Very Cool
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This strikes a chord with me because I used to work in a nuclear power plant. I personally think nuclear power is a good way to meet our needs, but more on that later.
Oregon, the green, rainy state just below Microsoft, had one nuclear power plant that was shut down in 1993. Since then the plant has been slowly decommissioned as equipment is removed, the site and facilities are decontaminated, etc. The work will continue for another 18 years.
One thing that happened recently was the demolition of the cooling tower. If you follow the link, there was a video showing the destruction and it's pretty amazing. Considering how large those things are, it's quite the sight.
We store more and more data on servers. And as our servers grow, we need more disk, usually resulting in SANs being setup for our database servers. This growth brings about power concerns in many data centers, and really in aggregate for our communities. I've seen nuclear reactors setup well and not so well. And while Chernobyl was a terrible accident, it's not the way most plants operate.
And it's not the way you build a modern plant. Most of the US plants are old, using technology and infrastructure from the 60s. There are way better designs that are safer, produce less radioactive waste, and can help meet the power needs of this century. And with lower costs, we could build more plants, distributed closer to the users of electricity and cause less immediate damage to the environment. For the long term, I'm not an expert and the consequences are up for debate.
All I know is we certainly need electricity.
Steve Jones
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Oh and I had seen that video - very cool!
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If I didn't know otherwise I'd say you lived down-under at the moment. Our prime minister (who was in your neck of the woods recently - much publicised over here, probably made page #20 in your newspapers
) has decided to make this the latest national debate for reasons varied and unclear (like him or loath him - I won't start that debate on here ).You are probably right, but the "not in my backyard" attitude will prevail for quite sometime - not just for nuke power, but for many other essential things that we need but would rather not see...
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Thanks and I hope you get some nuke power. It's not that bad and the newer reactors are miles ahead of anything else for safety and waste.
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I remember the days we had to stay inside. The Tsernobyl cloud came over. Nothing to see, but it was dangerous outside (as it was inside the house, but they had to give us some advice ..). No cows outside (the grass was radioactive) and no common vegetables in the supermarket (only from outside the country).
But that was old russian technology. Not to compare with superior american technology.
But, american technology is no panacea against disasters. As we see in space (the russian soyoez versus the space shuttle). And on earth (Vietnam, Iraq) where the US didn't sign the Kyoto-protocol and uses (wastes) the most of the global resources (5% of the people uses 25% of the resources).
And don't forget Murphys law: Everything can go wrong and someday it will go wrong. And then you have to evacuate a whole state (imagine New Orleans, but a thousend times bigger), not for a few years but for thousends of years.
And all those nuclear technology will be common and sold to the rest of the world. Imagine some african and asian states producing plutonium.
So, don't play with dangerous toys. But reduce power consumption. Use alternative energy (a country capable of building nuclear plants, sure can figure out some alternative energy sources). And do as the Kyoto-protocall says (only two major countrys didn't sign: US and Australia)
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