On a fateful day near the end of the greatest war the world has ever seen, something new arose. This new system could create virtually unlimited amounts of energy from virtually nothing. This was the dawn of the nuclear era.
Nobody in the early 1900's could have possibly imagined that people would be breaking apart sub-molecular particles and using them to destroy cities on a widespread campaign of death and destruction. But, by some miraculous chance (as fate would have it), the impossible and unimaginable became reality.
In today's hyped up and modern world, you may believe that nuclear energy doesn't concern you, you may even believe that nuclear energy is not around you, but rather that it is hidden somewhere far away in the deserts of Arizona. You would, unfortunately, be DEAD wrong. 20% of this entire country's power is generated at one of our 103 running nuclear reactors. These stretch from California to Maine, leaving virtually no state safe in case of a nuclear "chain reaction".
Let’s go over the benefits of nuclear energy
* Nuclear energy is somewhat safe if contained properly
* Nuclear energy emits practically no "greenhouse gasses" (however they do produce nuclear waste which cannot be disposed of easily)
* One nuclear facility can power all of Los Angeles (the city that uses the most power in this country.
* Nuclear-powered
Now let’s look at the cons of nuclear power:
* Most power plants run on uranium or plutonium [thanks to engineer poet, we can say U-235 is unstable as well as plutonium without additional components to stabilize it]
* Nuclear power plants need a secondary power source in case of a blackout to keep the water "coolers" working (failure to do this results in another Chernobyl)
* Nuclear Energy, when released has the power to pwn an entire city. There is no doubt that anything in its way will be sent back to the stone age.
Now lets discuss something called a "Nuclear Chain Reaction” occurs. A nuclear chain reaction is a broad term we at http://theorderoftheironphoenix.com use to describe the disintegration of a nuclear reactor to the point where the coolant can no longer keep the radioactive isotopes cool and the factory goes into "meltdown" mode, resulting in a colossal explosion.
A bit of background: As the eras have progressed, nuclear reactors have created more energy and subsequently store and produce more than one million Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs combined.
Moving on, one of these explosions would simply result in an "atomic crater" with the force of the explosion moving across geographical obstacles such as mountains and valleys at the speed of light. So, this will stop eventually right? WRONG! Do you ever wonder why in action movies, when one car blows up, tons of other poor commoners in other cars get blown to bits as well? Well, it's because of the heat, not the explosion. The heat causes their gas tanks to rapture resulting in the incineration of the petrol contained within their vehicles.
How does this relate to the concept of nuclear chain reaction? Well, the cloud of heat and atomic particles resulting from the first blast will definitely be enough to hit another power plant (even if it is thousands of miles away), and that plant will also explode, thus it's particles will blast in all directions and you will have a chain reaction throughout the continental north America (from power plant to power plant).
Let’s compare it to dominoes shall we? Let’s say you’re sipping tea in Rhode Island. As the poor noob at the bottom of the chain, we can call you the final domino. And let’s just say you’re watching television ok? And there is breaking news about some far away reactor in California. And you’re all like "pfft sucks to be there”, well, that reactor will be the "first domino". And so you’re just sitting there watching those poor suckers over in California and all of a sudden the broadcast goes black (as the explosion will destroy everything within a 100 mile radius) and radiation is spewing out violently in every direction. Well, seconds later you are vaporized. This is because you "the final domino" have been knocked down by the forced chain reaction of the first atomic explosion (which only lasted a few minutes after the initial blast).
Now let’s go on and tell you that unfortunately, the United States is one of many countries that relies on atomic energy. Now do you see the big picture? It’s blatantly obvious that this doomsday-like scenario is very possible and we are sitting on a ticking time bomb. And guess what, not a plant would be able to populate the earth for a few hundred thousand years after such an event!
As we have urged you all before, anyone that reads this, is now aware of the dangers of what is all around them. There is a high chance of something like this occurring in the future. Unstable isotopes cannot be controlled once they decide to spontaneously combust. And imagine the pain and suffering of the world? Ask yourself: would you play with fire?
Now on a side not , here is my conversation with Engineer Poet in regards to this post.
" I read your piece and found it full of howlers.
“20% of this entire country’s power is generated at one of our 63 running nuclear reactors.”
Try 100+ reactors (the number was recently 104 but I won’t bother checking).
“* Most power plants run on uranium ( a very unstable nuclear isotope)”
This one sentence proves that you don’t even know what the word “isotope” means. There are two major naturally-occurring isotopes of uranium, U-235 (about 0.72%, which is the only fissionable natural isotope) and U-238 (most of the balance). They are highly stable; U-235 has a half-life of 713 million years, and U-238 is about 4.5 billion years. They are far more stable than the carbon-14 (5730 years) which is part of every fiber of your body, including your DNA.
“* Nuclear power plants need a secondary power source in case of a blackout to keep the water “coolers” working (failure to do this results in another Chernobyl)”
A “Chernobyl” is a nuclear-heated graphite fire, which is impossible in a water-moderated reactor.
“Now lets discuss something called a “Nuclear Chain Reaction” . A nuclear chain reaction is a broad term we at http://theorderoftheironphoenix.com use to describe the disintegration of a nuclear reactor to the point where the coolant can no longer keep the radioactive isotopes cool and the factory goes into “meltdown” mode, resulting in a colossal explosion.”
“Nuclear chain reaction” has a well-understood definition, and you can’t even get that remotely right.
I’ll leave aside your confusion of Hollywood SFX and reality. You should be embarrassed, but I suspect you’re not intelligent enough to be; you place dogma firmly before facts. " [smd engineer poet]
Me: "
The number of running generators in the year two thousand and twelve that actively supply commercial power stands at 63. I have personally read this census and regardless of how many you claim there are, this post focuses on commercial electric production. If you have a link or something to show me, please do, or give me a credible source that is not “hearsay”.
*Uranium (U-238) is fairly stable, I rechecked my sources five times and you’re partially right (although your comparison made me laugh).
*You comment on Chernobyl is irrelevant, you and I both know nuclear power plants are water-cooled, the fact that I named Chernobyl is not how it happened, rather the result of uncontrolled environment resulting in the disaster.
*I have never read an article on nuclear chain reactions, or at least they were never referred to as this [name]
I accept any other evidences you care to bring against me, I see you probably understand a fair bit more than me about this, so I’m glad to see someone of intelligence found my “blog”.
Kindest regards "
"
Your blog software destroys paragraph breaks and has no preview. Come on, this isn’t the 90’s any more. I’ll see if I can force breaks with HTML tags, or if those are just edited out too.
“Number of running generators in the year two thousand and twelve that actively supply commercial power stands at 63.”
Even after being corrected, you can’t be bothered to check your claims against fact. Well, here you are: the official DOE list of all operating commercial US reactors in 2011. You’ll note that there are exactly 104 of them, the same number given on the page for children.
“you and I both know nuclear power plants are water-cooled”
I’ll bet dollars to donuts that you don’t currently understand the difference between a coolant and a moderator, and I further suspect that you couldn’t describe it coherently even after reading up on it. You’re too full of misconceptions that you need to un-learn before you can get anywhere.
“*Uranium(U-238) is fairly stable, I rechecked my sources five times and your partially right”
Oh, I’m “partially right”. Yet you can’t specify anything I got wrong, while you use vague terms like “highly unstable” without bothering to define it or relate it to other things.
I usually don’t try to argue with people so disconnected from reality, I just point at them and laugh. Consider yourself pointed and laughed at. "
Me: "
“Well, here you are: the official DOE list of all operating commercial US reactors in 2011.”
Where on earth did you get access to something so recent?
Now let us address your other concerns:
*This blog doesn’t look perfect because I own and operate this entire website by myself, no help about 20 different portions. I try to do everything possible and at times, it feel overwhelming. Although, I did give this portion excessive thought(the blog, not the posts).
*The proper method of cooling U-238 is a mixture about 90% water and 10% graphite. (some do implement vaporized water, but that is irrelevant because the vapor still needs to maintain a certain temperature to cool the designated substance [u-238] )
I’m not a nuclear physicist, unlike yourself. Although I do adore your insight. "
"
“Where on earth did you get access to something so recent?”
Repeat after me: gov-ern-ment web-site. I’ll share some confidential info with you: if you hover your mouse over the link your browser will even show you the URL. It goes to a top-secret place called the Energy Information Agency, at Eee Eye Ay dot Gee Oh Vee. But don’t tell anyone I told you!
“*The proper method of cooling U-238 is a mixture about 90% water and 10% graphite. (some do implement vaporized water, but that is irrelevant because the vapor still needs to maintain a certain temperature to cool the designated substance [u-238] )”
This will be a huge surprise to the designers, builders and operators of pressurized-water reactors (no graphite in the reactor vessel), boiling-water reactors (ditto), and the heavy-water moderated CANDU reactors (still no graphite). Perhaps you can go visit the schools of nuclear engineering and tell them that they’ve been doing it all wrong since the Shippingport reactor started feeding power to the grid in 1957. I’m sure those hard-working engineers and academics can use a good laugh. "
Sadly because the owner and operator of this website is a fisherman and not a physicist, perhaps the technical details are still skewed. But I like Engineer Poet's responses and I hope he adds some more insight soon.