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UN: Renewables, Nuclear Must Triple To Save Climate
An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of a study that concluded there was less than a 1% chance that current global warming could be simple fluctuations, U.N. scientists say energy from renewables, nuclear reactors and power plants that use emissions-capture technology needs to triple in order keep climate change within safe limits. From The Washington Post: 'During a news conference Sunday, another co-chair, Rajendra K. Pachauri of India, said the goal of limiting a rise in global temperatures "cannot be achieved without cooperation." He added, "What comes out very clearly from this report is that the high-speed mitigation train needs to leave the station soon, and all of global society needs to get on board."'"
It's been what, like 50 years we've been using old tech? Nuclear is cleaner than coal barring an accident. Coal is guaranteed to kill and hurt people. With Nuclear you at least have a chance of everyone being healthy. Even if the country doesn't adopt some grand scheme of making a bunch of nuclear plants, making one here or one there would get our technology levels higher and create jobs for smart people.
A lesser known situation is if you actually create an energy surplus, food costs, logistic costs, and transportation costs get cheaper. So if we ramped our energy production up by 2-8x what we got now, people could charge their hybrid car at home for even less than they do now. I think this dream is often grouped up with a superconductor power grid idea which is unrealistic for the short term. I think for a better world, we should be aiming to create energy surpluses.
Sometimes I even have the strange thought that energy conservation ideas hurt society's growth. It would be almost better if we used more power in the short term so energy could invest in itself and provide more power at lower costs down the road. I mean it is better to conserve electricity, but I don't hear people championing the idea of creating a global energy surplus.
God spoke to me
Humans are too greedy and too unreliable for nuclear to be the safest option.
Fix humans? That's way too hard.
Use something else? Doable.
Unless we just really have no problem with every X years some spot on earth becomes uninhabitable for the next 50,000 years...
Since you're blowing off some anti-hippy steam, maybe run it through a turbine you insensitive clod.
Solar/wind/geo/tidal/wave/hydro/peltier power isn't actually a patchouli and reefer crowd, it's more a smart people who build things that solve problems vibe.
The long and short of it..we're buggered. Thankfully, we will all be dead when it gets really shitty. If you think that the countries of the world can band together to reduce emissions and turn to renewables, you are smoking the funny tobacco. I install solar in countries that have the highest electricity prices and the most sun, but they refuse to implement renewables, preferring that good old diesel products. People are inherently stupid, short sighted and greedy. Nothing but war and pestilence will cause change. Nothing else ever has.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
Nuclear is cleaner than any fossil fuel, properly managed. Overall, despite the accidents, nuclear's impact has been a lot smaller than that of fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, accidents aren't seen as an opportunity to learn and eliminate old flaws, but to halfheartedly dump the whole thing, leaving behind ancient designs with known flaws instead of new, safer designs.
Found the vegan!
Energy conservation doesn't need to equal depraving ourselves of something. The usual tips about not leaving the lights on in empty rooms are fine, but you can apply the same reasoning for more modern things.
A small example would be Netflix. You can use a small box like an Apple TV, which has a 6W power supply, or something like an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 and use from 10 to 20 times more power for absolutely no reason.
Try to reduce your daily energy usage whenever possible. The first one to benefit is yourself, via a lower power bill at the end of the month.
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Human minds just aren't made to react to something so abstract, so distant, so far away. Look at the crisis building up with the US economy, national debt, and so on - something that could cause a whole generation to undergo a great depression yet nary a thought is given to it.
For example, on the economic situation, this guy was made the US's top accountant for over a decade, and appointed to posts by both R and D presidents and yet he makes videos that can barely garner 2k views about the situation (since September):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I guess if there was a girl twerking in it, it might work.
Anyway, that's how it is. We react, many don't think too far ahead. Both situations are basically simple concepts in theory (global warming is built on the green house effect which is simple to demonstrate, the economy on interest and other high school math), but so many interests go in and muddle issues, that the average guy doesn't know what to believe, so even those with a modicum of forethought are stymied by special interests.
And the special interests want status quo. Nothing will happen. That's the tragedy of democracy and why it never really lasts long. Power and money is like water, it always gathers and concentrates.
Mr. Burns?
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It think it would also help if we'd step away from the 'old fashion' reactors in favor of breeder reactors. Or the thorium based technology. When the kinks get worked out of that tech.
Any other old geezers remember just *who* it was that put the kibosh on the general use of nuclear power in the US?
Are we ever going to get an "oopsie, so sorry" from all the environmentalists who squashed the US nuclear power industry? Who have fought fracking tooth and nail, while it has been the prime enabler of decreasing US carbon emissions?
Nah, professor Wernstrom.
You can use a small box like an Apple TV, which has a 6W power supply, or something like an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 and use from 10 to 20 times more power for absolutely no reason.
If you happen to already own the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 console, how much energy does it take to manufacture and ship an Apple TV box and an automatic HDMI switch box?
To paraphrase a movie: "Climate Change is People!" There's too many people on this world, all wanting the same thing and that's what's causing this. Depletion of our resources is occurring at an accelerated rate all because of more and more people and the rush for economic expansion. Fundamentally there will be two paths ahead, one which means controlling population growth and the second the upheaval of the worldwide economic engines both of which are driving the higher CO2 levels. Of course if a volcano or two erupt here and there it won't help but neither is allowing for commercial deforestation and destroying watersheds. Well before we all burn up, we'll have wars over water and other key strategic resources. We know it's on the horizon because we all can't get along on this planet and we'll never come to a consensus on wealthier nations changing their ways while allowing less developed nations a chance at economic growth. We're about due for another World War aren't we?
My suggestion is to invest in Mountain-top real estate in a Northern latitude and live like Euell Gibbons.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
France has done really well with nuclear.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As someone who works at the company that is the largest generator of wind and solar power in North America I know how hard it is to get Nuclear projects off the ground. Most people will agree that Nuclear is a very cost effective and efficient means of power generations but mention building it anywhere near their zip code and they go ballistic.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
A lesser known situation is if you actually create an energy surplus, food costs, logistic costs, and transportation costs get cheaper. So if we ramped our energy production up by 2-8x what we got now, people could charge their hybrid car at home for even less than they do now. I think this dream is often grouped up with a superconductor power grid idea which is unrealistic for the short term. I think for a better world, we should be aiming to create energy surpluses.
Uh, that's what's getting us into trouble with Hydro-fracking across the US in terms of going back to "burning stuff" vs. Nuclear. Natural Gas doesn't pollute like Coal but the production side of the equation destroys watersheds, releases more GHGs and has pushed energy prices down in the US. Nuclear is an unpopular scenario for a lot of people because of Fukishima, Three Mile Island and Chernoble. All you have to do is look at San Onofre in California to see how political wrangling has killed Nuclear energy in the US. Creating energy surpluses is considered anti-green because you're depleting resources, somewhere.
Unless there's a major push towards Nuclear on a lot of fronts it'll wither and die globally. Maybe we need like a GLAAD organization for Nuclear ??
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Or depriving!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
It's continued to warm and the ice has continued to melt at an accelerating rate. Isn't that what the models have predicted for decades?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
A lesser known situation is if you actually create an energy surplus, food costs, logistic costs, and transportation costs get cheaper. So if we ramped our energy production up by 2-8x what we got now, people could charge their hybrid car at home for even less than they do now. I think this dream is often grouped up with a superconductor power grid idea which is unrealistic for the short term. I think for a better world, we should be aiming to create energy surpluses.
The more cheap energy you can get, the more cool stuff we can do.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Overall, nuclear is a huge opportunity to safely service base and peak loads. This should always be combined with renewables and sustainables. The NRC-lefties need to be given direct guidance from the Executive, or they will never issue any new permits. Also, the DoE needs to quit wasting my money on fail-solar companies and build huge-super-safe-gen-4+ nuclear reactors EVERYWHERE!
Start in my back yard, please. Seriously.
[ Citation needed ] I did a quick Google for this and the statistics I found at http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja... showed this to be wrong. There are plenty of other resources which show the same thing.
Would that be like the no more snow in the UK, or there won't be any glaciers in the Himalayas? Or they'll all be gone in Greenland in the next 10 years(as said in 2000ish). Don't worry I'm sure it can be blamed on everything.
Om, nomnomnom...
France imports electricity from Germany whenever it's too hot or too cold. In either case, limited cooling is available. In the winter, this is exacerbated by the enormous consumption due to the French preference for electrical heating combined with a lack of insulation, because electricity is cheap for consumers in France. Besides, the argument that stopping construction of new nuclear power plants is the reason for older designs remaining in service is bogus: Older designs remain in service no matter what (except for a total ban, which is happening in Germany). Keeping old plants online is simply the capitalist thing to do: They're bought and paid for and still work. Why would you shut them down?
I'd agree with you if it was just one study. But there have been hundreds of studies (starting in 1896), and they nearly all agree that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will warm the planet by 2 degrees Celsius or more. And we've observed the temperature rise nearly 1 degree Celsius with a rise in CO2 from 280 to 400 ppm, which appears to confirm those studies.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Anonymous coward, you are sooooooo wrong. How many deaths are projected for the next 10 years, by the WHO? Go back and hide under your rock.
And they are 'silently' switching to renewables, like the rest of the world, oops: the rest of Europe, Asia and Africa.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Sometimes I even have the strange thought that energy conservation ideas hurt society's growth. It would be almost better if we used more power in the short term so energy could invest in itself and provide more power at lower costs down the road. I mean it is better to conserve electricity, but I don't hear people championing the idea of creating a global energy surplus.
The nations with the highest power consumption have ceased excessive breeding. They're all near or below replacement population growth among their indigenous population.
That right there is an outstanding argument for surplus energy.
A degree of conservation is a fine thing, but it's also a cop-out and a means of comfortable people to pull up the ladder behind themselves. Our millions of elite Al Gores will always live comfortably regardless of how hungry and cold they make you. Thousands of elderly Briton pensioners are learning all about that as the UK inflicts energy poverty on them.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Nuclear waste disposal from conventional fission reactors is a solved problem. Unfortunately, the storage of said waste kicks the NIMBY crowd into high gear. Here's an idea...how about converting it to relatively inert ceramic blocks (already available tech) and sink it at some remote subduction zone fault where it gradually gets folded back into the mantle? That ought to suffice until the perpetually "50 years from now" fusion energy generation crowd catches up.
Pebble bed reactors solve the cooling problem. China is currently building a few of those, so we'll have a chance to see how well they work.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Considering that the climate varies according to natural variation such as solar output and volcanic eruptions, both of which we cannot predict, I don't think it's surprising that we can't predict climate exactly, especially over the short term. And just because we can't predict climate exactly doesn't mean the predictions are worthless. That's a false dichotomy.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Considering that a third of the worlds CO2 exhaust comes from the USA and that 'country' only has about 5% of the world population I'm at your side: it will work great! Ah, well, I'm not that good at math. Hm, you wanted to release ebola in Africa only, great plan, I guess we can settle there later!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
, like the rest of the world, oops: the rest of Europe, Asia and Africa.
that's.....basically you showing you know nothing about the topic. How many new nuclear plants is China building? Do you know? Your comment shows you don't.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Greenpeace lets people die in Africa?
How retarded is that oppinion? Over which lie, btw?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In the winter, this is exacerbated by the enormous consumption due to the French preference for electrical heating combined with a lack of insulation
That's why it's good that there's a EU directive that by the end of 2020, all new constructions will be required to be low-energy or passive houses.
Ezekiel 23:20
True, nuclear waste is not pollution unless it escapes in an accident. Fortunately, the volumes are so small that unlike with many other by-products of our industrial civilization, this one is actually amenable to being stored in controlled conditions, indefinitely.
Ezekiel 23:20
Here is the ironic thing: Both the hippies and the Tea Party people I know are all over solar, wind, and other alternative energy.
I just wonder when the tipping point happens where people and businesses stop wanting to be beholden to Middle Eastern oil and dirty coal, and move onto nuclear [1]. With more energy than what we have now, we can easily use thermal depolymerization to toss waste plastic and usable crude oil.
[1]: Thorium reactors show great promise.
I guess I need to draw you a picture.
Om, nomnomnom...
And nuclear waste is not pollution.
Actually, that is correct. Nuclear waste is not pollution - until such time as a third party or the environment is exposed to it. Nuclear waste in a cooling pond is not pollution. Nuclear waste in your ground water is pollution.
Old stuff. Pebble bed reactors have their own problems. This one had atmospheric releases of radioactive material, contaminated the ground and groundwater below it (complete with increased Leukemia rates in the vicinity) and is currently much more radioactive than planned so that deconstruction can't begin: AVR Jülich. This one was decommissioned after just six years due to the continuous repairs driving the costs up: Thorium High Temperature Reactor 300MW.
The nuclear industry will always try to convince you that the solution to all nuclear power problems is waiting right around the corner, to convince the public that nuclear is still an option. Whenever and wherever they're allowed to continue, not only do they keep the old designs online, the "new" designs never deliver on the promises either. They keep covering up accidents, they keep playing down potential risks, they keep deferring risk to the public (nuclear power plants are uninsurable: if - when - the shit hits the fan, everybody pays the price, in more than one way.)
Guess why it is silent? Because it is so quiet as to not significantly increase the % of energy derived from renewables.
WikiPedia may be the wrong thing to point to if you want "scientific journals".
Nor are the real "scientific" journals doing such a wonderful job, either. "Peer review" is a joke, and the track record of scientific journals retracting controversial articles is too long to put much faith in it. The mathematical models cannot predict the present by using inputs from the past. Contra Michael "Chicken Little" Mann, the "Medieval Warm Period _DID_ exist, and his own emails (leaked as part of the HadCRUT archive) prove that he was trying without success to explain it away. Kilimanjaro's snows have not receded. The glaciers in the Himalayas have not disappeared. Billions of people have not starved, nor has Australia been overrun with panicked Malaysians and Indonesians.
I got really suspicious when I saw that the same Socialist/World Government nostrums that Carl Sagan tried to prescribe for Global Cooling in the 1970s were being prescribed now for Global Warming.
My degree is in Physics; I always believe the actual facts. I haven't seen many, and most of them are on the "It's not a problem now, and may never be" side. And if we can only avoid collapsing the world economy with phony scare tactics, the world of 2060 will be rich enough to mitigate what minor effects there may be.
And if Siberia and northern Canada warm up a bit, there will be millions of acres of additional cropland that we can't use now. Maybe that would be a good thing.
Old stuff. Pebble bed reactors have their own problems.
There is no power supply that doesn't have problems.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Try to reduce your daily energy usage whenever possible.
I would suggest doing a modest cost/benefit analysis first. Energy usage reduction is not that valuable for most people outside of a few big things. And who's going to consider the more ludicrous optimizations like changing your sex to male just so they can save a little energy usage?
When it's the "UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". Here's the BBC's description of IPCC: "The IPCC itself is a small organisation, run from Geneva with a full time staff of 12. All the scientists who are involved with it do so on a voluntary basis." http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...
Relax, people. There's no U.N resolution here; there's no consensus of nations here recognizing the urgency that requires this "tripling" of non-carbon-based energy. It's easy for the press to say this is the report from the U.N., when it's not.
If you get 12 scientists in a room that have volunteered to produce a report on global warming, what would you expect them to produce? Something that says everything's peachy?
You won't see this old boy freaking out over something dumb like this.
The RK-9000 is a mechanical keyboard made by Rosewill which is the inhouse manufacturer for NewEgg. What does a keyboard have to do with anything?
You cannot find a more "green" keyboard then a mechanical keyboard. Each keyswitch is rated at 50 milliion keypresses. If a letter foes buy a new keyswitch. ( Though I would buy a whole bunch of them ).Desolder the old switch solder in the new. My miniUSB port just broke and I wil be soldering in a new one as soon as it arrives. If the controller goes I can get a new one. I can probably get a new PCB if I have to. They are made to last and when any part breaks, it can be repaired or replaced.
So why are they banned in Illinois. Thanks to our idiot of a governor. ( Second only to Gov Moonbeam ). He created a law regulating e-waste. The law says that for a manufacturer to sell their product, they have to register and certify that they recycle a certain amount of their products. [1] So for this reason, instead of being able to buy a long lasting green keyboard, you have to buy a cheap will fall apart soon keyboard.
More and more the wacked out conservationalists ae acting like this,.
[1] In fact when you sto[p and think about it, many electronics products can last forever,so companies may never even get the chance to recycle a large percentage.
This "solution" is on the correct track, except the estimate of the reduction necessary is probably a severe underestimate.
My premise is that with current modes of energy use and energy production, the planet cannot support anything like the current load if most of the 7 billion aspire to energy consumption (actually, CO2 production) that is any significant fraction of the rates for the developed world. The easiest (both technically and morally) approaches are improvements in energy efficiency and reduction of the carbon load of energy production, but they will never be enough to save the planet. Decades ago the Chinese government realized they needed drastically to reduce population growth, and implemented the one-child policy with that government's usual brand of unacceptable and heavyhanded bureaucracy, but despite the implementation it was the right idea. If the 2+ billion people of India and China aspire to achieve merely a third of the average carbon loading of a USA citizen, the planet is cooked.
There are many ways to reduce human population. Disease, famine, war, and all of the tired historical paradigms are possibilities, although it is impossible to predict which will arrive first. But without effective remediation, one or the other will suffice to correct the current imbalance. It is _late_ in the game to try to reduce population (and to further reduce energy consumption, and reduce the carbon loading of energy production, but alone together will not be enough) but we have to try.
One good approach would be international promise of pariahship. The developed countries who understand the problem (North America, Western Chine, Japan, perhaps a very few other East Aisa countries, and some others who have achieved ZPG by indifference of the population, (Russia?) should unite and declare pariahship at any country that has not committed to Negative Population Growth, i.e. one child per couple. The pariahs could obtains no visas, no internet communication, no banking, and no commerce at all.
Unfortunately, this can't work because it would require intelligent cooperation between the governments of the several countries. So we're all cooked.
It's not uniformly random, sure, but it is a probability distribution and hence, random enough for our purposes.
don't put your nuclear plant in the most densely populated parts of the world. Problem solved. Please tell me you aren't suffering from the illusion that Asia is one giant city from one side to the other.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually, that's the only way it can be achieved: "without cooperation", through markets. Economic development both makes it easy for individuals and nations to cope with the effects of climate change, such as they are, and to develop and switch to other forms of energy.
The "cooperation" people like you propose are going to keep global economic development back by decades, hinder the development and deployment of more efficient energy sources and technologies, and worst of all form the basis for massive corruption and rent seeking as big corporations and their political cronies write huge handouts into the regulations.
What we should do, however, is stop subsidizing fossil fuels and stop propping up regimes in the Middle East that give us cheap fossil fuels. We should also stop subsidizing energy-inefficient industries like agriculture. Having to bear the true cost of fossil fuels would do wonders for the adoption of renewable energies. But, of course, cutting subsidies is not on the table, which already tells you that all this bloviating about the apocalypse isn't about saving the planet, it's about adding even more crony capitalism to the crony capitalism we already have, now courtesy of the UN.
Thanks, but get stuffed Mr. Pachauri.
It does not matter how many nuclear plants China is building.
The parent claimed that overpopulation is the problem. He seem not to realize that 5% of the world population holds the rest (95%) hostage. That 5% are the USA.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Nuclear is cleaner than coal barring an accident. Coal is guaranteed to kill and hurt people. With Nuclear you at least have a chance of everyone being healthy.
I beg to differ: nuclear is cleaner than coal even if you include accidents. The calculations on that page are admittedly from early 2011, but it accounts for 4,000 deaths from Chernobyl. I could add up a bunch more from Wikipedia, but screw that, lets just throw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the mix - about 250,000 deaths. And then let's round that to an even one million for the heck of it.
The death rate is still lower than coal by an order of magnitude. Nuclear is cleaner than coal even if you include 4x the deaths of atomic acts of war.
That whole piece is fascinating, especially for insights such as
Coal and fossil fuel deaths usually do not include deaths caused during transportation. The more trucking and rail transport is used then the more deaths there are. The transportation deaths are a larger component of the deaths in the USA than direct industry deaths. Moving 1.2 billion tons of coal takes up 40% of the freight rail traffic and a few percent of the trucking in the USA.
and
Those who talk about PV solar power (millions of roofs) need to consider roof worker safety. About 1000 construction fatalities per year in the US alone. 33% from working at heights. Falls are the leading cause of fatalities in the construction industry. An average of 362 fatal falls occurred each year from 1995 to 1999, with the trend on the increase.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Which explains why France is the 12th largest oil user in the world?
And why Électricité de France gets 74% of their energy from Nuclear?
16% from Hydro, and a whopping 0.1% from wind and other renewables?
For 0.1% they might as well not even bothered with it.
You need to look no further than Germany renewables plan, flush with hundreds of billions of euro in funding has stalled. They can't add more wind or solar panels to the Germany grid. The problem isn't money. Every extra solar panel and wind turbine added to the grid increases grid instability a little more.
When are you environmentalist nuts start studying how the electrical grid actually works instead of having fantasies about how it should work.
If solar and wind were so great, Hawaii would have shutdown its oil based thermal plants already. They have very expensive electricity, making renewables cheap, yet it doesn't quite work, cause it's just not that simple.
Get a grip. Without nuclear, there's no hope to solve climate change. And nuclear is not the boogeyman your environmentalist friends have convinced you it is. Zero Fukushima deaths, zero confirmed radiation related cancers. Its been three years. It's already becoming another Chernobyl (as in the environmentalists overblow the problem about a thousand times).
Until the environmentalists show they understand the actual impact of nuclear accidents, accurately predicting the effects of nuclear accidents, in my view they are a bunch of looney tunes alarmists that should be given ZERO credit when the subject in nuclear power.
One of the problems is that the "wrong stance" on climate change is just a reason to stigmatize people as being morally unworthy. We have reinvented the Pharisees versus everyone else. The Pharisees were actually reasonably moral people, virtuous and giving donations to charity. In fact the deniers of climate change are not doing a thing to prevent any major renewable energy project from proceeding in the world. There has been a massive build-out in solar panel and wind turbine manufacturing capacity, and there are multiple giant installations being constructed in solar concentration and in offshore wind farms. The technologically super-advanced Germany, regardless of political party, is firmly committed to its Energiewende that will increase that country's usage of renewables to 60% by 2050. Whatever obstacles there are to renewables, the climate change deniers are for practical purposes unimportant. Failure is not because of others, it lies in ourselves. Stop blaming, start fixing.
There is another technology, Integral Fast Reactor, that also looks promising. My problem with nuclear power as we are doing it now is a lack of a plan for the spent fuel which has accumulated to unmanageable and dangerous levels. These technologies that burn spent fuel solve both the source and trash problems at once. We are still left with the proliferation problem but that is not as much an issue domestically. Both Thorium and IFR would create a good supply of Pu-238 we desperately need for NASA space probes.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Doesn't matter, petroleum and natural gas will eventually run out, whether it's 30 years or 300 years. We need to build nukes that can handle Uranium and Thorium and Plutonium for fuels, and breeder reactors to create more fuel and reprocess old fuel. Keep working on fusion, and someday fusion will be practical and our energy source will then be virtually inexhaustible.
It's random enough.
Cooperation is the key word.
The world currently operates primarily on competition. Competition between companies, workers and nations. But since there is only a single ecosystem that makes human life sustainable, that means there is a general interest for humankind, and cooperation is needed to enforce it.
If you look at countries like Germany and India who are becoming less and less dependant on fossil fuels, it's because of solar, not nuclear and in fact the trend is to get away from nuclear. They're always way over budget to build, way more expensive to run and in some cases cost too much to decommission so they sit there. .
The nuclear phase out in Germany has actually increased their dependance on fossil fuels. Coal burning has shot up. Germany has a huge energy cost problem coming if they continue down the no nuke path. Nuclear helped pay for a large portion of the solar/wind buildup. As nukes are shut down, that money source goes away. Much higher energy bill and/or taxes will be needed to offset the lost generation, not to mention the ever increasing cost of wind turbine overhauls and even replacement of first generation solar installations.
Meanwhile, after years of heavy investment and the richest subsidies ever seen for any power source, in 2013 solar generated less than one half of one percent of US electrical output. That includes commercial and residential solar. Wind has done much better in that regard.
The new nuclear plants coming on line in the US will offset much more carbon, much more quickly that equivalent solar investment.
Unrealistic risk perception driving uneducated fear is key problem for nuclear. Even at Fukushima, and accident that was easily preventable by simply not siting and designing for a known event, 4 Units experiencing the worst accident scenario, no detectable public health risk is expected, no deaths. A relatively small section of land will be off limits for some time period. A small price to pay for the many millions of tons of coal that was never burnt, CO2 and radioactive particulates never spewed, and coal ash never piled. Yes, nuclear waste is a big drawback, but put it scale with the benefits and its clearly our best proven technological path forward. Politics makes the waste problem worse, there are solutions.
And if the sun starts shining 24 hours a day, then maybe solar will be able to help a little.
It's not even all of the environmentalists, check out Patrick Moore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
He used to be the President of Greenpeace and was *ahem* asked to leave, primarily due to his advocacy of Nuclear Energy
At this point Greenpeace is as stuck in its position of advocating against Nuclear Energy as the NRA is against gun control, and they are both looking like obstacles to any positive change in the status quo
By working against Nuclear Energy, Greenpeace has managed to be as big a supporter of continued fossil fuel dependence as the Koch bros.
There are plenty of smart environmentalists out there, and the uninformed ones should be donating their money somewhere besides Greenpeace
Wherever You Go, There You Are
the WTO has legal protection for polluters in developing nations the prevents other nations from raising trade barriers to using their goods
We need to reevaluate the designations that were made in the mid-nineties and make them relevant in a world where China and India are economic powers
Wherever You Go, There You Are
+1.
We have 50-60 years of technology advancements. Look how cars have advanced. Had there not been such a strong oil/coal lobby, there would be advancements that would be impossible in today's political climate:
1: Thermal depolymerization -- turn waste products back into crude ready for use again.
2: Droughts would be mitigated as issue with desalination plants combined with the infrastructure to pump it inland.
3: More technologies would be possible to reclaim used components. Waste can be recycled cleanly.
4: More expensive (expensive as in energy) chemical processes can be used to reclaim toxic sites.
I think future generations will think we are dolts as not to have moved to nuclear sooner, because more energy available per person can mean a lot more advances and a better quality of life.
You never know. He may have meant "I'm a profligate user of energy resources and I need a spanking" whereby his original phrasing is entirely appropriate.
I've learned not to second-guess some of these folks ...
Nobody is suggesting that people use nuclear energy in their homes... Nuclear works best with large reactors in isolated areas that rely on the power grid to get electricity to customers
The electricity from that source is great for generating hydrogen for fuel cells and powering manufacturing that is required for building components of 'clean' energy projects
We really need to get off of using fossil fuels, and no industry will do that with a solution that is more expensive like solar, wind, etc... nuclear is the most cost efficient alternative to fossil.
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Wrong. The US isn't the biggest wind energy producer, it's the biggest producer of hot air. China is the single country with the highest amount of energy extracted from wind. The EU combined produces twice as much electricity from wind as the USA, and also more than all of Asia. Germany alone accounts for more than a quarter of the EU's electricity from wind. http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GWEC-PRstats-2013_EN.pdf
Nuclear reactors aren't nuclear bombs. You need to refine the fission material very well in said reactors and then re-refine it in more specialized reactors to get a material that has the potential of wiping a large area. Even then, the offensive material degrades very quickly to manageable levels, Hiroshima or even the Nevada desert is far from uninhabitable, Chernobyl even continued generating electricity in it's other reactors for 20 years after the disaster. Even Three Mile Island, which was in a relatively densely populated area of the world is only expected to maybe cause ~300 cancers, far less than the average coal plant in it's life time.
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Really bad headline, "Saving Climate" does not equate to "limit a global rise in mean temperatures". I'm all for manipulating the environment to give the best possible outcome for humans. If we could all agree on what climate is best I'd be really amazed.
What model predicted the current and ongoing pause in warming?
So linking to a newspaper article qualifies now as 'drawing a picture', I guess you are not good at drawing?
Well, continue to practice and you will improve!
Oh I see. It's a classic case of, it doesn't fit my tidy little view of the world therefore I won't read it. After all it might shatter my fragile ego and endanger my strongly held viewpoint that an environmental organization is responsible for killing people by starving them to death.
Om, nomnomnom...
We are definitely not taking advantage of advances in nuclear energy. The basic principles of a PWR were established when nuclear power was only a few years old. It was chosen for simplicity and speed to market, not inspired holistic life cycle efficiency. There was an urgency to get those turbines turning. Unfortunately now we have all this spent fuel, which has enough energy in it to provide 100x all the nuclear power ever generated before we ever need to mine another gram of fuel. If we don't burn it up in the new reactors we have to bury it for 100,000 years, and where is the sense in that when we could use it up first an then bury a much safer waste?
We should exploit the other opportunities too. Efficiency in home heating and cooling with insulation and heat pumps, LED lighting, mobile processors and low-E displays, electric autos, rooftop PV solar, wind, PV solar, thermal solar, geothermal where appropriate.
One big problem is that we need a big, rich company like a Google, Microsoft or Apple to pull this off for us. Those companies are obviously able to make investments on this scale but are looking for a quicker turnover on their investment. They lack the patience for the long term commitment to an investment which, honestly might not work out for reasons other than the science. Political activity or another Fukushima incident could derail it and lose the whole investment.
Now that the US Navy of all people has found a way to convert electricity and seawater into jet fuel, maybe that will get the fossil fuel giants engaged in the nuclear solution. Running industrial refineries to close the carbon cycle may be a more reliable means of generating their traditional product in a way that doesn't suffer from the diminishing return of an ever more difficult to find and extract mineral resource.
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Sorry, english is not my primary language. I did mean depriving.
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1970's? Global cooling? Are you serious? The prevailing opinion at the time was 'we don't know', that is the science available at the time was not capable of modelling the effect of man's activities on climate.
In this essay written by Carl Sagan in 1980 he expresses exactly this and makes a plea for support for such work.
The idea that there was a 'global cooling' consensus in the 1970's is the sheerest poppycock. Complete wishful thinking by people with a political agenda back by no rigorous assessment of the situation.
If you really are interested in just facts, you have failed to accumulate many.
Wernstrom!
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Many of the modern proposals involve mining only the overfull spent fuel ponds of existing reactors, recycling their toxic payload into 100x the energy they gave up their first time through and producing less toxic outputs from waste we already have. Surely you can't have a problem with that?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
And nuclear is not the boogeyman your environmentalist friends have convinced you it is. Zero Fukushima deaths, zero confirmed radiation related cancers.
While I happen to think Nuclear on balance is a good deal this "no confirmed cancers" argument is garbage.
Humanity lacks capability to "confirm" cause of radiation caused cancers.
Determinations were hardly even possible in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Only by use of statistics was anyone able to observe cancers at a rate some very small percentage ~1% above background.
In any scenario like Fukushima even statistics fail as radiation caused deaths sink well below any practically discernible noise floor.
It was too cold anyway.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
In the Warmish Apocalypse the Sahara returns to grassland and verdant fields of grain oddly enough, as it was 5,000 years ago when alligators and hippopotamuses prowled the ground where dunes now stand. Something about changing precipitation patterns and increased uptake of water vapor over the tropical Atlantic.
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Hmmm. Are you SURE that "global cooling" and "The Coming Ice Age" weren't all the rage in the late '70's and early '80's? I sure remember a lot of headlines and magazine articles about that. I'm guessing that you weren't around to read those papers and magazines back then and that you get all your news from your iPhone now, but Siri can probably help you look up relevant articles.
What are you talking about? Deaths per Terawatt in Nuclear is the best by far. It's several times better than the next best option on that metric (wind energy)!
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/...
The same way our generation was left a carbon legacy all I see is the selfish thinking of the baby boomer generation wanting cheap electricity until they die and forcing the costs onto the X, Y generation and those that come after that. These costs will be realized by these generations in terms of infrastructure to handle all of the problems that have been offset to be dealt with "sometime in the future".
This "Not in My Generation" thinking has to end. In these years now we have the energy and expertise to create technological solutions however the entrenched status quo has the same capacity to mold opinions into complacency as it does for solving these problems permanently. Molding opinions though, is much cheaper.
Nuclear and carbon capture in their current forms are only stopgap measure to a more permanent solutions. Carbon capture looks like a dead technology that will only serve to delay facing the issue of carbons a means to just keep using coal.
Nuclear looks more promising, but requires a more serious attitude to deal with the sobering danger the impact of its failures present. Infrastructure to deal with spent fuel containment, reactor decommissioning, reactor design, enrichment and, especially, infrastructure to move the existing fuel all have to be dealt with if we are to have any realistic energy return from Nuclear. These problems become more intense as the energetic costs to produce uranium continue to rise due to the transitions from processing soft ores (like sandstone) to hard ores (like granite) as a source material for extracting uranium. The energetic costs of seawater production is also very high with current technology. And before you say breeder reactors or thorium reactors, they still require the above infrastructure. Whilst a thorium fuel cycle, from my understanding, will trade Plutonium 239 for Thallium 238 as a spent fuel product, so we have 2 problems instead of one.
Creating an alternative energy production infrastructure based on Solar, Wind, Wave and geothermal, independent of existing infrastructure, is a smart choice as it also allows us time to create a new technological base that produces less externalities. Doing so would also allow a more planned approach to Nuclear power that improves the development of that technological infrastructure base as it is proven that solar thermal can do base load and that wind scale quite well.
What this means is that OUR generation deals with the transition of the technological bases in a more controlled manner while the costs of doing so can be handled for lower cost. It will never be perfect and mistakes will be made however, if we don't learn from the past mistakes and invest in high externality power infrastructure (like coal and nuclear in its current form) while we have a functioning infrastructure then we will be leaving a greater set of problems for humanity to deal with in the future.
None of this though, is a concern that the current establishment cares about.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Nuclear power on the other hand scares the hell out of me.
Learn about it. I've found that in doing so, I have become far less frightened of it.
Solar / wind / geo / hydro INSTEAD OF nuclear is a "people who can't do arithmetic" thing. Together, they can reasonably provide about 20% of our energy needs. The founder of Greenpeace agrees - the other 80% can come from fossil fuels, or from nuclear. Those are the two options that can provide the majority of our power. We need power at night, we need power when the wind isn't blowing, and when it's blowing too strong and windmills have to be "turned off". If you'd like , I can point you to a paper that gives all the detailed facts in 10 pages.
I was only 10 in 1979 when the indecent happened at TMI but I lived only a hundred or so miles away from it so it was a topic for many years even as I aged.
Long story short. I became a reactor operator for the US navy and did it for 10 years. I have no fear of nuclear power. I encourage it and I say that as someone that is no longer actively employed in the nuclear power or radiological control field so I have no financial interest in it or a job as risk. Even with negligence and cost cutting, it is still relatively safe. Pressurized water reactors are a sound safe design. Mining, transporting, and burning of fossil fuels and coal are not exactly much safer or healthier for the environment or the general population as a whole either and they are doing even more cost cutting along with a lot of campaign donations..
Using surface air temperatures is ridiculous. It is such a small portion of the thermal mass that you may as well use the daily weather. Start there.
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You're right, only fossil fuels or nuclear have the capacity to provide the majority of our energy needs. Nuclear is historically the safest energy source as well - hydro has had quite a few disasters, for example. ALSO, we should acknowledge that the greenies have a good idea - use wind power when the wind happens to be blowing at the proper speed. If you happen to live on a fault line, geothermal is pretty good. For the 80% of of our energy needs that can't met by "alternatives" sources, we can choose nuclear or fossil fuels. That doesn't mean we should be anti-hydro, we should acknowledge that hydro is great. We just don't have any more 200 mile stretches of wilderness to flood, so we can't increase our hydro by much .
(I put solar in a separate category because the 95% of the solar industry that are scammers give the 5% who are honest a bad name.)
Danger of what? Extinctions? The natural course was to return to glaciation right about now, with global temps dropping 8 to 10C absurdly fast - the worst toward the poles. Ice caps spread to the 50th parralels north and south. Mass extinctions, including maybe us. Extreme weather events. Ports become dry land as the oceans drop 400 feet. This condition to last at least 90,000 years. That was the plan, so let's have a realistic baseline to your apocalyptic prediction AC.
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There are several proven designs that meet your two points. IFR burns the spent fuel that is bothering you. They deliberately shut down its cooling twice and the reactor finds thermal equilibrium without becoming dangerously hot because thermal expansion of the fuel shuts down fission. It can be done.
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Portugal’s electricity network operator announced that renewable energy supplied 70 percent of total consumption in the first quarter of this year.
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
I somehow doubt what you are saying.
If one panel provides all you need during daylight hours you use 2 or 3 or 4 and store it in a battery.
This, and not nuclear it undisputably the way of the future. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear plant. I'm sure the people that had to leave Fukushima prefecture would disagree about the lack of danger to public health. Would you live there now?
Germany will be 100% renewable by 5050. Portugal is already 75%.
We can not afford, on many levels, and do not need: nukes. This has been shown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Germany is the world's top photovoltaics (PV) installer, with a solar PV capacity of 35.996 gigawatts (GW) at the end of February 2014.[2] The German new solar PV installations increased by about 7.6 GW in 2012, and solar PV provided 18 TWh (billion kilowatt-hours) of electricity in 2011, about 3% of total electricity.[3] Some market analysts expect this could reach 25 percent by 2050.[4] Germany has a goal of producing 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 100% by 2050.[5]
"In July 2009, India unveiled a US$19 billion plan to produce 20 GW of solar power by 2020.[2] Under the plan, the use of solar-powered equipment and applications would be made compulsory in all government buildings, as well as hospitals and hotels.[3] On 18 November 2009, it was reported that India was ready to launch its National Solar Mission under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, with plans to generate 1,000 MW of power by 2013.[4] From August 2011 to July 2012, India went from 2.5 MW of grid connected photovoltaics to over 1,000 MW."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
" In 2012 China installed 5.0 GW of solar panel capacity. As of 2012, about 8.3 GW of photovoltaics contribute towards power generation in China.[1] Solar water heating is extensively implemented as well.[2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
And we're not even trying hard. Hopefully soon, well. Anything to avoid those damn dirty dangerous nuclear disaster that endanger countless future generations.
Need Mercedes parts ?
great. now somebody has to produce a porn video depicting this. Oh wait, no, it's already been done.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Admiral Rickover preferred once-through BWRs to breeders for practical reasons to get nuclear power launched in a realistic timeframe. The jury is still out on whether he erred in haste. As a legacy of that decision we have all this spent fuel and nowhere to put it. We may as well burn it all up while we figure that out. The once-through design burns up 0.65 percent of it. Breeders burn up 99.7 percent of the trash.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
A lesser known situation is if you actually create an energy surplus, food costs, logistic costs, and transportation costs get cheaper.
I think a lot of people have been talking about this recently. The US economy in particular is heavily dependent on energy costs. So, a lot of what has been floating Midwestern states is the fact that energy companies are hiring like mad and putting in oil/gas wells pretty much as fast as they can. This drives unemployment down, while helping to lower energy costs, all while the energy companies are making money hand over fist.
If something similar happened with nukes, it could happen nationally, and as you point out people would be more incentivised to buy leaf's and teslas if the monthly power bill were less than a single tank of gas.
Of course the other big advantage would be that it would make gas/oil wells less economically advantageous too, similar to what has been happening with coal vs natural gas.
Anthony Watts of WattsUpWithThat compiled an interesting list of "Global Cooling" references all through the 1970's.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...
I may be old, but my memory is still MOSTLY here.....
Predicting local perturbations from data is very hard. Identifying long term trends is, by comparison, easy.
I hate printers.
On the heels of a study that concluded there was less than a 1% chance that current global warming could be simple fluctuations...
Now "less that 1%" sounds low but is less than a 3-standard deviation (or 3 sigma) signal. In physics 3 sigma is generally the level at which you can claim "evidence for" a given effect and to prove it to others you need a 5-sigma signal which is less than a 1 in ~1.7 million chance.
The reason that we use these levels is because it is next to impossible to remove all human bias from an experiment. Hence you have to accept that there will always be some and it has been found from experience that these levels of proof tend to be ones which, once reached, are rarely found to be wrong. Although 3 sigma is just at the level where you can say "this is something likely to be true".
While I think it likely that humans have caused some degree of global warming it is a little worrying that the evidence for it is still so flimsy. If we then ask say whether more than 50% of global warming is due to humans I expect that the probability becomes even less certain. So to start motivating a major change in direction from fossil to nuclear (which has its own but different problems) we need a 3-sigma signal (less than 0.27%) that mankind is responsible for at least 50% of the current warming.
If the rate is less than 1% more cancers than normal, then you just proven my point.
It will be really proven by the time Fukushima is some 10 years old, and we can show with statistics that cancers among even those most affected by the accidents radiation caused a small extra cancer and a tiny extra death rate. Like Chernobyl, the nuclear community learned very little from Fukushima, cause the mistake was disregard to common nuclear safety knowledge, rather than the need for fundamental redesign of state of the art reactors. The real problem is the reluctance of replacing all Gen II reactors with Gen III+ or Gen IV reactors. Not that I'm a big fan of AP1000 and similar designs, but they are safe enough to have two miles from my home.
Such a finding would both show that the anti nuclear community are very wrong on all of their predictions and should be ignored.
Most people are unaware that there are 435 operational nuclear reactors in the world with an output around 400GW electrical.
My contention is that if nuclear fission were really that unsafe, we would have many more accidents over the decades.
If France and USA can do safe nuclear for 30 years (top 2 users of nuclear fission today) why can't the whole world do safe nuclear ?
Holy crap. This is one of the first serious pieces I've seen in altogether too long a time.
Actually acknowledging that nuclear is a vital part of the way forward.
And it's the UN doing it?
Did someone slip me a mickey or something?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
An analysis of the peer reviewed literature from 1965 to 1979 [PDF] found 42 papers on global warming and only 7 on global cooling. There were some headlines in the popular press but it was never a leading theory in the scientific field.
Germany already has problems on their power grid because of the amount of PV.
Maybe it is possible to smooth out PV with batteries, but that requires home owners to have a room full and maintain batteries.
Storing in batteries will probably half the energy produced, which means the home owners will pay more, or receive less money on their power bill.
So the government will need to force home owners to average out their electricity production.
Yeah after all nuclear bombs can help reduce world-wide daily power consumption for centuries.
;)
But most people don't want that nuclear option right?
You know what they say about correlation/causation right?
I know cop-outs when I hear them.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
WikiPedia may be the wrong thing to point to if you want "scientific journals".
If you can provide some examples of where Wikipedia is wrong about something non-trivial, please do...
No sig today...
Even if all that *was* junk, it doesn't mean today's science is also junk.
eg. Medicine in the 19th century was almost all quackery. Today? A lot less so.
No sig today...
Air filtration, chemicals for narcose/desinfectant/pre and post op medicine, a couple of people busy, hospital heating.
A sex change operation is quite expensive, even just energy wise. It may cost more to change from female to male than there can be saved.
Especially since adding those parts may not change a woman from semi coldblooded to warmblooded.
Although, if every woman did that the energy consumption would dropping quite far in a hundred years.
Oh and GPP probably meant whenever reasonably possible.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
That's the problem with people who get their science from the front page of Time magazine and such. They confuse journalists with actual scientists. Actual scientists have known for a long, long time that the earth is warming and will continue to warm. Journalists continue to get it wrong.
Uh-huh. You know what The Washington Post, the L.A. Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times have in common? They aren't scientific journals. Do you believe the press does an accurate job representing scientific consensus today? Probably not, if you've been paying any attention. So why do you think they were doing a better job 40 years ago?
I don't know how warm it'll be in two weeks.
I can reasonably predict it'll be warmer in the summer and colder in the winter though, which is more than two weeks away.
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Greenpeace is a prime example of an organisation that doesn't know when to quit.
As some point Greenpeace actually reached it's targets. Instead of throwing a celebration party and disbanding, they started looking for new targets, regardless of whether they actually made sense; Greenpeace's unwritten goal became the continued existence of Greenpeace itself.
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The question going forward is is nuclear power going to be able to compete with other methods of producing power? Contrary to many peoples opinions the primary reason more nuclear power has not been built in the US is because it couldn't compete with other methods of producing power on a cost basis. Even now it's not clear it can compete with solar and wind power going forward especially if the solve the problem of a reasonable cost means of storing power to even out the ebbs and flows of renewable power.
You are clearly an intelligent person, which is what makes this so sad. Your post is full of errors which the actual facts you claim to believe have proven to be false.
1. The medieval warm period affected just the northern Atlantic area - it was not global, and so is rather irrelevant in this discussion without you also discussing the rest of the world's climate during this period. It was also colder then than now, so it's rather pointless to even bring it up in discussion.
2. The Himalayan glaciers *are* receding. It sounds like you are paraphrasing Christopher Monckton's claims that they are not, which is strange, as the man himself has recanted that particular belief in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In fact, they've been receding constantly, at least since satellite data has been available to demonstrate that fact.
3. Global cooling was not a scientifically-accepted hypothesis in the 1970s. It was, however, trotted around in the media for sensationalism, which is where this idea comes from that it was the scientific consensus at the time, when that is demonstrably nonsense.
4. Since the early 1900s, 80% of the ice on Kilimanjaro has disappeared. 80%. To say that the ice (which, colloquially, is what "Kilimanjaro's Snow" refers to) has not receded is patently false.
The source for your facts clearly needs some adjustment, as you are parroting the same debunked nonsense the anti-AGW crowd has been trotting around for years now. The facts are there - you don't seem to be wanting to look for them.
Canada's topsoil in the areas which will warm up were scraped away by glaciation, meaning those areas will be next to useless for crops. Siberia's permafrost contains a lot of methane, which will be released into the atmosphere if it melts, which is a potent greenhouse gas, which will cause even more warming. Its topsoil also isn't great for farming, plus the industry, skills, and workers required to farm Canada and Siberia's non-existent suitable farmland isn't in either Canada or Siberia, which is a bit of a problem for your notion. That spreading north of suitable climate for growing crops means that huge swathes of the US will no longer be able to produce crops, which doesn't sound like a good situation for the US to be in.
But whatever - you have your "facts", so I guess we can just ignore this stuff forever, with no ill-effects. Right?
And here-in lies the crux of your problem. If you rely on magazines and newspapers for your scientific knowledge, you will undoubtedly believe a whole bunch of crap. Just like you are showing now. What a pity. No wonder you are spouting the oft-debunked Christopher Monckton's talking points. It's strange that you claim to believe the facts, but you clearly make no effort to discover them, substituting newspaper articles for peer-reviewed papers. You are a bad scientist, my friend.
Again - newspaper articles! Ha! It's not your memory that is fading, but your ability to reason. Newspaper articles are not a source for gauging the scientific consensus in any given period of time. You know that, as the scientist you claim to be.
Thermonuclear detonation? No. Not even close. You clearly have no idea of what you speak.
So the entire worlds output of nuclear power is .000000372 ExaWatt Hours.
No, that's just Exawatts. You need to multiply it by the runtime per year, which you can comfortably call 8500 hours, allowing for downtime. So that makes it 3.16 ExaWatt-hours, which is just about a third of oil's output, but you can still have oil for mobile transport for quite a while and flip all the power plants to nuclear, that would certainly help,.
Oh, and perhaps you should consider smoking less crack. Or posting to Slashdot whilst under the effects of said crack. Or both.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
There isn't a pause in warming, so that is irrelevant. None have predicted space Elephants either, which matters just as much.
Hint: they don't just use the surface air temperature. Funnily enough, you are not more clever than all the climatologists in the world, even if you think you are.
A satellite shade, something that can block a small percentage of total radiation on a day to day basis could really mitigate the warming without being impossible.
There are two problems with that "solution". First you are blocking solar radiation which will necessarily reduce the amount of photosynthesis going on which will reduce crop yields. How much difference that makes I don't know but the effect is not zero. Second, it does nothing to stop ocean acidification which may turn out to be a bigger problem than global warming in the long run.
Climate models are not expected to predict such short term variability. To try and judge them on that just shows you don't understand what they do.
>> True, nuclear waste is not pollution unless it escapes in an accident
Bullshit.
Nuclear waste will escape. why ? because it has billion years of time, will structurally degrade, and there is no known material to contain it.
It already escapes after a few years in every storage man has built for it.
During it's lifetime, it will inevitably mix with soil on a large scale., with all the consequences.
aaaaaaa
That is not a scientific journal. In fact i wager you haven't read them either if that is your "reference" point. What a scientific says in a peer review journal is very different from what they will say to a reporter. More so on this topic.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
There has been some scientific research done that indicates it's impossible the Earth to drop into another ice age as long as CO2 levels remain above 280 ppm.
If solar and wind were so great, Hawaii would have shutdown its oil based thermal plants already. They have very expensive electricity, making renewables cheap, yet it doesn't quite work, cause it's just not that simple.
How ironic that you point out Hawaii. Hawaii exemplifies the political problems moving away from oil, not the technical problems. Our PUC is utterly impotent and lets our electric utility (HECO) get away with whatever they want. For example, if you want grid-tie solar HECO charges you $3,000 for an "interconnect study" which is complete and utter bullshit. They claim to the politicians that the grid can't handle more solar or wind with no technical basis whatsoever. Why? Because of the way they've got the PUC to structure they rates, they make more than double the profit from burning oil than from anything else, because they get to "pass-through" the cost of the oil, which amounts to more profit and the customer getting screwed.
Here's essentially how it works:
Generation from oil costs them 6.5 cents/kWh, plus the cost of oil.
They are allowed to charge 16-18 cents/kWh -ish (sorry, I don't remember the exact number offhand) PLUS the cost of the oil.
They buy wind power for 13 cents/kWh.
Customer cost per kWh of oil generated power = 40 cents, consisting 18 cents allowed rate + 22 cents for fuel , of which 11.5 cents is profit (18cents allowed - 6.5 cost not including oil).
Customer cost per kWh of wind power = 18 cents, of which 5 cents is profit (18cents allowed - 13 cents they buy it for)
Customer cost per kWh of home grid tie solar = 0 cents / kWh, so they manage to charge $3,000 upfront for the privilege even though there's already a base monthly charge for being connected to the grid.
HELLO, of course they are going to lobby (or bribe or give blow jobs or whatever it takes) the politicians. The PUC has got to be so utterly corrupt, and HECO so entrenched with the legislators to allow this to happen, but that's exactly why this is a political problem and not a technical problem.
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you on the nuke subject, just pointing out how you don't know wtf you're talking about with Hawaii and solar+wind power. What's ironic is that people here are so utterly scared of nuclear just saying the word is worse than saying the other 'N' word, yet they revere the Navy's presence here and apparently don't realize what "Nuclear Submarine" means...there's at least 15 nuclear reactors running around the islands right now.
So where is the temperature rise that caused CO2 levels to rise to a concentration not seen for millions of years?
Where does this come from? Billions of years? You pulled that out of your arse. The worst waste is sort of not bad after a few centuries. And only sort of. With reprocessing is fine after a few centuries and sort of not bad after about 100 years. By sort of not bad, i mean there are larger natural sources of activity.
Compare that to lead, or Cadmium. That stuff is bad for TRILLIONS of years.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
According to the report the cost of mitigating global warming is about 0.6% of gross world product. All of the alarmists who say it's going to cost too much are wrong.
I live 60kms from a nuclear power plant (Koeberg Nuclear Power Station) and I'm not worried.
Pebble bed reactors have their own problems. So far no-one has managed to demonstrate one that didn't have some severe issue or other. Decommissioning at the end of life is a particularly difficult problem. That's why no-one is willing to invest in commercial scale ones, except for the Chinese government.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Even the third world has mostly ceased excessive breeding. The fertility rate in Bangladesh has fallen from over 6 in the 1960s to 2.2 today, and the same is true in other countries. Contraception and family planning schemes have worked pretty well. The focus is now on Africa, and a lot of progress is being made.
The world population will continue to rise due to the large number of children and child-baring age people we have now, but is looking like it will level off at about 11 billion later this century. That sounds like an unsustainable amount but it really isn't. Most of the growth will be in Africa, where there is also great opportunity to improve agriculture and feed all those people. The critical part will be getting them to do it cleanly, not like how the already developed nations did. Fortunately they have massive renewable resources like geothermal and solar, and little existing infrastructure which means they can build a distributed grid from the start.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yep sorry, my fault, usual figures from the nuke industry is in the million of years.
But don't think HLW will be inoffensive after waiting 20 million years. Yes, most of the activity will be gone, but It'll still be deadly.
aaaaaaa
Oh and GPP probably meant whenever reasonably possible.
That will probably be the excuse for the AI program that ends the world in order to produce hamburgers a little faster.
And it's always possible that he didn't mean it that way. I have seen the occasional bit of magic thinking where someone believes something is so good that it should be optimized at the expense of everything else and it is only after being confronted with the logical consequences of that statement that they decide they really mean "reasonable".
Oh I don't have a problem with Nuclear energy but most nations don't have the political will to push forward with it. With the cost of each plant possibly in the Billions you also have to wonder if the investment community will back it as well because the money has to come somewhere. I'm also in favor of pushing for more local Solar along the lines of household domestic use considering we're burning through a lot of natural gas just dealing with peak load demands. Then again, I'm not in DC so all I can do is invest in areas where I think it'll help... You know, think globally, act locally but that still means dealing with retarded Gladys Kravitz types who will fight you putting up solar panels on your roof or planting a few more trees in your yard.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Such folk are so serious about it that fake magazine covers have been photoshopped together to support it.
Just ignore the loyal little comrade doing what his party tells him to do. It's just a bit of soviet russia style revisionism and propaganda.
There were some idiots that went looking for such shit in what they said was in "the interests of balance", but really it was about creating a fake argument to try to have something sensational to provoke readers to read their rag instead of another publication. It all blew over within weeks. If there was as much to it as you seem to remember then there wouldn't be any need for faked magazine covers to try to pretend it was all the rage back then.
See also articles in the same magazines predicting that we'd all have flying cars by 1990.
It was 1979, but a later administration decided to go into business with Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc in a big way and scrapped the move towards energy independence.
Not as much as the Chinese are, which should be a wake up call because they are about as far from "green" as you can get and are doing it for pragmatic reasons.
Reprocessing into MOX and the rest (plus reprocessing waste) going into Synroc.
No it really won't. Not any more deadly than say a pile of sand from central India.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Most readers here are probably beyond far that and probably want something a bit less simplistic than is suggested by your comment above, especially since I just had to state what should be obvious to someone who thinks they know enough about the topic to share their opinion on it here.
You know what's the funniest thing about radioactivity? The most dangerous stuff is dangerous precisely because it decays at an appreciable rate in our lifetimes, and conversely, the stuff that last the longest is the one you don't have to worry about too much.
But don't think HLW will be inoffensive after waiting 20 million years. Yes, most of the activity will be gone, but It'll still be deadly.
After 20 My, the vast majority of the HLW will be gone. "Deadly" is an exaggeration. Sunlight is about equally deadly.
Ezekiel 23:20
Who told you that bullshit - some accounts intern at an energy company annoyed at losing market share? It certainly wasn't anyone with enough of a clue to even know ohms law. Try thinking for yourself instead of swallowing then regurgitating such shit. Back in the day we would have loved a lot of nice clean waveform silicon rectified electricity sources right at the points of maximum consumption and pumping out power during the daytime peak.
Real life isn't like Sim City. You have to build stuff where it is practical. Where adequate cooling is available, with adequate transport links, connection to the grid, geological stability etc. Some countries have it far worse than others, but none has a free choice of placement.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Everyone seems to forget that half of the entire fucking nuclear power station is also "waste" - it's radioactive and damned fucking hard to get rid of.
Unless they factor in the dismantling and disposal costs of the reactor, the pro-nuclear crowd are full of shit.
And they NEVER do. If you factor in the total costs, nuclear power becomes vastly more expensive than the alternatives.
Let's all "do the google" and found out how many nuclear power stations have been completely decommissioned and paid for. Let's do it. Then come back here and talk sensibly...
No, usual figures from the ANTI-nuke hysterics is in the millions of years.
I'm assuming that by HLW you mean Pu-239 (which isn't really very high level - not like, say, Strontium-90).
On that basis, if you started with a mass of HLW the size of the planet (~6E24 kg), you'll be down to rather less than 1/4 of a nanogram of the stuff after three million years.
If the ENTIRE UNIVERSE were made of Pu-239, you'd have one ATOM of the stuff left after only SIX million years.
On the other hand, if we were talking reasonable amounts (no more than one million tons), it'll be decayed to less than one microgram in about a million years.
On the gripping hand, if we were talking about REAL HLW (the kind that emits enough radiation to actually be, you know, dangerous) we're not talking things with a 24KY halflife. We're rather more concerned with things with a century halflife or less.
For a 100 year halflife, your mass-of-the-planet wastes would be down into the milligram range in 10 KY. For a million tons of the stuff, it's down to less than a microgram in 5KY years.
And for really radioactive stuff (like, say Strontium-90), well, it'll be gone in a couple centuries.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It only equals readily-available plutonium with our currently-used fuel cycles. That will not always hold true.
So what you are saying is that both coal and nuclear suck and that the US construction industry isn't very safe. In any case PV is often installed when buildings are being built or roofs are being repaired anyway, so the actual increase in danger due to poor working practices and inadequate on-site safety is minimal.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Then write your obviously-easy-to-write-if-all-the-science-can-be-rebutted-in-a-single-sentence paper, get it peer reviewed, and collect your Nobel prize and $1m. Go on! Wait, you can't? Because science is hard, you don't understand it, and they're not wrong? How weird!
No known material to contain it??
It should be noted that most of the ionizing radiation emitted by your nuclear waste can be blocked by wrapping the nuclear waste in old newspapers (yes, both alpha and beta can be blocked with a sheet of paper, or a few feet of open air).
It should also be noted that the only radioactives that will last billions of years are things like U-238 (half life in the billions of years), which is so faintly radioactive that you'd never notice the radiation effects of it if a ton or so of it stored under your bed....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I see you are a fair person and so am I.
I want solar and wind to get their fair chance, so I hear you that the extra cost is unfair, but it's a one time cost, so it's not like it's a deal breaker.
They should separate transmission costs and profits from generation costs and apply feed in tariff just to generation costs. And get rid of the $3000 cost.
That would make the number fair.
Hawaii citizens unite. Make it a campaign issue, force the hand of the politicians. Protest.
The interesting challenge is once Hawaii runs over 50% from solar and wind, it will mean overproduction during the day. What to do with the surplus energy ? Do they have viable pumped hydro sites ? Ultra expensive electrical batteries ? Those are challenges that have only been fully solved on much smaller grids that migrated from diesel generators to solar+wind+battery storage, considering ultra high electricity to being with (much higher even than oil thermal plants, due to small scale demand).
Germany is mostly doing it with pumped hydro and selling their overproduction to their neighbors and buying it back when it needs to (selling cheap and buying expensive, they are selling unplanned overproduction and buying surplus energy at peak demand times).
No, you don't.
First, "thermonuclear" means FUSION, not fission.
Second, there is ZERO possibility of even a nuclear fission detonation from a nuclear reactor, since it takes considerably more than 95% enriched uranium to make a boom, and nuclear reactors use ~20% enriched uranium.
So, no, there is no chance of any kind of nuclear explosion from a nuclear power plant, whether it's in a populated area or not.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Often I find it fun to do that too. Poking holes in extreme statements I mean.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
The problem is electricity generation only accounts for 33% of all greenhouse emissions (source: http://epa.gov/climatechange/g...). Ahem, so what about the remaining 67%... so how do we care to try to address that lol?
We can not afford, on many levels, and do not need: nukes. This has been shown.
Maybe not for energy production on earth. But how would you propell space craft in deep space or a lander on dark side of the planet? How would you create elements needed in research, medicine etc. which are products of fission reactions?
I think it is foolish for greens to call for complete abandonment of nuclear technology. We certainly need to research and test it, we need to build specialized reactors for various purposes.
I somehow doubt what you are saying.
If one panel provides all you need during daylight hours you use 2 or 3 or 4 and store it in a battery.
This, and not nuclear it undisputably the way of the future. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear plant. I'm sure the people that had to leave Fukushima prefecture would disagree about the lack of danger to public health. Would you live there now?
Convenient to just blow it off. Germany is already seeing grid problems, and are destined to buy their power from nuclear plants in France and those that Poland is likely to build.
Solar is costly without the battery. Adding batteries increases cost tremendously and reduces efficiency. Seems that you like to ignore the cost part. Cost factors heavily into any viable solution. Solar does look very attractive when you ignore the details.
There is no safe anything. Its a matter of risk vs benefit. No airplane is safe. No car is safe. No solar panel is safe.
Would I leave near Fukushima? Yes, in any area where folks are allowed to live I would live. In those areas cleared for living in the future I would live. Why would I be willing? Because I have experience in this area and understand the risks. I understand the fears of those who just get informed by the media and movies.
And remember, 1 MW of installed solar capacity on average generates less than 1/5 of the electrical energy of 1 MW of installed base load generation. Many conveniently ignore that when spouting numbers.
Most of your radiation exposure is from the radiation that's been in the rocks for ever and from cosmic rays. Releases from nuclear power are tiny compared. Radiation safety limits are incredibly conservative.
Actually, Siri can't. There is a well known phenomena that there's a lack of published articles online that were published between 1960-1990 Articles before 1960 are considered historical and interesting, articles after 1990 were when the early digital services that were the precursors to the web were competing for content. Someday we'll get around to digitizing the magazines that contain the information you seek, but not soon, because there's no money in it.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
What is wrong with ocean farming? Kelp is a wonderful food source.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You mean cut off from *cheap* road transportation. The correct response to such a problem is to develop new technology.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Any nuclear fuel that is dangerous- is also nuclear fuel that is still fuel, that is, still giving off energy. What we really need is a way to recapture and recycle that energy.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Actually, in less than about 40 years, it will be 'me first'. I have no children, so I'm doing my part to nip the population explosion in the bud. For that matter, so are my brother and one of my sisters. Out of us four siblings, there are only 2 children.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
UN: "Hey USA, you need to use less energy and reduce your greenhouse gas emissions."
USA: "Hey UN, frack off!"
BTW, carbon capture and nulcear power? Really? What are the economics and time scales on that?
There is such a thing as a safe nuclear plant, LFTR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L..., a type of reactor that is walk-away safe. No active safety systems, nothing to power to keep the plant safe, you can walk away from it and it will never melt-down. It doesn't even use the same family of fissile material.
Germany is not the top PV anything anymore: http://www.slate.com/blogs/fut...
as for storing PV-generated power, good luck with that: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
The real problem and that 90% of the people pushing alternatives like PV and such is that they don't understand that scale at which humanity consumes energy. The land needs to build enough PV are staggering, a 1MW facility requires about 7.9 acres of land, not much until you consider that most nukes produce 1200MW on about 100 acres, you would need 9480 acres to get the same capability. The amount of land needed to displace fossil fuel consumption is staggering. Solar PV is fine for your rooftop to help offset grid costs to your household, but it can not scale to satisfy the needs of the world, at least not at the ~9% efficiency they currently have, maybe at 75% or more but not now.
With cheap abundant clean electrical energy you can generate liquid fuels from the carbon in the atmosphere, the best way to get that kind of load is nuclear and the best nuke we currently have is LFTR. The key is displacing fossil fuel use with something that can maintain and grow with our current consumption. PV is not going to cut it.
Do you use the "denier" term and "97% of scientists" a lot too?
Hers is your facts : http://imgur.com/BKaEalG
Please explain all the OTHER temperature trends in over the Holocene, apparently without the 1900's industrial C02?
And please, don't make the mistake of using high frequency, high resolution data graphed on to this smoothed data.
If you have better data than this, please post up.
My fav blog post, yes, from a scientist:
A)The increase in the first half of the 20th century is almost identical to the increase in the second half. The two halves are so nearly identical in form that unless you have studied them enough to be able to pick out specific features, you won’t be able to tell which one occurred with the hypothetical help of CO_2 and which one occurred without the hypothetical help of CO_2 when they are plotted on the same vertical relative scale and the same horizontal relative scale but with the actual dates obscured.
In the first half of the 20th century, not even the most ardent warmists claim that there was enough anthropogenic CO_2 in the atmosphere to have any measurable effect. The global industrial revolution that started the CO_2 crank was 1950s on, and there was supposedly a lag of 30 years before that had any effect (to explain the fact that through the 50s, 60s, and early 70s the temperature was pretty close to flat, which didn’t fit in well with the instantly well-mixed, instantly more strongly forcing picture of CO_2 emissions.
So as a matter of pure fact, the increase in temperature experienced during the 20th century was not unusual or abnormal in any way that can be definitively linked to anthropogenic activity as far as we can tell from the data! We had little to no impact on the first half, the warming in the second half matched that of the first half (with our hypothetical help), both halves were part of a perfectly reasonable continuing century-scale rebound from the lowest temperatures experienced on Earth since the Holocene Optimum during the Little Ice Age.
It’s amazing how ignorant people who participate in this debate with total certainty that our climate is unusual are of the “patient’s” history. I like to keep the patient’s chart for the last 12,000 years handy to help them learn:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Note well, this is smoothed. Note also that the error bars (never, ever shown in climate science) are probably as wide as the total variability envelope of all contributing reconstructions — an easy 1 to 2 C. As Lief pointed out above, reconstructing things like solar activity or temperature in the pre-instrumental era is neither easy nor precise, and the tiniest hint of bias or prior belief in the part of the researcher can effortlessly further cloud the proxy-based extrapolations by causing them to make countless small, almost harmless decisions that ultimately are cherrypicking of the data, comparing low temporal resolution data to high temporal resolution data to make erroneous statements about extremes, or ignoring the possibility of confounding causes or degradation of the data sources in those sources that match their “preferred” narrative at the expense of those that do not. If you count the assumptions — most of which cannot possibly be verified in the present — that go into reconstructions, there are many and each one contributes to increased uncertainty in the final claim.
Still, taking it for what it is worth — a possibly accurate reconstruction of the planet’s temperatures in the Holocene (post the Wisconsin glaciation, but including the Younger Dryas) that is at any rate the best we can do with the data and methods available (biased or not) at this time, what does it tell us?
First, the climate now is not warmer than it was in the Holocene Optimum (do not make the mistake of conflating the high frequency, high resolution “2004 data point with the smoothed low frequency, low resolution d
"When are you environmentalist nuts start studying how the electrical grid actually works instead of having fantasies about how it should work."
While a agree with your sentiment about anit-nuke positions, I think your "study the grid" viewpoint is narrow-minded.
Power demand (and thus supply) fluctuates greatly throughout the day. I'm an M.E. I worked for FPL, who know runs three solar power plants. I know how the grid works and it's sad that we still have to match production to demand. Energy storage systems are long overdue. There are some in place including uphill reservoirs, flywheels and thermal salt storage, but we haven't arrived yet. Though I'm not sure if centralized or decentralized (panels on houses) is best, it's clear that grid storage is a necessary step that will enable much needed flexibility on our power grid.
Grid storage is no more a "fantasy" than splitting atoms. I personally like nuclear. And I like wind and solar. And geothermal. They could work together nicely as base plus spike production. After we move to grid storage and look back, our current system of ramp production to meet demand will seem ridiculous and truly ancient.
And Germany imports it at night. Also Germany is build new COAL plants while shutting down nuclear....
Dubm.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
BS.
Two false options, and both are unacceptable.
Agreed. Irrational fear is the main problem with nuclear. Not that there aren't other problems, but they are technical and management issues which can be solved. Fearful ignorance defends itself, and has no known solution.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
It doesn't matter how regulated nuclear is, or the capital required. The physics is such that it's one of two options that can provide the majority of our power. Unless you plan to flood 1/3rd of the United States, hydro can't do it. Unless the sun starts shining at night, and there are no more cloudy days, solar can't do it. These things aren't politically bad, they are physically incapable of providing more than 4%-6% of the need.
There is no power supply that doesn't have problems.
True, but hardly insightful. Really, the question should be "what are the problems" and "what are the solutions", and then you can say whether pebble bed reactors are worth pursuing, or if there is something better.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Here's an idea...how about converting it to relatively inert ceramic blocks (already available tech) and sink it at some remote subduction zone fault where it gradually gets folded back into the mantle?
Because that "waste" will be fuel when India/Europe finally get a safe breeder reactor working, which is only a matter of time. There was such a breeder reactor here in the USA, but the Dems axed it in the 90s. (Truly unfortunate.)
Also, note that very little radioactive waste remain hot for a long time (about 10% I believe). You don't want to fold plutonium into the mantle of the earth, and then who knows what will happen to it. It will be quite safe in some vault somewhere. There isn't that much of it. And it will be useful fuel one day.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yeap. I don't know all the problems, and I don't know all the solutions. I'm willing to wait and see how it turns out for China.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In the last two years, natural gas has provided cheap, stable power. That's not why for decades new nuclear plants weren't built. The problem with nuclear is political, and yes those political hurdles create costs, but when the federal government IGNORES nuclear paperwork for years at a time, that's not that nuclear isn't competitive, that's the federal government choosing not to do its job.
Wind power is good. It does not compete with nuclear. Wind provides clean, safe power about half the time, and no power half the time. Wind allows you to throttle down your nuclear, gas, or coal plant sometimes. It doesn't replace the stable, reliable power supply of nuclear or older technologies. In the best case, solar is the same - it provides power for several hours per day. The other 18 hours, you can choose nuclear, natural gas, or coal. Unfortunately, solar now has a lot of worst case, since it's the industry chosen as a front for graft and corruption at the moment.
...we should be aiming to create energy surpluses.
You realize that this would be detrimental to the bottom line of the power companies. That have boards that exist to protect investors. And investors who demand returns on their investments. Etc.
Not unlike researchers who know who is paying for their research, and do not want to offput those grantors by coming up with data that undermines the grantor's position on the research.
This society that we live in is not designed to find truths or to do the "right thing". It is designed to make people money so that they can live more comfortably. Period. I don't care where you live or what you do, this is truth, whether you live in Manhatten or the Serengetti, humans do what they do to improve their own lives. If you improve other's as well while you are at it, that's even better. If you don't, no love lost. If you think I'm off base here, then I challenge you to work for a year for free: no salary, no compensation, just for the good of the world.
Cynical, but true.
If the rate is less than 1% more cancers than normal, then you just proven my point.
You misunderstand.
Cancer is poised to become the worlds leading cause of death as worlds average population ages with at least 1 out of 5 of everyone dying from it regardless.
Assume an effected area has a population of 1 million.
20% of 1M peeps = 200,000 dead peeps
1% of 1M peeps = 10,000 dead peeps
0.1% of 1M peeps = 1,000 dead peeps
Even 1% is a LOT of dead peeps yet in relative terms next to 20% quite small.
In the real world pool of victims is likely to be orders greater than 1M as contamination is distributed to nearby densely populated cities yet the percentage of cancer deaths much lower than 1%.
Even very small percentages of increased risk are still to borrow from Biden a "big fucking deal" they still translate to hundreds or thousands of real peeps dying that would have never happened anyway but vanishingly difficult to see with confidence using statistical methods because the 20% represents such a huge noise floor.
Waving your hands saying there are no confirmed radiation caused cancers is disingenuous and this is my only point. As mentioned earlier I am not against nuclear power especially inherently safe designs requiring no active components to prevent meltdowns all sounds quite reasonable to me. Fukushima was shit design - would be a mistake to use it as the poster child to prevent forward progress.
Haha, the glaciers in the Himalayas, greenland in 10 years !!! You don't know the context of any of this do you. I mean, you don't even know what was *really* said, and what *really* happened. But it sure makes you feel like you're onto something.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
While I agree that the opposition to GMOs is mainly based in irrational fears and anti-scientific sentiment, and that Greenpeace should, in theory, be a science based organization, most conservative attacks on environmentalists are really off-base, as in completely barking wrong. Lomborg makes arguments that sound good at face value, but he's one of the anti-science wingnuts at core, and has made absurd and incoherent claims about DDT.
Even in this case Lomborg has gone astray, and there are a number of material problems with what he says. In particular, the golden rice available 15 years ago did not have enough beta-carotine to have an effect -- a problem since remedied. Sure the new golden rice would have saved lives, if we could put it in a time machine and transport it back to 2000 . But why stop there? You could just claim that billions died because golden rice wasn't invented in antiquity. It really is a case of being trivially wrong.
I'm pro-science 100% down the line, which is why I support responsible use of GMOs, which means that they should be tested before letting them run rampart in the environment. Lomborg is a crank.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Oh I see. It's a classic case of, it doesn't fit my tidy little view of the world therefore I won't read it.
A smart person like you should know that newspapers and blogs are full of misinformation and plain bullsh*t. Obviously the GP doesn't know that Lomborg is an academic (albeit, a rather crazy one), but if he claims that newspaper articles are insufficient to change his mind, then that is fair enough. Provide some links to peer-reviewed literature, and if you're intellectually honest, provide links to *both* sides of a controversial debate, and trust that the truth will shine through.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Every extra solar panel and wind turbine added to the grid increases grid instability a little more.
This is true, but Germany has a *lot* of renewables right now. I think they need some modern nuclear as well. But don't think that they won't try and solve the grid problems.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
If the byproducts of fission reactors had such a long half-life, they would emit so little radiation in the short term it wouldn't be much of a threat.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Humanity lacks capability to "confirm" cause of radiation caused cancers.
A mathematical model is used to estimate how much additional cancer comes from radiation leaks. It is plausible, but not without controversy. If you want to learn something about estimating the human cost of a reactor accident, then read the TORCH report on chernobyl. (Unlike the WHO report, the TORCH report actually explains the underlying science and uncertainties with estimating cancers caused from radiation leaks.)
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
India and Europe also have extensive nuclear programs. Despite interference from the Dems, the USA still does a lot of nuclear research as well. Pebble reactors are an advancement, but have their problems. I'm hopeful that there will be failsafe breeder reactors in the future, and maybe Bill Gate's traveling-wave reactor research will provide a robust and decentralized solution to the energy situation.
Pebble reactors are a great idea. You can read about some of the history and problems here
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Climate models are not expected to predict such short term variability. To try and judge them on that just shows you don't understand what they do.
Then what do we judge them on? What's going to happen in 1,000 years?
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
And indeed, Golden Rice has all the problems associated with GMO crops, which is why Greenpeace protests it.
- A biological monoculture, increasing the risk that a single pest can cause immense damage to subsistence farmers throughout the region.
- The possibility of unknown pleiotropic effects ("side effects") caused by the mutation.
- Gene privatization, with Monsanto and others already asserting their patents, requiring farmers to obtain a license to grow their crops.
Besides, malnutrition in the third world is the result of widespread poverty, which has numerous causes, none of which is Greenpeace GMO protests. Blaming Greenpeace for that is absurd.
You can accomplish the same thing by ending all Coal, Oil, and Gas tax exemptions and below market rate leases for the same on public lands and oceans.
And then use the remaining cash after the deficit is all paid (about 4 times larger than the deficit) to literally provide low cost loans to US consumers and businesses to build solar, wind, and tidal energy nationwide. The main barrier is the capital cost to build these systems, not the operational costs.
Problem solved.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Pffft ... do they use oil to create electric power?
Oh no, they likely are also the number 12 in the world car owners, or close to it ... and/or use oil for heating.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The Koch brothers don't have a share of a Nobel prize for making a PowerPoint about climate change, nor do they pretend to tell everyone how to be more eco-friendly while zipping from venue to venue on a private fucking jet.
Apples and Oranges in this context.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
It's interesting to watch the different arguments from pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear forces. The pro-nuclear forces point out that building all new power plants as 100% renewable in the near future is not practical but a mixture of renewables and nuclear is. They go on to point out the relatively high rate of deaths from coal power (such as direct deaths in coal mines, and indirect deaths from air pollution) per unit of power generated, compared to the few deaths from nuclear. They may even then point out that petroleum power in general has a poor safety record compared to nuclear worldwide.
The anti-nuclear crowd, meanwhile, either focuses on a tiny number of accidents like Chernobyl and a couple of problematic, but non-lethal, old reactor designs (like the 1970 pebble-bed reactor mentioned by the parent), as if costly problems are unique to the nuclear industry. After all, why pay any attention to accidents, deaths or cost overruns in fossil-fuel power when we can simply make every single new power plant a renewable power plant? Never mind that not every place in the world has plentiful sunlight or wind. They then move on to the only argument about nuclear that is actually fair--that it often costs more than renewables.
Nuclear faces political and popular opposition, often due to outdated opinions based on a few unsafe reactors from the 60s and 70s (did you know that Fukushima reactor 1 was built before Chernobyl? Or that there is another nearby reactor run by a more safety-conscious company that survived the tsunami?). This opposition and regulatory uncertainty increases costs, plus reactors are traditionally built with the "craftsman" approach where every reactor is large, somewhat unique, and built on-site. It seems to me that costs could be reduced greatly if nuclear reactors were mass-produced like trucks (small reactors seem to work great for nuclear subs!) and distributed around the country from factories, and if they used passive failsafes to make uncontrolled meltdowns "impossible" so that outer containment chambers could be less costly.
But the public opposition is no small barrier to overcome. Remember how a Tesla car makes nationwide news whenever a single battery pack is damaged and catches fire, even though there are 150,000 vehicle fires reported every year in the U.S.? You can expect the same thing with small modular reactors--barring some terrible disaster, all sorts of problems with petroleum power plants will be scarcely noticed, while a single minor nuclear incident will make nationwide headlines. Surely this makes potential nuclear investors nervous.
Sure when you see the list of 70 articles, it looks compelling. However, a little thought should tell you that's it's pretty thin evidence for his claims. If you average it out, it's a mere 7 articles a year spread across the entire English speaking world. That not terribly surprising that some articles would be written about it, given the combination of some unusually cold weather and the not-yet-settled debate in the climate science about whether the long-term natural cooling trend (plus aerosols) or shorter-term anthropogenic warming trend would be the primary driver for climate change in the near future.
Of course, as I often find when I look at the Watt's Up blog, the evidence only passes a friendly cursory review. Several of those 70 articles are repostings of the same article in different newpapers, and even more troubling is that some of the articles in that list aren't even about global cooling. For instance, they list a 1977 Times cover story called The Big Freeze. Apparently, it's about a cold and snowy winter, not a coming ice age.
Of course, this is not unexpected. Anthony Watts always seems to hold people who disagree with him to a much higher standard than those he agrees with. Just look at his treatment of Mueller who was an unquestionable god of climate science right up until he tried to tell Anthony Watts something he didn't want to hear, then suddenly he was a turn coat who sold out.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
but that 0.1% makes for a very eco-inspiring country side!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Being able to read is not enough.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Nice how you blame the corps, but the inverse, getting your average USian to give up their 'luxuries' is equally as undoable!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Get your head straight.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
because 'intelligence' = 'fascism'?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
It is easy to point the finger at utility companies for 'overcharging' for connections to their grid...
But the $3k is in addition to a monthly fee for being connected to the grid, so they're double dipping. Really, they're just extorting extra profit because they are allowed to get away with it. Their profits are still increasing every year so they can't complain they are losing money over solar. They are a monopoly and as such are supposed to be regulated by the PUC. The PUC isn't doing their job, which can only be explained by either incompetence or corruption. If they were putting that money into infrastructure upgrades instead of lining their own pockets then the cost of those infrastructure upgrades could legitimately be considered by the PUC when the PUC sets the rates, but that's not the case.
The point is, he uses less than he could. Harm reduction.
Fukushima was nasty. It killed about two people. Hydroelectric killed 160,000 when Banqiao failed. When the original Niagra Falls dam failed, it wiped out a couple of towns. I don't know the inflation-adjusted cost off hand, but it wasn't minor. Coal mining accidents have killed thousands. There's liability risk for any workable option. For some reason , the safest option (by several orders of magnitude) is the one the government wants billions in liability reserve for.
Have you ever heard of a hydroelectric operator being required to deposit billions of dollars in case they have an accident? No, which is interesting since hydro has FAR more accidents.
We're talking about two different things. You're talking about what IS happening. My comment was about what CAN happen, what's POSSIBLE by the laws of physics.
If 10 million windmills magically appeared tomorrow, that wouldn't provide for most of our energy needs, because most of the time, the wind isn't blowing at the right speed.
Similarly, there is a certain amount of water in the rivers. Those rivers start at a certain altitude. The weight of the water multiplied by the distance it falls is the potential energy. To capture the energy in the water, you have to build dams. To capture more energy, you build bigger dams, holding bigger reservoirs (more tons of water). In order to have enough energy to meet our needs, the reservoirs would need to cover 1/3rd of the United States. It simply isn't possible.
I'm not saying it's unlikely, or that it's not politically viable, I'm talking about what's physically possible. The physics is such that there are two/three sources that have enough energy. Nuclear can, mathematically, provide enough. Old fashioned fossil fuels DO provide the majority. Clean fossil (natural gas and clean coal) can, at least for awhile. Wind cannot. It doesn't matter how many windmills you have, because at the moment it's not windy out.
As defined by the World Meteorological Organization the classical climate period is 30 years, long enough for the short term variations to average out but short enough for longer term variations to be discerned. So a reasonable judgement would be how well the model output matches the 30 year running mean of global temperature. You'll have to wait 15 years to see how well they match 2014.
Better yet you can learn a bit more about how climate models work by reading these FAQs written by Gavin Schmidt, one of the principles for the NASA/GISS Model E, one of the worlds major climate models:
FAQ on climate models
FAQ on climate models: Part II
He also wrote a post On mismatches between models and observations that is very interesting. It shows that he understands very well the issues involved in models and data collection.
And finally here is an Ars Technica article on Why trust climate models? It's a matter of simple science.
You made me laugh.
It still amazes me TMI is even mentioned in the same paragraph as Chernobyl or Fukishima. Yes, I can well imagine TMI scared a lot of people who lived near it, but ultimately not much happened outside the plant.
as if costly problems are unique to the nuclear industry
I'll tell you what is unique to the nuclear industry. Other industries have costly problems, they insure, and get on with it. A construction company paid out a huge sum in compensation for an under-construction building collapse recently in my country.
Nuclear industry insists on immunity from consequences of any accident. Not very confidence inspiring, wouldn't you say?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Ok, so why are nuclear equipment builders and suppliers running away from having to pay compensation if equipment is found to have caused the accident ? In fact the "global standard" is for builders to have no liability!
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Every hydro dam that isn't full is an energy storage system. It can follow load demand. With its turbine generating full time (but variable load) regardless.
I'm not against having economical energy storage. My contention is that purely pumped hydro doesn't get many viable sites. Some countries have none or extremely few.
But the specific characteristics of wind turbines are extreme. They vary too much constantly. I'm not saying no to wind. I'm just saying that I have a big issue with saying we have the solution with solar+wind+energy storage alone, when the storage component is still perhaps a decade from becoming economical on a GWh scale.
I'm not against solar or wind. I'm against those that say we don't need nuclear cause "renewables alone" are a sufficient solution.
I'm pro geothermal power, but against those that ignore geothermal is produced by very inefficient thorium consumption (decay) in the earths core. Thorium is as renewable an energy source as geothermal. Thorium decay produces radioactive radon gas, which is one of the radioactivity sources we inhale from constantly. It seeps from the ground continously.
There is no question that Fukushima could have been avoided. With a cheap solution (moving the generators from the basement to higher floors, increasing tsunami defenses height, either would have done the job). And those exact suggestions were made to TEPCO years prior to Fukushima. But since they were suggestion instead of mandatory, and TEPCO was cash strapped, they thought since the reactors were fine for 35 years, why they needed to change.
I wish those anti nuclear can conduct a serious honest study that proves your point, and that they announce they are going to conduct such study and publish the results regardless if they prove or disprove their point. My contention is we get no such honesty from anti nuclear folks, anything they might stumble upon that is pro nuclear is censured inside.
I hope they succeed and that we know the honest cost to fix it.
My main contention with the trillion euro number is the solution can't be applied in less developed countries.
I'm not cheering for them to fail. I'm just being honest about the risks of failure.
I'm specially worried about the risk of them not investing on nuclear and never reaching significant CO2 emissions reductions.
The reality is in other forums populated by a few very anti nuclear germans, they see nuclear as absolutely unacceptable. There are way too many people that are like that. So I have some serious doubt Germany will ever build another nuclear power plant until "they feel the shit has hit the fan".
Everyone uses less than they could. I don't have a giant natural gas flaring operation in my back yard, even though I could.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"Keeping old plants online is simply the capitalist thing to do: They're bought and paid for and still work. Why would you shut them down?"
In theory, fission-based nuclear energy is quite workable. In practice so far, within either a Soviet command economy or a Western capitalist economy, the "externalities" of systemic risk of meltdown (like Fukushima) have not been accounted for in up-front costs. So, these plants have never been "paid for". It is just that the general public has been forced to take on a risk, either as individuals or as a society. Fukushima is a tragic example of this. And many people affected by Fukushima are just left to pay many of the disastrous costs on their own, plus taxes go up for everyone, plus there are many other costs (like inspecting Japanese seafood or seaweed for radiation). So, the cost of Fukushima was not paid for up front. If the plants had been shut down sooner, huge future costs would have been avoided. Because capitalistic organizations eventually specialize in internalizing profits while socializing risks and costs and capturing their regulators via revolving doors and (legal) bribes, high risk nuclear power is a particularly difficult thing for such societies to manage. Sure, we could build much safer reactors, including probably thorium ones, but even now plans for new reactors are not fully fail-safe. TRIGA is an example of an alternative that is much more fail-safe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
Of course, I could say much the same for coal plants and their environmental affects. as externalities. Oil dependency also has huge costs in military defense of supply lines and pollution risks like the Exxon Valdez in Alaska or recently the US Gulf Coast.
That is why many renewables (as well as energy efficiency) have been cheaper than fossil fuels since the 1970s, all things considered. But all things were not considered, so we got coal and oil and bug health costs and big defense costs all paid either on health insurance premiums or taxes, not electric bills or at the gasoline pump. Even PV has externalities (including potentially cadmium runoff from some types of panels, as well as potentially blighting the landscape), although overall they are probably much less than coal and oil, and ideas like "solar roadways" may reduce the blight problem, as well as reduce the need for above ground electrical wires.
http://www.solarroadways.com/i...
"The Solar Roadway is a series of structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon. The idea is to replace all current petroleum-based asphalt roads, parking lots, and driveways with Solar Road Panels that collect energy to be used by our homes and businesses."
With the costs of PV solar falling as predicted decades ago, to now reaching "grid parity" in more and more areas, it is rapidly becoming uneconomical to install anything but solar, especially as battery and fuel cell technology continues to improve for energy storage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
"Predictions from the 2006 time-frame expected retail grid parity for solar in the 2016 to 2020 era, but due to rapid downward pricing changes, more recent calculations have forced dramatic reductions in time scale, and the suggestion that solar has already reached grid parity in a wide variety of locations."
Hot fusion or cold (LENR) fusion may change that equation. I don't see fission being more cost effective than solar anytime soon though, although maybe factory-made micro reactors (like Hyperion) will prove me wrong on that.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Like at Chernobyl, as I suggest here: http://p2pfoundation.net/backu... ... So, despite the problems, half-seriously, I suggest designating the NY Adirondack Park (where I live) for a nuclear waste disposal of glassified (vitrified) apple-sized lumps of waste. :-) That would be very good for a resurgence of wildlife in the Park. I might move out, but I would know a place I love would be "forever wild" for sure. :-)"
"At SUNY Stony Brook, I knew one grad student who studied wildlife (turtles) in a reservation around a nuclear contaminated area, and while there was more mutations, in general, the wildlife was thriving [because human activities including hunting and habitat destruction were effectively excluded].
See also: "Chernobyl Area Becomes Wildlife Haven"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The article you linked to isn't as clear as it should be, but it does indicate the problem with the law in India. If I manufacture AA batteries, or example, and I sell $300 of batteries that end up at a nuclear power station, I'd be liable for $300,000,000 in case of an accident. Why would anyone take on a $300,000,000 liability to make a $300 sale? It would be kind of dumb to provide any of the odds and ends needed for a nuclear reactor in India, until their law is "tweaked". Suppose you have the contract to mow the grass at the power station. That contract pays $100 / week. If one of your guys bumps into the wrong thing with the mower, you're liable for a nuclear accident. It's not worth it, so nobody would take the lawn contract at a an Indian power plant.
So I have some serious doubt Germany will ever build another nuclear power plant until "they feel the shit has hit the fan".
True, but they may be able to figure it out anyway. We are talking about one of the best engineering cultures ever, and a society with great institutions.
The nuclear crowd like to paint renewables as expensive, but it is a lie. Wind is cheaper than every other source of electricity except natural gas. (Look up levelized cost of energy by source.) Solar is only twice as expensive as nuclear. But the kicker is when you realize that renewables are coming down in price *fast*, and 20 years from now, even solar easily be half the price of the next best technology. Material science really is progressing that fast. Renewables have other advantages, like small capital costs, which make them better investments. The third world is building coal for now, but not too much longer. It is simply economics.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Well you had to live during the whole TMI episode to understand the panic it created. Sadly it was a turning point for nuclear power in this country. After that Jimmy Carter pulled the permits for all proposed nuclear plants and stopped the TVA for example in their tracks on 4 plants that were in progress. He and his buds in congress the bureaucratic nightmare that is now the DOE. That kind of knee-jerk reaction pushed investors away and you have to look around and see that. Until 2013 there has been no ground-breaking on new plants since 1977, the same year as TMI. So if you want to see how one administration can doom an industry in this country, look at TMI and the ripple effects. TMI was minor but the public became afraid and movies like the "The China Syndrome" didn't help either. These plants were built on investments mostly through bonds or by the Federal Government in the case of the TVA and investors want safe returns on their money and because of TMI, nuclear became a pariah in the US. Look at the whole Yucca Mountain situation if you need a refresher course on how jammed up things can become.
I won't argue that nuclear power is cheaper overall, in most cases it isn't. It is efficient given the size/complexity of the plant and the output it produces. It's cleaner than coal or burning gas on many levels. It is a political football and if you look at the closing of San Onofre you can see that everybody including DC based ass-clowns want to get into the act. I used to surf at San Onofre beach right next to the plant and it was always great because the water was warmer from the cooling water released back into the ocean near offshore. It was fine then, it'd be fine now but politics is politics as they say.
That's why authoritarian/autocratic societies will be able to expand the use of nuclear power faster than democracies and while we may push for solar nuclear is in the same boat as to why we don't consider large hydro projects either in this country because a) we've pretty much exhausted most of aquifer systems necessary for large scale hydro b) environmental impact studies take decades and we might hurt the fish (see snail darter for a reference) c) tree-hugging morons who are the same idiots against nuclear power. These folks still tool around in pre-1980s VW vans for example and vacation at Burning Man. Sure we can do more wind power but now we kill bald eagles, hawks and other birds so that's bad oh wait, what about more solar? Yeah, with nearly 100% imported technology we give away our engineering skills, money and competitive advantage to nations ultimately selling us out now and for future generations.
One thing I can agree with with the IPCC is that human activity is fucking up the planet but we live here and in order to live in the confines of our modern society that requires energy. Ultimately energy choices will dictate, as they always have, what nations/regions of the planet will be successful and thrive while others will either wither into pre-industrial decay or keep being places where they mine conflict diamonds and other resources for those successful nations who take an aggressive approach to energy production.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Except when you consider the cost of the peaking sources or energy storage to give you a 99.9999% stable electrical grid.
If a wind turbine gives you cheap electricity when the wind is blowing, it doesn't make it cheaper than natural gas, because gas will produce when you want it to produce.
Solar is the same thing.
Plus you are conveniently disregarding the cost of the real state used to install the solar panels. That's why I like rooftop solar, while I have little respect for those huge desert solar farms.
We need a solution to make desert land perfectly livable. We need massive scale desalinization of seawater. The only people that can say they have an economical proposal to do that is the LFTR nuclear reactor (using waste heat means it's having zero or a tiny impact on the reactors electricity generation capacity).
That's why I reject this statement of fact about the cost of solar and wind connected to the grid. Show me a real world system with zero fossil fuel energy sources being used, and then we can make a real world evaluation about the cost of wind and solar instead of a biased one like what you quote.
This is why we always are locked in this circular debate. Baseload and peaking electricity sources are an essential characteristic of today's grid, and will probably be for another 20 years. Saying baseload is an outdated concept is an extreme exercise in wishful thinking.
If a wind turbine gives you cheap electricity when the wind is blowing, it doesn't make it cheaper than natural gas, because gas will produce when you want it to produce.
The levelized cost of energy takes this into account. Read about it. It's very complex. There are grid stability issues, and nuclear must surely be part of a complete zero-carbon energy system.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Oddly enough, because I have 'tree hugging' tendencies, I fully support nuclear power. It's the one tech we have for power that when done right releases no pollutants into the environment and otherwise minimises it's impact. No flooded land and disturbed fish and no chopped eagles.
I *was* alive then. And thought the whole business was blown waaaaay out of proportion.
The panic was induced by the anti-nuke mob that were looking for any excuse they could get to ban nuclear power.
And thanks to a President that was a complete dolt, they pretty much managed it....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Yes, the article is not the best, but this is the one I found in a hurry that deals with the complete issue at once rather than a one day news update at a time. All this transpired over some months so better articles are some 50 in number, each adding a bit to the story so far. But the issue is quite famous.
And no, you are caricaturing the isssue by your battery example. India is not going to Canadian manufacturer for $300 batteries. The agreements being discussed are for billion dollar deals, over years.
If someone were saying it is ridiculously easy to not cause an accident at nuclear plants by making a mistake in mowing grass, yet no company is ready to undertake that including the risk even at twice market rates, this is a serious argument against it being ridiculously easy to not cause accident, right?
And India is ready to limit liability of manufacturer upto purchase price, but manufacturers are STILL not ready. That tells about their confidence in their own technology, doesn't it?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I *was* alive then.
Glad your back from the dead then. Was it covered by your Health Insurance?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
> no company is ready to undertake that including the risk even at twice market rates, this is a serious argument against it being ridiculously easy to not cause accident, right?
Twice market rates would be $200 ($120 profit). Is is smart to risk $200 million in order to make $120? No.
And, they do need to buy batteries from somewhere, and right now it would be stupid for anyone to sell batteries to them.
France has not done well with nuclear power. Sure they get most of their electricity from nuclear power plants, however despite their lead in reprocessing France still has trouble with storage. While reprocessing allows spent fuel to be reused and shortens it's half-life doing so creates toxins and hotter fuel.
As far as building nuclear power plants go state planners on free market determines what gets built. CATO, that is the institute "dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace" printed the article "Hooked on Subsidies that was first published in the November 26, 2007 issue of "Forbes". The opening statements is "Why conservatives should join the left’s campaign against nuclear power." Further down it says:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Now if private businesses want to build nuclear power plants they should get, and pay for, their own insurance. They would also have to finance the construction, not government. I might even invest in such a company that uses thorium as it's fuel. Provided the finances come out good.
FalconWolf
Should there be a Law?
At this point Greenpeace is as stuck in its position of advocating against Nuclear Energy as the NRA is against gun control, and they are both looking like obstacles to any positive change in the status quo
I oppose taxpayers paying for nuclear power. Actually I advocate eliminating all subsidies. And don't think energy companies aren't subsidized. Allocation of subsidies in the United States lists some subsidies different energy producers received between 1950 and 2010. Nuclear power received $73 billion in federal subsidies. "BusinessWeek" has the article When It Comes to Government Subsidies, Dirty Energy Still Cleans Up date 21 October 2012..
I also support the NRA and their stance on gun controls. The only effective gun control is when the shooter hits what they aim at. And if they hit someone they should pay for it. I find it ironic the first "environmentalists", those who cared for the environment, were conservationists and hunters. Now how can hunters be environmentalists? They kill wildlife. Guess what, they also want the environment that that wildlife lives in to be clean and not polluted. Teddy Roosevelt was an avid hunter who as president created the National Park Service. He wanted to preserve wild lands for hunting among other reasons. Many hunters supported this too.
FalconWolf
Should there be a Law?
> of course you conveniently ignored that manufacturers do not even want a liability with an upper bound at the sale price.
Of course they WANT no liability. They WANT Jessica Biel, wearing nothing but whipped cream, too. Neither of those is reality, so I don't know how that's relevant.
Yrs, under current law in India, anyone providing any products or services to a can be held liable. Anyone includesanyone who sells them batteries for their smoke detector. If something scary were to happen, the lawyers may well sue everyone and see what sticks. It's clear you don't run a business. The most worrisome thing isn't that you actually screw up and ARE liable. Most if the cost is that someone sues you and you have to spend millions s prove that you aren't liable, then hope that the jury doesn't decide "someone needs to pay".
What a disgusting little weasel you are. When your made up "facts" failed to impress you've made an empty appeal to authority about a completely different topic. Please use that education and life experience instead of acting like a teenage school debate club member.
Every sentence in your post about Indian law and business environment is false. Most verifiable by 15 second Google search, some run deeper - might take 10 minutes.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Honestly, I'm not paid to post here. This helps me think, blow steam. Like J.K.Rowling once said, if I stop writing, I'll go insane.
Plus this goes around in circles anyways. It's not like this will be the ultimate argument that will settle this subject forever.
I have already explained all my opinions on this subject. You don't need further answers from me.
I know I can't silence anybody with an opinion, I'm not looking to a formal I give up.
Bottom line is while Solar and Wind work just fine for small scale projects (compared to retail electricity prices), I'm still unconvinced about solar PV and wind turbines on a utility scale until I see a real world example for a half a million or larger isolated grid running on such sources. Every assertion that I'm not thinking, and that perhaps with more thinking I would see the light, no, I'm not going to think further, I'm waiting for a real world proof that it works until I believe. Then we can sort out the economics in a real world system. Until then, I believe in baseload and peaking sources. I believe that in solar+wind could scale up to 20% of total grid generation (with lots of load following like hydro, biomass and natural gas), but I'm convinced a grid 50% wind+solar will be seriously unstable with current tech.
My opinion is we desperately need to loose the anti nuclear attitude. If nuclear were that risky, I'm sure we would see hundreds of former nuclear workers with cancers, showing symptoms of radiation sickness and other serious bad stuff. Instead what I see is lots of conjecture based on FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Green Peace has a US$ 200 million / yr budget. They have the money to do some serious studies and publish them. But I'm fully convinced those on the anti nuclear side are locked in a view that nuclear can't possibly be good, that their job isn't to sort out the truth, instead their job is to throw as much dirt as possible on the subject (exact definition of FUD). And I'm pissed that how ridiculous it has become. Since Three Mile Island we see a pattern of extreme dire predictions that are always off by a factor of 200 to 10000 in level of exaggeration and they never seem to learn. So, yeah, that's my agenda. I'm like youtube thunderf00t, I'm in it so cleanup the BS. I'm pro nuclear because I think we are killing the goose that is laying golden eggs every day. Until I see the likes of you starting a nuclear discussion agreeing that Chernobyl didn't kill one million or even 200 thousand people like predicted, but about 6000. Until you agree that the prediction that the Pacific is lost is totally bonkers. Like some guy measuring naturally occurring uranium / thorium radiation in a California beach as proof Fukushima radiation has poisoned his beloved beach. Or just cause some fish has measured borderline radiation levels over recommended maximums means eating that fish would be even a minimal radiation risk. Those levels are set because we can't experiment on people to find out what are the real risks, so they are utterly conservative. Or the fact that right now, the radiation exposure at the areas evacuated present a lower risk to life than living in downtown Tokyo, but Tokyo isn't being evacuated, while the Fukushima evacuation is still in place. Or that the health hazard of having a smoking parent is like an order of magnitude higher risk of cancer than living less than a mile from the Fukushima Daichi.
Unless you can agree to those logical pieces of data, don't see much of a point in arguing anything else.
Bye bye.
I never suggested that. However in hindsight you are acting as if you were so I can understand now why you decided you needed to point out that you are recycling silly propaganda for free.
You have stated that you are no longer a child. I suggest acting accordingly and lay off the stupid lies or you will get people taking you to task for such stupid lies.
Oh yeah, if anybody is pro nuclear must be either misguided or a paid propagandist.
While the anti nuclear folks predicts a massive catastrophe after each nuclear accident and are shown to be exaggerating the effects by an order of 1000 in average.
Any presence of radioactivity anywhere is a sure sign of cancers, they don't prove those cancers are happening, content with throwing mud at nuclear. Raising doubt is enough. Come to think of it, those anti nuclear really sound like the paid ones, because they are shown to be radically alarmists all the time.
I'm not a fan of current pressurized water+solid fuel reactors but they are the only solution we know for sure we can solve climate change with total certainty. A paid nuclear propagandist would say LWR reactors are the eight wonder of the world. I want reactors that can't suffer accidents because they are fully passively safe instead of safe through a dozen active safety systems. I have debated this with lots of nuclear technologists that feel that LWR reactors are just fine, thank you.
So I love molten salt reactors because all technical materials about them show me they are truly walk away safe. They aren't pressure cookers trying to throw radiation into the atmosphere. Favorite design is a Fluoride (Lithium and Berrilyum) design. Actually inside the reactor everything is a Fluoride (Uranium, Thorium, Plutonium, Caesium, ...). All of those nuclear atoms and fission products fluorides are solids or dense liquids even at modestly high temps, so they don't want to go into the atmosphere. It changes the whole ballgame.
I'm 41 BTW. My core area of expertise is IT and Telecom, but I would call myself a scientist of everything I work at, since I'm always trying to expand the proverbial box substantially all the time. I question everything. But above all, I have a huge problem with the lack of honesty of those with an anti nuclear stance. I'm also a private pilot, and I see all the time the sensationalism thrown at each aircraft accident, and all the BS invented by the media for maximum sensationalism. Nuclear gets the same badgering, but its worse, cause we have even less nuclear accidents than aircraft ones.
I didn't say anything about nuclear one way or another which is why I'm calling your distraction and accusations childish.
Oh FFS. Act your age.
I don't recall the Koch brothers saying I had to reduce my energy usage and carbon footprint, while sitting in a house that drew the power of 20+ families
pure bullshit
his 300 employees (at the time) were in 40 field offices
the reality is he pushes scams to increase the value of his "green" portfolio, while living hedonist lifestyle in that mansion that takes power of 20+ families, all the whle telling us to decrease our standard of living and energy consumption. hypocrite of the vilest sort.
I like nuclear power, but the grid can be stable with mostly renewables. I don't know about Germany's plans in details, but if they didn't include energy storage (pumped hydro, batteries, etc..) as part of the plan, of course they would hit a wall with how much sun/wind they can use at any particular time.
Get a grip. Without nuclear, there's no hope to solve climate change
Very true, if we do not invest in any energy storage.
The Germany plan includes two ways to preserve electricity when they over produce and retrieve it when they have a shortfall:
1 - It does include LOTS of pumped hydro, but the total of Germany's pumped hydro capacity is insufficient to store all overproduction
2 - Exporting electricity to its neighbors (at a lower price) and buying it back when there is a shortfall (at a higher price), but since that electricity is mostly nuclear and fossil, it represents an on demand peaking source
Now they are shifting to investing on battery based electricity storage solutions (far more expensive than pumped hydro), specially having citizens owning large PV installations storing electricity themselves, such that they can limit selling overproduction during sunny summer days and use that overproduction in the night, and can buy off peak electricity in winter nights after peak hours are gone and consume it during the day (in the peak of winter PV systems produce less than 1/10th of summertime peak production, so they are close to useless in the winter).
Funny thing is pumped hydro works much better with nuclear, since nuclear can produce 24x7 at 100% power (except for refuelling and maintenance outtages both planned), such that pumped hydro can be cycled almost fully on a daily basis, while energy storage capacity needs to be maintained for any periods when the wind underproduces for a few hours any time in the winter or in summer nights.
That's the advantage of having a fully predictable electricity source (nuclear) versus a intermittent electricity source (solar is mostly predictable, while wind isn't very much predictable).
the way Gore lives is as a wealthy man, the 1%. He is the wingnut, asking us to sacrifice the benefits of our energy-driven civilization to live like peasants.