Nuclear power is the only way to stop making CO2 that actually works. To stop Global Warming, we must replace all large fossil fueled power plants with nuclear.
Renewable Energy mandates cause more CO2 to be produced, not less, and renewable energy doubles or quadruples your electric bill. The reasons are as follows:
Since solar “works” 15% of the time and wind “works” 20% of the time, we need either energy storage technology we don’t have or ambient temperature superconductors and we don’t have them either. Wind and solar are so intermittent that electric companies are forced to build new generator capacity that can load-follow very fast, and that means natural gas fired gas turbines. The gas turbines have to be kept spinning at full speed all the time to ramp up quickly enough. The result is that wind and solar not only double your electric bill, wind and solar also cause MORE CO2 to be produced.
We do not have battery or energy storage technology that could smooth out wind and solar at a price that would be possible to do. The energy storage would "cost" in the neighborhood of a QUADRILLION dollars for the US. That is an imaginary price because we could not get the materials to do it if we had that much money.
The only real way to reduce CO2 production from electricity generation is to replace all fossil fueled power plants with the newest available generation of nuclear. Nuclear can load-follow fast enough as long as wind and solar power are not connected to the grid. Generation 4 nuclear can ramp fast enough to make up for the intermittency of wind and solar, but there is no reason to waste time and money on wind and solar.
No. Where Did Natural Background Radiation Come From?
The sum of the natural background radiation at Fukushima plus the radiation leak from the reactor is less than the natural background radiation where I live in Illinois. There was no reason for Japan to shut down their reactors. If the reactors at Fukushima had not been shut down, would they have continued to operate normally?
Where did natural background radiation come from? The universe started out with only 3 elements: hydrogen, helium and lithium. All other elements were made in stars or by supernova explosions. Our star is a seventh generation star. The previous 6 generations were necessary for the elements heavier than lithium to be built up. Since heavier elements were built by radiation processes, they were very radioactive when first made.
Our planet was made of the debris of a supernova explosion that happened about 5 billion years ago. The Earth has been decreasing in radioactivity ever since. All elements heavier than iron were necessarily made by accretion of mostly neutrons but sometimes protons onto lighter nuclei. Radioactive decays were necessary to bring these new nuclei into the realm of nuclear stability. That is why all rocks are still radioactive.
Radiation also comes from outer space in the form of cosmic rays. Cosmic rays come from supernovas that are very far away. There will always be cosmic rays.
Our problem is with education majors. She could be a female chauvenist. Chances are good that it is a woman you are talking about, so I assume so. A female chauvenist sees men as security objects, so she doesn't want to do anything difficult, like engineering.
A liberal arts degree is a certification of having avoided the hard work. What is being complained about is having to work hard. A liberal arts degree was good enough in the 18th century, but not any more. An educated person is a person with a degree in engineering or the real sciences, excluding the social sciences.
The real universe is based on probability and statistics. Certainty is wrong. Anybody who is absolutely certain is a liar. The Universe just doesn't have certainty.
The Physics Prob&Stat course is transformative: It makes you into a different person. There is no going back. Absolute certainty exists only in the minds of people who do not understand.
AthanasiusKircher said:
"I can tell you from my experience that we often were required to spend a ridiculous time on stuff that might have been useful for scientists and engineers headed for college in the 1950s, but these skills were much less relevant with modern calculators and computers."
Without algebra, you can't figure out which new car to buy.
Mean time between overhauls is proportional to the cube of [engine weight divided by horsepower]
We are living in a technological civilization. Each citizen needs to be mathematical enough to at least vote rationally. In a technological society, all citizens need to know a great deal of science. Notice how many people get the wrong answer on nuclear power because they haven't studied the science and math. [The correct answer is that nuclear power is safer than wind or solar or any other source of electricity.]
All high school students should be required to take 4 years of physics,4 years ofchemistry,4 years ofbiology and 8 years [double classes] of math. Probability and statistics should be included starting in the third grade. Yes, there is a book on probability for third graders.
In college, Everybody, regardless of major, should be required to take the Engineering and Science Core Curriculum [E&SCC] plus a laboratory probability and statistics course plus more physics lab courses plus one course in computer programming. Even teachers' colleges should require the E&SCC. One of the problems with your school is the teachers, as you said.
E&SCC = 2 years of calculus at the college level, 2 years of physics and 1 year of chemistry. All engineering and science students are required to take the E&SCC in their freshman and sophomore years.
Most people, including people with college degrees in subjects other than science and engineering, use their emotions [emote] when they should be doing math. Most people are afraid of nuclear power because they do not understand it. Nor do they know how to think rather than emote [have emotional reactions]. "To think" means "to do math."
Neither coal nor nuclear require water for cooling. Water is easy, convenient and efficient, but air cooling can be done.
AC power lines can't be extended beyond 1500 miles because longer lines become an antenna and radiate the power into outer space. That is why the move to high voltage DC.
Wind and solar are so intermittent that they can't work with Generation 2 nuclear. Generation 4 nuclear maybe. It turns out to be wind + solar + natural gas or producer [coal] gas.
No. It is a ploy to replace nuclear with natural gas since only a gas turbine can ramp up and down fast enough to make up for the intermittent nature of wind. In other words, they want to burn more, not less, fossil fuel. They will want to make producer gas out of coal as well.
That plan uses natural gas to make up for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. You get 99% reduction in CO2 by going 100% nuclear.
Nuclear power is the only way to stop making CO2 that actually works. To stop Global Warming, we must replace all large fossil fueled power plants with nuclear.
Renewable Energy mandates cause more CO2 to be produced, not less, and renewable energy doubles or quadruples your electric bill. The reasons are as follows:
Since solar “works” 15% of the time and wind “works” 20% of the time, we need either energy storage technology we don’t have or ambient temperature superconductors and we don’t have them either. Wind and solar are so intermittent that electric companies are forced to build new generator capacity that can load-follow very fast, and that means natural gas fired gas turbines. The gas turbines have to be kept spinning at full speed all the time to ramp up quickly enough. The result is that wind and solar not only double your electric bill, wind and solar also cause MORE CO2 to be produced.
We do not have battery or energy storage technology that could smooth out wind and solar at a price that would be possible to do. The energy storage would "cost" in the neighborhood of a QUADRILLION dollars for the US. That is an imaginary price because we could not get the materials to do it if we had that much money.
The only real way to reduce CO2 production from electricity generation is to replace all fossil fueled power plants with the newest available generation of nuclear. Nuclear can load-follow fast enough as long as wind and solar power are not connected to the grid. Generation 4 nuclear can ramp fast enough to make up for the intermittency of wind and solar, but there is no reason to waste time and money on wind and solar.
Spent nuclear fuel is not a proliferation risk because a power plant makes the wrong isotopes of plutonium for bombs. To make a bomb, you need pure plutonium239 [Pu239].
Isotopes: One chemical element can come in several isotopes. The element [atomic] number describes the number of protons in the nucleus. Different isotopes of an element have different numbers of neutrons. You are made of atoms. Every atom has a nucleus. Each nucleus contains the number of protons required for that element plus some number of neutrons. The number of neutrons for one element varies. For example, oxygen has 8 protons and either 8 or 9 or 10 neutrons. We say that 8O16, 8O17 and 8O18 are 3 different isotopes of oxygen. You breathe all 3 isotopes of oxygen. Some isotopes of some elements are radioactive, while other isotopes of the same elements are stable. You inevitably eat both radioactive and stable isotopes of the elements that you must eat to live.
To make Pu239, you have to shut down the reactor and do a fuel cycle after one month or less of operation. Since removing and replacing fuel takes a month, a short-cycled reactor operates half the time. A power plant that has a one month on, one month off fuel cycle would stick out a lot more than the proverbial sore thumb.
A reactor used to make electricity runs for 18 months to 2 years between refuelings. In that time, Pu239 absorbs extra neutrons, becoming Pu240, Pu241, Pu242, 95americium243, 96curium247, 97berkelium247, 98californium251, 99einsteinium25, 100fermium257 and so on. The higher [more protons] elements are made by beta decays, where a neutron becomes a proton, an electron and a neutrino.
7% Pu240 is enough to spoil a bomb and you get a lot more than 7% Pu240 from a reactor that has been running for 18 months. Separating Pu239 from those higher actinides is a technology that has not been developed. Nobody would try to do that separation because the easy way to make Pu239 is with a short cycle reactor. Governments that have plutonium bombs, have government owned government operated [GOGO] reactors that do nothing but make Pu239.
Slashdot Mirror
The best place for a reactor is in the city center, where the power is needed. Reactors need very little land.
Nuclear power is the only way to stop making CO2 that actually works. To stop Global Warming, we must replace all large fossil fueled power plants with nuclear. Renewable Energy mandates cause more CO2 to be produced, not less, and renewable energy doubles or quadruples your electric bill. The reasons are as follows: Since solar “works” 15% of the time and wind “works” 20% of the time, we need either energy storage technology we don’t have or ambient temperature superconductors and we don’t have them either. Wind and solar are so intermittent that electric companies are forced to build new generator capacity that can load-follow very fast, and that means natural gas fired gas turbines. The gas turbines have to be kept spinning at full speed all the time to ramp up quickly enough. The result is that wind and solar not only double your electric bill, wind and solar also cause MORE CO2 to be produced. We do not have battery or energy storage technology that could smooth out wind and solar at a price that would be possible to do. The energy storage would "cost" in the neighborhood of a QUADRILLION dollars for the US. That is an imaginary price because we could not get the materials to do it if we had that much money. The only real way to reduce CO2 production from electricity generation is to replace all fossil fueled power plants with the newest available generation of nuclear. Nuclear can load-follow fast enough as long as wind and solar power are not connected to the grid. Generation 4 nuclear can ramp fast enough to make up for the intermittency of wind and solar, but there is no reason to waste time and money on wind and solar.
No. Where Did Natural Background Radiation Come From? The sum of the natural background radiation at Fukushima plus the radiation leak from the reactor is less than the natural background radiation where I live in Illinois. There was no reason for Japan to shut down their reactors. If the reactors at Fukushima had not been shut down, would they have continued to operate normally? Where did natural background radiation come from? The universe started out with only 3 elements: hydrogen, helium and lithium. All other elements were made in stars or by supernova explosions. Our star is a seventh generation star. The previous 6 generations were necessary for the elements heavier than lithium to be built up. Since heavier elements were built by radiation processes, they were very radioactive when first made. Our planet was made of the debris of a supernova explosion that happened about 5 billion years ago. The Earth has been decreasing in radioactivity ever since. All elements heavier than iron were necessarily made by accretion of mostly neutrons but sometimes protons onto lighter nuclei. Radioactive decays were necessary to bring these new nuclei into the realm of nuclear stability. That is why all rocks are still radioactive. Radiation also comes from outer space in the form of cosmic rays. Cosmic rays come from supernovas that are very far away. There will always be cosmic rays.
Our problem is with education majors. She could be a female chauvenist. Chances are good that it is a woman you are talking about, so I assume so. A female chauvenist sees men as security objects, so she doesn't want to do anything difficult, like engineering. A liberal arts degree is a certification of having avoided the hard work. What is being complained about is having to work hard. A liberal arts degree was good enough in the 18th century, but not any more. An educated person is a person with a degree in engineering or the real sciences, excluding the social sciences.
Now that computers can translate languages fairly well, let's drop foreign languages entirely.
The real universe is based on probability and statistics. Certainty is wrong. Anybody who is absolutely certain is a liar. The Universe just doesn't have certainty. The Physics Prob&Stat course is transformative: It makes you into a different person. There is no going back. Absolute certainty exists only in the minds of people who do not understand.
AthanasiusKircher said: "I can tell you from my experience that we often were required to spend a ridiculous time on stuff that might have been useful for scientists and engineers headed for college in the 1950s, but these skills were much less relevant with modern calculators and computers." Without algebra, you can't figure out which new car to buy. Mean time between overhauls is proportional to the cube of [engine weight divided by horsepower] We are living in a technological civilization. Each citizen needs to be mathematical enough to at least vote rationally. In a technological society, all citizens need to know a great deal of science. Notice how many people get the wrong answer on nuclear power because they haven't studied the science and math. [The correct answer is that nuclear power is safer than wind or solar or any other source of electricity.] All high school students should be required to take 4 years of physics,4 years ofchemistry,4 years ofbiology and 8 years [double classes] of math. Probability and statistics should be included starting in the third grade. Yes, there is a book on probability for third graders. In college, Everybody, regardless of major, should be required to take the Engineering and Science Core Curriculum [E&SCC] plus a laboratory probability and statistics course plus more physics lab courses plus one course in computer programming. Even teachers' colleges should require the E&SCC. One of the problems with your school is the teachers, as you said. E&SCC = 2 years of calculus at the college level, 2 years of physics and 1 year of chemistry. All engineering and science students are required to take the E&SCC in their freshman and sophomore years. Most people, including people with college degrees in subjects other than science and engineering, use their emotions [emote] when they should be doing math. Most people are afraid of nuclear power because they do not understand it. Nor do they know how to think rather than emote [have emotional reactions]. "To think" means "to do math."
Neither coal nor nuclear require water for cooling. Water is easy, convenient and efficient, but air cooling can be done. AC power lines can't be extended beyond 1500 miles because longer lines become an antenna and radiate the power into outer space. That is why the move to high voltage DC.
Nuclear makes LESS CO2 than wind or solar.
Wind and solar are so intermittent that they can't work with Generation 2 nuclear. Generation 4 nuclear maybe. It turns out to be wind + solar + natural gas or producer [coal] gas.
No. It is a ploy to replace nuclear with natural gas since only a gas turbine can ramp up and down fast enough to make up for the intermittent nature of wind. In other words, they want to burn more, not less, fossil fuel. They will want to make producer gas out of coal as well.
The battery for the whole US would cost a quadrillion dollars and require $200 trillion/year for maintenance.
Nameplate power is not what you get. The wind blows 20% of the time so 7 MW nameplate gives you 1.4 MW average, and it turns on and off unpredictably.
That plan uses natural gas to make up for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. You get 99% reduction in CO2 by going 100% nuclear. Nuclear power is the only way to stop making CO2 that actually works. To stop Global Warming, we must replace all large fossil fueled power plants with nuclear. Renewable Energy mandates cause more CO2 to be produced, not less, and renewable energy doubles or quadruples your electric bill. The reasons are as follows: Since solar “works” 15% of the time and wind “works” 20% of the time, we need either energy storage technology we don’t have or ambient temperature superconductors and we don’t have them either. Wind and solar are so intermittent that electric companies are forced to build new generator capacity that can load-follow very fast, and that means natural gas fired gas turbines. The gas turbines have to be kept spinning at full speed all the time to ramp up quickly enough. The result is that wind and solar not only double your electric bill, wind and solar also cause MORE CO2 to be produced. We do not have battery or energy storage technology that could smooth out wind and solar at a price that would be possible to do. The energy storage would "cost" in the neighborhood of a QUADRILLION dollars for the US. That is an imaginary price because we could not get the materials to do it if we had that much money. The only real way to reduce CO2 production from electricity generation is to replace all fossil fueled power plants with the newest available generation of nuclear. Nuclear can load-follow fast enough as long as wind and solar power are not connected to the grid. Generation 4 nuclear can ramp fast enough to make up for the intermittency of wind and solar, but there is no reason to waste time and money on wind and solar.
Spent nuclear fuel is not a proliferation risk because a power plant makes the wrong isotopes of plutonium for bombs. To make a bomb, you need pure plutonium239 [Pu239]. Isotopes: One chemical element can come in several isotopes. The element [atomic] number describes the number of protons in the nucleus. Different isotopes of an element have different numbers of neutrons. You are made of atoms. Every atom has a nucleus. Each nucleus contains the number of protons required for that element plus some number of neutrons. The number of neutrons for one element varies. For example, oxygen has 8 protons and either 8 or 9 or 10 neutrons. We say that 8O16, 8O17 and 8O18 are 3 different isotopes of oxygen. You breathe all 3 isotopes of oxygen. Some isotopes of some elements are radioactive, while other isotopes of the same elements are stable. You inevitably eat both radioactive and stable isotopes of the elements that you must eat to live. To make Pu239, you have to shut down the reactor and do a fuel cycle after one month or less of operation. Since removing and replacing fuel takes a month, a short-cycled reactor operates half the time. A power plant that has a one month on, one month off fuel cycle would stick out a lot more than the proverbial sore thumb. A reactor used to make electricity runs for 18 months to 2 years between refuelings. In that time, Pu239 absorbs extra neutrons, becoming Pu240, Pu241, Pu242, 95americium243, 96curium247, 97berkelium247, 98californium251, 99einsteinium25, 100fermium257 and so on. The higher [more protons] elements are made by beta decays, where a neutron becomes a proton, an electron and a neutrino. 7% Pu240 is enough to spoil a bomb and you get a lot more than 7% Pu240 from a reactor that has been running for 18 months. Separating Pu239 from those higher actinides is a technology that has not been developed. Nobody would try to do that separation because the easy way to make Pu239 is with a short cycle reactor. Governments that have plutonium bombs, have government owned government operated [GOGO] reactors that do nothing but make Pu239.