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Old 04-05-2011, 09:59 AM  
mohel
 
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Originally Posted by havasu View Post
I thought Copper Mountain in the desert in the S/E quadrant of California was a nuke dumping ground?
Searches just turn up gold & copper from Copper Mtn.

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United States
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a timetable and procedure for constructing a permanent, underground repository for high-level radioactive waste by the mid-1990s, and provided for some temporary storage of waste, including spent fuel from 104 civilian nuclear reactors that produce about 19.4% of electricity there.[37] The United States in April 2008 had about 56,000 metric tons of spent fuel and 20,000 canisters of solid defense-related waste, and this is expected to increase to 119,000 metric tons by 2035.[78] The U.S. opted for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a final repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but this project was widely opposed, with some of the main concerns being long distance transportation of waste from across the United States to this site, the possibility of accidents, and the uncertainty of success in isolating nuclear waste from the human environment in perpetuity. Yucca Mountain, with capacity for 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste, was expected to open in 2017. However, the Obama Administration rejected use of the site in the 2009 United States Federal Budget proposal, which eliminated all funding except that needed to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "while the Administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal."[79] On March 5, 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate hearing "the Yucca Mountain site no longer was viewed as an option for storing reactor waste."[78][80] The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the United States is the world's first underground repository for transuranic waste.
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Old 04-05-2011, 10:02 AM  
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Dams in the US, in fact much of the US's infastructure is old outdated and beginning to crumble. Dams haven't failed because they were relatively new, not so much any more, maintenance can only do so much.

I used to have solar power at my house. The batteries alone are indeed harmful to the enviroment, what if they leak into the water table, soil? You have to STORE the power.

Wind is the same, it has to be in areas where there's wind, and even then the tecnology is so poor, to power one city half the size of Los Angeles, we're talking acres and acres of wind turbine or solar panals.
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Old 04-05-2011, 10:22 AM  
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Searches just turn up gold & copper from Copper Mtn.
I guess I had read the Copper Mountain proposal too many years ago, and the idea was shelved.
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Old 04-05-2011, 10:51 AM  
mohel
 
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Wind is the same, it has to be in areas where there's wind, and even then the tecnology is so poor, to power one city half the size of Los Angeles, we're talking acres and acres of wind turbine or solar panals.

We have battery recycling in Oregon. Everything takes batteries.

Solar does take room but then that room is rooftops, deserts and ridgelines. You're running out of fossil fuels so you'd best make your peace with some alternatives.

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Dams haven't failed because they were relatively new, not so much any more, maintenance can only do so much.

Dams are also monitored for signs of trouble. I can't think of a single dam collapse in the US over the 2nd half of the last century. If we don't manage spent fuel better than our roads and bridges we'll be radioactive in no time.
Two workers die at Fukushima plant-solar-farm.jpg 

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Old 04-05-2011, 01:39 PM  
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I think I failed to communicate my point. Every type of power has it's risks and benfits. France has a very successful recycling program of nuclear fuel too. Did you know that batteries are prone to explosion? Do you want several banks of batteries stored in or near YOUR house? Also, in extreme heat and extreme cold batteries lose their effectiveness.

I don't want my desert crapped up with unsightly solar panels. Nor my sunsets and rises crapped up by those things on my ridgelines.

Dams are designed for a life of approx. 50 yrs. not 100, 200 etc. And as far as inspections goes, nuclear powerplants are inspected daily. Also the overpasses that fell in some of the California quakes were inspected too, yet they failed.

My point is the same as yours, we are running out of fossil fuels, we cannot build solar, wind, nuclear, or hydro powerplants fast enough to meet the demand and keep ahead of the dwindling fossil fuels and growing demand for power.
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Old 04-05-2011, 04:40 PM  
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Somewhere I have a US map showing BLM and other Federal lands. The West is the big concentration.

Tidal & wave energy are infants but have tremendous potential as well as being largely unseen.

I realized others like you like dead places like deserts but Area 51 and places like it may be idea. We already part huge fleets of old aircraft out there so why not use the same space to do two jobs?

"Not in my backyard" is why Yucca Mountain fell through. It will eventually be in someone's backyard. Maybe we could get the power companies to accept fuel in return for potentially harmful Gulf drilling leases.
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Old 04-05-2011, 05:35 PM  
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YES!! maybe we could chop down some trees in Oregon and park crap there. Two purposes, one to build housing for the homeless and two for our energy problems. It's just a bunch of trees anyways and think of all the good that could come out of it, if nothing else HEAT energy! (firewood, whoa, wait, not ozone friendly is it . . . never mind)

Yucca Mtn. should have happened, IMO and it didn't. I'm just saying nuclear powerplants are needed and for the most part, even with half life, potential problems and spent fuel storage etc., is the most eviromentally friendly power producing technology today. I personally think we ALL need to consider parking powerplants in our backyards because we ALL want to flip that switch and have that light come on either solar, wind nuke or whatever.

Japan's dissaster is horrifying to say the least, but most there didn't die because of the nuke plant. It's just an added thret that makes the agony even worse. I feel for them.
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Old 04-05-2011, 06:08 PM  
mohel
 
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Japan's dissaster is horrifying to say the least, but most there didn't die because of the nuke plant. It's just an added thret that makes the agony even worse. I feel for them.
There were early deaths at Chernobyl because workers gave their lives to bury the reactor. Most deaths related to Fukushima will also take years to document. I just read radiation in sea water near the plant is 7.5 million times normal.

I don't expect to see high levels on the West Coast but it's still early. Oregon and Washington produce all the hops that make it into beer. Kobe beef will soon have it's own afterglow. This stuff will reach the food chain but the real question is how much and through which foodstuffs.
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Old 04-05-2011, 07:35 PM  
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Yes near the plant. near being the key word there. Chernobyl was a sorry situation that cannot be compared to the Japanese. The Japanese are much more responsible people that the former Soviets. They by-passed safety feature after safety feature to produce that mess over there. The Japanese event is not a bunch of idiots, it is a tragic act of nature. TMI here in the US was nearly as bad.

Again, I want to emphasize the difference between the two nuclear powerplants on the west coast as opposed to Chernobyl. US and Japanese have heavy heavy containment structures. The model of the one at San Onofre was tested by flying a boeing 707 into it. The one at Chernobyl had corregated tin as containment over the reactor. The reactor at SONGS is liquid cooled, the one at Chernobyl was graphite cooled. None the less, several safety features were bypassed to get those reactors to do what they did. Idiots!! The Japanese had containment as well as fluid cooled, etc. what happened is the quake cause a loss of power causing the plant to trip. Then the plant itself lost power, not to worry, back up generators kicked on to power the cooling pumps but then the tsunami hit, shorting out this, flooding out that. Things started heating up. As they brought in pumps and started pumping sea water in, steam formed causing pressure as it vented to the outer buillding causing the explosions. The Japanese are not irresponsible like the Soviets were. They were victums, not idiots. They did all they could and tried their hardest to prevent the doom and gloom that followed. Had it have JUST been the quake, they would have managed, had it of been JUST the tsunami, maybe, but BOTH . . .no way.

TMI was another, (to a lesser degree) by pass incident. Since that time the NRC dictates how these powerplants are run, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the USNRC will look into and investigate the causes and solutions of the Japanese situation and alter regs & laws here because of it.

And back to the beginning, when poeple were flying out of cars and dying on our highways, they made manditory seat belt laws and drastically cut back on deaths because of it. Until we have other solutions, we have no choice.
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Old 04-05-2011, 08:35 PM  
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I heard a story on San Onofre last week where they BELIEVE it should withstand a 7.0 earthquake and a tidal surge of 20-25 feet. IMHO, this is not sufficient for Southern California.
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