Don't forget the destabalising influence of self-interested foreigners
The immigrant Jews?
Ah,...no, I'm betting he/she was speaking to the fact that we like dealing with the Middle East specifically because it's so unstable it can always be nudged in our direction.
No one has ever even contemplated replacing a Coal-fired plant with a renewable source of energy because renewable in no way, shape, or form have the dependability to be counted on to produce 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year Electricity. I'm not making this stuff up, it's simply a fact of life right now.
One, when did I say anything about closing down all coal-fired, Natural Gas-fired, or nuclear power plants right now? Two, it is a fact of life geothermal can provide a baseload of energy now, today. It is happening as I type this in Iceland, Hawaii, and in the Philippines. California gets 5% of it's baseload from geothermal [pdf] energy.
You can't try and solve every problem at once because all you'll end up doing in NOTHING AT ALL. We can solve a big chunk of our pollution problem right now by switching to Nuclear. We'll tackle the well understood problems with Nuclear when we get to that bridge.
Three, when have I said anything about the 1 big solution, other than discounting it? I haven't, I have repeatedly stated I believe that each place should use the source of energy that is available locally. Solar where it's available, wind where it is, tidal where it is and so on. And as I state above geothermal can be used as a baseload. On the other hand Nuclear power is part of the problem. It is dirty from cradle to grave. Mining it is dirty, processing it is dirty, reprocessing it is dirty, and storing it is dirty. Plus no market or business will pay for it without government subsidies. Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies.
"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."
Falcon
Yes, we saw your CATO institute link before, and yet I'm still not impressed with it.
Everything is hooked on subsidies by their definition. We enjoy some of the lowest food prices in the World thanks to massive corn subsidies. No one is looking to remove them because everyone likes it that way. So let's just leave the "subsidies are bad" arguments out of it right now.
As for geothermal, you can't show me a single example of a geothermal plant that isn't located near or directly over a natural source of geothermal heat.
If you'd bothered to try and understand what I was saying (rather than doing your best to lump me in with all renewable bashers) you would have understood that when I said it needed continued research. My point was that it needed continued research before it could be used everywhere.
And, again, you keep using the fact of supposed subsidies as a catch-all excuse as too why Nuclear is bad. If you leave that out, I'm afraid your argument doesn't have much else.
No, there are people in the world called "experts". These people have devoted a large chunk of their lives to one field and therefore should be the ones consulted when it comes to requesting information-containing feedback from a non-government person. For this reason I do not subscribe to the "joe the plumber" school of thought when it comes to news.
You mean that knowing nothing really means your super intelligent:)
you will never get enough energy through renewables unless solar platforms in orbit start working -- they will, but I would not count on them this century.
This is way out of date. The government's National Renewable Energy Lab concluded in 2004 that solar panels produce the energy needed to manufacture them in 2 years. Those panels can last 30 years so for 28 years they contribute more energy than it took to make them. Wind turbines can produce as much energy in a few months as it took to make them.
Of course nuclear power supporters disagree with anything that shows nuclear power is not needed.
Falcon
I'll disagree with anything that attempts to be the end, all be all solution that supporters of Renewables attempt to pitch them as.
As someone said earlier, no one is saying "no renewables, period", we're saying we don't have time to play with them right now when our biggest problem isn't something they can actually help with.
No one has ever even contemplated replacing a Coal-fired plant with a renewable source of energy because renewable in no way, shape, or form have the dependability to be counted on to produce 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year Electricity. I'm not making this stuff up, it's simply a fact of life right now.
Does that mean it will always be true? Of course not. The problem I have is that we could be replacing Coal with nuclear NOW, even if we later discover a better way forward.
You can't try and solve every problem at once because all you'll end up doing in NOTHING AT ALL. We can solve a big chunk of our pollution problem right now by switching to Nuclear. We'll tackle the well understood problems with Nuclear when we get to that bridge.
Oh, before I forget, Nuclear Plants repay their "energy to build" bill in about six months of constant operation (to show I didn't forget the original point of the post:)).
France only extracts the U235 from the burned down material. Also, France is not so picky when it comes to the environment. They leak quite a lot and have lots of problems with their nuclear programme.
They also increase the volume of their nuclear waste through recycling it.
Also, I guess you did not hear about the uranhexafluoride scandal, where they exported thousands of tons to siberia. The Russians stored it right there out in the open, no safety whatsoever.
No offense, but how does Russia's being irresponsible change anything?
If you are simply pointing it out as something not too do, then I will duly take note:
"When our Nuclear Program is running full speed, be sure not to leave waste out in the open."
research funding for nuclear research such as thorium reactors or pebble bed reactors?
to increase safety and/or move onto other nuclear fuels
How about funding geothermal, solar, tidal, wind and other energy sources just as much? Give each one $54 Billion? Doesn't sound so good does it? How about not picking winners and losers at all? Instead let the market pick them.
Because as CATO, Forbes, and others say nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies. The market would not support nuclear power without them.
Falcon
The problem is that none of those things can right now, today be used to replace Coal-fired Power Plants.
Coal-fired plants are principally where we get our power from because they can function economically for base load, 24 hour a day, 7 days a week continuous operation. None of the things you listed in your comment can replace Coal for that type of operation. With more R&D, that may not always be the case, but we can't continue pumping garbage into the air waiting for the magic bullet "someday" (I'm thinking of Geothermal, I'm not convinced Wind or ground based Solar will ever be reliable enough for baseload with all the research and money in the World). Nuclear can replace coal right now.
At the end of the day, who gets what subsidy doesn't matter. At some point, everything we currently depend upon for our way of life is subsidized to some degree or another.
People are making fun of the Administrations (not saying you personally, but some of the public in general) push for high-speed rail. They point out that AMTRAK couldn't exist without tax-payer dollars to fill in its funding gaps. What none of them realize is that the exact same thing can be said of the roads they drive on. People think that gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance, in reality those taxes barely make a dent in the total cost of maintaining our highway system (and even at that, it is in terrible shape for many parts of the Nation).
The problem I have with studies that proclaim "Nuclear couldn't exist without subsidies" is that they never make clear exactly what they are counting as a subsidy.
Loan Guarantees, for example, are NOT a subsidy as far as I'm concerned, not unless the utility actually defaults on the loan and the Government has to make it up. We've (speaking of the Government) been giving loan subsidies for dozens of years for Nuclear Power Plant construction and not once has the Government ever had to make good on the promise (meaning actually spend any money because a utility defaulted).
People try to make hay with the eventual cost of disposing of ever how much waste ultimately will need disposing of (I'm allowing for the fact that no matter how efficient secondary recovery efforts become for spent fuel, there will always be some small part that we do indeed have to worry about disposing of). The problem with that is that it ignores that fact that since the very first Nuclear Plant came online, utilities have been paying a tax per unit of electricity generated that specifically goes into a fund to pay for the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.
With these facts in mind, I think the positives (no Coal pollution -- Heavy metals being spewed into the air, people dieing to mine the coal, pollution from the coal mining itself, etc.) far outweigh the negatives.
I for one would like to welcome our new Nuclear Power overlords.:)
While the system was never used during the Apollo era, the Soviets had a similar system that was used successfully following a catastrophic failure of one of their launch vehicles.
While the two might not be directly comparable, launching a vehicle is the same regardless of the mechanics of your craft,...so there is a precedent for a system like this successfully saving crew lives.
By separating the Crew Launch rocket from the Heavy Lift rocket (Ares I and the Ares V), NASA is ensuring Humans never have to be sent into space with a system that can't be aborted if a failure is detected...
Umm... Ares I is a solid fuel rocket whose sole purpose is to launch the crew.
No, it isn't. The Area I uses liquid fueled engines. Originally they were going to be based on the same engines the Space Shuttle uses, but those plans were later scrapped when it was determined better engines with higher performance could be manufactured.
After all, the designs of the Space Shuttle's engines are over twenty-years old.
----- EXCUSE ME -----!!!!!!!
You were right in that the *FIRST* stage does indeed use a solid rocket engine, the *Second* stage however uses a liquid fueled rocket.
I have no idea where I got the idea it was completely liquid fueled.
In any case, it does have the "Crew Escape" rocket system of the earlier Apollo era capsules.
By separating the Crew Launch rocket from the Heavy Lift rocket (Ares I and the Ares V), NASA is ensuring Humans never have to be sent into space with a system that can't be aborted if a failure is detected...
Umm... Ares I is a solid fuel rocket whose sole purpose is to launch the crew.
No, it isn't. The Area I uses liquid fueled engines. Originally they were going to be based on the same engines the Space Shuttle uses, but those plans were later scrapped when it was determined better engines with higher performance could be manufactured.
After all, the designs of the Space Shuttle's engines are over twenty-years old.
I agree that we need to start looking towards the stars. There is an entire galaxy out there just waiting for us. If we all stop and complain about tax dollars, before we know it, that will extend to items such as: "well our tax dollars are not paying for xxxx since we are paying for this other stuff".
Of course we are still in our infancy for space travel as we have only made it to the planet next to us, and did it with a robot. How are we going to extend this? We have to bite our bottom lip, everybody pitch in some money, and accept that in this day and age on Earth, nothing will just "collectively" happen without some type of currency getting handed back and forth. This is not a bad thing, as if it gets us to where we need to go, than so be it. I can accept that more money is getting taken out of my paycheck to know that it is going to better serve mankind through expanding our future.
We are outgrowing this planet if you could not tell from over population and pollution. It is starting to be time for humans to expand. Right now all we know is that the only life in this star system is on Earth, which gives us lots of room to expand. Sure, there is going to be lots of science involved, but we are getting closer and closer to that moment every single day.
We don't even have to look at the Galaxy as a whole, just grabbing a few of the "Near Earth Asteroids" for mining purposes would pretty much remove much of the reason for mining minerals like Iron, Platinum and Copper on Earth. While we're not running out of those things, it's a messy proposition getting to them a lot of the time.
The same could be said for energy, for that matter. A large investment in Solar Power Satellite technology could remove most of the need for things like Coal and Nuclear (which, being a strong support of Nuclear, I will admit that I like SPS technology better).
I cannot provide a link for what I'm about to say (because I can't remember:)), but I remember reading somewhere that as things stand right now (with most people not having the United States' standard of living), the Planet can support something like 8 - 9 Billion people. Our Solar System alone (not counting any "Star Trek" like adventures outside the Solar System:)) can support several TRILLION people in at least the level of living currently enjoyed by the United States (not counting the hopeful increases in living in the future).
All it takes is a little initiative, which I think NASA is perfectly centered to provide, should they decide too (I'm thinking about the type of Private - Public Partnerships that built things like Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal, etc. -- paid for by public money built by private contractors)
Liquid fueled engines do not have nearly the same thrust vibration issues that solids do, and on liquids it's more easily damped.
Not to mention they can be turned off. Solid rocket boosters cannot be stopped once they are started, even if a catastrophic failure is detected. Lest we forget the Challenger.
By separating the Crew Launch rocket from the Heavy Lift rocket (Ares I and the Ares V), NASA is ensuring Humans never have to be sent into space with a system that can't be aborted if a failure is detected, much like the Apollo era, where the little "tower-jet" rocket on top could have pulled the Crew Capsule *OFF* the Saturn V if the Saturn V had malfunctioned on the launch pad (the parachutes used for landing would have then deployed and allowed the Crew Capsule to float safely -- hopefully away -- from the exploding Saturn V on the launch pad).
Of course, those figures change every few years for unexplained reasons. I used to keep archive versions of Nasa's global annual average temperature data from the last hundred years, it was interesting to watch how often the numbers from as many as 50 years ago were "refined".
Uh, yes, that's called SCIENCE. Only religion demands absolute adherence regardless of intervening facts.
So the US felt about the same as the USSR did when the USA placed nukes in Turkey.
Not really,...see WE DIDN'T LIE about our Nuclear Weapons in Turkey.
That's how you know the difference between something intended for "deterrence" and something intended for use. "Deterrence" only works if the other side knows about it.
"Secret" weapons aren't intended to scare, they're intended to be used.
To even acknowledge that annihilating a nation may have "some positive effects" indicates to me that you are incredibly, um, fucked. Sorry, I have no more sophisticated word for it.
And too me that you are incredibly naive.
While not to the degree Nuclear Warfare would inflict, that is precisely what the Allies did to Germany and Japan during World War II.
The result? They surrendered,...the the number of lives lost every year from war (which climbed steadily in the years leading up to World War II), dropped like a rock and have never really climbed since that time.
World War II reshaped the world into what it is today. Nuclear Weapons ensure *no one* has any illusions as to what Global War will ultimately entail,...so no one dares risk it.
And? Having others subsidize your luxury toy doesn't make it any less expensive to produce, it just makes it cheaper to purchase.
But there's nothing made that doesn't get cheaper as time goes on.
I don't care if were talking about cars, computers, or furniture. The more you make of something, the cheaper it gets.
Myself, I tend to think government "investments" like this should fall under the banner of "National Security".
*ANYTHING* that has the potential to make us less dependent on foreign oil *certainly* increases our collective National Security.
I could really give a shit about the environment (said to ward off the "but electricity comes form dirty old coal! The skies falling because of coal! etc, etc,
We can fix any problems with electrical generation (replacing coal with Nuclear, Wind, Solar,...take your pick of any of the 10,000 ways to generate electricity more efficiently) at our leisure (as we have plenty of Coal to see us through in the meantime).
I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to depend on "cheap" oil (cheap as in "cheaper than horse drawn buggies":) ),
BTW, sorry for the delay in replying,...been a little under the weather:)
Typical Slashdot whining doublethink - first they whine and complain about how the government isn't putting money into getting 'greener' cars on the road, and then when the government does do so, they whine about *that*.
The problem with this logic is that electricity isn't free either.
But is "virtually" free compared to gas.
Last calculation I saw showed the conversion between the two at about 50 per gallon for electriciyt. Now of course that's hard to figure (comparing gasoline usage to electricity) and probably full of "bendable" figures, but it's something to think about anyway.
History shows companies who aggressively advertise during economic slow downs are drastically more likely to make it out the other side far more successful then those who didn't.
Precisely.
In that event, the old adage "takes money to make money" is correct.
Like it or not, we are *all* "shareholders" in GM now, and the only way we have a chance to make our money back is for GM to succeed. Now, I'm not all fired convinced the Volt is everything and a slice of bread, BUT I've scene far less workable vehicles set the world on fire. So it has a chance.
I'll leave it to the reader to decide how much of one.
Education in the USA is NOT underfunded by any means. There's plenty of statistics available showing how much the USA spends per pupil compared to other countries, and it's not deficient. It's typical liberal thinking to say schools in the US are underfunded, and that throwing more money at a problem will somehow fix it.
There's several problems with US public education, and money isn't one of them. One is the teacher's unions, which serve only to keep terrible teachers around and discourage good ones from going into the profession. One is the bad administrations. One is the poor teacher pay in many districts (no, this wouldn't be fixed by more funding; the money is being wasted somewhere else, such as administrators' salaries). One is the lack of discipline and all the bad students who are not expelled from the system, preventing other kids from learning. One is the constant latching onto stupid educational trends like "lattice multiplication" instead of teaching the basics (the 3 Rs) properly. One is the insane amounts of money wasted on Microsoft software.
US public education needs a massive overhaul, and just throwing money at it won't make it better.
And it's the typical result of seeing every problem through the prism of Class Warfare to assume only liberals want to take the easy way out (meaning throwing money at the problem). Every conservative who endlessly bitches about taxes is doing the exact same thing, just in the opposite direction. One side has the idea that money will fix anything, the other the idea that somehow "they" (unions, foreigners, etc.) are after "their" money and so zero money should be spent, period until it's fixed.
That's a whole lot like telling your doctor not to send you your bill until you pay it.
Throw in more than a little revisionism ("gee whiz, everything was perfect in the 'Leave it to Beaver' before they had fancy things like 'physics'") and you just compound the problem,...not to mention ensure nothing ever gets fixed.
>Maybe then you can explain to me why almost a dozen *NEW* Nuclear Power Plants are either, a) BEING BUILT RIGHT NOW, or b) in the end phases of licensing for construction?
I'd bet all of the nuclear plants being completed now started before Obama was a senator, let alone President.
You'd be right in before he was President, but wrong in before he was a Senator. But I still don't understand your point. You see, in the real world of business, politics means very little in making decisions. Politicians (I don't care how far left or right they are) can do very little to stop private enterprise if, and only if what private enterprise is seeking was feasible in the first place (private companies aren't above looking for handouts from the Government simply too see if they can get them, regardless if they actually need them or not).
Obama comes from the state of Illinois, WHICH HAS THE HIGHEST CONCENTRATION OF NUCLEAR POWER IN THE COUNTRY.
The Democrats have done *nothing* to encourage or discourage Nuclear power,...and that's exactly how it should be.
I for one believe Nuclear Power can stand on it's own two feet. I do not feel it requires any special subsidy to remain competitive,...but as long as subsidies are given no one is going to send them back.
You mark my words, when "Cap and Trade" comes seriously to the floor (which most likely won't be before next year, if at all -- I myself have always thought "Cap n' Trade" to be pretty dubious and trust our healthy lobbyist to reduce it even further), provisions will be added to support Nuclear Energy.
There is simply no way to meet our targets regarding CO2 without a massive investment in Nuclear (the only possible alternative would be Solar Satellite Power, though that's a little ways off to be practical now).
But, I feeling from your posts (assuming your the same AC from before) that nothing the Democrats do will satisfy you -- aside from following the Republican mantra of worshiping big-business.
Again, you really need to stop living your life by right-wing talking points.
The Obama administration and Congress under Pelosi have made it clear that along with wiping out the health insurance industry, their vision for "Green Eeconomy" includes a massive wealth transfer from big corporations to their constituents. Nuclear power doesn't fit into their vision for the future.
Maybe then you can explain to me why almost a dozen *NEW* Nuclear Power Plants are either, a) BEING BUILT RIGHT NOW, or b) in the end phases of licensing for construction?
It's a cute fable from the right than left-wing groups killed Nuclear, but like most fables, it's full of holes. Nuclear Power died in the United States, really even before Three Mile Island.
While Three Mile Island is the favorite target for blame, fewer and fewer plants were being ordered, period. The reason for this is a Classic "bubble" effect. Nuclear Energy was the end all, be all for decades starting in the 50s, but by the 70s the bloom was already starting to come off because of massive cost overruns and extended building schedules.
While the Government does share some blame (archaic licensing requirements, for one), the largest portion of blame belongs to the contractors who constructed the plants and the companies that ordered them.
Nuclear Power has always been (by comparison to the U.S.) dirt cheap in countries like France because of the most basic Capitalistic principle, standardization. The French basically licensed two or three designs, spent the time and money guaranteeing those designs were safe and efficient, and then simply chose from those two or three designs every time a new plant was needed.
Well, common sense tells you that once you build a plant two or three times, you'll most probably have discovered all the weird things that creep out of any new engineering project. by the time you've built it five times or more, you can almost be certain that the procedure in building the fifth plant is going to be almost identical to the procedure you use to build plants six through ten (or ten through one hundred, etc.)
In the United States, however, utilities looked at Nuclear (if you will please excuse the pun) like dick-measuring contests. It seems every utility spent more to make sure their plant was as different as possible from the ones that came before it. It's as though they were trying to be as expensive as possible just to show they could.
Every single plant was unique, every single plant had to be gone over from scratch for safety checks, every single plant had to have custom manufacturing processes invented just for it, and every single plant always cost just as much (in some cases, more) as the proceeding one (going back to the first one, practically).
There was never any traction made on standardization (in construction or licensing)
Because of this, Nuclear's supposed advantage over coal (cost, chiefly) *never* materialized in a timeframe that made it a selling point.
People and companies brag now of the Economics of Nuclear, but these plants are all hitting middle age now, where the costs to run them have pretty well been determined and likely costs for the future can be calculated.
What excites me about the future of Nuclear in the United States are plants like the Westinghouse AP1000 -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
These plants are modular, can be built over and over again as many times as needed. Are engineered from the start with economy in mind (rather than "gee whiz, that's cool!"), and,best of allare fully licensed by the NRC right now.
As opposed to the early plants, the licensing procedures for these plants are greatly simplified because the NRC has already determined that th
First, though, I have a question: How many of these "Rare Earth Metals" are only rare on Earth.
My question is how many of them are abundant in space, but are simply limited on the planet?
While the doom and gloom scenarios I've read concerning this (not just this incident of hoarding with the Chinese, but also Oil in the Mid-East, etc. -- anywhere where the "haves" are attempting to limit how much gets to the "have nots") and I don't see it as scary as all.
I'm a liberal-Capitalist. What makes me different than a "Conservative" Capitalist is that I don't allow myself to be boxed in.
Conservatives bitch and moan regarding the United State's government's declining to tap the piss-dribble of oil still left in places like Alaska as though that's all that stands between being dependent on the Saudis and being completely liberated of oil dependence (feel free to read a healthy dose of sarcasm into my preceding statement).
They speak as thought the essence of Capitalism is doing the exact same thing forever and any voice to change the status quo is somehow un-Capitalistic! Forgetting of course THAT THE ESSENCE OF CAPITALISM IS OPENING A WINDOW WHEN SOMEONE OR SOMETHING CLOSES THE DOOR!
The only reason we use petroleum today is because we almost ran out of what we used before petroleum (for the curious kids out there, that would be Whale Oil).
This is no different. I feel we're quickly coming to a crossroads where things such as this will force us to finally stop squabbling over the piss-dribble of resources found on Earth proper and start to explore near-space. I'm not talking about going to Mars, Venus, or anything as outlandish as that. I'm talking about near-earth astroids (some of which are little more difficult to reach than the moon was).
While I don't know about "Rare Earth Metals" in particular, we *do* know that in easily reachable orbits are asteroids with literally TRILLIONS of dollars worth of Nickel, Iron, and Platinum. Resources (especially Platinum) which are also closely tied to the so-called "Green" economy.
In my humble opinion, I say let the Chinese have their day in the sun (after all, we once held the World's largest reserves of oil -- bet you kids find that hard to believe, huh!) Allow them to control anything they want within their own borders and we'll simply follow the Capitalist moniker and "open a window to get around their closed door".
I guarantee you, once we start (speaking of not having to squabble on Earth, but can simply search out ever increasing frontiers throughout near-Earth, and eventually the entire Solar System and beyond), things will never be the same.
Imagine never having to go to war because one country can literally cut another off from vital resources. Imagine (speaking as an American,thank you) being able to combine our entrepreneurial spirit with unlimited resources and potential.
I don't mean to sound goofy here, but there there really would be no end to what we could achieve.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget the destabalising influence of self-interested foreigners
The immigrant Jews?
Ah,...no, I'm betting he/she was speaking to the fact that we like dealing with the Middle East specifically because it's so unstable it can always be nudged in our direction.
...the Middle East, a region far from stable due to the influence of extremist religions and backwards cultures of nomadic races.
Don't forget the destabalising influence of self-interested foreigners...
ZING!!!
Well played young man :)
No one has ever even contemplated replacing a Coal-fired plant with a renewable source of energy because renewable in no way, shape, or form have the dependability to be counted on to produce 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year Electricity. I'm not making this stuff up, it's simply a fact of life right now.
One, when did I say anything about closing down all coal-fired, Natural Gas-fired, or nuclear power plants right now? Two, it is a fact of life geothermal can provide a baseload of energy now, today. It is happening as I type this in Iceland, Hawaii, and in the Philippines. California gets 5% of it's baseload from geothermal [pdf] energy.
You can't try and solve every problem at once because all you'll end up doing in NOTHING AT ALL. We can solve a big chunk of our pollution problem right now by switching to Nuclear. We'll tackle the well understood problems with Nuclear when we get to that bridge.
Three, when have I said anything about the 1 big solution, other than discounting it? I haven't, I have repeatedly stated I believe that each place should use the source of energy that is available locally. Solar where it's available, wind where it is, tidal where it is and so on. And as I state above geothermal can be used as a baseload. On the other hand Nuclear power is part of the problem. It is dirty from cradle to grave. Mining it is dirty, processing it is dirty, reprocessing it is dirty, and storing it is dirty. Plus no market or business will pay for it without government subsidies. Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies.
"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."
Falcon
Yes, we saw your CATO institute link before, and yet I'm still not impressed with it.
Everything is hooked on subsidies by their definition. We enjoy some of the lowest food prices in the World thanks to massive corn subsidies. No one is looking to remove them because everyone likes it that way. So let's just leave the "subsidies are bad" arguments out of it right now.
As for geothermal, you can't show me a single example of a geothermal plant that isn't located near or directly over a natural source of geothermal heat.
If you'd bothered to try and understand what I was saying (rather than doing your best to lump me in with all renewable bashers) you would have understood that when I said it needed continued research. My point was that it needed continued research before it could be used everywhere.
And, again, you keep using the fact of supposed subsidies as a catch-all excuse as too why Nuclear is bad. If you leave that out, I'm afraid your argument doesn't have much else.
No, there are people in the world called "experts". These people have devoted a large chunk of their lives to one field and therefore should be the ones consulted when it comes to requesting information-containing feedback from a non-government person. For this reason I do not subscribe to the "joe the plumber" school of thought when it comes to news.
You mean that knowing nothing really means your super intelligent :)
you will never get enough energy through renewables unless solar platforms in orbit start working -- they will, but I would not count on them this century.
This is way out of date. The government's National Renewable Energy Lab concluded in 2004 that solar panels produce the energy needed to manufacture them in 2 years. Those panels can last 30 years so for 28 years they contribute more energy than it took to make them. Wind turbines can produce as much energy in a few months as it took to make them.
Of course nuclear power supporters disagree with anything that shows nuclear power is not needed.
Falcon
I'll disagree with anything that attempts to be the end, all be all solution that supporters of Renewables attempt to pitch them as.
As someone said earlier, no one is saying "no renewables, period", we're saying we don't have time to play with them right now when our biggest problem isn't something they can actually help with.
No one has ever even contemplated replacing a Coal-fired plant with a renewable source of energy because renewable in no way, shape, or form have the dependability to be counted on to produce 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year Electricity. I'm not making this stuff up, it's simply a fact of life right now.
Does that mean it will always be true? Of course not. The problem I have is that we could be replacing Coal with nuclear NOW, even if we later discover a better way forward.
You can't try and solve every problem at once because all you'll end up doing in NOTHING AT ALL. We can solve a big chunk of our pollution problem right now by switching to Nuclear. We'll tackle the well understood problems with Nuclear when we get to that bridge.
Oh, before I forget, Nuclear Plants repay their "energy to build" bill in about six months of constant operation (to show I didn't forget the original point of the post :)).
France only extracts the U235 from the burned down material. Also, France is not so picky when it comes to the environment. They leak quite a lot and have lots of problems with their nuclear programme.
They also increase the volume of their nuclear waste through recycling it.
Also, I guess you did not hear about the uranhexafluoride scandal, where they exported thousands of tons to siberia. The Russians stored it right there out in the open, no safety whatsoever.
No offense, but how does Russia's being irresponsible change anything?
If you are simply pointing it out as something not too do, then I will duly take note:
"When our Nuclear Program is running full speed, be sure not to leave waste out in the open."
There, problem solved :)
research funding for nuclear research such as thorium reactors or pebble bed reactors?
to increase safety and/or move onto other nuclear fuels
How about funding geothermal, solar, tidal, wind and other energy sources just as much? Give each one $54 Billion? Doesn't sound so good does it? How about not picking winners and losers at all? Instead let the market pick them.
Because as CATO, Forbes, and others say nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies. The market would not support nuclear power without them.
Falcon
The problem is that none of those things can right now, today be used to replace Coal-fired Power Plants.
Coal-fired plants are principally where we get our power from because they can function economically for base load, 24 hour a day, 7 days a week continuous operation. None of the things you listed in your comment can replace Coal for that type of operation. With more R&D, that may not always be the case, but we can't continue pumping garbage into the air waiting for the magic bullet "someday" (I'm thinking of Geothermal, I'm not convinced Wind or ground based Solar will ever be reliable enough for baseload with all the research and money in the World). Nuclear can replace coal right now.
At the end of the day, who gets what subsidy doesn't matter. At some point, everything we currently depend upon for our way of life is subsidized to some degree or another.
People are making fun of the Administrations (not saying you personally, but some of the public in general) push for high-speed rail. They point out that AMTRAK couldn't exist without tax-payer dollars to fill in its funding gaps. What none of them realize is that the exact same thing can be said of the roads they drive on. People think that gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance, in reality those taxes barely make a dent in the total cost of maintaining our highway system (and even at that, it is in terrible shape for many parts of the Nation).
The problem I have with studies that proclaim "Nuclear couldn't exist without subsidies" is that they never make clear exactly what they are counting as a subsidy.
Loan Guarantees, for example, are NOT a subsidy as far as I'm concerned, not unless the utility actually defaults on the loan and the Government has to make it up. We've (speaking of the Government) been giving loan subsidies for dozens of years for Nuclear Power Plant construction and not once has the Government ever had to make good on the promise (meaning actually spend any money because a utility defaulted).
People try to make hay with the eventual cost of disposing of ever how much waste ultimately will need disposing of (I'm allowing for the fact that no matter how efficient secondary recovery efforts become for spent fuel, there will always be some small part that we do indeed have to worry about disposing of). The problem with that is that it ignores that fact that since the very first Nuclear Plant came online, utilities have been paying a tax per unit of electricity generated that specifically goes into a fund to pay for the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.
With these facts in mind, I think the positives (no Coal pollution -- Heavy metals being spewed into the air, people dieing to mine the coal, pollution from the coal mining itself, etc.) far outweigh the negatives.
I for one would like to welcome our new Nuclear Power overlords. :)
While the system was never used during the Apollo era, the Soviets had a similar system that was used successfully following a catastrophic failure of one of their launch vehicles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system#Usage
While the two might not be directly comparable, launching a vehicle is the same regardless of the mechanics of your craft,...so there is a precedent for a system like this successfully saving crew lives.
By separating the Crew Launch rocket from the Heavy Lift rocket (Ares I and the Ares V), NASA is ensuring Humans never have to be sent into space with a system that can't be aborted if a failure is detected...
Umm... Ares I is a solid fuel rocket whose sole purpose is to launch the crew.
No, it isn't. The Area I uses liquid fueled engines. Originally they were going to be based on the same engines the Space Shuttle uses, but those plans were later scrapped when it was determined better engines with higher performance could be manufactured.
After all, the designs of the Space Shuttle's engines are over twenty-years old.
----- EXCUSE ME -----!!!!!!!
You were right in that the *FIRST* stage does indeed use a solid rocket engine, the *Second* stage however uses a liquid fueled rocket.
I have no idea where I got the idea it was completely liquid fueled.
In any case, it does have the "Crew Escape" rocket system of the earlier Apollo era capsules.
By separating the Crew Launch rocket from the Heavy Lift rocket (Ares I and the Ares V), NASA is ensuring Humans never have to be sent into space with a system that can't be aborted if a failure is detected...
Umm... Ares I is a solid fuel rocket whose sole purpose is to launch the crew.
No, it isn't. The Area I uses liquid fueled engines. Originally they were going to be based on the same engines the Space Shuttle uses, but those plans were later scrapped when it was determined better engines with higher performance could be manufactured.
After all, the designs of the Space Shuttle's engines are over twenty-years old.
One of 3 things:
1.) You are my new best friend
2.) You motivated me to be an astronaut
3.) mod parent up
Take your pick (I am hoping you pick 1)
I agree that we need to start looking towards the stars. There is an entire galaxy out there just waiting for us. If we all stop and complain about tax dollars, before we know it, that will extend to items such as: "well our tax dollars are not paying for xxxx since we are paying for this other stuff".
Of course we are still in our infancy for space travel as we have only made it to the planet next to us, and did it with a robot. How are we going to extend this? We have to bite our bottom lip, everybody pitch in some money, and accept that in this day and age on Earth, nothing will just "collectively" happen without some type of currency getting handed back and forth. This is not a bad thing, as if it gets us to where we need to go, than so be it. I can accept that more money is getting taken out of my paycheck to know that it is going to better serve mankind through expanding our future.
We are outgrowing this planet if you could not tell from over population and pollution. It is starting to be time for humans to expand. Right now all we know is that the only life in this star system is on Earth, which gives us lots of room to expand. Sure, there is going to be lots of science involved, but we are getting closer and closer to that moment every single day.
We don't even have to look at the Galaxy as a whole, just grabbing a few of the "Near Earth Asteroids" for mining purposes would pretty much remove much of the reason for mining minerals like Iron, Platinum and Copper on Earth. While we're not running out of those things, it's a messy proposition getting to them a lot of the time.
The same could be said for energy, for that matter. A large investment in Solar Power Satellite technology could remove most of the need for things like Coal and Nuclear (which, being a strong support of Nuclear, I will admit that I like SPS technology better).
I cannot provide a link for what I'm about to say (because I can't remember :)), but I remember reading somewhere that as things stand right now (with most people not having the United States' standard of living), the Planet can support something like 8 - 9 Billion people. Our Solar System alone (not counting any "Star Trek" like adventures outside the Solar System :)) can support several TRILLION people in at least the level of living currently enjoyed by the United States (not counting the hopeful increases in living in the future).
All it takes is a little initiative, which I think NASA is perfectly centered to provide, should they decide too (I'm thinking about the type of Private - Public Partnerships that built things like Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal, etc. -- paid for by public money built by private contractors )
Liquid fueled engines do not have nearly the same thrust vibration issues that solids do, and on liquids it's more easily damped.
Not to mention they can be turned off. Solid rocket boosters cannot be stopped once they are started, even if a catastrophic failure is detected. Lest we forget the Challenger.
By separating the Crew Launch rocket from the Heavy Lift rocket (Ares I and the Ares V), NASA is ensuring Humans never have to be sent into space with a system that can't be aborted if a failure is detected, much like the Apollo era, where the little "tower-jet" rocket on top could have pulled the Crew Capsule *OFF* the Saturn V if the Saturn V had malfunctioned on the launch pad (the parachutes used for landing would have then deployed and allowed the Crew Capsule to float safely -- hopefully away -- from the exploding Saturn V on the launch pad).
Of course, those figures change every few years for unexplained reasons. I used to keep archive versions of Nasa's global annual average temperature data from the last hundred years, it was interesting to watch how often the numbers from as many as 50 years ago were "refined".
Uh, yes, that's called SCIENCE. Only religion demands absolute adherence regardless of intervening facts.
So the US felt about the same as the USSR did when the USA placed nukes in Turkey.
Not really,...see WE DIDN'T LIE about our Nuclear Weapons in Turkey.
That's how you know the difference between something intended for "deterrence" and something intended for use. "Deterrence" only works if the other side knows about it.
"Secret" weapons aren't intended to scare, they're intended to be used.
To even acknowledge that annihilating a nation may have "some positive effects" indicates to me that you are incredibly, um, fucked. Sorry, I have no more sophisticated word for it.
And too me that you are incredibly naive.
While not to the degree Nuclear Warfare would inflict, that is precisely what the Allies did to Germany and Japan during World War II.
The result? They surrendered,...the the number of lives lost every year from war (which climbed steadily in the years leading up to World War II), dropped like a rock and have never really climbed since that time.
World War II reshaped the world into what it is today. Nuclear Weapons ensure *no one* has any illusions as to what Global War will ultimately entail,...so no one dares risk it.
THAT is the real world my friend.
And? Having others subsidize your luxury toy doesn't make it any less expensive to produce, it just makes it cheaper to purchase.
But there's nothing made that doesn't get cheaper as time goes on.
I don't care if were talking about cars, computers, or furniture. The more you make of something, the cheaper it gets.
Myself, I tend to think government "investments" like this should fall under the banner of "National Security".
*ANYTHING* that has the potential to make us less dependent on foreign oil *certainly* increases our collective National Security.
I could really give a shit about the environment (said to ward off the "but electricity comes form dirty old coal! The skies falling because of coal! etc, etc,
We can fix any problems with electrical generation (replacing coal with Nuclear, Wind, Solar,...take your pick of any of the 10,000 ways to generate electricity more efficiently) at our leisure (as we have plenty of Coal to see us through in the meantime).
I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to depend on "cheap" oil (cheap as in "cheaper than horse drawn buggies" :) ),
BTW, sorry for the delay in replying,...been a little under the weather :)
Typical Slashdot whining doublethink - first they whine and complain about how the government isn't putting money into getting 'greener' cars on the road, and then when the government does do so, they whine about *that*.
Mod parent up.
The problem with this logic is that electricity isn't free either.
But is "virtually" free compared to gas.
Last calculation I saw showed the conversion between the two at about 50 per gallon for electriciyt. Now of course that's hard to figure (comparing gasoline usage to electricity) and probably full of "bendable" figures, but it's something to think about anyway.
History shows companies who aggressively advertise during economic slow downs are drastically more likely to make it out the other side far more successful then those who didn't.
Precisely.
In that event, the old adage "takes money to make money" is correct.
Like it or not, we are *all* "shareholders" in GM now, and the only way we have a chance to make our money back is for GM to succeed. Now, I'm not all fired convinced the Volt is everything and a slice of bread, BUT I've scene far less workable vehicles set the world on fire. So it has a chance.
I'll leave it to the reader to decide how much of one.
It's also $40k, way too high to compete with most cars.
But it most likely will qualify for a $7,500 tax rebate,...so the final price may be closer to $32,500.
Education in the USA is NOT underfunded by any means. There's plenty of statistics available showing how much the USA spends per pupil compared to other countries, and it's not deficient. It's typical liberal thinking to say schools in the US are underfunded, and that throwing more money at a problem will somehow fix it.
There's several problems with US public education, and money isn't one of them. One is the teacher's unions, which serve only to keep terrible teachers around and discourage good ones from going into the profession. One is the bad administrations. One is the poor teacher pay in many districts (no, this wouldn't be fixed by more funding; the money is being wasted somewhere else, such as administrators' salaries). One is the lack of discipline and all the bad students who are not expelled from the system, preventing other kids from learning. One is the constant latching onto stupid educational trends like "lattice multiplication" instead of teaching the basics (the 3 Rs) properly. One is the insane amounts of money wasted on Microsoft software.
US public education needs a massive overhaul, and just throwing money at it won't make it better.
And it's the typical result of seeing every problem through the prism of Class Warfare to assume only liberals want to take the easy way out (meaning throwing money at the problem). Every conservative who endlessly bitches about taxes is doing the exact same thing, just in the opposite direction. One side has the idea that money will fix anything, the other the idea that somehow "they" (unions, foreigners, etc.) are after "their" money and so zero money should be spent, period until it's fixed.
That's a whole lot like telling your doctor not to send you your bill until you pay it.
Throw in more than a little revisionism ("gee whiz, everything was perfect in the 'Leave it to Beaver' before they had fancy things like 'physics'") and you just compound the problem,...not to mention ensure nothing ever gets fixed.
>Maybe then you can explain to me why almost a dozen *NEW* Nuclear Power Plants are either, a) BEING BUILT RIGHT NOW, or b) in the end phases of licensing for construction?
I'd bet all of the nuclear plants being completed now started before Obama was a senator, let alone President.
You'd be right in before he was President, but wrong in before he was a Senator. But I still don't understand your point. You see, in the real world of business, politics means very little in making decisions. Politicians (I don't care how far left or right they are) can do very little to stop private enterprise if, and only if what private enterprise is seeking was feasible in the first place (private companies aren't above looking for handouts from the Government simply too see if they can get them, regardless if they actually need them or not).
Obama comes from the state of Illinois, WHICH HAS THE HIGHEST CONCENTRATION OF NUCLEAR POWER IN THE COUNTRY.
The Democrats have done *nothing* to encourage or discourage Nuclear power,...and that's exactly how it should be.
I for one believe Nuclear Power can stand on it's own two feet. I do not feel it requires any special subsidy to remain competitive,...but as long as subsidies are given no one is going to send them back.
You mark my words, when "Cap and Trade" comes seriously to the floor (which most likely won't be before next year, if at all -- I myself have always thought "Cap n' Trade" to be pretty dubious and trust our healthy lobbyist to reduce it even further), provisions will be added to support Nuclear Energy.
There is simply no way to meet our targets regarding CO2 without a massive investment in Nuclear (the only possible alternative would be Solar Satellite Power, though that's a little ways off to be practical now).
But, I feeling from your posts (assuming your the same AC from before) that nothing the Democrats do will satisfy you -- aside from following the Republican mantra of worshiping big-business.
Again, you really need to stop living your life by right-wing talking points.
The Obama administration and Congress under Pelosi have made it clear that along with wiping out the health insurance industry, their vision for "Green Eeconomy" includes a massive wealth transfer from big corporations to their constituents. Nuclear power doesn't fit into their vision for the future.
Maybe then you can explain to me why almost a dozen *NEW* Nuclear Power Plants are either, a) BEING BUILT RIGHT NOW, or b) in the end phases of licensing for construction?
It's a cute fable from the right than left-wing groups killed Nuclear, but like most fables, it's full of holes. Nuclear Power died in the United States, really even before Three Mile Island.
While Three Mile Island is the favorite target for blame, fewer and fewer plants were being ordered, period. The reason for this is a Classic "bubble" effect. Nuclear Energy was the end all, be all for decades starting in the 50s, but by the 70s the bloom was already starting to come off because of massive cost overruns and extended building schedules.
While the Government does share some blame (archaic licensing requirements, for one), the largest portion of blame belongs to the contractors who constructed the plants and the companies that ordered them.
Nuclear Power has always been (by comparison to the U.S.) dirt cheap in countries like France because of the most basic Capitalistic principle, standardization. The French basically licensed two or three designs, spent the time and money guaranteeing those designs were safe and efficient, and then simply chose from those two or three designs every time a new plant was needed.
Well, common sense tells you that once you build a plant two or three times, you'll most probably have discovered all the weird things that creep out of any new engineering project. by the time you've built it five times or more, you can almost be certain that the procedure in building the fifth plant is going to be almost identical to the procedure you use to build plants six through ten (or ten through one hundred, etc.)
In the United States, however, utilities looked at Nuclear (if you will please excuse the pun) like dick-measuring contests. It seems every utility spent more to make sure their plant was as different as possible from the ones that came before it. It's as though they were trying to be as expensive as possible just to show they could.
Every single plant was unique, every single plant had to be gone over from scratch for safety checks, every single plant had to have custom manufacturing processes invented just for it, and every single plant always cost just as much (in some cases, more) as the proceeding one (going back to the first one, practically).
There was never any traction made on standardization (in construction or licensing)
Because of this, Nuclear's supposed advantage over coal (cost, chiefly) *never* materialized in a timeframe that made it a selling point.
People and companies brag now of the Economics of Nuclear, but these plants are all hitting middle age now, where the costs to run them have pretty well been determined and likely costs for the future can be calculated.
What excites me about the future of Nuclear in the United States are plants like the Westinghouse AP1000 -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
These plants are modular, can be built over and over again as many times as needed. Are engineered from the start with economy in mind (rather than "gee whiz, that's cool!"), and,best of allare fully licensed by the NRC right now.
As opposed to the early plants, the licensing procedures for these plants are greatly simplified because the NRC has already determined that th
First, though, I have a question: How many of these "Rare Earth Metals" are only rare on Earth.
My question is how many of them are abundant in space, but are simply limited on the planet?
While the doom and gloom scenarios I've read concerning this (not just this incident of hoarding with the Chinese, but also Oil in the Mid-East, etc. -- anywhere where the "haves" are attempting to limit how much gets to the "have nots") and I don't see it as scary as all.
I'm a liberal-Capitalist. What makes me different than a "Conservative" Capitalist is that I don't allow myself to be boxed in.
Conservatives bitch and moan regarding the United State's government's declining to tap the piss-dribble of oil still left in places like Alaska as though that's all that stands between being dependent on the Saudis and being completely liberated of oil dependence (feel free to read a healthy dose of sarcasm into my preceding statement).
They speak as thought the essence of Capitalism is doing the exact same thing forever and any voice to change the status quo is somehow un-Capitalistic! Forgetting of course THAT THE ESSENCE OF CAPITALISM IS OPENING A WINDOW WHEN SOMEONE OR SOMETHING CLOSES THE DOOR!
The only reason we use petroleum today is because we almost ran out of what we used before petroleum (for the curious kids out there, that would be Whale Oil).
This is no different. I feel we're quickly coming to a crossroads where things such as this will force us to finally stop squabbling over the piss-dribble of resources found on Earth proper and start to explore near-space. I'm not talking about going to Mars, Venus, or anything as outlandish as that. I'm talking about near-earth astroids (some of which are little more difficult to reach than the moon was).
While I don't know about "Rare Earth Metals" in particular, we *do* know that in easily reachable orbits are asteroids with literally TRILLIONS of dollars worth of Nickel, Iron, and Platinum. Resources (especially Platinum) which are also closely tied to the so-called "Green" economy.
In my humble opinion, I say let the Chinese have their day in the sun (after all, we once held the World's largest reserves of oil -- bet you kids find that hard to believe, huh!) Allow them to control anything they want within their own borders and we'll simply follow the Capitalist moniker and "open a window to get around their closed door".
I guarantee you, once we start (speaking of not having to squabble on Earth, but can simply search out ever increasing frontiers throughout near-Earth, and eventually the entire Solar System and beyond), things will never be the same.
Imagine never having to go to war because one country can literally cut another off from vital resources. Imagine (speaking as an American,thank you) being able to combine our entrepreneurial spirit with unlimited resources and potential.
I don't mean to sound goofy here, but there there really would be no end to what we could achieve.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.