9 ms·

It really peeves me that there can be so little outcry (close to zero) and such immediate government action to shutdown nuclear plants when it's proven damn nea

by mvzink 14y ago

It really peeves me that there can be so little outcry (close to zero) and such immediate government action to shutdown nuclear plants when it's proven damn near impossible to get people to shut down coal plants. It's absurd. Coal is guaranteed to have costly negative health and environmental impacts on surrounding areas, while nuclear merely has the risk. I am glad something is being replaced by solar, but it is extremely aggravating that coal isn't getting the same treatment as nuclear.

spenrose 14y ago
350.org and others are working on it -- help them!
stfu 14y ago
The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". The only thing I do not get is why energy companies are not forced to carry more extensive insurance policies to the long term damages/risks they cause. Pushing this through all the way should provide enough incentives to move towards renewables.
- SagelyGuru 14y ago
  The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. It all works only because government(s) get their bombs, energy companies in cahoots with the government get their unrealistically low 'production costs' and the suckers taxpayers pay for any accidents and cleanups, whose costs are therefore never included in the accounting when making the comparisons. German electors still have some say in the matter and they did their sums.
  - VMG 14y ago
    If you think the government isn't in cahoots with coal and solar, I have bad news for you.
    - hyperbovine 14y ago
      If /only/ the US government were as cozy with solar as it is with coal. http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html
    - ktizo 14y ago
      The US is just starting a trade war with China over solar where they are putting a 31% tariff on Chinese panels, which will hugely increase the cost of solar in the US. http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-move-blinded-by-the-solar-light/ http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-mov...
  - cbsmith 14y ago
    > The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. I'm not sure how you can assert this to be true. Because it is a rare event, the premiums won't be that obscene, particularly if the carrier isn't carrying related policies. The expense of a nuclear plant failure is most certainly high but, for example, can't match the impact of say Katrina (and while no insurance company was carrying all the impact of Katrina, several of them bore far more than the costs of pretty of completely destroying an entire major city, which is more than any nuclear power plant failure). Certainly the money to be made from producing that much energy that cheaply outweighs the insurance costs. Ironically, I'd argue this is part of the problem with nuclear energy. If left completely unregulated, I could see that a typical nuclear power station would be built with quite spare safety precautions, with the expectation that it likely would fail within a certain period of time, with an insurance policy in place to cover the expenses when that occurs.
    - 14y ago
- Eeko 14y ago
  > The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". Not really. Nuclear disasters are bad for the environment, but considerably less bad than say... Building a city somewhere. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.ht... And "cough a bit more" is probably the understatement of a day. Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...) You are on track with the insurance policy. Though it's pretty safe to assume, that real costs of coal and carbon-based fuels are not calculated very well for insurance purposes either. The end-point of unstoppable climate-change could potentially render the entire earth inhabitable via the Venus-effect. Even most apocalyptic local consequences are pretty minor compared to those.
  - moe 14y ago
    Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. How about reading your own linked article before making a fool of yourself with claims like that? It says coal plants create more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant that has not broken down.
    - ori_b 14y ago
      It's true for common failure modes. Three Mile Island, for example, did leak less radioactive waste than a correctly working coal plant. The problem is that it's so politically difficult to build new nuclear plants so that old ones can be retired, that we're still using poorly designed plants from the 1960s that are already past their design lifetime. And then people are surprised that they're problematic.
      - fabjan 14y ago
- zizee 14y ago
  If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland now people can't live in the area. Animals don't deem to have a problem living in highly radioactive environments. They have more immediate issues than getting cancer. But for humans a nuclear meltdown is bad news. So its not through environment that suffers on the whole, more that it is no longer suitable for humans. But yes, the result of a nuclear disaster is much more dramatic in the short term, making it scarier than the same amount of damage that a coal powerplant dripfeeds.
  - stevoski 14y ago
    Agreed. I visited Chernobyl two years ago, and in all of Europe I've never seen a place so verdant, and teeming with wildlife. The canal especially had many large fish.
    - gritzko 14y ago
      Friend of mine studied mice in a nuclear disaster zone. Basically, mice adapted and there was no statistical difference compared to a control population (outside the zone).
  - DanBC 14y ago
    > Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland "Not scientifically justified". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm) > But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed". (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489 http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489) > "Many people come here expecting to see a lunar landscape, so when they see trees, and birds and a few mammals, they're surprised. > "They think, 'ah well maybe it's not so bad'. > "But what we're finding is that there is a significant impact on both the population and the biodiversity - the number of species - in the zone. And it's directly proportional to the level of contamination." (But the article mentions that this is a polarised debate, and that this is only one side.) Chernobyl Birds are Small Brained (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/9387395.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...) Insects in decline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm)
- deepGem 14y ago
  What about Thorium based Molten Salt reactors. According to this article, they are potentially safe. http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html
- coldarchon 14y ago
  I call this my hot-plate-theory. You can't teach a kid not to touch a hot plate, it has to feel the pain to understand.
danielharan 14y ago
Coal is probably cheaper. Nuclear is very capital intensive, costs are usually more than estimated. Maintenance also regularly goes over budget and schedule. Solar is increasingly cost-competitive. In my city there is at least one per block for the parking payment stations - it's cheaper than connecting them to the grid, even in the middle of the city. As the costs of solar go down and we know we can close down plants, the political focus will shift to coal. I can't wait.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  In the US, utilities are switching over from coal to natural gas for electricity, on account of advances in fracking which make gas dirt cheap. (Some trucking firms are also trying to switch to LNG fuel, as diesel remains expensive). Combined with this anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe, this places the US in the hilariously ironic position of reducing carbon dioxide emissions more than Europe even though they never bothered to make that an explicit priority. http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/05/americas-falling-carbon-dioxide-emissions http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/05/americas-f...
  - cygx 14y ago
    To be fair, let's take a look at the 2008 data [1] US EU-27 CO2 emission ~5.46·10^9 t ~4.18·10^9 t population ~304·10^6 ~498·10^6 emission per capita ~180 t ~83.9 t I do not see the US catching up any time soon... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#List_of_countries_by_2008_emissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
    - cantankerous 14y ago
      That is a pretty interesting number. I wonder what the industrial breakdown of those emissions are?
  - justsee 14y ago
    The analysis in that Economist opinion piece is rather poor, and reads more like an industry booster piece than a review of current knowledge about the process and impacts of fracking. A study was released late last year by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) [1] which found that a switch to natural gas would increase warming over the next few decades, as outlined in NCAR's report [2]. It acknowledges something the shale gas industry studiously avoids in calculating figures for its green credentials pitches: fugitive emissions. A significant amount of methane leakage occurs in the fracking process and piping of gases. When you add in the input-intensive activity of multiple well constructions, fracking, pipeline construction, and fugitive emissions the 'green' story of shale gas doesn't add up. The dismissal of fracking-triggered earthquakes is also odd, considering a US company (Cuadrilla) was forced to stop fracking in the UK after two seismic events occurred [3], a recent report by the UK was focused on mitigating fracking-related seismic events [4], and Cuadrilla released a report [5] which concluded "it is highly probable" hydraulic fracking triggered a number of tremors. When you factor in the unavoidable well contamination of underground aquifers (as pressure differences inevitably lead to aquifer water filling the fracked area over time) the shale gas 'bonanza' seems anything but. [1] http://www.springerlink.com/content/b430681263425q64/?MUD=MP http://www.springerlink.com/content/b430681263425q64/?MUD=MP [2] https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-natural-gas-would-do-little-global-climate-study-indicates https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-nat... [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/01/blackpool-earthquake-tremors-gas-drilling http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/01/blackpool-earthquak... [4] http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_047/pn12_047.aspx http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_047/pn12_047... [5] http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Geomechanical-Study-of-Bowland-Shale-Seismicity_02-11-11.pdf http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02...
vilda 14y ago
It's even worse - Angela Merkel responded in parliament that missing nuclear power plants will be replaces with NEW power plants on fossil fuel. The problem with photovoltaic is that it needs 100% backup in traditional power plants.
- drumdance 14y ago
  The problem with iPhone batteries is they need 100% backup in recharging stations.
- pgeorgi 14y ago
  There's not only photovoltaic but also wind turbines, water turbines, burning agricultural waste, and various means of storage to spread the harvest into weak times (though all of that has lots of potential for optimization, it's here now - sometimes for over 30 years). Combined, this allows various providers in Germany to sell energy without resorting to fossil or nuclear fuel, right now. The bad part (for big Energy Co.s and their buddy Angela Merkel) is that this way of doing things is too decentralized for the old oligopoly to keep an inherent edge over new entrants on the market. Building and operating a nuclear plant (or even a coal plant, in highly regulated Germany) can't be pulled off by just anybody. Setting up solar or wind power, and scaling up over time is possible even on a much more limited budget.
batista 14y ago
>It's absurd. Coal is guaranteed to have costly negative health and environmental impacts on surrounding areas, while nuclear merely has the risk. Yes, but it has a much larger risk: the risk of tens or hundred of thousands of people getting radiation poisoning, and the region becoming inhabitable for years. Plus it creates nuclear waste, that is not mere pollution, but extremely toxic for thousands or years. Not to mention the consequences to be had with a nuclear plant in the hands of the wrong people (terrorists and such). With a coal plant, not that many...
- mxey 14y ago
  For a hundred thousand years.
  - ori_b 14y ago
    However, the longer it lasts, the lower the intensity of radiation produced.
    - DasIch 14y ago
      You can't even safely assume that we will have political stability over the next couple of hundred years. Whether it takes a thousand or a million years either period is so long that is is insane to believe it could ever be stored securely.
fforw 14y ago
Nuclear plants also have guaranteed nuclear waste and Germany has no place to store these.
- ori_b 14y ago
  People severely overestimate the volume of nuclear waste produced by a plant. Storing it is more of a political problem than a technical one.
  - fforw 14y ago
    They told us this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Asse_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Asse_II would be safe, too.
- coldarchon 14y ago
  True, that's why the nuclear waste for wind power plants is stored in a 6 miles lake .. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-C...

by mvzink 14y ago

spenrose 14y ago

350.org and others are working on it -- help them!

stfu 14y ago

The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". The only thing I do not get is why energy companies are not forced to carry more extensive insurance policies to the long term damages/risks they cause. Pushing this through all the way should provide enough incentives to move towards renewables.

SagelyGuru 14y ago
The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. It all works only because government(s) get their bombs, energy companies in cahoots with the government get their unrealistically low 'production costs' and the suckers taxpayers pay for any accidents and cleanups, whose costs are therefore never included in the accounting when making the comparisons. German electors still have some say in the matter and they did their sums.
- VMG 14y ago
  If you think the government isn't in cahoots with coal and solar, I have bad news for you.
  - hyperbovine 14y ago
    If /only/ the US government were as cozy with solar as it is with coal. http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html http://solyndrabuilding.businesscatalyst.com/index.html
  - ktizo 14y ago
    The US is just starting a trade war with China over solar where they are putting a 31% tariff on Chinese panels, which will hugely increase the cost of solar in the US. http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-move-blinded-by-the-solar-light/ http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/obamas-latest-china-mov...
- cbsmith 14y ago
  > The reason is that the costs of a failure of a nuclear power station are such that no insurance company would take on such a risk on commercial basis and even if they did, no energy company would be able/willing to pay the premiums. I'm not sure how you can assert this to be true. Because it is a rare event, the premiums won't be that obscene, particularly if the carrier isn't carrying related policies. The expense of a nuclear plant failure is most certainly high but, for example, can't match the impact of say Katrina (and while no insurance company was carrying all the impact of Katrina, several of them bore far more than the costs of pretty of completely destroying an entire major city, which is more than any nuclear power plant failure). Certainly the money to be made from producing that much energy that cheaply outweighs the insurance costs. Ironically, I'd argue this is part of the problem with nuclear energy. If left completely unregulated, I could see that a typical nuclear power station would be built with quite spare safety precautions, with the expectation that it likely would fail within a certain period of time, with an insurance policy in place to cover the expenses when that occurs.
  - 14y ago
Eeko 14y ago
> The main difference is in my opinion the visible action - reaction relationship. If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie, while with coal plants you might have just people to "cough a bit more". Not really. Nuclear disasters are bad for the environment, but considerably less bad than say... Building a city somewhere. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.ht... And "cough a bit more" is probably the understatement of a day. Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...) You are on track with the insurance policy. Though it's pretty safe to assume, that real costs of coal and carbon-based fuels are not calculated very well for insurance purposes either. The end-point of unstoppable climate-change could potentially render the entire earth inhabitable via the Venus-effect. Even most apocalyptic local consequences are pretty minor compared to those.
- moe 14y ago
  Those fuckers even create more radioactive waste (which won't get collected) when they work as intended, than nuclear plants when they break down. How about reading your own linked article before making a fool of yourself with claims like that? It says coal plants create more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant that has not broken down.
  - ori_b 14y ago
    It's true for common failure modes. Three Mile Island, for example, did leak less radioactive waste than a correctly working coal plant. The problem is that it's so politically difficult to build new nuclear plants so that old ones can be retired, that we're still using poorly designed plants from the 1960s that are already past their design lifetime. And then people are surprised that they're problematic.
    - fabjan 14y ago
zizee 14y ago
If a nuclear power plant blows up, the whole area is going to look for years to come like a scene from a apocalyptic movie Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland now people can't live in the area. Animals don't deem to have a problem living in highly radioactive environments. They have more immediate issues than getting cancer. But for humans a nuclear meltdown is bad news. So its not through environment that suffers on the whole, more that it is no longer suitable for humans. But yes, the result of a nuclear disaster is much more dramatic in the short term, making it scarier than the same amount of damage that a coal powerplant dripfeeds.
- stevoski 14y ago
  Agreed. I visited Chernobyl two years ago, and in all of Europe I've never seen a place so verdant, and teeming with wildlife. The canal especially had many large fish.
  - gritzko 14y ago
    Friend of mine studied mice in a nuclear disaster zone. Basically, mice adapted and there was no statistical difference compared to a control population (outside the zone).
- DanBC 14y ago
  > Chernobyl is actually a wildlife wonderland "Not scientifically justified". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm) > But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed". (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489 http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489) > "Many people come here expecting to see a lunar landscape, so when they see trees, and birds and a few mammals, they're surprised. > "They think, 'ah well maybe it's not so bad'. > "But what we're finding is that there is a significant impact on both the population and the biodiversity - the number of species - in the zone. And it's directly proportional to the level of contamination." (But the article mentions that this is a polarised debate, and that this is only one side.) Chernobyl Birds are Small Brained (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/9387395.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...) Insects in decline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm)
deepGem 14y ago
What about Thorium based Molten Salt reactors. According to this article, they are potentially safe. http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium.html
coldarchon 14y ago
I call this my hot-plate-theory. You can't teach a kid not to touch a hot plate, it has to feel the pain to understand.

danielharan 14y ago

Coal is probably cheaper. Nuclear is very capital intensive, costs are usually more than estimated. Maintenance also regularly goes over budget and schedule. Solar is increasingly cost-competitive. In my city there is at least one per block for the parking payment stations - it's cheaper than connecting them to the grid, even in the middle of the city. As the costs of solar go down and we know we can close down plants, the political focus will shift to coal. I can't wait.

fennecfoxen 14y ago
In the US, utilities are switching over from coal to natural gas for electricity, on account of advances in fracking which make gas dirt cheap. (Some trucking firms are also trying to switch to LNG fuel, as diesel remains expensive). Combined with this anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe, this places the US in the hilariously ironic position of reducing carbon dioxide emissions more than Europe even though they never bothered to make that an explicit priority. http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/05/americas-falling-carbon-dioxide-emissions http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/05/americas-f...
- cygx 14y ago
  To be fair, let's take a look at the 2008 data [1] US EU-27 CO2 emission ~5.46·10^9 t ~4.18·10^9 t population ~304·10^6 ~498·10^6 emission per capita ~180 t ~83.9 t I do not see the US catching up any time soon... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#List_of_countries_by_2008_emissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
  - cantankerous 14y ago
    That is a pretty interesting number. I wonder what the industrial breakdown of those emissions are?
- justsee 14y ago
  The analysis in that Economist opinion piece is rather poor, and reads more like an industry booster piece than a review of current knowledge about the process and impacts of fracking. A study was released late last year by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) [1] which found that a switch to natural gas would increase warming over the next few decades, as outlined in NCAR's report [2]. It acknowledges something the shale gas industry studiously avoids in calculating figures for its green credentials pitches: fugitive emissions. A significant amount of methane leakage occurs in the fracking process and piping of gases. When you add in the input-intensive activity of multiple well constructions, fracking, pipeline construction, and fugitive emissions the 'green' story of shale gas doesn't add up. The dismissal of fracking-triggered earthquakes is also odd, considering a US company (Cuadrilla) was forced to stop fracking in the UK after two seismic events occurred [3], a recent report by the UK was focused on mitigating fracking-related seismic events [4], and Cuadrilla released a report [5] which concluded "it is highly probable" hydraulic fracking triggered a number of tremors. When you factor in the unavoidable well contamination of underground aquifers (as pressure differences inevitably lead to aquifer water filling the fracked area over time) the shale gas 'bonanza' seems anything but. [1] http://www.springerlink.com/content/b430681263425q64/?MUD=MP http://www.springerlink.com/content/b430681263425q64/?MUD=MP [2] https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-natural-gas-would-do-little-global-climate-study-indicates https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/5292/switching-coal-nat... [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/01/blackpool-earthquake-tremors-gas-drilling http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/01/blackpool-earthquak... [4] http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_047/pn12_047.aspx http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_047/pn12_047... [5] http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Geomechanical-Study-of-Bowland-Shale-Seismicity_02-11-11.pdf http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02...

vilda 14y ago

It's even worse - Angela Merkel responded in parliament that missing nuclear power plants will be replaces with NEW power plants on fossil fuel. The problem with photovoltaic is that it needs 100% backup in traditional power plants.

drumdance 14y ago
The problem with iPhone batteries is they need 100% backup in recharging stations.
pgeorgi 14y ago
There's not only photovoltaic but also wind turbines, water turbines, burning agricultural waste, and various means of storage to spread the harvest into weak times (though all of that has lots of potential for optimization, it's here now - sometimes for over 30 years). Combined, this allows various providers in Germany to sell energy without resorting to fossil or nuclear fuel, right now. The bad part (for big Energy Co.s and their buddy Angela Merkel) is that this way of doing things is too decentralized for the old oligopoly to keep an inherent edge over new entrants on the market. Building and operating a nuclear plant (or even a coal plant, in highly regulated Germany) can't be pulled off by just anybody. Setting up solar or wind power, and scaling up over time is possible even on a much more limited budget.

batista 14y ago

>It's absurd. Coal is guaranteed to have costly negative health and environmental impacts on surrounding areas, while nuclear merely has the risk. Yes, but it has a much larger risk: the risk of tens or hundred of thousands of people getting radiation poisoning, and the region becoming inhabitable for years. Plus it creates nuclear waste, that is not mere pollution, but extremely toxic for thousands or years. Not to mention the consequences to be had with a nuclear plant in the hands of the wrong people (terrorists and such). With a coal plant, not that many...

mxey 14y ago
For a hundred thousand years.
- ori_b 14y ago
  However, the longer it lasts, the lower the intensity of radiation produced.
  - DasIch 14y ago
    You can't even safely assume that we will have political stability over the next couple of hundred years. Whether it takes a thousand or a million years either period is so long that is is insane to believe it could ever be stored securely.

fforw 14y ago

Nuclear plants also have guaranteed nuclear waste and Germany has no place to store these.

ori_b 14y ago
People severely overestimate the volume of nuclear waste produced by a plant. Storing it is more of a political problem than a technical one.
- fforw 14y ago
  They told us this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Asse_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Asse_II would be safe, too.
coldarchon 14y ago
True, that's why the nuclear waste for wind power plants is stored in a 6 miles lake .. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-C...