Originally Posted by craig

But chewie Nuke power is safe. the Chernobyl incident had nothing to do with the reactor itself. The problem was the supervisor who was under pressure from his bosses to get it operating and went against advice from his workers. So chenobyl was HUMAN ERROR NOT any thing else.Simply because Western Standard safety procedures where not followed. US warships are not really a target and Nuke reactors dont really work like that If you blow up the ship the reactor scrambles. How many military targets have been hit by terrorists recently???? Chewie you seemed to have made up your mind before even posting this topic. Nuke power is safe when mantained and handle correctly and it is only lack of public education that states otherwise. If say the Sydney reactor scrambled and blew up,taking prevailing winds into account how safe do you think NZ would be from fall out. NOT very safe at all. Have a good one

yes i have already made up my mind....i was posting this topics to get other peoples opinion.

nuke power isn't "safe". you can't call something safe when it involves the risks that nuke power does. and with those risks come huge benefits....but it doesn't take away the risk.

my point about nuke accidents was not about what caused them, but the effect when one does happen...you can have an explosion in a coal plant...you get a large bang. have one in a reactor you have some real estate you can't visit/use for a long long time.
last i heard no one had gone back to chernobyl.

the main point is this....for NZ it is NOT WORTH ANY RISK. our economy is founded on two things pretty much;

agriculture
tourism

both of those two things depend on the image that we are a clean and green country.

as for US warships not being a target...ask the crew of the USS Cole.

In 2050...they will not be able to defend their sealanes from several Asian countries. If a crisis develops they will be out of luck.

1 since when has an arleigh burke been a Nuke powered vessel. Just because it is Nuke powered doesn't make is a prime target. reactors are like bombs in a way blowing them up wont always detonate them.
I do agree that a nuke disaster is catastrophic and risks are involved their is no denying that but I believe that the benifits outwieght the risks. cars kill many many more people than nuke power but we dont ban cars.
Plane crashes,factory fires and general accidents all kill many more than Nuclear incidents.
No one should ever compare or have as a bench mark Old Soviet reactors diffent kettle of fish all together. I agree that NZ is a beautiful place and I love to visit but one day will have to find other sources of power. What they are I have no idea. If the Kiwi government have taken the No nuke stand then good for them and I am glad that they are sticking by their decision. It show s a Govn willing to stand by their decisions.
anyway this is why we are different and all have varying ideas have a good weekend

Originally Posted by Red52

In 2050...they will not be able to defend their sealanes from several Asian countries. If a crisis develops they will be out of luck.

yes yes...the yellow peril etc etc.

NZ and the US are friends...sometimes friends fight, but when they need each other we're still there.

NZ hasn't forgotten what the USMC did for us.

Chewie wrote:

"yes yes...the yellow peril etc etc.

NZ and the US are friends...sometimes friends fight, but when they need each other we're still there."

In the first sentence you mock a potential security threat.
In the second you use a cliche.

But the reality is that that in a world of smaller technological militaries yet growing threats, resources are used sparingly. There is no security obligation to NewZealand. So, in a peaches and cream scenario everthing should be fine. In other scenarios....

It's kinda true.
East Asia is a fierce and hostile place and it's getting stronger and stronger. You better hope Japan and Korea stay on America's side.
Remember, lodged behind the Chinese mentality is a certain desire for payback.

Don Brash said New Zealand had a lot of potential energy sources in water, wind, and especially coal.

Coal is the absolute worst energy source. It is incredibly detrimental to the environment in a variety of ways. First of all, you have to mine the coal (very bad for rivers, the land itself and the aquifer, also erosion and acid leaching occur). Then you have to transport the coal to plant (uses oil and increases green house gasses). The coal is burned (CO2 and particulates into environment, major source of global warming, and also contributes to acid rain.)

A typical 1000-MW plant burns 8000 tons of coal DAILY, that's a mile-long train's worth. Combustion of all this coal releases 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and 800 tons of sulfur dioxide daily and also produces 800 tons of fly ash and 800 tons of residual boiler ash daily. The ash requires landfill (acid leaching, transportation)

The fight against Nuclear Power comes out of pure ignorance. These tree-huggers hear the word Nuclear and they freak out. The truth is, more people have died from coal mining than from nuclear power and there has been/continues to be a much more adverse affect on the environment.

Originally Posted by TMV

Coal is the absolute worst energy source. It is incredibly detrimental to the environment in a variety of ways. First of all, you have to mine the coal (very bad for rivers, the land itself and the aquifer, also erosion and acid leaching occur). Then you have to transport the coal to plant (uses oil and increases green house gasses). The coal is burned (CO2 and particulates into environment, major source of global warming, and also contributes to acid rain.)

A typical 1000-MW plant burns 8000 tons of coal DAILY, that's a mile-long train's worth. Combustion of all this coal releases 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and 800 tons of sulfur dioxide daily and also produces 800 tons of fly ash and 800 tons of residual boiler ash daily. The ash requires landfill (acid leaching, transportation)

The fight against Nuclear Power comes out of pure ignorance. These tree-huggers hear the word Nuclear and they freak out. The truth is, more people have died from coal mining than from nuclear power and there has been/continues to be a much more adverse affect on the environment.

The fight against Nuclear Power comes out of pure ignorance.

I agree that coal is the worst option of all of them although I think wind isnt that far behind as instead of poluting the environment with CO2 you polute it with wind turbines.

However I disagree on the nuclear thing to some degree, yes it is relatively safe and yes it would solve our energy problems but as Chewie has stated before we base a large proportion of our economy on the "Clean green" image (I would guess that it would be in the 70%+ area) we cannot afford a failure as it would simply destroy the nation, therefore I dont believe nuclear power is for us.

Please remember New Zealand doesnt have 49 other states to pick up the slack nor does it have 1/3rd of the worlds landmass to hide its mistakes like Russia we are smaller than most American states and to top it off we are positioned nicely on the "pacific ring of fire" making earth quakes and volcanic activity reasonably frequent.

Short term we have looked at options to reduce the drain on the national grid by making all new homes and industries energy self sufficient in terms of them generating a large proportion if not all of their requirements themselves through the use of solar/battery (in the case of residential) and various co-generation systems (for industrial) I am hoping we persue this path until a more suitable generation option comes up.

These tree-huggers hear the word Nuclear and they freak out

I agree but in this case we have very practical environmental reasons for not wanting to jump on the nuclear bandwagon.