I dont know anything about nuclear stuff but there are rumors from the internet circulating about nuclear radiation spread by winds from Japan to the West Coast.

I do know that during WW2, they used balloons to bomb the US and some of them actually reached land.

Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110312194158AAoNjF9

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/fallout.asp

if your're worried stock up on potassium iodide.

and get some lead lined underpants  ;-)

think the west coast is fairly safe unless there is a really major explosion

from what I have seen on the news theres little chance of a Chernobyl(sp) melt down, because there reactors are to a totaly different design (but dont quote me on that )

"Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?"

and at that point it does not matter what anyone says, you've made your mind up they're wrong.

Quote - and get some lead lined underpants  ;-)

think the west coast is fairly safe unless there is a really major explosion

from what I have seen on the news theres little chance of a Chernobyl(sp) melt down, because there reactors are to a totaly different design (but dont quote me on that )

 

that's correct. the cores are encased in a containment vessel, where as the russian design was not.

any radioactive release atm is low level and due to venting pressure to avoid further damage, rather than a catastrophic release ala Chernobyl.

POSER SIGHTING!

Poser figure used as test subject for nuclear stuff!

Quote - Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?

We trust our lives to possible human error every time we get in a car or cross the street. Drunk drivers and people on cell phones kill tens of thousands of people every year. I'm much more scared of that than of radiation.

The nuclear reactors were all succesfully shut down ie the control rods were lowered into the core to stop the nuclear process. The problem has been the enormous amount of heat still in the core that takes time (and water) to dissipate. Some radiation has leaked with the venting of water/steam but is short lived and low level. Having to use sea water has produced some radio-active sources not usually present.

I'm not a nuclear scientist but the above facts were gleaned from the less-sensationlist news sources.

it's not very reassuring to see TEPCO and Japanese ministry press releases being repeated here, after the coverups of nuke accidents there in the past.  my heart goes out to the japanese people and I hope china, EU and the americans can keep sending disaster relief supplies.  apparently the americans have already stepped in to assist with (or take control of) the confused situation regarding the radioactive cores.

radioactive fallout was considered a problem when atmospheric nuke and h-bomb tests were being conducted in the past.  the expulsion of radioactive particles into the upper levels of the atmosphere can allow them to spread quite far.  however, it was realised that they can't conduct these tests in a planetary atmosphere, so they went underground AFAIK with unknown consequences.  from the one long-range news film I saw of one of the hydrogen-gas explosions at one japanese reactor, it doesn't look like there was enough energy to get particles high enough to travel far.

however, the use of seawater as a desperate means to keep the cores cool means something else - where does the radioactive seawater go?  from past behavior, it's possible they're trying to boil it off (local atmospheric contamination) or dumping it back in the sea, similar to mercury dumping in past coverups.  they may have no choice, but I hope there will be full disclosure by the IAEA and outside agencies after they've had time to recover from this.  I don't want them to sink further into a north-korea-style regime of secrecy and denial when it comes to their nuke program.

coverups?

your worried about Coverups?

right now their country is in shambles. they still don't know the death toll, the personnel at the reactors are trying desperate measures to prevent a worse situtation, the country is largely without power, water, sanitation etc.

and your worried about COVERUPS.

my god.... right now they have a few more things on their mind than covering up things....!

I would hope most of that sea water goes to steam? Surely they can't be recycling it back into the sea? The explosions mean the rods are damaged. The sea water is corrosive, so lets hope these things cool down quickly.

It was good to hear that an outside entity was going to start measuring the levels of radiation in the area. What with the French saying this should be a level 6 incident, and the Australians moving their Tokyo offices further south, it makes you nevous. That being said, I have nothing but admiration for the people still struggling to control this, putting their safety last.

Edit: News report just on, and the used water is being contained in the facility area.

As a freshman in high school I lived in Middletown, Pennsylvania (yes, in 1979). While there were rumors and rumors of rumors about total nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island, I found that I got out of it without glowing in the dark. And we were one of the few families that didn't leave our home during the whole thing.

Sometimes, you just have to trust people that know more about the stuff than you do. Besides, like stewer said, waking up and breathing is a risk. That's life.

FWIW, it's more a nuclear explosion such as a bomb that sends radiation high into the atmosphere that gets blown around in high doses. If by chance anything like a meltdown happens at any of the Japanese nuclear plants, the radiation will mostly remain there, just like it has as Chernobyl.

Laurie

US Navy

Quote - While there were rumors and rumors of rumors about total nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island, I found that I got out of it without glowing in the dark.

Laurie

Your personality glows, though! :thumbupboth:

Buuuut, if anyone does need to get ready for any nuclear holocaust that won't happen by this event, there -is- a Pip-Boy available that I saw on the DAZ freebie forum... :biggrin:

Farmers in Wales are still unable to sell some livestock after contaminated rain fell over the hill farms and contaminated grazing land after the Chernobyl accident, there are also clusters of unexplained cancers in the same general area. If it does reach you, you won't know because they'll keep the truth of how much of it has reached you, from you and there's naff all you can do about it anyway.

Farmers in Wales are still unable to sell some livestock after contaminated rain fell over the hill farms and contaminated grazing land after the Chernobyl accident,

What's the latest RAD count there?

Coal fired plants release far more radioactivity than even this accident...

According to 1982 figures, 111 American nuclear plants consumed about 540 tons of nuclear fuel, generating almost 1.1 x 10E12 kWh of electricity. During the same year, about 801 tons of uranium alone were released from American coal-fired plants. Add 1971 tons of thorium, and the release of nuclear components from coal combustion far exceeds the entire U.S. consumption of nuclear fuels. The same conclusion applies for worldwide nuclear fuel and coal combustion.

* http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html*

Quote - The nuclear reactors were all succesfully shut down ie the control rods were lowered into the core to stop the nuclear process.

That's the problem, the control rods were not lowered into the core just because in the boiling light water reactors type the control rods have to be raised from the botton by an hydraulic system and not as in the pressured light water reactors where the control rods are located on the top and can fall by gravity into the core in case of any failure or emergency situation.

It is impossible to all reactors have been damaged in the same way by the earthquake, as four reactors have presented almost the same problem, maybe 5 or all 6 of the plant, there must be something common shared by all the reactors that have suffered damage and propagated the problem to all reactors.

My opinion is that the pressurized water system that feeds the hydraulic system of the control rods was common to all the reacftors of the plant and not that each reactor had his own and independent security system (cost reduction ???). The earthquake damaged the pipes, the hydarulic system to raise the control rods of all reactors was unable to work due the lack of fluid, the control rods were not raised and the reactor didn't stop. Yes it is Chernobyl again !

When  a reactor is stopped, the fission process stops in some microseconds and the power drops to 6% almost in the act. This remaining 6% is due radiocative decay that also drops quickly, one hour later is 0.4%, one day later is 0.2 % and not continue burning for four years as is circulating in the internet and media.

man anything is possible

they can say that they know this or they know that, but no one expected this, right?  things people are telling each other is like gambling on cards or something, the odds of this or that.  no one working on this stuff considered a 9.0 earthquake and giant tsunami.  it's not what we know that'll get us as much as what we don't know.

this is a 1 2 3 punch that might become a 4 punch.  odds not in favor of any of this.  but here they are.

o yeah i forgot about the volcano in japan so i guess we're already up to 4.

There are US army personnel in Japan.  They have radiation experts and engineers.  Take the cue from them, if Japan asks them to help out.

Attached Link: Experts Had Long Criticized Potential Weakness in Design of Stricken Reactor

My concern would be with earthquakes seemingly more frequent, west coast nuke plants. Officials say they're designed to handle 1-2 punch of quake & tsunami, but I'm sure the Japanese thought the same thing. Japanese are world's experts r.e. radiation, etc. having had a little experience with same (see Hiroshima+Nagasaki) and they're apparently losing it so... If I were on the west coast & had kids, I'd be getting Potassium Iodide like everyone else is apparently doing, out of an overabundance of caution - better safe..., but really, as much for what happen here when the 'big one' inevitably hits LA/SF.

Remember everything is built by folks trying to maximize profits, part of which go to pay lobbyists & pols to water down oversight & regulation. As for what to believe, take it from H.L. Mencken

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."

Sleep well :-)

It will NOT be like Chernobyl. Chernobyl's problem was that it was essentially a "dirty bomb" on a massive scale. The spread of radioactivity was due to the graphite fire that they couldn't control: the smoke plume from the fire carried radioactive material up to high altitude where it was spread by wind. Even in a full meltdown and possible containment breach, the worst case scenario, this is not a realistic scenario for the Japanese situation.

Ironically, the problem here with the media and public trying to get an understanding on what is happening and the potential risks is that the nuclear power industry has been, relatively speaking, so safe and incredibly accident-free that there simply hasn't been enough accidents to understand what that means, enough accidents to make a meaningful comparison too.

Think of an oil spill: Deepwater Horizon, or a supertanker breaking up, creates a huge environmental mess but because oil spills are something we've all seen before, and many people have experienced, people largely understand them and have something to compare it to: it will be worse than so-and-so, or might be like this incident over here, and so on.

Because of how tightly the nuclear power industry has been run, there's no similar benchmarks you can use.  Basically, your only comparisons are Chernobyl (no meltdown, massive fire and containment breach due to human screw-ups and bad design resulting in the airborne spread of radioactive material worldwide, probable thousands of deaths due to cancer, deaths due to direct radiation exposure, malformed fetuses due to radiation exposure), and Three Mile Island (core meltdown, minimal radioactive release, zero effect on humans and the environment). And those two incidents were so dissimilar they can't really be properly compared either. TMI was a civilian power-generation reactor designed that way from the ground up. The reactor at Chernobyl was military design originally meant to produce plutonium for weapons, and as such access to the core had to be fast and easy (ie, less secure) in order to get the plutonium out as it was produced.

Add to that we've never had an accident at a civilian reactor caused by a natural disaster of this scale.

Once this incident cools down (no pun intended), there will be a look at the industry to see what safety measures have to be improved. In this particular case, the earthquake caused no problems: the reactors shut down automatically without incident, even though the quake was about 10 times as powerful as they thought would be possible in that area when they built the reactors. The problem was the post-shutdown cooling failure caused by the tsunami taking out the backup generators. What I would suspect will be happening worldwide is taking a long look at the protection for those backup generators at other plants and securing them better if needed.

Keith has the facts correct.

except many don't want to listen to correct facts.

they'd rather have sensational incorrect facts.

Quote - if your're worried stock up on potassium iodide.

I certainly hope you weren't serious about that. That is just as damaging to the thyroide as the Iodine 131 if used when it's not needed. Here's some info on that.

The following quote from a forum post in the DAZ commons:

Potassium iodide is only useful to protect the thyroid against radioactive iodine, specifically Iodine-131. Iodine-131 is produced by nuclear reactions, and the danger of it is that the thyroid takes it up in place of iodine, and the radioactivity destroys the thyroid. In fact, this is precisely how Graves disease is treated - they give you a dose of radioactive iodine, it destroys the thyroid, and you thereafter take thyroid pills for the rest of your life. Potassium iodide protects the thyroid because the thyroid takes it up instead.

Radioactive iodine has a fairly short half-life, only a smidge over eight days. And, it's fairly heavy, meaning it doesn't travel far in the air. Even if all three of the nuke plants in Japan went Chernobyl and exploded, releasing everything they've got into the atmosphere, by the time the cloud got here, the Iodine-131 would have decayed and been rendered (relatively) harmless. So, even if this was possible, taking potassium iodide to protect oneself is pointless, there is no risk.

However, taking Potassium iodide is not without risk. It's a proven terratogen, and can cause cancer of the thyroid. This is why it is ONLY given when there is a SIGNIFICANT risk of exposure to Iodine-131.

Thus, all these people who are poppin' potassium iodide pills on the advice of the Surgeon General to prevent radiation damage to the thyroid are, unfortunately, very likely to be giving themselves thyroid cancer in a few years anyway. At which point, they'll go to the hospital, be exposed to Iodide-131 anyway, have their thyroid destroyed, and be taking thyroid pills - exactly the result they were trying to prevent.

Yeah, I know. A Forum post from DAZ isn't exactly the medical journal, but the facts are still good.

The first traces have already been detected, but in very small amounts on the west coast of the U.S.

Those in the greatest jeopardy are the Japanese and other nations along the Pacific rim. If things go bad and there's "China Syndrome," that term could take on a genuinely ironic and nasty new meaning.

What alarms me are the contradictory bulletins being released by the Japanese government and news media. Either they haven't a clue as to the nature and scope of the failures involved, or someone is just making things up as they go along.

Japan is found to contain substances that are considered cancer causing by the state of California.  And I would like to state my support of buying japan a giant fan and blowing all of the fallout to California...  any state whose name sounds like a fornicating vegitable needs to be irradiated ASAP.  :tt2:

those guys who were working in the plant with the six reactors  ... my heart goes out to them.  were they pulled out in time, did TEPCO force them to stay on until they received a lethal dose, or did they volunteer to stay until the bitter end?

the other question: why did they have 6 reactors there? great deal of secrecy involving whether there are any nuke plants involved in weaponisation in israel, north korea, pakistan, iran, india - was this plant doing that?  japan has publicly eschewed use of nuke weapons, but no way of finding out what's going on there.  if weaponisation involved, that would explain any american military presence there.

in Calif., nuke plants designed for 6.5 - 7 quake, based on now-obsolete "science" and various cost-saving measures.  there's no way any group would have the cash to design for a 9.0 quake/tsunami.  ironic that it's a "once-in-a-thousand-year event" that's occurred at least twice in the last 10 yrs.

Quote - "
if your're worried stock up on potassium iodide.

"

I certainly hope you weren't serious about that. That is just as damaging to the thyroide as the Iodine 131 if used when it's not needed. Here's some info on that.

The following quote from a forum post in the DAZ commons:

Potassium iodide is only useful to protect the thyroid against radioactive iodine, specifically Iodine-131. Iodine-131 is produced by nuclear reactions, and the danger of it is that the thyroid takes it up in place of iodine, and the radioactivity destroys the thyroid. In fact, this is precisely how Graves disease is treated - they give you a dose of radioactive iodine, it destroys the thyroid, and you thereafter take thyroid pills for the rest of your life. Potassium iodide protects the thyroid because the thyroid takes it up instead.

Radioactive iodine has a fairly short half-life, only a smidge over eight days. And, it's fairly heavy, meaning it doesn't travel far in the air. Even if all three of the nuke plants in Japan went Chernobyl and exploded, releasing everything they've got into the atmosphere, by the time the cloud got here, the Iodine-131 would have decayed and been rendered (relatively) harmless. So, even if this was possible, taking potassium iodide to protect oneself is pointless, there is no risk.

However, taking Potassium iodide is not without risk. It's a proven terratogen, and can cause cancer of the thyroid. This is why it is ONLY given when there is a SIGNIFICANT risk of exposure to Iodine-131.

Thus, all these people who are poppin' potassium iodide pills on the advice of the Surgeon General to prevent radiation damage to the thyroid are, unfortunately, very likely to be giving themselves thyroid cancer in a few years anyway. At which point, they'll go to the hospital, be exposed to Iodide-131 anyway, have their thyroid destroyed, and be taking thyroid pills - exactly the result they were trying to prevent.

Yeah, I know. A Forum post from DAZ isn't exactly the medical journal, but the facts are still good.

Steve your absolutely correct unless The Owl has been trained or instructed in it's use he should disregard my post.   Carry on.

Of course that is not Chernobyl, Chernobyl was only one, here you have four or perhaps five or six.

Chernoby had no interior containment, and it did basically blow like a bomb. What long-term effects the Japanese reactors will cause, we'll have to wait and see. At least sane countries will take that approach. A nuclear accident once every 10 years or so doesn't seem to phase others.

Keep in mind that this plant, as old and vulnerable as it was, withstood the earthquake and the tsunami. It was the loss of power, and backup generators, and hence control, that let things deteriorate to this state. And what area of the country is immune to that?

The technicians who stayed in the plant are all volunteers.  There has been some talk of accepting retired workers familiar with the plant for some relief. They are doing their best to limit time spent in contaminated areas, by switching people in and out, but it probably isn't doing much to protect them. They are quite simply some of the bravest, most self-sacrificing individuals I've ever heard of.

Quote - I dont know anything about nuclear stuff but there are rumors from the internet circulating about nuclear radiation spread by winds from Japan to the West Coast. I do know that during WW2, they used balloons to bomb the US and some of them actually reached land.

Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?

Like your avatar.

whilst the particulate radiation is now being detected on the american west coast, it's not certain how this will develop.  one reason the american military are around the most affected nuke plant may be the presence there of approx. 2 tons of plutonium in various degrees of refinement.  it would be unfortunate if any of this were to go missing during the chaos.  if the self-defence forces are fully occupied with search/rescue/relief operations, then other forces may assist with security issues.

p.s. the courage of the volunteers there is awe-inspiring, really unheard-of (to me at least).

"one reason the american military are around the most affected nuke plant may be the presence there of approx. 2 tons of plutonium in various degrees of refinement. "

*citation please that this is for military purpose and not the stated reprocessing of fuel into MOX fuel.

Attached Link: http://mountainrepublic.net/

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-radiation-monitoring-from-west-la

Live Radiation Monitoring in West LA.

Quote - the other question: why did they have 6 reactors there?

One reactor can only generate so much steam.  I think that US nuclear carriers have 2 reactors; the Enterprise (first nuclear carrier) has 8.

o.k., they've got sevl. reactor clusters like that there.  they use the MOX thermal (uranium/plutonium) to save money.  only a small percent of their estimated > 45 tons is weapons-grade, but plutonium is the worst news possible IMVHO, even if it's just at an impurity level.  obama said we'd be safe from fall-out, but he's gonna be staying in DC for now.  alaska will get most of it, then it may be diminished by the time it hits L.A.;  hoping they don't need to use those water cannons for riot control later on.

Quote - "the other question: why did they have 6 reactors there?"

The size of turbine and generator. As the required power to be generated increases the size also does. Not everyone is able to make big turnines, for example huge turbines only Russians can do. So many times is more practical to make several normal reactors with the generators running in parallel than one big reactor with a huge generator.

As for the radiation released by these faulty reactors who cares, we all have survived to hundreds of nuclear explosions, many 20 or 30 or even 50 megatons and who has not survived it also will not make any difference for him.

"TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986."

Of course that is not again Chernobyl.....

Quote - "TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986." Of course that is not again Chernobyl.....

Correct, it isn't anything like Chernobyl.
Giving the solution to a problem when posed a question doesn't mean that the problem exists.  

The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12783832) :-

Quote - The Fukushima plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it was not ruling out the option of entombing the plant in concrete to prevent a radiation leak.

Which clearly means that there is no leak yet, but they will seal the damaged reactors to prevent one from happening.

On the good news front, power lines were connected to the plant today. A small step in the right direction.

Now maybe we can pause in worrying about how this could affect us, and concentrate on  the people who continue to suffer in the wake of these disasters.

There was one interesting comment I saw this morning that might help give some people some perspective.

Between 1945 and 1992, over 900 nuclear weapons were detonated in Nevada, until 1962 most of them above ground, with no containment of fallout or radiation spread. Given that the US east of the Rockies is not a radioactive post-apocalyptic wasteland with two-headed mutant cows and flesh-eating ghouls, perhaps one should temper one's immediate reaction to an accident at a single nuclear power facility for a moment of contemplation of the first bit of data.

I am not so sure we should be so complacent. Governments tend to downplay these incidents. Not because of some conspiracy, but because of politics and the desire to not create panic.

According to Arnold Gundersen , we may very well be witnessing a meltdown of several reactors in Fukushima. Chernobyl on Stereoids, Gundersen said. Even the Japanese government admitted that partial meltdown may have already occurred.  Pouring seawater with helicopters seems like a desperate measure, as it will render those reactors unuseable in any case.

I don't know what the truth is, but I suspect that the the Japanese workers still operating near and in those powerplants, are risking their lives to get this situation under controll. I think these people are incredibly brave and we may end up owing a huge  debt to them that we may never be able to repay.

Don't worry, if some radioactive fallout do happen you wil never know it as you don't know all the "healthy" chemicals in the food you eat, the water you drink and all the effects of medicine you use. If you get cancer, diabettes, heart disease, neurological problems, your liver doesn't work anymore or you get obbesse you can always blame the fast food or the second or third hand smoke.

PS. I forgot the evil Sun with its terrible UV. Nuclear plants are safe and secure, the Sun does not.

Still, it doesn't seem right to fret and fume about what might affect us in a dozen years or so, while people are suffering right now.

It just rankles that all we can think about is "How does this affect me?", rather than "How can we help these people?"

".....PS. I forgot the evil Sun with its terrible UV. Nuclear plants are safe and secure, the Sun does not."

I'm not worried for my personal safety. How ever sun has been around for billions of years and life on earth depends on sun. I am not so worried about sun. Sun doesn't require scientists, engineers, complex technologies to operate. Sun operates on it's own. Over the course of evolution, our bodies have come accustomed to suns radiations. Our bodies how ever are not used to radioactive contamination. Nuclear energy is very new experiment. It has only been around for decades. I'm not saying this as an argument against Nuclear Energy (I'm not interested in having that debate. If people support Nuclear power, then so be it. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I have no control over countries energy policies.) I just think the suns radiation is a very different thing compared to radioactive contamination.

And when the sun finally fails, there's nothing we can do about it anyway. Our species has probably gone extinct way before that happens.

"Still, it doesn't seem right to fret and fume about what might affect us in a dozen years or so, while people are suffering right now.

It just rankles that all we can think about is "How does this affect me?", rather than "How can we help these people?""

I'm not worried about my health or safety at all. I live far away from Japan. I am mostly worried about what a possible Nuclear meltdown would mean to the people living in the region. The effects wouldn't be felt decades from now, they would be rather imminent. Land and some areas would become unsuitable to live in. People would get cancers and diseases. All of this would put a huge strain on Japanese ability to cope with an already horrific situation. The head of the Japanse energy company just recently admitted that people were going to die because of the radiation that has already been emitted. He broke into tears as he said that.

But it's like they say; We all have little bit of Chernobyl inside of us by now. I am not so keen on having some Fukushima inside of me as well (and that sounded very dirty for some reason....).

I am not against nuclear energy, I am against reduction of cost and maximizing profits sacrifying safety and people. I am against stupidity.

Accidents always do happen, can be due human error, some stupid operator, a natural disaster or any unknown cause. The question is what do do when an accident happened and what to do to solve the problem.

Many wrong things were done in Japan, it's inadmisible the great number of nuclear in plants in Japan a country where earthquakes are something normal. This earthquake 9.0 was a very big one, it is not common to happen, but also is nothing strage to happen. Japan is located at the boundary of a geological fault, continents move, Japan is moving and the movement of continents or plates is not soft and nice as in a Gondwana animation. Now I know how the continets move, it do it in jumps, some huge eartquake and a train of smaller ones and the land moved a bit, some calm or not and another big or huge earthquakes or a tarin of them and the land moved a little more, apiece of land can sink into the sea or a piece of land can raise from the botton of the sea. And this continues for years, centuries, thousands and million years, the land traveled thousands of miles or collided with another land and new mountains are raised. Tomorrow another 9.0 or even 10.0 can hit Japan or only will happen the next century, nobody knows, but when it happens it will be nothing strange to happen.

What will happen with the other 60 nuclear plants when another big earthquake do happen ?, even can be a small one with the front wave comming with the right direction and hitting the right place. And Tsunamies ?, they are also common and always happen there, can be small and harmless or very destructive. Is like playing Russian roulette, one bullet and six chances, do you want to risk ?

Nuclear plants cannot be located in places where earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, floods, hurricanes or any natural event is normal to happen. Japan needs energy, any modern civilzation need it. Japan has a big problem, has no oil, no gas, no coal, no river enough for hydroelectics, but also no uranium, so why the reason of nuclear plants. If they had uranium even it can be justified, but they don't have uranium.

And the tsunami, why cties are located near the sea, why population live there ? Why people live near an active volcano or in places where hills fall down with rain and it rains a lot there?

This is a very simplistic question. Deliberately so. If you need to boil water to create steam, does it make more sense to use a complicated system that requires nuclear scientists and creates the most toxic waste possible, or a bunch of mirrors that only requre a computer to align and produce no waste?

While I realize not every location has enough sunny days for solar power, those that don't usually have a good supply of wind (an even more direct way to turn a turbine), or geo-thermal availability. "The technology isn't there" is not a reason, it's an excuse for ignoring it.

Don't get me started on the sun. I have Martian dreams with the magnetic poles re-aligning themselves... and why did the fact that our 'wobble' in rotation ceased years ago not make headlines??  Watching too much Science Channel can make one completely paranoid.

Quote - This is a very simplistic question. Deliberately so. If you need to boil water to create steam, does it make more sense to use a complicated system that requires nuclear scientists and creates the most toxic waste possible, or a bunch of mirrors that only requre a computer to align and produce no waste?

While I realize not every location has enough sunny days for solar power, those that don't usually have a good supply of wind (an even more direct way to turn a turbine), or geo-thermal availability. "The technology isn't there" is not a reason, it's an excuse for ignoring it.

Don't get me started on the sun. I have Martian dreams with the magnetic poles re-aligning themselves... and why did the fact that our 'wobble' in rotation ceased years ago not make headlines??  Watching too much Science Channel can make one completely paranoid.

It hasn't made headlines because precession hasn't stopped, maybe?

All energy sources have trade-offs. Wind and solar require space and size of infrastructure. The maximum theoretical energy you can get in the United States from solar is 14 kWh/day for each square meter of reflector or solar cell (and these assume 100% perfect capture of radiant energy, which isn't possible).  An average 1000MW thermal powerplant (whether nuclear, coal, natural gas or whatever) put out 24,000,000 kWh/day. So to equal a single 1000 MW plant, you'd need a theoretical minimum of 1,714,286 square meters of reflector or solar cell.

Of course, it's a little more complicated than that. The figure I gave was maximum theoretical insolation during the sunniest part of the year. If you actually take into account the annual amount of sun, the maximum drops to 8 kWh/day per square meter. Which means your area has almost doubled to 3 square kilometers. Now when you take into account the fact that the process can not be 100% efficient (let's cut it down to 50%, which is still beyond the capabilities of current solar power), you need to cover 6 square kilometers of ground with reflectors or solar cells to equal the power output of a single generation facility which takes up a few hectares in terms of physical infrastructure.

And that's in the sunniest part of the US, the Southwest. In other parts of the country the area needed to collect sunlight will double or triple again.

You're also facing the problem that, at least in the northern parts of the US, the need for electricity if inversely related to how effectively solar can generate it (sun at lower altitude, cloudier days, and so on).

Wind has similar issues: it's not very good everywhere and has constraints on its operation in terms of area required.  The largest windfarm in the world currently is in Texas, has an installed capacity of 781 MW, and covers 400 square kilometers.

Comparatively, the Darlington Nuclear Site in Ontario covers approximate 4.8 square kilometers, including all infrastructure and safety and security setbacks, and has 4 reactors that generate 4.5 times as much electricity as the windfarm, giving it 375 times the power genertaing capacity per area, and it's certainly not affected by the weather or time of day. A coal power plant would have about the same area, if you included the laydown area for the coal.

Thermal power power plants have the advantage of being smaller and generally much more flexibility in location and much more consistant in supply, with the tradeoff that they need fuel. Coal's fuel can cause great environmental alteration to get, but has minimal issues in transport and storage, but creates massive amounts of solid waste in addition to CO2. Natural gas can usually be produced with minimal environmental impact but is very dangerous if handled improperly and produces CO2, but no solid waste. Uranium doesn't require nearly as much mining as coal, the fuel requires processing and has minimal danger, and creates a much smaller volume of solid waste, no CO2, but is technically challenging and requires special handling with a potentially very bad failure mode.

Hydrolectric facilities create environmental issues, produce now CO2, and are generally considered safe but their failure modes can be spectacular: if Three Gorges in China lets go, you are talking perhaps hundreds of millions of people who could be directly effected.

So there's the issue: there isn't a perfect power source that is completely safe, reasily available where and when needed, and sufficiently large to meet current and projected needs. The question comes down to what trade-offs you are willing to make.

Quote - Given that the US east of the Rockies is not a radioactive post-apocalyptic wasteland with two-headed mutant cows and flesh-eating ghouls .....

does that include ..... new jersey?

Quote - This is a very simplistic question. Deliberately so. If you need to boil water to create steam, does it make more sense to use a complicated system that requires nuclear scientists and creates the most toxic waste possible, or a bunch of mirrors that only requre a computer to align and produce no waste?

Solar energy can work fine for homes, but has a big problem. I doesn't work at night and you don't need electric energy during the day !!

A well designed house doesn't need lamps turned on during the day, windows do all the illumination you need. You can need electricity to power the TV,computer and other machines, who will use this energy if there is nobody at home during the day, everybody is at work or in school. The only thing that will need and use electricity will be the refrigerator and in winter even you don't need a refrigerator.

During night the situation is rather different, you are at home, need to turn on the lights, watch TV, use the computer, but at night there is no sun and so, you have no electricity to do all these things.

This was for home application, but if you want electricity to run some industry, you have no idea the amount of electricity needed by a press. Forget solar energy, it is unable to feed industry. And an aluminium plant ? You need whole an hydroelectric or nuclear plant only for feeding this aluminium plant.