Anyone in US or anywhere else who lives near a nuclear power plant ?

I feel that more precautions need to be taken, but other than that I am fine with nuclear power...

Nuclear reactors work the same way as nuclear bombs... Only instead of the neutrons coliding uncontrolled into every atom of the critical mass they can find (releasing vasts amounts of energy) in a bomb, there are materials that attract neutrons so only a few neutrons hit plutonium at a time, releasing a small amount of energy in the form of heat... Well if you are unable to cool that, everything goes to hell until eventually your abosrbing material melts (hence the term meltdown) and then there is nothing to control the fusion of neutrons and plutonium and boom goes the dynamite.

Need something in the middle of that... Like a kill switch ionizer that absorbs all neutrons and completely stops the reaction all together... Then it can be fixed and restarted... Most of the issues regarding the Japanese plant involve the fact that they are trying to fix and contain the plant WHILE the reaction of neutrons bombarding radioactive material is still occurring...

[QUOTE="DmadFearmonger"]

You love your country far too much, I've seen you starting topic after topic conserning America. And even this one which could have been simple titled "Anyone who lives near a nuclear power plant?" had to be titled "Anyone in US or anywhere else who lives near a nuclear power plant ?". You are OBSESSED with your country. And you're one of the reasons I hate America.

Pirate700

I feel that more precautions need to be taken, but other than that I am fine with nuclear power...

Nuclear reactors work the same way as nuclear bombs... Only instead of the neutrons coliding uncontrolled into every atom of the critical mass they can find (releasing vasts amounts of energy) in a bomb, there are materials that attract neutrons so only a few neutrons hit plutonium at a time, releasing a small amount of energy in the form of heat... Well if you are unable to cool that, everything goes to hell until eventually your abosrbing material melts (hence the term meltdown) and then there is nothing to control the fusion of neutrons and plutonium and boom goes the dynamite.

Need something in the middle of that... Like a kill switch ionizer that absorbs all neutrons and completely stops the reaction all together... Then it can be fixed and restarted... Most of the issues regarding the Japanese plant involve the fact that they are trying to fix and contain the plant WHILE the reaction of neutrons bombarding radioactive material is still occurring...

Buttons1990

Without sounding like a complete geek, ALL of what you said is completely wrong, Nuclear Reactors do not work the same as Nuclear Bombs and there are no materials that "attract Neutrons". I work on a nuclear power station and I've recently completed training on reactivity management. In this case Nuclear fission occurs when Slow moving Neutrons (Thermal Neutrons) are absorbed into Uranium-235 atoms to form Uranium-236, which is unstable. To become more stable again U-236 will split into two or three (mostly two) fission products and emit heat energy, gamma radiation and Neutrons (on average 2.43 Neutrons). Some of these emitted Neutrons will then go on to produce further fissions. If enough Neutrons go on to produce further fissions to balance out Neutron leakage then the reactor is self sustaining and is said to be "Critical" (which is good) if you have more Neutrons produced than lost then the reactor is said to be "Super Critical" (which is bad). Thermal Neutrons are produced by slowing down normally fast moving Neutrons by way of a moderator, in PWR's its pressurised water and in AGR's (which I work on) its a graphite core. The reactivity is controlled or "trimmed" by inserting or removing control rods into the reactor. The control rods contain Boron which is a Neutron absorber. The heat produced in the reactor is removed by passing water (in a PWR) or CO2 (in an AGR) through the reactor and then transfering the heat energy to the boilers to produce steam. The problem they are facing in Japan is the loss of cooling water (in their Boilers and in their cooling ponds). Unfortunately in a Nuclear reactor there is no such thing as a "Kill Switch", you can drop the control rods and stop reactivity but the fission products already produced carry on decaying away and give out massive amounts of "decay heat". if you then lose cooling like the Japanese did, the reactor will heat up to dangerous levels and the fuel elements may became damaged and leak radioative material. Further more the pressure vessel and containment vessel may become damaged and release radioactive material into the environment, this is what is meant by "melt down". Buttons1990 please do some research before making wild statements, otherwise you just look like a dick.

I live near TMI so yeah it worries me a little, but what ya gonna do?

I live near Indian Point and I'm perfectly fine with it. Not concerned with what happened in Japan AR ALL.

I live several miles from 2 nuclear power stations, and they're planning a third. Never been worried about it, myself.

There's one about 150km away, not worried at all even if it were a lot closer.

The Diablo Canyon reactor (which sits on an earthquake fault) is close enough to where I live to be a threat if there's a partial meltdown.

Of course the company that owns it claims that there is no threat but corporations have no credibility with me whatsoever. Look at the Japanese energy company andhow they with-held information and tried to play down the severity of the situation. Part of this distrust is because we just found out that the back up power generators and cooling systems don't work and haven't worked for at least two years. The only reason whyit wasfound out they were inoperable was because the state government got paranoid after the Japanese earthquake and decided to crack down.