Good pro-nuclear arguements?

[TheKwas]

Thanks alot darth and Patrick. The people I was debating are actually from Toronto.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Even if plutonium is missing that is capable of being made into a bomb by the thief, I would say it isn't a big deal - how many times have we been nuked recently? How many times has someone seriously threatened to nuke us?

To be more precise, it isn't as simple as "tape on high powered explosives to some weapons grade uranium/plutonium". The detonation has to be fairly precise or you have nothing more than a dirty bomb.

[Zixinus]

I've come across two new arguments that may be interesting:

The first one, is that with a few "tricks" that Los Alamos discovered, you can reduce the mass needed to make weapon-grade fissile material supercritical. Can anybody look this up?

Second, which sounds more like some conspiracy theory, they mention many incidents that were "covered up" or "silenced". I can image this happening to some degree (public does overreact to accidents, even minor ones, so I can image that some dollars were spent on beer-money), however every accident mentioned I can find on Wikipedia. I feel that this is not enough

[Darth Wong]

I've come across two new arguments that may be interesting:

The first one, is that with a few "tricks" that Los Alamos discovered, you can reduce the mass needed to make weapon-grade fissile material supercritical. Can anybody look this up?

What the fuck does that have to do with nuclear power, since reactors don't run off weapons-grade material?

Second, which sounds more like some conspiracy theory, they mention many incidents that were "covered up" or "silenced". I can image this happening to some degree (public does overreact to accidents, even minor ones, so I can image that some dollars were spent on beer-money), however every accident mentioned I can find on Wikipedia. I feel that this is not enough

What are they, fucking retards? If there was ever a serious radiation release, it would be detected regardless of whether they try to cover it up. How do you think people found out about Chernobyl? When you dump radiation into the air, people can detect it.

Christ, your friends must be raving idiots.

[Zixinus]

What the fuck does that have to do with nuclear power, since reactors don't run off weapons-grade material?

This one isn't from an idiot, this one is from a Navy nuke in fact. He told me that you can use power plant-grade plutonium. I can't find material for this, and I think that this may be classified.

I'm confident that you would need incredible expertise, experience and knowledge to pull that off. He isn't pushing his point.

What are they, fucking retards? If there was ever a serious radiation release, it would be detected regardless of whether they try to cover it up. How do you think people found out about Chernobyl? When you dump radiation into the air, people can detect it.

The accidents we are talking about are small ones, the type that are quickly cleaned up.

The accidents themselves doesn't bother them much, what bothers them, is that they are rarely reported or "covered up". Don't think "reactor materials were blasted in the air" think "there was a spillage of low-radioactive reactor water".

My counter-argument is that, most of these accidents can be found over regulatory sites responsible, and thus not "covered up", merely not making it to the mass media. However, I feel that this is not solid enough argument. The people pushing this point are a computer expert and a public servant who has "mile length of accident papers".

Another counter argument I think would be good is "so, were these accidents cleaned up and handled or was the thing just left there and people paid to forget it?".

[Darth Wong]

This one isn't from an idiot, this one is from a Navy nuke in fact. He told me that you can use power plant-grade plutonium. I can't find material for this, and I think that this may be classified.

Navy nuke techs get a training course whose length is measured in weeks, not years. Any Navy nuke tech who tries to pass off his knowledge as equivalent to a full nuclear engineering degree is a liar.

I'm confident that you would need incredible expertise, experience and knowledge to pull that off. He isn't pushing his point.

Perhaps he realizes that his point is a bullshit evasion. Sure, you could easily design a nuclear reactor to run off weapons-grade material. The point is that you don't need to, so nuclear reactors do not run off weapons-grade material, therefore terrorists cannot steal weapons-grade material from nuke plants. Once again, I must ask if your friend is a raving idiot.

The accidents we are talking about are small ones, the type that are quickly cleaned up.

Then they don't merit the public's interest, do they?

The accidents themselves doesn't bother them much, what bothers them, is that they are rarely reported or "covered up". Don't think "reactor materials were blasted in the air" think "there was a spillage of low-radioactive reactor water".

My counter-argument is that, most of these accidents can be found over regulatory sites responsible, and thus not "covered up", merely not making it to the mass media. However, I feel that this is not solid enough argument. The people pushing this point are a computer expert and a public servant who has "mile length of accident papers".

Computer expert != scientific expert
Public servant != scientific expert

And what kind of idiot public servant uses a wealth of public documentation in order to prove that accidents are not being documented?

[Beowulf]

Nuke qualified Electronics Techs and Machinist's Mate attend schooling for over a year before they set foot on ship. Still not equivalent to a full Nuke E degree.

The problem with reactor-grade Pu is that it has way to many impurities in it for it to be a viable weapon core. It mostly revolves around the fact that those impurities will cause the core to start fissioning before full compression has been reached, so instead of a 100kT bomb, you have a .001kT bomb. The only way around it is to refine the material. Considering that most of said impurities is other isotopes of Pu, this isn't easy. You effectively need to set up an enrichment plant for it.

[Lisa]

My dad mentioned that in the 50s small fridge sized reactors were developed by Canada but never made it into public use because of the whole fear of contamination, anyone know anything about this? My google searches come up lacking.

[Nephtys]

Nuke qualified Electronics Techs and Machinist's Mate attend schooling for over a year before they set foot on ship. Still not equivalent to a full Nuke E degree.

The problem with reactor-grade Pu is that it has way to many impurities in it for it to be a viable weapon core. It mostly revolves around the fact that those impurities will cause the core to start fissioning before full compression has been reached, so instead of a 100kT bomb, you have a .001kT bomb. The only way around it is to refine the material. Considering that most of said impurities is other isotopes of Pu, this isn't easy. You effectively need to set up an enrichment plant for it.

I was under the impression that PU-240 contamination in fissionable 239 is only a big problem for the most basic linear design for a bomb.

[Kamakazie Sith]

United States coal-fired powerplants release more radioactive particles into the atmosphere each year than all nuclear tests in the whole world over the whole of human history from 1945 forward have.

Do you have a source for this claim? I'm not challenging you, but saying I heard this from Duchess on SD.net isn't very convincing when arguing against people who are anti-nuclear.

[Zixinus]

Here is an idiot talking about nuclear power:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKWqlHeYJdw

[PeZook]

Here is an idiot talking about nuclear power:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKWqlHeYJdw

I'd make a scathing comment about her ridiculous position, but I couldn't understand a word of what she was saying.

[Zixinus]

A quick summary:

She starts out with some political comments about the current UK government ("It is important to psychoanalyse the people running this country at this moment."), some musings on human psychological history. She's going to write a book.

Then she switches to the topic of cancer, there may be a cut from a question. She mentions that cancer is induced by radiation (which is true, although it is also induced by other means), and tells us that they know this because of a "guinea pig population from Hiroshima or Nahasaki. They were never treated (something about atomic energy commission and their test), they were only studied but never treated." She mentions that they found new cancers from that population. Not very surprising or interesting. Not main argument yet.

Then, she goes unto her argument. She "wants to bust the myth given up by the nuclear energy industry that can be found in Scientific American and New York Times" and something about our children need electricity.

Forth comes her first, and quite retarded argument: Shakespeare wrote his works by candlelight and that the human race has lived 3 million years without electricity. She asks "So why is it so suddenly that we have it?" She mentions that how she was horrified that even the digital camera has to be plugged into the wall to be charged up, where an ordinary camera where you click it and get the film developed.

Next argument begins with a bold statement: nuclear power creates global warming. How? "Well, you have to create the fuel." She goes on "You use what to dig up uranium? Oil. Then you have to crush the uranium, use oil to crush the uranium, no, petrol, you call it "gasoline". Then you have to enrich the uranium. (..., some shameless self-advertising) here in Kentucky, were most of the Western's world's uranium is used, we use two huge coal power plants to enrich the uranium. What does that do? That released carbon dioxide. Also, hundreds of miles or pipes that contain the uranium hit the floride (?), which is hot, are cooled with COS(?) gas. COS(?) gas? Used to be in refrigerators, damage the ozone, that's why we have huge incidents of skin-cancer and melalone in Australia, because we have hardly any ozone layer. (something about her back). So its banned on (Kyoto?) protocol. But the nuclear industry has been pardoned, therefore it is allowed to use COS(?), and COS is leaking from those pipes." Then she goes on how COS gas is several times more potent as a global warmer, and how production of everything releases greenhouse gases.

She also raises that when you make concrete, you also release large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Then something un-understandable about power plants produces CO2, and "as the quality of the uranium declines, the production of CO2 equals to that of a gas power plant. I rest my case. And what I don't like, is scientist lying." Then some musings on how the Earth is in clinical emergency, some global warming doomsday preaching, then some musings on children and their problems and how we are egoistic and arrogant.

I find her arguments unreliable as she is trying to sell her book.

[metavac]

Zix, exactly what did your friend say. The way you relayed it, his point about Los Alamos didn't make much sense.

[Zixinus]

Here is the link for topic one:

http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtop ... 59&start=0

And topic two:

http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtop ... sc&start=0

Zix, exactly what did your friend say. The way you relayed it, his point about Los Alamos didn't make much sense.

He said:

Also note that the high neutron activity only limits the size of the bomb you can make. Plus if I were tolerably smart there are ways around the problem. BTW I'm tolerably smart. Also note that the Los Alamos guys have stated that they could do a few tricks to make reactor grade plutonium suitable for a bomb. So Los Alamos and I think you could use reactor grade Pu to make a bomb.

[PeZook]

Let's assume he is right (he's not. There are nuclear technicians here on this very board who can tell you exactly why).

Okay, so reactor-grade plutonium can be used in a bomb now that we assume he's not a complete idiot and physics have somehow changed because he says so. So...how are terrorists going to learn those "tricks" discovered by a team of nuclear physicists working for a government project?

Oh, and as for that english hag whose video you posted - her concerns are valid, you know. She just concludes these problems are insurmountable obstacles, while in fact they are problems to be solved, not inherent disadvantages disqualifying nuclear power from widespread use. Most of what she said can be solved by simply replacing the source of energy used in making nuke fuel.

[Nephtys]

A 'few tricks' can cover a lot. It could be theoretical procedures that are not actually used nor have been tested that they're thinking of. The very fact that your friend says that Los Alamos 'has developed' ways of making smaller masses of material usable in a bomb is pretty funny in itself too. What time machine has he stepped out of, and how'd he find one in 1945?

Or these 'tricks' may very well be about enrichment and isotope separation. Which is entirely outside the means of most governments, much less random terrorists.

[Darth Wong]

Then she switches to the topic of cancer, there may be a cut from a question. She mentions that cancer is induced by radiation (which is true, although it is also induced by other means), and tells us that they know this because of a "guinea pig population from Hiroshima or Nahasaki. They were never treated (something about atomic energy commission and their test), they were only studied but never treated." She mentions that they found new cancers from that population. Not very surprising or interesting. Not main argument yet.

This woman doesn't get out much. The actual number of cancers caused by radiation from nuclear power is insignificant next to the number of cancers caused by commonplace pollutants such as chemical plant effluent, tobacco smoke, etc.

Then, she goes unto her argument. She "wants to bust the myth given up by the nuclear energy industry that can be found in Scientific American and New York Times" and something about our children need electricity.

Forth comes her first, and quite retarded argument: Shakespeare wrote his works by candlelight and that the human race has lived 3 million years without electricity. She asks "So why is it so suddenly that we have it?" She mentions that how she was horrified that even the digital camera has to be plugged into the wall to be charged up, where an ordinary camera where you click it and get the film developed.

I suspect she's one of those imbeciles who thinks that electricity causes cancer. Remember the "power transmission line" scare?

Next argument begins with a bold statement: nuclear power creates global warming. How? "Well, you have to create the fuel." She goes on "You use what to dig up uranium? Oil. Then you have to crush the uranium, use oil to crush the uranium, no, petrol, you call it "gasoline". Then you have to enrich the uranium. (..., some shameless self-advertising) here in Kentucky, were most of the Western's world's uranium is used, we use two huge coal power plants to enrich the uranium. What does that do? That released carbon dioxide. Also, hundreds of miles or pipes that contain the uranium hit the floride (?), which is hot, are cooled with COS(?) gas. COS(?) gas? Used to be in refrigerators, damage the ozone, that's why we have huge incidents of skin-cancer and melalone in Australia, because we have hardly any ozone layer. (something about her back). So its banned on (Kyoto?) protocol. But the nuclear industry has been pardoned, therefore it is allowed to use COS(?), and COS is leaking from those pipes." Then she goes on how COS gas is several times more potent as a global warmer, and how production of everything releases greenhouse gases.

There are actually plenty of greenhouse gases which are more potent than CO2, such as methane. The reason they're not as dangerous is the fact that they're not as long-lived as CO2, which is very stable. As for the notion that nuclear power is not a perfectly zero-emission power source, that's true but it's still better than the alternatives.

Her argument is not entirely unreasonable if you start from the silly assumption that we're looking for an absolutely perfect power source and will accept nothing less. But of course, that is a totally unwarranted assumption.

[PeZook]

I suspect she's one of those imbeciles who thinks that electricity causes cancer. Remember the "power transmission line" scare?

People are scared of EM radiation because they can't see it, so it terrifies them.

She is horrified by the overuse of electricity, but for the wrong reasons, I guess. Our tendency to stick flashy, powered gadgets onto everything does contribute a bit to fuel problems, and will have to go once Peak Oil hits. No more fancy LCD displays or TVs on your refridgerator. Though I'd guess their power consuption is insignificant compared to things like SUVs...

[Darth Wong]

I suspect she's one of those imbeciles who thinks that electricity causes cancer. Remember the "power transmission line" scare?

People are scared of EM radiation because they can't see it, so it terrifies them.

She is horrified by the overuse of electricity, but for the wrong reasons, I guess. Our tendency to stick flashy, powered gadgets onto everything does contribute a bit to fuel problems, and will have to go once Peak Oil hits. No more fancy LCD displays or TVs on your refridgerator. Though I'd guess their power consuption is insignificant compared to things like SUVs...

Handy conversion factor: 1 automotive horsepower = 746 watts. So if a car requires 100 hp to cruise down the road at 60 mph, that's almost 75 kilowatts. Enough to run 1243 60-watt light bulbs.

[PeZook]

Handy conversion factor: 1 automotive horsepower = 746 watts. So if a car requires 100 hp to cruise down the road at 60 mph, that's almost 75 kilowatts. Enough to run 1243 60-watt light bulbs.

Huh...human imagination is a weird thing. I knew the numbers, but never bothered to compare them this way (eg. a crusing car vs. amount of lightbulbs)

It just shows how much energy we truly waste, and how cheap it really is. Any single car owner could easily light up a medieval city with the resources he commands today.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If she is so scared, why isn't she living in the jungle?

Why is it that every environmentalist idiot always fear this and that and the simplest solution to relieve their fears is to go back to the caveman age?

[PeZook]

If she is so scared, why isn't she living in the jungle?

Why is it that every environmentalist idiot always fear this and that and the simplest solution to relieve their fears is to go back to the caveman age?

Because it's not simple. As a caveman, she would have to hunt or gather her own food, make her own clothes, try to treat her own illnesses and make every single tool she uses.

Isn't it convenient to rant about modern civilization while consuming it's various spoils? It's typical for idiots to point out flaws while proposing absolutely no serious alternatives whatsoever - look at her argument against nuclear power: It has problems, therefore - we shouldn't use it. This argument can be put forth against everything, but then nothing would get done, ever.

[K. A. Pital]

Ah, the neo-luddites. If they are so fucking concerned, I suggest they go join the amish.

"Environmentalism" isn't a codeword for luddism, but apparently in the US and UK environmentalists are "let's be one with the nature like the cavemen" morons.

[Zixinus]

I didn't know uranium was enriched by oil though.