On Second Thought, Maybe Reactors Near Cities Aren't a Great Idea

[n2doc]

— By Kate Sheppard| Tue Mar. 22, 2011 6:00 AM PDT
I came across a news story from the Singapore-based Strait Times on a public lecture that Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), gave last August that he probably wouldn't deliver today.

The headline, "Nuclear plants 'need not be far from urban areas,'" offers a good sense of the main point of his comments. Amano goes on to highlight Japan as a key reason we should have confidence in locating plants near urban areas:

He gave two examples of nuclear power plants built close to urban areas in Japan to stress his point. One is the Shimane plant, located just 10km from built-up areas in the town of Kashima-chou in the Matsue city in Shimane prefecture. The other, Tokai No. 2, sits 15km from populated areas in the town of Tokai.

Addressing concerns about safety, Mr Amano said that while it was not possible to eliminate all risks of accident, these could be contained in three ways to give ‘credible assurance of safety’.


more

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/03/second-thought-maybe-reactors-near-cities-arent-great-idea

Perhaps not the best examples to use.....

[MineralMan]

1. Near or far from cities, nuclear reactors should not be used

for power generation. They are not safe, cannot be made safe, and will never be safe. It is that simple. We should be using other means to generate electricity, and using much less of it until such means are in place.

[kristopher]

2. Thank you, now quite trying to undermine renewables by the back door. nt

[MineralMan]

4. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Could you explain, please? I made a very simple statement. You appear to be talking about something else, altogether.

[GatesofPunk]

3. Alternate energy?

:nuke:

Back to the drawing board!!!

[MineralMan]

5. I beg your pardon. What are you talking about?

What I am suggesting is the only way we're going to get rid of these dangerous power plants.

[GatesofPunk]

6. Basically what I'm saying is...

I agree with you . Nuclear energy is too dangerous.

[Night Crawler]

7. Or how about locating them in geologically stable areas away

from coastlines, earthquake, tsunami and hurricane prone locations? Like our own desert South West in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah for example.

A big problem in Japan is that being an Island they have no land that meets that requirement.

[MineralMan]

8. If you can find a place where the wind never blows, and where

nobody lives, then I'll listen to your argument.

[Night Crawler]

11. When has the wind EVER damaged a nuclear reactor.

The Japanese reactors actually survived, intact, the largest earthquake in that country's history. They also survived, intact, a rather large tsunami that breached the sea walls which wiped out the backup power generators that were inexplicably in a basement on the site. 24 to 48 hours of battery backup obviously wasn't enough to keep the cooling systems running.

So much for that vaunted Japanese technological and engineering superiority. Even the California reactor at San Onofre Beach has it's backup generators 30 ft ABOVE the reactors and the emergency power hookups another 30 ft above that!

But even give that, I'd still put the power plants in a geologically stable area away from coastlines, earthquake, tsunami and hurricane prone locations.

The desert Southwest would seem ideal. Instead of square MILES of "solar panels" a few acres for each plant seems a better use of land.

[MineralMan]

12. Umm...when nuclear plants fail, they often release radioactive

materials, which...wait for it...blow to other places.

[Night Crawler]

13. When nuclear plants sense a fail situation they are designed

to SCRAM which BTW is what the Japanese plants did, as designed, after the LARGEST earthquake in the recorded history of that country. With the exception of the Soviet designed and built plant at Chernobyl, which BTW had no containment stucture like every other operating plant in the world, when has a nuclear plant just failed and blew up? And TMI dosent count because the containment structure worked as it was supposed to. (Remember those scenes of President Carter touring the plant during the "crisis"?

But still, I'd place them in areas like the Desert Southwest.

[MineralMan]

14. And, as we're seeing in Japan, those scrammed reactors

sometimes release lots of radioactive materials to blow in that wind. My point remains.

[Night Crawler]

15. No, what we're seeing in Japan is what happens when the

backup cooling systems are poorly designed. The reactors functioned as expected, probably better. They didn't just blow up, they aren't "atomic bombs" just waiting to go off. Different principle altogether.

[MineralMan]

16. Actually, we're seeing a lot of things in Japan.

Cooling is, indeed, a major issue. Siting plants in an arid desert makes those problems even more problematic.

Water is always a problem for nuclear power plants. That's why they're located adjacent to large quantities of it. It's a design issue, really. Your plan is impractical, for that reason, among others.

Nuclear power generation is unsafe. It cannot be made to be safe. Sorry.

[Night Crawler]

17. I'm sorry too

I thought that I was having an informed conversation with someone who had researched their position and had some knowledege of the subject.

You are aware that the largest operating nuclear power facility in the WORLD, Palo Verde, sits in the middle of the desert 50 miles due west as the crow flies (or the scary plume floats) from my house in Arizona, aren't you? Right there, 45 miles from downtown Phoenix without a "natural flow" of water in sight! Totally cooled by reclaimed sewer water BTW. I would have been sure that you knew that. It's only been there for 25 years!

Or maybe you just don't like nuclear because it's "icky".

Here's a read for ya,

The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located in Wintersburg, Arizona,about 45 miles (80 km) west of central Phoenix. It is the largest nuclear generation facility in the United States, averaging over 3.2 gigawatts (GW) of electrical power production in 2003 to serve approximately 4 million people. Arizona Public Service (APS) owns 29.1% of the station and operates the facility. Other owners include Salt River Project (17.5%), El Paso Electric Co. (15.8%), Southern California Edison (15.8%), PNM Resources (10.2%), Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9%), and the Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power (5.7%).
Located in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not situated adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs.

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

[damntexdem]

19. Even better: away from Planet Earth.

I have no problems with a nuclear reactor on Mars or Venus. ;-)

(Well, except for the risks involved in getting it there from Earth.)

[jwirr]

9. In rural areas they destroy farm land that provides food. One way or

the other they can do a lot of damage.

[donco]

10. And with a

ocean view.

[damntexdem]

18. And the first thought should be: no more nuclear reactors.

Then the second thought wouldn't be necessary.