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[SirAaronIII]

OBVIOUSLY Chernobyl blew up because they discovered ancient alien technology and it blew up in their faces because they didn't know what it was!!!!

But seriously I'm pretty sure they jacked something up majorly over there, and I know nothing other than the fact it exploaded. BECAUSE ALIENS!!!!!!!

[Necro910]

Why people are so abhorent to nuclear power when this crap happens I'll never understand

Because NUCLEAR RADIATION POISONING CHERNOBYL OMG AAH

Basically, they bow down in fear at the power of the mighty atom of which they know naught.

Coal emissions produce more radioactivity by far than fission plants. The odds of Chernobyl happening again [EMPHASIS]WHEN A FACILITY IS PROPERLY BUILT[/EMPHASIS] is next to nothing. Fusion plants, once we break 100% efficiency (nearing it now), will have zero chance of blowing up at all. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin...

This^

[Flying Dice]

Why people are so abhorent to nuclear power when this crap happens I'll never understand

Because NUCLEAR RADIATION POISONING CHERNOBYL OMG AAH

Basically, they bow down in fear at the power of the mighty atom of which they know naught.

Coal emissions produce more radioactivity by far than fission plants. The odds of Chernobyl happening again [EMPHASIS]WHEN A FACILITY IS PROPERLY BUILT[/EMPHASIS] is next to nothing. Fusion plants, once we break 100% efficiency (nearing it now), will have zero chance of blowing up at all. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin...

This^

The thing I've never understood about people who use Chernobyl as an example of the supposed dangers of nuclear energy is that they somehow think Cold War era Soviet technology/infrastructure is representative of anything that even begins to approach "well designed", "safe", or "not-built-on-a-shoestring-budget". Because international dickwaving contests are more important than ensuring that all of your people have no more than four limbs and one head.

[Peewee]

Er, guys?

"We believe [coal ash] was something that was used to fill the ravine area in that site during the 1950s. That's a practice that was discontinued several decades ago."

Pretty much not their fault, as those coal plants began construction in 2005 according to Wikipedia...
Scratch that.

[PTTG??]

But we can't use Nuclear! It's DANGEROUS!

[Tellemurius]

But we can't use Nuclear! It's DANGEROUS!

SILENCE YOU FOOL!
(Force choke, make it look like you're dying)

[Jake]

It seems to me that nuclear power suffers from an unfortunate coincidence of timing. By the 1970s we'd passed through the first, most dangerous phase of nuclear powerplant design; safety and efficiency still needed a lot of work, but we'd got the nitty-gritty of the physics worked out well enough that if plant workers blew the lid off their reactor vessel or something it was because they'd been cutting corners, not because they'd encountered something previously unknown to science.
Unfortunately, it was about that time that the aftermath of Vietnam and a big hike in oil prices put a dent in the US economy, and then the Eighties happened. Three Mile Island can't have helped.

[PTTG??]

Now is not the time to put nuclear away. Now is the time to modernize our fleet of reactors and establish new ones, and come up with a better storage system than eternal ponds.

[Anfold]

Thorium.

Use fucking thorium.

The technology for nuclear waste free reactors has been around since the goddamn sixties at least.  The US has an incredibly massive amount of the stuff.  NASA has had the plans for thorium lifters for at least a decade.

Look that up.

Stop reading homestuck right this second and go look it up.

[Derekristow]

Stop reading homestuck right this second and go look it up.

But... It just updated... 


I've heard about thorium before, I think I have an infographic on it laying around here somewhere...

Edit: Ah, here it is.  Linked because it's huge.

[scriver]

As I've understood it, Thorium isn't economically viable yet and there's a lot of myths and propaganda going around about it being taken for truth.

Personally, strong anti-nuclearian as I am, I want to see the plants modernised. All Swedish plants are from between 70-85, and they're practically falling apart (in a non-meltdown way), having to be inactive during large parts of the year for inspections and maintenance (though strangely enough the majority of inspections is scheduled to happen during winter ). How could they possibly be as safe or efficient as modern reactors? And, you know, safety is A and O - it doesn't matter how small the chances are, sooner or later there's going to be an accident. We just have to make sure those chances are as small as possible.

Then, once the reactors have been replaced by new, we can put more money into making renewable energy harvesters more efficient. Which is obviously necessary, as sooner or later we're going to run out of nuclear-power-able elements. But for now, getting rid of the carbon based energizers should be priority.

[Heron TSG]

Thorium.

Use fucking thorium.

The technology for nuclear waste free reactors has been around since the goddamn sixties at least.  The US has an incredibly massive amount of the stuff.  NASA has had the plans for thorium lifters for at least a decade.

Look that up.

Stop reading homestuck right this second and go look it up.

Righto, now just to get the sodium and fluoride to stop solidifying and ruining components forever... It's not hard to get Thorium, but it is hard to get it into a fissile state. To do so, you need massive temperatures. To counteract that, you need awesome coolant. Water simply will not do. They want to use liquid fluoride/sodium, but those require massive temperatures to maintain liquid form. If the reactor isn't at full capacity or a cold snap hits, the sodium/fluoride sticks to everything and takes weeks to remove, if it can be removed without destroying the component at all.

It's not a government coverup, it's just really hard.

[MarcAFK]

I just wanted to point out that reactors from the mid 80's are actually rather new considering many reactors take 25 years to even build.
I found a list somewhere showing how since the 50's reactor construction time has increased by a huge margin because of all the new technology and safety measures, i think it may have been in wikipedia.
Also people pointing out that the odds of chernobyl happening again are kinda forgetting what happened last year, yes different cercumstances, but the result was still 50% as much radiation released.
I had some useful point here but i can't remember it.

[scriver]

I just wanted to point out that reactors from the mid 80's are actually rather new considering many reactors take 25 years to even build.

If this was aimed at my comment about age, it should be noted that those years were (roughly, I don't know exact years) when they were start-ready. Which would make them from the 50's and 60's sometime.

[Criptfeind]

This is what you get when you let lesser states like Wisconsin control the great lakes. Send letters to your Congresspeople telling them to give all the lakes to Minnesota! Avoid this sorta shit again!