Am I reading into these comments right? That nuclear energy is safe and clean? OK. I understand our over use of electrical power but surely we can cut back and use wind or solar to off set our oil and gas until a real better and real safer energy source is found?

Both nuyclear and oil hurt the environment when we , humans, make mistakes.

I don´t know if I understand you right.
my numbers are a bit different.

With 9 out of 17 nuclear plants powered currently down and but with the electricity from coal and gas the German energy production is 87GW. The highest usage of electricity in Germany was 73GW. So the Germany do not suffer from lack of energy in any way. Besides that the shutting down of all atomic plants until 2021 was already officially sanctioned and approved by the chancellor Schroeder. BUt f***king Merkel cancelled that plan. An now she is forced to pick it up again and hopefully actually approve it again.

The reason why German is importing from Electricity is because it´s cheaper than German produced power.
And as usual the Germans are whining on very high life quality level.

oh yeah, Lukasz, uranium is cheap; as in "cheap because I can buy it in countries where I installed dictators who will do what I want them to do. The locals? Who cares? They're a bunch of underdeveloped morons after all!".

Yes, there is no fear of running out of nuclear fuel in this century. That is true. Where did I hear that argument? Oh yeah, in History books, about oil. So I think that we can do with uranium what we did with oil: use it carelessly, after all, when we will run out, it will be the matter of our grandchildren, not ours.

"People are not environment". That might be one of the stupidest things I read here. People ARE part of the environment, exactly like beetles, sea cucumbers or siberian tigers.

Yeah yeah, the bp disaster will hunt the local ecosystem for decades. And everybody knows that there is no radiation anymore around Chernobyl and that everybody came back to their homes. Whatever.

stonebro> half-time what?

edited for typos

Yes, some people who have a really limited view, think nuclear power and all the mafia-like activities involved in it, are safe and clean.

While the term "save the planet" really means "save our life styles" I still think the humans actually have a responsibility to limit "too much unnatural selection" by changing environmental conditions for animals and plants, thus unbalancing the ecosystem.
While natural selection, is all about survival, that is deselecting the stupid and weak lifeforms first, thus keeping the ecosystem in balance.
The environment aka nature will always be there, with or without humans. But that´s not the point - we cannot opt out not to take part in it.

Being at the top of the food chain is actually a downside here, because we depend on the rest of the environment functioning without our interference. So the smaller footprint we leave in overall ecosystem the better for us.

That´s like spitting in the face of the victims of radiation accidents. Ask them about their future plans!

Sure and what do you do when you have all the electricity you need, but you cannot eat any food because everything is so radiated that you will die a slow painful death from skin cancer when you eat it.

25 Years after Tchernobyl the area is still highly contaminated. Thousand of square kilometeres of deadzone, looking like scorched. And this is going to be like that for hundreds of years to come.
Now they start building a second sacophague around the first one, which is not safe anymore. This costs 1.1 billion Euros and can only been seen as temporary also, until the radiation has weakend the new one, too.

Sorry but this is not my definition of clean. Maybe nuclear power is safe but current plants are not. And I am not playing guinea pig for the industry until they find out.

Cesium 137 - half life 30.
Uranium 235 - half life 703,800,000 years
Uranium 238 - half life 4.468,000,000 years.
Plutonium 244 - half life 80,800,000 years.

Oh.
Like australia, canada, Kazakhstan and russia?
or do you mean Namibia which is doing pretty fine compared to rest of the African countries and without uranium mining the country would be in much worse position.
nobody here is an expert on that stuff but you didn't even do a basic research on that problem before you started to throw around your argument
http://www.namibian.com.na/news/marketplace/full-story/archive/2011/april/article/namibia-remains-among-top-5-uranium-producers/ Of course uranium ore will run out. So will other non-renewable resources. Therefore a safe renewable energy sources must be developed. It takes time and money and therefore something must replaced oil and coal. Uranium is good because it is cheap and we still have lots of it. It still can buy us time without actually damaging the planet like other resources do. Your argument is simply invalid. I am being here very practical. Killing siberian tigers off will result in damage to environment and massive problems for millions of people in the future.
So either death of people from global warming... millions of death or few hundreds of people being in small danger and having to move out to other parts of the planet.
It ain't perfect solution but for now it is. Chernobyl is the greenest place in Europe. It is heaven to various animals. Safest place for plants, animals to prosper.


dont get your info from stalker.
the area is green. full of life, deer and wolves roaming around. plants growing everywhere.
thats why it is safe. it doesnt harm the planet.

jeez.

BEFORE YOU START ARGUING ABOUT SOMETHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND DO SOME RESEARCH!
don't take your facts from television especially news shows. They are full of shit written in a way to bring in viewers not to actually provide any useful information.

Lukasz, like many people on forums, you just twist the facts the way you want them and you don't really care what other people post. I'm talking about Niger and its reserves of uranium. Niger is not really the most democratic country in Africa, which is very much to the liking of France, who can take the uranium down there at discount prices.

AND I'M TLAKING ONLY ABOUT NIGER !! Other countries do better ? Fine for them!! But it would be being blind to consider that every country producing uranium is a paradise (the same applies for oil, just look at Total in Myanmar).

You know jack shit about me and you allow yourself to tell me to do researches. Go sweep on your own backyard first! I NEVER talk about things I don't know, especially in that cesspool that is Internet.

And you citing Khazakhstan as a good place is utterly funny when this country is so far from democracy... Who needs to get his facts straight, then?

What I really despise is the way you try to twist what I wrote by making me a stupid anti-nuclear. I NEVER said we have to stop every signle nuclear power plant on the planet at once. I just said that nuclear power plants can be dangerous! Is that wrong?

Ooooh, nice argument about Chernobyl. Yeah, it IS green. Yeah, there are LOTS of animals living there since no man lives there anymore. Does it mean that the plants, the animals are in good health? I wouldn't bet a kidney on that! But if you consider that Chernobyl is a paradise on Earth, I won't try to convince you of the contrary.

I don't have time to waste for lost causes and your messages shown me you don't want to discuss a controversial point, you want to impose your opinion. That's not my game. Congrats, pal, you win +1 internets for winning this discussion!

I personnally won't answer you anymore, I'd have better chats with the Berlin wall...

I think Lukasz is being a little bias, in Australia we have one 'research' nuclear reactor in a place called Lucas Heights.

Lukasz = Lucas ..

Coincidence? I think not!

You are making no sense mate. You said that we get uranium from from third world countries. Nigeri is only one country. And not the most important one. And only one considered to be third world country. Previous point proves you don't know what you are talking about. I didn't say it is 'a good place'. It has own problems but it is not third world country controlled by western world for uranium. Again. Do research. Did i say anything like that? IT IS PARADISE FOR PLANTS AND ANIMALS. Everyone is in good health as radiation is NOT THAT STRONG. Chernobyl has strong background radiation. Which we humans cannot really tolerate and would get cancers in ages like sixty. Animals are more resistant to that. Much more. And you know what kills animals the most. Humans. Chernobyl without humans is way better environment for everyone.
It is not fallout style wasteland, it is not even stalker. It is the greenest, most diverse place in Europe. Just 25 years after we left it. That's the fact. "cheap because I can buy it in countries where I installed dictators who will do what I want them to do. The locals? Who cares? They're a bunch of underdeveloped morons after all!".

you said that. that's utterly bollocks as Nigeria is the only one who can actually fall under that statement. And I will still argue about how much power western world has over the leadership of that country.

That's why I told you to do research first. I don't mind discussing controversial points but for god's sake. the person i argue must know wtf he/she is talking about.


Also
I am not Australian. Was born a year before Chernobyl just 600km (rough estimates) from the explosion.
the lucas heights are funny tough :D

@ lukas

I'm going to say one thing and let this subject drop until we all can cool down a little bit more.

Are these animals around Chernobyl on the food chain that you would eat? Are any of the greens there on the food chain? If so, then you would have no objections to eating any of those animals or greens because you believe our fears are groundless? Could you one day show proof of you eating in the area of Chernobyl and of what greens or animals that are on the food chain for us to see?

Now this isn't a personal attack. I just really want you to think about what you are saying here and to understand that most of us do not share the same faith you have in nuclear power when the **** hits the fan.

Lukasz' last post is the best proof if there's any that there is no discussion possible. Saying that Khazakhstan is no Third World country and then asking me to do some researches before I write something shows me he has no clue whatsoever of what he is talking about.

It's sad that such a topic must reach such a dead end.

I don't want this thread to reach a dead end, Xa_chan.

Thus I'll simply state:

-Fukushima still hasn't been fully cleaned up, and there are many survivors who need help getting the same standard of living as they had before.

-Japan & America have worked out a deal, and it doesn't sit well with me b/c all too often, the people leading the charge of good intentions are corruptible people who will thus fuck up the good things intended; what's more, b/c of the current American gov't, I'm 100% sure that the deal is full of 'baits' and 'carrot-dangling,' already as it is. This does not bode well for the Japanese people, the rest of the world, or even America's economic recovery.

-Japan is still having earthquakes in the midst of the horridness of March 11th 2011.

-What happend in the Sendai area is worse than what happend in New Orleans in '05 and the tsunami in '04.

There. Now this most important thread has less chance of being derailed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country
kazakhstan is in the same group as poland here
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world.htm
no kazakhstan on any of those lists

I could probably find more resources. You lack knowledge my friend.

@rangersolo
Animals to eat???

Are you looking at the environment from perspective only how useful is it too humans??
it is also irrelevant as there is plenty of space around the planet to feed many more people than are currently living. All hunger in the world is man made.
Furthermore preserving an environment is more than just "how can we mine it"

Goal mining gives off radiation. It also seriously damages surrounding areas. Wind turbines are horribly inefficient, stupidly complicated, and stupidly expensive. Solar panels are too labor intensive, expensive, and inefficient (although there's been serious work to drastically improve efficiency). You have problems with erosion, costs, materials, deaths, longevity, scalability, you name it with all forms of energy. Hydroelectric power is just as bad.

If you take the sinking of the Scorpion and Thrasher, the sunken Russian nuclear boat(s), Chernobyl, Japan, and hell even toss in the two nuclear bombs from WWII just to completely unfair, and nuclear power still has the safest record of energy production in the history of the world, with the vague possible exception of anything the old Soviet Empire or China has conveniently hidden in the past.

Look at what happens when coal plants experience catastrophic failures. Or the deaths per terrawatt for any electrical power infrastructure. Or the number of deaths from dam failures. Guess what, you're fucked every which way when something goes horribly bad for any of them. There are no free lunches.