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The World's First Osmotic Power Plant
ElectricSteve writes "Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway officially opened the world's first osmotic power plant prototype on November 24. The prototype has a limited production capacity and will be used primarily for testing and data validation, leading to the construction of a commercial power plant in a few years time. Statkraft claims that the technology has the global potential to generate clean, renewable energy equivalent to China's total electricity consumption in 2002 or half of the EU's total power production" What's osmotic power? Wikipedia to the rescue!
I wonder what environmental impacts this has, and if they will prevent these things from going into real use?
I wonder if you could use the energy to power a desalination plant and then use the fresh water to power the.. hang on... I've gone cross eyed...
Unexpect the expected!
An interesting aspect mentioned in TFA is the fact that you need two water sources, i.e., a river of fresh water that empties into a salt sea. So it would seem that they are just doing preemptively what nature would have done anyway. It actually seems like a pretty non-destructive method to me.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Unfortunately nuclear power for civilian purposes does not come close to meeting it's claims, however there are a few designs in development or even at the prototype stage (pebble bed) that look promising.
Not really, but it depends on volume.
The sun evaporates salt water in the sea and it falls as fresh water into the land, thus replenishing the "fuel".
Again, if the volume of rain is less than the volume used then yes, one would run out. But this happens in a natural fashion all the time, rivers run dry because of drought or overflow because of rain higher than usual.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Although I like this idea. Won't it just deplete our supply of fresh water?
If we're constantly running our fresh water through a membrane into salt water, won't our "fuel" of fresh water run out?
Unlike oil, we need fresh water to live.
Unless there is a reverse osmosis process that energy can be harnessed from, which I doubt.
No this is strictly for the mouth of rivers that empty into the ocean anyway. You'd only be able to divert a percentage of the water without major environmental issues. The real problem is I've read about the concept before but it's a really low pressure system so I'm not convinced you can get significant amounts of electricity from the system. I'm betting the numbers they are quoting are based on damning every river mouth which would be a disaster. It's cheaper and safer to use tidal turbines and there's drastically more power available. The approach my be new but it's not going to replace fossil fuels or even wind power.
If you pumped the spent water into a lake (either artificial or man-made), then the sun will do the work in retrieving fresh water from brackish water. Since the water has to essentially be isolated from other water sources to prevent ecological damage, one way you could make use of this otherwise-useless lake (whilst you're waiting for it to evaporate) is to use it as an energy reservoir. I'm not sure of the proper name, but the idea is that you store power by pumping water from the lower lake to the higher one, and then retrieve it by running it back through a turbine. Then, you use a non-base-load power source like solar/wind/etc, and hey presto, it's transformed into base-load! Of course, the problem is that this requires two adjacent lakes - plus, a whole slew of other engineering, geographic and/or financial challenges. But I'm an armchair speculator, what do I care for reality?
Like all energy sources, there are places good enough to use it and places where it doesn't make sense at all.
No. The discharge of every coastal sewage plant and every storm drain is your fuel. Then there's these things called "rivers". I understand something like 0.01% of all water on the planet flows through them every year. As small as that sounds, it's a substantial number in terms of solar kJ's sequestered in its distillation.
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
The power plant is at the ocean next to a river.
The river's fresh water runs into the ocean as it is. That's just how nature works. All this is doing is diverting some of the water into the power plant and mixing the water there. What they're doing is siphoning off gravity and osmotic pressure, and THOSE are the vital resources that will be depleted instead.
And what claims are those? Nuclear power is the predominant form of power in many countries and it does well. The pebble bed design is interesting, but even 70s plant designs were fine. People like to ignore the fact that coal burning plants send up far more radioactive elements in the atmosphere than even a "disaster" like 3 mile island.
What's more, there is a lot of posturing about nuclear "waste", when it is far from waste. If a byproduct is energetic enough to be dangerous, then it is energetic enough to be fuel. If it weren't for stupid proliferation treaties and unscientific environmentalists, we would be using breeder reactors to derive much of our energy form all this "waste". We wouldn't have a huge dependence on foreign oil, and possibly thousands of lives would not be in jeopardy because of wars in the middle eats.
But by all means, please keep singing your tune. There is no consequence to spouting lies like yours, no one gets hurt...
Don't worry, we'll use the power produced to run desalination plants.
What? thermody-whati-namics?
So it would seem that they are just doing preemptively what nature would have done anyway. It actually seems like a pretty non-destructive method to me.
Yeah , but what effect does this have on the wildlife that lives in that ecosystem? I've heard that these kinds of problems happen in dams, and also in places where nuke plants dump their cooling water, which is actually warmer than the stream they feed into.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Nuclear power is fine, until we run out of uranium. We will not run out of salt ocean any time soon.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Although I like this idea. Won't it just deplete our supply of fresh water?
Mmm, nope, don't think so. This isn't a case where you're diverting fresh water to the task. You're simply borrowing the energy those rivers would normally dissipate when they hit the sea anyway.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
and thats why there probably will never be a one-source-fix-all solution, unless one manage to run a fusion reactor of any water source...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
But it can also take you anywhere in the universe. Personally I think they're getting their value for money.
just hook a desalt plant to it and reuse it out put
How does it seem destructive to the environment?
What they're doing is siphoning off gravity and osmotic pressure, and THOSE are the vital resources that will be depleted instead.
Typical short-sightedness. We're going to use up all our gravity, and then we'll float off into space! We've got to shut down this plant fast!
Here in Ontario the big problem is cost. I don't know if this is an inherent problem with nuclear power or our province is just especially incompetent at running them, but nuclear plants we've had have just been fantastic money sinks (as opposed to every other method of power generation, which have been profitable) in terms of maintenance. One could argue that the monetary cost is worth it the environmental benefits of nuclear, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to look into alternatives.
What they're doing is siphoning off gravity and osmotic pressure, and THOSE are the vital resources that will be depleted instead.
What ever will we do if we deplete the world's supply of gravity. Sure, this scheme might solve problems now, but in thirty years our children will have to deal with global floating.
That is /not/ a valid worry.
The plant is next to a river, which empties into the ocean.
Part of the nature of rivers, is that they transport fresh water easily.
Depleting a supply of fresh water, when you are on a RIVER next to the OCEAN is not only not a valid worry, it is a stupid worry that verges on the same sort of knee-jerk hysteria that lead the pumping millions of tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere because of coal burning, instead of using nuclear plants.
It's ridiculous, short-sighted, and causes more harm than good.
That's not sustainable, as they're just more efficient, not a closed infinite loop. Entropy always increases. In this house...
I hate printers.
We will not run out of salt ocean any time soon.
There is a nontrivial amount of uranium in that salt.
Desalination plant will consumer more energy than the water it produces can generate, because in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Why is it that every time anything power related is posted to /. there are a bunch of people who suggest perpetual motion machines? What happened to /. being for nerds? Nerds would know perpetual motion when they see it, and know that it's not possible. This is the fourth comment I've read in this thread that has fallen foul of this so far.
I hate printers.
expense: nuclear power costs very little. CHECK. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
operating life: nuclear power stations have a long life span, plants built in the 60's are still going. CHECK. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
ouput: do i even need to provide a reference on this one? nuclear power runs whole nations such as france.
it would seem good sir, that you are the one spreading bullshit. I call you out on your anti nuke nonsense, you know nothing about the subject past what greenpeace has shoved down your throat.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I was skeptical of the numbers, so I looked around to figure out how much energy we're talking about here. This link discussing desalinization is pretty useful... what we're talking about here is a desalinization plant run in reverse.
The short answer: 0.66 kcal (2760 joules) per liter of salt water converted to fresh water, so you'd get the same order of magnitude of energy *back* with an osmosis plant. The Mississippi river flow rate is 17 million liters per second at New Orleans, so the maximum possible energy output is 47 GW!
I don't see any obvious efficiency-loss factors here: it should be possible to do this pretty efficiently.
Another way of looking at the problem: the osmotic pressure difference between fresh water and seawater is 28 bar, which is equivalent to 280 meters of hydraulic head. That's roughly the same pressure gradient as is found across the Hoover Dam.
Now, the technical challenge of building miles and miles of carefully-folded osmotic membrane, and keeping it clean, is a bit daunting. But in theory, it should work!
Oh wait, Statkraft? Gosh, I thought they were talking about something important for a moment there.
I'm not even interested in being pro-environment at all. Everyone's wasting their time and they know it.
All I'm worried about is the fusion power and nanobots that will provide virtually unlimited power and a completely restored environment.
I do not think that these plants would redirect a fresh water supply to feed into a salt water one. It said that these plants could be placed at the mouth of a river (where the fresh water mixes with the salt water, regardless of whether the plant exists).
I think with what you're proposing, you'll have a VERY salty lake after a while =)
But really, after reading the article it requires salt water AND fresh water. Meaning it's going to be some place where both are readily accessible, and therefore building man-made lakes to store the brackish water for reintroduction is useless. You can just pump it into the ocean if you'd like.
Although I like this idea. Won't it just deplete our supply of fresh water? If we're constantly running our fresh water through a membrane into salt water, won't our "fuel" of fresh water run out?
Really, this is what passes for insightful these days?
Every time it rains, the rain is composed fresh water that was evaporated from the ocean and desalinated in the process. That process has occurred for millions of years, and will continue for the foreseeable future, no matter what we do. All the fresh water that gets salinated on its way through this plant would have been salinated anyway, when it entered the ocean.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
First he wins Dancing With the Stars, now he's going to power a whole country!?!? Is there no end to this guy's abilities?
Nucular power ain't safe if there're terr'ists that gonna blow it skyhigh or steal fuel to make a dirty bomb.
If it weren't for the U.S. authorities clever detective work we'd a had another 9/11 on our hands.
I think a big part is that its been working and practical for 30 years while no new plants have been built, and that many feel its been held back from development by the NIMBY masses. If more intelligent and less fearful handling of nuclear power had existed in the past we might be in better shape than we are now. While I don't agree with the grandparent that pursuing other alternatives isn't worthwhile, I do feel that nuclear power is a strong component of a sustainable future energy strategy.
I imagine this particular technology will be economical, useful, but limited in its implementation, just as hydroelectric power is. Just as with hydro power, the ultimate power source is the evaporation, vapor movement and rain caused by the sun -- though I can't claim to be certain, I'd imagine you could predict now the total amount of power available from this, and I'd imagine it is significant but no panacea. This is the general problem I and other nuclear proponents see: not that "clean" power technology is bad or boring, but that current concepts of wind, solar and tidal seem incapable of meeting current demand -- anything that doesn't meet current demand is unlikely to be solely used if alternatives (such as nuclear) exist, since the public would rather not be inconvenienced.
To counter your objections:
1. The toxic material can be reduced significantly by reprocessing the fuels. This poses a proliferation risk, but France and other countries have managed to do so for years without losing any material. It was banned by executive order by Carter, an order that should be rescinded. Also, interestingly and amusingly, Yucca Mountain is only 10 or 20 miles from an old nuclear test site, making the objections to the storage site seem less based on reality.
2. As we continue to operate older and older plants this is bound to be a problem. Extending the operating life past what they were designed for is bound to create safety trouble, but new ones have been impossible to build for decades, and replacing them with coal plants is not better in my mind. New construction and a renaissance in safer plant design (pebble beds are particularly impressive) can mitigate a lot of risk. Also, while the safety concerns are real and significant, and shouldn't be downplayed, I think the general public overestimates the danger -- Three Mile Island released no radiation and showed the validity of safety precautions.
depending of course how much fresh water you take
Just look at the problems caused by dams on the Mekong and the effects it has downstream
or water being used from the murray river for irrigation and the effects it has downstream
do not dismiss the effects of changes
...I obey the laws of physics....
Last time I looked France even had a 40+ year old tidal hydro power station near Le Havre as well as a wide variety of other power plants. Try harder.
France consumed 447.27 Billion Kilowatt-Hours in 2007, but produced 542.41 Billion Kilowatt-Hours, 430 Billion Kilowatt-Hours were produced by nuclear power plants. They export electricity, but nuclear alone essentially covers their consumption. "France runs on nuclear power" would be an accurate statement.
In that post you provide one fact in one sentence, and it's nit-picky and deceptive. You then proceed to argue as though anyone who reads about the topic or your posts agrees with you. This is in stark contrast to the obvious evidence that the GP has read on the topic (the references provided), and the fact that you have about five people arguing against you.
I read your post because in my reading on the topic I came to the conclusion that nuclear is a great idea that's mostly opposed by antiquated concerns about accidents and waste. But, my curiosity was piqued when I saw an argument about something else, and figured that you might have a good point (i.e. obviously nuclear isn't taking off so maybe there's more validity to counterarguments than I am aware of). But I was sorely disappointed by the lack of references, explanations, or basic consistency or logic. You do sound as though you know enough that you could formulate a good opposing position if you weren't trolling though.
Whilst I agree with your comment that it won't deplete fresh water, your implication that it won't have a significant environmental impact is 'ridiculous, short-sighted, and causes more harm than good'.
Marine ecology is actually highly sensitive to salinity in the water - and this process increases relative salinity in the water. Whilst this won't affect the volume of fresh water available for human use, it will have significant impact on marine life living in the unique ecosystem that exists at a rivers mouth.
Rivers typically also wash a huge amount of nutrients into the ocean (from runoff, natural effluent and the like) - I have no idea how / if these plants will affect these nutrients, but as anyone who has ever fished at a river mouth will know, salt water fish follow that leading edge of 'brown' water to feed off the food washed down by it.
There will be an impact and - similar to Australian plans to pipe fresh water from parts of Australia with plenty to those parts with very little - there seems to have been very little analysis into the impact on marine ecology, and until that has been done, one can't say there won't be any impact. Why do people forget the fishies?!
I am fan of Nukes, BUT, the mistake that nations make is when they depend on 1 type of power. For example, France is CURRENTLY an electricity importer BECAUSE they depended so heavily on nukes. Likewise, America is in trouble because we depend on Coal for 50% of our power. Instead, nations need to have a matrix of power so that when you run intro problems (say, emergency change needed at your nuke power plant, or under pressure from the world to drop your CO2 emissions, caused in no small part by your heavy use of coal power), then you can drop your usage. So yes, I want to see America's use of nukes increase to 33%, and go no further. Likewise, I would like to see us increase our AE to heavy percentages, but no more than 33% on any one tech. In fact, I would argue that Wind and Solar pv should not be more than 10%. The reason is that they are not base load power. OTH, The Mississippi is capable of generating a LOT of power. The same is true of other rivers around the world. Likewise, geo-thermal will no doubt be a major input to the world's matrix if Potter drilling gets done.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
depending of course how much fresh water you take
No, not depending on that at all. The fresh water used, if not taken by the plant, just goes directly into the ocean to become saltwater anyway. And WTF are you talking about with this "downstream" thing? There's nothing downstream from the mouth of a river...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Desalination plant will consumer more energy than the water it produces can generate, because in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Why is it that every time anything power related is posted to /. there are a bunch of people who suggest perpetual motion machines? What happened to /. being for nerds? Nerds would know perpetual motion when they see it, and know that it's not possible. This is the fourth comment I've read in this thread that has fallen foul of this so far.
Alas, not all nerds know a joke when they see it...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I was wondering about this. The delta (which is mostly brackish water) typically has a great deal of life. I am wondering if the plants at the lowest level make use of this energy, or does it just get wasted? And just because somebody says that it is wasted, does not mean that it is. There is plenty that we do not know. Hopefully, we found out during these trials. I mean, if the miss has 47 GW available, that is a LOT of energy that could be REAL useful. Likewise, all over the world, you have loads of fresh water that mixes that can be used for CHEAP power.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah , but what effect does this have on the wildlife that lives in that ecosystem? I've heard that these kinds of problems happen in dams, and also in places where nuke plants dump their cooling water, which is actually warmer than the stream they feed into.
If done carelessly, it could kill all the marine life near the plant. If done carefully, it could have no impact at all, since what it's doing is what's being done already anyway (mixing fresh and salt water). The trick would be to discharge the brackish water (which is just water saltier than freshwater but not as salty as ocean water) in a place where the water was already brackish (which shouldn't be too far away, since we're locating the plant at the mouth of a river where freshwater is mixing with saltwater anyway).
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
This is all being built next to Oslo's Fjords....
No wonder Slartibartfast won an award for them!
Last time I looked France even had a 40+ year old tidal hydro power station near Le Havre as well as a wide variety of other power plants. Try harder.
79% of electricity produced in France is produced in nuclear reactors.
http://www.planete-energies.com/contenu/nucleaire/production-consommation.html
Another source says that out of all energy consumed in France (including fuel for cars and such), 44% is of nuclear origin.
Maybe it is not correct to say that nuclear power runs the whole nation, but the nation sure wouldn't run without it.
We live in a world where we can create power without also creating poison. That's awesome! That is the Star Trek future we could be living right now.
For what it's worth, they used nuclear power in Star Trek. Solar power doesn't work when you're traveling to other stars.
Yes, this plant is next to a river. The question was about the technique in general.
But one of the problem with this, is showing up RIGHT NOW. France got so reliant on one type of nuke, that right now, they have to shutdown a number of nukes (emergency fixes), so are currently buying power from areas all around them. At this current moment, France is importing electricity. We need to get nations to change their energy matrix. In particular, nations need to be encouraged to NOT do more than 1/3 of a single type of power. Think about China with dependency of 77% on coal and 10-15% on Natural Gas. or America with Coal at 48% and Natural gas at 19%. All these nations have such dependency on ONE form of energy that it is expensive to change.
America and China are fighting having to drop their fossil fuels because we are so dependent on this. If real issues (not the hysteria) ever show up on Nukes, then France will be forced to move away. And that will be interesting.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
our children will have to deal with global floating.
By the time global floating becomes a problem, we won't exactly have a globe anymore.
Seriously... Why are we bothering with this nonsense. There is no way this system can produce that much power and it seems ridiculously destructive to the environment. Nuclear power is the way to go! The Greenpeace crowd needs to acknowledge that they've done more harm than good, in lobbying against nuclear power.
Luddites the lot of them.
Obviously nuclear power hasn't solved the worlds energy problems yet and weather it will remains to be seen. Until then I'm all for researching all conceivable options - with the future uncertain few thigs are sure, but knowledge being power is pretty damn close. Oh, and I tire of fools who reject an idea just because that idea alone doesn't solve everything.
It just changes the salinity gradient of the river mouth a bit (which already shifts based on the river flow which is hardly static year round).
Mod parent up as funny. He's clearly joking, right?
Seriously... Why are we bothering with this nonsense. There is no way this system can produce that much power and it seems ridiculously destructive to the environment. Nuclear power is the way to go! The Greenpeace crowd needs to acknowledge that they've done more harm than good, in lobbying against nuclear power.
Luddites the lot of them.
We're bothering, as you put it, due to several reasons:
- First off, this is taking place in Norway. Norway has plenty of rivers which delivers lots of fresh water to areas where there is lots of salt water. Norway also decided many years ago to NOT build any nuclear power plants.
- Secondly, there is this idea that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Reactors are nice and all, but what do you do with them when you run out of fuel? Uranium is a finite resource, but the water cycle goes on forever.
- Thirdly, what about nuclear waste? Should we store it in your back yard?
And for the record, this is about as destructive to the environment as letting rivers flow into the sea... and you don't see Greenpeace protesting rivers, do you?
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Ok, since you are criticising the worthiness of the guy's post as an argument then I think it is fair to look at some of what you say.
In that post you provide one fact in one sentence, and it's nit-picky and deceptive. You then proceed to argue as though anyone who reads about the topic or your posts agrees with you. This is in stark contrast to the obvious evidence that the GP has read on the topic (the references provided), and the fact that you have about five people arguing against you.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
What they're doing is siphoning off gravity and osmotic pressure, and THOSE are the vital resources that will be depleted instead.
Gravity is a vital resource we can deplete it? Ummmm, nope. See: physics.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
That's because of the way you do it. Every single of your nuclear plants is most probably completely different from all the others, maintenance is also probably done by many different companies... every new plant is built like it was the first one you ever built, and every plant is maintained like it was the only one you had, so you never make economies of scale (but each politician who builds a plant gets to please a friend's company, yay).
NB: I'm just guessing for Ontario, based on how things are often done in North America and observations from an uncle whose job is to check the safety of nuclear plants.
Seriously... Why are we bothering with this nonsense. There is no way this system can produce that much power and it seems ridiculously destructive to the environment.
Whoa.. What destruction?
These plants are located where fresh water meets salt water, at the mouth of rivers.
There is no destruction.
As for capacity, "the technology has the global potential to generate clean, renewable energy equivalent to China's total electricity consumption in 2002 or half of the EU's total power production (some 1600 to 1700 Twh)"
So, wrong on both counts.
Now DO GO BACK AND READ TFA before you climb on you high horse...
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
... they should call the company/project "Norwegian Blue".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_energy
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I think an osmotic power plant is the lamest type of power i can think of.
Fusion is the only way i can see it going, really if we are going to be great conquerers of the galaxy, and fly around in Millennium Falcon type spaceships.
Anyway, Fusion is the only way to go because, we will either fix the problem, or maybe blow ourselves up.
It will be a race between ITER and the LHC.
Between explosion and implosion.
Maybe we should hook.. them,. together?..
^mtrl drtw
If you could pipe the brine waste of a desalination plant to the osmotic plant the osmotic pressure would be higher, thus more energy could be produced.
However a desalination plant will not likely be in the same location as a osmotic plant. You would need a brine pipe line to hook them up.
they are also extracting ENERGY from the system, so the resulting water will be COLDER, and that WILL have an impact (maybe miniscule) on sealife in the immediate area.
Nope, it is not even close. Nuclear power produces base-power, it can not produce peak-power. Most electricity is used during peak hours where you need electricity produced from sources than can be turned on and off during the day. Currently only oil and coal have that ability. Some nuclear plants can at best have the turbines disengaged letting power waste, but you can't just turn them off.
Sweden similarly produces more electricity than they consume, but if Denmark replaced their coal-plants with windmills and nuclear power, major parts of Sweden would have a brownouts every single day during peak-hour, because in reality Sweden is buying coal-based electricity to fill the holes hydro and nuclear power can not, and due to an environmental policy of not building power-plants based on fossil-fuels they are entirely at the mercy of more pragmatic neighbours.
So salt water is heavier, and high pressure osmotic filters squeeze the salt out of salt water.
Here's another idea.
Run a pipe down to deep water; full of fresh water. At the bottom, there is higher pressure outside the pipe because of the density difference of salt to fresh water. This difference can push salt water through a reverse osmotic filter placed at the end of the pipe.
Now you have a pipe full of fresh water, and salt water that wants to get in there. That pressure difference could drive a flow of water through that filter.
What's more, the head could even drive that flow of fresh water up the beach, since the pipe would be pressurized at the surface. (It takes a higher tube of fresh water to equalize the pressure of a tube of salt water.)
Yea, because everyone who believes in the Big Bang theory denies the laws of thermodynamics.
I hate printers.
I provided links to prove all my points except for the blindingly obvious one that nuclear power produces a huge amount of energy. why don't you try reading the numerous links i gave you, and you might learn something.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
For the umpteenth time: this is irrelevant. What is dangerous about radiation poisoning is its concentration, not its absolute value. Our bodies, and pretty much every life form on the planet, has evolved with the ability to withstand a certain amount of background radiation. If you dilute the radiation enough, the problem will go away. So stop saying that the total amount of radiation released from a coal power plant makes it more dangerous than waste from a nuclear plant.
You may claim that, at nominal conditions, nuclear plants are cleaner than coal plants. You may even claim that nuclear waste does not give the same problems as coal combustion products. But claiming that coal power causes are more dangerous than nuclear power from the point of view of radiation poisoning is nuts.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Good luck with the salmon then. Because every animal moving in or out that river entry, or living there, will be completely fucked. And then those who depend on it will be fucked. And so on. Until the whole loop / food chain is dead.
Good luck with your salmon exports too. And the jobs and industry related to it.
Why are most humans unable to think around the next corner??
In nature you can NEVER change a single part. You ALWAYS change the whole chain / loop. Often even many or a whole tree of them.
If you do something, think of the whole thing. Create whole loops and food chains. Then it works.
Why is that so hard? I can ask a a 6 year old child to do it!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Actually, in addition to nuclear waste the world may be running out of uranium: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/08/nuclear-react-1.html And not only that, but uranium mining is a very polluting affair http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=493&Itemid=66 http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24414/
(Of course, the World Nuclear Association downplays these issues: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html )
Ironically you need to burn fossil fuels in order to mine uranium; mining vechicles use diesel while the mining industry runs mainly on coal -- or have you heard of any solar-powered nuclear enrichment plants?
That's not sustainable, as they're just more efficient, not a closed infinite loop. Entropy always increases. In this house...
No - you're right, it's not sustainable.
Fusion power - now that's sustainable. Fission, on the other hand, is there to bridge the gap from where we are now.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
That's not sustainable, as they're just more efficient, not a closed infinite loop. Entropy always increases. In this house...
In this case however, the energy comes originally from the sun. Sun warms up oceans etc-> vapor-> rains back and ends upp in rivers, among other things. It may not be sustainable for eternity, but I think it will last for quite a while:)
The only way to stay sane in an insane world, is to be mad yourself...
An excellent, well-worded response; if I had mod points (and hadn't already added my $0.02c to the discussion) you'd get 'em towards a +5 Insightful.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Who cares?
Nuclear is a huge % of the electricity. Norway isn't only hydroelectric as well, we have power plants running on natural gasses, the one in TFA, couple of wind turbines, etc, but Norway is a hydroelectric country, the same way France is a nuclear.
This is blinging
Not that I think it's a massive issue as I'm sure it'll cut down on usage, but isn't Polyethalene an oil product so we'll therefore still need some black stuff to be processed to get there.
:-)
My biggest worry about oil reserves running out is the rising cost of plastics. Having said that, I last did chemistry 25 years ago, so I'm assuming things have changed
-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
Actually, I'd rather think of the bees, but then there are already too many sons of a bee ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's merely the first with a proper marketing scheme... :p
Since 2005 a 50kW test installation has been working in Harlingen, the Netherlands. This is a POS (pressure retarded osmosis) installation just like the Norwegian one. A 10kW RED installation has been installed not 20km away in the Afsluitdijk barrier dam.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TGK-4MDGP8H-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1111993059&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a85c6a42fb58101cbda1cb384456dd18
insightful my ass! Nuclear power for civilian purposes produces enough energy for France, in fact it produces enough excess that they can run CERN with no negative effect on the environment. The only thing keeping it down are the lobbiests for coal/oil, big woop obsolete jobs are obsolete, while that sucks for the people who work in the coal industry it's just the way it is.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Thorium Fluoride
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Brackish water is released into the Eco-system all the time. Don't you have rivers running into the sea in your area?
the natural place for such a power plant would be in areas where this process already takes place, and then tap the power of it.
Your assessment is a lot like saying "Won't solar plants cause a lot of sunshine?"
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Breeder. Reactors.
If that fails, Energy Amplifier (it uses Thorium, and you can even burn waste with it).
There is a non-trivial energy cost associated with extracting that uranium from that salt.
Oil ain't safe it terr'ists can set fire to it (or mix it with fertiliser and set fire to the mixture). Hydro ain't safe if terr'ists can poke a hole in the dam and drown folks downstream. Coal ain't safe if terr'ists can push sacks of it out of a plane flying over a rock concert. Squelch. There's only one way we can stop these terrorists. Take our shoes off before we get on a plane. That'll stop them.
Most electricity is used during peak hours where you need electricity produced from sources than can be turned on and off during the day. Currently only oil and coal have that ability.
And hydro. Which can also store surplus base power (by pumping water uphill).
No Bud Grace fans here?
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Amen
You forgot the obvious link in case you're not the only WHOOOSH in this thread.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
I am not sure about the original series. But in the next generation and henceforth:
- Cochrane used a fusion reactor to feed the warp coils with plasma.
- The enterprise uses an Antimatter/Matter reactor, annihilating deuterium and anti-deuterium. It is fueled at a starbase, although in a pinch they can use the Bussard ramscoop to harvest deuterium from space, and they have a small particle accelerator on board to create anti-deuterium.
- The enterprise uses fusion engines for when the antimatter matter reactor is offline and for its impulse engines (sub light speed).
- The Romulans use a micro singularity which presumably is fed with matter at high pressure, the matter is converted into energy through hawking radiation.
- The Cardasians use fusion reactors.
Hydro is better than Coal at providing for swinging demand. Hydro just turns the tap to a turbine and stores the energy (unless there's and overflow).
Nuclear power produces base-power, it can not produce peak-power
For interest sake, peak power is almost removed in some countries due to differing costs of electricity. You will be surprised how much industry (big and small) is started up at non-peak times.
Fusion is lame, we should be working on anti-matter plants. How else are we going to get solar system-destroying hyperspace starships before 2050?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"He may be right, he may be wrong, but whichever it is sure isn't a function of the number of people who agree or disagree with him."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the *downside* of democracy - it assumes it is.
If course, pretty much every other political system out there is even worse, since it doesn't have any measurements for how right or wrong the leader is *at all*, not even a flawed one.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
It's called pumped storage, and is indeed a natural fit with renewable energy.
In the UK we have approx. 2GW of capacity from pumped energy storage. Mostly at Dinorwig in Snowdonia, where the turbines can go from zero to 1800MW in seconds with the capacity for several hours at that load. While this would be useful for smoothing out variation in renewable energy, it's main use in the UK is to absorb the spike in demand when millions of TV viewers switch on electric kettles to make a cup of tea at the end of a popular soap opera.
The storage and recover of energy involves some losses (it's maybe 75% efficient) but is ideal for absorbing excess renewable energy at low demand periods. While it could help deal with changes in supply in the short term its relatively small capacity means it wouldn't be useful if you had a low wind spell lasting a day or two.
Of course you need to find/construct two lakes near each other but separated in height by hundreds of m, so it only works in certain places, and these may not be the same as the places you could site osmotic power plants.
They better be careful with that logo, it looks suspiciously like the AT&T "Deathstar."
I suggest you stop renting out your brain. You're missing out on a great joke.
If you dilute the radiation enough, the problem will go away. So stop saying that the total amount of radiation released from a coal power plant makes it more dangerous than waste from a nuclear plant.
Actually, the standard radiation protection models do *not* assume that radiation is only dangerous beyond a threshold, which is why accidents like Chernobyl have very large numbers of fatal cancers predicted (~10000). Most of these will be in people only exposed to small doses, but the exposed population is huge. Nobody offsite from Chernobyl suffered from acute radiation effects, IIRC, just delayed effects such as cancers (particularly thyroid).
Nuclear power produces base-power, it can not produce peak-power. . . . Currently only oil and coal have that ability
I don't believe that coal is considered as a good candidate for turning on and off rapidly in order to meet peak power demand and oil is pretty expensive compared to most other energy sources. Around here (northern Illinois) most of our base load is met by coal and nuclear and most of the peaker plants are natural gas. Looking forward, solar has a potential for providing a significant peaking capacity in the cooling season, when A/C loads match solar availability pretty well. Also, I'd bet that most electricity is not used during peak hours, unless you stretch the definition of peak hours to a larger part of the day than is usually brought to mind by the term "peak".
I do feel that nuclear power is a strong component of a sustainable future energy strategy.
You don't feel that, you think that. That is, unless the idea of nuclear power gives you a warm feeling in your tummy.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
That's actually a valid point: the osmotic pressure is not something that will exist in a closed system. It's created by the water cycle, which is driven by the sun, and thus regenerates itself. It's solar-by-proxy, like almost everything else.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I imagine this particular technology will be economical, useful, but limited in its implementation, just as hydroelectric power is. Just as with hydro power, the ultimate power source is the evaporation, vapor movement and rain caused by the sun -- though I can't claim to be certain, I'd imagine you could predict now the total amount of power available from this, and I'd imagine it is significant but no panacea. This is the general problem I and other nuclear proponents see: not that "clean" power technology is bad or boring, but that current concepts of wind, solar and tidal seem incapable of meeting current demand -- anything that doesn't meet current demand is unlikely to be solely used if alternatives (such as nuclear) exist, since the public would rather not be inconvenienced.
I'm all for nuclear, but technically, that isn't true. Wind alone on land and near land can cover the worlds total energy usage several times over. I believe the usual quote is around 70TW. Of course, we would all have to get used to the sight of windmills if we decided to do this. Personally, I would prefer a mixture of energy sources for political/power reasons.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
What they're doing is siphoning off gravity and osmotic pressure, and THOSE are the vital resources that will be depleted instead.
Tsk, environmentalist panic-mongering. The loss of gravity from natural processes far outweighs Man's draw on those resources. Now, gravity-powered Hummers, there's the real danger! Gravity would build up in our cities and eventually collapse them into black holes. We must stop gravity pollution before it starts! I suggest a yearly tax on gravity-users, the funds going to an international panel for the study of the effects of gravity on the environment.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
It would work, you know, you could certainly hook a desalination plant up to this and perform some desalination. I dont see where he mentioned bypassing the laws of thermodynamics at all or what the efficiency of such a system would be.
- Secondly, there is this idea that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Reactors are nice and all, but what do you do with them when you run out of fuel? Uranium is a finite resource, but the water cycle goes on forever.
I think this is your best point. I now quote myself from about a year ago:
Here is the problem: at a global capacity of 400 GWe (we use 15000 GWe in a year), we'd be out of our low-cost uranium reserves in 25 years. That comes from a publication from the University of Guelph physics dept in 1996. That's right, the number is even lower now.
If we start building more reactors now, we'd be about out of fuel right when they came online. We can overcome this by using breeder reactors, but that's a big international no-no.
So guys, wait until fusion gets working. We'll have enough fuel for that for 4 million years or somesuch. Besides, no self-respecting mech pilot would use pathetic fission.
Oh wait, Statkraft? Gosh, I thought they were talking about something important for a moment there.
Statkraft confirms it: Fossil fuels are dying.
You know, I read the original post and thought almost exactly the same thing you did- the hyperbole was astonishing in that post, and clearly indicated that the poster did not RTFA. However, it is too early in the morning, I haven't had enough coffee yet to work up enough energy to reply to them.
I do have enough energy though to say, "Yeah! What he* said!"
http://marsandmore.com - Posters of space, spacecraft, and astronomy.
No negative effect on the environment? Do you think they acquire Uranium by magic? It may not have a negative environmental effect at the place where power is generated, but it sure as hell has one where it is mined.
You sir, are an eco-idiot.
Just before reading your post, I was commenting to coworkers about how the lack of intelligence in an average internet post, and then had to read yours aloud to them as an exact example of the idiocy of the posts in this thread.
Stop fear-mongering. Diverting 1/50th to 1/100th (an estimate on my part) of the mouth of a river might (note the MIGHT) have a small impact on a small area of that mouth. Possibly. Certainly worth studying, and certainly worth being careful about- since you are right, often times there are unexpected consequences of human actions.
But to say that "every animal moving in or out of that river entry, or living there, will be completely fucked" is the most ridiculous hyperbole that makes any intelligent person immediately stop listening to any point you have. I repeat: You are an idiot. You do your entire cause and the environmental cause in general a massive disservice when you completely overstate your point. For the forty plus years I've been on this planet, I've heard non-stop about how "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE IN TEN YEARS UNLESS WE DO (insert environmental issue here)". Guess what? We're still here. Recently I heard an "expert" interviewed who said that (and I hope I get the quote correctly, but the gist is accurate): "if CO2 levels rise above 350ppm ALL LIFE ON EARTH WILL CEASE, and we're at 375ppm already!"
/facepalm
http://marsandmore.com - Posters of space, spacecraft, and astronomy.
... you _should_ think of the fish ... they have tasty children, too
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Obviously this will be taken into consideration, with the assistance of the authority assigned to preserve wildlife in Norway. I am sure I've seen salmon "stairs" that enables salmon to migrate upstream in a dammed up river. Would you care to share what has made you think Norway isn't governed properly?
"expense, output, safety, expected operating life"
there not that expensive, there output is very high, they are one of the safest forms of generating power, and the expected operating life is pretty good.
The cost of the fuel needs to be weighed against the power output. Nucler fuel isn't expensive at all.
"That is what is known as a divide by zero error "
wha? I've never heard of that as a logical fallacy.
However, you seem to say the fact that the safety procedure worked is a strike against them.
Fact: 0 people died form TMI.
Fact: Statistically 50 people have died from the coal that is needed to replace the perfectly good reactor sitting there.
IFRs have been built, but shut down because loud ignorant groups like green peace.
IFRs reprocess waste to the point where it lasts about 200 years before getting back to background levels.
Just so you know, a breeder reactor is a reactor the reprocesses waste.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So the temperature will go back to what it was before the greenhouse effect?
"but you can't just turn them off."
and why would you?
You turn them up or down, but it would be stupisd to turn them off, just like and system that uses laerger turbines. Do you think the shut down coal plants when power consumption is low?
Also, just disagreeing to someone without using fact or pointing out logical fallacy is a sign that you have a low skill in arguing.
The fact of the matter is, France gets almost all it's power from Nuclear, and it can be used for peak power.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
True, but go ahead and name a single form of energy that's doesn't require mining.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The numbers on wind are based on all wind being optimal wind. It is not.
It also ignores the amount of matrials it would take to build that many wind farms and connections.
While there is a proper place for wind, it's not everywhere.
Diversified power can be good, but it needs to be monitored and implemented with a consumer first mentality.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
we don't forget the fish, but we do remember they rate below humans.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nuclear power is the predominant form of power in many countries...
According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009 [PDF], that's false (see page 41 and 42).
expense: nuclear power costs very little. CHECK. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
Oh really? According to an independent (can't be said of your sources) report nuclear energy is not cheap and probably never will be. (See The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009 [PDF]).
ouput: do i even need to provide a reference on this one? nuclear power runs whole nations such as france
Such as? France is the only country that's consuming mostly nuclear energy (see the Statistical Review of World Energy 2009 that I linked to some posts above). Most of the worlds consumed energy is oil, gas and coal. Nuclear energy isn't even close.
it would seem good sir, that you are the one spreading bullshit. I call you out on your anti nuke nonsense, you know nothing about the subject past what greenpeace has shoved down your throat.
Wow. Playing the Greenpeace Card = instant +5. Well played Sir.
The numbers on wind are based on all wind being optimal wind.It is not.
No, that is not the case. It is calculated using a regionally weighted average of available wind energy.
It also ignores the amount of matrials it would take to build that many wind farms and connections.
That is neither here nor there. It is certainly humanly possible using todays tech to build all those wind farms and connections; whether we want to from an economical, political and environmental point of view is beside the point.
While there is a proper place for wind, it's not everywhere.
I don't think anyone claimed so. I just addressed the (common) misconception that only coal&unclear could supply the worlds energy using today's technology. That is not the case.
Diversified power can be good, but it needs to be monitored and implemented with a consumer first mentality.
That is not the point. The point is politics: I do not want my country to be totally dependent on one item, whether it is glass-fiber, coal or uranium, that could be used to pressure my country/group of countries.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
As for those who don't seem to think the natural environment is worth saving, try living without it. Love mother earth or leave it needs to be the rallying cry for the truly moral among us. If you don't like the ecosystem here, move to outer space.
Ummm,that's some good arrogance I smell. Does true morality require that nothing change in the ecosystem? Just let me know what your benchmark year for ecology of the planet is, so we can have ISO certify it and then move on to make sure it never changes.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Actually, in addition to nuclear waste the world may be running out of uranium
Nonsense, the world has enough uranium to provide total energy demands for a few hundred years. The world is likely to experience a short-term uranium shortage soon because we have been using decommissioned nuclear weapons as fuel for the last few decades and not bothering to open new uranium mines or invest in more efficient mining techniques.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
for a country like France, it's not a problem. They are connected to power grids of several neighbouring countries and can but and sell power as and when it makes sense. For a country the size of the USA it's more of a problem. Even if Mexico or Canada could supply enough to make up for a sudden shortfall in native production, the transmission losses (baring the sudden development of cheap room-temperature superconductors) would make it a bad idea.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
name a single form of energy that's doesn't require mining
Slashdot trolls running on treadmills, connected to a generator made from metal extracted from seawater.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There is no such thing as an indefinitely sustainable power source. Fission has sufficient reserves, with efficient fuel cycles, to provide power for several hundred years. It doesn't have to last forever, just long enough for us to develop something better. Fusion probably won't be ready before the oil runs out (or, rather, becomes so expensive that burning it to produce energy is not economically viable), but it (or something more interesting) probably will be by the time we run out of fissile materials.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It might be smaller than you think. The uranium builds up in crustaceans as they filter the sea water and ends up in their shells in quantities that are quite small, but much larger than the quantities in sea water.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Actually, south east Canada is hooked into America's eastern grid (which is why they went off-line when the east had a collapse several years ago). In addition, Western Canada, as well as Northern Mexico is hooked into the western half of the American grid. There are places that America sells Mexico electricity and Canada sells a lot our ways esp. in the northwest (cheap cheap hydro for Aluminum production). And we are increasing the use of superconductors right now. NYC has a short 5 mile link, and a new link is going into that hooks NM, Co, and Texas together. IIRC, it is only 50 miles worth, BUT, the price is coming down. I know that we are in fact, looking at doing a lot more.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well put.
Having thought over my own question, I realize that I was typing faster than my own mind was working. Because, of course, there is another element at play also. Another kind of power is being ignored. . .
And that's social power. --That is, the already wealthy currently trade on fossil fuel wealth. It is interesting to note that through all the various twists and turns of our exploration of electricity generation as a culture, that coal and oil remain at the top of the game. Hydro electric power-generation was impossible to suppress because it is so obvious and was in fact in use to fuel much of the industrial revolution. So that cat was already out of the bag. It is also vastly more powerful than you give it credit, a real here-and-now panacea which is under-employed.
Geothermal is the one I find curious in its absence. Once you dig the hole, the energy is free. The energy potential is vast to the point of effectively being infinite, and yet aside from the odd Norwegian winter bather, we've totally ignored it as a race. That cat is asleep in its bag. And the bag was tossed into a cement-filled foundation. (Probably the foundation of a large banking complex.) But anyway. . .
Cold fusion is another one which got stomped hard and fast. Cheap and clean and free. That's a big no-no! I had a friend in the secret military who told me that cold fusion was ancient tech and that free energy today is light years beyond such concepts now. But that's not something I can verify for anybody but myself, so it's neither here nor there. The point of the matter is that Nuclear energy is expensive, dirty and probably only came into existence because it was another cat out of the bag after WWII; a required annoyance to the Oil power elite in order for the cold war to be declared. I'm sure when the losses in fossil fuel sales due to nuclear power were offset against sales of fossil fuel and weapons production to the military industrial complex were added up and compared, that the elite came out on top by a wide margin. And nuclear since then has not really a problem because it was, as you point out, shut down. Except it wasn't the NIMBY forces who did it. Well, that was the excuse, but like any large social movement, the common people were directed by the media which in turn is directed by the oil elite.
What I find astonishing and about which I am quite leery given past patterns is that we have frickin' windmills and solar panel technology proliferating at all. That worries me because never have the super-wealthy allowed the peons to enjoy anything healthy or good without either trying to limit it severely, destroy it outright, or allow it to exist in apparent freedom without some kind of bait & switch maneuver planned for sometime down the road. --What worries me is that I suspect we are simply so far along toward the endgame that it really just doesn't matter how much power can be generated cheaply and cleanly when the entire world population is expected to be cut down by more than 90% in the next few years. "Let the slaves have their damned cake tonight. They'll all be cinders in the morning. And the promise of a measly bit of cake will keep them from storming the gates at this critical point."
Luckily evil people are shortsighted idiots, easily as stupid as the slaves they keep. The good guys are still going to come out on top. The problem is that Good = Aware, and there just aren't that many of us around.
Ah well. Just a few thoughts tossed out there.
-FL
Ummm,that's some good arrogance I smell.
I saw it as irony. It seemed to me to be a play on the nationalists in the USA that chant "love it or leave it" when someone says something is being done poorly. And, from my experience, those people are anti-environment. So, for someone to say "love it or leave it" in response to an environmental argument may be invoking the idea of the anti-environmental nationalists and turning it back at them.
But then, your argument seems to be "we can't know for sure what it would be without us, so we should rape it all we want." Again, that's the stance by conservatives who, when not related to the environment, whine endlessly about personal responsibility. But when they are asked to take personal responsibility about their impact on the environment, they refuse to take any responsibility. Why is that?
Learn to love Alaska
True, but go ahead and name a single form of energy that's doesn't require mining.
Are you kidding? Have you ever heard of solar power?
There is no such thing as an indefinitely sustainable power source.
Yes there is.
I have learnt my lesson now - thanks guys. Linking to an advertisement is informative while suggesting that people look around them and learn about reality is not!
For one thing, consider why all these numbers for the cost of nuclear power vary incredibly wildly from place to place yet nobody wants to tell you anything about the costs for a single plant anywhere - not even to use as a shining example.
It takes a very long time to start up a large boiler and there are very serious thermal fatigue problems caused by large numbers of shutdowns and startups. The workaround for this is to just keep on shovelling in the coal even when you don't need the electricity. It's less coal than if it was running at full capacity, but coal fired power stations are really a base load power source and not very efficient for peaks.
This is just like the peak oil tar sands silliness - we have plenty of uranium ore but uranium ore of that is cheap to process into fuel was in fairly short supply until a new reserve was discovered about two years ago. Since it is not certain how big that is nobody can answer your claim either way, but with new technologies the issue can be avoided anyway.
Nukes don't run on magic beans, it's a rock that with a very difficult process that requires using huge amounts of energy to turn into fuel and if the rock is good enough you end up with something that will give you a lot more energy out than you put in. If the rock isn't good enough it isn't worth it.
Technologies such as pebble bed use a fuel that is less enriched so for that technology there IS a lot of uranium (while there's not much for the Westinghouse dinosaurs the nuclear lobby wants the taxpayers to build). Accelerated thorium uses a different fuel that is easier to find and produce and can apparently also use the depleted fuel rods from older reactors - however there is not even a prototype built of this technology so it's early days.
Now that is why you are getting the garbled third hand message about uranium running out when it was really about stuff that is good enough to use in the plants pushed by the old nuclear lobby running out.
Unfortunately he is correct. Consider that we are talking about steam here and very large turbines designed to run at fixed speeds. You don't have much more choice than on or off.
You provided two links to an advertisement which has claims that do not appear to be based upon credible information. I suggest for a starting point you consider the recent German government report on the state of nuclear power that was linked by another poster instead of the advertisement you linked, that should answer a few things about that advertisement.
Once you know more about the subject matter you will understand my point and then you can give me some reasons as to why you disagree. The new improvements in this field are a hell of a lot more interesting than parroting old propaganda based upon blatant lies.
At least the vegetarians will win out eventually. The anti-environmentalists will kill and poison all the meat.
Learn to love Alaska
Um... Osmotic power (or did you forget the topic already)?
Can you elaborate or provide a reference re: radiation poisoning? I don't know much about it, but I thought that the kind of radiation would make a big difference as to what a dose would do to you - gamma ranging from sunburn at low doses to crispy fried at high (which matches your statement), but alpha or maybe beta emitters being ingested would cause cancerous mutation roughly in proportion to how much you swallow (sucks to be an unpopular Russian.)
.evom ton seod gis eht
If it means I can finally order my flying car, then sign me up!
But then, your argument seems to be "we can't know for sure what it would be without us, so we should rape it all we want."
Actually, my argument is let me know what the parameters of the problem are so I can seek a solution rather than being given the solution of don't change a thing and working backwards towards a problem.
But when they are asked to take personal responsibility about their impact on the environment, they refuse to take any responsibility. Why is that?
Because they smell a power grab in the name of saving the planet(spotted owl, polar bear, etc) and naturally reject such a grab. Hope that helps.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Because they smell a power grab in the name of saving the planet(spotted owl, polar bear, etc) and naturally reject such a grab. Hope that helps.
So, if someone does $10 damage to their neighbor's fence, they aren't required to pay for the damage if the neighbor doesn't like them. Got it. That's the ethics of the neo-con. Personal responsibility is what other's are forced to practice while neo-cons give lip service to it and try all they can to get out of it.
Learn to love Alaska