because if literally everyone is on it the list would be totally useless.
Only if it's an unordered list. You could have a list of (nearly) every person in the USA, but if it's ordered by some sort of threat metric as long as you're not in the first couple million or so entries you shouldn't have a problem.
That being said, that's actually the problem that the NSA has been having. Sure, they grab huge amounts of data, but only the tiniest fraction receives more than cursory automatic analysis, and only a tiny fraction of that is actually looked at by a human.
In short, they spend so much effort collecting 'all' the emails or whatever that they're otherwise so restrainged that you have a better chance of winning a lottery jackpot than any given email collected by the NSA will be read.
You do realize there is a HUGE difference in money that we all spend through the government (See above) and money that private companies spend because they believe that they will make a profit on it (It is cheaper to produce nuke power than it is other power, otherwise please build the other power plants).
Then you make it profitable for them. Personally, I'd start straight up taxing pollution. Charge $x per ton of mercury/arsenic/lead/NOx/CO2 and you'd see power producers greening up.
Your guess on solar/wind is way off base. The best you could do is get 10-15% from combined solar/wind, so that leaves 65% hydrocarbon/nuke. Yes there are large scale hydro plants, but they only add up to about 7%, you might be able to get this to 20, but I wouldn't like to see the natural disasters that follow. Interestingly solar doesn't even rate a mention (gets included with "Other" at 2.1 percent).
No, 10-15% is NOT the 'best you could get'. Hawaii is past 15% on solar already, and while the power company is making alarming noises, they still have juice. Next, I didn't say 20% hydro. I said 20% OTHER(including hydro). So that's 7% hydro, plus a mix of 'everything else' - geothermal, biomass, tidal, gas reclamation from land fills, etc...
I mention solar at 20%, because it turns out that the average daytime power demand increase is about 50% - which works out to 20% of total power demand.
1. More likely 'young people'. IE, those that live and die by the internet today. 2. Tesla wank pisses me off some. We're working on resonance coupling, but we only have it efficient(like you'd need it to be for powering an EV), at less than a foot. So we can efficiently charge/power a low-slung EV, but not a high-slung one. Tesla had some good ideas and products, but he eventually went off the deep end. Heck, even Einstein eventually got stuck on his universal theory, and he was mostly a pure theory guy(though he did hold some patents in some very interesting refrigeration techniques). 3. Look at the amount of assistance solar, wind, and EVs get. Politicians aren't 100% in big oil's pockets. 3b. Indeed, but they said they nabbed some executives. They didn't say they managed to get engineers/researchers/developers. The executives are likely easier to replace.
What they may NOT care about that much are "city slickers" coming in, preaching how their entire way of life will die out if they don't change
It depends, are the city slickers looking to sell them something, or are they 'merely' doing a presentation that is mostly 'obvious in hindsight'?
You should realize that they're not doing these presentations towards random people. You have to join the rotary clubs and such, the club itself goes out looking for presentations, and the topics are pre-published.
People who show up for this are expecting a presentation on the internet and how it can effect them and what they can do to make things better 'via the internet'. Just like other topics that might include things like 'how to sell to other countries', 'Tax rules to be aware of for businesses', 'energy conservation', 'green energy', etc...
For those that are into rampant 'but conservatives are against being green!', I'll point out that such lectures are generally for how you can save money by doing the upgrades economically. Break-even point for new windows, stuff like that.
It's not true to say that nuclear energy is 100% CO2 free.
True, which is why I didn't say that. I said they wouldn't provide 100% CO2 free generation. I also switched from 'carbon free', which it isn't, to 'carbon neutral', implying that carbon would still be involved. Hell, there's currently carbon involved in solar and wind plants simply because you have to drive out there and inspect, clean, maintain, and repair them occasionally. That's typically done with the current predominant fuels, which is diesel and gasoline.
Mining and refining nuclear fuel is almost a footnote, and a feature of that some fuels are just more practical for some purposes than others. Also, I was being rather specific to electrical power generation. My thoughts on replacing oil for transportation and such involves a heavy switch to electrical power generation(would mean that we'd need about 50% more electrical power generation, 'worst case'), backed up with biofuel production, mostly involving algae grown in the desert. In such a scenario the fuel driving mining vehicles and processes would switch over to biofuel 'naturally'. They wouldn't do so immediately, but when the switch, whether it be to electric or biofuel, becomes the 'go-to' choice, it'd happen.
BTW, do you realize that a lot of Uranium ore mines don't involve significant amounts of digging? They actually leech the metal out of the ground rather than dig it up.
You want fun? Fukushima, depending on how you measure it, was older than TMI. They broke ground and started construction a year or so earlier on Fukushima than they did for TMI, though construction lasted for longer because they built more reactors.
"Conservatively" should be closer to fact, because if we're building them that steadily, using a known design, economy of scale and experience *should* kick in and reduce costs some. Part of the problem with existing plants is that they're all effectively prototypes. Not much knowledge sharing between plants.
So $2 trillion, or $4 trillion if you want to go green.
This isn't a good way to look at it. That's 'merely' the fifty year cost. You hit year 50, you start retiring the plants built 50 years ago*. Remember, we're only building 4 of them a year(at the 200 station level). That's $40bn/year. Or perhaps the 'valuation' of the existing infrastructure at that point. A better way to look at it is that maintaining our nuclear infrastructure at appropriate ages would be a steady $40-80bn/year. And if you're complaining about the cost to replace plants after 50 years, how do you justify spending on stuff that doesn't even last one?
As for renewable, in case you're thinking that's cheaper - Right now solar and wind are coming in about even for face-plate capacity. Problem with that is capacity factor - which is around 30% for solar and wind, and around 90% for nuclear. 1GW of nuclear will produce as many MWh of electricity over a year as 3GW of wind and solar. Even if the price drops, eventually you'd need storage, which adds to the price.
In any case, even 400 nuclear plants wouldn't provide 100% carbon dioxide free electricity generation. My 'ideal' carbon neutral mix is about 40% nuclear (replacing coal), 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other(hydro and everything else). The nuclear becomes baseload. Solar covers the average daytime demand increase. Wind, when widescale enough, tends to blow a touch more at night, so it helps compensate for solar. 'Other' includes much of your peaking capability outside of known daytime increases that can be handled by solar.
And that's pocket change, really. War on Drugs is costing us $15B/year. War on terror runs about $100B/year.
*Though as I mentioned in my first post, odds are that you'll have a few plants that you have to retire early, and a few that are so 'problem free' that there's no particular reason to retire them on schedule. Or more accurately, you decide to retire the troublesome 30 year old plant over the 'spry' 50 year old one.
is that the results linger. They'll be cancer victims out of Fukushima for decades. Or maybe not. It's hard to say. Too many people have a vested interest in both camps to be sure how many will get cancer from the disaster.
As the AC mentioned - how long does it take for the CO2 from burning fossil fuels to go away? How long for the mercury, sulfur, NOx and everything else to degrade?
At least radioactivity decreases over time. Much of the rest of the stuff is here to stay until we go in and clean it up.
And the death toll from nuclear DOES include estimated deaths from nuclear disasters.
At least in America we've got a long history of privatizing things to hand off the profits to somebody's brother in law. But sooner or later inflation bites into their profits and they start cutting corners....
Remember, I want to build NEW safer plants. Second, the USA suffered the first major accident, it hasn't suffered a major one since. Thus far, they haven't cut any significant corners.
no permitting has been allowed out of the NRC since 3 mile island happened in the late 70s,
Actually it has, it's just that we were just getting around to it - some new reactors are coming online this year. However, they were made at already existing plants, IE adding another reactor to an already existing nuclear power plant, and worse, it's the old design - they finished up a reactor that had construction suspended back in the '80s.
That being said, in order to keep nuclear power plant ages 'reasonable', you're looking at that we should be completing 4-8 reactors/plants a year. 200 reactors for current power needs, 400 to 'green up' our power by eliminating coal. Estimates, which is why I'm only being single digit specific. 200 plants, 4 built a year, gives you an average lifespan of 50 years. Probably means that you'd have a few shut down at 10,20, and 30, such that the maximum age at plants without earlier problems discovered would be around 60 years, in order to compensate for the 'lemon' reactors that have to be shut down early.
I'll believe $36K, particularly if this is a special case.
It's not a 'special case' so much as a 'specific case', IE single mother with 2 children, Cook County, standard benefits.
We're talking about the disgraceful situation where full-time minimum wage doesn't pay enough to live on.
That brings up what full time minimum wage should cover? Should it be enough for a single person, two people, 3(single mother + 2 kids), or 4(husband works, wife stays home with 2 kids), etc...? The value range here is extreme.
Personally, what gets me upset about that charge are the cliffs - you shouldn't be ever see reduced income from a pay increase. As such, I support a BIG to prevent that.
Is it because they only speak Slavic languages and that they are scientists from the Ukraine that the body of their work is not credible? Or is it because we only speak english? Or is it because Chernobyl is in their country?
Nope, it's because their figure is an extreme outlier from other studies.
Well let's examine that correlation. That DU is used as munitions in Iraq is common knowledge.
Correct. As for the properties, well, that's also known. It doesn't so much increase it's radioactive emissions when it's burning as people's exposure to it tends to go up because it's going from a solid form to a gaseous/powder form, which is a form that is much easier to get 'close contact' with, get into the lungs, etc...
That being said, current theory is that DU's radioactive properties is less harmful than the fact that it's a heavy metal, it has a lot of the same chemical hazards as mercury, lead, cadmium, and such.
Basically, it causes illness, including birth defects, by chemical poisoning a hell of a lot more often than by it's radiation.
That being said, a google image search isn't a study, it's not even proper anecdotal evidence. The problem with something like DU contamination is that, like I said, there's plenty of defects due to other reasons in an area, it take careful study to filter out the defects that would have happened anyways.
And your link ruined it's credibility in the second paragraph. 1. DU is actually less radioactive than natural uranium. This is because 235 is more radioactive than the rest of it. 2. DU is NOT nuclear waste material from reactors "removed from spent fuel rods" 3. It doesn't actually incinerate people when shot through armor. That actually tends to be from sympathetic detonations and fires. 4. Cruise missile ballast? The goal is to get rid of weight in them, not increase it! It's used in the keels of actual sea-going ships as ballast. The error train just keeps going, and I'm not going to bother breaking it down further.
It's about 30 minutes reading. Not exactly a killer assignment. I'm pretty busy myself.
30 minutes of study time is very dear to me at the moment.
I understand your discomfit, but it gives way to amusment when you realize the whole thing is a bunch of cunts, being cunts to another bunch of cunts. And those cunts run the whole world. We are but pawns and peons
I understand the cunt part. What I don't understand is your deliberate targeting theory.
Nuclear has historically been a electrical power source. It is an input. Baseload availability of electrical power is a function of the power grid, not of any one source.
You're just being pedantic here. Historically been an electrical power source. What I said: "electrical power source". See what I mean about restating what I said? Baseload availability of electrical power as a function of the grid - yeah, but go back to what you quoted: "baseload electrical power source". IE a power source that's typically used to fulfill 'baseload' power demand on the grid. What types of plants do they operate to provide said base load? Coal and Nuclear, because they have the cheapest marginal cost per kwh, and don't necessarily like being turned up and down much. In some areas they use hydro for a lot of it.
Throwing accusations out there when you are speaking out of your own assumptions is a naive choice when the facts are right in front of you.
Then provide some evidence. Because they're NOT 'right in front of me'. Of course industry will use it to their maximum advantage, but that's not a oil company plot against nuclear power. That's the oil industry grabbing for it's money, the nuclear for it's, and so on.
The IAEA isn't the WHO. There are numerous organizations and studies out there, the thing is that the Ukraine study is an extreme outlier - and thus unlikely to be 'closer to correct' than the range of other studies. Personally, I figure it's somewhere below Greenpeace's and above the IAEA's.
One serious confounding factor for any such studies is that chemical carcinogens substantially rose over the same time period, and that's hard to control for as well.
I'm sure you can agree that getting accurate scientific information on human health and the distribution of radionuclides is important enough to not have any political agendas interfering with it's work.
That's the thing, why do we need to know this when the goal is to not release in the first place? That's part of the deal with pointing out the dome. US nuclear reactors, reactors in the rest of the semi-sane world, are all pre-enclosed into containment structures far superior to the sarcophagus.
The reason I hit this so hard and often is that, as we saw with Fukushima, even in a 'worst case' situation you see far less in the way of releases. As such, Chernobyl is actually a pretty bad example for when it comes to radioactive release, because the most likely types of radioactive materials to be released, and the amounts therein, are substantially different.
As such, engineering to make sure stuff isn't released in the first place is a better safety investment than nailing down the cancer statistics for low exposure radiation.
the IAEA's founding papers "The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world."
Dude, my point wasn't centered on IAEA - I even quoted greenpeace estimating lower fatalities from the event.
'yeah dude, this is what happens when a Nuclear Reactor blows up in your backyard'.
More like when a nuclear reactor, completely missing a containment dome, you know, what you were complaining was too thin on the AP1000. Chernobyl's reactor didn't have one, at all. I've never said that there shouldn't be a dome. The other failures were numerous and extremely negligent.
Timeline: TMI was the first major disaster. Radiation release was ultimately minor, the dome did it's duty. Results: Ruined reactor that hung around decades before it was cool enough to clean up, but the dome, again, did it's duty. Basically no casualties. Resulted in an incredible amount of change in the safety system of the USA. Then Chernobyl happened. A reactor with a positive void co-efficient(and you should know what this is), graphite moderated, no containment dome, with many safety features turned off and/or disabled for 'testing' that was, at the least, 'ill advised'. Fukushima - again, domes did their job. They should have had hydrogen systems, but didn't. Should of had the generators in better places. Still, it took a tsunami strike to cause it have a disaster.
Again, I support dismantling the old plants. You complain about the theoretical power difference between the AP1000 and EPR, but besides the ongoing destruction from coal power, I look at that older plants are expected to experience 'major core damage' a hundred times more often than even the AP design that you so dislike.
Nope, it's my counter to your argument that government control is 'better'.
Well perhaps you think we should repeal the Price-Anderson act then?
Price-Anderson wasn't passed to enable nuclear power planet operators to be more dangerous, it was to satisfy investors by providing them a measure of safety. The structure of Price-Anderson is such that the Nuclear industry as a whole is responsible for ANY accidents up to a rather large amount before the feds step in, so they're all encouraged to keep an eye out on each other. Much like I'd keep an eye on you if your doing something stupid could cost me $2k.
And let's hope that continues. I must tell you I am exceptionally pleased that SONGS has closed down.
*reads up on SONGS* - San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, right?
Hmm... I'm pretty sure I've told you that one of my 'ideal' goals includes the replacement and shutting down of every current nuclear reactor, right? As such, my only objection to the SONGS situation is that there isn't a replacement nuclear reactor being stood up to replace it.
As for the shutdown itself, I'm going to point out that shutting down the plant because of the discovery of excess wear on steam generators
Also, replacement of a number of what are effectively all prototype plants with standard designs enables us to get the same sort of economy of scale that vehicles see. Roughly speaking - you have a number of plants of the same design, with a few prototypes that are a number of years older. Any issues that crop up with them are likely to crop up with subsequent plant designs, but you'll generally have X more years to address them in the followup plants, giving you more engineering time - and spreading the engineering cost over more plants.
2005 Energy Act Sec 600 onward. You will need to read the entire section on Nuclear law and funding to understand the interrelationships. It is quite a fascinating read.
Remember, college student, I don't have time to perform massive reading assignments. Post a link and summarize, preferably with the occasional excerpt.
I doubt that said energy act has some conspiracy theory laid out in it showing that the oil industry is deliberately attacking nuclear power. Like I said earlier, they're often inter-tied and not really in the same field.
Baseload is a grid function.
No duh? Do you have a point besides restating what I said? "baseload electrical" ~ "grid function"
Why? It's just business.
It's nonsensical because it's not profitable, which means that it's not 'just business', which makes it a conspiracy theory.
As for hydrogen, it's because there's just not enough demand for hydrogen and that current nuclear reactors would have to be retrofitted($$$) because they're old and not originally designed for producing it. They can already sell all the power they can produce, especially today.
Boy, you just pounded me with replies. I apologize, but due to 2 projects being due today & tomorrow, it's likely to be a bit.
Energetic inputs - 'Marginal' and 'insignificant' is a thing. Different fuels and chemicals each have their own optimal uses. You start objecting to nuclear and solar power because you have to mine and refine materials, and said mining involves diesel powered trucks, you're just getting petty, as well as losing perspective that if electricity(nuclear, solar, or whatever) gets cheap enough, it will displace the diesel somewhere. For example, I shift from fuel oil for heating my house to a electric system(such as a heat pump). That's roughly 700 gallons a year gone. Not that a piece of heavy industrial equipment can't use that much in a day... But if you get more than me making the change....
I see it as the choice of two Nuclear reactors series that contain elements toxic to the human genome and whether our need for electricity overrides our responsibility for the DNA of future human beings. Personally, I don't think it does.
And I see you looking at a false economy, because the most common alternative, coal, causes even more DNA damage.
I think you need to consider the magnitude of said 'support processes'. Like I said above, indirect displacement is certainly a thing, and can easily displace more than it's relatively minor amount of fossil fuel usage in various support functions - emergency, mining, refining, etc...
Oh, I agree. While I support a BIG(Basic Income Guarantee), I tend to surprise people off because rather than calculating a 'reasonable' amount for a single person to live alone, I tend to calculate on a household size of 4, which is about the maximum I figure we can get away with and still be stable for most. Because let's face it, a payment that can keep me 'minimally comfortable' in my own place - roughly $1500/month in a cheaper area of the country, is outright luxurious once you get 4 adults together and have a household income of $72k/year. $18k for a single is poor. $72k for 4 is middle class.
With that, and admittedly hand-waving medical as otherwise provided, I tend to end up with about $500-$1k per adult. $24k-$48k per household(parents and adult children, perhaps?) is 'reasonable'. Provisioning for children is more complex - I want it to be low enough to not encourage single parents*, but high enough to make sure the kids are taken care of.
*One thing about a BIG - it'd flip the current disincentive for getting married among the poor. Right now marriage can often cost them benefits, so they don't get married.
The way I see it, these kinds of UBI plans will eventually precipitate an unsolvable fiscal crisis, but it may take a generation or two before people who feel ashamed for not contributing are replaced by people who don't.
We already have such that look to live on 'the dole', they currently have an easier time of it because numerous different welfare systems have a hard time keeping track of just what one family is getting, to the point that if you sign up 'perfectly', you can be getting $70k or more a year in government benefits. Most people in that category can't successfully sign up to everything though.
One thing that you have to realize about an UBI plan is that it could be tuned - If too many are living on the payment alone and not working, reduce it. Too many people seeking what jobs there are and depressing wages? Increase it a bit. Etc...
I think that's kind of the point. Roughly $1k/month in the USA is enough to leave people feeling 'safe'. IE they can afford to think strategically. It's also low enough that most will at least still be 'hungry'.
A person who knows that, worst case, they can move to a cheaper part of the city and live decently, is going to be less worried than one that has to worry about losing everything and becoming homeless.
Not everyone wants to live in a trailer on the outskirts of Ponca, Oklahoma.
As I mentioned, I'm also back in school, with another job. I certainly don't want to be permanently retired on just that. It'd be substantially easier if my house was fully paid off.
Well, you can hardly live on $12k with a wife and kids.
Funny, I meant 'only on the $12k.' IE no other income, but yeah, while a wife would make it more difficult, what kind of retiree is still raising kids?
Slashdot Mirror
because if literally everyone is on it the list would be totally useless.
Only if it's an unordered list. You could have a list of (nearly) every person in the USA, but if it's ordered by some sort of threat metric as long as you're not in the first couple million or so entries you shouldn't have a problem.
That being said, that's actually the problem that the NSA has been having. Sure, they grab huge amounts of data, but only the tiniest fraction receives more than cursory automatic analysis, and only a tiny fraction of that is actually looked at by a human.
In short, they spend so much effort collecting 'all' the emails or whatever that they're otherwise so restrainged that you have a better chance of winning a lottery jackpot than any given email collected by the NSA will be read.
You do realize there is a HUGE difference in money that we all spend through the government (See above) and money that private companies spend because they believe that they will make a profit on it (It is cheaper to produce nuke power than it is other power, otherwise please build the other power plants).
Then you make it profitable for them. Personally, I'd start straight up taxing pollution. Charge $x per ton of mercury/arsenic/lead/NOx/CO2 and you'd see power producers greening up.
Your guess on solar/wind is way off base. The best you could do is get 10-15% from combined solar/wind, so that leaves 65% hydrocarbon/nuke. Yes there are large scale hydro plants, but they only add up to about 7%, you might be able to get this to 20, but I wouldn't like to see the natural disasters that follow. Interestingly solar doesn't even rate a mention (gets included with "Other" at 2.1 percent).
No, 10-15% is NOT the 'best you could get'. Hawaii is past 15% on solar already, and while the power company is making alarming noises, they still have juice. Next, I didn't say 20% hydro. I said 20% OTHER(including hydro). So that's 7% hydro, plus a mix of 'everything else' - geothermal, biomass, tidal, gas reclamation from land fills, etc...
I mention solar at 20%, because it turns out that the average daytime power demand increase is about 50% - which works out to 20% of total power demand.
1. More likely 'young people'. IE, those that live and die by the internet today.
2. Tesla wank pisses me off some. We're working on resonance coupling, but we only have it efficient(like you'd need it to be for powering an EV), at less than a foot. So we can efficiently charge/power a low-slung EV, but not a high-slung one. Tesla had some good ideas and products, but he eventually went off the deep end. Heck, even Einstein eventually got stuck on his universal theory, and he was mostly a pure theory guy(though he did hold some patents in some very interesting refrigeration techniques).
3. Look at the amount of assistance solar, wind, and EVs get. Politicians aren't 100% in big oil's pockets.
3b. Indeed, but they said they nabbed some executives. They didn't say they managed to get engineers/researchers/developers. The executives are likely easier to replace.
What they may NOT care about that much are "city slickers" coming in, preaching how their entire way of life will die out if they don't change
It depends, are the city slickers looking to sell them something, or are they 'merely' doing a presentation that is mostly 'obvious in hindsight'?
You should realize that they're not doing these presentations towards random people. You have to join the rotary clubs and such, the club itself goes out looking for presentations, and the topics are pre-published.
People who show up for this are expecting a presentation on the internet and how it can effect them and what they can do to make things better 'via the internet'. Just like other topics that might include things like 'how to sell to other countries', 'Tax rules to be aware of for businesses', 'energy conservation', 'green energy', etc...
For those that are into rampant 'but conservatives are against being green!', I'll point out that such lectures are generally for how you can save money by doing the upgrades economically. Break-even point for new windows, stuff like that.
It's not true to say that nuclear energy is 100% CO2 free.
True, which is why I didn't say that. I said they wouldn't provide 100% CO2 free generation. I also switched from 'carbon free', which it isn't, to 'carbon neutral', implying that carbon would still be involved. Hell, there's currently carbon involved in solar and wind plants simply because you have to drive out there and inspect, clean, maintain, and repair them occasionally. That's typically done with the current predominant fuels, which is diesel and gasoline.
Mining and refining nuclear fuel is almost a footnote, and a feature of that some fuels are just more practical for some purposes than others. Also, I was being rather specific to electrical power generation. My thoughts on replacing oil for transportation and such involves a heavy switch to electrical power generation(would mean that we'd need about 50% more electrical power generation, 'worst case'), backed up with biofuel production, mostly involving algae grown in the desert. In such a scenario the fuel driving mining vehicles and processes would switch over to biofuel 'naturally'. They wouldn't do so immediately, but when the switch, whether it be to electric or biofuel, becomes the 'go-to' choice, it'd happen.
BTW, do you realize that a lot of Uranium ore mines don't involve significant amounts of digging? They actually leech the metal out of the ground rather than dig it up.
Fukushima was OLDER than Chernobyl.
You want fun? Fukushima, depending on how you measure it, was older than TMI. They broke ground and started construction a year or so earlier on Fukushima than they did for TMI, though construction lasted for longer because they built more reactors.
200 stations at conservatively $10bn each,
"Conservatively" should be closer to fact, because if we're building them that steadily, using a known design, economy of scale and experience *should* kick in and reduce costs some. Part of the problem with existing plants is that they're all effectively prototypes. Not much knowledge sharing between plants.
So $2 trillion, or $4 trillion if you want to go green.
This isn't a good way to look at it. That's 'merely' the fifty year cost. You hit year 50, you start retiring the plants built 50 years ago*. Remember, we're only building 4 of them a year(at the 200 station level). That's $40bn/year. Or perhaps the 'valuation' of the existing infrastructure at that point. A better way to look at it is that maintaining our nuclear infrastructure at appropriate ages would be a steady $40-80bn/year. And if you're complaining about the cost to replace plants after 50 years, how do you justify spending on stuff that doesn't even last one?
As for renewable, in case you're thinking that's cheaper - Right now solar and wind are coming in about even for face-plate capacity. Problem with that is capacity factor - which is around 30% for solar and wind, and around 90% for nuclear. 1GW of nuclear will produce as many MWh of electricity over a year as 3GW of wind and solar. Even if the price drops, eventually you'd need storage, which adds to the price.
In any case, even 400 nuclear plants wouldn't provide 100% carbon dioxide free electricity generation. My 'ideal' carbon neutral mix is about 40% nuclear (replacing coal), 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other(hydro and everything else). The nuclear becomes baseload. Solar covers the average daytime demand increase. Wind, when widescale enough, tends to blow a touch more at night, so it helps compensate for solar. 'Other' includes much of your peaking capability outside of known daytime increases that can be handled by solar.
And that's pocket change, really. War on Drugs is costing us $15B/year. War on terror runs about $100B/year.
*Though as I mentioned in my first post, odds are that you'll have a few plants that you have to retire early, and a few that are so 'problem free' that there's no particular reason to retire them on schedule. Or more accurately, you decide to retire the troublesome 30 year old plant over the 'spry' 50 year old one.
is that the results linger. They'll be cancer victims out of Fukushima for decades. Or maybe not. It's hard to say. Too many people have a vested interest in both camps to be sure how many will get cancer from the disaster.
As the AC mentioned - how long does it take for the CO2 from burning fossil fuels to go away? How long for the mercury, sulfur, NOx and everything else to degrade?
At least radioactivity decreases over time. Much of the rest of the stuff is here to stay until we go in and clean it up.
And the death toll from nuclear DOES include estimated deaths from nuclear disasters.
At least in America we've got a long history of privatizing things to hand off the profits to somebody's brother in law. But sooner or later inflation bites into their profits and they start cutting corners....
Remember, I want to build NEW safer plants. Second, the USA suffered the first major accident, it hasn't suffered a major one since. Thus far, they haven't cut any significant corners.
Next Big Future also has a good writeup:
Nuclear: 0.04 deaths per TWH
Hydro: 0.10 (Euro standard)
Wind: 0.15
Rooftop solar: 0.44 (mostly people falling off of roofs installing them)
Natural gas: 4
Coal, US: 15 (China is 278)
no permitting has been allowed out of the NRC since 3 mile island happened in the late 70s,
Actually it has, it's just that we were just getting around to it - some new reactors are coming online this year. However, they were made at already existing plants, IE adding another reactor to an already existing nuclear power plant, and worse, it's the old design - they finished up a reactor that had construction suspended back in the '80s.
That being said, in order to keep nuclear power plant ages 'reasonable', you're looking at that we should be completing 4-8 reactors/plants a year. 200 reactors for current power needs, 400 to 'green up' our power by eliminating coal. Estimates, which is why I'm only being single digit specific. 200 plants, 4 built a year, gives you an average lifespan of 50 years. Probably means that you'd have a few shut down at 10,20, and 30, such that the maximum age at plants without earlier problems discovered would be around 60 years, in order to compensate for the 'lemon' reactors that have to be shut down early.
I'll believe $36K, particularly if this is a special case.
It's not a 'special case' so much as a 'specific case', IE single mother with 2 children, Cook County, standard benefits.
We're talking about the disgraceful situation where full-time minimum wage doesn't pay enough to live on.
That brings up what full time minimum wage should cover? Should it be enough for a single person, two people, 3(single mother + 2 kids), or 4(husband works, wife stays home with 2 kids), etc...? The value range here is extreme.
Personally, what gets me upset about that charge are the cliffs - you shouldn't be ever see reduced income from a pay increase. As such, I support a BIG to prevent that.
Is it because they only speak Slavic languages and that they are scientists from the Ukraine that the body of their work is not credible? Or is it because we only speak english? Or is it because Chernobyl is in their country?
Nope, it's because their figure is an extreme outlier from other studies.
Well let's examine that correlation. That DU is used as munitions in Iraq is common knowledge.
Correct. As for the properties, well, that's also known. It doesn't so much increase it's radioactive emissions when it's burning as people's exposure to it tends to go up because it's going from a solid form to a gaseous/powder form, which is a form that is much easier to get 'close contact' with, get into the lungs, etc...
That being said, current theory is that DU's radioactive properties is less harmful than the fact that it's a heavy metal, it has a lot of the same chemical hazards as mercury, lead, cadmium, and such.
Basically, it causes illness, including birth defects, by chemical poisoning a hell of a lot more often than by it's radiation.
That being said, a google image search isn't a study, it's not even proper anecdotal evidence. The problem with something like DU contamination is that, like I said, there's plenty of defects due to other reasons in an area, it take careful study to filter out the defects that would have happened anyways.
And your link ruined it's credibility in the second paragraph.
1. DU is actually less radioactive than natural uranium. This is because 235 is more radioactive than the rest of it.
2. DU is NOT nuclear waste material from reactors "removed from spent fuel rods"
3. It doesn't actually incinerate people when shot through armor. That actually tends to be from sympathetic detonations and fires.
4. Cruise missile ballast? The goal is to get rid of weight in them, not increase it! It's used in the keels of actual sea-going ships as ballast.
The error train just keeps going, and I'm not going to bother breaking it down further.
It's about 30 minutes reading. Not exactly a killer assignment. I'm pretty busy myself.
30 minutes of study time is very dear to me at the moment.
I understand your discomfit, but it gives way to amusment when you realize the whole thing is a bunch of cunts, being cunts to another bunch of cunts. And those cunts run the whole world. We are but pawns and peons
I understand the cunt part. What I don't understand is your deliberate targeting theory.
Nuclear has historically been a electrical power source. It is an input. Baseload availability of electrical power is a function of the power grid, not of any one source.
You're just being pedantic here. Historically been an electrical power source. What I said: "electrical power source". See what I mean about restating what I said? Baseload availability of electrical power as a function of the grid - yeah, but go back to what you quoted: "baseload electrical power source". IE a power source that's typically used to fulfill 'baseload' power demand on the grid. What types of plants do they operate to provide said base load? Coal and Nuclear, because they have the cheapest marginal cost per kwh, and don't necessarily like being turned up and down much. In some areas they use hydro for a lot of it.
Throwing accusations out there when you are speaking out of your own assumptions is a naive choice when the facts are right in front of you.
Then provide some evidence. Because they're NOT 'right in front of me'. Of course industry will use it to their maximum advantage, but that's not a oil company plot against nuclear power. That's the oil industry grabbing for it's money, the nuclear for it's, and so on.
Sorry, this is a rewrite-accidentally hit cancel.
The IAEA isn't the WHO. There are numerous organizations and studies out there, the thing is that the Ukraine study is an extreme outlier - and thus unlikely to be 'closer to correct' than the range of other studies. Personally, I figure it's somewhere below Greenpeace's and above the IAEA's.
One serious confounding factor for any such studies is that chemical carcinogens substantially rose over the same time period, and that's hard to control for as well.
I'm sure you can agree that getting accurate scientific information on human health and the distribution of radionuclides is important enough to not have any political agendas interfering with it's work.
That's the thing, why do we need to know this when the goal is to not release in the first place? That's part of the deal with pointing out the dome. US nuclear reactors, reactors in the rest of the semi-sane world, are all pre-enclosed into containment structures far superior to the sarcophagus.
The reason I hit this so hard and often is that, as we saw with Fukushima, even in a 'worst case' situation you see far less in the way of releases. As such, Chernobyl is actually a pretty bad example for when it comes to radioactive release, because the most likely types of radioactive materials to be released, and the amounts therein, are substantially different.
As such, engineering to make sure stuff isn't released in the first place is a better safety investment than nailing down the cancer statistics for low exposure radiation.
the IAEA's founding papers "The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world."
Dude, my point wasn't centered on IAEA - I even quoted greenpeace estimating lower fatalities from the event.
'yeah dude, this is what happens when a Nuclear Reactor blows up in your backyard'.
More like when a nuclear reactor, completely missing a containment dome, you know, what you were complaining was too thin on the AP1000. Chernobyl's reactor didn't have one, at all. I've never said that there shouldn't be a dome. The other failures were numerous and extremely negligent.
Timeline: TMI was the first major disaster. Radiation release was ultimately minor, the dome did it's duty. Results: Ruined reactor that hung around decades before it was cool enough to clean up, but the dome, again, did it's duty. Basically no casualties. Resulted in an incredible amount of change in the safety system of the USA.
Then Chernobyl happened. A reactor with a positive void co-efficient(and you should know what this is), graphite moderated, no containment dome, with many safety features turned off and/or disabled for 'testing' that was, at the least, 'ill advised'.
Fukushima - again, domes did their job. They should have had hydrogen systems, but didn't. Should of had the generators in better places. Still, it took a tsunami strike to cause it have a disaster.
Again, I support dismantling the old plants. You complain about the theoretical power difference between the AP1000 and EPR, but besides the ongoing destruction from coal power, I look at that older plants are expected to experience 'major core damage' a hundred times more often than even the AP design that you so dislike.
The answer to this is: They have. I'm sure that you'll find sources if you google.
I'm not so sure about cables, but exploit devices have been found in usb chargers in airports.
This is your argument for nuclear power?
Nope, it's my counter to your argument that government control is 'better'.
Well perhaps you think we should repeal the Price-Anderson act then?
Price-Anderson wasn't passed to enable nuclear power planet operators to be more dangerous, it was to satisfy investors by providing them a measure of safety. The structure of Price-Anderson is such that the Nuclear industry as a whole is responsible for ANY accidents up to a rather large amount before the feds step in, so they're all encouraged to keep an eye out on each other. Much like I'd keep an eye on you if your doing something stupid could cost me $2k.
And let's hope that continues. I must tell you I am exceptionally pleased that SONGS has closed down.
*reads up on SONGS* - San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, right?
Hmm... I'm pretty sure I've told you that one of my 'ideal' goals includes the replacement and shutting down of every current nuclear reactor, right? As such, my only objection to the SONGS situation is that there isn't a replacement nuclear reactor being stood up to replace it.
As for the shutdown itself, I'm going to point out that shutting down the plant because of the discovery of excess wear on steam generators
Also, replacement of a number of what are effectively all prototype plants with standard designs enables us to get the same sort of economy of scale that vehicles see. Roughly speaking - you have a number of plants of the same design, with a few prototypes that are a number of years older. Any issues that crop up with them are likely to crop up with subsequent plant designs, but you'll generally have X more years to address them in the followup plants, giving you more engineering time - and spreading the engineering cost over more plants.
2005 Energy Act Sec 600 onward. You will need to read the entire section on Nuclear law and funding to understand the interrelationships. It is quite a fascinating read.
Remember, college student, I don't have time to perform massive reading assignments. Post a link and summarize, preferably with the occasional excerpt.
I doubt that said energy act has some conspiracy theory laid out in it showing that the oil industry is deliberately attacking nuclear power. Like I said earlier, they're often inter-tied and not really in the same field.
Baseload is a grid function.
No duh? Do you have a point besides restating what I said? "baseload electrical" ~ "grid function"
Why? It's just business.
It's nonsensical because it's not profitable, which means that it's not 'just business', which makes it a conspiracy theory.
As for hydrogen, it's because there's just not enough demand for hydrogen and that current nuclear reactors would have to be retrofitted($$$) because they're old and not originally designed for producing it. They can already sell all the power they can produce, especially today.
Boy, you just pounded me with replies. I apologize, but due to 2 projects being due today & tomorrow, it's likely to be a bit.
Energetic inputs - 'Marginal' and 'insignificant' is a thing. Different fuels and chemicals each have their own optimal uses. You start objecting to nuclear and solar power because you have to mine and refine materials, and said mining involves diesel powered trucks, you're just getting petty, as well as losing perspective that if electricity(nuclear, solar, or whatever) gets cheap enough, it will displace the diesel somewhere. For example, I shift from fuel oil for heating my house to a electric system(such as a heat pump). That's roughly 700 gallons a year gone. Not that a piece of heavy industrial equipment can't use that much in a day... But if you get more than me making the change....
I see it as the choice of two Nuclear reactors series that contain elements toxic to the human genome and whether our need for electricity overrides our responsibility for the DNA of future human beings. Personally, I don't think it does.
And I see you looking at a false economy, because the most common alternative, coal, causes even more DNA damage.
I think you need to consider the magnitude of said 'support processes'. Like I said above, indirect displacement is certainly a thing, and can easily displace more than it's relatively minor amount of fossil fuel usage in various support functions - emergency, mining, refining, etc...
Oh, I agree. While I support a BIG(Basic Income Guarantee), I tend to surprise people off because rather than calculating a 'reasonable' amount for a single person to live alone, I tend to calculate on a household size of 4, which is about the maximum I figure we can get away with and still be stable for most. Because let's face it, a payment that can keep me 'minimally comfortable' in my own place - roughly $1500/month in a cheaper area of the country, is outright luxurious once you get 4 adults together and have a household income of $72k/year. $18k for a single is poor. $72k for 4 is middle class.
With that, and admittedly hand-waving medical as otherwise provided, I tend to end up with about $500-$1k per adult. $24k-$48k per household(parents and adult children, perhaps?) is 'reasonable'. Provisioning for children is more complex - I want it to be low enough to not encourage single parents*, but high enough to make sure the kids are taken care of.
*One thing about a BIG - it'd flip the current disincentive for getting married among the poor. Right now marriage can often cost them benefits, so they don't get married.
Well, first it's not 'someone', it's 'family'. For maximum benefits, single mother, multiple children.
I can't find the $70k figure at the moment, but have a $36k one for cook county, CA.
It doesn't hit ~$65k until the mother is working full time at minimum wage.
I think the figure I remembered would probably be for NYC, and probably with 3-4 kids.
The way I see it, these kinds of UBI plans will eventually precipitate an unsolvable fiscal crisis, but it may take a generation or two before people who feel ashamed for not contributing are replaced by people who don't.
We already have such that look to live on 'the dole', they currently have an easier time of it because numerous different welfare systems have a hard time keeping track of just what one family is getting, to the point that if you sign up 'perfectly', you can be getting $70k or more a year in government benefits. Most people in that category can't successfully sign up to everything though.
One thing that you have to realize about an UBI plan is that it could be tuned - If too many are living on the payment alone and not working, reduce it. Too many people seeking what jobs there are and depressing wages? Increase it a bit. Etc...
I think that's kind of the point. Roughly $1k/month in the USA is enough to leave people feeling 'safe'. IE they can afford to think strategically. It's also low enough that most will at least still be 'hungry'.
A person who knows that, worst case, they can move to a cheaper part of the city and live decently, is going to be less worried than one that has to worry about losing everything and becoming homeless.
Not everyone wants to live in a trailer on the outskirts of Ponca, Oklahoma.
As I mentioned, I'm also back in school, with another job. I certainly don't want to be permanently retired on just that. It'd be substantially easier if my house was fully paid off.
Well, you can hardly live on $12k with a wife and kids.
Funny, I meant 'only on the $12k.' IE no other income, but yeah, while a wife would make it more difficult, what kind of retiree is still raising kids?