Nuclear Power In Thailand Remains On The Cards For Political Parties

[IvanDobsky]

I think nuclear electricity development should go ahead, I suggest the plant is placed near the ocean for cooling purposes, I suggest somewhere between Bangkok and Pattaya is where this safe electricity plant is placed.........close to the main beneficiaries of such low risk advancement..........also providing employment opportunity..........

I think it would only be fair to have a poll of the Bangkok and Pattaya residents as to the locality within their region they would prefer?

Good idea. They can bury the waste in your garden.

[vont]

I think nuclear electricity development should go ahead, I suggest the plant is placed near the ocean for cooling purposes, I suggest somewhere between Bangkok and Pattaya is where this safe electricity plant is placed.........close to the main beneficiaries of such low risk advancement..........also providing employment opportunity..........

I think it would only be fair to have a poll of the Bangkok and Pattaya residents as to the locality within their region they would prefer?

Where ever they choose to put nuclear power plants (or anything for that matter), there are always the NIMBYs. (Not In My Back Yard)

There's already a whacking great power plant at Bang Pa Kong just north-east of Chonburi city, complete with its own big river, good transport links (you can see it from either motorway) and few immediate residents.

whoever thinks of nuclear plants is from the stone-age.....

believe me not?

The bedrock around bkk and pty is not supportive of such massive undertakings, if you care to look into what is needed for such destructive endeavor and what is available around the eastern seaboard in Thailand.

You need to go further south. But the people in the south are quite self-sufficient.

Most household has a pickup truck and each kid has a motorcycle parking in front. They are not in dire need of handouts as most people in other regions.

During the past three decades, swamps of farang went south trying to drum up support for nuclear undertaking to no avail.

Even as recently as last quarter, power company hired well known names and faces, actors and actresses in their ad which run late in the evening telling people as

some of us farang are also saying here that.... Thailand is in dire need of more energy supply and nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest and most economical to construct and produce da da da....

Several villages were offered some 100 mil THB each, if they would together with their PooYaiBarn singed a cooperative and non-recourse agreement.

Fortunately, PooYaiBarn took the matter to the governor who promptly put the issue to rest dashing the hope and dream of most PooYaiBarn.

The region available for nuke construction is quite limited in Thailand.

Most politicians are in favor of it, mostly because of the huge sums of cash handout that is readily available.... they are the traitors in the truest sense....

[473geo]

I think nuclear electricity development should go ahead, I suggest the plant is placed near the ocean for cooling purposes, I suggest somewhere between Bangkok and Pattaya is where this safe electricity plant is placed.........close to the main beneficiaries of such low risk advancement..........also providing employment opportunity..........

I think it would only be fair to have a poll of the Bangkok and Pattaya residents as to the locality within their region they would prefer?

Good idea. They can bury the waste in your garden.

Leave it at the coast no potentially dangerous inland transportation of nuke waste required...........

my garden will then be very unlikely to have any such issues.....it's over 400 klms away........and I would appreciate the distance maintained if this project continues........

I guess that makes me a NIMBY......

[RPCVguy]

Solar power isn't all it's cracked up to be, either. http://www.lowtechma...gly-side-o.html

Solar panels don't come falling out of the sky – they have to be manufactured. Similar to computer chips, this is a dirty and energy-intensive process. First, raw materials have to be mined: quartz sand for silicon cells, metal ore for thin film cells. Next, these materials have to be treated, following different steps (in the case of silicon cells these are purification, crystallization and wafering). Finally, these upgraded materials have to be manufactured into solar cells, and assembled into modules. All these processes produce air pollution and heavy metal emissions, and they consume energy - which brings about more air pollution, heavy metal emissions and also greenhouse gases.

The manufacturing and recycling of these materials is not as destructive (long term) as nuclear materials and its waste. Further, the use of thermal solar technology (relying on molten salt as the heat sink to ultimately boil water to power turbines) does not require the exotic materials so much as mirrors to concentrate the solar rays. The other arguments apply to nuclear... yet again the difference is the long term toxicity of the nuclear material. It alone is guaranteed to saddle thousands of generations with the safe, secure storage of our consumption in the short term.

California Approves First New U.S. Thermal Solar Plant

http://green.blogs.n...=climate&st=cse

I think nuclear electricity development should go ahead, I suggest the plant is placed near the ocean for cooling purposes, I suggest somewhere between Bangkok and Pattaya is where this safe electricity plant is placed.........close to the main beneficiaries of such low risk advancement..........also providing employment opportunity.......... I think it would only be fair to have a poll of the Bangkok and Pattaya residents as to the locality within their region they would prefer?

There's already a whacking great power plant at Bang Pa Kong just north-east of Chonburi city, complete with its own big river, good transport links (you can see it from either motorway) and few immediate residents.

473geo, ... Good Idea! If you believe the karma will only strike those most demanding this form of power!!

Rick, ...

I was reminded of the low river conditions last year as drought affected so much of Thailand for the March - early July of 2010... It seems to me that counting on rivers to supply massive amounts of water will become ever less safe an idea, compounding a technology that will kill thousands (Chernobyl has estimates of a MILLION deaths from only one accident.)

European Committee on Radiation Risk

http://www.euradcom.org/

The Chernobyl deniers use far too simple a measure of radiation risk

http://www.guardian....ity?INTCMP=SRCH

Nuclear Disasters Should Be Met with Scientific Inquiry, Not Silence

http://www.commondre...w/2011/04/26-10

Unsafe at Any Dose

http://www.nytimes.c...icott.html?_r=3

[RickBradford]

It seems to me that counting on rivers to supply massive amounts of water will become ever less safe an idea

In that case, you should immediately inform the French government of their folly about placing most of their 59 nuclear plants inland, which have killed nobody in 50 years of operation.

[RPCVguy]

It seems to me that counting on rivers to supply massive amounts of water will become ever less safe an idea

In that case, you should immediately inform the French government of their folly about placing most of their 59 nuclear plants inland, which have killed nobody in 50 years of operation.

Indeed, warn all nations of the folly of nuclear power to boil water to spin turbines to generate electricity. Humanity is on a collision course of its own doing, (som na naa) and the sooner we begin looking ahead and steering to a new course the better. France will need to deal with its reactor wastes far longer than the benefits it has reaped in the past 50 years.

Easier to avoid getting into that problem by using the gift of sunlight that avoids collecting, handling, and disposing of such toxic radioactive material to begin with.

Rick, you consistently wiggle to a new argument rather than hold to the one here. While you initially included the health costs of coal, you've avoided the studies showing the massive deaths and range of pollution from the first level 7 accident => Chernobyl. The IAEA report was bad, but glossed over the realities of observed raised cancer rates and still births. (Chernobyl has estimates of a MILLION deaths from only one accident.)

European Committee on Radiation Risk

http://www.euradcom.org/

The Chernobyl deniers use far too simple a measure of radiation risk

http://www.guardian....ity?INTCMP=SRCH

Nuclear Disasters Should Be Met with Scientific Inquiry, Not Silence

http://www.commondre...w/2011/04/26-10

Unsafe at Any Dose

http://www.nytimes.c...icott.html?_r=3

France has snow packs from the Alps that assures river water so long as the glaciers of the Alps exist to melt. The Mekong is the glacier fed river here, but it already has dams long before the water reaches Thailand. Last year's drought shows the alternatives are real. The coast though is at risk of a tsunami. Neither water source is secure.

You keep speaking of the 50 year safety record as assurance of continued success. By merely that line of reasoning, a 50 year old human can count on living forever. No, the logic is flawed, and the consequences of a nuclear reactor problem - which will occur - are catastrophic.

[RickBradford]

You keep speaking of the 50 year safety record as assurance of continued success. By merely that line of reasoning, a 50 year old human can count on living forever. No, the logic is flawed ....

The logic that is flawed is yours, as shown above, and more than that, it is just plain silly.

Trying to equate the life-span of a creature; with a purely statistical construct like a safety record is meaningless and not worth discussing.

Your point about solar power is slightly more relevant, though to call it a 'gift' is traditional Greenie magical thinking; we pay nothing for the sun's energy, certainly, but we pay plenty to harness it in resource and pollution terms, including the use of significant quantities of lead, mercury and cadmium which have already laid waste to several communities in China (http://www.enn.com/p...n/article/32974) .

The inescapable fact is that any form of energy has costs associated with it, the trick is to use the forms of energy which are cheap, safe, reliable and effective. Solar fails on at last three of those counts, as several European countries have discovered to their cost.

In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale, which is why you are forced to make the idiotic comparison to the human life-span.

[Cobalt60]

I have been involved recently in a project involving building a radiation research plant from the ground up .

I would suggest that if they do go ahead, that they buy in farang/japanese engineering and leave little or nothing to the locals, (even with their impressive sounding university degrees)

And even though they know better than us in every aspect and understand that the farang engineers are all stupid, as they constantly imply or state, I would be somewhat concerned myself that it could ever be trusted to be made and maintained in any form of a proper fashion.

The endemic corruption in itself leads to over tight budgets and corner cutting...oh I cant be bothered to go on, you all know what I am saying.

[vont]

You keep speaking of the 50 year safety record as assurance of continued success. By merely that line of reasoning, a 50 year old human can count on living forever. No, the logic is flawed ....

The logic that is flawed is yours, as shown above, and more than that, it is just plain silly.

Trying to equate the life-span of a creature; with a purely statistical construct like a safety record is meaningless and not worth discussing.

Your point about solar power is slightly more relevant, though to call it a 'gift' is traditional Greenie magical thinking; we pay nothing for the sun's energy, certainly, but we pay plenty to harness it in resource and pollution terms, including the use of significant quantities of lead, mercury and cadmium which have already laid waste to several communities in China (http://www.enn.com/p...n/article/32974) .

The inescapable fact is that any form of energy has costs associated with it, the trick is to use the forms of energy which are cheap, safe, reliable and effective. Solar fails on at last three of those counts, as several European countries have discovered to their cost.

In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale, which is why you are forced to make the idiotic comparison to the human life-span.

RickBradford

You surely are not serious, are you, about what you said....

.... In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale,

What future disasters are you referring to?

Just barely a month or so ago, the ultimately unexpected happens.... yes, in Japan....

That is just not too long ago, is it?

Does that count as present disaster or immediate past unrelated disaster, in your opinion?

Does that nuclear disaster count and qualify in your opinion, as fantasies? Does it also count toward an unqualified nuclear disaster, in your opinion?

Sometimes, it is often difficult for me to distinguish between rationality and irrationality.

Now, your line of reasoning, claiming that....In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale,

even confuses me further.... I need to check in with my shrink, perhaps; or perhaps not....!

[RickBradford]

Just barely a month or so ago, the ultimately unexpected happens.... yes, in Japan....

This proves my point nicely -- "the ultimately unexpected happens" -- an earthquake 10 times stronger than anything predicted hits a 40-year-old nuclear plant which was beyond its scheduled decommissioning time, followed by a massive 11-meter tsunami which not only smacked straight into the plant,but knocked out all electricity in the region, and what was the result?

No nuclear disaster, no deaths from radiation, minimal pollution of the surrounding area. It is gleaming testimony to the inherent safety of nuclear power, and the only disasters were in the minds of journalists and other superstitious and fearful people.

I need to check in with my shrink, perhaps; or perhaps not....!

Up to you. but look at it from his point of view -- I'm sure he'd prefer a nice quiet Sunday afternoon.

[RPCVguy]

You keep speaking of the 50 year safety record as assurance of continued success. By merely that line of reasoning, a 50 year old human can count on living forever. No, the logic is flawed ....

The logic that is flawed is yours, as shown above, and more than that, it is just plain silly.

Trying to equate the life-span of a creature; with a purely statistical construct like a safety record is meaningless and not worth discussing.

Your point about solar power is slightly more relevant, though to call it a 'gift' is traditional Greenie magical thinking; we pay nothing for the sun's energy, certainly, but we pay plenty to harness it in resource and pollution terms, including the use of significant quantities of lead, mercury and cadmium which have already laid waste to several communities in China (http://www.enn.com/p...n/article/32974) .

The inescapable fact is that any form of energy has costs associated with it, the trick is to use the forms of energy which are cheap, safe, reliable and effective. Solar fails on at last three of those counts, as several European countries have discovered to their cost.

In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale, which is why you are forced to make the idiotic comparison to the human life-span.

RickBradford

You surely are not serious, are you, about what you said....

.... In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale,

What future disasters are you referring to?

Just barely a month or so ago, the ultimately unexpected happens.... yes, in Japan....

That is just not too long ago, is it?

Does that count as present disaster or immediate past unrelated disaster, in your opinion?

Does that nuclear disaster count and qualify in your opinion, as fantasies? Does it also count toward an unqualified nuclear disaster, in your opinion?

Sometimes, it is often difficult for me to distinguish between rationality and irrationality.

Now, your line of reasoning, claiming that....In addition, the only objections you have made against nuclear power are based on fantasies about future disasters for which there is no rationale,

even confuses me further.... I need to check in with my shrink, perhaps; or perhaps not....!

Thanks Vont,

There is a difficulty in debating something with people who refuse to discuss real events and their consequences. Rick continues to ignore the medical costs of nuclear fallout from Chernobyl. He ignores links posted above as to the cancer misery, the future mutations (yet generations away from manifesting fully), the stillbirths. A million people affected by one accident. Now somewhere over 200,000 more humans already at risk from Fukushima.

While dismissing my intended absurd comparison of a person to a safety record, Rick knows the end analogy is real. Three catastrophic nuclear events have happened in the "nuclear age" (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.) Additional countless oversights have been "near misses" http://www.tomdispat...yth_melts_down/ More disasters WILL occur! 50 years without a disaster when materials are dangerous for thousands of years ... this is the statistical problem of currently declaring "safety" after 3 disasters in only 50 years. Where and how will material from decommissioned reactors ever be stored? How will you cart it there? How will we assure the safety of that material for time spans that exceed the time-spans that have transpired since the time of the Pharaohs or Buddha by many times that time-span? .... with all the "unforeseen events" that humanity and earthquakes supplied in just a few thousand years?

Like Rick's dismissal of Global Warming, he is once again siding with industry and ignoring science. He has yet to demonstrate reasoning through the links cited, preferring verbal jabs instead. Only one advantage strikes me as of note for nuclear... nuclear energy maintains the "centralized power" formula that mirrors some societal structures. Meanwhile, rational people in Japan have faced the truth as reported here by the NY Times

"Japan to Cancel Plan to Build More Nuclear Plants" http://www.nytimes.c...ner=rss&emc=rss

May rational people win the arguments in Thailand. Better to use the solar power and other renewable technologies. Not all solar is photo electric. Developments are ongoing as in solar thermal. Thin film and alternate chemistry options are also being developed. Costs that are up-front, not involving waste or explosive fallout... are already cleaner and within range of subsidized oil.

Ultimately the issues will be population, food, water, and health of the environment. Seeing that approaching situation and preparing for it by current policy decisions seems wiser than not doing so. Maybe the reality of "homo sapiens" as not being that wise is the issue.

[RickBradford]

There is a difficulty in debating something with people who refuse to discuss real events and their consequences

Very true. For example, you cite the consequences of the Three Mile Island real event as 'catastrophic' when it was nothing of the kind.

As the American Nuclear Society pointed out, using the official radiation emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

Hardly a catastrophe, even by alarmist standards.

More disasters WILL occur!

That's like saying 'aeroplanes will always crash'; that is, it's probably true, but largely irrelevant, as the technologies get safer and safer over time as we learn lessons from these incidents.

To say that the risk of another nuclear incident is sufficient that we should completely abandon the technology is not a rational stance; it is an emotional one driven by medieval-style fear of the unknown.

While dismissing my intended absurd comparison of a person to a safety record...

Weak. Very weak.

[Beetlejuice]

Nuclear Power In Thailand Remains On The Cards For Political Partie.

Great news.

Should I begin building my shelter now, or wait until they have completed the plants?

[vont]

There is a difficulty in debating something with people who refuse to discuss real events and their consequences

Very true. For example, you cite the consequences of the Three Mile Island real event as 'catastrophic' when it was nothing of the kind.

As the American Nuclear Society pointed out, using the official radiation emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

Hardly a catastrophe, even by alarmist standards.

More disasters WILL occur!

That's like saying 'aeroplanes will always crash'; that is, it's probably true, but largely irrelevant, as the technologies get safer and safer over time as we learn lessons from these incidents.

To say that the risk of another nuclear incident is sufficient that we should completely abandon the technology is not a rational stance; it is an emotional one driven by medieval-style fear of the unknown.

While dismissing my intended absurd comparison of a person to a safety record...

Weak. Very weak.

I did not read all your posts but it does appear to me that you are very eloquent in the defense of nuke, even though not all agreeable, statistically or otherwise.

Did you acquire your knowledge and experiences from which associations with nuke, pls?

You really do not need to respond to my inquiry, unless you feel comfortable, ok?

I must do no wish to miss another noted nuclear physicist on Thaivisa, for there are several, you know. Cheers.

Edited May 11, 2011 by vont

[RPCVguy]

Rick, Before responding specifically to your last comments, I recalled an additional subsidy to nuclear that lowers its apparent cost / KwHr... the industry is generally insured by the government. Why? Even the World Trade Towers were industry inured against terrorists, but the government subsidizes nuclear for damages. Private insurers will not insure a nuclear reactor. That fact alone answers most of your comments, as does the decision of Japan to not build more reactors - ending 14 current projects. And I had earlier cited the article where Germany is closing its reactors by 2020. I'm pointing this out since most readers won't so stubbornly cling to industry PR and will find the above comment sufficient.

Now to your specifics:

Very true. For example, you cite the consequences of the Three Mile Island real event as 'catastrophic' when it was nothing of the kind.

As the American Nuclear Society pointed out, using the official radiation emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

Hardly a catastrophe, even by alarmist standards.

Three Mile Island was less of a problem than Chernobyl and Fukushima because it was contained before reaching a level 7 disaster. Even so,

"David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer-turned-whistleblower who monitors the U.S. nuclear reactor fleet for the Union of Concerned Scientists, says radiation monitors on the vent stacks at Three Mile Island went off scale during the accident."

Regarding the numbers you reported above:

"Lochbaum says that figure is grossly underestimated, because it is based on a measurement of radiation levels on the Three Mile Island site a year after the fact and does not account for shorter-lived radionuclides like iodine-131, which would not have been measurable by that time. Nor, he says, does the official figure include any leakage from the containment building, the concrete dome surrounding the core of the reactor, which is meant to prevent deadly radiation from escaping into the environment in the event of an accident. Lochbaum estimates that at least 40 million curies were released during the accident. Other more recent estimates by former nuclear industry executive Arnold Gundersen calculated the radiation releases at

100 to 1,000 times higher than NRC estimates

."

http://www.ontheissu...ing_Charman.php

Also see:

AND, what you are NOT responding to is the difference between radiation exposure external to an organism - such as an X-ray, vs. the studies of what happens when an ionizing radiation source is internalized / absorbed into a cell.

"

The dose from a singly internal alpha particle track to a single cell is 500mSv!

The dose to the whole body from the same alpha track is 5 x 10-11 mSv. That is 0.000000000005mSv. But

it is the dose to the cell that causes the genetic damage and the ultimate cancer

."

http://rense.com/general93/decon.htm article is by Chris Busby."

Conclusions:

Two separate methods have been employed to calculate the global cancer yield of the

Chernobyl accident

. The results show b

etween approximately 492,000 and 1.4 million incident cancers in the 10 years and 50 years following exposure

. These results agree rather well with earlier estimates by Gofman (1990), Bertell (2006) and epidemiological approaches to deaths using real data by Yablokov (2011) but are much greater than those published by the World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency or by Fairlie and Sumner 2006.

The agreement between the ECRR2003 method employed and real data on cancer from ex Soviet Union areas contaminated by Chernobyl, from weapons fallout and Sweden after Chernobyl suggests that the current approach to modelling radiation risk based on the ICRP dependence on the external exposures of the Japan A-Bomb survivor cohorts is erroneous (Lesvos Declaration 2009)."

http://www.euradcom....healthrept3.pdf

That's like saying 'aeroplanes will always crash'; that is, it's probably true, but largely irrelevant, as the technologies get safer and safer over time as we learn lessons from these incidents.

To say that the risk of another nuclear incident is sufficient that we should completely abandon the technology is not a rational stance; it is an emotional one driven by medieval-style fear of the unknown.

"irrelevant" That sir seems a matter of perspective as to where you live and which way the winds are blowing when a reactor goes. I've lived downwind and had daily commutes past the San Onofre reactor in California that sits above a fault line upon the Pacific Coast. LA and San Diego are within the circle of danger that would require evacuation.

"lessons from these incidents" ... are that the most problems occur shortly after start-up, when staff are inexperienced, or as the reactors age and materials deteriorate from the heat and radiation. This site lists locations of reactors , their age, and compares that to a map of seismic activity for the USA. Unfortunately (or irresponsibly?) San Onofre is not unique. Many nuclear reactors already exist near earthquake danger areas. http://www.mnn.com/e...erlap-in-the-us and many reactors are past their planned lifetimes.

"medieval-style fear of the unknown"is not the case as you would remember. Though you've not responded in the past, you know my degree is in Chemistry. I've worked a decade in the chemical industry, and tracked long the consequences of "unforeseen events" whether in chemical plant accidents, nuclear accidents, oil rig and pipeline leaks, or now the problems of hydro-fracking. Energy extraction and utilization is a dirty business. If all things were equal it might be expected to become less hazardous, but things are not equal. As our society insists on growing while confined to a finite planet, the available raw materials become ever harder to locate and extract - forcing engineers to push limits and take greater risks to satisfy demands. This means the statistics favor ongoing "accidents" - they are indeed assured. This will include risks of new reactor designs generating problems not foreseen on their designs.

[RickBradford]

forcing engineers to push limits and take greater risks to satisfy demands. This means the statistics favor ongoing "accidents" - they are indeed assured. This will include risks of new reactor designs generating problems not foreseen on their designs.

You are suggesting that the next generation of nuclear plants will be more risky and dangerous than the existing ones.

This suggestion completely flies in the face of centuries of scientific development during which every technology has gradually become safer as lessons are learnt -- aeroplanes, bridges, ships, railways, roads, dams, coal mines, motor cars, food production, medical procedures, explosives, industrial plants, electrical appliances, building construction ... the list is endless.

Can you name a technology which has become more dangerous as time has gone on?

Again, you are taking an emotional and unsupported stance rather than a rational one.

[RPCVguy]

forcing engineers to push limits and take greater risks to satisfy demands. This means the statistics favor ongoing "accidents" - they are indeed assured. This will include risks of new reactor designs generating problems not foreseen on their designs.

You are suggesting that the next generation of nuclear plants will be more risky and dangerous than the existing ones.

This suggestion completely flies in the face of centuries of scientific development during which every technology has gradually become safer as lessons are learnt -- aeroplanes, bridges, ships, railways, roads, dams, coal mines, motor cars, food production, medical procedures, explosives, industrial plants, electrical appliances, building construction ... the list is endless.

Can you name a technology which has become more dangerous as time has gone on?

Again, you are taking an emotional and unsupported stance rather than a rational one.

I understand that many of the issues of current reactors are being designed around in the 3rd and 4th generation reactor plans. It is technology that mostly exists in concept... but I trust Murphy's Law to still cast a voice here and there. (You know the one - if anything can go wrong, it will... Like that the Titanic was unsinkable - until it made its maiden voyage...)

Meanwhile you've AGAIN ignored the many links to the problems of just one accident... the global cancer yield of the Chernobyl accident. The results show between approximately 492,000 and 1.4 million incident cancers in the 10 years and 50 years following exposure. You've also ignored the numerous other links that have data counter to your opinions. Maybe because they reveal the hidden costs of nuclear. Huge risks exposure each time an accident happens.

Here are two links to articles favoring nuclear energy and pining for 3rd and 4th generation reactors. I like them because they have technical debate in the comments afterwards - enough to show the start-up costs for the reactors will be huge, and showing that for lesser material costs a network if wind, solar and other mixed range of projects could achieve similar or better energy supply - without the problems of dealing with radioactive materials. :jap:

Why greens must learn to love nuclear power http://www.newstates...-lynas-reactors

The most important investment that we aren't making to mitigate the climate crisis http://bravenewclima...e-arent-making/

This article was posted only 8.5 hours ago, and seemed perfect to include in this overall thread

A more likely nuclear nightmare http://www.iwatchnew...clear-nightmare

The unlikely and unforeseen accidents will continue.

[Soutpeel]

Again, you are taking an emotional and unsupported stance rather than a rational one.

Its all rather a moot point for Thailand anyway...the IAEC stated they didnt think Thailand was ready for commerical nuclear pre-Japan and without IAEC support for the program it will never get off the ground anyway.

Using "RPCVguy" logic and rational he should be calling for the banning of all commerical aircraft as they have accidents, and certainly in the case of Thailand banning of all cars/motor bike and commerical trucking and bus services because they kill people as well.

Having worked commerical nuclear for many years, I would prefer to live next to a safely operated nuclear plant, than an oil refinery or chemical plant.any day of the week...

[bangkokeddy]

It seems to me that counting on rivers to supply massive amounts of water will become ever less safe an idea

In that case, you should immediately inform the French government of their folly about placing most of their 59 nuclear plants inland, which have killed nobody in 50 years of operation.

Exactly!

Nuclear Energy - a safe, clean and green solution.

Good to hear that Thai politicians of all mayor parties don't went into a paranoia mood.

[RPCVguy]

Using "RPCVguy" logic and rational he should be calling for the banning of all commerical aircraft as they have accidents,...

Having worked commerical nuclear for many years, I would prefer to live next to a

safely operated

nuclear plant, than an oil refinery or chemical plant.any day of the week...

Glad to see you are qualifying your statement... but

safe

is an assessment of risk.

Risk factors include not only frequency of accident, but number of lives and cost of property affected - for how long...

The problems for nuclear in the assessment of risk is not the frequency of accidents (flying is safer than driving as a percentage of passenger miles traveled due to far lower frequency and not that many more passengers to multiply by), rather the

nuclear risk problems are the size of population affected and duration of the pollution

. A plane accident does not generate this type of mess:

TEPCO Admits Fukushima in Meltdown, Worst Case Scenario 5/12/11

An airplane accident does not pollute for generations, or spread death via cancers across seas as this series of

maps of radiation plumes

from NILU (Noregian Institute for Air Research) depicts

http://www.youtube.c...u/4/haMePBnkJhY

Governments are trying not to release the data for general viewing, hence the playing with the folder naming of the mapping site... track it back to the root directory. Also see the radiation chart I've attached. This chart is for exposures EXTERNAL to a body, while the relative intensity from a source absorbed into the body via lungs or food is much more intense... again as cited in the studies I've linked to earlier. :jap:

I do not expect Rick or several others to be moved by these posts, but do believe others on ThaiVisa may have minds open enough to evaluate the data presented by the two sides of the debate on this thread. Concerns I've raised are based on an awareness of the physics and of the fallout again being dispersed globally. There is nowhere to run, but there are reactors to see shut down and safer alternatives brought into application.

[RickBradford]

Governments are trying not to release the data for general viewing, hence the playing with the folder naming of the mapping site

I see your self-styled 'open mind' hasn't prevented you from falling straight into conspiracy theory territory of the sort favoured on Planet Fayed.

I think people with open minds here will prefer the measured advice of an industry expert such as 'Soutpeel', rather than a bunch of Internet links from someone who makes an absurd statement like...

You keep speaking of the 50 year safety record as assurance of continued success. By merely that line of reasoning, a 50 year old human can count on living forever.

--- and uses that as a basis to claims that other people are lacking in logic.

Edited May 14, 2011 by RickBradford

[RPCVguy]

Rick,

You've been avoiding the studies I've linked to regarding consequences from Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. After you cited industry data as to damage, you've been silent in discussing the studies that disagree with your posted opinions, studies that directly attack the figures you chose to quote. Instead you've taken abbreviated quotes out of context and make fun of the wording. Possible debate style points but weak content.

Here is my original quote from comment #36

France has snow packs from the Alps that assures river water so long as the glaciers of the Alps exist to melt. The Mekong is the glacier fed river here, but it already has dams long before the water reaches Thailand. Last year's drought shows the alternatives are real. The coast though is at risk of a tsunami. Neither water source is secure.

You keep speaking of the 50 year safety record as assurance of continued success. By merely that line of reasoning, a 50 year old human can count on living forever. No, the logic is flawed, and the consequences of a nuclear reactor problem - which will occur - are catastrophic.

... which was in reply to your comment #35

In that case, you should immediately inform the French government of their folly about placing most of their 59 nuclear plants inland, which have killed nobody in 50 years of operation.

… after I stated in comment #34

I was reminded of the low river conditions last year as drought affected so much of Thailand for the March - early July of 2010... It seems to me that counting on rivers to supply massive amounts of water will become an ever less safe idea; compounding a technology that will kill thousands (Chernobyl has estimates of a MILLION deaths from only one accident.)

I stick with my concerns that rivers are inherently risky if one is in absolute need of a guaranteed supply of cooling water at the high flow rates of most current nuclear reactors - especially when the river is not sourced within ones borders AND has recently demonstrated its susceptibility to drought.

As to your comment #51 above:

The world has been made aware, and revolutions have overturned governments in the past few months from just a few of many government secrets leaked to the newspapers. When the Noregian Institute for Air Research that has been collecting and posting unpleasant data as to the Fukushima radiation plume suddenly says the data is no longer available, but it turns up in the same format in another directory – that switch has an odor.

and back to you favorite quote about the absurdity of trusting a 50 year track record as an assurance France will continue to be safe… The existing reactors are aging. They need to be decommissioned and their spent fuel stored safely and securely for thousands of years. As the IAEA has known and reported upon since the early 1960's

Hardly considered a separate area of science some 20 to 25 years ago, solid state physics has now become a vigorous and rapidly growing discipline. The reason for its great stimulation is that modern technology has placed increasingly drastic demands on materials. Nowhere perhaps is this trend more evident than in nuclear technology, where the novel demands for certain optimum combinations of physical properties have necessitated an almost complete re-examination of materials and their associated properties from both fundamental and technological points of view. One of the most important requirements imposed by this new application is an entirely new one, viz. radiation stability.

In order for a material to be useful within a nuclear reactor it must be able to withstand not only high temperatures but also high fluxes of energetic nuclear radiation for prolonged periods.

http://www.iaea.org/...04305001518.pdf

Radiation danger levels at a reactor leads to studying material properties via accelerators like at Los Alamos http://hpschapters.o...e1_Sickafus.pdf

Research continues, but generation 3 and 4 reactors ADD to the corrosiveness of the environment via the liquid sodium and other materials that make their designs possible. … so yes, I believe reactors are aging and their continued safety is not logically assured by the prior half century record.

Oh, and industry experts have been known to have a bias. Experts built Fukushima reactors. Engineers analyze and learn from accidents, but

I believe nuclear accidents are of a scale as to make the learning curve too costly in lives and real estate.

… natural disasters and the culture of people working day after day then allows more problems to happen.

Ultimately, neither you nor I decide what will be the policy,

but having open discussions is a way to influence the eventual political decision.

Edited May 14, 2011 by RPCVguy

[RPCVguy]

It seems to me that counting on rivers to supply massive amounts of water will become ever less safe an idea

In that case, you should immediately inform the French government of their folly about placing most of their 59 nuclear plants inland, which have killed nobody in 50 years of operation.

France is currently experiencing drought. If drought conditions continue 44 of the 58 reactors situated on rivers may have to be shut down leaving France facing electrical black outs according to the Nuclear Observatory's recent analysis. Actually, France is already considering what to do as drought may force the shut-down of 22 reactors for the near term. The article (Monday, May 16, 2011, "Drought threatens the functioning of nuclear ") is in French at http://ecologie.blog...les-nucleaires/ but seems accessible in English via Google Translate at http://translate.goo...s-nucleaires%2F

Remember, a reactor, even shut down, still requires water cooling it for a long time. There is no easy "off switch"

On another note, it seems the good folk at Tepco whose Fukushima plants have been in crisis for two months and counting, have been slow in their reporting of conditions at the reactors.

TEPCO has finally admitted that reactor #1 has experienced a meltdown event that may have breached the primary containment vessel. Further, truly alarming levels of radiation are now being reported in and around Tokyo.

The prospects for containing the situation at reactor #1 are now much dimmer than previously admitted. A melted core is far more difficult to cool because the geometry of the slag heap at the bottom is not nearly as favorable as long thin tubes around which water can be relatively easily circulated.

As always, trusting our own abilities to know what we are looking at and make reasonable guesses turns out to be the right course of action, especially during times when official sources have conflicts of interest in being truly open and honest.

I used "official sources" loosely because it is also true that it was not just TEPCO that had access to the heat signature data detected above. It must also be true that the US, which conducted numerous over flights with sophisticated detection packages, had this information as well.

The bad news is that reactors #1, #2, and #3 are all really badly damaged and leaking contamination to the outside world. Pouring water on them only creates more radioactive water which will find its way into the groundwater and/or the ocean.

The fear is that the molten cores are still cooking along, slowly working their way out of first the primary containment vessels and that they might slowly eat their way out of the secondary containment vessels too. If that happens, then there is a very real chance of extremely large-scale release of radioactive contamination -possibly in a rather vigorous manner - should some sort of re-criticality be established or just a good-old-fashioned steam explosion occur if/when the molted cores encounter water.

The problem is not the levels of radiation; the danger lurks in the ingestion of contamination, especially of isotopes that tend to concentrate in the body. Strontium, iodine and cesium all have that tendency. I wish there were better news to report, but this is the situation as it stands: Fukushima is not over, not by a long shot.

http://www.chrismart...situation/57915

Lastly, the amount of spent fuel and the problems of its storage at Fukushima is highlighting the same problem exists nearly everywhere there are reactors. There is over 100 tons of spent fuel at Fukushima alone Here is a current article in the New York Times: Panel on Nuclear Waste Disposal to Propose Above-Ground Storage http://www.nytimes.c...waste.html?_r=2

[RickBradford]

France is currently experiencing drought. If drought conditions continue 44 of the 58 reactors situated on rivers may have to be shut down leaving France facing electrical black outs according to the Nuclear Observatory's recent analysis

Oh, well done, you've found an ecological blog quoting an 'analysis' by a violent Communist agitator who has been banging a variety of anti-capitalist (including anti-nuclear) drums militantly for over a decade, despite his specialty (apart from violence and self-promotion) being sociology.

In short, the "Observatoire du nucléaire" is a very big name for the equivalent of an angry crank in his spare bedroom, writing threatening anti-business rants in green ink.

On the other hand, you will find his attitude towards nuclear power very similar to your own, based as it is overwhelmingly on emotional reaction rather than factual analysis.

[RPCVguy]

Oh, well done, you've found an ecological blog quoting an 'analysis' by a violent Communist agitator who has been banging a variety of anti-capitalist (including anti-nuclear) drums militantly for over a decade, despite his specialty (apart from violence and self-promotion) being sociology.

Rick, you are the perfect straight man setting up the continued discussion. The author of of that article appears to me to be a woman named Audrey Garric whose bio says "I spent two years at the Graduate School of Journalism (ESJ) in Lille after studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (IEP) of Toulouse. A CDD three months to the Eco-Earth Liberation was a sort of catalyst of this desire to marry economics and ecology. I am currently a reporter for The Monde.fr, The World Economy, Liberation and Terra Eco." http://translate.goo...4rW_t7xySseerVA

... so maybe you found a different ID as to the source - but it appears not to be the guy you described. Or maybe the link in the article was not what it appeared?

Mai bpenrai!

So busy were you denouncing the messenger that you overlooked the reality of what happened in 2003 during the drought then.

During the record-breaking 2003 heat wave in France, operations at 17 commercial nuclear reactors had to be scaled back or stopped because of rapidly rising temperatures in rivers and lake.

Highlighting the vulnerability of nuclear power to environmental change or extreme-weather patterns, in 2006 plant operators in Western Europe also secured exemptions from regulations that would have prevented them from discharging overheated water into natural ecosystems, affecting fisheries.

France likes to showcase its nuclear power industry, which supplies 78% of the country's electricity. But such is the nuclear industry's water intensity that EDF withdraws up to 19 billion cubic meters of water per year from rivers and lakes, or roughly half of France's total freshwater consumption. Freshwater scarcity is a growing international challenge, and the vast majority of countries are in no position to approve of such highly water-intensive inland-based energy systems.. http://chellaney.net...rable-to-water/

Oh and before you get started "Brahma Chellaney is a Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, an independent think-tank, and a Member of the Board of Governors of the National Book Trust of India. Until recently, he was also a Member of the Policy Advisory Group headed by the External Affairs Minister of India. Professor Chellaney is widely regarded as one of India's leading strategic thinkers and analysts, and is also a well-known newspaper and television commentator on international affairs" http://en.wikipedia....rahma_Chellaney

... and the drought this year looks to be worse:

Total rainfall in April amounted to barely 29 percent of the average established over the 1971-2000 period, the ministry said in a report, adding that soils in the northern part of the country were experiencing the driest conditions in 50 years.http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/us-france-drought-idUSTRE74F3PR20110516

I understand that you don't like the message that nuclear has vulnerabilities that force shut-downs during droughts, but it has happened before and seems probable again. Look past criticizing the messenger and check the facts. Then consider what would happen if the water flow rate fell enough to not maintain cooling during the required shut-down. Sure, short term it would "only" translate to releasing water at higher temperatures... but What If "another unforeseen act of nature" lowered that water access still further? That is my concern and especially after the rapidity and severity of the drought in Thailand in 2010.

Now for a reminder: You've again avoided replying to the studies I've linked to regarding consequences from Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. You lack of serious and reasoned information suggests you are not able to disprove the issues raised as to costs in increased cancer rates / still births, etc. - compounding the "costs" for centuries.

[RPCVguy]

Statements like this one by Former NRC Commissioner Victor Gilinsky are getting easy to locate:

a serious nuclear accident could cost $100 billion or more. "There is no way that the industry fund will come close to closing that, and they know it," the nuclear physicist said. "They say that taxpayers would be [spared] the cost, because they maintain it will never happen."

http://www.aolnews.c...-disaster-here/

see the rest of the article for more quotes like this one "The rapidly escalating estimates on the economic cost of the Japanese nuclear debacle is anticipated to be at least $500 billion, and the Japanese people are far, far less litigious than people on this side of the Pacific."

[RickBradford]

Rick, you are the perfect straight man

Well, every comedian needs a straight man.

If you can get serious for a second and trouble to do a little bit of research, you will see:

1) As I clearly stated, the blog post you cited was based on an analysis from "Observatoire du nucléaire"

2) "Observatoire du nucléaire" is a group started and run by a Marxist agitator called Stéphane Lhomme, who is extremely well-known in France for his violent anti-capitalist and even anarchist stance.

If the best argument you have against nuclear energy is to cite a rant by this serial crackpot, then you truly have entered the world of comedy.

[RPCVguy]

Rick, you are the perfect straight man

Well, every comedian needs a straight man.

If you can get serious for a second and trouble to do a little bit of research, you will see:

1) As I clearly stated, the blog post you cited was based on an analysis from "Observatoire du nucléaire"

2) "Observatoire du nucléaire" is a group started and run by a Marxist agitator called Stéphane Lhomme, who is extremely well-known in France for his violent anti-capitalist and even anarchist stance.

If the best argument you have against nuclear energy is to cite a rant by this serial crackpot, then you truly have entered the world of comedy.

Which again attacks the messenger but ignores the facts of the story... so the entirety of my last 2 comments still stand.

Edited May 18, 2011 by RPCVguy

[RickBradford]

Rick, you are the perfect straight man

Well, every comedian needs a straight man.

If you can get serious for a second and trouble to do a little bit of research, you will see:

1) As I clearly stated, the blog post you cited was based on an analysis from "Observatoire du nucléaire"

2) "Observatoire du nucléaire" is a group started and run by a Marxist agitator called Stéphane Lhomme, who is extremely well-known in France for his violent anti-capitalist and even anarchist stance.

If the best argument you have against nuclear energy is to cite a rant by this serial crackpot, then you truly have entered the world of comedy.

Which again attacks the messenger but ignores the facts of the story... so the entirety of my last 2 comments still stand.

Pure comedy gold!!

[RPCVguy]

Which again attacks the messenger but ignores the facts of the story... so the entirety of my last 2 comments still stand.

Pure comedy gold!

The drama of what is happening with nuclear reactors would better be described as a TRAGEDY.

Never-mind that France has previously experienced the forced shut-downs described in the article.

We need give the story's warning no credence because Rick has denounced the source quoted by the reporter.

But evidence counter to assurances of engineers and other nuclear experts continues to mount. From today's New York Times Headlines

"Hidden Dangers In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S." http://www.nytimes.c...dlines&emc=tha2 :

TOKYO — Emergency vents that American officials have said would prevent devastating hydrogen explosions at nuclear plants in the United States were put to the test in Japan — and failed to work, according to experts and officials with the company that operates the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The failure of the vents calls into question the safety of similar nuclear power plants in the United States and Japan. After the venting failed at the Fukushima plant, the hydrogen gas fueled explosions that spewed radioactive materials into the atmosphere, reaching levels about 10 percent of estimated emissions at Chernobyl, according to Japan's nuclear regulatory agency.

... But the emergency vents were fitted with numerous safeguards, some of which require electricity to work, rendering them useless when all power is lost at a nuclear plant, experts say.

Time and again it is the "unforeseen circumstances", or circumstances believed too improbable to engineer into systems that has proven to be the Achilles heel here. Rather than consider the advice of critics as to potential problems, there are people like Rick who'd rather risk thousands of lives insisting that expert engineering systems and backups are reliable. Bad enough when it is a car or a bus, or an airplane - but nuclear reactors have already caused death and destruction for thousands and their contamination lasts for generations.

Meanwhile Germany has announced plans to close all its nuclear power plants by 2020, and Japan has canceled its plans to add nuclear reactors. Still, Rick and others among politicians want to bring nuclear power plants to Thailand?

Again the reminder for Rick: You're still avoiding replies to the studies I've linked to regarding consequences from accidents like at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Chernobyl has estimates of a

MILLION deaths

from only one accident.

European Committee on Radiation Risk

http://www.euradcom.org/2011/chernhealthrept.htm

The Chernobyl deniers use far too simple a measure of radiation risk

http://www.guardian....ity?INTCMP=SRCH

Predicting the global health consequences of the Chernobyl accident

Methodology of the European Committee on Radiation Risk

http://www.euradcom.org/2011/chernhealthrept3.pdf

Unsafe at Any Dose

http://www.nytimes.c...icott.html?_r=3