Thought this would stir up some interesting conversation
(considering several people on these forums happen to work at, around, or with nuclear energy)

I read about this about a year ago (?). I don't think it's anything special although it is true that quite a few things have to fall in place for a reaction to start.

You shouldn't believe everything that is written...
It's just some excuse to say nuclear fission is natural so we can build fission powerplants.

That's right, we should burn more coal for energy.

Same with you bub.

The only nuclear "accidents" I recall hearing about were due to the people in charge doing stupid things. And from what I heard recently the new style plants don't let you do stupid things, at all, so your boss can't decide to turn off all the safeties to do something he knows will make it blow up.

I'm not sure if its true, but I read that theres more toxins and radiation entering the biosphere via burning coal and natural gas than would be if we used mostly/all nuclear energy.

[turning this thread into a religious mega thread]
This is a good example of how certain people, who think they are non-religious, use science as a religion, finding scientifical facts in nature and using them as ethical and moral guidlines in their life. Like searching for the homosexual gene, or a socio-evolutional theory why it is ok for a man to beat his woman or have sex with all women.

burning coal frees radioactive isotopes that's true..
but much less than a Nuclear power plant will do.

the radioactive waste products are still a big problem. and you can't be sure a meltdown will never occur.

as for a gas plant there are no radioactive waste produsct but it does add to grlobal warming.

but offcourse there are other options.

- Nuclear fusion
- wind energy
- solar energy
- Geothermal energy
etc.

That's right. In this particular case, it's a well known and well documented site.

Call me cynical, but I would rather have a fission plant than new coal plants.

That is quite a leap of logic there. Since scientific fact cares neither for morals nor ethics, building an ethical system on top of those is foolish.

Clear example. One can argue that it makes biological sense to do so, and that this is why the urge is there. That doesn't mean it's what one should do though...

Might be ok but it's a lot of work

You should invest a few euros into a Geiger meter and use it at your next bbq. I guarantee you'll be very surprised.

The cleanest energy that's actually usable at semi large scale is gas. Burning (pure) gas has very few side products that are harmful for the environment and producing and transporting gas isn't very problematic either. And there's lots of gas still available.

The next cleanest is nuclear power. The only real problem about it is that it takes quite a lot of effort to make nuclear fuel because uranium is rare, so you have to dig through a lot of soil to scrape enough out of it. This destroys the environment around mines and produces a lot of (a little) radioactive waste. Things like the possibility of accidents, problems with management of radioactive waste and radiation are non-issues that are brought up only by stupid hysteric people.

All other ways of getting energy are barely acceptable either because they're too dirty (burning coal), disrupt ecosystems and destroy farmland (hydropower with large accumulation lakes) or simply don't give enough power (solar, wind, tide, etc.)

O RLY?

I suppose if we think along the anything is possible lines then sure.

But with negative feedback reactors, the only way to cause meltdown is to disable the negative feedback system without preventing the rods from continuing to heat each other, or by putting in rods that are more pure than they should be and it becomes too much to handle.

I like the IFR design ("Compared to current light-water reactors with a once-through fuel cycle that uses less than 1% of the energy in the uranium, the IFR has a very efficient (99.5% usage) fuel cycle" for example).

The negative feedback system in the IFR design is also implied by the fact that the materials expand when heated, which pushes the rods apart, slowing the reaction, and making it cool down. So if it were "badly tuned" it would oscillate between hotter / cooler states.

I dont know if Geothermal might be bad or not.

I am assuming that we dont really need to worry about mantle cooling. If that is the case then simply drilling REALLY deep, adding some plumbing and pouring water down there to boil and run turbines = free power as far as we are concerned.

No open cut uranium ore mines, no fuel disposal woes, just heat -> power with zero consumption as far as we care. Sounds soo atractive in theory.

The deeper you go, the more difficult it gets. And once you get to a proper depth, you have to continue digging laterally and put in lots of pipes to cover a wide area if you want to "harvest" any meaningful amounts of energy. It's just not going to happen any time soon...

What you can do though, is dig a few hundred meters, pump some water through and use it to heat your house...

(Emphasis added)
Hell no. Coal plants belch enormous amounts of activity into the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants, OTOH, release absolutely squat.

Not as big as people make it out to be.

Actually, yes you can, and - most important of all - meltdown != "BIG NUKULAR KABOOM!!!ONEONE". Build 'em right and the worst-case scenario is a scrapped reactor.

Enormous land usage / W.

See previous point, plus cost (financial and environmental), plus that it's just not feasible in many parts of the world.

Even fewer feasible places.

And don't even think about hydro power...

go look in sellafield if you don't believe me ...
just count the people with cancer or a limb or two less

and ask (the few) people in Tjernobyl if nuclear power is safe

You should read up on the chernobyl "Accident". I alluded to it in my second post. It wasn't an accident. It was intentional.

Sellafield should be closed. There I completely agree with you. But that's

• Old and shoddy construction

</li>
It's the reprocessing plants at Sellafield that are incredibly dirty and poorly run.

... yeah, again, improperly constructed. Three words: positive void coefficient.

Whatever you call it .. it was ( still is) a disaster .
and don't think that won't happen in the west. That's why I pointed out sellafield.

there's a same story in france.

By the way france did nuclear weapon tests on mururoa the fact that it destroyed and contaminated the neighbouring islands where people lived didn't stop them.
So don't tell me that anyone can be trusted with this.

@ gnolam

It's about nuclear power and trusting companies and the gouvernment to do it the right way instead of the cheap way.

And I don't trust them with that. They make a mess now, they will make a mess in the future

And that has anything to do with nuclear power because... ?

Yes, but irrelevant.

Actually, I will think just that. You can't compare an old Soviet RBMK to anything remotely modern. Hell, people already knew those were bad ideas even back when Chernobyl was built. I will repeat myself: positive void coefficients == bad idea.

And that's why I pointed out that SELLAFIELD'S SHIT DOES NOT COME FROM A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.

And what the hell does that have to do with nuclear power?
Answer: absolutely nothing.

read my explanation in the previous post..

It's about trust, and knowing it is done the right way.

Why would it not be done "the right way"? The power plant isn't really going to be that useful if it just blows up right away, is it?

I never heard that theory. I always thought that Chernobyl was caused by running some form of stress test on one of the reactors with the safety mechanisms turned off, the explosion and resulting meltdown was unplanned.

According to http://www.chernobyl.co.uk it was just a preventable accident caused by miscommunication and bypassed safety equipment.

You don't accidentally bypass safety features.

You never know, maybe someone leaned on the big red "bypass safety" button by mistake. Or they unplugged someone's workstation to get the coffee maker/jukebox/pinball machine to work.

In Soviet Russia, you didn't play the jukebox, the jukebox played you....

How can anyone argue against nuclear power? Compared to burning fossil fuels it's a no brainer. Either die from global warming in 50 years or radioactive waste in 5000 years. It's just math people.

Eh, in 5000 years the radioactive waste we produce today will be basically harmless. Unless you eat it.

Mmm, nuclear waste... drools

I used to work in a factory that had a press cutter, which is basically a machine with two horizontal plates with blades mounted into the top plate. It has a handle similar to a mountain bike handle bars, but with a button on each end. When both buttons are pressed simultaneously, the plates slam together.

The guy who operated it decide he could get more work done if he didn't have to use both hands to push the buttons, so he taped one of the buttons in and used his now-free hand to put in/take out the foam rubber it cut. All went well until someone distracted him while he was working, and he pressed the button while his hand was still between the plates. He now has no fingers and only half a palm.

edit:

I've been wondering that for years. New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance really annoys me, because most people just agree with it on principle without ever thinking about the issue. The same people also complain when lack of water in the lakes that feed the hydro stations cause power shortages.

Fossile fuels harm us and next generations, because the shit blows up in the atmosphere and in our environment. Nuclear waste harm us and the next generations, because that shit doesn't do that. The stuff is concentrated in some deposit areas, where it is dangerous. Actually it should be poured into the sea or in the atmosphere during a long time. But still during that time the stuff would be dangerous. In any way it would cost to those generations that never benefitted from the stuff in the first place.

See, you always hear stories like this, and you always know it's a horrible idea, and you can pretty much guess how the story will end. So how does anyone ever actually do stuff like this!?

Well, you can't just slide it under the carpet. But nuclear waste can be disposed of quite safely. The thing is, if you oppose nuclear power, you pretty much oppose all power, since that's the best we've got (for now). Even if you don't like nuclear power, it's still the lesser evil.

Yes, obviously the better option would be to limit our energy demand, or get viable alternative energy sources (eg, nuclear fusion - it's in development, but it'll be a couple of years/decades yet). In today's practice, saying "no" to a nuclear reactor means you get a coal plant instead - which is considerably worse.

Waste from a nuclear reactor can be a problem a thousand years from now. Waste from a coal plant is a problem long before then. Don't think of a fission reactor as a long-term solution, but as a short-term way to cut back on the damage from burning fossil fuel.

Regarding the damage done by Chernobyl, I heard (but informally, so it's no better than heresay) that the measured radiation damage is actually less than what was expected/feared. Not saying it doesn't matter (of course), but it seems to matter less than it's sometimes made out to be.

What happens if someone bombs a nuclear reactor?

They go to prison for a long time.

Well it depends on the kind of bomb. Nuclear reactors are not wimps, they're solid concrete upon more solid concrete, and plenty of lead to boot. The bomb may just cause structural damage. If on the outside, there's still the core itself which won't leak. If it breaks the core, you've got the outer shell. If, in the worst possible case, both are destroyed and the nuclear material itself with sent flying it isn't likely to go far. The plant may be contaminated but I can't imagine anything else being harmed.

All this public fear about nuclear reactors is unfounded. If we can easily name the dangers, so can the engineers, and thus the problems are and have been dealt with.

How about a couple bunker busters right on top of the reactor? I'm just saying if something did get through would it start a chain reaction and turn the whole place into a nuclear waste zone killing everyone for miles around?

Let me correct that for you:

[EDIT]

...
Just ... .

Is the state of education really that bad nowadays?

It would probably take a nuke exploding inside the modern reactor to seriously contaminate environment with radioactive stuff from a nuclear plant. Regular bombs will just scatter the stuff around a few hundred meters and that's it.

In Chernobyl the problem was that they used water to cool the stuff down. When lots of radioactive mixed with that water and it started to boil it went straight to atmosphere where it could spread long distances. From what I know that kind of thing can't happen with new reactor designs.

You don't have to get all condescending. If you don't know then don't make a post.

I forgot to mention that other reason why Chernobyl was that bad was because they used grphite rods. Graphite burns extremely well and it was the second source of radiation that went to the atmosphere, first one being the water vapour.

Also Chernobyl had about a years supply of fuel inside the reactor at all times whereas modern ones could have as little as couple of days. With pebblebed reactor it was even less (==less radioactive stuff at one place).

[edit]

Also there was no chain reaction in Chernobyl, it just overheated and boiling water casued the reactor top to blow off. After the water was gone it continued to be rather hot. Even today there should be magma-like stuff somewhere under the lead and sand somewhere, "burning" at few thousand degrees. Quite similarly to that natural reactor talked about in the OP.

This is downright wrong. The reason Chernobyl was such a disaster was that they used graphite to slow the neutrons. When the core over heated, the coal ignited and sent the radioactive particles into the atmosphere.

[edit]

Darnit, I'm too slow.

I thought the REAL problem was the insane head of operations deciding to run a "test" that he was told in no uncertain terms would cause a melt down.

Yes, lets turn off all the safeties, and cooling tank and see what happens, yeah, good idea.

If Chernobyl was still in operation today, would it produce MORE or LESS waste/polution than a regular coal plant?

Response:

There you go.

Seriously this time, if it didn't blow up and spew all that radiation into the atmosphere, and was still running normally today, would it be better or worse than a coal plant? (we have a couple coal plants near by, yay!)

Actually, I did, since you should have been able to answer your own question through either
1) high school physics
2) or thinking.
That, and because this is why people are really against nuclear power - deep down, they actually believe that a nuclear power plant can go Hiroshima.

How would it start a chain reaction?

at the moment living in chernobyl is more dangerous than living in hiroshima

and provided everything goes right, you still have nuclear waste products that stay dangerous for many years. and I'm not talking about 25 years or so..

are you 100% sure a container will be reliable that long ??

That is probably because in Hiroshima there were less radioactive stuff and there was chain reaction that used up some of it. In Chernobyl there were lots of radioactive stuff, no chain reaction and it was blown to the skies.

Modern reactors have much less radioactive fuel in them and they won't burn up when something goes wrong, though it would be near impossible for anything to go wrong anyways.

As said before you'll have quite a bit of radioactive stuff when you burn coal too, only it isn't concentrated in one spot but dumped straight to the atmosphere. I personally would choose concentrating it in once space

Oooh, a challenge.

Coming from you, that's worrying. At least I'm fairly sure I'll be safe from the fallout.

Don't worry, I don't have high enough security clearance... Yet.

You're in IT, right? You can always check in an innocent fix that multiplies some variable by ten thousand .

... and that comment made this whole thread worthwhile.

A) No, that would not happen.
B) You don't just design an entire nation's energy infrastructure around fear of someone bombing the powerplants! If I was planing to bomb something (and I'm not) I wouldn't pick a nuclear powerplant, because:
1) There's no way I'd get away with it, and the bomb wouldn't probaby even go off.
2) Even if the bomb did go off, it probably wouldn't do that much damage.
3) Bombers usually do it for a purpose. If I was trying to terrorize someone, causing a blackout wouldn't be the first thing in my mind. They don't exactly build these powerplants in city centers, you know.

Let's hope the aliens can provide us with cool power sources!

Yeah, and the infection from Chernobyl was only at Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and West Asia.

I could have agreed with you if it was possible to guarantee perfect operation of nuclear power plants. But as long as we are humans, we make errors, and therefore safety is compromised.

Just like airplanes: every possible precaution is taken for safe journeys, yet there are accidents on an almost daily basis.

Didn't bother to read the previous posts then, eh? Chernobyl is not a valid argument against nuclear power.

No, I did not, because I've read them over and over in other sources.

To sum my view up: nuclear power = good, nuclear reactors = bad.

Show me a way to make absolutely certain that no problem can occur, and that nuclear waste can be safely disposed, and I am all for it.

You can get killed quite easily when driving a car or when someone smashes his/her car into you but not many people seem to protest against them. They also pollute way more than nuclear plants, though their pollution isn't that radioactive, it just causes global warming that will eventually screw us all.

There are probably several orders of magnitude more people killed by car accidents than with any kind of radiation (including Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl and any other similar thing). Funny, isn't it?

I'm sure cars have probably killed more than all the above examples combined. Mind you, there are a hell of a lot more cars than nuclear power plants and nuclear bomb sites.

Exactly my point.
People like having fast, cheap comfortable cars (the bigger my car the less chance of being killed, isn't it?). When they are offered relatively clean and cheap power they are prepared to go to war against it for some reason. I blame Greenpeace and their brainwashing

Indeed. The same people who are against rain forests being raized to make space for farmland, and also against genetic engineering which can be used to reduce the ammount of farmland needed to produce food.

Yeah, that's another thing I don't get. How do environmentalists oppose nuclear power!? That's like a vegetarian opposing tofu!

@LennyLen

The problem with genetic engineering is that you "make" en new organism wich could tip the balance of nature.
For example because there are no natural enemy's

That's a potential problem. It can be avoided by engineering organisms incapable of reproducing however. I certainly don't advocate rushing into the issue.

Hence we should stop using airplanes, right? Cars are theoretically pretty safe, but we're just human and traffic accidents happen. Let's all stop using cars. Knives are safe if used right, but we're just human and we make mistakes and stab people. Let's ban knives. In fact, let's ban anything that could conceivably be used to cause harm to humans if it goes wrong; after all, we're only human and safety is compromised.

Your argument is absurd.

And, as already mentioned several times, Chernobyl was an old, poorly built reactor that wasn't run properly. That kind of tragedy is just not possible in modern nuclear reactors, no matter how badly someone screws up. It's not going to happen. It's a poor example, and almost completely irrelevant to the modern debate on nuclear power vs. its alternatives (which, realistically, consist of coal power and... that's about it).

On the topic of genetic engineering, you'd think the environmentards would be in favor of more research into the subject so those issues can be solved. But, no, apparently not; the vogue is to just protest anything and everything that sounds threatening.

False analogy. A car accident can kill a few people, a nuclear accident can kill millions.

A car accident does not pollute the environment, the water, the ground for millenia.

They don't oppose nuclear power, they oppose the current implementation of nuclear reactors.

Your analogy is absurd, not my argument.

Not true. Supporters of nuclear power plants have been saying so for years, yet accidents happen all the time.

Your super duper non-failing reactor will have big problems when it grows old, like the one in Chernobyl.

Furthermore, who can make certain that all nuclear reactors are built to the maximum safety and security? does anyone wish to let poorer countries built nuclear reactors not up to the standards?

It's funny how some people can twist reality. Do you think Greenpeace is run by a bunch of idiots? those people are scientists, they know what they are talking about. Do you think that they would risk their lifes, families and jobs for a fantasy?

It's your analogy. I'm just continuing along its logical implication; that if something can be misused, it shouldn't be used. Because that's what you're saying, isn't it?

And when was the last time this apocalyptic scenario you describe took place, hm?

Yes. Yes.

Could you describe how a modern reactor could do anything similar as Chernobyl? For me it seems near impossible, at least you will have work really hard to make similar thing to happen.

Name one accident that has happened in a nuclear reactor that has killed a few people or contaminated notable area. I know Chernobyl and no other. How many do you know?

I think there might have been something in China a while ago but I don't think there were any casualities. Then again it could have been some kind of a chemical plant accident, I'm not sure.

Why should it have problems? It's not like it has lifetime supply of fuel in it.

I'm not sure who run it but sometimes they are certainly against weird stuff. Basically they are trying to be good in short term and don't care what will happen in the long run. They are popularizing green energy but so far I don't know any that wouldn't have massive impact on nature.

One more thing, does anyone of you live near a railroad where trains transport gas and oil? Did you knew that when one of those trains goes boom it can level several square kilometers?

What's the difference? No one's going to advocate fission reactors once they get fusion working.

Car accidents (plural) kill 1.2 million people a year. How many are killed by accidents caused by nuclear reactors?

This is why you should read the previous posts in the thread. It's getting repetitive.

• Shock propaganda

• Twisting facts and making outright lies

• FUD

See kids, science can be fun when you use the right methods!

Ok that pretty much answers my question. I guess I always assumed a nuclear warhead and a power plant had the same stuff inside of them. But I guess I was grossly wrong.

If they really aren't that unsafe, who decided to start throwing all this propaganda everywhere then?

That's what everyone's been wondering all along.

Well, first off they don't (atomic weaponry is often loaded with Pu-239 and weapons-grade uranium with a U-235 content of at least 93%, whereas a nuclear reactor runs on enriched uranium with a U-235 content of only about 3-4%), but more importantly even if they did, how would what you described happen? Just lumping fissile material together or even exposing chunks of fissile material to intense heat (such as from an explosion) isn't necessarily going to do anything spectacular.

Apparently that really bright thing that crosses the sky every day has something to do with nuclear power, and I know I've been burned after a fashion several times by this thing. And I'm told it can lead to cancer. Why don't we work on THAT first?

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That's FUSION not FISSION

Yeah, because fusion has absolutely nothing to do with atomic nuclei.

Don't some scientists think there's a fission reaction going on in the earth's core?

A nuclear warhead works by compressing the nuclear explosive to critical density to create a run-away reaction. A nuclear reactor works by increasing neutron exposior on a target (which generates heat, which is used to boil water and power a steam engine, someone correct me if I'm wrong here). Different mechanism.

Yes. Actually, if there were no nuclear fission inside the Earth, the core would have cooled down long ago and the Earth wouldn't be volcanically active anymore. At least not as active as it is today (compare Mars, which has cooled internally and is now a mostly dead world). Tidal forces from the Moon also produce some heat, but a bit less I think.

To expand further (for science!): There are two classics mechanisms for causing a nuclear explosion. One, nuclear material is surrounded by a highly tuned and accurate explosion, compressing it as Evert stated. The nuclear material is in a ball and completely surrounded by explosives. This is a very difficult machine to build, due to the great need for accuracy in the explosives. One mistake and it becomes merely a dirty bomb.
The other method involves, in a rough sense, throw nuclear particles at high speeds into a larger mass. They collide, go boom (roughly ...).

As you can see, neither can be achieved with a simple bomb. A terrorist would be better off attempting to steal the nuclear material and building a bomb from that.

as far as I know the core heat is generated by magetism and the moon has ( as with a LOT of other tings *) a big part in it.

• The moon also stabelizes the rotating and the magnetic axis

The second kind is the simpelest, but can only be built with uranium.
Plutonium will start a chain reaction even before the 2 parts form a supercritical mass, ripping the bomb appart before a significant part of the plutonium has split.
This would result in a verry small "nuclear" explosion and a lot of fall out

That's why a plutonium bomb is built like the first type ( compression bomb)

As far as I know, the Earth's magnetic field is thought to be generated by differential rotation (shear) between the inner and outer parts of the fluid core, which would not be fluid if they weren't hot enough - so I don't see how magnetism can be responsible for heating there, the energy balance wouldn't come out right in the long run. I don't know how clear the situation is though, I think it's still not entirely clear what generates the Earth's magnetic field - Venus doesn't seem to have one, for instance.
Radioactivity definately is an important source of heat in the Earth's interior though. Some radioactive rocks are actually warm to the touch.

I know.

Your 'logic' went like this: "Pigs are dirty. Cops are dirty. Therefore cops are pigs". A logical fallacy.

There were many accidents in nuclear power plants all around the world after Chernobyl, none of which was the size of Chernobyl.

So you really think people that leave the comfort of their living rooms and focusing their entire life on protecting the environment are a bunch of loonies?

Hey, it does not surprise me a bit. After all, Bush was elected. And people support Intelligent Design over Evolution.

Accidents may happen not due to bad design but due to human negligence. A new reactor may be 100% safe for now, but not in 30 years when its components are not replaced with new ones.

Nuclear and radiation accidents

What I am trying to say is that we can not rule scientists as liars or crazy madmen just because they do not support our policies. I am speaking in 1st person, but I am talking in general: USA policies, France policies, etc. These people are scientists, first and foremost. If they saw something illogical, they wouldn't support it. And it is not like they are paid by someone to damage USA's economy or something.

If we find a way to safely produce power from fusion, then it will be accepted and I am sure Greenpeace will not have a problem with it, as long as it is a proven fact that fusion is safe.

Car accidents do not pollute the water, air and ground for millenia, nor they result in the birth of deformed children or in cancer.

Furthermore, counting deaths as absolute numbers is misleading, at least. You should count the dangerousness of an event by applying weights to it. For example, number of dead people/number of responsible people or period of accident/deaths. You will see that with a nuclear accident, it takes very few people and a very small period of time to kill millions, something not possible with car accidents.

Some things never change. For example, accidents in flights have increased because companies reduced safety for economic reasons.

There is nothing that guarantees that a prosperous society that can maintain nuclear reactors today can do so in the future. And when its economy suffers, they will try to do everything to cover it up, including lack of proper maintenance of nuclear power plants...and then one day, 'kaboom'.

Sad day today. You all people have more faith in Bush and religion than in science? Perhaps humanity deserves what it gets.

Instead of blaming politicians and greedy corporations, you blame scientists!

The propaganda against Greenpeace has been started by the same group that started the propaganda against the United Nations. This group includes the current USA government, the British government, the defense industries and the pharmaceutical/genetically modified crops companies that do not want to see their profits set back by taking steps to ensure the environment is preserved.

Have you heard a thing called "global warming"?

No but I also don't live in US

Nope, his logic was fine, actually. You said that fission reactors are bad, since they can kill people if someone makes an error. He said that cars and planes and stuff can also kill people, if there's an error. That's perfectly valid.

To be honest, I'd sooner believe the people who actually do this stuff for a living! I can put on white coat, but that doesn't make me into a doctor.

I doubt anyone here supports Bush or intelligent design. I don't know where you got that from. I'd say you're exercising Greenpeace tactics:

And the components are not replaced by new ones, because...?

Car's do pollute air and water, and that causes all kinds of nasty stuff. And saying that a couple of people can kill millions when talking about nuclear reactors is just nonsense. That's simply not true. Also, my point is that if you count the average amount of people killed by nuclear accidents and by cars per year, the amount is way higher for cars. Same for injuries, even if you count mutations and whatnot as injuries in the case of nuclear accidents.

This confuses me. Who's blaming anything on anyone?

Actually, if you read the arguments given carefully, the arguments given are for protecting the environment. You're disagreeing about what is worse.

With any luck, we have a better alternative in 30 years. Nuclear fission reactors are not the best solution for all time. But right now, they're the lesser of two evils.

Most scientist I know are in favour of nuclear power, for the reasons already given: burning fossil fuels is worse.

No, they don't. Car emissions do though.

Yes, and how many of those did anything outside the site where they happened?

Haven't we already told you that that Just. Doesn't. Happen?

No, Greenpeace has done all that by and to themselves. Sorry. No conspiracy here.

The earth's core is sort of like a nuclear reactor. Why has it never cooled off?

It's nothing like a nuclear reactor. The Sun is a fusion reactor though.

Several reasons, some already given above:
1) Ongoing radioactivity in the core and mantle is a source of heat.
2) Tidal forces from the Moon heat up the Earth's interior.
3) The Earth isn't old enough for the interior to have cooled down yet(!).

While we're using Wikipedia for reference, some insight might be gained from this page: International Nuclear Events Scale. This is a universal scientific scale based on the effects caused by the accident. The article shows most recent examples of each level of accidents.

Please note that there was only one INES-4 event since Chernobyl, and no INES-5 or higher events, which are the ones that pose any danger to the public. Also, the sole INES-4 event in Tokai, Japan attained this level not because off-site, but on-site effects (two employees died from irradiation).

All the other (post-Chernobyl) accidents on your list are only INES-3 or lower, which pose no danger to the public. So, it seems highly probable that safety has improved pretty much since then, and the modern designs are much less prone to human error.

And, of course, that wasn't in a nuclear power plant.

Speaking about nuclear accidents I can name only three at the moment, which I remember:
-Chernobyl - I won't speak about this
-Some plant in Pensylvania, where contaminated water from the primary circuit leaked into the reactor containment bunker. It didn't pose danger to public.
-One accident in GB, I don't even know if it was power plant. I think that it was some plant for uranium refining.

As far as I know I don't remember any nuclear accident that would pose a threat to public. Yes, there is a danger but the chance of something happening is very, very low, due to better security meassures and controls, even from such organizations as GreenPeace.

I don't see any problem with the waste - since we burrow it deep underground (> 1km in abandoned copper mines) it doesn't pose any threat. Oh by the way leak of radon gas into your basement is much more dangerous... What I cannot understand are those loonies locking themselves to a rail when the train with waste is going along - that might cause an accident.

The real problem is that there are just too many people on the Earth. If the population was much lower we would have more resources and time to figure out Fusion power, or better renewable energy sources.

RP: there's a solution

Didn't someone say something about an atomic bomb killing millions of people...?

I think the soon to come flu virus pandemic will prove more deadly..

Well, I know miran was working on a surprise at his plant .

The surprise turned out to be his new "sexy stare". "Piccolo-sexy stare".

Well, it certainly killed me. I don't know about the rest of the population.

Whoa Evert, you really took that 'radioactive earths core' idea and ran with it.

Why post opinion and conjecture when facts are so easy to come by?

nonnus, I don't mean to be rude, but... what was your point in posting about the origin of the Moon? I'm sorry if this sounds condescending, but you don't seriously think that's new to me, do you? It's covered in introductory lectures about the solar system, for crying out loud.
Maybe you misunderstood (part of) my post?

Oops, sorry about that, didn't mean any offense. I read an article to the effect that the ancient collision between a mars sized body and the earth could explain why the earth is the only geologically active body in the solar system. And the earths magnetic field is also the result of the the same collision. But now I can't find any references to support that....

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