’s Ted Talk.
- Barry
  
  I can vouch for Alasdair Lumsden, having spoken with him in Chicago last week at the Thorium Energy Alliance Conference 5. He is, as he claims, in the web hosting business. Unless he’s lying to a fellow thorium advocate, which I sincerely doubt.
  
  That said, watch this video by Kirk Sorenson (founder of Flibe Energy, the major U.S. player in development of a Thorium-fueled LFTR reactor). It will only take 5 minutes, and your mind will be blown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY
  
  As Alasdair states, thorium-fueled Molten Salt Reactors have huge benefits that I do not have time to cover. Instead, read his many posts in this thread. MSRs in general (thorium, uranium, or plutonium fueled) are safe, produce zero waste, and will power the world. Their major hold-up is the anti-nuclear “environmentalist” lobby, the fossil fuel lobby, and the existing nuclear industry (whose technology will become as obsolete as Windows 95 the day the first commercial MSR is built).
PandaWatch

The Japanese are more than welcome to refuse the use of nuclear energy, as long as they don’t complain when energy prices go up, there are AC blackouts due to hot summers, and not being able to meet the standards of their ever-so-favoured Kyoto protocols due to the increased use of fossil fuels (used mitigate the lack of energy coming from solar and wind energy sources).
KB

Even “Unevolved Apes” don’t want nukes. Maybe apes ESPECIALLY DON’T want nukes. Animals are usually more intelligent and compassionate than humans.
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  I think if you asked them if they’d like their habitat chopped down to make way for bioethanol they’d disagree.
  - Asavari Honavar
    
    Mr. Alasdair,
    
    To me you sound like those trolls who infiltrate into progressive news sites, and use it to spread disinformation about a very very important subject. These trolls always use the card close to the heart of the progressive people, give a few examples to support this notion (like you used the “I am an environmentalist” card) which may be partially true, and then when you have got a good fan following you attack the original premise and make the very very important subject redundant.
    
    Sorry if I don’t buy into your earnest pleas of how nuclear power is the only way forward! It very well is not…. I am not even going to be polite. I am going to come straight out and say, i will believe you only when you expose yourself to some exposed uranium kernels and then see, whether you can still stand smart and proud and say “I am an Environmentalist, I use renewables, I do everything to recycle and still feel that Nuclear Power is the only way to go till we find other non-exhaustible sources of energy!”
    
    Sir you are no environmentalist, if you do not know what it is to live off the grid. I rest my case.
    - Alasdair Lumsden
      
      Hi Asavari,
      
      Well I call myself an environmentalist because I care about the environment. If Wind and Solar produced constant green power do you think I’d be arguing with you? No I wouldn’t. I’d be fighting hard to ensure that they got built, and opposing all other forms of energy.
      
      But that just isn’t the reality we live in. Wind and Solar account for less than 2% of electricity production worldwide.
      
      So, please explain your position on fossil fuels and climate change. Then explain how you would solve the problem?
      
      If the answer is renewables, please explain how you intend to tell the market that they need to pay significantly more for their electricity. Then explain how you intend for the economy to keep growing.
      
      Thanks,
      
      Alasdair
      - Asavari Honavar
        
        Hi Mr. Alasdair,
        
        Solar power needs to only be tapped. Govts all over the planet put in lots of money to build electricity grids, build dams on rivers, and sponsor oil rigs in pristine wild places…. not to mention these idiotic nuclear powerplants – all they do is boil water and use the steam! But they will not put the money in reqd to build solar grids all over! Why because with Solar power all other energy resources can put paid to oblivion.
        
        Unless some company like Shell, BP or Esso come forward and say that we are here to save the world no govt of the world will ever say that Solar Power is good, sustainable or even worth putting our minds together for.
        
        Saying that Solar power does not produce constant green energy is a JOKE!!! Please laugh at yourself. The Sun is constantly sending energy to the earth, now if mankind does not know how to harness it, it’s not the sun’s fault.
        
        Btw, your argument is particularly baseless. Please get down from your soapbox of “I am an environmentalist – because I am concerned about the environment.” You sound like a stuck record or better still a power plant stooge who has learnt to parrot well for the powers that Be. Environmentalists do not stand on the fringe/fence and debunk sound choices, on the basis of mere concerns. They go into the thick of things and ACT!
        
        What is your contribution to saving the planet? please give at least one example of physical action/participation in any protest/volunteering at any of the many environmental organisations/ scientific researches conducted for the benefit of the planet etc. Disclaimer: Donations and platitudes don’t count!
        
        Also you never even touched the carrot I dangled in front of you in my previous post! That is definitely not a sign of the environmentalist! 😉
        
        Just FYI, The sun’s energy, which hits Earth in the form of photons, can be converted into electricity or heat. Solar collectors come in many different forms and are already used successfully by energy companies and individual homeowners. The two widely known types of solar collectors are solar cells and solar thermal collectors. But researchers are pushing the limits to more efficiently convert this energy by concentrating solar power by using mirrors and parabolic dishes. Part of the challenge for employing solar power involves motivation and incentives from governments. In January, the state of California approved a comprehensive program that provides incentives toward solar development. Arizona, on the other hand, has ample sunshine but has not made solar energy a priority. In fact in some planned communities it is downright discouraged by strict rules of aesthetics.
        
        Till the time, mankind does not understand that their survival is dependent solely upon the wellness of the planet at whatever the cost, they will not tap the Solar Energy option, 1. because it’s cheap and people do not have to pay back to the govt or any pvt power companies, for being able to generate their own electricity and use it. 2. Solar power truly represents a change in lifestyle – going off the grid! – urban populations don’t want to let go of their toys.
        
        Wakey! Wakey!
        
        Enough of sermon… But if you are really the environmentalist you say you are, you’d know that there are umpteen number of emerging environmental technologies to choose from, that are good enough to make Nuclear Power redundant… thermo depolymeristaion, bioremediation, H2 fuel cell, Tidal power, Roof gardens in the style of Babylon, biomass, gas hydrates, Leaf gadgets, and many more.
        
        So let’s really rethink that fancy label you have donned and go past it. “I am an environmentalist!” is merely yet another label, very easy to discard when convenient! Think about it.
        
        Signing off now. Have a great sunshiney day. :-)))
      - Alasdair Lumsden
        
        lol! I see we have the conspiracy theorists on here. Yes, the evil governments are preventing the use of renewables.
        
        Except, actually, the only reason renewables are even slightly affordable is due to, oh look, GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES.
    - Barry
      
      Gwyneth Cravens is an environmentalist. See why she recently reversed her position on nuclear power in Pandora’s Promise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDw3ET3zqxk
  - Asavari Honavar
    
    Btw… a biotechnologist friend of mine is running a research in the city I live in funded by our govt. She says you do not need to chop down the habitat to make bioethanol. She makes it in her lab out of straw (by-product of husk left overs from the farm harvests)
    
    …See there are options everywhere! Screw this nuclear power. 😛
    - Alasdair Lumsden
      
      If you don’t put the husk back into the earth you have to use more fertiliser, which is made from fossil fuels and has a CO2 impact. You’re not looking at the whole picture.
Anthony Kocken

The prices of solar energy are kept high.., but it doesn’t have to be like that! Every form of energy has its price. As I stated before it is possible to run our energy needs on renewable energies, it is purely a matter of will, if a gouvernment does support its citizens and subsidizes a part of the costs of solar home installation it will encourage the inhabitants to closer look at their energy consumption, this has been proven in Germany and The Netherlands, where I am from, the effect is much greater than simply mentioning the (too)

high costs at the moment. A well installed solar system has a price when installed, but after that it will run for years without any kind of serious maintenance! The products are guaranteed for 20 – 25 years of functioning to 75 – 80 % original power level, which other product you buy gives you that guarantee??

Why do people moan about the price of a solar installation for their home that costs today about € 10.000 for an installed 3 kW system or € 15.000 for an installed 5 kW system (average coverage for a small to medium household!) and pay 5 or 6 times that amount for the new car, that lasts maybe 5 years… !? Above all the car looses its value very fast, after a year or so only half the value is left…, it is a matter of wanting to invest, of caring for the environment and I must say that fuel and nuclear companies want to keep selling their products to whatever what price, to have their investments payed back! In this same article you read that the nuclear companies are loosing 16 billion dollars if they stay offline, now isn’t that a major proof of why they want the nuclear plants to restart??? And isn’t it a proof as well that nuclear energy is not a cheap technology, it is oversubsidised by governments to keep it working, look at the energy expenses of any nuclear fuelled country!

You state also that in the years to come our consumption will increase with 50%, I am shocked by this statement. I see our energy consumption go down in the years to come, and I mean going down, we have to get used to use less power, we do build better and better appliances that will run much more efficient on energy, we are building new A/C reversible systems that run on heatpumps and do not use electrical heating anymore, like in all nuclear powered countries we do have to get rid of this kind of heating, which has been promoted in the times the first reactors were build with the argument that nuclear electric energy was safe and cheap…
As I stated I live in Fukuoka, Kyushu, and this part of Japan is very suitable for solar industry development, alone for the amount of sunlight throughout the year, I am surprised that the electrical company here chooses to buy palmoil from its own plantations in Indonesia, have it transported to here and then burned in the old plants that have been re-opened after many years of idling.., and that is not expensive?? All that money involved in this way of operating could not be used more efficiently and especially more environmentally sound? Please check again on Germany, you will see that you can run on renewables for a high percentage already! I hope Japan will work out its plans to install the 5 GWs of solar they want to install this year, I haven’t seen any big development out here yet!
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  It’s well documented. It’s called “the developing world”. China has plans to build 1000 more coal plants.
  
  It’s certainly possible and very likely that existing developed nations will reduce their per-capita energy usage, but the worldwide per-capita energy usage is an order of magnitude less. This is what is set to increase.
  
  Energy is needed for a high quality of life – it provides refrigeration, light, communication and entertainment.
  
  As for Germany, their CO2 emissions as a result of shutting down their Nuclear plants has skyrocketed.
  
  “The additional German emissions alone could add up to more than 300 million tons by 2020, which according to the World Nuclear Association, would ‘virtually cancel out the 335-million-ton savings intended to be achieved in the entire European Union by the 2011 Energy Efficiency Directive’,” – New Scientist.
  
  Renewables are great, lets build them, but can we please keep existing safe nuclear plants online TODAY so as not to completely usher in 4°C+ of worldwide warming?
  
  In case none of you have noticed, we have a CO2 catastrophe on our hands. Coal and Gas plants are the enemy of us all. Nuclear and Renewables are both CO2 free. Climate change will kill and displace millions of people worldwide – vast numbers compared to the 0 deaths as a result of Fukushima.
ozzythaman

why the hell is it so damn difficult for ‘leaders’ to listen to the people?
wtf do they think democracy is? why dont they ask how many want a or b and do accordingly??
Asavari Honavar

Yet another troll!?! 😛

whats with this assumption that i need to google the phrase?
billbob

Report in 2011 and we want to build more of them – “U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has calculated the odds of an earthquake causing catastrophic failure to a nuclear plant here. Each year, at the typical nuclear reactor in the U.S., there’s a 1 in 74,176 chance of an earthquake strong enough to cause damage to the reactor’s core, which could expose the public to radiation. No tsunami required. That’s 10 times more likely than you winning $10,000 by buying a single ticket in the Powerball multi state lottery, where the chance is 1 in 723,145.”
- Alasdair Lumsden
  
  These numbers are very suspect, because someone wins the Powerball multi-state lottery every week.
  
  Anyway, if we used Molten Salt Reactors instead of Pressurised Water Reactors, the entire building being razed to the ground wouldn’t result in any airborne nuclear release because the salt immediately freezes.
Adam Armstrong

As someone who owns a house quit close to the equator, yes, this is quite possible for a significant portion of the planet.

It’s not possible yet, though, as solar has still not dropped low enough to be feasible.

It’s also not /that/ feasible for more sun-deprived regions, especially when you take in to account the transmission inefficiencies of electricity.

Either way, this is future stuff, it’s not *quite* ready yet. The sensible solution for now until then is Nuclear. It’s proven safer and cleaner than the alternatives, especially in Europe where I am from.
- Qaz Janssen
  
  You may be mistaken on the safety record of nuclear energy. Just have a look at the list of incidents on nuclear power plants.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
Adam Armstrong

Fukushima was an old style reactor which was already known to be relatively unsafe. No future reactors would have any of the safety problems associated with Fukushima, we solved those problems a long time ago.
- AmIJustAPessimistOrWhat?
  
  This is the problem: Even though the problems and risks and how to avoid them are understood, finally it is short term profit which decides policy. How can market forces govern the closing of a reactor?
P tomas

Solar panel fields an geothermal reuseable resorces like wind an hydro electric will benifit the restart of a eco friendly fres start ..
billbob

The availability of various incentives including state or federal tax credits can also impact the calculation of levelized cost. The values shown in the tables below do not incorporate any such incentives.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm

Sure 3x the cost sounds good for nuclear but damn those scientists and actual credible sources.
Alasdair Lumsden

Yes there are a lot of disinformation spreading trolls, especially on this comment thread.

I’d happily go and live in Fukushima.

You should look at Radiation Hormesis (google it)
Alasdair Lumsden

Hi Dan,

Please could you research how much radioactive waste Coal plants spew into the atmosphere as particulate matter, and let me know the figure? Then can you let me know how much radioactive matter a typical modern Nuclear reactor spews out? I happen to know the figures, but I encourage people to do their own research.

Little bit confused about the “plants use CO2” comment – I think we all know this. Are you saying 99% of the scientists on earth are wrong about climate change, and that CO2 will all simply be converted to oxygen?

Regards,

Alasdair
Alasdair Lumsden

Yes, let’s all live in solar powered yurts.
Alasdair Lumsden

I happened to be stuck in an Airport for half a day with very little to do.

The internet has transformed the world we live in, making information available to all, and facilitates democratic uprisings the world over through social media networks. The internet empowers people, and provides service based employment to large numbers of people. You’re using it right now. So I’m afraid I disagree with you.
apeman2502

The Yakuza controls the government and the Rockefeller/Bush S&Bs control the Yakuza. What we are seeing in this protest is the solid, talented minds that produce the genius optics, automobiles, consumer electronics, and a host of other goods in Japan, despite the criminals dominating and screwing everything up. We shall overcome.
debris54

billbob … don’t be a dick … your posts are trite and frankly, absurd. LISTEN to what is being said. Like so many of your ilk, your knees jerk so badly, it must be hard to piss without getting it all over the floor.
debris54

uh… I was LIVING IN JAPAN AT THE TIME ALL THIS HAPPENED … and NONE of what you describe happened … at ALL … if YOU were a true ‘environmentalist’ you would take the time to get OFF your high horse and READ THE POST PROPERLY

60,000 in Tokyo protest government plans to restart nuclear power

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60,000 in Tokyo protest government plans to restart nuclear power

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Editorial

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