Nuclear power is a good idea

Thank you for responding! "I will first point out the arguments that 'The transportation of nuclear material is safe' went uncontested and so I extend the argument." Please pardon me, but I can't seem to find said arguments even after looking many times (this quote was your first use of the word "transportation" in the whole debate). As such, I apologize that I will not be able to answer them. That being said, I don't feel like the transportation of nuclear material is the most important issue at hand, so please don't worry too much about it. Your time would be better spent talking about pollution and disasters anyway. 1. "I have already shown that with PBRs and Fusion Reactors, that meltdowns are physically impossible." I was looking and I found a very interesting and in-depth article from Nuclear Engineering, Int'l (hardly a source that would normally support my point) that discussed why PBR's are not necessarily as previously assumed [1]. There were 2 PBR's in Germany, and both were taken out of use, one due to safety concerns, and the other due to technical difficulties which were compromising its efficiency, its cost, and its safety. If you would like more specific details, you may refer to the article, which goes very far into the details of both, but I thought the summation at the end of the article was very good at bringing to a level that we can all easily understand, and it is, "In summary, PBRs contain certain inherent safety features compared to conventional reactors, they are however to some extent compensated by inherent safety problems. Some of these inherent safety problems can be solved by adequate safety measures or by R&D, but it remains uncertain whether this is possible in an economic manner. With PBRs, there is a tradeoff between economy and safety." So you can have it be unsafe, and then that defeats your argument about them being safe, or we can have them be costly and inefficient, which would defeat the the most common argument for nuclear power which is that it is more economical than other methods. In reference to the fusion reactors, once again, that is much more expensive than the standard fission reactor, so that kind of defeats the ideas that it is more economical than other methods. The easiest and most promising fusion reactor cycle is the Deuterium-Tritium cycle. What that entails is slamming a Deuterium (Hydrogen-2) into a Tritium (Hydrogen-3) to produce a Helium atom and a neutron. However, this has many drawbacks. First of all, Tritium is very radioactive, having a half life of just 12.32 years. Since it is also a gas with an atomic mass of just 3 AMU, it is very difficult to contain. This will inevitably lead to Tritium leaks, which will mean that there will be radioactive material in the air. Tritium is a very dangerous radiation hazard when it enters the human body, and there will inevitably be leaks in any D-T cycle reactor. Also, in order to obtain Tritium, there has to be a fission cycle as well, as Tritium is in short supply naturally, so it has the various problems associated with fission as well. And it also produces about 100 times as many neutrons as fission cycles, which cause things to become radioactive. In fact, after testing the D-T cycle, the chamber in which it was performed had to be handled only remotely for a full year following the test. Yes, there are other cycles, but they are even less efficient, and they have problems of their own. It's just not worth it [2]. And about the wind turbine, I was mostly joking with that, but even as this one blew up, it didn't throw nuclear material throughout various countries, and it didn't cause the whole area to evacuate. 2. a. As I said, and you agreed, it goes away slowly. However, when we put it back, it's much more dangerous than the stuff we take out from nature. You're not going to find Pu-238 in nature, for example. And yes, it can be diluted, but as you conceded, it takes a considerable sum of money to do so, and thus that would make the whole process not worth it. b. "Since the average nuclear site produces 20 tons of waste a year, 10,000 nuclear reactors (which is over 20 times our current world amount of 436[3]) would produce 200,000 tons a year, and would take 3,500 years to fill that one single location (and we could have more then one, easily)." This assumes that the number of Nuclear reactors won't grow exponentially in the next 3,500 years. My guess is that since Obama is doing it, other countries will follow suit, and we will continue to make nuclear power plants, but I could be wrong. But even if we do have enough room to store it for that long, it's still not a good idea. There is a very real possibility of pollution. Should something happen to either of these facilities, there would be a catastrophic impact on the environment. c. "(1 - (.5)^(1/324000)), or enough for almost 36 nuclear reactors running full time with the amount of waste they produce actually breaking down, so no net volume is added." I have an issue with your math. Yes, your calculations are correct, but you said previously that there are 436 nuclear reactors in the world. You then proceed to say calculate what would happen if there were 36 nuclear reactors. Which means that you've left 400 unaccounted for, and counting. 400 is a big number. Also, you say that no volume is added. That is not the case. The volume doesn't go away after a radioactive isotope breaks down. It just turns into a new, more stable element. "The argument that one must guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong is not realistic for anything, nuclear included. The only thing that needs to be done is that they are safe enough that the benefit out weighs the risk." I think there is a significant difference between getting in a car accident and having a giant explosion which spews radioactive material for miles. As such, the risk should be considered much more strongly, and since you really have not provided any benefits, and the only one I can think of is that it is more economical, but I think that the risk of pollution and radiation already outweigh that benefit, so there is already no room for the risk of a disaster. There you go, the risks outweigh the benefits. "If the worst incident in American history had no ill effects and we've made it so it is physically impossible for it to happen again, that indicates that they are, in fact, safe enough." We can't predict the future. Something like that could happen again, or something worse. Or maybe not, but I'm not willing to take that risk if we don't have to. You already conceded that it's not possible to make it physically impossible to have accidents, so you just contradicted yourself. "Other sources are great, however they do lack one fundamental thing. Consistency." Oh, come on. You could maybe use that argument on someone else, but come on? What is the number one source of energy in Oregon? Hydroelectric power, of course. While I am not a big fan of the dams, there are less invasive ways, and the rivers don't stop moving. I would say more and write a good conclusion, but, alas, I am running out of characters. So, I would just like to conclude by thanking my opponent for an excellent debate. Also, while the debate was excellent, my opponent did not give any reasons why we should use nuclear power, but I did just so I could refute them, and I did, so vote CON. Thank you. 1. http://www.neimagazine.com... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org...