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be cost effective to extract uranium from seawater,

Two things about that. #1 It is horribly expensive at over 15 to 30x the cost of current uranium. #2 The extraction process requires absurd amounts of oil based 'net' to extract the atoms of uranium.

Nuclear is already an expensive method of electricity production. Saying that this method of extraction is 'cost effective' is highly misleading. in 2010 Uranium prices spiked, the ocean extraction process would still have been over 7 times more expensive, not to mention there are only prototypes and estimates of cost at this point. Some of the estimates have put the cost of extraction at well over 100x current uranium cost.

The most advanced materials, which can be reused several times, can draw between three and four milligrams of uranium per gram of plastic each time theyâ(TM)re used, says Costas Tsouris, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who is working on that system.

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Uranium obtained using the traditional process today would cost between $1,000 and $2,000 per kilogramâ"about 10 to 20 times the current market price, says Schneider. (The price of uranium did rise to around $300 per kilogram as recently as 2007, however.) The new process could cut that cost significantly.

Current price is around $31 per pound ($68 a kilo).
http://www.mining.com/chart-ur...

A sharp spike in uranium prices in 2007 had many people scared in terms of the sustainability of the nuclear industry, [at $100 per lb]

So if the nuclear industry is unsustainable with mined uranium then it is completely unsustainable with ocean extracted uranium, which realistically costs around 20 times as much.

How's that nuclear waste problem coming along? Perhaps the mafia can help.

Just make sure that nuclear waste doesn't leak. Oops.
Radiation leaks force transfer of nuclear waste from New ...
Nuclear waste leaking at Hanford site in Washington, again ...
After $40 Billion , America's Biggest Nuclear Dump Is Still ...
Radiation leak at nuclear waste dump raises questions ...
Ocean disposal of radioactive waste - Wikipedia, the free ...
Thousands of radioactive waste barrels rusting ...
Japan Times: Now 400 tons a day of toxic water is estimated ...

Because nuclear accidents stopped happening after Chernobyl right? Nope. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

But hey, todays new breed of super-human won't make the same mistakes as those past

There is fuss about both of those, perhaps you aren't aware of it.
http://www.nasco.int/ for Salmon

http://www.tunaresearch.org/ for Tuna

And you forgot cod: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/greenpeace-ship-sails-to-save-north-sea-cod

And to be fair to them, while I don't see myself joining their fight, at least they have the balls to stand up for something, sure there are problems in the world, but most people don't bother addressing those problems either. Apathy, not whale conservationists, is our biggest enemy.

And why doesn't Green peace protest against BP? Gulf spill comes to mind.

You think they don't?
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/bp/rebranded/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-10771805

Interesting that Dungeness did not make the cut. That is one of four sites that Greenpeace studied and found problems. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/nuclear/british-energy-reckons-nuclear-power-stations-are-safe-from-flooding-20071128 The UK does expect to have to use setbacks and dikes elsewhere.

Now I wonder how would the counterpart in Japan look like, if Japan chooses a similar solution.

The problem is, they're not exactly swimming in land in Japan. (They're swimming in radioactivity.) They'd have to build it on the side of a mountain or something. Seriously though, the best option is to expatriate as rapidly as possible. Spend some of their money while it's worth something to secure some land for their citizens in some other nation and send them packing. Whole towns are now flooded at high tide since the 'quake. Japan is facing a chronic land shortage.

All this comes off as insensitive I'm sure, and I'm sorry, but it doesn't make sense to build anything in Japan any more. I'd be talking real seriously with Brazil. They already have lots of Japanese and surely they could benefit from lots more. The Japanese are very serious about protecting the environment in their own country, so it might actually improve their environmental conditions to import them all.

There are plenty of private companies who have tried to break into nuclear power but there's not a single government in a country with a large enough market to make the investment worthwhile that doesn't micromanage every aspect of the energy industry.

France is not big enough? China isn't either? How about India and Russia? How big does a nation have to be then? In all 4 nations the government decides what gets built not the market. And none of them have the US's regulations either. Hell France has dumped their waste in the ocean and Russia sent prisoners to work the mines.

• France's Nuclear Waste Heads to Russia
• Russian protests against Areva and Urenco's nuclear waste dumping.
• Vive la Nucleair Waste: France Deals with Legacies of its Nuclear Programs.
• Thousands of radioactive waste barrels rusting.

Falcon

"Although dumping radioactive wastes at sea from ships is now banned, paradoxically the discharge of radioactive wastes into the sea via pipelines from land is not," said Mike Townsley of Greenpeace. "Such 'double standards' are not maintained for technical or scientific reasons, but only because the operators of the nuclear reprocessing facilities in La Hague (France) and Sellafield (UK) want to save money." "It is cheaper for them to continue to use the sea as a radioactive garbage bin than to store this radioactive waste on land; for the nuclear industry, money comes first and the environment second", said Mike Townsley (2). Each year, Europe's giant nuclear reprocessing facilities at Sellafield in the UK and La Hague in France, discharge hundreds of millions of litters of radioactive waste into the sea. The amount of radioactivity discharged from La Hague and Sellafield in only 9 months exceeds that dumped in the Hurd Deep. "Hurd Deep and the other former ocean dump sites stand testament to the irreversibility of dumping radioactive wastes in the ocean -- regardless of whether from a ship or a land-based pipe", said Mike Townsley.

Put another way: TANSTAFL.

Enter here.

See some nice new logos for BP.

For example, there are people that try to discover the routes taken by trucks transporting nuclear materials in the UK, in order to inform communities along the routes and peacefully protest. I guess they are terrorists now.

That makes Ken Livingstone (previous Mayor of London) a terrorist then. He supported a Greenpeace (IIRC) advertising campaign, they put up a poster in my local station saying nuclear waste trains passed through, and published a timetable (for 2006 -- not sure if it still applies, but any trainspotter could get an up to date version.)

(Incidentally, I wrote to Greenpeace and suggested that the special trains were a much, much safer way to transport the waste than roads. They said they didn't want the waste transported at all. *shrug*. (Many nuclear power stations have a rail connection. Where they don't, the waste is transported to the nearest rail connection by road.))

Many current sites appear to have serious geological problems in the face of sea level rise detailed in this report: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-impacts-of-climate-change-on-nuclear-power-station-sites

Referring to Greenpeace for a report about nuclear power is a bit like asking Richard Dawkins about religion or the pope about atheism: there just might be a teeeeny bit of bias there.

Dunno why they are against nuclear power, since it's the least enviromentally damaging per kilowatt hour way of producing power we currently have. You'd think they'd be ecstatic about a power plant who's waste is buried deep into bedrock rather than being spewed into the atmosphere...

The things we build with the longest planning horizon are nuclear power stations. They need that horizon because decommissioning can take such a long time. This makes nuclear power stations the projects most affected by sea level rise of all our current undertakings when sited in tidal regions. In the UK most stations are by the sea owing to lack of suitable rivers to provide cooling. Many current sites appear to have serious geological problems in the face of sea level rise detailed in this report: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-impacts-of-climate-change-on-nuclear-power-station-sites At least the UK is looking at this issue. In the US, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission refuses to consider the problem at all yet the US has many more inland sites than the UK and could simply defer consideration of licenses in tidal areas until sea level rise is better understood.

I'm guessing you saw the 'Green' in their name and just thought 'damn hippies'.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about/how-we-work/scientific-research

Greenpeace aren't saying we can't use plastic, they're saying that companies can use less polluting materials and processes.

Electrical appliance waste is a serious problem, many of the materials used are extremely toxic and causing serious problems where they're dumped.

That's why Europe has the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive for example:

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/waste/32084.aspx

A nuclear power station does make sense as an investment for Google; after all, they've got plenty of experience of investing in things that are never going to make a profit.

Disagreeing link: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/cfl-bulbs-the-myths

Take your pick!

Their latest film promoting renewables over nuclear no longer mentions the "no more chernobyls" line, at least, the new one on the UK greenpeace site is well made ad refrains from sensationalism more than usual, but they are very quick to dismiss nuclear and promote their agenda without telling you about the costs of it.

A comment on the greenpeace site sums up my feelings pretty succinctly. I don;t want to just cut and paste it in, but it is worth a read as to why nuclear is still a necessary part of the energy generating system of the future, along with other renewable sources too.

Total reliance on the methods they propose in the video is not the solution - they infer that using CHP, tidal and wind all together will neatly wrap up the whole of the UK's electricity generating needs when it just isn't that simple.

Nuclear may be expensive, but it is a proven technology moving into the fourth generation of its life cycle that can produce large amounts of power in small amounts of space with almost no CO2 emission after construction. It is reliable, scalable, high-density, and small footprint - a single power plant can provide 1500MW, equivalent to (being generous) 1000 wind turbines, which is a logistical nightmare - if you site them offshore you need to move the power to land, if you build them on land you need space.

The comment I think sums it up nicely is by a guy near the bottom of this page called dcoughlan.

I'm not trying to replace renewable energy with nuclear power, but at the present time, while we work towards green solutions, nuclear is one of the cleanest, most reliable, high-density sources of power we have.

Instead of fretting about the long-gone mammoth, why don't we prevent the extinction of thousands of plant, fish and animal species that is occurring EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY OF EVERY YEAR due to HUMAN ACTIVITY?

They do offer practical solutions.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/solutions
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/solutions
(etc).

Greenpeace make a noise about something, and the result is that other people do the "light prodding". If they didn't make a big noise and get in the news the issue would be ignored from the start.

They do offer practical solutions.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/solutions
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/solutions
(etc).

Greenpeace make a noise about something, and the result is that other people do the "light prodding". If they didn't make a big noise and get in the news the issue would be ignored from the start.

'They are going to have to do it again'

Greenpeace are suing the government again over the second consultation.

Original Defeat for Govt: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6366725.stm
Second Consultation described as sham: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7171821.stm
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/browns-pollsters-exposed-for-fixing-public-nuclear-consultation-20070919

Government finally admits to real consultation figures, which were negative by a big margin: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/06/20/public_opposes_id_cards_govt/

Greenpeace UK recently looked at proposed sites for new reactors in the UK and found that four proposed site may be unsuitable owing to the risk of sea level rise: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-impacts-of-climate-change-on-nuclear-power-station-sites.

Isn't the entire point of building nuclear reactors to reduce CO2 output and thus stop global warming before the ocean rises 5m?

In any case, if the oceans rises 5m we're all fucked anyway, shutting down a power plant will be the least of our worries.

Plans for nuclear power in the UK seem to be taking an interesting turn. Greenpeace UK recently looked at proposed sites for new reactors in the UK and found that four proposed site may be unsuitable owing to the risk of sea level rise: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-impacts-of-climate-change-on-nuclear-power-station-sites. The South Texas reactor site is one of 14 currrent or decommisioned civilian power reactor site in the US that are located in tidal regions. With a 2014 start date, a 40 year reactor life and a 20 year decommisioning phase, the South Texas reactor site could be subject to 5 meters of sea level rise: http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/2/2/024002/erl7_2_024002.html. That raises serious questions about the wisdom of siting the new reactors close to the present reactors and it might make more sense to seek an inland source of cooling water.

Another location issue pertains specifically to Texas. Texas wind power has been growing very rapidly and may easily meet anticipated demand. Wind costs about $1.30/Watt to build while the nuclear plant, at this early phase, is anticipated to cost $2.20/Watt without modifications that come up in the licensing process or construction delays that genrally plague large projects.

South Texas may not be the best place to test the waters on new nuclear generation.

If you want to start counting, Calvert Cliffs on the Chesapeake, Diablo Canyon of the Pacific, Humbolt 3 on the Pacific, San Onofro on the Pacific, Seabrook on the Atlantic, Pilgrim on the Atlantic, Millstone on the Atlantic, Salem and Hope Creek on the Delaware Bay, Surry on the Atlantic, Brunswick on the Atlantic, Waterford on the Gulf, South Texas on the Gulf, at least 2 in Florida, St. Lucie and Turkey Point. In the UK, at least four new build sites have problems: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-imp acts-of-climate-change-on-nuclear-power-station-si tes. That is 18 without trying too hard. Looking at a Florida map is very discouraging.

Fair enough, I'd not thought about the shape of most US settlements.

Here (UK) we just don't have that problem, but we're still way behind some European contries in moving towards CHP. The video on this page is interesting.

Yellow cake uranium, lie.

Where is the "news"? How come they didn't report this "nuclear disaster"? They don't report anything that would help Bush unless they have no choice. Same thing happened in nowheresville USA, I bet most men, women and children in the world would know about it. People still know about TMI even though more radiation is put into the atmosphere every day by coal burning plants. Turns out coal veins are often right next to radioactive deposits.

So now if you have been reading other responses, you also know WMDs were found in Iraq, over 500 of them. Now you know Yellowcake was also found and by Greenpeace. You should also know by now that we did put Saddam before a court, he was convicted and hung in less than 5 years. We also found buried jets, schools with munitions to the ceiling and on and on and on.

Don't flame/mod me down. Let the truth set you free. Look at the pictures. Read the articles. Even if some of them claim yellowcake can't be used for nuclear weapons. I think everyone knows it can be. It was there and we have proof that isn't even disputed.

Next time at the super, buy farm raised fish. Every little bit helps, and not supporting the trawler factories that empty the ocean is a good small step you can take yourself.
What do you think farmed fish feed on? Water? They're fed on ground up bits of the wild fish that humans won't eat. It takes over three tonnes of wild fish to produce one tonne of salmon

What you are saying is BS. GM crops in general result in MORE pesticides being used, e.g:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?uci dparam=20031203121506&MenuPoint=D-I-B&CFID=5476589 &CFTOKEN=49191966&MenuPoint=D-I

Not yet! I really wanted to go last year, but Iceland have resumed whaling :o(

I'll go when they stop.

Greenpeace UK commissioned a report into nanotechnology back in July 2003 which can be downloaded from here.

It was commissioned of Imperial College London with the brief that it should cover existing applications, current research and development - including the associated organisations with the incentives and risks they have for such initiatives.

Didn't you read? I just showed you that by covering half my roof with the best solar cells available on the market, I cannot even cover my own electricity needs. What do you suggest, covering the countryside with panels?

I am not saying that solar tiling would always be the *only* source of power - but that if houses did have solar tiling we would save a huge amount of power. Top that up with Wind power, Tidal power, Hydro-electric, then make sure houses use energy saving lightbulbs, are well insulated, etc, and you can have a national energy system wihich needs little or no coal/oil/nuclear.. This is not some sort fantasy - it is already starting to happen. Maybe we shouldnt cover the countryside, but what about the deserts of the world ?

>Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap dig it up and burn electricity.

Where, pray tell? Publications to defend your assertions?

Plenty, just Google solar roof tiles estate

Zero annual electricity bills for these guys - the tiles make as much electricity as they take from the grid. (ok with gas heating). Check also This link, This link , This link or This link

I scheme I recall quoted a break-even time of about 5 years - ie, even at todays prices, the houses will pay for the extra cost of solar tiling on the roofs in 5 years in terms of electricity savings - I will have to dig that link out again..

>France is not yet paying fully to *get rid* of the nuclear waste - its shipping the stuff to the UK to reprocess.

Completely wrong. France has a reprocessing plant in La Hague which actually also reprocesses other countries' used fuel. You are mixing it up with the British Sellafield reprocessing plant, which is indeed closing down.

Fair point about la Hague, we have imported reprocessing waste from Europe through the Chunnel, but France does have its own reprocessing plant.

>People are scratching their heads and saying hang on, what do you *do* with plutonium that is going to be radioactive for centuries, and has to be guarded in case some terrorist digs it up to make a dirty bomb..

The solution is well known and widely used: you get your plutonium and you mix it with regular fissible U235 to make a combustible called MOX. Then you feed MOX into nuclear reactors for energy production. The plutonium is degraded into shorter-life elements (mostly Americanium 241) which are less toxic and need to be stored for a few years instead of a few millenia. That's what the French and other Europeans are doing since the 80s. Big bonus: You can also use plutonium coming from disarmed nuclear warheard.

You would not be suprised to learn that Greenpeace do not agree with that. The technique you describe sounds good in theory, but in practice reprocessing still generates unacceptable levels radioactive pollution and waste that is still very difficult to deal in practice. BNFL have had particular problems with liquid waste products that are very expensive to handle and dispose of safely - its the practical details that are the problem. Furthermore

Greenpeace UK do not object to offshore wind farms - see this press release welcoming a November govt announcement.

Are you for real? I love the bit about the road deaths, and the vision of oppressive governments forcing people into tiny cars.

I'm glad to say that there's currently a long US waiting list for the BMW Mini, which is a truly fun car to drive (hint: it doesn't roll over when you go around corners).

To return to matters vaguely relevant to Kyoto, the nihilist "it's hopeless so why bother" argument IS dealt with by the treaty - Kyoto is part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, not a single set of regulations but a mechanism to establish fair rules as required. The hard part is establishing the level playing field, not playing the game.

The USA is the world's biggest polluter, both in total and, by a huge margin, per capita - it has a responsibility to lead. Do you really think that the US, Europe and Japan would be unable to bring remaining countries into line when necessary?

it's excellent to hear that some medium scale implementations are going though.

Thanks to those nutty museli-munching sandal wearing communist tree-huggers, the general public and *even world governments* (well, ones that aren't lead by an animated glove puppet, at any rate) are already well aware of the environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels...
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"

Wherever the stuff is stored, therefore, needs to be signed in such a way as to:

• Frighten people away, rather than attracting them with the idea of buried treasure, archeological relics or whatever;
• communicate this in a way that is culture-neutral. In other words, the third civilisation after us, in say 50,000 years' time (after the catastrophic collapse of ours (due to massive climate change and population growth the planet can no longer support) and the next (caused by brain damage resulting from the accidental translation of a fossilised Dummy's Guide to Windows) must be able to comprehend the message of whatever markers we erect despite having very different language, religious traditions, taboos, social structures, etc etc.;
• Do so reliably for geological periods of time.

I'm sure this story will be full of posts from the pro-nuclear lobby; I'm somewhat sympathetic to that PoV, with the exception of the hand-waving that goes on with regard to waste disposal (including defunct power stations themselves.) I grew up within 20 miles of the largest concentration of nuclear power in Western Europe (Oldbury, Berkeley, Hinkley Point) - the former stations were built in the mid 60s, had a design life of 21 years, were kept up and running for 30, and are now testbeds for decommmissioning. It's going to take a century *just to get the buildings into a safe state for long term storage* - a huge block of concrete containing the reactor core, sitting right on the edge of an enormous river with the highest tidal range in Europe. Hmmmmm. Was it worth it for 30 years of slightly-more-expensive than coal electricity? Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing... I suggest we learn from it.

Incidentally the UK Govt. just approved the first UK complex of off-shore windfarms. Another interesting experiment - might work, might be a white elephant, no way of telling without trying... but at least we know that cleaning them up afterwards will be nbd.
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"