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Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret
mdsolar writes in with a story about the fallout from a nuclear plant closing on a small town in Maine. "In a wooded area behind a camouflage-clad guard holding an assault rifle, dozens of hulking casks packed with radioactive waste rest on concrete pads — relics of the shuttered nuclear plant that once powered the region and made this fishing town feel rich. In the 17 years since Maine Yankee began dismantling its reactors and shedding its 600 workers, this small, coastal town north of Portland has experienced drastic changes: property taxes have spiked by more than 10 times for the town's 3,700 residents, the number living in poverty has more than doubled as many professionals left, and town services and jobs have been cut. 'I have yet to meet anyone happy that Maine Yankee is gone,' said Laurie Smith, the town manager. 'All these years later, we're still feeling the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge tax increases.'"
Think of the space probes
And in North Dakota, the opposite thing is happening. We can't all have everything, we need to select the best and least toxic way to fuel our country's demand for energy and pursue it. The Mainiacs would be screaming twice as loud if the nuclear plant had suffered an event that released even modest levels of radioactivity into their pristine environment. They should be celebrating - they gambled, they won. (Except for the multi billion dollar cleanup, even without a meltdown.)
Better not shut down Fukushima!
The real issue isn't with Maine Yankee leaving...it's that the members the town thought it would be around forever.
The problem they are experiencing is the same one that most small towns (and some big ones) experience when they tie all their hopes and dreams on one industry instead of using tax revenues generated from that industry to help pull additional industries into their city.
A small town loses a lot when the big business that was there has left.
Not quite sure why it's worth an article, or why it matters that it was a nuclear power plant though.
On one side we have a lot of people talking technology and facts about something that few people understand and can't observe.
On the other we have people who are afraid, on a gut level, about something they don't understand and a deep mistrust towards the technical people. The technical people consider these guys stupid and irrational.
A sane dialogue is a complete nonstarter. They can't even agree about what's sane.
TCAP-Abort
Settlements come and settlements go. That is the nature of the settlement! This has been the nature of settlement since the very beginning.
It does not matter if it is primitive people sleeping around a fire in tents, or a large city of antiquity, or an American town of today. Changing times bring changing economies which bring changes to where people reside.
So why the surprise? Why the dumbfounding? When situations change, people must change. They must move. They must adapt. It is the way of the world; the way it has always been.
It sounds like the (sadly not atypical) story of what happens to a company town when the company leaves, more or less regardless of the flavor of company.
The fact that a bunch of nuclear waste casks prevent any redevelopment of that part of the site certainly doesn't help (though, nuclear plants are one of the flavors of facility that are wildly expensive to shut down permanently even if they could get rid of the casks).
They had 17 years to move out. I don't fault the plant closing, If you have that much lead time, I would have gotten out.
This is a story about a facility closing and the town losing jobs, this is not a story that supports Nuclear. If you are want to build nuclear plants to create jobs, the tail is wagging the dog. Supposing, just supposing, the plant had an accident and all those people had to evacuate. Do you think they would have been sad to see it close? Now that would have been a nuclear story.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
the fallout from a nuclear plant closing
Maybe the fallout will cause a mutation in the town's economy.Together with the economic downturn it could be a toxic combination, resulting in an civic apocalypse.
Then there are those of us that do understand, and have a moderate distrust in human ability to foresee everything, and to do adequate safety checks, etc.
Personally, I think nuclear power is A Good Thing. From what has happened so far in the world though, it looks like we need to implement more modern reactor designs to avoid any more radiation leaks from human negligence, or the occasional natural disaster.
which is totally what she said
This is a problem that's more widespread than you'd think. What's the solution? Pushing ahead against the mass of ignorance that's penetrated every facet of society?
At some point, this is going to happen to San Francisco, and the entire so-called Silicon Valley.
While the economy of this region was once diversified, ranging from professional services to software development to computer hardware development to heavy industry, we've seen much of that flee over the years.
These days, the companies and people that remain are nothing compared to the giants of days gone by. They are strangers walking through the ruins of what was once a great civilization. They try to imitate what they see, but they lack the inherent essence of what The Valley was in its heyday.
Some people call it economic stagnation; I prefer to call it rampant hipsterism. That which mattered has been replaced by that which is superficial. Where we once had leaders and innovators, now we have manchildren who wear tight jeans, large glasses, and act with the maturity of toddlers.
When Bill Hewlett was in the room, everyone listened to him, even when he wasn't saying anything. But today, we get to hear self-entitled young men prance around in fedoras, taking photos of everything while subsequently going on about social media and Web 2.0 and Ruby-on-Rails.
If it can happen in Maine, I think it can surely happen in California. The parallels between the two are astounding.
I think of "regret" as something you feel over an action you took (direct or indirect). But this town didn't act to close the plant; in fact the residents were quite happy with the economic boom that came with its operation. So, "Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Sadness," perhaps?
Contrary to the other posts in this thread...
It's doubtful that the activists who caused the closure actually live in the town; they are likely from out of area, and just uniformly against nuclear power for the sake of being against nuclear power.
From the article, it looks like there isn't a NIMBY in town, and that the town is actually filled with PIMBY's ("Please In My Back Yard").
The modern time is an abomination because economics runs our lives.
Since that's the case, it's prudent to think economically and to never rely on only a couple industries in a town.
If your employment opportunities are (1) nuclear plant or (2) "fishing, I guess" then you're in for a rough ride if either of those shits the bed.
And since economies are both cyclic and random, expect that to happen.
Futurist Traditionalism
Safe nuclear power is not a technical problem. It is a political problem. In Fukushima, the authorities knew the generators were crap. So the debate gets a third angle: do you trust the engineers? Well maybe. But do you trust the politicians?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
What they do is make people dependent, once they make people addictive, people never get out of it without such pain.
You can see it anywhere, nuclear plants, US bases, waste disposal plants...
Hold on... Where did you read that? ? ? Nuclear is by far the cleanest and most superior way to provide power. The melt down at Three Mile Island only leaked the amount of radiation as a chest x-ray. Carter even toured the facility a couple of weeks after it happened. Chernobyl was the result of shoddy, bureaucratic management - see how well that worked for the USSR. It's too bad many people are ignorant about nuclear power.
Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible. And the lead battery technology used to store solar electricity is nasty. Have you seen what lead battery recycling has done to Mexico, India, and China? Absolutely disgusting. It destroys entire towns and small ecosystems.
""I'll take a little radiation if I can get a job" - Working people have been fu&*ed over for so long in this country, those are the kinds of decisions people are forced to make" George Carlin - Jammin' in New York.
The same problem applies in all activism scenarios, whether we're discussing nuclear power, fracking, education, human rights, politics or war.
On the one side, you have all the people who cry for an absolute stop to the activity in question, and the other side will be pushing for the absolute requirement to do whatever it is. The two extremes dominate the debate, and anyone not in an extreme is derided as not being dedicated to the particular cause. Both sides are full of PhD-holding experts in tangentially-related fields, who are certain that some particular report from several years ago is the definitive truth of the matter - and anyone unfamiliar with that particular work isn't qualified to hold an opinion.
Of course, since neither side will entertain the other's perspective, they certainly don't bother comparing notes or discussing compromises. Whenever the other side does attempt any concession, it's just an obvious ruse, since the other side is so much more argumentative and outright evil. The only solution is to fight, with all our power and budget, to stir up grassroots support for our cause, and resist all the opposition's efforts to infiltrate and undermine our endeavor.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I suspect that there's at least one other variable: There is a large universe of things that the techies say are safe and doable, if done according to their advice. However, by the time the plan actually gets executed, it is fairly common to discover that... certain liberties were taken... (in fairness to the techies, often against their advice) in some of the expensive-and-boring-safety-features parts of the plan. This leads to a rather smaller universe of things that techies say are safe and doable and which are implemented safely in practice.
Anybody who actually thinks that techies don't know stuff about the world, and science is, like, a social construct, man! is probably a fool.
Anyone who is strongly suspicious that, while the techies do indeed have the knowing and the doing of many things, they may not have the good of the locals at heart (never mind the bean counters and suits at HQ), is just a reasonable student of history.
A pure irrational fear of technology is one thing. The agreement that, yes, technology is powerful; but proposals involving the deployment of power are... not history's most glorious chapter... is much harder to argue with.
I'm a strong supporter of nuclear power, but I believe that the 'stupid and irrational' people actually bring insights into important issues that are often overlooked by technical folk. And this article raises thought-provoking issues that I've never heard acknowledged in the media by any nuclear expert.
Any conceivable nuclear safety regime requires plant employees to act with honesty, integrity and procedural rigour. But what happens to honesty and integrity when the future economic prosperity of your family, friends and community depend on the answer? You will be under huge internal, personal pressure to downplay risks, underestimate costs, cut corners to save money, cover up poor practice, lie to inspectors and rebut any conceivable negative news item.
Technologists are human. No matter how rational they appear, the answers they provide us with are always subject to considerable personal and emotional bias and must be regarded with an appropriate level of scepticism.
Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible.
http://americablog.com/2013/02/fox-news-solar-only-works-in-germany-because-its-sunny-there.html
I think they meant it was dirty because of all the mining you have to do to get the uranium out of the ground.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
I'm already seeing lots of posts about how "ignorant environmentalists" caused the plant to close. From the article:
"Officials at the plant, which is owned by a consortium of utility companies in New England, blamed the difficult economics of running the plant, which had maintenance issues and required expensive work"
And:
"But the plant faced serious allegations of safety violations and falsifying records around the time it was closed, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Agency investigators found Maine Yankee relied on inadequate computer analyses to demonstrate the adequacy of its emergency core cooling system; “willfully provided inaccurate information” to the NRC about its ability to vent steam during an accident; and provided falsified records of safety-related equipment.
“Many of these violations and underlying causes were longstanding and appeared to be caused by ineffective engineering analyses,” NRC officials wrote to Maine Yankee shortly after the plant closed.
They added that Maine Yankee “was a facility in which pressure to be a low-cost performer led to practices which over-relied on judgment, discouraged problem reporting, and accepted low standards of performance.”"
I am a strong proponent of nuclear energy. However, the maintenance requirements and potential for catastrophe make it impossible to run a nuclear plant safely and successfully as a for-profit business. As long as we rely on capitalism to provide our energy needs, nuclear will never be successful.
Even in renweables there are many toxics that make it not so nice.
And there IS a reason, the tech is not there to support it without the cost that makes it completely prohibitive and the space to to support the entire populace.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Except that when you get the fuel you can use it for a long time to generate massive amounts of power. You can even reenrich it now so you dont have to replace it.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
They killed the goose that layed the golden eggs.
The uber-green and anti-nuke activists likely don't live there, and probably consider these folks collateral damage in their larger fight. Ideally, such activists would be up-front about the economic costs of some of their stands. Even beyond this now-impoverished small town, growing economies need affordable energy; that's just an economic fact. High energy costs reverberate through the entire supply chain, and raise the costs of virtually every good-and-service that normal people use.
Everybody wants clean air and water, but some green initiatives come with a serious price-tag.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty. Not to mention the enormous costs of the structures and transportation of the fuel and whatever.
Yeah, coal plants don't have any of those problems.
No sig today...
Did you just get +4 for a "pro-nuke people are objective bastions of scientific truth, while anti-nukers are irrational and ignorant" strawman?
Because the carnival of lies and corruption unfolding at Fukushima these past two years does not jive with that narrative.
Tell that to the people of Fukushima, Chernobyl or Sellafield, or several other sites. In theory, it's cleaner, but those pesky humans keep messing up the "near perfect" statistics. I'm not saying wind or carbon is the solution, but Nuclear has proven to be a lot less safe and clean than the statistics promised so far.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
people are afraid that they will not receive proper habitation or compensation when their traditional homes be flooded for the reservoir of hydroelectric plant. I concede that Maine Yankee may not have been clean, but usually people leaving near a nuclear power plant are at risk of reallocation due to a possible accident, while people living near to a area designed for a hydro plant are planned to reallocation (and almost nobody sees the tragedy in this situation). Nuclear power may not be clean, but everything else, even 'renewables', are dirty as well.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
I have read that nuclear is not really net clean. That the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty. Not to mention the enormous costs of the structures and transportation of the fuel and whatever. The amount of money we have spent on Nuclear was a waste compared to much greater advances we could have made in solar to achieve the same output.
Clean or not, in solar Vs. Nuclear one big problem remains, which has conveniently left out of every economic equation: who pays for continuous availability? if any solar plant had to contract as baseline, i.e. find and/or build conventional plants to meet output at night or in bad weather, they'd be up brown creek without a paddle. After all, conventional plants have to state to the grid output and availability at the auction.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
It's not common knowledge but most coal contains small amounts of radioactive material. When the coal is burned, this is either released into the atmosphere or put in some glorified dump along with the rest of the ashes.
I say coal fired plants are plenty radioactive and not nearly as conscientious about handling as the nuclear guys.
Lets not beat around the bush. The alternative to nuclear power is coal and coal fired plants are shooting up like mushrooms all over the world.
TCAP-Abort
I'm a technical guy from age ... hm. 5 i think. Been in tech business long time, started professionally when i was 16. Like..work in a IT company doing coding and server management. 28 now.
I'm not hating on nuclear tech. I'm hating on fukushima scenarios and then the world that is totally apathetic towards such scenarios. If the price to pay is to pollute this planet (our home btw) even further and more severe, then yeah.. we need to double think what and how we' doing stuff. Even if there's a remote chance of that happening. It's not about being irrational, it's about "hey... sh.t already happened, and we don''t know how to deal with it properly".
When we learn how to contain it (and i don't mean pouring tons of radioactive water a day into ocean for 20 years or whatever as a proper method of containment) then sure. You can build a nuclear plant in every city and village as far as I'm concerned.
We reached a point in our existence when we need to think how we use our knowledge and tech, not just blindly push forward without thinking about long term consequences. 200 years ago there was nothing we could do to harm our habitat. This is the first time in our existence (known) that we can seriously affect "life" in general, long term.
Which is far less than the mining or drilling for fossil fuels!
Yes you do, but a little bit of uranium goes a long way. 1kg of uranium produces as much energy as 14 tonnes of coal. That energy equivalency isn't exact, because the uranium has to be refined after mining. I have no figures for how much that adds to the carbon emissions related with producing energy from uranium but it's not a factor of 14000. And despite failures, the uranium IS easier to contain. The pollution from coal or gas can't be contained at all on a commercial scale. It just spews into the air. The issue with nuclear is the intense toxicity and radioactivity of the byproducts. That calls for very careful reactor design with multiple levels of failsafes. With coal, oil and gas we have just assumed it was OK to spew millions of tonnes of crap into the air, but it turns out that it's not OK at all. The Earth can't absorb all that shit without changes to the atmosphere and oceans that affect life all over the planet.
That the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty.
So you blame the comparative cleanness of nuclear energy being spoiled by filthy fossil fuel inputs into the energy sector - on nuclear energy, and not on those fossil fuels? How does that work?
Ezekiel 23:20
The research that concluded that was based on theoretical calculations.
Empirical data paints quite a different picture. Here's a basic sanity check for you: if it took prohibitively huge amounts of diesel fuel to mine uranium the nuclear plant could not afford to buy uranium and stay competitive with oil-fired plants.
Hold on... Where did you read that? ? ?
No doubt, on the Internet.
Bonjour!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So this Fox News story was idiotic. Solar only works in Germany because it is heavily subsidized. German consumers pay a great deal more for electricity than they would without the solar subsidies. Solar will always be expensive until you figure out a way to create a much less expensive solar infrastructure, such as nano-tech based solar that you paint on a road or a roof. You have to maintain solar arrays and the low power density means large areas are needed for solar capture, and the sun does not shine at night, so you have to solve the energy storage problem too.
And the lead battery technology used to store solar electricity is nasty.
That's probably the worst thing you could do with solar electricity. You either store it in pumped storage, either hydroelectric or pneumatic, or even better, you anticipate the inputs in individual geographic areas (what do we have all those real time meteo satellites for?) and use the grid to redistribute it. Of course, if your grid is incapable of doing that over large areas, you have to upgrade it first. But we're definitely not at the point where total solar PV output would outdo momentary nation-wide grid power consumption, anywhere in the world.
Ezekiel 23:20
What an idiotic choice of words. It makes it sound like more anti-nuclear drivel about how radioactive waste is leaking from the closed plant or something. Or that every closed plant instantly becomes Chernobyl. This isn't sim city where plants auto-explode after 50 years.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
not sure if you are disagreeing with me or not.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I have read that nuclear is not really net clean. That the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty.
The anti-nuclear lobby is very vocal. I suggest being careful of your sources, and doing some basic sanity checks. For example: to mine some uranium, you run the mining equipment on diesel fuel. So the cost of uranium is, at a minimum, equal to the cost of the diesel fuel used to produce it. The cost of uranium is only a smallish fraction of the cost of nuclear power (~10%?), while the cost of getting the same amount of power from diesel generators is higher (~150%?). So the CO2 emissions from mining uranium produce, at most, ~1/15 of the CO2 of fossil fuels, and probably a factor of a few less than this.
Okay, there are big error margins on these numbers, but they're enough to convince me that the claims I've seen - that nuclear power produces as much or more CO2 than fossil fuels - are bogus. And, since solar and wind power are so much less energy-dense, I would expect the CO2 emissions from mining silicon/iron/etc for renewable energy infrastructure to be greater than those for nuclear.
A heavy water reactor eliminates most of the issues with common current reactors, including being much safer as the water also acts as the control rods.
Bah, forgot link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water_reactor
There are an enormous number of cases where government cannot find the will to do the right thing because so many people's livelihoods are dependent upon doing the wrong thing. Fixing healthcare, ending the war on drugs, reining in surveillance, saner military and foreign policy, a lot of people stand to loose well paying jobs if these things come to pass. This isn't just come greedy CEO who isn't going to make as huge a profit. Its middle class professionals and skilled workers who will be obsolete because what they do is harmful to the world.
How do we structure plans to do the right thing in a way that deals with this problem? A lot of the political pushback comes because of this issue. Congresspeople need to protect jobs in their districts, even if they are jobs that make the world a worse place. How do we do better while having a plan for the people and communities left behind?
The flip side of the argument in those in this position take a big gamble. A small town with a sustainable fishing economy expands to support a new nuclear industry that won't be there forever, but never really establishes or expands parallel industries that can survive independently. When nuclear goes, the infrastructure for it is still there, costing money, but the people and taxes to support it are not. In the meantime, its original economy from before the nuclear plant has gone through change and neglect. Its a story that plays out again and again in small formerly industrial towns. The clock turns back, but there is no support for doing that sanely, and so negative feedback loops happen, and as a nation we loose the stomach for change. If we better addressed this issue, maybe more could get done.
Just to play devil's advocate, solar may be more expensive, but where does that money go? It doesn't just evaporate, it goes back into the economy somewhere providing more jobs and more demand. Assuming Germany is buying panels it produces itself, then the increased cost of electricity is met by the jobs needed to make and install these panels. As opposed to fossil fuels which would likely be imported and likely creating no new jobs except vanity projects somewhere in the middle east.
So although the end user sees a hike in electricity prices they could also see lower unemployment, crime, better education etc as a result of all this extra industry needed. Sure it requires big subsidies, but so do all other forms of energy production.
I obviously don't have the figures to prove it but given that Germany is currently bankrolling most of Europe implies that on average its overall economic policy is good. In the past countries have fuelled boom times by resource exploitation (Thatcher in the 80s for example with north sea oil) so perhaps you have Germany doing something weird here.
Of course all this theory falls down if the solar panels are being made in China and installed by Polish immigrant workers who are sending all their spare cash home. But then I have no explanation for Germany's current economic boom.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
In the '70s Boeing shut down the SST project. Seattle reeled in the aftermath, prompting the billboard, "Will the last person to leave Seattle, please, turn off the lights."
Of course, politicians love to make hay by decrying the loss of jobs. Social progress and clear thinking are sidelined by such facile, emotional arguments. Had today's political climate existed 100 years ago, we would still be paying for whale oil price supports.
Most of the solar subsidy goes back to Chinese companies who make the kit - companies like BMW pay 100% more for power than does a similar company in the UK - thats not good for a country based around manufacturing like Germany.
as opposed to the hundreds of deaths per year in coal mining and oil extraction.
Guy points out solar works in Germany, which is cloudier than America.
Solar "works" in Germany only as a supplement to other, traditional plants.
Ahh yes...only a Slashdot Editor would use the term 'fallout' in a story like this. Great idea...no really...
I hear this a lot and I don't understand why everyone assumes this. Has no one ever heard of a thing called "law of conservation of energy?" Yes, it's true that the use of wind and solar don't (directly) create pollution but they remove energy from the surrounding environment. It's not the same threat we're used to but it is still a threat, and one that we don't yet know the long term effects. I'm not saying the wind power is a bad thing, but saying it "pose[s] zero threat to the environment" is false.
Because those residents refuse to participate in local politics they let taxes get raised heavily. Where were all those lazy residents when they were talking about taxes? where were they during the election to vote out the politicians that raised taxes?
Sitting at home bitching about it is what I am betting on. You have no right to bitch about taxes if you don't get off your ass and do something about it.
That said, is the town rural? and has property values plummeted? might be a good town for a Libertarian takeover.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Bit of a straw man there. OP was only saying nuclear might not be carbon neutral or negative, not that nuclear was worse than coal.
How much earth do you need to move to find an ore like pitchblende, though? So long as the difference isn't made up here...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
That's the point, you don't have to use Solar as baseline, especially in the southern half of the country where the demand load is during daylight hours, for air conditioning, not at night, for heat. You use something else for base load, but your demand load during daylight hours dwarfs the amount of power needed for nighttime base load.
If the friggin' various governments would get their heads out of their asses, they'd provision for residential solar with the same degree of government assistance that the power utilities get, and they'd force the utilities into fair market prices for the energy they get from residential solar systems. As it stands right now, the residence is compensated at the lowest price per KWh that the power company charges its customers during the middle of the night when power is cheapest, even though it's distributing that power during the peak of demand, getting three or four times that price from customers. And on top of that, they're wanting to add an extra charge to the bills of residences with solar panels, claiming that they're losing revenue because of those solar panels.
Screw. them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm afraid I don't understand how this compares at all.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
You have to be prepared for large changes by being willing to say "This place is going down and I am moving."
Growing up in the Northwest in the 50s & 60s, wood product mills, companies and machinery for them looked great. However access to faster growing wood in the Southeast and stands of virgin large trees put on the market by the British Columbia government wiped out 3 dozen mills of various types in my home area of Columbia County Oregon and decimated the jobs for well over a decade or so.
There is a tendency to think that what we grow up with is what we will have for our & our children's lives. The fact is we have undergone more changes in lifespan, health and technology in 150 years than in the entire previous history of primates and it is likely to continue and that means destruction of "what I grew up with."
GE's Jack Welch said it right "Change before you have to."
It's a shame we cant reuse the plant with a simpler and/or safer reactor like CANDU or thorium.
Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation -- "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"
Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.
Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade -- that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs -- I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I was going to bring up concerns about deuterium leaking into the water table, but on further research it seems you'd have to replace 25% to 50% of your body's water content (eg drink nothing but it for days on end) with it for ill effects. Far safer than I had (for some reason) thought it was.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible. "
Apparently I have been hallucinating all the sun in the Southern US States. Who knew that coulds could be so bright and shiny? Who knew that cloudiness would make me so sun... sorry, cloud-burned?
Wow. I have been learned good.
Except that you forgot to mention that WHAT KIND of nuclear power! Boiling water reactors, such as the type used at Fukushima are in fact a terrible idea. This has be proven time and again! Heck, in the US there has been so many accecdient!. Do some research on Rocketdyne and Simi Valley. There were 2 or 3 major spills there alone related to the reactor program.
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/rocketdyne_still_hot/9658/
Whereas a molten salt or thorium reactor is far safer and doesn't have the proliferation aspects deal with.
It's about storage, not sun. With cheap mass storage you can spit out panels like popcorn and even transmit wastefully long distances.
That's the tech breakthrough we need, not efficient panels. Even panels that could drive a car in real time need backup, which means heavy batteries or gas co-engine.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
We need jobs. Fuck our grandchildren's health. We want that new bass boat.
ORLY?
One of the more known German anti-nuclear activists is an engineer who worked for General Dynamics, was a director of the nuclear power department of a German tech company AEG, was the CEO of Interatom (a Siemens daughter that built nuclear reactors) and was responsible for a fast breeder reactor design.
I think that guy knows more about nuclear power than all the atomic playboys on slashdot together.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That's the point, you don't have to use Solar as baseline, especially in the southern half of the country where the demand load is during daylight hours, for air conditioning, not at night, for heat. You use something else for base load, but your demand load during daylight hours dwarfs the amount of power needed for nighttime base load. If the friggin' various governments would get their heads out of their asses, they'd provision for residential solar with the same degree of government assistance that the power utilities get, and they'd force the utilities into fair market prices for the energy they get from residential solar systems. As it stands right now, the residence is compensated at the lowest price per KWh that the power company charges its customers during the middle of the night when power is cheapest, even though it's distributing that power during the peak of demand, getting three or four times that price from customers. And on top of that, they're wanting to add an extra charge to the bills of residences with solar panels, claiming that they're losing revenue because of those solar panels. Screw. them.
Here in Italy, it's the other way around. Solar producers gets the highest rate, if they are hybrid producer/consumer they are paid on Gross, not Net (i.e., I produce 50 Kw and consume 30 Kw, I get the revenue on 50 at the high rate and pay normal rates on the 30 consumed), and therefore the utilities are to all intent and purposes unsubsidised.
Thanks for the info, I thought more or less everywhere the model was similar: consumers subsidise solar power. the total here is 10 Bn. Euros per year, and most of it is paid by small/medium businesses.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Highest ore concentration is 17%. More typical ore concentrations are on the order of 0.1% to 0.4%
Please In My Back Yard.
I would love to get more nuke plants built.
"A deep mistrust of technical people".... That fear is prominent in many facets of American society.. The last American presidential debate all of the Republican candidates were on stage. The question was "Which ones of you believe in Creation"...Every single one raised their hands. Republicans can't trust science because that would mean they have to accept global warming, fracking poisons land and causes earth quakes, the bible is a fable, the basic core tenants of Fox News fall apart. The only way to maintain their belief system is to attach scientists and make others suspicious of them.
People are dumb enough to think nuclear power is dangerous. There was a huge news story about a nuclear plant leaking radiation into the water table a few years ago. You know how much radiation it leaked? Enough over 10 years that if you extrapolated the leak by 10,000 years and concentrated that into one acute dose, you might have some long-term health effects a few decades down the line.
Radiation is a big scary boogieman. It's like fire. Oh my god there's a fire! Well if you stick your face into the charcoal grill, you might have some trouble; but overall it's .. warm, a few feet away... and if you're any appreciable distance off it's not so warm. That warmth won't hurt you. If the thing tips over and sets fire to your house and you're entrapped in the blaze, that's different.
People imagine that "it's warm downwind because a concentrated column of air is blowing my way" is the same as "HELP I'M ON FIRE!!!" They get a little radiation leak, or even a failed plant, and they're like... oh god, contamination, contamination everywhere! But the truth is nothing changes, the minimal amount of radiation exposure is largely untroubling, and everything is fine. Unless it's Tjernobyl spewing liquefied toxic waste everywhere and dumping raw liquid nuclear fuel into the water table and scattering tons and tons and tons of radioactive matter into the air, it's a non-starter.
I mean for god's sake, people in Taiwan living in highly radioactive buildings (1000 times background radiation) show 40% lower incidences of cancer and overall have better health; most studies only manage to conclude that we can't decide if the reduced incidence of ALL TYPES OF CANCER (not Simpson's Paradox; all means each individual type--less leukemia, less lung cancer, less skin cancer, etc.) is because the population is younger or because these are mostly rich upper-middle-class people who lead healthier lifestyles. That's a choice between "no real change" and "These people don't eat garbage and have heard about something called 'jogging'".
A radiation plant with a leak will not expose the local population to 1000 times background radiation. It won't expose them to a short-term 1000x dose or a lifetime of 1000x background radiation. Even a major nuclear disaster, unless the plant fucking explodes, probably won't expose the local population to doses like that--what do you think containment buildings are for? In most cases, a leak that raises alarms and exceeds regulatory guidelines and gets the NRA on their asses will expose the population 100 feet away from the leak to less background radiation than living within 10 miles of a coal plant does. And even then, sometimes it's fucking harmless (all this bullshit over a minor TRITIUM leak?!).
Big bogeyman. Nuclear plants aren't as scary as people want you to believe. Look at the Fukushima disaster--people are talking about the disaster, but not about the actual impact. We've arbitrarily assigned a high impact to this disaster, but is there any real impact at all? Sure. I bet some people get cancer earlier than they would normally. Eventually. We'll see in 30 years.
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The strawman is comparing any energy source to an ethereal source which creates no pollution. EVERY energy source causes some pollution; it's a matter of which one causes the least and/or which kinds of pollution you want. Nuclear is clean compared to just about every other source out there.
Seriously, these plants are ran on old gen I and II technology. they have built up a MASSIVE amount of 'spent fuel', that will sit there for ages while politcians fight over storage.
BUT, a smart move is for yankee and others to buy B&H reactors, and push for thorium reactor as well. These are Gen III+ as well as Gen IV. These can be brought in SAFELY, and replace the current reactors. Then the spent fuel is used in the thorium reactors to burn it up. So, instead of transporting 1000 tonnes of fuel, in about 40 years, they will only need to transport about 100 tonnes of fuel.
These towns should be pushing hard and fast for thorium plants. Now.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For all the engineering problems at Chernobyl, what happened was this: some grad student wanted to run an experiment. The people at the plant told him "no", because it was not a good idea. They were overruled because his father was a big-time Communist in Moscow.
My friend's sister was a high-level engineer at Chernobyl, who unfortunately died of cancer.
So that was just human stupidity more than engineering breaking down.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Getting back to TFA, isn't much of the "dirty" portion of nuclear plants front loaded? If so, you want to keep the plant open as long as possible in order to mitigate this "cost"; not shut it down so quickly. By doing so they did a disservice, in terms of net CO2 output, and helped make Nuclear energy "look" less clean.
So this Fox News story was idiotic. Solar only works in Germany because it is heavily subsidized. German consumers pay a great deal more for electricity than they would without the solar subsidies. Solar will always be expensive until you figure out a way to create a much less expensive solar infrastructure, such as nano-tech based solar that you paint on a road or a roof. You have to maintain solar arrays and the low power density means large areas are needed for solar capture, and the sun does not shine at night, so you have to solve the energy storage problem too.
Solar used to only work in Germany because of the subsidies. At this point, solar is Germany is much cheaper than retail electricity. As far as German's paying much more for electricity because of solar, that's not really so clear either. If you look here:
http://www.transparency.eex.com/en/
you can see where Germany's power is coming from at any given time. Solar is doing an incredible job of peak shaving, which lowers the cost of electricity. The accounting problem then becomes that people know how much the solar subsidy costs, but don't know how much lower the cost of all the other power is because of solar.
You mention solving the storage problem, and the Germans are working on that as well:
http://bosch-solar-storage.com/
Best estimate I've seen is that solar+storage for an average retail German customer will be cheaper than grid power sometime next year.
Even if none of this is cheap enough for you, just wait a bit. Solar is getting around 7-8% cheaper every year. Best estimate I've seen for the USA is that between 1/3's and 2/3's of American's will be able to save money by 2020 with unsubsidized solar power. A great tool to play around with and see this is here:
http://www.ilsr.org/projects/solarparitymap/
However, power generation always requires some CO2 emission, so in that respect it's "not net clean".
Today. Not in the future. Unless you think that whatever carbon sources our technological processes use are going to be forever supplied from the deep depths of the Earth. Even if we'll still be emitting some CO2 in the future out of sheer practicality of such processes (hydrocarbons are energy-dense, for example - hard to replace in airplanes, for example), the carbon will have to be sourced from closed biological cycles.
Ezekiel 23:20
Solar "works" in Germany only as a supplement to other, traditional plants.
Such as French nuclear power plants
supplement to other, traditional plants
Including nuclear plants, located in France.
100% right now, but that will come down. Also, you're ignoring the cost of energy dependence on foreign nations. It costs 100% right now, but whenever there's a war or scuffle in the middle east, the price of oil goes up. The Russians regularly use their natural gas supplies to influence politics outside of Russia, and the Chinese have little control over solar cells that have already been deployed outside of China.
100% is a bit much, but it's hardly a full 100%, they do get some stuff for it and the longer the solar cells are up, the less the difference is.
BUT!! It's called 'Clean Coal' now, didn't you get the memo?
And yes, the radioactive bits you're referring to are called 'fly-ash'. A lot of it gets caught by the scrubbers(*), but not all.
* in Europe and the United States, China not so much.
That the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty. Not to mention the enormous costs of the structures and transportation of the fuel and whatever.
I expect that the carbon released by mining, preparing, and transporting nuclear fuel is much less than the carbon released by doing the same things for fossil fuels since nuclear is so much more energy dense. As for dollar cost and structural costs: that all goes into the kilowatt hours you pay.
The plant was found to have significant safety problems, and Maine Yankee chose to close it rather than fix it. Little things, like the control room cables crossing outside the room, etc. They had a good record for a long time, but didn't keep the plant up to spec.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
>Solar only works in Germany because it is heavily subsidized.
You think nuclear could exist without heavy subsidy?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
1kg of uranium produces as much energy as 14 tonnes of coal.
1 kg of uranium is equivalent to 2.7 million kg of coal.
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/f/fuelcomparison.htm
Nuclear is an elegant solution to base demand. Not 100% available, but more so than anything except hydro.
Wind is suited to peak or on-demand generation since wind is not 100% reliable. Fossil fueled plants can be base demand generators, but costs often force them into peak suppliers.
Even tidal projects are not full-time generators.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I have read that nuclear is not really net clean.
Basically NO power source is 'net clean'. Even power sources like wind and solar aren't clean or even 'carbon neutral'. Wind requires, on average, massive amounts of concrete and steel for the footings and towers. It actually ends up taking considerably more concrete for an equivalent amount of energy per year. Solar cell manufacture involves nasty amounts of chemical waste.
Nuclear isn't perfectly clean, no, but it produces so much energy in such a compact fashion that it's a real contender for cleanest per energy.
Of course, hydrocarbon based power is so dirty that the differences between nuclear, wind, and solar are basically moot. It's like worrying about the difference between .1 and .2 per X pollution levels and not taking any action about the 100 per X pollution of coal.
While there is considerable variation between individual installs, on a net level coal is easily the dirtiest.
I don't read AC A human right
This is the fate of all nuclear power plants. This one was unsafe and too expensive to fix, but the fuel will run out for all the rest even if somehow they become economic again. Exhaustible resources just have these sorts of problems.
According to this German energy report (page 9) the output of solar generated electricity ranges from 0.35 TWh in January to 5.1 TWh in July. So in the sunny summer months solar works great. In the stormy winter months not so much. Look at page 13. Notice that the conventional power production in January is at least as much as the total production in May through August. Even wind is not reliable. Look at page 45. The first and last week have lots of wind power produced; week 3 almost none.There still needs to be the conventional electricity sources available when solar and wind is not sufficient. There are too many reports of record breaking output and too few of the low outputs.
Also take a look at page 74. Notice as Solar becomes more prevalent so does the importation of electricity in the morning and evening. Overall the more solar produced the more electricity imported and less exported.
>Solar only works in Germany because it is heavily subsidized.
You think nuclear could exist without heavy subsidy?
Do you think anything exists without subsidy?
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
I mod you to +6
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
It is dirty... all energy production is. Nuclear is one of the least carbon intensive ways to produce energy. Solar is one of the worst due to Silver, aluminum and nickle mining required to produce the panels. Specifically, silver is off the charts. Silver mining and smelting is a very dirty business. Wind is more in-line with nuclear but still produces more carbon due to the special alloys used in turbine construction. Ironically natural gas and oil release the least amount of carbon when being produced... although, obviously, once they are burned they release huge amounts of it.
If your goal is less carbon, then nuclear is the way to go. It is expensive, and there are the obvious risks, but it is by far and away the best choice.
My point is that the two groups argue in two distinct and incompatible frameworks. Add to that, the techies think the non-techs are irrational while the non-techs think the techies are untrustworthy.
I'm pro nuke, but that's not my point. There is plenty of blame to go around here.
TCAP-Abort
The Post glories in pun-based headlines. Witness today:
Rebooting the reputation of computer legend who helped defeat Hitler
For a story on a posthumous pardon for Alan Turing.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
On the other hand, there is all too great a likelihood that he would have blown his six francs on hookers, lottery tickets, drugs or drink, lost it gambling or being scammed by a con-artist, or buried it away purportedly for a rainy day but will never touch it because he's developed a miser complex and would sooner chew off his own foot than spend his savings.
Remind you of anyone you know, maybe?
Economic theory too often assumes everyone is rational, when in real-life lots of people are idiots, particularly when it comes to money. For such people, it takes something like a broken window to force them to put their money to good use.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
> Chernobyl was the result of shoddy, bureaucratic management - see how well that worked for the USSR
Chernobyl was the result of reckless experiments with a known-faulty design with total lack of responsible behavior under rule of a communist government which cared only about policy and power and wealth in the hands of a few, not giving one whit for human lives.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
People forget to mention that all those panels they buy from China....How are they made? With GERMAN production equipment. That's how! The companies that produces these machines in combination with massive increase in solar installers because of the lower cost Chinese panels far exceeds the amount of jobs lost from production companies.
Until the Chinese get tired of paying the Germans and decide to reverse engineer (that was the most polite term I could think of) the production equipment and make their own.
in my town we had two big industries close down, each around 1k employees, but with good (socialist) town management and good laws (companies essentially have to put up programs for the people they lay off in such cases so they can find new jobs or get a secondary education) the unemployment numbers are as low as ever.
Or you could just use uranium to power the coal mining equipment.
Like there's not enough thorium sitting in trash piles outside every mine in America to power the entire country for a few millennium.
The more important issue, though, may not be the size of the price tag, but who pays. According to a Jan. 31 report by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), private households pay 35% of the subsidies for renewables but account for one-quarter of electricity consumption. Those subsidies in the form of surcharges on electricity for private households rose from 3.6 per kilowatt-hour in 2012 to 5.3 in 2013 — an increase of 47%, according to the report. That led Economics Minister Philipp Rösler to complain over rising electricity prices forcing an increasing number of Germans into “energy poverty” earlier this year.
Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/05/28/the-cost-of-green-germany-tussles-over-the-bill-for-its-energy-revolution/#ixzz2fSXsFcML
There may be jobs added for those unemployed and there may eventually be a benefit to all Germans...for now, though, it is causing serious damage to their middle income households and therefore to their economy. Two German families I know have had to sell the houses they have lived in for 15+ years specifically because the cost of power is so much higher...their 5+ member families live in two bedroom apartments now. But hey, there is a benefit to it right? Somewhere....
There have been processes developed that can take in electricity, atmospheric CO2, and water, and produce hydrocarbon fuels. If this were implemented at commercial scale, nuclear could be used for both base-load and peak load (the excess off-peak electricity could be used to create fuel.) Then you use this generated fuel for uranium mining.
Sure, there are other ways that mining is dirty, but fuel doesn't have to be one of them.
You're saying that Germany subsidizing solar panels is equivalent to the broken window fallacy?
That's ridiculous. Germany isn't paying/subsidizing people to break windows or other net-negative value endeavors. They're not even paying people to just keep them working (which some WPA projects in the 1930s effectively did). They're creating wealth. All those solar panels (even ones that are 20 years old) generate power. This is a net positive.
Your analogy is flawed.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Because the heavy equipment used for coal mining or clearing land for solar runs on butterfly giggles.
Guy points out solar works in Germany, which is cloudier than America. Dude responds with talk about subsidies.
That's the obvious rebuttal, you know. Solar "works" there only because it is heavily subsidized. Once they take away those subsidies, it'll stop working except perhaps some niche cases.
Nuclear power may be in that boat too. Take away the subsidy of liability protection and those plants look a whole lot less attractive.
If you shills aren't being paid to engage in this clearly fallacious, goal-post-shifting, downright embarrassing display of contrarianism
Ok, so you're complaining about "goal-post-shifting" rather than addressing an obvious complaint.
Why bother responding to an AC troll?
Because somebody with a lazy brain might believe you.
To everyone else (besides the AC): http://video.mit.edu/watch/the-role-of-new-technologies-in-a-sustainable-energy-economy-9193/
Back in 2006, Dan Nyocera did some math (see minute :14 in above link)
Right now we (planet Earth humans) use 12.8 trillion watts.
In 2050 we project a need of 28 terawatts. 2050 = 9 billion people. To find 18 terawatts he looks for in the following sources:
Biomass: If we grow crops for biomass on the whole earth (no more food!) -> 7 terawatts And we would need cellulose and lignon enzymes, which we don't have!
Nuclear: We'd need 8000 new power plants to generate 8 terawatts. That's 1 new plant every 1.6 days for the next 45 years (starting back in 2006)
Wind: Put a windmill 10m above ground on the whole landmass of the earth -> 2 terawatts
Dam every river left to get 1 terawatt.
The only solution for the future is solar. The only question is how to capture it because the sun provides 800 terawatts on just the landmass of the earth.
So STFU.
We need new technologies, sure. But (as Prof Nyocera suggests) we ought to stop hunting for a cure for cancer, MS, Alzheimers, AIDS. Because all of those are not existential threats to humanity. The Energy-Climate problem may well be. That won't happen (even if it is what we *ought* to do, for maximum human survival) so get ready for (indirectly) choosing who's going to die. And choose how: disease, war, natural disasters.
I should also say that Solar alone won't do it. It won't come online soon enough. But nuclear, cleanest available coal technology, oil and fracking, natural gas, massive conservation, urban over rural living, public transport, population reduction strategies. We're going to need it all.
But we can't be in denial about what it will cost. It may well cost us our planet.
The big issue with Fukushima at the moment is the build up of radioactive water that they do not want to introduce into the ocean / food chain.
If one were to use Electrolysis to separate the radioactive water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, would the Hydrogen and Oxygen also be radioactive? Or would the radioactive matter be condensed?
It may not be the most efficient use of power to convert the amount of water at Fukushima, but it would probably be much easier to manage the waste if it were condensed.
END COMMUNICATION
The theory falls down into being the broken window fallacy, it to be more specific, the people who are employed due to solar power being installed and run could instead be doing something that would lead to bigger advantages. This is, of course, except if building solar power plants is a good thing in the long run in Germany.
he would have blown his six francs on hookers [...], drug or drink
Which would have given him some enjoyment.
lottery tickets, [...]lost it gambling
In which case he would have gotten some enjoyment and had the possibility to gain more money.
or being scammed by a con-artist,
That would have been as bad as the broken window, assuming the con artist spent as much time coning him as the glazier would have spent replacing the window.
or buried it away purportedly for a rainy day but will never touch
That would in effect be donating it to everybody, in proportion to how much cash they had, through deflation.
Out of your long list if "irrational" ways to spend money, you managed to find one that is potentially as bad as meaningless public projects.
Please note that I am not claiming that building solar panels in Germany is meaningless, I don't know enough about thee economics involved to make such a claim.
You might be thinking about tritium, which is radioactive.
You'll notice what form the complaints take:
'All these years later, we're still feeling the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge tax increases.'
These are all problems that you would expect any time any sort of industry leaves town. This is nothing specific to nuclear power.
As a side note, it's worth noting that people - when self interest is at stake - will actually miss something that by design makes chemicals that are deadly for thousands of years on end. I would actually call that a problem with our species. We're willing to create eons of poison just for a little immediate benefit. Very short sighted. Especially when "move and get another job" is an option.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This article just appeared in the NYT about German "energy poverty":
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/germanys-effort-at-clean-energy-proves-complex.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Does it even "work" as a supplement? This article indicates at least one utility is thinking of relocating because their gas and coal plants are now/becoming unprofitable.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/08/19/german-utility-revolts-against-renewable-energy-threatens-to-relocate-in-turkey/?ss=business:energy
Just to play devil's advocate, solar may be more expensive, but where does that money go? It doesn't just evaporate, it goes back into the economy somewhere providing more jobs and more demand.
Ah, the broken window fallacy again.
This is real simple folks:
If you think that because the money "goes back into the economy" that its a good thing, then imagine if the same money "went back into the economy" because it was spent on more economically efficient methods. A smaller amount could go "back into the economy" to produce the same amount of electricity and the leftover could "go back into the economy" providing an entirely different service that people could enjoy.
We could pay one group of people to dig holes and another group of people to fill up holes. That money also goes "back into the economy." The problem of course is that we then have two groups of people doing nothing productive when they could have been doing something productive.
The economy is goods and services, not fucking currency. Understand? The German economies capacity for goods and services is less because of their inefficient energy strategy than it otherwise would be. It diminishes them.
"His name was James Damore."
Guy says nuclear isn't all that'due to mining and transportation, dude responds with talk about radioactivity and also says it's too cloudy for solar in America. Guy points out solar works in Germany, which is cloudier than America. Dude responds with talk about subsidies.
That's because talk about subsidies is bringing the argument back on topic, after the AC derailed it with his fox news story link.
It's not "shifting goalposts," it's someone else not getting distracted by fluff that has little bearing on the topic at hand.
The article stated, without explanation, that the casks emit radiation into the air. Can anyone provide more information about these incidents? Thanks. From the article: --"..which retains a small staff to maintain its 64 casks of radioactive waste, each of which weighs more than 300,000 pounds, emits temperatures of up to 114 degrees, and releases small amounts of radiation into the air. .."
Greenpeace ran a campaign in Australia (which doesn't have any nuclear power stations) against uranium mining. In the process they vilified the entire industry splitting the atom, not just power but medical / research reactors too.
What they did was take people to lovely pristine countryside and said "look how awesome nature is!"
Then they took the same people to the edge of a uranium mine and said "look how horrible uranium mining is!"
That was it. They didn't take them to a coal mine, they didn't say that one uranium mine could provide the same electricity as 5+ coal mines, they didn't talk CO2, and they definitely did not judge the uranium mine by any of the metrics that were applied to any other form of mineral extraction... just like you didn't in your post.
You only can believe that if your IQ is 50 or less.
Coal can also contain significant amounts of mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. Who gives a flying fuck about radioactivity when the ash is toxic.
Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible.
This article has a good solar efficiency study for the entire US. In summary, there's not a lot of difference in the contiguous US - about the only place where solar is significantly worse off is Alaska.
the worst location in the continental U.S. is only a factor of two worse than the best solar location.
Bet on Solar and Batteries, the future!
It's their Q, the Battery Company time in the free market!
But getting a large cache of rare earth elements is. Now matter whether solar is feasible, all those panels are mini-mines just sitting around within easy reach for future need...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Most of the time we pay people to do meaningless busywork is because no, they couldn't be doing something productive since there were no jobs to be had due to economy having gone belly-up once again. This, in turn, leaves the choice between giving them food, providing a busywork "job" or letting them to starve to death. Option one is blocked by jealousy, option three is blocked by evolutionary learning (dead tribe members have zero chance of contributing in the future), so that leave option two - digging and filling holes.
You are making the assumption that their energy strategy is, in fact, inefficient. This remains to be seen. But you cannot conclude it simply from the fact that investment costs money.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Sometimes the the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Star Trek warned about dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Most of the time we pay people to do meaningless busywork is because no, they couldn't be doing something productive since there were no jobs to be had due to economy having gone belly-up once again.
Ah, I get it.. the government shouldn't create productive "busywork" jobs.. they should only create unproductive ones! You can't think of any service that someone might find useful? Really?
The measure of an economy is goods and services. Inefficiency may not always mean less goods or less services, but it never ever means more goods or more services. This, like the next thing, isnt up for debate.
You are making the assumption that their energy strategy is, in fact, inefficient. This remains to be seen.
This isnt up for debate. Germany has one of the highest electricity rates in the E.U, and even compared to America with its archaic system Germans pay twice as much for electricity, and thats AFTER Germany's quite generous green-energy subsidies.
It is not "This remain to be seen" -- its "This is so inefficient that there is no way to spin these numbers into making this shit look efficient."
"His name was James Damore."
1kg of uranium produces as much energy as 14 tonnes of coal.
1 kg of uranium is equivalent to 2.7 million kg of coal.
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/f/fuelcomparison.htm
No it's not. That site says,
"With a complete combustion or fission, approx. 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal, approx. 12 kWh from 1 kg of mineral oil and around 24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235. Related to one kilogram, uranium-235 contains two to three million times the energy equivalent of oil or coal. The illustration shows how much coal, oil or natural uranium is required for a certain quantity of electricity. Thus, 1 kg natural uranium - following a corresponding enrichment and used for power generation in light water reactors - corresponds to nearly 10,000 kg of mineral oil or 14,000 kg of coal and enables the generation of 45,000 kWh of electricity. "
Complete fission is not possible, to begin with. Pay special attention to the last sentence, where it states the figure I quoted.
The German economies capacity for goods and services is less because of their inefficient energy strategy than it otherwise would be.
So Germany's economic capacity is crippled by their energy costs - and Germany pays their workers twice as much as America does - and Germany still produces twice as many cars as the U.S. does?? And Germany serves as Europe's de facto banker?
Odd. Germany must not have the same caliber of investors, corporate executives, financial and stock market barons, and politicians that so burden America.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
It seems most commenters on this thread overlook the severity of Fukushima. It's an uncomfortable reality for techies that tech like nuclear is not really run in a responsible - more expensive - way. In Minnesota the Monticello nuclear plant is the same GE Mk II as Fukushima with the terrible spent fuel chamber design. Fortunately MN has low disaster risks compared to say the uber-dangerous Cal Edison San Onofre plant - but look how even one nuclear accident proves impossible to contain or bring to a close?!
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station - imagine if a tsunami had hit this rickety place - it took tons of local pressure to shut it down finally. Nuclear plants sometimes degrade unpredictably like San Onofre did. Meanwhile in Japan, a country world renowned for its robot expertise, has been utterly unable to mobilize a Soviet style Chernobyl like response. Chernobyl popped once and then had a moderate fire, but Fukushima remains in slow meltdown, and if another typhoon or tsunami happens to hit the area just right, the remaining fuel rods could finally go off and metropolitan Tokyo could have to be evacuated. In this country the EPA has radically raised the 'acceptable' levels for radiation, and who knows how many nuclear incidents in the US go unreported??
I agree coal and oil based plants trigger major environmental consequences and natural gas plants drawn from fracking now cause geological & chemical damage. We need to focus on driving down aggregate demand for electricity and patching together intermittent sources (a new water-based heat cylinder idea for example could help w storage and peak, vertical windmills are safer for birds, clever plastic lenses cheapen solar etc), while phasing out catastrophe-prone technologies. In the new SimCity nuclear plants are safe if the workers are educated, if only real life were so easy :P
--hongpong.com
So Germany's economic capacity is crippled by their energy costs
Yes.
and Germany pays their workers twice as much as America does - and Germany still produces twice as many cars as the U.S. does [forbes.com]??
I get it. You want to measure the whole package without examining any one policy. America is inefficient in many ways. Germany is efficient in many ways. That doesnt mean that all of Americas ways are inefficient nor does it mean that all of Germanys ways are efficient.
You should be ashamed of yourself for your completely atrocious grasp of logic, because you just argued that Germanys energy policy is efficient because they have a strong auto industry. What a fucking retard.
"His name was James Damore."
If you do a little digging into the history of reactor design, you find out that there is already a working alternative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor
The problem is that a LFTR reactor doesn't give you all those great by-products for thermonuclear weapons.
No, quite sure it was deuterium. I had read about it mucking up metabolic processes, but the concentrations required for that apparently had flown over my head back then.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The rather large numbers for CO2 emissions for nuclear plants are usually counting all of the CO2 required to manufacture the concrete for the containment structures and cooling towers. Those numbers are quite large, since both of those structures are required to use prodigious amounts of concrete and the cement used in concrete is almost universally manufactured by burning coal in the kilns used to cook the limestone. The heating forces CO2 out of the limestone as well, so cement production generates 900kg of CO2 for every 1000 kg of cement. About half of that is unavoidable, from the chemistry of producing the clinker. Cement does reabsorb CO2 while curing, which legitimately reduces that number, but only very unusual blends absorb very much.
Anybody who claims it's solely the fuel processing that is carbon dirty is definitely wrong, but they're less wrong if they're talking about the whole system. Still pretty wrong though.
I doubt anyone will read this now but anyway... Those people who were afraid of and attacked the nuclear industry have had a big effect. Switching away from nuclear meant a switch back towards fossil fuels especially coal, not just in America but around the world. Since pollution from burning fossil fuels kills people, the anti-nuclear lobby have actually killed something like 5 million people net around the world since the 1970's, inc maybe 500,000 in the US. How's that for a safety argument?
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..