Nuclear power plants in ME?!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by MainerWannabe

But Maineah my friend, you know what they say...
What goes up, must come down.

Sure if the French build them.

[maine4.us]

The spent fuel rods are and will always be an issue. Years ago, there was a proposal to put all the nuclear spent fuel rods in salt caves in Nevada. The caves are basically the safest place on the planet. Plus half of southern Nevada and Utah have already been irradiated by the above and below ground nuclear detonations of the 50's and 60's.

If the Japanese had stored the fuel rods somewhere else, there would not be nearly such an issue. Technically the plants are scrammed (shut down) when any anomaly takes place. That is why the ones online have little damage. Storing the spent fuel rods near operating plants is the issue. It's sort of like old dynamite, it gets nastier with age. Many nations store the fuel rods away from operating plants, the Japanese, in a cost cutting measure put all their eggs (rods) in one basket. When the basket breaks....well.....you see what happens.

I used to live close to an FAA regional center. The controllers laughed and said somewhere deep inside Russia was a bomb with our zip code on it. Plus I suspect that the national power grid control centers had Russian nukes with their zip codes on them too.

[cebdark]

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

As for safety, well the Chernobyl Disaster only killed 31 people, and there was no fatalities in a nuclear power plant worldwide in the last 15 years, yet last year alone there was 48 fatalities in coal mines in the USA. Nuclear power is very safe in comparison.

Only 31? No doubt coal mines are bad as well, but I believe overall that there was a little more destruction than 31 considering this place is now a ghost town.

Pripyat Ukraine city - Chernobyl disaster home


Size of Chernobyl's deadly legacy hard to measure (http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1103ap_eu_ukraine_chernobyls_lessons.html - broken link)

"When Soviet authorities finally admitted publicly that something had gone wrong, they spoke in vague terms. The delay and opaqueness appear to have hindered protective measures Ukrainians could have taken. Many first heard advice to take iodine to try to stave off thyroid cancer on Voice of America broadcasts they listened to clandestinely.

It's difficult to assess whether the delay led to sicknesses. Scientists are even deeply divided on how many have died as a result of the Chernobyl explosion, which released about 400 times more radiation than the U.S. atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima."

Technology has come a long way without doubt, but it still can't hold a candle to Mother Nature IMHO.

[dmyankee]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

I had no idea that you were so well tapped into the mindset of Soviet commanders.

Na, got it off the Maine Maritime Museum page for the exhibit.

[Cornerguy1]

Let's stick with nuclear power plants in Maine, please.

[MainerWannabe]

Originally Posted by Cornerguy1

Let's stick with nuclear power plants in Maine, please.

On that note, I wonder if there's anybody here on the forum who would know where they are concentrated, if they are, in any one area. Just curious really, not that it would be a factor on my decision to move to ME, but the more we know about the state, the better! On a personal note, I feel torn between the need to have them and the danger and the immense high maintenance they require.

[broadbill]

Originally Posted by MainerWannabe

On that note, I wonder if there's anybody here on the forum who would know where they are concentrated, if they are, in any one area. Just curious really, not that it would be a factor on my decision to move to ME, but the more we know about the state, the better! On a personal note, I feel torn between the need to have them and the danger and the immense high maintenance they require.

They aren't concentrated anywhere in ME. Maine had a total of one plant, and it was decommissioned in 2005. Closest is in NH(Seabrook).

Theoretically, plants need to be located near a large body of water (for cooling purposes).

Plants are high maintenance because any US plant you would come across is going on 40 years old; we stopped building plants in the 80s because of the Three Mile Island Scare. If we wanted to build new plants, we'd probably have to have the French build them for us. Unlike us, they saw the potential in the technology and are really the true innovators of nuclear power technology these days.

As for radiation doses...here is a good (but data-dense) infographic to look at:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Did you know that you are exposed to more radiation in a year living within 50 miles of a coal plant than you are living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant (about 30% more, actually)?

Are you using a CRT monitor to look at this webpage? Uh oh--using that monitor for a year exposes you to 10 TIMES the amount of radiation that you would get living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant in the same period of time.

[Submariner]

Kittery routinely has one or two nuc vessels in dry dock or at a pier being overhauled.

I do not know how many spare cores they have sitting on-site. The last time I was in a dry dock they had six old cores sitting awaiting approval to move them.

[retiredtinbender]

Originally Posted by broadbill

They aren't concentrated anywhere in ME. Maine had a total of one plant, and it was decommissioned in 2005. Closest is in NH(Seabrook).

Theoretically, plants need to be located near a large body of water (for cooling purposes).

Plants are high maintenance because any US plant you would come across is going on 40 years old; we stopped building plants in the 80s because of the Three Mile Island Scare. If we wanted to build new plants, we'd probably have to have the French build them for us. Unlike us, they saw the potential in the technology and are really the true innovators of nuclear power technology these days.

As for radiation doses...here is a good (but data-dense) infographic to look at:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Did you know that you are exposed to more radiation in a year living within 50 miles of a coal plant than you are living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant (about 30% more, actually)?

Are you using a CRT monitor to look at this webpage? Uh oh--using that monitor for a year exposes you to 10 TIMES the amount of radiation that you would get living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant in the same period of time.

Depends on where you are. Up here the closest is Point LePreu in New Brunswick. Kinda like heating up a baby bottle with a blowtorch.

[Cornerguy1]

Great stuff!

Question asked, question answered, time to move on.