Not such a good idea... "the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
If Japan nuclear energy survives this with little long term damage, it may prove the durability of Nuclear power plants.
You've got to read past the headline. We're talking about severe radiation leaks from a nuclear plant after an accident, earth quake, etc., not the normal radiation from such a plant without encountering a problem compared to a coal fired plant. This statement in the article puts it in perspective for coal plants: "....individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources...." So, if you live near a coal fired plant you might get 361.9 MR instead of what the average person receives of 360.0 MR. It's negligible.
Another hydrogen explosion, Unit #2 this time. They are saying that some undetermined amount of radiation was released. The pressure was 3 atmospheres in the containment and is now 1 atmosphere so stuff definitely got out. This is starting to go real bad. Once the fuel is melted its a superheated blob effectively forever. At an inland reactor you could tunnel underneath it and get a concrete and steel sarcophagus going but this plant is on the beach so its not clear how you encapsulate it. Big fucking trouble.
Sounds like the Chindian's are a step ahead of us developing Thorium based reactors. Thank god we have our lobbyist protecting our interests. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Thorium-A-Cheap-Clean-and-Safe-Alternative-to-Uranium.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
were some of you the same people who said the oil spill last year spelled the end of BP? i'm glad for folks like you because that let me buy BP in the low 30's. i love the doom & gloom crowd; they help create bargins i wish there was an ETF for nuclear power
Glad you're making money. Why worry about the potential poisoning of the northern hemisphere? Maybe there is an iodine play in there.
some of you know absolutely nothing about earthquakes or even about this one, and you're speculating? the japan quake happened 240 miles from tokyo. tokyo didn't fall into ruin because of the quake's distance, not because they possess some magical structural engineering process that only japanese have. had it happened 20 miles away, the city would have been obliterated, and i mean that literally not figuratively. any structures that withstood the shaking would have been burned in the ensuing fires. do you think their gas and water mains can withstand a 9.0 quake? please! the destructive quakes that have happened in calif were always close to population centers which is why there was so much damage. furthermore, they were very shallow (10 mi deep versus 20 in japan).
Reactor #4 inner containment breached, all workers evacuated. Nobody is putting water onto the other reactors now. Yeah, its on now. Prepare for the evacuation of Northern Japan. Me, I'm heading to the grocery store. Don't wanna run out of stuff when its raining nuclear material here in socal and I'm stuck in the house.