I once got turned down for a job because they asked "do you have any views on nuclear power?"
I replied "It will be great when it's safe and they can work out what to do with all the radioactive waste".
They thought I was a subversive, I was just being truthfull.
I live in a very nice part of England where they vigourously oppose windmills and other 'green' supplies of energy because they are ugly and would 'spoil' the environment. If they looked at the environmental impact of nuclear power then there is no contest!
I am happy with the 'virtual tour' but I don't think I want to visit.


~Bayman~

How shameful! I would think that most people hold that view. In college, I took a course on nuclear power. We went to visit a plant (there are 8 within 20 miles, the largest concentration within 20 miles around any major city in the US). I believe you are correct, that the problem is not necessarily the plants themselves, but the waste. I think windmills are more beautiful than cooling towers.

There's a field of windmills in central PA... I drive past it when I'm going to... well... places that are on the other side of the windmills. They're massive... a lot bigger than one would think from looking at pictures. That and they look pretty amazing.

Although cooling towers have a beauty their own.

those windmills are pretty cool. the one "nice" thing about the nuclear waste is it doesn't pile up nearly as fast as other wastes cause it takes so long for the reactors to finish with all of the materials.

Fairedubranlage wrote:

There's a field of windmills in central PA... I drive past it when I'm going to... well... places that are on the other side of the windmills.

LOL Good one.

In 1995, I managed Marah. I was their first producer and we cut a deal to record at a studio owned by a friend of mine, Joe Mattis, VP for College Radio at Island Records. It was called Pumptown Studios and is in Limerick PA. The 2 massive cooling towers of the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant can be seen as soon as you leave Philly, and for the entire 20 mile trip, they loom larger and larger. Kind of indescribable.

I know this is a old thread, but I had a great idea. Those glow in the dark condems, I know you have seen them. Well, lets get those people togather with the good people of chernobyl? You could look at it as a cottage industry, sort of. OOHHHH eeeewwww sorry couldnt help meself.
There is a Nuc plant in Arkansas, near where I grew up. In the early days when I was a budding photographer we(photog friends and I) would drive up into the mountinans an would pass the Nuc plant, it always looked so evil. One time we stoped to take photos of the cooling towers from a nearby field. With in seconds we were approached by a fast moving jeep, two men got out with M16, really freaked me out. But as it would have it we wound up getting a guided tour of the facility and some close up pictures. Mind you they were very specific about what could and couldnt be in photos.
HAND
RIP

Today, because of the terrorist threat, you could not even get away with doing what you did! Anyone photographing a nuclear plant from anywhere close by (if you even could) would be immediately taken into custody and questioned even more than you were, possibly by the FBI. They would probably keep your camera. That is the case at the 8 plants near me.

Actually I think we in the UK are being very short sighted we get a high tide every 12.3 hours in which billions of tonnes of water move around our shores, they don't depend on the weather (though you could get a little extra once in a while!).
A series of water turbines would generate more than enough energy and not a windmill in sight!
if they were placed where we are getting soil erosion they would fix that too!

~Bayman~

phileysmiley wrote:

Today, because of the terrorist threat, you could not even get away with doing what you did! Anyone photographing a nuclear plant from anywhere close by (if you even could) would be immediately taken into custody and questioned even more than you were, possibly by the FBI. They would probably keep your camera. That is the case at the 8 plants near me.

There is no "Terrorist threat" any more than there was before, it's just that now people are overcautious about it.

bayman wrote:

Actually I think we in the UK are being very short sighted we get a high tide every 12.3 hours in which billions of tonnes of water move around our shores...A series of water turbines would generate more than enough energy and not a windmill in sight!

Well said, Bayman. We had a course on alternative forms of energy in college, nuclear included, along with wind, water, geothermal, and others. It was part of the Geology curriculum. This is a perfect example of a potential source of power right in our own backyard. Power generation using water has been extremely successful where it has been used. It often does, however, require inundation of land (when dams are involved) which opens up real estate and land use issues. All forms of power generation have a tradeoff.