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tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. Why should a group of "concerned citizens" be able to block development on someone else's property? If there were an accident or a meltdown, or whatever other problem might come about from it, let the aggrieved party sue the daylights out of them. That is the free market feedback mechanism preventing harm to people.

Do you also support the removal of the subsidies nuclear power gets? Nuclear Power is Hooked on Subsidies. Wall Street would not fund nuclear power without subsides. Notice how at the bottom of the Forbes article, hosted on a free markets institutes's servers, it says:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Now if you had said that about offshore wind farms, like the one Ted Kennedy opposed, I'd agree.

Falcon

To give a slight idea of just how much energy is released in a nuclear reactor..The reaction itself is limited only by the temperature at which the ceramic fuel rods and steel cladding melts, and at any time the fuel present in a large reactor contains more energy than entire countries consume in a year.

Thanks for the science lesson but what you are confusing is the *potential* energy available with the reactors capability to release that energy within it's engineering limitations, or it's "potential capacity". This "potential capacity" is also limited by the availability (or uptime) of the reactor. Of the 104 reactors operating in the U.S 41 experienced year plus outages to restore their safety levels and 10 reactors did it twice. That's 51 'year plus' outages in operating nuclear reactors and I haven't even gone into general reactor availability and uptime. The most concerning of this indicates that the infrastructure is showing systemic signs of wear.

Of course, you don't have to believe me just read the report on reactor outages (pdf) so you can educate yourself with real scientific data.

For nuclear power to end up on an energy deficit the energy needed to extract, refine, burn and dispose it would have to be hundreds of millions times larger ( per atom counted ) than the energy needed to extract and refine conventional fuels.

First of all mean energetic estimates for construction of a nuclear power plant is somewhere between 11TWh and 35TWh (40-120 PetaJoules). However energy cost for demolition are around 70TWh (240-300 PetaJoules) if deconstruction is performed safely. Just in the construction/demolition phase you have consumed 1 third of the 300TWh's expected from the life of a brand new AP1000 reactor. Then factor the energetic costs of the dismantling and clean up of the core 5.6 - 16TWh's and it really is starting to look like a very poor energy return from your 1GW reactor.

Using a conservative energy expenditure of 1528Kwh per ton of rock (containing Uranium) you have to process 500 tons of rock, that's 763500Kwh's, to produce one kilo of Uranium. Assuming an extremely optimistic extraction efficiency approaching %50 AND assuming you have a high grade ore that's roughly 763Gwh's per ton and you need 160tons for your first core. Even before enrichment you've consumed over 100TWhs without a 1/3 core refuel every ten years for forty and we haven't even factored energetic costs of a spent fuel containment facility or the logistics of moving spent fuel safely.

Even though most reactors today only burn about 5%

It is *common knowledge* that current reactors have a burn up rate of roughly less than half of one percent (0.3%) of the fuel, not a good starting point fuel wise, with the reactor being around 33% efficient. That might be typical for an industrial power plant but as the industrial energetic inputs weigh heavily off the efficiency of the plant, that is going to be another figure we will never be able to determine simply because the plants will consume energy *after* they are decommissioned.

This brings us to Storm van Leeuwen and Smith whose analysis was to asses the net energy return of the Nuclear industry. You can check their research which is one source for the above figures and tell me what you think (the other being nuclear industry estimates which are *not* peer reviewed). The nuclear industry itself has spent much time attempting to refute their research. You will find it's been peer reviewed and constructed using using U.S government standards for industrial process measurement. So until you come up with a better argument, then this one alone is enough to reveal any further investment in commercial nuclear power as pointless.

This is how far I read

Palo Verde. 3 units, no river.

Palo Verde makes NRC watch list. Such a great example of Nuclear industry operations. What a joke.

In 2006 and was removed in 2009; the NRC caught their errors and provided extra oversight until they were fixed. In short, the system worked.

Palo Verde. 3 units, no river.

Palo Verde makes NRC watch list. Such a great example of Nuclear industry operations. What a joke.

They [the EPA] certainly aren't trying to _actually_ clean up the air, since worse offenders than the USA already exist

Um, the USA is the 2nd largest emitter of CO2 in the world, behind China. And China has a over billion more people, about four times more than the USA. In light of that, the EPA's attempts to legislate reduced CO2 emissions do not seem all that unreasonable to me.

When it's not "allowed" to point out issues with a theory, any theory, it has become religion, not science.

A fair point, but I've seen more cases of pressure to suppress pro-climate-change evidence, rather than the other way around. It's ironic that TFA is also about the release of relevant data that was withheld apparently for political reasons.

you're just ruining your credibility as a scientist when stating you don't understand it, then in the same sentence claim to be an authority able to state the cause

Just because a scientist doesn't fully understand something doesn't mean he/she can't draw useful conclusions. We don't know why gravity works the way it does, but we can predict its effects pretty well. In this case, the climatologists seem quite convinced, despite what they don't know. Are you more knowledgeable about the data and its uncertainties than they are?

...us all switching to electric cars. That's moving pollution, not reducing it.

Oh, true enough. But it does largely centralise that pollution, which makes it a lot more manageable (through carbon capture, or alternative energy sources like nuclear, wind, solar etc).

Especially when you could achieve much better results with nuclear for a tiny tiny fraction of the cost.

Oh really? Then why isn't Wall Street lining up to pay for and invest in nuclear power plants instead of asking for more massive subsidies when they are paying for solar and wind?

Falcon

The organization he's referring to is the American Association of Concerned Scientists -- which is not the organization used in TFA, but is an open-membership, left-leaning organization of scientists.

I did not find them when searching for "aacs". I did, however, find the Union of Concerned Scientists, who certainly have a very clear opinion on global warming.

The organization he's referring to is the American Association of Concerned Scientists -- which is not the organization used in TFA, but is an open-membership, left-leaning organization of scientists.

I did not find them when searching for "aacs". I did, however, find the Union of Concerned Scientists, who certainly have a very clear opinion on global warming.

In all the thousands of words of discussion I have read on this issue, I haven't seen one mention of the question of whether gasoline use will be affected by the carbon caps. That seems strange.

"Motor vehicles are responsible for almost a quarter of annual US emissions of carbon dioxide"

Depends upon who you believe. I have no idea about this site, TheyEatWhat

Anyway, some people choose to give in, for whatever reason, to a lack on intelligent standards.

I'm pretty sure it's common to feed animal products (beef, chicken, pigs, etc) to other herbivores/omnivores (beef, chicken, pigs, etc). It can be a common ingredient in commercial feed. It's hypothesized to be one of the reasons for the increased incidence of salmonella, mad cow, e. coli, etc.

After a little Googling, the articles I can find are a few years old, and discuss pending legislation. That practice may have been outlawed by now. I'm pretty sure it was still in practice last year when the second season of This American Life was filmed. Here are some links: Seattle PI, Union of Concerned Scientists, some lobbying group, possibly for Islamic issues.

That is a tough argument to make considering we keep coming up with new excuses to use tactical nukes. Even for purposes for which they are poorly suited.

Saying every time "those ignorant buffoons who don't understand squat about climatology but feel like they are entitled to contest world-leading researchers because the latter ones' conclusions threaten the former ones' god-given right to $1/gal. gasoline" is kind of cumbersome. "Deniers" is a good description, which also captures the irrationality of climate-change deniers: you are yourself a good example of that:

the kind of science you support is to cherry pick unrelated events from around the world and scare people into agreeing with them for the purposes of making money off such schemes as carbon off setting.

That's quite some cloak-and-dagger Illuminati conspiracy theory you have there. If climatologists were that greedy, they would:

1. Have studied economy to begin with, and pursued a career with a much better monetary return on IQ;
2. Would not be in research, economically one of the worst fields of employment;
3. Would try to publish against climate change, and get fat funding from Exxon. No such funding is available for pro-climate-change papers. As a matter of fact I do not know of any other funding given on the condition of reaching certain conclusions.
4. How exactly are climatologists making money from C offsetting?

The scientific consensus is that global warming is real and anthropogenic. Sure, the consensus is known to have been wrong before, but it was not the scientifically illiterate who corrected it—it was the consensus itself that adjusted. So if you really have good reasons why you think climate change is not anthropogenic, is not that bad, or is not even happening, by all means write a paper, submit it to a peer-reviewed scientific journal or conference, and stop wasting time here on Slashdot: such discoveries would be of the utmost importance and are not just news for nerds.

The observations aren't in question. It's the CONCLUSIONS that are debatable. Jumping to conclusions is NOT IN THE PROVINCE OF SCIENCE, but rather it is a tactic of politicians, and grant chasers.

"I believe that nicotine is not addictive."

Like cigarettes, the debate has been over for years. (skip to page 38 for smoking gun)

Ignoring obvious conclusions drawn from both ample repeatable evidence and supported theories to provide an illusion of doubt IS NOT THE PROVINCE OF SCIENCE EITHER, but rather is the tactic of politicians and vested interests in the status quo.

If terrorists can, or do, operate on that sort of small scale anywhere, then we're already screwed.

Ummm, newsflash, they have already mounted *large* scale attacks, have you been asleep for the last 8 years. So you think it takes more effort to mount a *small* scale attack.

You think being downwind of a burning petrol storage facility is fun?

Well actually I've been evacuated from the vicinity of a burning refinery, I'll take that over a nuclear accident any day.

Remember the Oklahoma city bombing? Using readily available farm fertilizers? What if those idiots had seeded their truck with a lot of commonly available carcinogenic chemicals that were readily oxidized?

Yeah, so what if they had access to radioactive elements, it would make a nice dirty nuke too eh?

Your argument is a strawman.

Do you even know what a strawman argument is? My argument is completely the opposite of what is presented, evidence is mounting that you are a fanboi.

You are conflating access with potential damage, and the potential is already there, on much larger scales than what you suggest. The effort required to pull off what you suggest would be a lot more than what is already necessary to create havoc with our existing infrastructure.

But none of those present the capability to do long term damage and renders an area inhabitable. More effort than to put to jet liners into the biggest building in America's largest city? I don't think so some how. And saying 'conflating' just makes you look like one of the infinite monkeys trying to come up with Shakespeare's works.

I suggest you take a step back, do some reading, and try to drop your paranoia about anything "nuclear".

So what reading have you done? Based on your non-existent argument I'm quite confident that you have not informed yourself at all. I'd suggest you start at the USC. Such a condescending remark adds weight to the evidence that you are a nuclear fanboi.

Oh? Do you have some proposed method as to how to do this? Because if you do, then you should go and apply to Hyperion or some of the other companies building these things, and suggest this to them, so they can learn how to defend against it.

Actually I have two, the first is 'don't deploy this dumb idea' and the second you can read about.

If you don't then shut the fuck up, and pull your head out of your ass.

So since I do, you can shove your head up your ass, open your mouth and eat shit - fanboi.

Don't you think that the engineers who build these things haven't already considered that? Especially considering that these power facilities have to be approved by our nuclear and power facility regulatory agencies?

The evidence presented is that they have reduced or non existent containment when compared to an *actual* TRIGA reactor. They have what is referred to as 'confinement', and I am yet to see an argument that evidences otherwise. But you don't understand what that means do you fanboi.

I'm sorry

And so you should be.

you are exactly the sort of person who is completely counter-productive in any discussion about this sort of technology, because you have little or no idea what you are talking about.

No, you're sorry because I do know what I'm talking about. From the amount of rock crushed to produce a kilo of uranium to the amount of mine tailings left behind to the enrichment process how energy intensive it is and the waste products and effect on the environment to the operat

Perhaps, but tell me why it would cost thousands of dollars in administrative fees to *repair a broken faucet*.

How should I know Trahloc? Why don't you ask your friend for information based on the specific NRC ruling and let me know what you discover. There are certainly more pressing issues.

MrKaos, you have posted numerous times to this thread trying to convince everyone that these small reactors would be some kind of serious terrorist target.

And in that thread I was answering the assertion that Nuclear reactors could sustain an attack by a passenger aircraft and the assertion that these smaller reactors could sustain an attack - which is false. This is evidenced by the work done by the USC on current Nuclear facilities. wrt these "nuclear mousetraps" the evidence presented is that they have reduced or non existent containment when compared to an *actual* TRIGA reactor. They have what is referred to as 'confinement', and I am yet to see an argument that evidences otherwise.

But your arguments are entirely unconvincing and your time would really be better spent elsewhere.

Well if you want to resort to dogmatic scepticism and ignore the facts and science it demonstrates you are not actually prepared to gather as much information as you can and make a pragmatic assessment. I have and I have also uncovered the factual errors in the post I responded to. People say 'this is a great idea' but ignore the logistics in actually doing it or as an attack vector.

Further, you have no answer to any of the other facts or lines of argument presented above and focused on the terrorist and security aspects to attack this line of argument. Whilst I find this reaction to my arguments fairly typical, if you would like to continue this conversation based on the terrorist aspects of this device, I'd suggest you read the comments I've posted and direct related replies within the confines of that argument.

However as you have given me an opportunity to present my main objection I will. It scales in the wrong way.

You might be surprised to find that I actually support the development of a reactor that addresses the issue of 70,000 tons of Pu-239 currently stored in reactor sites around America, simply because it's irresponsible for our generation to foist this issue onto later generations.

Unfortunately, because there is no geologically sound Nuclear waste dump in operation it's totally inappropriate to discuss building a new reactor facility until a proper containment facility is available. Yucca mountain is not a suitable site because it is made of pumice and geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.

We need something made of granite. The only human made structure with the potential to last 10000 years is Mt Rushmore, so it has to be an engineering project of that scale, because the logistical problems of transferring the 70000 odd tons of Pu239 to the "waste repository" (in reality - containment facility) are so involved that you want to get it right the first time and only do it once.

Even doing that will probably take 30 years to complete, but there is more to it than that.

I was a big fan of the Integral Fast Reactor, and in a way I still am. But the reality is 3rd and 4th generation reactors are a pipe dream because our material science is not advanced enough yet to produce a reactor design that will last thousands of years. If you are going to build reactors then do it properly and build a Terra-watt scale nuclear reactor facility the belly of a massive granite mountain with an attached waste facility that chomps up all your remaining plutonium or end al

My point is that you can always find some distinguished scientists that support a kooky belief. There is still a renowned virologist that does not believe that the HIV virus causes AIDS. At a certain point, arguing with the people who still don't believe is pointless. One must get on with fixing the problems.

-It's trolling... check

No, it is more like making light of a very serious problem.

Here ya go. The Russian system uses nukes whereas our system is a "hit to kill" system. Rather like the old game Missile Command, they fly up and detonate to catch incoming warheads in the blast.

Why not repeal the subsidies to oil companies? Some direct, some indirect. That would level the playing field, stop skewing the market and then we would see where alts to oil stand in terms of economics. Then a decision on what to do about alt energy and transport will be easier to make.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/6/122829/2907

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/vehicle_impacts/cars_pickups_and_suvs/subsidizing-big-oil.html

http://cleantech.com/news/node/554

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0401-12.htm

http://www.progress.org/2003/energy22.htm

which enormous tax breaks?

This article list some of them.

As I said in my reply to the OP, vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry.

Yeah. It's all fun and games until the science gets confused with politics and industry. The scientific method is good and all, but it's so easy to spread disinformation with the goal of influencing public perception, and thereby guiding public funding of scientific research.

Is there nothing that politicians and corporations can't fuck up?

As I said in my reply to the OP, vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry.

"But it does show that there is MUCH we don't know about the issue."

I agree but recognise that the same can be said about any area of scientific enquiry. Science is more than a seemingly contradictory pile of factoids, it's a way of thinking that is never 100% certain about anything, and can never prove anything to anyone. But if it's not the best model of the Universe that we have then may God strike me down before I hit submit.

"unless you count a consensus of scientists as evidence"

A scientific opinion is not evidence, at best it is an "expert witness statement". However consensus is an intergral part of the "republic of science", scientific consensus is implied by the term "scientists say", eg: "Scientists say the Earth orbits the Sun". Have a google and find out what the consensus on GW actualy says and then we can discuss.

Vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry. Here are a couple of blogs to practice the art of skepticisim on. The first is run by a bunch of climate scientists who contributed to the IPCC, it's founder is M.Mann the guy who came up with the much maligned "hockey stick", the second is from nature.com. Other excellent sites include NASA, NOAA, WMO, MET, CSIRO and countless other (not so excellent) sites from national scientific and meterological institutions across the globe.

"There is nothing wrong with being a skeptic. I am skeptical as well that there is proof of man made global warming."

Skepticisim is at the core of the scientific method, it is a skill that is easily taught, often abused, and never fully mastered. I have been proud to label myself as such since "discovering" James Randi and Carl Sagan in the seventies. Sagan went on to write what I would consider a modern "bible" on the virtues of scepticisim - Demon Haunted World. However science provides evidence for concepts in the form of repeatable demonstrations, never proof.

"Australia uses coal because Australia has a lot of coal."

Yep and it's mostly the dirty brown stuff, it's all over the place - we even sent coals to Newcastle during the Thatcher years. Consequently there is a very powerfull coal lobby in Australia.

"I will simply state that I fail to understand is how standing stubbornly by the US has anything to do with your choice in energy?"

Our powerfull coal lobbyists are barely distinguishable from your powerfull coal lobbyists, so much so that at the most influential levels they are often the same people. They have very successfully moved the public argument to oil and rising oceans when the major threat is to food and it's coming first and foremost from coal. Blind support for the US stance on Kyoto and it's successor was a large part of John Howard's downfall in the last election, his blind support for TWOT was an even larger part of the battering his party took at the polls. From what I saw of UK politics I belive at least some of Tony Blair's unpopularity at home was also due to his emabrassingly obvious body language when he was kissing Bush's arse in public. These three leaders (two right-wingers and a lefty) dragged the world into Iraq and had no choice but to stick together on TWOT, simarly Howard got sticky with George on GW for other reasons.

During the last decade in particular, both the US and Australian government sponsered scientific institutions such as NOAA and CSIRO have contributed an enourmous wealth of knowledge on the subject despite political interference. At the same time Howard and Bush were calling for "more research" (in perfect mass media, trans-pacific synconisity) they were eliminating all refrences to "our home planet" in NASA's mission statement and gutting the budgets that had, for decades, been providing the research they were calling for.

"The problem is that unless China and India get on board and NO I am not willing to pay them off it really will make little difference."

True, however the UN climate summit at Bali demonstrated the only country that is still not on board is the US. The deal that US finally agreed to discuss after being deserted by Australia, shamed by PNG and boo'ed by the rest of the planet is known as the Brazilian proposal (the top link is to Melbourne Uni, a highly respected university in my home town).

As far as the fairness of obligations goes the general idea is a cap and trade system that attempts to allocate the same amount of GHG on a per-captia basis to each person on Earth between (IIRC) 1960-2060 this creates different emmision curves for different nations but the curves are planned to merge together ~2030. Having said that I am not a fan of everything in the proposal (in particular offsets based on land use), I also recognise that no treaty will please everyone or be immune from creative accounting.

"At the same time I am all for cutting CO2 just because I don't think that it can hurt and it may hel

How exactly does this solve our dependence on coal power plants?

But, the max write-off used to be MUCH smaller at $25K. The point is that by upping the max to $100K, lots of doctors and lawyers went out and bought Hummers on the tax payers' dime.

If that's forcing people to buy a Hummer, I'd like to meet those people. They still had to have the $100,000 up front to purchase it...

Next time you're getting your prostate fingered, say "hi" to one of the beneficiaries. I imagine that there are a lot of upper-class professionals with $100K to drop on a car if they know it's free money come tax time. IANAAccountant, so please explain how this isn't a huge incentive/smart business move to buy what was once a lucrative luxury item that the merchant probably wanted already.

How exactly do you build a power plant that hasn't been invented yet ?

That's a clever trick, making an inaccurate declaration as prescription to query... photovoltaics have been around for decades, their cost of production has dropped while the amount of 'tricity they produce per square unit has increased... they suffer from difficulty of silicon supply, though

But solar concentration technologies which have also existed for a while now don't suffer as much from lack of building material supply... they do generate heat, though, but only in a small area, and energy storage technologies and cooling technologies have blossomed lately in support of this kind of 'centralized' power production unit.

Meanwhile, CIGS and thin-film have arisen in the last couple-few years... and while their efficiency-of-deliver per square unit isn't quite as good yet as silicon, they will surpass it and not suffer either from the lack-of-resources problem, and can both be so small and so cheap that the only barrier between either and being so throughly ubiquitous in the construction of home, offices, and plants is having more in the way of mass production... which nanosolar recently demonstrated is not only possible, but so much so that it brought the cost of energy product, post manufacture AND post purchase, to less than that of burning coal.

Which of these things do you think doesn't exist, exactly? These are all 'today' technologies that offer no particular difficulty in implementation or production, and do not include stuff on the drawing board or being worked on in the labs.

I mean, hell... right now, a plant is being building in Australia that will produce 270 gigawatt hours per year, and that on PV, which is fast becoming the codgery step-grand-uncle of the future of solar power. Is that so insubstantial that you can justify ignoring it? Compare that to the following:

A 500 megawatt coal plant produces 3.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power a city of about 140,000 people. It burns 1,430,000 tons of coal, uses 2.2 billion gallons of water and 146,000 tons of limestone. -- http://www.ucsusa.org/

All that during operation (not construction of) the plant ... would be interesting to see the construction costs/materials/hazards of both side by side... especially when you replace PV with TF/CIGS solar production.

It IS true that the solar friendly countries are doing so through partial subsidization... but we've subsidized more than our own fair share of power/fuel production, look the other way when disasters occur, etc... but then block competition from cleaner, less well funded, alternatives. My original point remains unscathed, I say. =)

pollution of various kinds, and too much noise meaning that they can't communicate.

It's not just that it's noisy so they can't communicate. The Navy is maiming whales with it deep sea sonar. Kinda like how a gunshot blast beside your head damages your hearing. They are perfectly aware of this and they don't really care other than the PR problems, but that is being addressed. First they just tried to use bad science to make it OK. And then the blinded whales started beaching themselves. But at least one court isn't fooled by the carte blanc of "national security".

Disclaimer: I grew up in Virgina Beach, VA most of my friends and their families from back home are in the Navy. I want our Navy to be strong and safe, but I don't want to mutilate whales to do it. Good sonar didn't do jack shit for the USS Cole, and I don't think Iraq or Afghanistan has much of a Navy to worry about. How about a new better technology instead of just turning the volume up on the sonar.

This is interesting... $126.6 million dollars to remove 1 million T of carbon through sequestration.

A forest removes about 2 T a year of carbon from the atmosphere.
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/fa04-catalyst-forest-carbon-sequestration.html

It would take 500,000 acres to remove 1 MT of carbon from the atmosphere. (follow me so far?)

It costs approximately $68/ acre to plant forest.
www.alliancechesbay.org/pubs/projects/deliverables-77-7-2004.ppt

For $126,600,000, you could plant 1,861,764 acres.

This would remove 3,723,528 tons/ year of carbon. Roughly 3.7 times more carbon sequestration annually.

This DOE project removes one million tons once. Forests would remove 3.7 times more each year.

In short, as cool as we all would like wind power generation to be, it just falls way too short in the aforemention critical statistic. If you've seen the wind farm outside of San Fran, you know how big they can get. The nuke plant between SD & LA (iirc) is but a postage stamp compared to that windfarm and it probably has about twice the power output.

However the US has enough potential wind power to electrify the US. On top of that, whereas the land a nuclear power plant uses is only good for that, wind gennies on farms can supplement a farmer's income, ie they can still grow food on it. Right now wind is the fastest growing energy source in the world.

Wrong. It's clear I know more about genetic engineering than you do.

It's SCIENTISTS who have taken the lead in trying to slow down the introduction of GM foods until proper safety protocols are in place.

Here's a link to a Union of Concerned Scientists website with the basics of the risks of genetic engineering...

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/risks-of-genetic-engineering.html

As far as your pro-corporate talking points, you can take those back to the right wing website you got them from. We've all watched the Bush cronies rape and pillage for 7 years. We've seen the truth of how morally bankrupt the corporate mindset is. Nobody believes the right wing corporate talking points any more.

We also know if a corporate CEO cares about anything other than maximizing quarterly profits, they will face lawsuits from pissed off investors and be immediately removed from those jobs.

http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/archive/ozone-climate-connection.html seems like a decent read on this. I don't think the GP was too far off base. perhaps not the most significant thing, but still the GP was correct.

This post has all of the information about Heartland and Exxon if you follow the links.

This report by the Union of Concerned Scientists traces Exxon funding of the global warming deniers.

Also, when you encounter anything from an organization describing itself as a "free market think tank" you are generally looking at an industry-funded PR front-group.

Yea, pretty much:

""I want to stress that these are estimates, and that we'll know soon more precisely from our engineers," ZPM spokesman Kevin Haydon told PM, "

I'd also like to know if the energy used to run the compressor to fill up the tank was included in that MPG figure. My guess is no.

And another pet peeve - they call themselves "Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM)", other places talk about "sero emmision vehicles. Bullshit. The pollution may happen somewhere other then the tailpipe, but it's still there. And often at a higher environmental cost then if you just burned gas in a modern, high efficiency vehicle. It may move the pollution out of the urban area. If that's you're goal, fine - state it as such. But it's not a solution to the larger pollution and energy problems - and may actually exacerbate them.

This document http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/space_weapons/a-history-of-asat-programs.html has some good information, to my knowledge. It also reflects my understanding that programs like the almv program were stopped because of political considerations rather than technical problems. This article http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/almv.htm seems to reflect the same.

Of course we are talking about budgets and politics and there will be spin. Anyone who actually knows in high detail what has happened, is happening and what current capabilities exist, wont be posting here. I feel comfortable saying that the US military has successfully demonstrated that it has the capability to take down satellites in the past. I also feel comfortable with the idea that modifying an sm3 to do the same and then testing such is not a huge mistake because it gives away too much to the Chinese. But everyone is entitled to their opinion - I'm just sharing mine.

What? A very simple Google search turns up lots of results, too many to list here even.

There's lots of hits. How many are to an actual scientific study?

And given that non-ionizing radiation, by definition, can not ionize a molecule, it's really not worth my time to sift through all the tin-foil hats to find a study that may or may not exist. If you've found a link, post it.

Last I checked there ARE a lot of dead people from cancer. Obviously the question is whether there are causal links in some cases, which is nearly impossible to know.

If cell phones caused cancer, there would be a very large increase in cancer rates that correspond to a particular time-lag after the explosion of cell phones. No one has shown such an increase.

Cellphones haven't even been in common use for very long

Cell phones have been in common use for over 20 years. They've been in EXTREMELY common use for 10+ years. That's plenty of time for any trends to become apparent.

As for your list of potential diseases, the rise in their diagnoses also corresponds with the rise in awareness of those diseases and the rise in diagnostic techniques that identify them. And again, nobody has been able to produce any correlation with cell phone use, even after 20 years of common usage. Plus there's lots of kids that are diagnosed as ADHD when it's really impatient parents, teachers and doctors looking for an easy way to handle normal child behavior.

I don't know why there are such widespread "it can't be! it can't be!" knee-jerk reactions every time someone even TRIES to scientifically investigate these things

Because the people doing the "investigations" usually can't even get basic physics right. Instead they do great at the marketing about some horrific thing that will happen to you, so send them money to study it so you won't die.

Tell ya what...I believe that people may be mauled by a bear if you don't carry a special rock with them at all times. How may people have to get mauled before you pay for my study?! Don't spend your research dollars on actually curing cancer or something, you have to protect the children from bears!

In all seriousness, this is basic math. If you stand outside on a sunny, cloudless day at noon, approximately 1000W/m^2 is striking your body just from sunlight. That's the same energy that has been striking humans since we evolved from apes. Yes, the UV component of that sunlight can be dangerous, but it's a small portion of the total energy. Let's massively overstate the energy from UV and say it's 800W/m^2 of non-UV radiation. Feel free to do the math if you'd like.

Are you going to seriously claim that around 2 Watts of microwaves from a cell phone are going to cause cancer, ADHD and dyslexia when we have been bathed in far higher doses of non-ionizing radiation for the entire existence of our species?

However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.

USGS simply can't predict when eruptions of the magnitude that you are talking about will occur. So they are never going to say something as alarmist as "Yellowstone is due to erupt". To draw that conclusion from a mere three data points was extremely irresponsible of whatever journalist was the source of this meme. In fact USGS says this about Yellowstone's potential for a catastrophic eruption (ref)

Thanks for the link. However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.

But we shouldn't even consider building any until we have a *completed* (very) long-term storage/disposal solution for nuclear waste. Deferring it to the next generation is not OK.

In contrast, According to Greenpeace, a 1000 MW nuclear plant generates 27 tons of highly radioactive waste and less than 1000 tons of total radioactive waste. (Realistic amounts are probably lower, but I'll use Greenpeace as an upper bound). The total amount of spent nuclear fuel generated by all nuclear power in the U.S. since 1951-2003 is about 49,000 tons. At a density of about 8-10 tons per cubic meter, this represents a cube about 18 meters on a side, about the volume of two olympic-sized swimming pools.

So what do we do? Continue dumping billions of tons of pollutants, and thousands of tons of uranium and thorium into the atmosphere killing an estimated 24,000 each year? Because we aren't sure it's safer to switch to a power source which has had zero fatalities in 50+ years, and we aren't yet sure what to do with the two swimming pools of waste it's generated in that time?

1. Your memory is flawed. A few magazines (Time and Newsweek) made a big deal about it, the same way they do about the "Summer of the Shark". That does not make it accepted science. Look to the journals themselves if you doubt me. (I hope you appreciate that it's difficult for me to "prove the negative" here—i.e., the absence of journal articles dealing with the topic.)
2. Here is one site that says 2005 tied with 1998. Here is one that says 2005 is the hottest. Here is NASA's site. The fact that you think it was "during the early 1900's, around the depression era" suggests you've either been (a) reading sites that spread disinformation, or (b) didn't understand that they were talking about US temperatures and not global temperatures. (The US record year happened during the dust bowl—not a coincidence, I'd guess. We've currently come within a couple hundredths of a degree of passing that record.)
3. The land bridge has to do with sea levels, not sea ice. As for the 20% figure, since you seem to doubt it, here's a site for that, as well. As for why the sea levels wouldn't have risen due to significant sea-ice melt, maybe it's because the ice was in the sea already? When an ice cube melts in a glass of water, it does not (significantly) raise the level of water in that glass. You're thinking of the ice melting off of land—e.g., Greenland or Antarctica.

The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is the People's Republic of China.

It means that California tried to force the auto industry to produce and sell large numbers of non-polluting ("zero emmissions") vehicles, but had to back off. The subsequent compromise is called "partial zero emissions". I suppose this term is meant to convey the claim that clean air advocates got some of what they wanted. Of course, whoever coined it has no ear for language or logic — but there's nothing strange about that!

This statement is meant for no other reason than to give weight to the claims, not discuss the issues intelligently.

Even if true, "most scientists" once thought we would see an ice age within 50 years of the 1970's.

http://www.ucsusa.org/

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action ...

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/experts/experts-at-ucs- kevin-knobloch.html

Kevin Knobloch
President

In addition to his positions at UCS, he served as director of conservation programs for the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston. During six years on Capitol Hill, he was the legislative director for then-Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO) and legislative assistant and press secretary for Representative Ted Weiss (D-NY).

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It's difficult to take the average Slashdotter seriously.

http://www.ucsusa.org/

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action ...

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/experts/experts-at-ucs- kevin-knobloch.html

Kevin Knobloch
President

In addition to his positions at UCS, he served as director of conservation programs for the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston. During six years on Capitol Hill, he was the legislative director for then-Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO) and legislative assistant and press secretary for Representative Ted Weiss (D-NY).

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It's difficult to take the average Slashdotter seriously.

If GM crops nudge out the conventional ones, eventually we'll be in a position where a company can starve millions of people to death at will. Legally.

That's just silly. There are lots of different kinds of seeds and lots of different kinds of crops. The patents in this case would all expire by 2011 even if they are eventually found valid.

I am not against patents on an innovate breed of crop manufactured through genetic engineering per se. But the way Monsanto is pursuing farmers right now would be like if the RIAA demanded you pay for a copy of a CD whenever someone listening to a song simply drove by you in his car with his windows open. If Monsanto wants the benefit of patent-backed monopoly pricing on their product, then the onus should be on them to insure that people wishing to opt out of that monopoly have a clear means to do so.