Message posted by gary on October 29, 2000 at 19:56:24 EST:

It's well known that the coal fired plants put more radioactivity into the air than the nukes.

I've gone over nuclear power with a friend who was a nuclear power plant worker (and worse yet a reactor jumper) and he swears the plants are well run. [He is an EE now, so the guy is technical.] The problems are all outside the plant. It wasn't that long ago that a fuel rod plant in Japan had a serious release due to human error. I also mentioned Diablo Canyon, which generally makes any pro-nuke stop talking. The problem of transporting the fuel and spent fuel still remains.

Nader is right that the spent rods should remain on site. This does not shut down the plants and really isn't that much more dangerous. However, the concern it would create would help fund alternative sources of energy.

The nuclear power industry is now old enough to demonstrate that those one in a million accidents have a much higher incidence than that. You have Three Mile Island (which was 60 miles away from me when it occurred) and Chernobul (sp). Diablo Canyon in California never had an accident, but had to be the biggest boondoggle ever. Some plans got reversed on the computer when it was drafted and the plant was actually built backwards in places. A college intern was working there and figured it out, leading to a redesign. This screw up predates the internet, but here is it:

PG&E was forced to redo seismic modifications in 1982 after building them backwards;

http://www.sfo.com/~rherried/diablo1.html

Human error will always be an element of nuclear energy, which is my biggest problem with the industry.

In Reply to: Re: Yeah sure...most right on the water table posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on October 29, 2000 at 18:50:32 EST:

Replies: