No matter how safe you think you’ve made it, Mother Nature can find a way to destroy it.

It’s amazing just how many nuclear power facilities there are already in the world. Most of them you never hear about. Then there is the military. They have plenty of nuclear powered ships that no one hears about. There is a lot of energy already being produced with nuclear, and as others have pointed out, far fewer have died in the nuclear industry than the coal or petroleum industries.

The answer seems to be more, but smaller, nuclear plants. And keep working on those other altenatives, especially solar. Andrew, you molecular biologists are a big key to this puzzle, the alchemists of the 21st century. Incorporation of biological systems into solar devices is beginning to show promise. Keep working on it. There is also work being done on bioremediation of nuclear wastes. Keep working on it. Borrow from nature to solve our current problems.

We need energy now. Carbon, soot, mercury, nuclear waste, all of it. We must invest this *dirty* energy wisely on research into more sustainable methods of energy generation. The current system is not sustainable.

Uranium is like oil, we can not simply change our dependence on hydrocarbon fuels into atomic fuels, at least not with our present knowledge. Atomic trash will be there for centuries or milleniums. We need to find new resources with less risks. Atomic energy should be used only whenever it be useful: medicine, space probes, maybe in future manking missions to Mars or Europe, …But it can not be a solution. What Nature has probed to us is that unprobable events happen, and thus, catastrophes happen, and then we should not risk the future of new generations by our inabilities or egoism. As a physicist,too, I would like someone find a new energy source “free and clean” but at this moment, we are far away of that. And the global demand of energy and the global warming are driving us to a hard puzzle to solve very soon…

I have some hopes that LHC discovers something truly new and fundamental who can hint us to a new world of energy. However, it is only a dream…

False dichotomy. One should invest in R&D for all sorts of clean, renewable energy, including fusion. Not just solar cells, but solar power via heating something and driving a turbine. Orbital tower and solar power in space in the longer term (unless fusion becomes practical).

Yes, coal releases CO2, but it is only one source of CO2, so that is bad, but not a reason to stop it now unless long-term, global CO2 reduction is possible. Yes, coal actually releases more radioactivity than nuclear power in normal operation. That is bad, but not the issue. The issue is that if there is a problem, coal doesn’t get much worse, but nuclear power can. The main issue, though, is long-term storage of nuclear waste.

We got to the Moon in less than 10 years with a concentrated effort, even though slide rules were the most advanced computing aids used for the project (as far as I know). It helped the economy as well. What we need is something like the Apollo programme for alternative energy. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the difference is that there was no substantial opposition to Apollo, but there are many vested interests in the energy status quo.

Sendai size ~ (30km x 30km) (from wiki, taking population density and population)

wave velocity is about 100km/h (it was mentioned somewhere 60 miles/h).

Assuming wave is about 20m (from amateur movies I saw)

Water has density 1g/cm^3

The total energy released is (1/2)mass v^2 ~ 10^15 Joules

Littleboy is 10^13 Joules.

So the tsunami was 100 times more powerful.

Eugene

I apologize for addressing my first post to Sean – just used to seeing his name up there. I wanted to let people know that the Japan Society has created a disaster relief fund to aid victims in Japan. 100% of the tax-deductible contributions will go to organization(s) that directly help victims recover from the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011.

See: http://www.japansociety.org

@hundun (#5): fair enough. incident->accident.

I’d really like to hear what the physicists are thinking regarding this topic. In 20 to 30 years or so we’ll reach peak oil and the necessity for alternative energies will become all the more evident (not to mention global warming). Should we start building more nuclear reactors or should we instead invest more heavily in solar cell science? I highly doubt wind will be a major supplier of world energy but I suppose it should be discussed. Thoughts?