My point was that nuclear fuel is a far more limited resource than solar exposure. And, well before the sun runs out, we'll run out of fuel-grade nuclear material here on this planet.
In my original post, I was responding to the question of what problems are shared by fossil fuel and nuclear power.
There are going to be issues with depending on fossil fuels in the next hundred or so years. Especially with our demands for power becoming ever more insatiable. The timescale, if we go nuclear, is longer, but isn't by any means infinite. And, hopefully, by that point, we'll either have ameliorated our power needs, or another type of power will be able to credibly step in and perform as baseline power for our planet.
Solar power is essentially a self-renewing source for the next several BILLION years. While it's not "unlimited", that's as close to "100% renewable" as it gets. Wind power is also a renewable resource. It's, however, not a DEPENDABLE renewable resource, due to our atmosphere being in a constant state of flux and being acted on by forces external to it as well.
With coal and nuclear fuel, you use it all up, even if you have a way to reprocess byproducts to extend usable lifetime, eventually it's GONE. And this is something that's going to happen within the span of our civilization. The Earth losing it's atmosphere and the sun blowing up and dimming away? That's, likely, not.
I was merely answering the question the parent poster asked about what "problems" that nuclear shares with fossil fuel plants. Please look at my answer again and tell me that I'm incorrect in that limited scope.
Dude, those are radioactive resources. Unlike oil and natural gas, they will be consumed even if we just leave them in the ground.
I know this. But the person asked about the problems nuclear shares with fossil fuel power generation. And it's a fact. The fuel resource is, technically, non-renewable.
Maybe not to the same degree as fossil fuel is. But the nuclear fuel supply is NOT unlimited.
No. By rarefied, I mean "non-renewable". Sure, Thorium may exist in megaton/gigaton quantities. And it may be able to be reprocessed afterwards. But it's still looked at as a consumable.
With things like hydro, you can be reasonably sure that the water isn't going to stop flowing any time in the foreseeable future. With things like solar, you can be reasonably sure the sun won't stop shining in the next billion years or so.
And before making wrong statements like "LTFR doesn't use steam turbines" look again at LFTR. The reactor itself is merely a heat source. Power generation is done by Rankine cycle steam generators or Brayton cycle pressurized gas generators.
And "It's very easy to transport Thorium around." That's not an answer to cost/transport issues. It's "easy" to transport gasoline around. But you still have to worry about accidents and the fuel being released into the environment. And yes, the transportation of said fuel COSTS MONEY.
And as for "Possible environmental contamination issues". I'm talking about accidental contamination. Either by new fuel or spent fuel and fuel byproducts. I'm merely addressing the fact that such technology isn't 100% clean, 100% safe, 100% idiot proof, etc. Because if I don't recognize the fact that they aren't, some jackass will jump all over me claiming I somehow did.
Again, I'm a big FAN of nuclear power. And I think it's a big part working towards a cleaner environment. It's just that precautions need to be in place to stop stupid, dangerous people from doing stupid, dangerous things with what is, otherwise, a clean, economical power generation solution.
The air EVENTUALLY becomes saturated. What about sites that are pumping water vapor into very dry environments with high dewpoints?
You sound like you're of the opinion that this precipitation effect happens instantly. It doesn't. Thus, you have larger than normal amounts of water vapor entering the local climate and contributing to greenhouse effect during the time it's in the air.
Now don't get me wrong. I think Nuclear is a decent, sustainable baseline power option until we come up with something better. It just needs to be approached a bit more intelligently than most countries are doing so right now.
And it also doesn't mean I'm blind to the environmental repercussions of nuclear power.
Getting off of coal / diesel should be the first priority. Eventually if we can wean from nuclear? cool...
This pretty much sums it all up.
Now if only the idiots who're insisting we go whole-hog for energy solutions that WON'T cover all our contingencies would shut the hell up and get out of their own way, we could start working towards this end.
Consumption of rarefied resources. Water consumption. Greenhouse gas generation (water vapor (steam) is a greenhouse gas and comprises 70% of the total greenhouse effect). Fuel transport costs/issues. Possible environmental contamination issues.
The issues aren't IDENTICAL to fossil fuel plants. But they're just different versions of the same family of issues that fossil fuel plants have.
Yup. Because one of the standards under V2X is 802.11p
"As the communication link between the vehicles and the roadside infrastructure might exist for only a short amount of time, the IEEE 802.11p amendment defines a way to exchange data through that link without the need to establish a basic service set (BSS), and thus, without the need to wait for the association and authentication procedures to complete before exchanging data. For that purpose, IEEE 802.11p enabled stations uses the wildcard BSSID (a value of all 1s) in the header of the frames they exchange, and may start sending and receiving data frames as soon as they arrive on the communication channel.
Because such stations are neither associated nor authenticated, the authentication and data confidentiality mechanisms provided by the IEEE 802.11 standard (and its amendments) cannot be used. These kinds of functionality must then be provided by higher network layers."
My company puts out gaming materials (as in tabletop, pnp). When we initially looked at putting out an ebook format ten years ago, we did look at DRM as a form of content control. At the time, though, the requirements to implement such a platform were...to be frank, ridiculous.
So we decided to invest a little bit of trust in our community. We KNOW e-pub versions of our rulebooks and the like are shared amongst gaming groups. It's a given. But we've had great interaction with our player communities over the years, and they understand that if we're seeing everything popping up on BitTorrent, we have less incentive to put up new material in a timely manner.
Now, we've had to issue a few takedown requests over the years. But only a few, and most of the stuff came down with nary a whimper. As such, we have pretty much ZERO impetus to move from standardized PDF distribution to DRM'ed versions. It's still a waste of time, effort and money. And it also would do damage to our relationship with our players.
People keep talking about driverless like it's a done deal. Like it's something we're all going to migrate to. It isn't. Sure, there's the technical know-how to do it. But the legal, legislative and social pressures involved may eventually kill it.
So, basically the government is telling us that they're going to collect data on us regardless of our wishes, laws, etc. And if they get caught? Aw shucky-darn! They'll act apologetic and KEEP ON DOING IT!
You spend a few million buying the right people, and you get contracts for billions. And because most governments are so huge and unwieldy, there's no skepticism (and if you pay enough, no oversight).
Unfortunately "Stop it! Just stop it!" doesn't work. The amounts of money involved here are significant enough that simply brushing them off by flat-out winning a court case isn't enough to deter them from trying again, and again and again:
Pretty much the only thing keeping some of these lawsuits at bay are:
A: Massive patent portfolios that can be trotted out, invalidating patent claims, thus costing them money. B: The threat of being punitively counter-sued based on above-mentioned patent portfolios, thus costing them more money. C: The possibility of losing one of these counter-suits, possibly bankrupting them, or at least detrimentally disrupting their cash flow.
Would it be EASIER if these companies didn't need to build up monster war chests of patents? Sure!
In our current legal climate, would it be SMARTER if they didn't? No fucking way in hell!
In one of the articles about this, I read that Russia has done the equivalent of building show cars.
Sure, the prototypes look great.
But they're not sustainable, serviceable or even functional most of the time. And there's no way in hell they can be delivered for what the Russians are charging.
What they're REALLY doing is playing the long con. They hook you up front. Then gradually bleed more and more money out of you to deliver what you promised.
You get guys like this who donate sperm, and don't wish to take on parental rights being declared the father and getting ass-raped for massive amounts of money.
Then you get cases like Jason Patric. He goes through a bad breakup. And his ex shops jurisdiction and gets him declared a sperm donor. After he's been part of the child's life, and has every interest in raising the child and being part of its life.
Basically, things are so screwed up in our legal system nowadays that it's become "If you have a dick, you're in the wrong."
Actually, the analogy works just fine. Pedantry aside, electric vehicles currently cannot (and I repeat, CANNOT) fullfill all the roles occupied by petroleum ICE vehicles. The technology is currently in its very early infancy, and there's no realistic infrastructure to support a full-scale migration.
In the last 100 years, petroleum ICE vehicles have gone from a clunky, unreliable rich man's toy to a staple of everyday life and business in this country.
While the electric vehicle doesn't have to go through many of the same engineering hurdles that their ICE counterparts have gone through in that century, they have their own logistical problems. And at the current rate of advancement, we're still decades away from the sort of ubiquity and utility currently enjoyed by ICE vehicles.
Will we some day go all electric? Probably. Is it going to happen any time soon? Fuck no! Petroleum is still too (relatively) cheap and still far better in the energy density department. Additionally, the infrastructure just isn't there to make electric viable enough yet. MAYBE 50-100 years from now. But right now we're comparing Orville and Wilbur Wright against an F-35 Lightning II. Of COURSE it's going to be found wanting...
So these people can't debate in a rational manner. So they're going to invest in lynch mob mentality and harass people? It must really suck to have an IQ in the low single digits...
Slashdot Mirror
To design a windshield with an LED billboard in it.
Then, when I go through a sped trap, my windshield lights and begins scrolling "Speed Trap Alert! Tap your brakes. Hog farm ahead!"
My point was that nuclear fuel is a far more limited resource than solar exposure.
And, well before the sun runs out, we'll run out of fuel-grade nuclear material here on this planet.
In my original post, I was responding to the question of what problems are shared by fossil fuel and nuclear power.
There are going to be issues with depending on fossil fuels in the next hundred or so years. Especially with our demands for power becoming ever more insatiable.
The timescale, if we go nuclear, is longer, but isn't by any means infinite. And, hopefully, by that point, we'll either have ameliorated our power needs, or another type of power will be able to credibly step in and perform as baseline power for our planet.
Solar power is essentially a self-renewing source for the next several BILLION years. While it's not "unlimited", that's as close to "100% renewable" as it gets.
Wind power is also a renewable resource. It's, however, not a DEPENDABLE renewable resource, due to our atmosphere being in a constant state of flux and being acted on by forces external to it as well.
With coal and nuclear fuel, you use it all up, even if you have a way to reprocess byproducts to extend usable lifetime, eventually it's GONE.
And this is something that's going to happen within the span of our civilization.
The Earth losing it's atmosphere and the sun blowing up and dimming away? That's, likely, not.
I'm not saying you're wrong.
I was merely answering the question the parent poster asked about what "problems" that nuclear shares with fossil fuel plants.
Please look at my answer again and tell me that I'm incorrect in that limited scope.
Consumption of rarefied resources.
Dude, those are radioactive resources. Unlike oil and natural gas, they will be consumed even if we just leave them in the ground.
I know this. But the person asked about the problems nuclear shares with fossil fuel power generation. And it's a fact. The fuel resource is, technically, non-renewable.
Maybe not to the same degree as fossil fuel is. But the nuclear fuel supply is NOT unlimited.
That's all I mean by this. Nothing more.
No. By rarefied, I mean "non-renewable". Sure, Thorium may exist in megaton/gigaton quantities. And it may be able to be reprocessed afterwards. But it's still looked at as a consumable.
With things like hydro, you can be reasonably sure that the water isn't going to stop flowing any time in the foreseeable future.
With things like solar, you can be reasonably sure the sun won't stop shining in the next billion years or so.
And before making wrong statements like "LTFR doesn't use steam turbines" look again at LFTR. The reactor itself is merely a heat source. Power generation is done by Rankine cycle steam generators or Brayton cycle pressurized gas generators.
And "It's very easy to transport Thorium around." That's not an answer to cost/transport issues. It's "easy" to transport gasoline around. But you still have to worry about accidents and the fuel being released into the environment. And yes, the transportation of said fuel COSTS MONEY.
And as for "Possible environmental contamination issues". I'm talking about accidental contamination. Either by new fuel or spent fuel and fuel byproducts.
I'm merely addressing the fact that such technology isn't 100% clean, 100% safe, 100% idiot proof, etc. Because if I don't recognize the fact that they aren't, some jackass will jump all over me claiming I somehow did.
Again, I'm a big FAN of nuclear power. And I think it's a big part working towards a cleaner environment. It's just that precautions need to be in place to stop stupid, dangerous people from doing stupid, dangerous things with what is, otherwise, a clean, economical power generation solution.
The air EVENTUALLY becomes saturated. What about sites that are pumping water vapor into very dry environments with high dewpoints?
You sound like you're of the opinion that this precipitation effect happens instantly. It doesn't. Thus, you have larger than normal amounts of water vapor entering the local climate and contributing to greenhouse effect during the time it's in the air.
Now don't get me wrong. I think Nuclear is a decent, sustainable baseline power option until we come up with something better. It just needs to be approached a bit more intelligently than most countries are doing so right now.
And it also doesn't mean I'm blind to the environmental repercussions of nuclear power.
Getting off of coal / diesel should be the first priority. Eventually if we can wean from nuclear? cool...
This pretty much sums it all up.
Now if only the idiots who're insisting we go whole-hog for energy solutions that WON'T cover all our contingencies would shut the hell up and get out of their own way, we could start working towards this end.
Consumption of rarefied resources.
Water consumption.
Greenhouse gas generation (water vapor (steam) is a greenhouse gas and comprises 70% of the total greenhouse effect).
Fuel transport costs/issues.
Possible environmental contamination issues.
The issues aren't IDENTICAL to fossil fuel plants. But they're just different versions of the same family of issues that fossil fuel plants have.
And you get to pay for the text message, whether you wanted it or not!
I swear to Christ, this kind of shit makes me think the genocide of the human race might not be a Bad Thing *TM* sometimes...
Yup. Because one of the standards under V2X is 802.11p
"As the communication link between the vehicles and the roadside infrastructure might exist for only a short amount of time, the IEEE 802.11p amendment defines a way to exchange data through that link without the need to establish a basic service set (BSS), and thus, without the need to wait for the association and authentication procedures to complete before exchanging data. For that purpose, IEEE 802.11p enabled stations uses the wildcard BSSID (a value of all 1s) in the header of the frames they exchange, and may start sending and receiving data frames as soon as they arrive on the communication channel.
Because such stations are neither associated nor authenticated, the authentication and data confidentiality mechanisms provided by the IEEE 802.11 standard (and its amendments) cannot be used. These kinds of functionality must then be provided by higher network layers."
GOOD SHIT HUH?
You were saying?
Security. HEH!
Nonono. These systems are going to be minimally guarded (if at all). Simply because putting in a secure system is pretty much beyond these people.
I can see someone breaking into these systems with minimal effort and causing accidents pretty much at will.
I can see brisk business in after-market spygear removal packages...
My company puts out gaming materials (as in tabletop, pnp). When we initially looked at putting out an ebook format ten years ago, we did look at DRM as a form of content control. At the time, though, the requirements to implement such a platform were...to be frank, ridiculous.
So we decided to invest a little bit of trust in our community. We KNOW e-pub versions of our rulebooks and the like are shared amongst gaming groups. It's a given.
But we've had great interaction with our player communities over the years, and they understand that if we're seeing everything popping up on BitTorrent, we have less incentive to put up new material in a timely manner.
Now, we've had to issue a few takedown requests over the years. But only a few, and most of the stuff came down with nary a whimper. As such, we have pretty much ZERO impetus to move from standardized PDF distribution to DRM'ed versions. It's still a waste of time, effort and money. And it also would do damage to our relationship with our players.
So I don't have to deal with this stupid bullshit.
How NOT to implement socialist^H^H^H^nationalized healthcare.
People keep talking about driverless like it's a done deal.
Like it's something we're all going to migrate to. It isn't.
Sure, there's the technical know-how to do it.
But the legal, legislative and social pressures involved may eventually kill it.
Than ask and be told no..
So, basically the government is telling us that they're going to collect data on us regardless of our wishes, laws, etc.
And if they get caught? Aw shucky-darn! They'll act apologetic and KEEP ON DOING IT!
Fuckers are lucky I don't own a gun.
These are governments we're talking about.
You spend a few million buying the right people, and you get contracts for billions.
And because most governments are so huge and unwieldy, there's no skepticism (and if you pay enough, no oversight).
Unfortunately "Stop it! Just stop it!" doesn't work.
The amounts of money involved here are significant enough that simply brushing them off by flat-out winning a court case isn't enough to deter them from trying again, and again and again:
Pretty much the only thing keeping some of these lawsuits at bay are:
A: Massive patent portfolios that can be trotted out, invalidating patent claims, thus costing them money.
B: The threat of being punitively counter-sued based on above-mentioned patent portfolios, thus costing them more money.
C: The possibility of losing one of these counter-suits, possibly bankrupting them, or at least detrimentally disrupting their cash flow.
Would it be EASIER if these companies didn't need to build up monster war chests of patents?
Sure!
In our current legal climate, would it be SMARTER if they didn't?
No fucking way in hell!
In one of the articles about this, I read that Russia has done the equivalent of building show cars.
Sure, the prototypes look great.
But they're not sustainable, serviceable or even functional most of the time.
And there's no way in hell they can be delivered for what the Russians are charging.
What they're REALLY doing is playing the long con. They hook you up front. Then gradually bleed more and more money out of you to deliver what you promised.
Ask India about the Admiral Gorshkov.
And since they're holding all the cards, and you've sunk all that money into it already...
They've been pulling this crap for the last 25-30 years.
The only time you get your money's worth is when you want something cheap, simple and produced in massive quantities. Essentially, disposable.
Then, the Russian defense industry can churn stuff out faster than anyone but maybe China or the US.
You get guys like this who donate sperm, and don't wish to take on parental rights being declared the father and getting ass-raped for massive amounts of money.
Then you get cases like Jason Patric. He goes through a bad breakup. And his ex shops jurisdiction and gets him declared a sperm donor. After he's been part of the child's life, and has every interest in raising the child and being part of its life.
Basically, things are so screwed up in our legal system nowadays that it's become "If you have a dick, you're in the wrong."
Additionally, I've not even addressed the idiocy of the notion that electric vehicles will make power utilities obsolete until now.
Actually, the analogy works just fine.
Pedantry aside, electric vehicles currently cannot (and I repeat, CANNOT) fullfill all the roles occupied by petroleum ICE vehicles.
The technology is currently in its very early infancy, and there's no realistic infrastructure to support a full-scale migration.
In the last 100 years, petroleum ICE vehicles have gone from a clunky, unreliable rich man's toy to a staple of everyday life and business in this country.
While the electric vehicle doesn't have to go through many of the same engineering hurdles that their ICE counterparts have gone through in that century, they have their own logistical problems. And at the current rate of advancement, we're still decades away from the sort of ubiquity and utility currently enjoyed by ICE vehicles.
Will we some day go all electric? Probably.
Is it going to happen any time soon?
Fuck no!
Petroleum is still too (relatively) cheap and still far better in the energy density department.
Additionally, the infrastructure just isn't there to make electric viable enough yet.
MAYBE 50-100 years from now.
But right now we're comparing Orville and Wilbur Wright against an F-35 Lightning II.
Of COURSE it's going to be found wanting...
So these people can't debate in a rational manner.
So they're going to invest in lynch mob mentality and harass people?
It must really suck to have an IQ in the low single digits...
You also have zero recourse when someone rips you off.
Because you're operating in a grey/black market scheme.
Since when did "news for nerds" become "news for shysterism"?