^^ You left out the part about radioactive waste and the possibility of a meltdown. Considering what happened to Japan, one should never be complacent. Yes, there are other ways to die, but look at Chernobyl and honestly tell me there are no risk. I'm not saying Nuclear plants should be shut down, I just don't think its the end all solution. It's "safe" because there has to be zero margin for error. I don't care how good the technicians are who work on these reactors, that simply isn't possible. That's why there are failsafes. What worries people is the possibility of something catastrophic occurring that was not taken into consideration. If something like that happens, then what? only 10 people died, maybe 100, 1000... That's hardly justifiable

What control systems have you done ?

We aren't "spooked," we want to maintain it. It's tough and expensive to get the talent together to make sure things are done right.

:iagree:

Also there's not really a good way to deal with the nuclear waste. After it's used up in the plant, all we're really doing with it is burying it underground and hoping for the best. That material is still radioactive.

I'm not opposed to nuclear power, I actually support it. However, I don't think we should just rush into it. It should be well thought out and planned and all the necessary safety measures should be implemented.

Working at a chemical plant, I see how things can go horribly wrong because the operators did something stupid or forgot to do something he usually does. With a nuclear reactor, you want it to be absolutely idiot proof, which means adding a lot of security systems to make sure everything is ok in case of a failure.

:iagree:

I like coal :tup:

*looks down at investment portfolio*

Yup
I believe coal is the future :D

:bowrofl:

Things are never this simple. Look at Chernobyl. Look more recently at Japan. The only thing most people see is that these events illustrate exactly why nuclear should never be tried. Chernobyl is a wasteland and will continue to be a wasteland and who knows how many people have died because of the radiation in Japan. These types of fallouts will always cause major concerns for people.

However, like I said earlier:

For example, and people please correct me if I am wrong beacuse I am going from memory, the Japanese reactors that failed and melted down were built and designed to stand up to a magnitude 6 earthquake. The one they experienced was a magnitude 9 and they didn't fail. It was not until their backup generators responsible for operating the cooling system (unwisely put in the basements) got flooded from the tsunami that the reactors blew up.

But how many people actually know that? How many people realize that the reactors themselves were mostly fine and would have faired much better had the backup generators been placed in an area that couldn't flood?

My point is a simple one, don't rely on others all the time, educate yourself.

If you think young people are the ones responsible for preventing the adoption of nuclear power in the US, you are sadly mistaken. Young people have nothing to do with this. I'm 25 and am a big proponent of nuclear. Especially Thorium.

Yep, there is no margin for error. Designing idiot-proof systems is really hard.

From my understanding, and I am no expert and know very little about the whole system here in the US, but our nuclear power plants should have very little chance of experiencing the type of problems they had in Japan. And I am meaning from the flooding and the earthquake, not the tsunami. We actually had a "scare" earlier this year when the massive flooding was going on in the southeast part of the country (shortly after Japan) and people were afraid the plants would be flooded. They never did and life moved on.

This is the beauty of some Thorium power plants. They can actually use and burn off our current stockiles of radioactive waste and produce next to none themselves. And they do not produce any weapons grade material so illegal proliferation is not a problem.

Also, we are currently up to the 4th generation of nuclear power plant design and what little bit I have read on them, they are quite safe. Not sure what we have here in the US but I think they are mostly 2nd generation plants. Once again, I'm not entirely certain on that last part. Pulling from memory and need to leave work so I'm not bothering to dig this up again.

Once again, back to Thorium power plants and maybe other types of plants can do this as well, but a Thorium plant with a salt dome built into the ceiling that melts above a certain temp can effectively shut itself down. I can try to find where I read this when I get home in a bit if you want.

At last
 

When I said young people, I didn't mean you. The world had/has nuke plants for decades. Even with a tsunami & a magnitude 9 earthquake & 3 nuke reactors & much of their core under sea level, how many died from the tsunami, how many from the earthquike & how many from the nuke reactors?????? It's not like a nuke plant would have a spontaneous nuke bomb type explossion.

Even Chernobyl (the rusty, neglected at that time broken/broke Russia) Today(saw on tv) has a blossoming plant & animal haven. Reason given was that there was no human presence in the area. A little window on what would happen if human presence disappear:)

All of this talk of energy sources, environmental considerations, and power distribution is a waste of effort. If we want to really solve these problems in the long run we need to focus on reducing the number of people on this planet.

So, what we should be discussing is how to distribute condoms and family planning pamphlets.

I think a hybrid Z would be silly. From my understanding a hybrid would add considerable weight and not add any more power than what could be added with turbos. Thus, it is a compromise.

An electric Z could be good. While the batteries would be heavy, they could be placed almost anywhere in the car and distributed however you wanted them to be. No oil changes would also be a cool feature. And if you could put motors on each wheel you could have a killer all-wheel drive set-up. It could be created to be similar to the GTR's ATTESA system.

The 370Z is pure sex! It is hot, loud, and rough!

What about the price we will pay WHEN mid-east explodes. Whether it is Iran blocking oil shipping lanes or oil producers like Saudi Arabia having a revolution & the people that hate us decide to cut our oil & sell to others(China/India). What about all our lakes/rivers desimated by acid rain from coal operated North East factories & electric producing companies. If we had all our cities getting electricity from nuke plants, think about all the extra oil we would have for gasoline production. 93 Sunoco could cost $1.29. You can heat ALL our homes with clean electricity. Clean air/clean waters/better life & energy independence. Well????

You are right in that the tsunami was what caused the total failure.

Buildings aren't really designed based on magnitudes though. Magnitude is just a measurement of how much energy the earthquake released. Buildings are designed based on how much ground acceleration the earthquake causes. In the Japan earthquake, even though the magnitude was one of the highest ever, the acceleration was pretty low (~0.5g). California tends to get higher accelerations though (Northridge >1.0g) which causes alot of building damage. I'd be more concerned about eathquake damage to nuclear plants in California.