Nuclear power is not evil; it's the devil. Evil of our own making can be overcome. The devil cannot be overcome, not even if we ourselves conjure him into being. This is why staking our future on nuclear power is a pact with the devil.
Spokesmen for the nuclear lobby claim nuclear reactors are safe. By safe they mean we can master them under all circumstances. This would be essential, as a reactor requires constant control to remain operational. If an essential part of the control system breaks down, the reactor core heats up, and if the problem is not remedied in time, the core melts. The radioactive radiation released by a meltdown sooner or later proves lethal for people, the same as for all forms of life higher than insects and grass. Failing to control other technologies creates local problems -- the breakdown of navigation systems, power-shortages, unsafe drinking water, poisonous air -- and while these are bad enough, they do not kill hundreds of thousands of people. A major nuclear breakdown does.
The present near-meltdown of the super-technology installation in Japan has made it clear that perfect and reliable control is not possible. There are too many eventualities that cannot be foreseen. We live in a complex world where myriad processes unfold, and one way or another they all interact one with the other.
The disaster in Japan occurred because the combination of factors that triggered it was not foreseen: it was ipso facto implausible. Friction among continental tectonic plates hundreds of miles offshore created a quake on the ocean floor, and this was communicated to the land-mass of Japan. This in itself could be foreseen: no problem, Japan's nuclear facilities have been built to withstand earthquakes. But the offshore quake also created a tsunami, and the flood-waters destroyed a part of the power-grid on land. That, too, was foreseeable. There are many ways that the power-supply of reactors can be assured, it's part of their fail-safe mechanism. But the tsunami also produced a failure of the cooling system in such a massive way that it could not be readily remedied. That was not foreseen. As a result the core of six powerful reactors have gone critical or near-critical.
If an offshore quake can create near-criticality in a nuclear reactor, could there not be quakes that are not offshore but right under a reactor that create a critical condition? There are numerous reactors right in, or near, major earthquake zones, for example, the aptly named "Diablo Canyon" facility in California -- sitting right on the San Andreas and the Hosgri faults. It is designed to withstand a quake of 7.5 magnitude -- but what if the quake is of magnitude 8 or higher? Besides, instabilities are produced not only by nature, we also produce countless instabilities ourselves. Our world is financially, economically, politically, and socially unstable, in some respects critically so. Because our financial, economic, political, and social systems interact with our natural environment, and because our natural environment is overexploited and unbalanced, our world is also ecologically unstable. In this condition, crises of one kind or another are bound to happen, even if we do not know where and when. The causes of a potential crisis are too complex; there are too many factors and too much uncertainty to permit reliable forecasts. Yet a major crisis could trigger a nuclear breakdown, whether by accident or by design.
Nuclear breakdowns are not caused only by natural catastrophes, they can also be precipitated by terrorism, war, and violence by desperate masses. And despite international safeguards, unscrupulous leaders can still convert the reactors to the production of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear reactors are not evil: they produce the power that runs the modern world. They are present on every continent, often near urban and industrial megacomplexes. This is prima facie good -- the installations generate clean energy from a practically infinite source (even if they pose still unsolved problems of the disposal of radioactive wastes and the decommissioning of aging and obsolete systems). But nuclear reactors are the devil, because in our critically unstable world we cannot be sure of remaining in a position to control them.
Is it reasonable to stake our future on a devilishly uncontrollable, potentially lethal technology? If we did not have other options, perhaps it would be. But we do have other options -- a vast range of alternative energy technologies is coming online, and they are just as clean but far less dangerous than the nuclear. Shouldn't we see if we could make good use of them now, while we still have a chance? Or are we already irrevocably committed to a pact with the devil?
The cataclysm in Japan produced an unexpectedly positive fallout: it opened a worldwide debate on the nuclear option for our future. More exactly, on whether we have a future if we go fully and globally nuclear. Could it be that "our nuclear future" is an oxymoron? If it is, we should see about changing course: decommissioning aging reactors, stopping the construction of new ones, and investing in safe alternative technologies. The time is late, but perhaps not too late. We had better wake up and start assessing our options.
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If, as we suppose, there's an all knowing god IT would not allow any such power to be made unless there's a purpose. The destruction of Mystery Babylon, the disunited mixing bowl of man, is prophesied to happen within one prophetic hour by something with feared smoke (Revelation 17-18), Nuclear fallout. And that's only a part of it's purpose.
Everything in existence happens setting the stage for the next events. They can be foretold because, like everything else, civilizations are in cycles, Prophecy suggest at most 17 years are left to this one followed by 7000 years of transition and another one without discarnations, sun nor seas (Revelation 21). It is not that there will be no seas on earth, since myths suggest Atlantis sank some form of crust will covered all salt waters. Prophetic symbols suggest 84,000 years of civilization between transitions so whatever covers the seas must long endure, maybe 91,000 years. Radioactive materials, plastic and salt are 3 compounds with long lives, so they may be used in some form to produce the crust.
Since Devil means "the opposer," we have a "Pact With the Devil" while our "Covenant With Death Shall Be Disannulled" (Isaiah 28:18) since it's time for the change of lifestyles.
LFTRs are a completely different type of reactor. They can't melt down. They're air-cooled, so they don't have to be located near the seashore. And if they are, they can be placed in watertight underground vaults. A tsunami would roll over the top, like a truck over a manhole cover.
Imagine a kettle of lava that never boils. A LFTR uses liquid fuel - atomic material dissolved in molten salt. It doesn't use solid fuel rods to super-heat water, so it's not a pressure cooker like a Uranium reactor. And that means no explosions, no ruptures, and no steam leaks. It doesn't even use water. Instead, it heats helium or CO2 to spin a turbine to generate power.
If a LFTR leaks, the fuel instantly "pools and cools" just like lava, quickly hardening into a blob of rock-hard fluoride salt for easy containment, recovery, and re-use.
LFTRs burn Thorium, not Uranium, a mildly radioactive material as common as tin and found all over the world. LFTRs can also use the spent fuel from other reactors, while producing a miniscule amount of waste themselves. The waste from a LFTR is benign in 300 years. (No, that's not a typo.)
Yucca Mountain is obsolete.
See: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/
Hmm, a blob of very radioactive fluoride salt doesn't sound like something that is easy to deal with.
Waste that is dangerous for 300 years is still no solution. Solar and wind power are as cost effective as nuclear in the upfront costs, i.e. without considering the clean-up of decommissioned nuclear plants and the cost of storing and securing waste. Hence, solar and wind are the way to go. As for the spurious baseload argument, the wind blows at night, we can double or triple up on wind generators to account for regional wind lulls, hydro-electric can be used as gigantic batteries to help solve the baseload problem, along with some of the current nuclear plants until better energy storage systems are developed as well as wave/current-generated power (talk about a nearly unlimited power source.
The only people for nuclear fission power are those in the biz, those who haven't looked at the alternatives, or those with a fetish for their friend the atom.
Every nuclear power plant needs to be shut down and we need to move to environmentally safe and sound alternatives.
http://nakedempire2.blogspot.com/2011/03/villagers-in-western-india-maharashtra.html
Btw, while running, Coal Plants release more ionizing radiation than Nuclear Power Plants.
As for spent fuel, with Breeder Reactors, we can cut the half-life down to decades while generating power, so long-term storage isn't a problem (we just don't have any reactors like that in the U.S.)
I'll grant Nuclear Power costs more to setup than Coal or Oil, but it IS easy to make quite safe. Heck, even with Japan's problems they still haven't had a significant leak of radiation to the public at large.
"...we can master them under all circumstances."
Please think about what the word "we" means in the context of this technology. It is a technology that requires management of the world's most toxic substances, over a time period of 250,000 years. Does "we" mean the people who are now alive? Does "we" mean those who are making personal profits from nuclear energy enterprises?
In Japan right now, "we" means the brave, selfless souls who are willing to contribute their future health and lives to help their nation.
Better stated: "We hope that suicide teams and generations of our far-distant future can master them under all circumstances."