24 replies to this topic

[Ingham Fireworks]

Hello Guys,

I've seen this topic posted on the TV recently and forums - As probably most of you know GreenPeace have released a film of a plan crashing into a nuclear power station, some people are voting whether GreenPeace have been selfish or have done the right thing, to be honest they just stating something that's TRUE!

See, http://www.greenpeac.../fridaythe13th/

What do you guys think? scary isn't it

[seymour]

He he, you are loooking at it the wrong way, Greenpeace has not flown a plane into a nuclear power plant, that movie was simply to demonstrate the vulnerability of nuclear power plants and to show the desasterous effect of a plane crashing, weather accidentaly or intentionaly, into the power plant.

[ProfHawking]

Personally, I dont have much time for greenpeace.
I mean, they complain about those nuclear power stations, then they complain about normal power stations, and factories, and fishing, and cars, and on and on and on.
There is no pleasing them, and i think most of their points are irrelevant. If they had their way we'd all be living in tents playing didgeridoos.

I am by no means sure, but i think the effect of flying a plane into a nuclear power station would be a disaster sure, but the actual core is encased in so much concrete and water that it might not even be damaged. I recon it depends on too many factors to calculate though.

[Ingham Fireworks]

He he, you are loooking at it the wrong way, Greenpeace has not flown a plane into a nuclear power plant, that movie was simply to demonstrate the vulnerability of nuclear power plants and to show the desasterous effect of a plane crashing, weather accidentaly or intentionaly, into the power plant.

I know it?s only a demonstration; it?s scary to think something like this could happen.

[RegimentalPyro]

Yeah - I resent people using scare tactics to push their own political agenda. The fact is, people who are scared will agree to pretty much anything to take the fear away.

Now this process treats me like an idiot because they are assuming I won't look at the full picture. This then makes me suspicious because I assume they are using these tactics because the full picture runs contrary to their agenda. Also, why aren't these people engaging in the political process?

My Conclusion : Anybody trying to scare me is lying to me. Grrrr!

One of the related problems is that the media [news / TV etc] is also biased towards the scare story. As they try an make more and more trivial stories scary in an attempt to cudgel us into a victim mentality I fully expect to see the following TV programme aired on primetime

"Dangers of nature : When Wasps Annoy!"

[Damp Squib]

I dont know if any of you saw it but there was a test shown that flew a 30tonne or so fuel laden f16 using military rocket motors fixed to a rail line at around 600 mph into the side of a reactor wall,the result was incredible the plane vapourised only penetrating the wall a few inches

A 747 would be another story I suppose, but thats what the plants anti aircraft systems are for

[damocov]

There's a nother film that was doing the rounds in the UK of one of the large steel flasks that they use to transport nuclear fuel around the country in being hit by a diesel loco and though it bounced off it's mountings it stayed intact.

Though thw sceptic in me would point out that the 90 degree impact of a train hitting it allowed it to move sideways into free space and it almost looked like the train's wheels weren;t properly attached and the flask may not have been bolted down very well

Also it doesn;t show what happens when a train with one of these on crashes and it gets crushed between two large steel wagons full of steel or some other freight.

But it was a very reasuring piece of film that was obviously designed to lay my fears at rest. (the opposite to the green peace film).

Personally I don;t trust either as they are both made with an ulterior motive, the reality is probably somewhere in between and lets face it we're runnign out of gas faster than we thought!

[sizzle]

In my opinion I don't believe Greenpeace should have done this, it's scare-mongering, look at what the Daily Mail were saying about bird flu two months ago? by the paper's estimates we should all be dead by now from it. Let's face it, we're going to have to have more nuclear plants sooner or later, like damocov says, we are running out fast of gas and oil. Unless Greenpeace can find a new source of energy with enough power and that doesn't polute and is in plentyfull supply then we're going to have to really.

I like to try and avoid political/economical issues if I can because once I get started I find it difficult to stop.

Anyway, in the words of adamw, that's my two pence.

[Jerronimo]

As long as there's oil in the ground, we won't get a ''cheap'' clean alternative for running cars and powerplants.
Alot of corporations still make huge amounts of profit from it.
We would be running cars on hydrogen gas if the big corporations realy wanted to.

[Andrew]

I could write an essay on this topic, but I'll spare everyone the intense bore.

But just a few points.

Firstly, nuclear powder stations are built in such a fashion, that any plane on the planet would not cause any noticeable damage should it be flown into one. This is not a design feature born from the fear of attack, but sheer practicality. One of the only allies in the fight against neutron emissions is the inverse square law (which kind of means run away). The other is several metres of laden concrete. Reactor and storage walls are f**king tough, good luck to the plane is what we should be thinking!

The new reactors planned are not a new idea, the recognition for the need is about a decade or so old. Last year the UK started to become a net importer of gas. What does this mean? Well, again I could go on and on and on, but one of the key points is that we have an ?investment? (more like negative equity) in the world?s energy crisis, should there be an ?energy war?, and I mean war in a literal sense, the UK will be in the thick of it. Unless we can become energy sufficient, we are at risk from every fluctuation in prices, and every extended consequence there of.

The government tried to pull the fusion card, but got swiftly dragged back down the earth, and told that is at least 40 years off. In response to the UK failing to meet its own Kyoto targets, the government tried to say that they were relying on nuclear fusion to solve our over indulgence in non-carbon-neutral forms of energy. The only logical outcome is to build a few nuclear power stations to tide us over. I say tide us over because the renewable energy market is neither capable in terms of capacity of technology. Has anyone noticed that the national grid is having a little over haul at the moment, the reason for this is the make it capable of being fed from several thousand small sources instead of a few large ones. For things like solar panels to work effectively the grid needs to be built the other way round. A lot of work needs to be done before the UK is even ready to adopt carbon-neutral energy. One other problem is the government?s over taxation of carbon-neutral fuel, like bio-diesel for example.

[alany]

Absoutely, any "environmentalist" that is anti-nuclear is either an idiot or is severly misinformed. The only practical clean energy source we have is nuclear.

Magnetic confinement fusion may be impractical indefinately, and even if gas and oil are infact abiogenic we can't keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere and wasting such a useful chemical feedstock when better sources of energy are available. (Admittidly hydrocarbons are a very convient form of portable energy with hundreds of years of technological investment in their usage, we can always make our own from reformed biological materials using nuclear or solar energy which is effectively renewable and emission neutral)

Environmentalists with any kind of common sense should be pro-nuclear and be out there campaigning for more reactors to be built to replace fossil fuel stations, and adoption of distributed generation with pebble bed and similar inherantly safe modern reactors.

[Ingham Fireworks]

Some strong opinions on this topic.

[Damp Squib]

Some strong opinions on this topic.

Being erradiated and dying of cancer is a strong topic,but since one in five of us will get cancer anyhoo,at least we'll have electricity to make a brew

[sizzle]

Being erradiated and dying of cancer is a strong topic,but since one in five of us will get cancer anyhoo,at least we'll have electricity to make a brew

Isn't it one in three of us?

[Andrew]

Isn't it one in three of us?

The current stats say in the UK 1/3 get it and 1/4 die from it. However the most common type is the type associated with smoking (it a ridiculously high percentage of smokers get cancer). So if you do not smoke, it's more like 1/6 get and 1/8 die.