Beginners guide to nuclear power stations ?

TandemJeremy – Member

3mile island? This sort of stupidity is not the preserve of the USSR

Yes, because Yanks and gung-ho aren’t often seen in the same sentence….

TBH, neither the safety nor the economics are going to be big concerns to the Powers That Be.

The attractive thing to governments (rightly or wrongly) about nuclear power is that it is not dependent on foreign supplies of gas, or coal from heavily unionized labour forces. And it actually generates power in usable quantities most of the time.

Cost? Governments of all hues, deep down, *like* to spend money, so long as it’s going to their friends.

Deaths? Not very many, and at least in the UK, we’ve shown ourselves quite content to put up with far more deaths in other fields for far less tangible benefits.

Nuclear power isn’t actually dangerous even in the wrong hands, however it does form one step along the way to making dangerous things.

well granted a reactor is safer than a bomb i think we can all concede that point.
If it is not actually dangerous in the wrong hands i would assume their is minimal knowledge required to run , install and operate one? in fact i could do it with my o level physics.
You could think they are well controlled via design and fail safes to reduce the risk to a tolerable/acceptable/minimal level. Not dangerous is a tad too far a claim IMHO.

Yes, because Yanks and gung-ho aren’t often seen in the same sentence….

😆

in fact i could do it with my o level physics.

Well, it’s not rocket science is it?

Googling confirms what I say, Aracer. Once again you are accusing someone of lying when in fact you yourself haven’t got a clue. You contested that there is enough hydro in Europe for my level of consumption and I proved you wrong using your figures for production capacity, care to admit it and apologise.

I’m not going to link one sourse because they all say roughly the same and the most complete reports are PDF files. You Google and find a site that does not say:

1/ the experiment the operators were carrying out had been programmed by the nuclear authorities (the party) three years before the accident but repeatedly put off. The final go ahead came from Kiev. The accident is viewed by some as “a failure of the soviet system not a nuclear failure”.

2/ The accident occured after operators had broken nine important safety rules. They were neither qualified nor experienced in the theory of how the reactor worked and were daft enough to do things they shuldn’t have.

3/ The supervisor that ordered the experiment on site was in fact asleep in his bed at the time having delegated the work. He wasn’t immediately killed by the 3.5SV dose he got but died of a heart attack during the ten-year prison term he got.

So, Aracer, I suggest you do a little research yourself before accusing people of bullshitting because the above is factually correct and differs from your version. It is an expanded verion of my original simplified but correct contribution.

The people making the decisions were also rather more directly involved in pushing buttons than you suggest, hence paid the ultimate price.

You are wrong, he got 10 years in prsion and it was a heart attack that killed him.

He wasn’t immediately killed by the 3.5SV dose he got but died of a heart attack during the ten-year prison term he got.

3.5 Sieverts

3.5 Sieverts!

And earlier in the thread, certain people were telling us about the drastic effects and certain death that would come to the Fukushima workers who received less than 200 milliSieverts!

and the horrific death toll of the people who have been exposed to microscopically small doses by way of comparison.

i love this thread. 😆

pointless and completely static; it has re ignited my passion for watching slow car crash arguments on stw 8)

Economist Nucleur Power debate

It seems the general public are largely in favour of Nucleur Power, 70% to 30% in fact, despite the on-going problems at Fukushima Daiichi.

Personally, I’m in favour also.

I’m in favour of blowing you lot up, with a nuke, from orbit.

Do I get a prize?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

afrothunder88 – Member

It seems the general public are largely in favour of Nucleur Power, 70% to 30% in fact, despite the on-going problems at Fukushima Daiichi.

Well according to your poll three days ago 51% were opposed and 49% were in favour. Which just shows what a bit of heavy voting can achieve.

BTW, do you always claim when any publication, including presumably the Sun, carries out an on-line poll, it represents the opinions of “the general public” ?

BTW, do you always claim when any publication, including presumably the Sun, carries out an on-line poll, it represents the opinions of “the general public” ?

Certainly not, but I would imagine that the Economist has a larger cross section of users than STW, and thus be more indicative of “the general public” than STW. A daft assertion? Maybe.

Well according to your poll three days ago 51% were opposed and 49% were in favour. Which just shows what a bit of heavy voting can achieve.

Alternatively, it could suggest that people who read the debate, at some point changed their mind and voted the opposite way.

the Economist has a larger cross section of users than STW, and thus be more indicative of “the general public” than STW. A daft assertion? Maybe

well not the most confident claim I have ever seen on here. I doubt it to be honest we share a hobby the economist has a philosphical outlook on the world in which we live which I would assume is shared by the majority of its readers

6] It takes an editorial stance based on free trade and globalisation, but also the expansion of government health and education spending, as well as other, more limited, forms of governmental intervention

ie it’s a bit right wing i wonder what guardian readers think of nukes ?

Alternatively, it could suggest that people who read the debate, at some point changed their mind and voted the opposite way.

is it the same set of people asked? it just shows that at least one of the stuides is flawed

There was an interesting program about the Chernobyl death rates today.

Fallout: The Legacy of Chernobyl
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010mckx

There was an interesting program about the Chernobyl death rates today.

Fallout: The Legacy of Chernobyl
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010mckx

Care to give us a summary?

It was something along the lines of there have been 6 confirmed deaths post Chernobyl caused by thyroid cancer (but could have been avoided if iodine tablets had been issued). Estimates of unconfirmed deaths range from 0 to tens of thousands, but they appear to all just be conjecture and supposition to a large extent. The upper figure when put in the context of the time period and population size equates to the square root of **** all significance in terms of health risks.

Chernobyl was (as someone posted above)a result of several failings, and was 100% avoidable it was a lack of professionalism and training that caused the accident. that was compounded by the design of the reactor one that is no longer built and only a few are still being used in the world today.

pwr reactors which i belive are what there going to use in the new power stations are very safe as a loss of cooling actually makes them safe due to the way they moderate the nuclear reactions.

It was something along the lines of there have been 6 confirmed deaths post Chernobyl caused by thyroid cancer (but could have been avoided if iodine tablets had been issued).

its kind of ironic that the only deaths that can be dirrectly attributed to chernobyl are the ones caused by raditaion that cannot even penatrate the skin.

On the other hand a French TV crew visited schools, hospitals and doctors in the Tchernobyl area recently and the health records of the population are catastrophic.

One doctor interviewed summarised the health records for one class of kids and concluded that they were all ill with diseases plausibly related to radiation. Despite this the fact was not recognised which meant the state did not have to pay for the medication. The same went for some of the liquidateurs interviewed who are seriously ill but cannot pay for the drugs they need as their illness is not recognised as being radiation related even though their doctors claim it is.

Ian – claims for deaths are up to hundreds of thousands. thousands to tens of thousands is the accepted figure. A very narrowly drawn UN report gave 4000.

thousands to tens of thousands is the accepted figure. A very narrowly drawn UN report gave 4000.

You got a source for those figures (preferrably not greenpeace) and do they specifically refer to confirmed deaths or just suspected ones?

I think if holocaust deniers can provide “evidence” that the Nazis never killed over 6 million Jews, then we can safely assume that evidence can be found which shows that only six people where killed by Chernobyl.

The great thing about “facts”, is that they can be very conveniently tailored to suit your own personal beliefs.

You got a source for those figures (preferrably not greenpeace) and do they specifically refer to confirmed deaths or just suspected ones?

The 4000 deaths referred to in the UN/WHO report are those that are likely to occur in the population above and beyond what would normally be expected. Some of these extra deaths will have occurred and some are yet to occur. It will be incredibly hard to attribute any single one of them to the disaster at Chernobyl but looking at the population as a whole patterns will emerge.

The 6 deaths people refer to are those where it is possible to say that a specific individual’s death was down to the disaster.

Its wiki but follow the links to sources. Given that some folk calim 6 deaths – an oblivious lie as dozens of people died of acute radaition sickness in the immediate aftermath and some reputable folk claim hundreds of thousands of deaths I think saying that thousands to tens of thousands sounds reasonable and in line with the evidence to me

Another study critical of the Chernobyl Forum report was commissioned by Greenpeace, which asserts that “the most recently published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine alone the accident could have resulted in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths in the period between 1990 and 2004.”[13] The Scientific Secretary of the Chernobyl Forum criticized the report’s exclusive reliance on non-peer reviewed locally produced studies (in fact, most of the study’s sources are from peer-reviewed journals, including many Western medical journals, or from proceedings of scientific conferences[13]), while Gregory Härtl (spokesman for the WHO) suggested that the conclusions were motivated by ideology.[111]

The German affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) argued that more than 10,000 people are today affected by thyroid cancer and 50,000 cases are expected in the future.[112]

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment is an English translation of the 2007 Russian publication Chernobyl. It was published online in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences in their Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. It presents an analysis of scientific literature and concludes that medical records between 1986, the year of the accident, and 2004 reflect 985,000 deaths as a result of the radioactivity released. The authors suggest that most of the deaths were in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but others were spread through the many other countries the radiation from Chernobyl struck.[14] The literature analysis draws on over 1,000 published titles and over 5,000 internet and printed publications discussing the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. The authors contend that those publications and papers were written by leading Eastern European authorities and have largely been downplayed or ignored by the IAEA and UNSCEAR.[113] Author Alexy V. Yablokov was also one of the general editors on the Greenpeace commissioned report also criticizing the Chernobyl Forum finds published one year before the Russian-language version of this report.[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/nuclear-eternity/4od

Nuclear Eternity
Interesting documentary on burying nuclear waste in Finland, screened on More4 last week. The overall premise being a letter to the future civilisations on earth. Assuming that, as the site has to be sealed for 100 000+ years, our civilisation will long since have gone.

Edit – too slow….!

TJ – I take it you haven’t actually gone to the BBC listen again link and listened to what was said!

I think saying that thousands to tens of thousands sounds reasonable

You think? You Think? Oh, well, I’ll phone the BBC and make sure they get Nick Ross to come round to your house to get your opinion next time they’re making a serious documentary, since clearly the worlds greatest experts are wrong, and you’re right!

I’ll also phone Nature, and get them to replace peer review with a new method, whereby they precis each scientific paper with a commentary called “TJ Thinks” since your opinion is worth so much more than the scientists!

PS – TJ, Cutting and pasting an article off wiki that supports you, really, really, doesn’t make your argument any stronger, go and listen to the BBC link, and you’ll see just why you’re talking complete and utter bollocks!

zzzzzzzzzzz

I think if holocaust deniers can provide “evidence” that the Nazis never killed over 6 million Jews, then we can safely assume that evidence can be found which shows that only six people where killed by Chernobyl

Quite true, but have you listened to the program?
I thought Z11 was talking complete guff about the number of deaths. But it does appear that the public’s perception of the level of deaths caused may well be wildly out of kilter with the reality. It would be a real shame if people are just sticking their fingers in their ears, wiggling them about, and shouting “Not Listening!!!”.
BTW if I hear a science program on R4 explaining that only 6 Jews were killed, I’ll let you know.

Quite true, but have you listened to the program?

Yes and it confirmed what’s been said previously on this thread, in that there is a huge amount of conjecture about the number of fatalities due to Chernobyl. The program was quite balanced on this and presented both view points; from confirmed deaths of up to about 50 individuals to projected additional cancers and deaths of 40 000 and 16 000 respectively. It did not draw conclusions on the overall cancer/deaths.

It also touches quite well on the social, psychological and economic impacts on the community.