Finland To Introduce Law Next Year Phasing Out Coal (reuters.com)

They are going to dig it all up and burn it by jfdavis668 · 2017-09-03 03:47 · Score: 1, Funny

So no one will ever be able to use it again...

Re: They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:53 · Score: 0

Again??
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2017-09-03 05:53 · Score: 0

So no one will ever be able to use it again...
Oh, nature recycles it. When coal is burned, it is converted into CO2, which ends up in the atmosphere. Plants & trees "breathe" in the CO2 from the atmosphere and "burn" it for energy, which converts it back into coal again in the plants & trees. The plants & trees then "poop" out the coal back through the roots into the ground . . .
. . . for the next, great generation of coal miners to dig up yet again, and thus repeating this great journey of life!

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Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Maxo-Texas · 2017-09-03 06:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's not how coal forms.
That's not even close to how coal forms.

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She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Maxo-Texas · 2017-09-03 06:26 · Score: 1

http://www.cbv.ns.ca/coalnovas...
Here...
By the time any coal forming today is usable as coal, human civilization (and maybe humans themselves) won't be recognizable.

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She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Kazymyr · 2017-09-03 06:27 · Score: 1

If coal is illegal, then only outlaws will have coal!

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I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 07:55 · Score: 0

I mean its sort of close.....as long as the next great generation of coal miners is in the far far future.
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 07:56 · Score: 0

Whoosh. Twice.
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by tlambert · 2017-09-03 07:58 · Score: 1

By the time any coal forming today is usable as coal, human civilization (and maybe humans themselves) won't be recognizable.
Because we'll all be wearing disguises?
Re: They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Thundercat007 · 2017-09-03 11:06 · Score: 1

Also it'll become illegal for diesel vehicle owners to claim they're "rollin coal".
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 20:55 · Score: 0

Peatlands are also endangered, because we keep digging it up to reclaim the land or use for things like fires, fertilizer, or they're eroded by other nearby changes. And they're smaller than they were historically. There will some left to form coal in the future, but those deposits are unlikely to be as large as the ones we're consuming now.
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by haruchai · 2017-09-03 21:15 · Score: 2

By the time any coal forming today is usable as coal, human civilization (and maybe humans themselves) won't be recognizable.
Because we'll all be wearing disguises?
Yes. The same way the dinosaurs who were around when the coal we dig up now was still plant matter are now disguised as birds

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Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 00:32 · Score: 0

Except that the era of trees that do not compose is long over. There will be no (appreciable) new coal.
Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-05 05:54 · Score: 0

Nope, not since microbes learned to digest lignin

great! lower prices by turkeydance · 2017-09-03 03:50 · Score: 1

lowered demand same supply

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by denzacar · 2017-09-03 03:59 · Score: 1

You've never even seen coal, let alone used it for fuel.

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Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Viol8 · 2017-09-03 04:05 · Score: 5, Informative

"upgrade to coal"

I think the last time that phrase was actually valid was some time in the 18th century when the first steam engine was built.

Apparently you don't understand the fundamental problems with coal.

A) its produces the largest amount of CO2 per BTU of any fossil fuel

B) It doesn't matter how much you wash it, it still pollutes horribly even if you ignore the CO2 mainly due to sulphur dioxide and particulates in the smoke.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Ayano · 2017-09-03 04:05 · Score: 2

Now if every household used coal just like you, we'd look just like china!

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I don't read AC

Haha by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:07 · Score: 0

More like (((slash dot))), am I right?

They'll have clean coal by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:07 · Score: 2, Informative

That's how you actually get clean coal: Stop using that shit.

Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Viol8 · 2017-09-03 04:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

At least some countries have the balls to give the finger to the ignorant CND hippies who still equate nuclear power with nuclear weapons because they have the square root of fuck all clue about the different types of reactor design.

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by burtosis · 2017-09-03 04:19 · Score: 4, Informative

That and they seem to be on top of proper disposal unlike here in the US and elsewhere. These social democracies seem to be the least dysfunctional and have the highest quality of life for citizens. It's a shame it can't be properly reprocessed but that's the state of affairs in the world today. Nuclear is a far better option than coal for a variety of reasons. Until battery capacity becomes extremely cheap, countries will need a near zero emission method of creating necessary base loads if they want to generate energy responsibly.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:26 · Score: 0

Some of those hippies sure do know more about the dangers of nuclear waste than you. If that weren't the case you wouldn't be so enthusiastic about nuclear energy. It's a very fascinating technology but the long term problems that it causes far outweigh the immediate benefits that it might have.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:37 · Score: 0

There is no proper way to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Only ways that are less dangerous than others, statistically speaking. What convinced you that the situation in Finland is significantly better than in, say, Germany?
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:57 · Score: 0

And you aren't a competent troll
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by jedidiah · 2017-09-03 05:02 · Score: 2

When you are the size of one of several large American cities in terms of population, EVERY problem is tiny and a lot easier to solve.

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A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by jedidiah · 2017-09-03 05:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

> Some of those hippies sure do know more about the dangers of nuclear waste than you.
We've had the means to re-use spent fuel since the 70s. Anti-nuke hysteria has kept the industry from moving forward with new and better ideas.
Meanwhile, we just kill ourselves more slowly in our attempts to avoid nuclear power. Coal is really a great example of that.

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A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by amorsen · 2017-09-03 05:06 · Score: 2

So, dissolve the US, make the states into nations, and every problem is tiny and a lot easier to solve?

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Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 05:43 · Score: 0

You don't know what you're talking about. Nuclear is not the only alternative to coal either.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 05:53 · Score: 1

With the predominant western winds in Finnland, during a catastrophe the fallout will be blown over Russia and the Baltic states.
You might think, not bad if the Russians get it back, what they deserve.
But then again we will have something like 4million Finns and 12million from the Baltic states evacuated and being displaced over the rest of the EU.
I wonder how many states will do a BREXIT when we get 20million refugees inside of Europe.
Ah .... that was not your point, or was it? Seems I got drawn away ...

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 05:55 · Score: 1

That would be to easy asa solution.
Because then they later would need to reform a North American Union like the European Union, where the "central government" equalizes peoples rights over the whole Union.
That concept would be completely alien to the current citizens of the land of the free.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 05:57 · Score: 1

We've had the means to re-use spent fuel since the 70s
No you have not.
The USA has no rectors that can use spent fuel in any meaningful way.
You simply don't know what spent fuel is and what reprocessing means and does.
Bottom line, you are just an idiot.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Billly+Gates · 2017-09-03 06:30 · Score: 1

Too bad it requires far more coal to process the uranium than what you would save using nuclear energy. What? You thought Uranium 238 is everywhere and simple to extract?

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http://saveie6.com/
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by MangoCats · 2017-09-03 06:50 · Score: 1

Especially when you have massive tracts of stable, uninhabited mountain ranges in which to stash the radioactive waste. I often wonder why the quality of life surveys in places like Finland are so high - I think it correlates with the weather, if quality of life weren't high the weather would certainly drive population to zero.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 06:50 · Score: 0

Not true in terms of how our health care system has to handle rare medical conditions .Our population is so tiny that there are fields in medicine within which it makes no sense for anyone to be specialized in. A specialist that gets one patient every ten years can't even be skilled and it's most definitely not cost efficient to have such a specialist employed somewhere. That is a big problem for those affected by rare conditions and the not-so-simple and definitely not cheap solution is that such patients get sent abroad for treatment (usually Germany or the US). Everyone is entitled to see a specialist no matter what condition you have but even if you then get high quality care, friends and family have to fly across the pond if they wish to come and see you.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Applehu+Akbar · 2017-09-03 07:57 · Score: 1

Shaddap faggot you aren't a nuclear engineer of any type.
The steel in your bridge came from a Korean nuclear smelter.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-09-03 07:59 · Score: 1

How do borders or their absence change the picture of the specialist not being present in your small area?

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Hognoxious · 2017-09-03 08:04 · Score: 1

The USA has no rectors that can use spent fuel in any meaningful way.

This is because graduating in both physics and theology is quite a tall order.

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by tlambert · 2017-09-03 08:09 · Score: 2

There is no proper way to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Only ways that are less dangerous than others, statistically speaking. What convinced you that the situation in Finland is significantly better than in, say, Germany?
Well, for one thing, they have no Germans.
For another, they have spent fuel reprocessing plants, and so they don't really have nuclear waste, to speak of; instead, they have more fuel for the reactors, and a bunch of medical grade nuclear materials.
For, you know, treating prostate and brain cancer, performing medical imaging, and so on.
The U.S. isn't reprocessing their waste, and since plutonium production is almost entirely shut dow, the U.S. tends to buy its medical radioactives from other countries.
The U.S. appears to prefer to store their spent nuclear fuel in pools of water, like Japan did in Fukushima, rather than reprocessing it like a civilized country.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by tlambert · 2017-09-03 08:12 · Score: 1

You don't know what you're talking about. Nuclear is not the only alternative to coal either.
You've been watching too much "Star Gate Atlantis".
When you've created a working zero point energy module, let me know, and I'll go to Walmart and buy it.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by tlambert · 2017-09-03 08:19 · Score: 1

We've had the means to re-use spent fuel since the 70s
No you have not.
The U.S. has a fully built-out, functional-yet-mothballed reprocessing facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Funds were first allocated for bringing it online in 2010. It was mothballed rather than activated, during the Obama administration.
Re: Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 08:28 · Score: 0

Lutheranism as opposed to Calvinism, some American dude recently argued, is a precursor to the Nordic models. Calvin's idea was that if you got rich, you were blessed by the big sky kahuna. (Wealth is a reflection of being elected for favor.) Luther's was more the idea of everyone being basically answerable to their society as well as themselves. You can guess which flavor of Protestantism is prevalent where.
Not a Christian, and that is way oversimplifying it, I admit.
As for Olkiluoto, Finns generally tend to regard sloppy work with outrage, since if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well, because oh shit, people are gunna think we're dumb or something if we make a mistake.
Double that oh shit if you mess up something on an ecological scale, because the hate-love relationship with nature also dictates that it's THEIR collective nature from whence the mighty hunters and farmers magically lived... not so romanticized lives.
That said, having to not buy oil and gas from Russia is probably totally something of a downplayed reason for celebration.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 08:39 · Score: 1

Yes, and how much fuel do you regain if you reprocess spent fuel? Hm? Any idea?
Guess not ...

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by youngone · 2017-09-03 12:06 · Score: 1

These social democracies seem to be the least dysfunctional and have the highest quality of life for citizens.

You're right, and the US could have an even better standard of living, but no-one quite does propaganda like the US so you have to spend all that tax money on never ending overseas wars and the worst health system possible instead of a decent life for everyone.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by dave420 · 2017-09-03 18:06 · Score: 1

Then why don't smaller states in the US function as well? This "but we so biiig" argument is banal and only ensures to further the problems.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 18:08 · Score: 0

Ahh yes. The "burn the house down" solution to cooking dinner.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by dafdaf · 2017-09-03 18:18 · Score: 1

There is no proper way to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Only ways that are less dangerous than others, statistically speaking. What convinced you that the situation in Finland is significantly better than in, say, Germany?
Well, for one thing, they have no Germans.
Well, the Germans temporarily store the nasty stuff in abandoned salt mines while the people of finland to my knowledge are the only ones working on a long term solution: the Onkalo nuclear waste repository. There is a very beautiful documentary about this endeavor (building time >100 Years !). It's called: Towards the end of Time. Worth watching !

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To error is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the OS.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 19:06 · Score: 0

"North American Union like the European Union"
The EU is just another unelected bunch of bureaucrats. Leave it to the Europeans to insert another level government on top of their existing national governments. The EU is in trouble. It's been in existence long enough that the power it does exercise has been concentrated in only a few countries while all the rest are required to toe the party line.
And the US is the land of the free. You are free to be successful and you are free to be a failure. What else do you need? The US government is currently a dysfunctional 24/7 Jerry Springer show. The government is deadlocked on everything and nothing is getting done. And this is not such a bad thing. What is the last thing the government has done something that actually helped the country? It's better for them to be tied up in knots to keep them from doing anything.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 19:10 · Score: 0

That isn't true.
It isn't even close to being true.
I don't know where you got that idea from but it sounds like something from a pro-coal think tank that they wanted to pay a study to find but never found any researcher willing to fudge the numbers bad enough.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 19:33 · Score: 0

Bullshit. Finland is bigger than over half of US states, by population. States do their own thing, limited by the rules of feds. Those few million-cities are exceptions, not the norm.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 20:42 · Score: 0

When you are the size of one of several large American cities in terms of population, EVERY problem is tiny and a lot easier to solve.
Obviously, finding 50 (or however many of the states that have nuclear plants) safe locations for storage is much simpler than finding 1...
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by jandersen · 2017-09-03 21:04 · Score: 1

...ignorant CND hippies who still equate nuclear power with nuclear weapons because they have the square root of fuck all clue...
Apart from being factually wrong about what hippies are/were and what they believe, I think being abusive is only likely to hurt your credibilty. Abuse and violence is what people resort to, when they don't have the wit to produce a sober argument.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by jandersen · 2017-09-03 21:10 · Score: 1

That and they seem to be on top of proper disposal unlike here in the US and elsewhere.
Waste disposal certainly seems like the most important issue, but I would like to know more about the other end of the logistical chain: the supply side. It seems always to be tacitly assumed that this is under control. The other thing I wonder about is why we don't use the waste products for something - isn't a lot of energy released still? That is after all why radioactive waste is radioactive.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by AmiMoJo · 2017-09-03 21:54 · Score: 1

they don't really have nuclear waste
Is that why they are digging a big hole to put the nuclear not-waste in, and trying to figure out how to post warnings not to go down there that will be intelligible in 100,000 years time?
Finland actually passed laws requiring knowledge of the nuclear waste storage sites to be taught in school, so it becomes impossible to forget about them on a national level. They are taking it extremely seriously, which seems odd if as you say they don't really have any nuclear waste.
It seems like people don't understand the problems with reprocessing. The main danger is from accidents when handling the nuclear waste, so it's safer to bury it and make new fuel than it is to try to reprocess the old fuel in many cases. Often cheaper too, even with the cost of disposal. The Chinese are trying to make it work economically, but it's not going very well and the cancellation of most of their new capacity basically screwed any chance it had of being a good option.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by AmiMoJo · 2017-09-03 22:02 · Score: 1

Anti-nuke hysteria has kept the industry from moving forward with new and better ideas.
What is the evidence for this?
In the UK we realized that nuclear was too expensive, not least because we picked the wrong reactor type. In France they did better but in the last 20 years have got fed up with energy companies using nuclear as a welfare programme. Germany just decided that the risk wasn't worth it and there was a huge economic opportunity to become world leaders in renewable energy.
China cancelled all new nuclear plants not already under construction after Fukushima. I suppose you could argue that it was unfounded worries about safety, although this is China which doesn't have a particularly stellar record on such things. It seems more likely that they came to the same conclusion as Germany though - the nuclear renaissance was dead, renewables were going to become the cheapest option in the next decade, and most of the big new markets that were developing were not going to select nuclear as their technology of choice.
Westinghouse went bust because the economics didn't work out, nearly dragging Tosihba down with it... There is a story on the front page about Duke Energy realizing that cheap gas was making nuclear a poor investment, to the point where they are willing to sink nearly a billion dollars they have already spent.
I'm just not seeing the anti-nuke hysteria angle having much effect, it's all economics.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by dunkelfalke · 2017-09-03 22:50 · Score: 1

Nuclear fanbois don't understand reprocessing indeed. They think that reprocessing magically makes nuclear waste to fuel again (violating the laws of thermodynamics in the process), when the only thing what reprocessing does is separating fission products from uranium. These fission products are, for most part, very dangerous nuclear waste. Reprocessing is also inherently dirty, this is why the Irish Sea is the most contaminated sea in the world.

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"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 23:20 · Score: 0

Baltic states has combined population of 6 million... Just sayin'.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 23:25 · Score: 0

I am pretty sure that no one would use it if it didn't produce more energy than it takes to mine and refine it... Besides, you can power the mining and refining process with non-coal energy, like nuclear.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 04:28 · Score: 0

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean. First of all area-wise Finland isn't that small but the population is tiny. Second, I was addressing the parent's claim that problems are easy to solve when populations are small and explained why that isn't always the case. Treating outliers like everybody else is harder if there are even fewer of them in absolute terms. The parent's categorical assertion that every problem is easier to solve when a population is small is thus not true in terms of health care since in a larger population every imaginable type of specialist would naturally have enough patients whilst in our case the most cost-efficient (and only realistic) solution is to send the rare cases abroad. And that's just addressing the right to see a specialist. Should flights of relatives or friends also be paid for so that a Finnish patient in a US hospital can receive visitors like here or is it fair to make such visitors pay for their own flights etc.?
Re: Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 05:28 · Score: 0

The EU has an elected parliament and its supreme body (council of ministers) is drawn from elected governments. The commission, its civil service, is pretty small. It was hoped, 25 years ago, to increase the role of the parliament.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-04 08:20 · Score: 1

Two things prove you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
First, if it took more energy to produce the uranium than what they got out of it then no one would do it. Well, people burn ethanol so perhaps that's not completely true. What they wouldn't do is use nuclear power to produce nearly 20% of the electricity in the USA. The only way to "prove" nuclear power is a net negative is to use a lot of assumptions that cannot be proven, like the future costs of decommissioning a site. This often also includes that a site must be returned to a "greenfield" state, which no other energy source must abide by. In other words, nuclear power is a "negative" energy source because we deemed it so.
Second, uranium 238 exists in nature at better than 99% purity so extracting it is quite simple really. What makes it difficult is again the costs we impose on it. But that's not the part that makes you look stupid, it's that U-238 is not nuclear fuel. It can be bred into fuel, which also avoids the expensive process of extracting the U-235 which is fuel.
There are nuclear reactor designs that use U-238 as breeder stock for fuel. When left in it's naturally "contaminated" state of about 0.7% U-235 it can be burned in heavy water reactors, a popular design is called CANDU. No reactor will (or likely even can) use U-238 for fuel without adding some plutonium, or other isotopes of uranium, to bombard it with enough neutrons to make fuel out of it.
Oh, and uranium is about as common as tin or tungsten. No wonder we see tens of thousands of tons of these elements produced every year.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-04 08:47 · Score: 1

How much do you gain? Quite a bit actually. It's called DUPIC, Direct Use of PWR fuel In CANDU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You may be correct in claiming that the USA does not have this capability but Canada has had the capability from the early 1980s, or perhaps late 1970s. I think that if we ask real nice that they'll send some of their nuclear engineers over here and teach us how to do it.
There's over two dozen operating CANDU reactors in the world, another dozen more derived from the design. Around the world there are something like 50 total (CANDU and CANDU derived included) pressurized heavy water reactors operating in the world right now. They are all capable of using spent fuel from light water reactors as fuel with little, or perhaps no, reprocessing.
They were designed to use natural uranium as fuel, so just keeping them running means no enrichment of mined uranium. If we were to use the plutonium and enriched uranium from the nuclear weapon stockpile then we could mix that with lower grade spent fuel and burn that too.
Just keep reprocessing the fuel, adding in some natural uranium each time, and the loop on this is pretty much closed. The stuff left over that can't be put back in the reactor are useful isotopes for medicine and industry.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-04 09:36 · Score: 1

CANDU reactors, don't need/use reprocessed fuel.
To stupid to do your reasearch, zealot?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-04 10:02 · Score: 2

You obviously didn't even click on the link I gave, it redirects to a Wikipedia page titled "Reprocessed uranium". It's kind of hard to miss, it's in large bold letters at the top of the page. If you read the short, three paragraph, article you will see in the last paragraph a mention of DUPIC. DUPIC is in short chopping up spent LWR fuel into little bits and recladding it in a bundle for CANDU. There is even a link to an article going into detail on how CANDU is capable of burning natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, plutonium, and thorium.
Since you are unlikely to go back to the Wikipedia page I'll post the link here in hopes that maybe you'll read this and learn something.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_...
Then again, I'll just quote a part that I think is most relevant.

CANDU technology offers another unique option for the back end of the LWR fuel cycle, which completely avoids the need for wet reprocessing and fissile-material recovery. The "DUPIC" fuel cycle, or "direct use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU", utilizes the non-separated, non-enhanced waste product of LWRs directly as CANDU fuel (Keil, 1992).
The transfer from LWR to CANDU can be literally "direct", involving only the cutting of spent LWR fuel rods to CANDU length (~50 cm), resealing (or double-sheathing), and reengineering into cylindrical bundles suitable for CANDU geometry.
Alternatively, a dry reprocessing technology has been developed which removes only the volatile fission products from the spent LWR fuel mix (Lee, 1998; Sullivan, 1998). After removal of the cladding, a thermal-mechanical process is used to reduce the spent LWR fuel pellet to a powder, which is then sintered and pressed into CANDU-sized pellets.
The DUPIC process is much simpler than conventional wet-chemistry techniques for reprocessing, and promises to be cheaper. It presents a significant anti-proliferation benefit as well, since radioactive fission products and fissile material are not separated. In addition, since the heat load of spent DUPIC fuel is similar to that of the original spent LWR fuel, disposal requirements do not increase. However, since approximately 50% more energy can be derived from LWR fuel by burning it as DUPIC fuel in a CANDU reactor, the disposal cost is expected to be lower than either spent LWR or CANDU fuel (Baumgartner, 1998).
Between the extremes of conventional reprocessing and the DUPIC fuel cycle, a spectrum of options exists. The CANDU reactorâ(TM)s high neutron economy offers many options for exploiting the CANDU/LWR synergism, allowing customization to meet local requirements and capabilities. Pursuing these various options requires international cooperation, such as the Canada-South Korea partnership that has pioneered the DUPIC process. South Korea has a fleet of both LWR and CANDU reactors, and can thus benefit from the synergism within its existing nuclear infrastructure (Lee, 1998).
That's just one way to reprocess spent fuel. Using CANDU and DUPIC we can "burn the fuel twice" and get much more from the mined and refined uranium we have. Add to this some other simple reprocessing, like chemically separating the plutonium (reactor grade, useless for weapons) and mixing it with thorium to make fuel, and we have all kinds of ways to reprocess fuel instead of dumping it in a hole in the ground. This is effectively unlimited energy, using technology we developed decades ago, so no new technology or materials needed. We can do this now, while we wait for solar and wind power to catch up.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by Billly+Gates · 2017-09-04 13:11 · Score: 1

Oh

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Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-04 14:06 · Score: 1

The article you linked to is meaningless unless nuclear is actually compared to something. It's a bit like someone arguing that we cannot possibly eat steak tonight because of this that and the other thing. Well, that might be true but people have to eat, otherwise people die. After looking at the options it may just turn out that in fact we can eat steak tonight.
Well, let's look at our options:
- Status quo and all the pros and cons that go with it
- Nuclear power
- Starvation
There is no fourth option because using expensive and unreliable energy like wind and solar means reverting to a preindustrial society. You think you can run an aluminum refinery on wind power? A cement kiln on solar power? Sure, we can wait for some new technology to come along but that just means we have to choose from those three options until then. That new technology includes solar and wind that is cheaper than nuclear or coal.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by tlambert · 2017-09-05 11:24 · Score: 1

You have to build three types of reactors, total for a nearly closed nuclear cycle.
I'm a high energy physicist; who are you?
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-05 19:39 · Score: 1

CANDU are running on more or less natural Uranium.
So they produce no 'waste fuel' that can or need to be reprocessed.
Reprocessing fuel to put it later into a CANDU makes no sense.
You can put iti into a CANDU right away.
Sou could have safed your time with that long post if you had understood my previous post better :)
And no, I don't have the urge to read links that summarize (badly) stuff, I already know.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-06 10:18 · Score: 1

Sou could have safed your time with that long post if you had understood my previous post better :)
Considering that most of your posts consist primarily of claims without citations and ad hominem attacks there's a lot of room for misunderstanding. How about next time you post a complete thought, give some means to back up your claims, and not call people idiots?

And no, I don't have the urge to read links that summarize (badly) stuff, I already know.
Apparently you didn't know that CANDU reactors can be fueled with reprocessed fuel, otherwise you would not have embarrassed yourself with the provably false statement you made. It's not like you had to read the whole thing, just reading the title would have taught you something. It's not like I'm claiming to be an expert but at least I'm not so lazy I can't click on a link to Wikipedia and read the title of the article or take a quick look for some keywords.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-07 02:00 · Score: 1

I did not do any ad hominem attacks Mr. blindseer.
Your education is your responsibility, not mine. So find your citations yourself.
Apparently you didn't know that CANDU reactors can be fueled with reprocessed fuel
Apparently I did know that. Hence I informed you: that makes no sense. You simply can put the "spent fuel" into them. No reprocessing needed.
But it seems you are to dumb to grasp that. (Is that an ad hominem? Sorry ;D )
Your whole threats about nuclear make no sense anyway.
a) Neither do the USA have CANDU reactors, nor do they have civilian nuclear fuel reprocessing (which makes no sense in relation with CANDU reactors, which I pointed out but you failed to google so far)
b) nor will the USA in any time soon build new reactors or reprocessing plants (it is simply cheaper to deposit the spent fuel and refuel a reactor with fresh fuel and it is 1000 times safer)
c) most 1st world countries are phasing out nuclear (because of b) ... they are running out of space to deposit spent fuel, or the waste after reprocessing - yes, that includes most notable France)
d) onyl a few emerging countries like India and China are still building nuclear plants
e) renewables, notable wind and solar, are cheaper than nuclear plants and have no "waste problem" (regardless if before or after reprocessing)
Most of this I already told you dozens of times.
Why are you so lazy to read about the topics but so eager to post nonsense about them on /. ? You like to make a fool about yourself?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-07 11:49 · Score: 1

Most of this I already told you dozens of times.
Repeating it doesn't make it true.
I can see your comment history and you can see mine. I noticed that I get up moderated and you get down moderated. People find me interesting, informative, and funny enough to mod me up. Why is it do you think that you don't also get this treatment? You think that maybe it's because you are calling people morons and idiots? I do.
If you want people to take you seriously then write posts that have a complete thought, cite your sources, and be respectful of others. It's easy to dismiss people that do not substantiate their claims, call people names, and use bad grammar and spelling. Being right is not enough, you have to convince people you are right, and that's real hard to do if you are making an argument like a schoolchild on a playground.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-08 08:43 · Score: 1

I doubt there are sources for no brainers.
E.g. if a CANDU reactor is running on natural uranium (for that you find sources)
it obviously can run on soent fuel of a reactor that used _enriched_ uranium. (After all the spent fuel is still _enriched_ just not enough for that reactor type)
Hence as you have no clue about actual physics, you don't believe that. Hence you are a moron, plain and simple.
The fact that solar and Wind are cheaper than nuclear power is reported on /. nearly once a month.
So, why do you want extra links from me?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by blindseer · 2017-09-08 15:31 · Score: 1

Hence you are a moron, plain and simple.
Is that how they teach you how to debate in school? By calling people morons?
I think you are a stupid head and your mom dresses you funny.
I'm done here.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good. by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-09 07:35 · Score: 1

Yes, people who are to dumb to read about the stuff they love to talk about, and get everything wrong are: morons.
No idea how that is handled in school in our days.
If you want to talk about nuclear power, or solar power, then read something about it. And no: we still don't use rare earth metals in silicon based solar panels ... And no: we don't release any poisoning materials into the environment while producing silicon based solar panels ... and now, we don't put them on concrete constructions that produce more CO2 in producing the concrete than the panels ever will safe in producing electricity ...
Should I continue with your idiotic misconceptions?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 04:08 · Score: 1

There's anthracite (glossy black coal) and there's lignite (brown coal). Anthracite is relatively clean burning yes, but brown coal, which is used in a lot of places like Germany, is really dirty.

find alternative energy sources to keep its power by thinkwaitfast · 2017-09-03 04:08 · Score: 1

system stable.

Might I suggest importing it from Russia?

So... by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 04:12 · Score: 1

Their EPR nuclear reactor (Olkiluoto 3) will finally go online? Sure took them long enough.

Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:27 · Score: 0

Maybe next time they'll buy a Korean reactor which only takes 4 years to start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPR-1000
Re:So... by haruchai · 2017-09-03 04:45 · Score: 2

Maybe next time they'll buy a Korean reactor which only takes 4 years to start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If so, they should check the certification of parts very carefully.
"In 2012, a probe was opened regarding some fraudulently-certified parts installed in five OPR-1000 reactors over a ten-year period.
Hanbit-5 and -6, which had a greater number of fraudulent parts, were shut down until the parts could be replaced, and Hanbit-3 and -4 and Hanul-3 were allowed remain on-line pending parts replacement.
Hanbit-5 and -6 were cleared for restart in early 2013, but in April 2013, following a tip, four additional units were shut down and not allowed to restart until fraudulently-certified safety-related control cabling was replaced: Shin Kori-1 and -2 and Shin Wolsong-1 and -2; although construction on Shin Wolsong-2 was complete, it had not yet achieved operational status, and it was not allowed to start up until cabling was replaced.
The same cabling was used at the APR-1400 units then under construction at Shin Kori (Units 3 & 4), forcing a year-long delay in their startup"

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Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Re:So... by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 05:45 · Score: 1

In the old times they required larger safety margins in parts, but part certification was a lot easier to get, if there was any certification at all, and reactors were built all the time. That meant there were a lot less delays. I suppose this way might be safer, or at least things will be better documented with a proper audit trail, but expedient it is not.
Re:So... by Whibla · 2017-09-03 11:29 · Score: 1

Troubling isn't it.
Partially a side effect of contractors for everything and enough shell corps to sell at the beach, I'll be bound.

Relatively? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:14 · Score: 1

Anthracite is relatively clean burning yes,...

Maybe compared to a tire fire.

Re:Relatively? by MightyMartian · 2017-09-03 04:45 · Score: 0

Look asshole, I plan on burning clean American tires!

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re: No big deal,, more coal for US by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:25 · Score: 1

Shill!

Drop in the bucket by boudie2 · 2017-09-03 04:33 · Score: 1

With China going through 3-4 billion tons a year and the U.S. another billion tons, why should tiny Finland even bother. Lot of carbon in coal. Almost all carbon in fact.

Re:Drop in the bucket by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:55 · Score: 0

Yeah, why the fuck should anyone bother?
China at least seems to have a clue and promises to start cutting back on coal.
In the mean time our laughing stock of a president thinks we can wash the "dirty" out of coal, just so so we can keep providing employment for workers in a dead industry. Time to bring back buggy whip makers too. But the same fuckers that voted for Twitler and this nonsense will tell you they hate communism; even though this is the epitome of communism (socialism actually, but I digress) : making work for high school dropouts who are too stupid to do anything else except drive a Cat D9 scraping the tops off of mountains in West Virginia. Well, they're white, so that's okay. God Forbid we should make jobs for blacks anywhere.
Yeah, that'll MAGA.
Re:Drop in the bucket by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 07:47 · Score: 0

People who toss trash out of the windows of their cars probably make the same kind of argument. It's not like the streets and highways would be clean if they didn't.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:40 · Score: 0

I also live in Pennsylvania, and I can assure you that people do indeed heat with coal. Up until just a few years ago the local high school even heated with it. If you recognize the smell you will often notice it when driving around this area. There's no shortage of suppliers: https://www.yellowpages.com/al...

They won't be able to escape the Russians... by bogaboga · 2017-09-03 04:44 · Score: 1

Two new reactors, Olkiluoto 3 and Hanhikivi 1, are due to go online in 2018 and 2024, respectively.

These plants are most likely to be of either Russian design or have significant Russian parts.

I can't explain why the Finns decided to involve the Russians at all.

Re:They won't be able to escape the Russians... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 05:46 · Score: 0

Citation please.
Re:They won't be able to escape the Russians... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 05:51 · Score: 3, Informative

Olkiluoto 3 is built by French Areva, and is currently 9 years behind schedule. It should have been up an running in 2010.
Hanhikivi would be built by Russian Rosatom, which of course could have some political issues. It isn't even clear that building will start (though preparations are already being made at the site), the project status is "proposed". So I won't be holding my breath until i can power my house with that sweet and cuddly fission power...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanhikivi_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Re:They won't be able to escape the Russians... by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 06:13 · Score: 2

I can't explain why the Finns decided to involve the Russians at all.
Because the Russians build the reactors (relatively) cheaply and they actually meet the accorded schedules and budget (yes, surprising, I know). To a large degree this is because the Russians haven't lost their construction expertise. The Russians didn't spend nearly as much time without building new reactors like a lot of Western nations. Also because of the failure at Chernobyl, for quite some time there was an impetus in Russia to replace ancient RMBK (graphite) reactors with more modern VVER (pressurized water) reactors and that resulted in new construction.
Typically the control systems for the exported Russian reactors are actually built elsewhere, like in Western Europe, so the Russians would only actually build the large mechanical parts. The fuel also doesn't need to come from Russia, there are 3rd party sources, and they can train local staff. So that isn't that much of a big deal.
Re:They won't be able to escape the Russians... by dunkelfalke · 2017-09-03 08:11 · Score: 1

Actually both VVER and RBMK were developed at the same time, in the mid 1950ies. RBMK was based on a somewhat older reactor design from 1951, though. Still, they are basically the same age.

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"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap

I say this on just about every energy thread by rsilvergun · 2017-09-03 04:46 · Score: 2

I'm in the States and I'll be happy to support nuclear when you can find a way to get the 20% of my citizenry to stop believing in crap like "Government's not the solution, it's the problem". Until then you're basically one round of lobbying and anti-bureaucracy sentiment away from the kinds of lax safety regulations that resulted in Fukushima. Exhibit B right here while I'm at it.

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Re:I say this on just about every energy thread by MangoCats · 2017-09-03 06:52 · Score: 1

When I lived out there it was pesticide warehouses catching fire (with multiple safety violations leading to the accidents). We left just about as quickly as we could.
Re:I say this on just about every energy thread by tlambert · 2017-09-03 08:21 · Score: 1

I'm in the States and I'll be happy to support nuclear when you can find a way to get the 20% of my citizenry to stop believing in crap like "Government's not the solution, it's the problem".
Baby steps.
You need to get them to stop believing WiFi hubs cause cancer, first. Until they can tell the difference between non-ionizing radiation and ionizing radiation, they are a lost cause.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by MightyMartian · 2017-09-03 04:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Absolutely. Even with scrubbing, coal is just simply a dirty fuel that has no business being used to produce enegery in a modern industrialized nation in the 21st century.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:47 · Score: 0

A) is correct

B) is wrong since most coal plants use direct sorbent injection, activated carbon, baghouses, and wet or dry scrubbers. Proven to reduce sulphuric acid, mercury, and fly ash. Only in less developed countries are these not used.

Please read up on the latest technologies before posting.

Ore=Steel by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:51 · Score: 0

Are they going to phase out steel too?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:55 · Score: 0

That's wonderful and all, sweet pea. But this conversation is about home coal stoves. They don't have sorbent injectors, baghouses, or scrubbers.

Enjoy your COPD

Finland is ahead of the curve.. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 04:59 · Score: 0

..and meanwhile, fucktarded Trump and his ass-backwards 'policies' (using the word in the loosest context imaginable) are trying to drag the entire country back into a new Dark Age that makes The Handmaids Tale look like a pleasant holiday abroad. Does he even have a clue that he's playing right into the hands of Dominionist whackjobs? I wonder if Finland needs skilled electronics engineers? Maybe I could emigrate..

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by CrimsonAvenger · 2017-09-03 05:09 · Score: 4, Informative

B) It doesn't matter how much you wash it, it still pollutes horribly even if you ignore the CO2 mainly due to sulphur dioxide and particulates in the smoke.

Plus the radioactives. Mustn't forget that. Yes, there are radioactive elements in coal. Which typically go up the smokestack in a coal plant. Because coal stack scrubbers aren't actually designed to deal with uranium and thorium, which you find in tiny amounts in coal (and tiny amounts multiplied by a metric-fuckton of coal being burned adds up to more radioactives released into the air than nuclear power has ever managed).

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"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-03 05:13 · Score: 1

Getting a coal stove is probably a good way to get rid of all those coals that Santa keeps leaving every Christmas.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by blind+biker · 2017-09-03 05:17 · Score: 5, Informative

Yes, radioactive elements released into the environment due to coal use is significantly larger than with nuclear plants (per unit of energy) but even that is NOWHERE near the main problem with coal-generated pollutants: much bigger problem is the amount of heavy metals released in the environment, including mercury!
It used to be so that salmon was an unabiguously healthy nutrient. That has changed dramatically in the last three decades, as coal-fired powerplants installations have grown geometrically.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 05:19 · Score: 0

Oh, like that mythical extra month's pay you got for Christmas?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 05:22 · Score: 0

you sound bitter, sweet tits

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2017-09-03 05:39 · Score: 2

Now if every household used coal just like you, we'd look just like china!

. . . except the air would be so bad, that we wouldn't even be able to see what we look like.

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Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!

How city of Davos fights pollution by mi · 2017-09-03 05:39 · Score: 1

Finland will introduce legislation next year to phase out coal and increase carbon taxes

This reminds me, how the Swiss city of Davos (yes, that Davos), contributes to the Global Warming/pollution/whatever fight: by banning gas stations... I can't find any references to the ban online to link here — you'll just have to visit it to see for yourself.

Yep, the skiing is great, but to fill up your car, you'll have to drive to a neighboring town.

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Re:How city of Davos fights pollution by tlambert · 2017-09-03 08:28 · Score: 1

This reminds me, how the Swiss city of Davos (yes, that Davos), contributes to the Global Warming/pollution/whatever fight: by banning gas stations... I can't find any references to the ban online to link here — you'll just have to visit it to see for yourself.
Everyone in Davos died when they exploded, after they decided to quit exhaling and quit farting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Re:How city of Davos fights pollution by JustNiz · 2017-09-03 09:07 · Score: 1

The Swiss are so straight-laced and such tight arseholes about everything, especially being green, that if you dare to drive 2 MPH over the ridiculously low speed limits that are all over Switzerland, you'll be instantly surrounded by cops and attack helicopters.
I'm surprised they even still have word for farts.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by ShanghaiBill · 2017-09-03 05:46 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, radioactive elements released into the environment due to coal use is significantly larger than with nuclear plants

Not true. This is mostly a myth. Most radiation from coal is thorium, which stays in the ash, and is not biologically active. The comparison was made in 1978, when fly ash stack emission standards for coal were way more lax than today. Even so, coal radiation was only more than nukes during "normal operations", but nearly all environmental radiation from nukes is from leaks and accidents.

There are plenty of good reasons to stop burning coal, but "radiation" isn't one of them.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 06:02 · Score: 1

B) It doesn't matter how much you wash it, it still pollutes horribly even if you ignore the CO2 mainly due to sulphur dioxide and particulates in the smoke.
That is wrong. Since about 1977 or give or take a year or two.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 06:06 · Score: 1

Plus the radioactives. Mustn't forget that. (A) Yes, there are radioactive elements in coal. (2)Which typically go up the smokestack in a coal plant.
1) Wrong. Only some coals contain radioactives (aka Thorium)
2) Wrong. It gets washed out by scrubbers.

And anyway: the amount of Thorium or rests of Uranium always were so low it was never relevant for anything.

Because coal stack scrubbers aren't actually designed to deal with uranium and thorium ...
That is nonsense. Scrubbers work actually extremely simple. I suggest to read it up ...

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 06:08 · Score: 1

There's anthracite (glossy black coal) and there's lignite (brown coal). Anthracite is relatively clean burning yes, but brown coal, which is used in a lot of places like Germany, is really dirty.
That is nonsense.
Every coal plant has the exact same pollution requirements.
And every coal plant has the exact same scrubbers ....

I really wonder how stupid the mainstream /. poster meanwhile is.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Too Easy - Protectionism at work by pubwvj · 2017-09-03 06:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

This is really a protectionism measure. Finland has no domestic coal production. What they're doing is blocking energy imports to protect their domestic energy sector, what there is of it. Not a bad idea, but that is the truth.

Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by JustNiz · 2017-09-03 09:00 · Score: 1

You're probably at least partially right. No matter how good it is, I doubt that any country that still gets a large amount of revenue from coal would make this move.
Compared to all other forms of burning things to get power, coal is apparently by far the worst for emissions, so I still see this is a great positive move, regardless of the actual motives.
Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 00:27 · Score: 0

It is about politicians diving head first into EU CO2 reduction requirements more than protectionism. Finland is heavily dependent on imported energy, as domestic nuclear plant projects are lagging for several reasons (constant formal complaints from green party people, foreign subcontractors and Areva not fulfilling the required and agreed building quality levels, etc). Situation gets better when these plants go online, but it will be a while before that happens.
There has also been an outsourcing trend where many formerly state owned services; telecom, television network and such have been sold to foreign investors. All of the money that staid within the borders now leaks out, money gained from selling those operations has been spent long ago. Our politicians are great at pissing in their pants in order to warm themselves up.
And about those CO2 requirements - Finland uses a lot of energy per capita, mostly due to northern location and cold climate. Our forests absorb more CO2 than what we produce, but EU apparently doesn't want to see the situation like that. Either they want to benefit also from our CO2 sink and play the numbers so that they could also benefit from our forests as they chopped theirs down, or then they want us to pay more in emission trade and have to twist things to make things look worse for us.
Domestic future plans (in which Chinese have already invested a lot) seem to lie heavily on digging out the roots of chopped down trees and processing them into bio fuel. This is devastating even for grown/domesticated forest, as the floor of the forest is torn for rain to flush away that part of the nutrients that were not contained in the tree stumps that were taken away.
Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by Mjlner · 2017-09-04 01:53 · Score: 1

This is really a protectionism measure. Finland has no domestic coal production. What they're doing is blocking energy imports to protect their domestic energy sector, what there is of it. Not a bad idea, but that is the truth.
Yup, let's do this to protect our domestic (fill in the blank)-based energy production! We really need to use our vast, domestic supplies of (fill in the blank)!!!
Any idea for the blank?!

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Lemon curry???
Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by blindseer · 2017-09-04 09:13 · Score: 1

Uranium and thorium are everywhere. If they are mining for anything then they have a source of uranium and thorium in the mining tails. Barring that they can extract uranium from seawater.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...
I love how people say that "we" can do without coal and nuclear if only we put up enough windmills, solar panels, and connect them all with enough wires. That might work in a large nation and/or in a politically stable part of the world. What of the people that don't have a lot of sun and wind, and don't particularly get along with their neighbors? I believe Finland applies here. The nation is largely sub-arctic, so not a lot of sun. Sharing a border with Russia would shackling their first world economy to a second world economy by electrical wires, or the idea of a "smart grid" fails from the start. Dealing with Russia for natural gas is bad enough, at least that can be tanked up for times when they decide to turn off the tap and demand a higher price. If the plug is pulled on the electric grid like that then it means things get dark and cold real quick.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-05 00:27 · Score: 0

True. My guess is that some crony, or "hyvä veli" of the current administration has land with lots of peat. Also AFAIK Finland has uranium deposits.
Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by Suomi-Poika · 2017-09-05 00:57 · Score: 1

We are "shackled" into all powergrids our neighbors have, including Russia. You can see the status of the Finnish power grid from here: http://www.fingrid.fi/fi/sahko...
Russians have been a good power supplier. Now when we get our new nukes online the only change will be that we will probably export electricity to Russia sometimes. Also Nordic pool electricity prices will go down for us, now Sweden and Norway have had lower prices due to insufficient grid capacity towards Finland. They are also going to fix that soon, we get a new transit line so that Norwegians can sell their peak hydro power to us. Russians are soon completing their Leningrad 3/4 VVER 1200s, which are only 300km from Helsinki, that means Russians will sell more electricity to anyone willing to buy. Things are actually pretty good here for now, should someone be looking a stable, non-culturally enriched place to do their business.
Re:Too Easy - Protectionism at work by bluegutang · 2017-09-05 03:17 · Score: 1

It's not economic protectionism. It's to prevent Russia from cutting off their energy supply in a crisis.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by blind+biker · 2017-09-03 06:36 · Score: 1

Yes, radioactive elements released into the environment due to coal use is significantly larger than with nuclear plants

Not true. This is mostly a myth. Most radiation from coal is thorium, which stays in the ash, and is not biologically active. The comparison was made in 1978, when fly ash stack emission standards for coal were way more lax than today. Even so, coal radiation was only more than nukes during "normal operations", but nearly all environmental radiation from nukes is from leaks and accidents.

There are plenty of good reasons to stop burning coal, but "radiation" isn't one of them.

Not a myth at all - I thought I was careful not to mention just the burning of coal, but the whole process of producing electricity, which includes the extraction of coal. Extraction of coal and its burning in coal fired plants exceeds the emissions generated by extraction and use of uranium in nuclear plants, by a factor of two, in modern times. Sorry, I should have been much more explicit.

But as I was pointing out in my original post, it doesn't even fucking matter - heavy metals released by the production of electricity by coal-fired plants is by far a more dangerous problem than radioactives.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by MangoCats · 2017-09-03 06:39 · Score: 1

Yes, but "Friends of Coal" are getting money from the continued exploitation of this time honored resource. Potential "Friends of Coal" I can think of:

- Medical professionals treating various diseases caused from coal particulate and heavy metal pollution of the communities downwind from coal burning facilities

- Those who benefit from acid rain

- Those who benefit from the ban on eating fish caught in freshwater streams and lakes

- Those who benefit from strip-mining operations

- Those who think they can't possibly retrain to work in another industry

Really, given this wonderful company, who wouldn't want to be a "Friend of Coal"?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by MangoCats · 2017-09-03 06:42 · Score: 1

We bought a house once (well, more than once) but this particular time, the ex-mayor of the town was now a real-estate agent and she took us around town to look at a few houses - senile old bat who couldn't even drive a car without knocking over garbage cans - she was quite certain that "our power plant has the latest scrubber technology, it's completely safe," as she took us to look at a house less than a mile from the stacks...

Yeah, with assurances from a source like that, who would ever worry?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by MangoCats · 2017-09-03 06:44 · Score: 1

Sure, thorium is completely safe, not biologically active at all - let's give you a thorium seed injection so we can track some stuff in a scanner, won't hurt a bit...

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by MangoCats · 2017-09-03 06:47 · Score: 1

Agreed that normal operational thorium+uranium+radon->polonium emissions from coal plants are insignificant. Which is quite telling since they are even greater than radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants.

Not agreed that scrubbers make everything safe. Scrubbers aren't run 100% of the time, and they aren't 100% effective, and the waste from scrubbers and fly ash is nearly as problematic as the stuff they want to stash in Yucca Mountain.

Plus: mercury.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by ShanghaiBill · 2017-09-03 06:48 · Score: 1

Extraction of coal and its burning in coal fired plants exceeds the emissions generated by extraction and use of uranium in nuclear plants, by a factor of two, in modern times.

Citation? Even the 1978 Oakridge study didn't claim a factor of two, and it was written when coal plants were far dirtier than they are today.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 07:11 · Score: 0

No, but my stoves both have catalytic converters and neither put out anywhere near what a power plant does.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 07:18 · Score: 0

B) It doesn't matter how much you wash it, it still pollutes horribly even if you ignore the CO2 mainly due to sulphur dioxide and particulates in the smoke.

You don't even know what that means.

Coal that is "washed" is mainly for residential use to minimize dust kicked up into the air when it's shoveled into the stove.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by DontBeAMoran · 2017-09-03 07:51 · Score: 1

I keep hearing about these "power plants"... are they anything like the flower power-up in Super Mario Bros?

--
#DeleteFacebook

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Applehu+Akbar · 2017-09-03 07:54 · Score: 2

Coal is so low in energy density compared to nuclear that the sheer tonnage (or tonneage, as the case may be) of coal that has to be mined per megawatt magnifies the effect of every pollutant in it. And that's before we even consider the carbon.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 08:03 · Score: 0

My grandmother had a coal kitchen stove in the 70's.

It's not a big stretch of the imagination to realize these are still out there, esp. since a lot of Appalachia is not electrified.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 08:09 · Score: 0

i was an LDS missionary in albania and serbia and they use coal heating extensively still (this was 2014 or there abouts).

alot of the world still does.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 08:12 · Score: 0

Just curious, how do you know what anyone else has ever seen?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-03 08:45 · Score: 1

Radon is a gas.
Coal does not contain Radon.

Which is quite telling since they are even greater than radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants.
Wrong and irrelevant.
The two big accidents, Chernobyl and Fukushima, releases million times more radiation as all the coal plants since 1880.

Scrubbers aren't run 100% of the time,
In my country, they do. No idea about your retarded country.

and they aren't 100% effective
99.95% ?

and the waste from scrubbers and fly ash is nearly as problematic as the stuff they want to stash in Yucca Mountain.
Considering that the worst of them are close (but below) to the level of an open uranium pit mine: No, not at all.

--
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Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by fph+il+quozientatore · 2017-09-03 09:52 · Score: 1

Funny that you ask for a citation, when you didn't bother to give one yourself in your original post.

--
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Hell Segmentation fault

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 10:15 · Score: 0

My grandmother had a coal kitchen stove in the 70's.

It's not a big stretch of the imagination to realize these are still out there, esp. since a lot of Appalachia is not electrified.

A coal stove is essentially the same thing as a wood stove except it has a tighter grid to contain the coal. Many wood stoves can be converted to coal and vise-verse. All modern EPA-registered/approved stoves now have emissions controls (ceramic particulate filters and two-stage catalytic converters).

I'm not sure why this is somehow impossible to believe???

Tiny, Meaningless by FrankDrebin · 2017-09-03 10:48 · Score: 1

So a country of 5.5M is going to eliminate coal as 10% of its energy supply. Golf clap. In the meantime, OPEC member Nigeria is set to have its population hit 400M and be the 3rd largest in the world, jumping past Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia and the US, by 2050. Ethiopia with 188M and the DR Congo with 195M are going to push Mexico and Russia out of the top-10 by 2050. By 2050 the ~1300M more people in Africa, and ~900M more in Asia will get most of their energy from... wait for it... fossil fuels! By 2050 Finland will have a population of 5.8M.

--
Anybody want a peanut?

Re:Tiny, Meaningless by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 18:59 · Score: 0

And because of this it would be better if Finland kept burning coal?
There is no magic bullet that will cut CO2 output by half, it's all just many small pieces that we need to get rid of.
Even Nigeria by itself is insignificant. It's just when you add everything up that it becomes a large turd that has to be dealt with.
Re:Tiny, Meaningless by Mjlner · 2017-09-04 01:45 · Score: 1

So, you are saying that the environment is better off if smaller nations go 100% coal?
(No, of course you ain't... I'm just being facetious.)
Population size doesn't mean jack shit unless you account for the total consumption: energy consumption per capita in Finland is 20 times that of DR Congo, or 13 Times Pakistan, or 12 times Ethiopia, or 8 times Nigeria, or 7 times Indonesia, or 4 times Mexico (or somewhat less than the US).
Yup, 5.5 million Finns consume energy more than 80 million Congolese. AND they will continue to do so, being a first-world nation, in a location that requires heating for 3/4 of the year and more saunas per capita than any other country in the world. Possibly more saunas period than any other country in the world.

--
Lemon curry???

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 10:50 · Score: 0

since a lot of Appalachia is not electrified.

That's not true. But rural areas often don't have natural gas available, so your choices are to heat with oil, wood, or coal (electric heat is too expensive). There are many outside wood furnaces around here but they're very inefficient.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 12:01 · Score: 0

If that ain't country I'll kiss yer ass.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 14:24 · Score: 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Anthracite is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal except for graphite.... The principal use of anthracite today is for a domestic fuel in either hand-fired stoves or automatic stoker furnaces. It delivers high energy per its weight and burns cleanly with little soot, making it ideal for this purpose. Its high value makes it prohibitively expensive for power plant use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal... is a soft brown combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat content. ... carbon dioxide emissions from traditional brown-coal-fired plants are generally much higher per megawatt generated than for comparable black-coal plants,

So you were saying?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 14:25 · Score: 1

You sound like the typical uniformed dumbass German internet user. That's why those idiots keep burning brown coal and claim they're running on green energy.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by cheesybagel · 2017-09-03 14:38 · Score: 1

Anthracite can have more than 32.5 MJ/kg while low grade Lignite can have less than 14.6 MJ/kg.

Hundreds of US counties are also coal free by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 15:39 · Score: 0

And have higher populations than Finland.

Re:Hundreds of US counties are also coal free by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 21:09 · Score: 0

Hundreds of US counties are also coal free And have higher populations than Finland.
Hundreds... so say 201.
Finnish population is just over 5.5 million
So the US population would be more than (201* 5,500,000 = 1,105,500,000 (ignoring all those other counties.
Dayum... more than tripling the US population effectively overnight is on helluva trick...

Re:Phase out white people by dave420 · 2017-09-03 18:00 · Score: 1

captcha: ignorant

Re: Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Nocturna81 · 2017-09-03 18:55 · Score: 1

But brown coal has a low carbon content so it doesn't burn as efficient as other types of coal. So you'll need more of it for any give amount of power, generating more pollutants. Brown coal is higher in sulfur then other types of coal so it is indeed more of a pollutant. Question is then, are the scrubbers tweaked for brown coal or some other type?

Re: Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 19:19 · Score: 0

Uniformed?

Author didn't do the homework. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 21:11 · Score: 0

> Helsinki is raising its nuclear power capacity to reduce dependency on Russian energy imports

False! Finland is actually having the russians build new nuclear reactors for them, thereby INCREASING their energy dependency on the dictator Putin's empire.

Good luck with the destruction of your country... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-03 21:40 · Score: 0

The 'global warming' alarmists have got their way, and you are going to have daily, several hour long BLACKOUTS, where your businesses grind to a halt, and your country collapses. Idiots.

www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-04 01:17 · Score: 1

I was saying that your claim is wrong.
And your wikipedia references, written by laymen, like you, still don't make it right.

A scrubber in a plant does not know if the smoke comes from lignite or anthracite, so it scrubbs both the same way. Facepalm.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re: Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-04 01:19 · Score: 1

Brown coal has not more sulfur than hard coal.
How stupid is that idea?

And anyway: WHO THE FUNK CARES? The sulfur is scrubbed away, since 40 years!!! It never reaches the environment.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by angel'o'sphere · 2017-09-04 01:21 · Score: 1

And in what regard is that relevant?

A kg Alcohol has more energy than a kg starch ... and? What has that to with anything?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.

Re: Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 03:59 · Score: 0

Pollution requirements? Exact same equipment in all plants? Looks like you are the one who doesn't know what you're talking about.

Okay Finland, you can do that... by DrStoooopid · 2017-09-04 04:20 · Score: 1

...but while you're at it, you might want to pass a law phasing out steel, plastics, water filters, carbon fibre products, and various other coal products. Welcome back to the Middle Ages.

--
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.

Re: Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 05:22 · Score: 0

Thorium isn't very -chemically- toxic, as it isn't soluble in water, which is probably what the GP meant.

lol by gDLL · 2017-09-04 06:04 · Score: 1

yes the parliament is elected, but can't do shit.

No No No No by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-04 09:44 · Score: 0

You completely characterized the OP and put lots of words in his mouth.

What he was trying to say is that you are a cock gobbling faggot and no one can understand a word you say with that cock in your mouth.

HTH

xoxoxoxxo

Re:Phase out white people by KingBenny · 2017-09-04 23:29 · Score: 1

exactly how did this turn into a racial slur, i must have missed the hook there ?

--
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by dywolf · 2017-09-05 00:34 · Score: 1

Both units will easily pay for themselves in in under 10 years.

does that include the money you receive for writing these posts?

--
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

Re: No need to go all racist about this, you troll by PlaynBass · 2017-09-05 05:08 · Score: 1

AC (#55132923) you are an offensive, bigoted racist!

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PlaynBass

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO by PlaynBass · 2017-09-05 05:14 · Score: 1

Anthracite coal has also been mostly mined out in most countries, especially in Europe. I believe China uses mostly bituminous coal, which also produces more ash waste. Neither variety can be considered particularly "clean", even after modern "scrubbing" technology has been applied, not to mention the problems with disposing of the copious amounts of waste produced, nor the still quite prevalent incidence of black lung disease in areas where coal of all types is mined.

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PlaynBass

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Finland To Introduce Law Next Year Phasing Out Coal (reuters.com)

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