No more nukes

The simple math: 1 ton of thorium produces the same amount of energy as 200 tones of uranium or 3.5 million tons of coal. Let's get this moving, Japan. Google Kirk Thorensen, nuclear physicist for the technicals.

Nukes: when you have a Mox (plutonium) powerplant meltdown--> that is as close to a nuclear bomb as one can get. Then you can make the argument that a nuclear power plant meltdown is really a "dirty bomb" with far more contamination than an actual nuclear (bomb) explosion where the nuclear fuel is used up and released as energy.

=I think no more nukes makes sense. We need to stop these dirty nuclear bombs, depleted uranium, and unsafe nuclear practices. =peaceful protest that hopefully will help people.

Buy a Sharp solar panel and integrate it into your life.

And a Green economy is key!

Would thorium seriously work? thorium Im surprised people dont think about, and instead use dangerous uranium which is odd? Fusion energy--we need to seriously perfect this one and hope we can make it happen! Fusion is better than fission actually!

French won the ITER project so far!

Learn from T. Boone Pickens of Texas

Jatropha plants

Harnessing energy from Soy, rice, cooking oil, algae even!

Wave energy as well

Natural gas as said

Outer space--time to find resources in space! Uh itokawa?

If nuclear power goes away the second most logical choice replaces it for producing energy: fossil fuels. If they run out (and polluted the air well enough) we're back again to nuclear energy (unless a wonder happened and fusion power has become available in between). Wind mills, solar cells, water dams? Sorry, not going to happen! Way too expensive both in establishing and maintenance plus you need a freaking lot to make up for the power produced by nuclear energy. Nobody is going to cover every free inch of surface of Japan with them either.

Those protesters (both in Japan and elsewhere, i.e. Germany) should switch on their brains for a change and start getting realistic!

If Japan dropped consumption and increased use of green energy sources the nuke plants could all be shut down. It is that simple. The LDP prevented this from happening before as they were sell out to the nuke industry, big time, and protected it when it failed over and over again. We shall see what happens now in Japan after the meltdown of one or more plants.

Germany will shut down all its nuke plants in the next decade, 200,000 people protested today in that country against nuke usage in Germany. They will show the way how to replace the dirty and risky nuke energy with green sources that will not irradiate spinach and risk cancer for infants.

Listen up Energy saviors are examples of these!

Thorium is the way, not uranium for nuclear power plants!

Outer space Jatropha plants, which can grow anywhere and are capable of biofuel for airplanes etc..

Fusion energy, if we can just perfect this fusion not fission! A former Texas oil billionaire T Boone Pickens has a major energy plan to ween the nation from Middle Eastern oil! Called the Pickens Plan!

Natural Gas

Dallas, Texas going Green Green Dallas dot net initiative!

Dallas, Texas using LED`s on buildings for more than just Christmas folks!

The world`s only all Green products store called Green Living so far in Dallas, Texas

The word "nuke" applies to nuclear weapons only not power plants. Well people are still looking for alternatives. Wind farms are not the only option of course but at least a nice boost (who says wind farms can't be offshore?), another alternative is geothermal (hot springs come from somewhere right?) as well as ocean current turbines in combination with each other. The only problem of course is a safe location to put them, while ocean current turbines won't be affected by tsunamis as much depending on depth, they can't be put on or near fault-lines. So it may be easy to say, "no more nuclear plants" but one has to come up with efficient alternatives. Like its been said before, the plants failed due to an extreme natural disaster, and then lack of sufficient and responsive actions to prevent a meltdown in the worse case scenario.

Where were such protesters when the government "asked" the people if they could build this plant? If no one stood up and spoke their minds back then, it doesn't seem they have much credibility to do so only in the wake of recent events. It's easy to complain in a public "protest" but when will the people of this country learn to step up BEFORE it's too late? Stop jumping in to put out fires...PREVENT them!

Protesting now, well I guess better late than never

"You know this whole LFTR concept, and China's involvement, has been an eye opener for me. I'm a retired "nuke" with 27 years in the American Nuclear Industry and the only time I had ever heard of a Thorium reactor was in an old Tom Swift Jr. novel from the early 60's. During my training as a Licensed Operator I never was even exposed to the concept of a power reactor using Thorium. This is consistent with the basic premises of nuclear power in America. From what I have seen, commercial nuclear plants are run more as "retirement jobs" for ex-navy personnel then anything else. Consequently anything that would reduce the value of their training and experience is automatically rejected by the industry." American (retired) nuclear scientist

sengoku38: They are indeed building more (some) I dispute your numbers, nuclear reactors and make no mistake, forging ahead with thorium or LFTR reactors and ready to start building. Technically the patent for thorium reactors 'green nuclear' and yes there is such a thing, has expired in America ad the Chinese picked up the ball and have sprinted with it. Imagine, small reactors in a car and they'll do it by golly while the rest of us will be left behind with development.

By the way, I agree with the “Don’t spread radioactive substances" remark of the protestor. Unfortunately, it is protestors like this who have caused the current situation. If it were easier to build new nuke plants, all these old plants could have been decommissioned by now and newer, safer plants could be in use.

China is building 27 nuclear plants right now. At Haiyang there are 8 reactors planned for one plant. 2 days ago they lowered the first 600 ton ring of steel (out of 6 total) for the containment. That plant is being built by Westinghouse (owned by Toshiba; the AP1000 design).

If wind and solar are so feasible, why are the Chinese paying the hated Japanese billions of dollars to build nuclear reactors? That alone should be enough to show that the technology is not yet there to be practical.

Forget the wind, forget the solar, the geothermal. All good in their own way but no nearly enough energy compared to thorium or LFTRs. Haven't you heard of thorium reactors? LFTR reactors? 4 times as plentiful as uranium, just as powerful and infinitely safer with a fraction of the building costs. God, China is quietly racing ahead with their development and why? They want to perfect the technology and sell it that why.

The protesters' sentiments are understandable, but Japan, like all industrialized countries, is heavily dependent on electric power and becoming more so every year. Even though Japan's per capita power consumption is already comparatively low. What else can they disconnect? Their TVs? Their refrigerators, and air conditioners? In most office buildings and hotels, it's not even possible to open a window any more.

Guess there where only a few dozen people around, otherwise there would be a wide-lens pic, not a close-up. As for timing, right now is the time, because the average human citizen tends to forget very fast what is not directly affecting him/her. It is not finger pointing it is more like a wake-up call towards Japanese society. But what I really would love to see would be noisy, disruptive demonstrations or even guerrilla like actions against all this wasteful energy(un)management, eg cutting off electricity for wending machines or smashing lights of unnecessary signs etc. But I guess that will remain a dream..

@neobois

Have not heard of thorium before until this present nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Will have to google to learn more about it, I guess.

If it is claimed to be better, I guess scientific experts are most probably now studying to use it as a substitute to uranium. Until then ...... Time will tell.

"Because wind farms take up HUGE amounts of space, something Japan doesn't have. Same with solar power. Unless Japan develops some kind of ocean current power, they're stuck with either coal or nuclear."

They can harness the waves or tides.

I just heard that thorium is much better than uranium. Does anyone know more about it?

What I know is that, the damages from nuke radiation are usually insidious. Symptoms may not be visually apparent immediately, but might manifest itself in cancers in later years. Or that it might upset the genetic templates/blueprints of living things, which might take at least 2 to 3 generations to even out and return to its original form.

I may be wrong here, please feel free to correct.

Good for the Japanese to stand up and protest against this madness.

arallthetime at 07:44 PM JST - 27th March

"So far the Nuclear incidents at Fukushima have killed..........ZERO people."

Wait a few months and when the first babies conceive after the Fukushima incidents will be born.

I protest against these protesters

They shouldn't be protesting about nuclear power, they should be protesting about TEPCO's incompetence.

If they wanted to get on foreign media, printing out "NO NUKES" like they did with the Japanese would look a lot better than just scrawling it. Did they write it with their feet or something?

Also, like Sharpie says, the protesting shouldn't be done now.

So far the Nuclear incidents at Fukushima have killed..........ZERO people. Mistakes happen. Smart people learn from them. There is zero need to end Nuclear power.

I'm with Sharpie...seems a little silly to be protesting now. You would think they could find something better to do with their time.

Why doesn't Japan have more wind farms?

Because wind farms take up HUGE amounts of space, something Japan doesn't have. Same with solar power. Unless Japan develops some kind of ocean current power, they're stuck with either coal or nuclear.

The thing that kills me, is that when wind farms were proposed, especially up here in Aomori, where it gets really windy and they could harness a lot of energy, people complained about how it was esthetically ugly, and it ruined the coastline view. Also they didn't like the sounds the wind turbines made. Well, now this is what you get in return a silent and deadly radiation killer! It might only be anecdotal, but I read where it takes one nuclear power plant to operate all of Japan's vending machines. Try turning them off as a start. Then stop department stores in Tokyo and other big cities from blasting their a/c while the doors are open all summer long.

Just imagine an earthquake of magnitude 9 centering at Tokyo or almost the center of Japan damaging at least 10 nuclear power plants. Japan was not far from that at all. And who knows the future except GOD?

Nuclear crisis has been brought by forces of nature. We all Japanese have to struggle against its crisis. I can't believe Japanese people criticize about this crisis. She may be communist of foreign country.

So, where were they a couple of decades ago when the J-Gov implemented the nuclear power in the first place? Too little, too late! Or perhaps, these people would prefer to sit in the dark. The problem is not so much the fact they use nuclear power, but how poorly they manage it. These power plants are built on the coast of a tsunami prone country, yet all the electrics were at ground level and not sealed, which is what caused this crisis. They say hind sight is 20/20, but I haven't heard any talk of upgrades to the remaining plants.

If Japan gets rid of Nuclear power, it has increase reliance on foreign powers for energy. Or, gasp, introduce radical concepts like daylight saving and turning off air conditioning.

My wife has been reading things on the internet that Japan can make substantial savings by stopping having night baseball games and golf driving ranges. Not enough. Japan uses about 25% more electricity per head than the UK. I suspect that a lot of this comes down to fan powered kerosene heaters and aircon.

Did someone bring up bio floating platforms? Massive, absolutely massive floating platforms w/ wind turbines and solar panels, etc., all producing veggies.

Funny. Nukes = nuclear bombs, to my mind. I would never call a nuclear powerplant a "nuke".

(This is not a translation issue so much as it is a localization one. Recently I have seen other protesters in other places utilizing similar wording.)

Cleo,I hope all is fine with you and your family. I hope this: That this thing gets under control. Then the latest technology is able to eradicate the radiation and that we all find a way to live in peace. Nuclear power may be a key to not having wars, not that this situation helps. I as an American am very tired of war. Too many. Let us build an Earth based on common respect and one to help each other. Dream on, as aerosmith says. But I hope and I will go to my grave with this hope. It is so sad what is happening in Japan, the country of my children.

I'm with sharpie. First let's help all the people who need help, give them some homes and what they need, let the specialists also clean the nuclear mess, and once the necessary work is done the witch hunt may begin. Don't switch the order the other way around.

hardly the time to be pointing fingers and protesting. the energy spent on these protests could be more well spent on helping the people who have lost their family, friends, communities and homes.

Why doesn't Japan have more wind farms? I know they're not an amazing revenue of energy, at least no to the level of a nuclear reactor, but it seems a waste not to use Japan's strong winds as an alternative energy source...

No nukes means more coal plants.

Not necessarily.

Looks like she has better protective gear than the workers at the TEPCO reactors!

No nukes means more coal plants. I am all for that, but what will the global-warming weenies say?

I think a lot of people want to have it both ways.

Nice to see some pissed off people actually getting radical enough to hold the govt. and TEPCO to account. More power to them?