There's other ways to get that without a transfer tax to enrich the third world at the expense of the first. If you want to manage CO2 emissions, then, just cap them
It might be about time we found a way for the first world to invest in the third world, the reality of our lifestyle is that we have plundered a significant amount of resources from those countries so whilst it may only be a stop-gap activity addressing deforestation (a carbon sponge - so to speak) maybe what we need to do to address secondary issues that aren't directly manifest from carbon emission and tertiary issues that come from those. For example, in Australia, the Koori's (our aboriginals) are paid to manage the bush for carbon credit's. The irony is that they burn it - something they have been doing for 10's of thousands of years. On two front's this is found to benefit our industry, One it keeps more carbon in the ground compared to the savage bushfires we have (think California), and secondly it reduces the risk of those same bushfires destroying a significant amount of property. So tying up carbon in forests may not be the answer, just an answer.
In third world countries better forest management may result in more potable water being available in many areas, so maybe a 'let's start here' approach is basically all we have to offer because it's so obvious.
What's so hard about the simple, brute force approach?
Nothing, but it implies quota's for your daily energy consumption, what if you were limited to 10kw hours a day? That's a brute force approach.
Well, the reason is, you aren't doing enrichment with nuclear power to run the centrifuges / gasification (whichever process you have), and, you are doing way too much enrichment. If we reprocessed used fuel rods, we'd have a lot less to do.
But we aren't, so we continue to do enrichment and use a once through cycle. Any other discussion about nuclear plants has to occur after a suitable waste repository is constructed - in granite - not pumice.
And, in any case, you have to do total sequestration and atmospheric management anyway. Any climate solution on the table that doesn't have sequestration in it isn't serious, and that's ultimately where government has to spend the money.
Sure, what about algae sequestration and then turn that into bio-fuels.
After all, even if humanity does get its own emissions into some absurd notion of a "balance", which, at least we hopefully define the ideal mix as that which benefits the USA the most, we're still going to be hosed if some magma uplift suddenly melts a bunch of hydrates in the ocean, or we suddenly discover a new kind of soil bacteria has emerged. Paying a bunch of people in Butfustan to not use gasoline or to grow lots of trees isn't going to cut it.
Who really know's, I suspect we are going to have to do alot better than balance very quickly, and why not pay them to grow trees, what else are they going to do? Again it's not THE answer, just AN answer. All we can do is act on what is certain.
It's really a job for the Army Corp of Engineers. If the earth is a submarine or a spaceship, we have to treat it like one, and manage everything.
C'mon dood, it's the 21st century not world war two. It's not the army's job to manage climate change. It has to start with us taking a really good look at how our economy works and realising that it's completely flawed. The climate change issue is just one of a serious set of consequences left over from the fact that cost of managing externalities is offset onto the community, i.e. you and me, based on the theory that the community has the resources to deal with that toxic output. Constant growth in our economy isn't working, we should be striving to conserve resources that allows our civilisation to thrive, not nose dive after a steep climb. The reality of our situation is th
Absolutely, The nuclear power provided by the sun surrounded by eight light minutes of vacuum shielding, further shielded provided by a planetary scale magnetic shield, the sun is the most advanced nuclear fission/fusion power technology known to mankind.
Other advanced features include
The sun is actually engineered, by nature, to provide all of the energy requirements for several planets, one planet already bears life.
waste management, containment, fuel reprocessing are located in one area, terrorist's cannot steal nuclear material from the sun.
the fuel cell is a handy "sun sized mass" which conveniently provides a orbital mass to anchor planets off.
Is engineered to operate long enough to allow several phases of civilisation to arise and become space faring.
C'mon, the hand of terrestrial nuclear power advocacy has got to be sore by now, but not from knocking. When we have a pragmatic look at nuclear power in commercial operation it is clearly not ready. If anything the last 50 years of nuclear reactor operation, and operating the fuel cycle has proved this conclusively. I'm not saying that research and development into better nuclear reactors shouldn't occur, just that the material technology to commercialise it on an industrial scale is not available in this point in history.
Sure, we have a responsibility to develop nuclear technology in our generation to address the waste issues, but only so we don't leave a toxic mess for a human civilisation that may look radically different to our own.
Why does a conversation about solar power automatically mean someone pipes up with the standard "build more nuclear power plants" argument? Nuclear power is a heavy greenhouse gas emitter and it just shows our politicians has run out of ideas when they disassemble economic protections for the American people to allow the oil companies to access nuclear industry subsidies. Clearly both industries are in decline and it's time to start divesting that funding into solar, wind, wave and geothermal power in a more balanced manner.
While I would love to believe some form of solar power would meet the world's needs, it simply isn't feasible with current technology.
Which is why Solar energy research should get immediate increases in funding right now! Take $10 billion dollars of the $70 billion spent on nuclear energy subsidies and allocate it to renewable's such as solar and you have doubled the R&D into these alternatives. Thats right folks the nuclear industry gets 7 times the funding allocated to ALL the alternative technologies COMBINED ($10 billion) and approximately 3 times the funding allocated to the oil industry ($25 billion). Little wonder why development of alternative energy technology has progressed at a snails pace. And that doesn't even include the tax subsides dolled out to nuclear, and even then it's still left behind a toxic mess of mine tailing, high level post reactor waste, depleted uranium etc etc etc. How can this corporate welfare be justified in America of all places.
Just follow the money. With $100 billion to nuclear/oil and $10 billion to EVERYTHING else you don't have to be a scientist to work out why these industries want to hang onto their share of the taxpayers pie. They don't care about the future - they just want their money now.
America is awash with energy alternatives that are non-polluting, you are clearly blessed. You are a technological society so it's not beyond America to drive efficiency into the grid, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear development, coal sequestration ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Instead the nuclear/oil advocate wants us to believe that nuclear is the only way to address base load power when it is patently not
Let's look at the overall reality of the solution and examine it critically.
toddhunter:
Environmentalist's are bad, beeeeeeccccaaaauuuusssseeee....duuuuhhh....uuuummmm
Clearly, your mind is fossilised, so before I shatter it with a well deserved hammer consider this. Alot of very educated people are "environmentalists" and they have been saying for at least 10-20 years to just start researching alternatives and not put our eggs in one(coal) or two(nuclear) small baskets and explore other options. Now the consequences that those "environmentalists" have been warning about (Dr David Suzuki comes to mind) are starting to become reality.
You know toddy boy people like you are the worst because you just don't even try to understand an argument. Your beliefs are so entrenched that your mind is clinically dead. So before you go shoving your tongue up someone else's ass why don't you see if there is anything of value that you have to add before you open up your mouth and shit out of it.
CO2 transfer credits, I believe, are a scam that won't accomplish anything.
Implementation of carbon credits will force the coal (and perhaps oil) industries to deal with their externalities. In the production of coal power the coal industry doesn't have to account for dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. I think all companies should deal with their externalities, but getting the carbon emitters to deal with CO2 would be a good start. The scam component is that whilst carbon credits manage CO2 they don't manage CFC's...
If you want to really manage CO2, then, we need to reduce emissions, and that means a massive federal nuclear power plant scheme,
I just have to point out here that the reason to manage C02 is to manage greenhouse gases. The nuclear industry is a heavy greenhouse gas emitter. CO2 and CFC's are emitted in the enrichment phase. In America the nuclear industry is the number 1 emitter of CFC's into the atmosphere and CFC's are 20,000 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2.
Further the emission of CFC's attacks the ozone layer which has an effect on the ocean based algae that is the primary producer of the oxygen that we breathe. So in the scheme of things the technology to produce nuclear power, if we look at it pragmatically, is still clearly in the developmental stage until fundamental long-term technological issues concerning transuranic waste management and processing, actinide storage and metal embrittlement are addressed.
I'm not against solar power per se, but, in the solar projects I've been with, (I write monitoring software), it just doesn't live up to its hype in the northeastern USA.
I think we are in a phase where the development of solar alternatives are not funded. The reason they do attract funding is because the economics of solar look good without it, but key technological issues can't be addresses without the heavy lifting government subsidies can provide, which is why solar doesn't live up to the hype. Even so, coal and oil is just stored solar power and has run our economy for the last 50 years, so with sheer volume of solar energy falling on the earth's surface daily it's hard to imagine that the engineering problems involved are insurmountable.
I'm wondering if this is result of carbon taxes becoming inevitable. It would seem to me that some companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of funding and tax breaks that hopefully will become available in a carbon trading world. Even if the project can only address peak power demands it's certainly appears capable of offsetting a large amount of carbon production during peak energy demand times.
If this is project is feasible and is what can be achieved without subsidies I wonder what solar energy projects (and indeed other alternative energy projects) can be created with funding.
In Australia a whole package of laws that undermined the average aussie's freedom were passed just before the Olympics. It used to be legal to own semi-automatic rifles and it wasn't legal for our own army to point and fire at our own citizens and more without any sunset clauses.
I just wonder if it has happened anywhere else, china was repressive enough, who knows what else they will enact.
I ReplayGain all of my MP3s and FLACs. I once saw a poster opine that widespread use of such technology may end the "loudness war"
I'm not familiar with that technology but it sounds like an interesting concept. Most music today sounds over-processed to me, so anything that sends a signal to the record companies about what the punters want is a good thing. To them music is stock that has to be turned over, loudness is the flashy packaging where in reality, mp3's should be the packaging and higher sample rate recording should be the stock.
I hope he's right and I'm glad some producers such as yourself care enough about quality of your work to mix for those who care.
Thank you, maybe the record companies will one day figure out that the musicians, producers and fans of music want the same thing.
Your right of course, I wasn't factoring the dumbass into the equation and I totally agree with you about sound production and reproduction arguments being "conflated". My comments are referring to sound production and I should have made that more clear.
From a producers point of view I find nothing more infuriating than a "Stereophile" boasting to me about their valve amps sounding so warm to them when I know it's introducing an unintended third harmonic distortion to music that has already been produced OR they continuing to boast about their bi or tri amped electrostatic speakers that "sound so great" but I know have bumps and dips all over the audio spectrum. It's downright insulting when you offer them a pink noise generator and some measurement microphones to balance their system out to be told that they "can do it by ear" (well come help me with my studio pal!!).
Maybe one day we will have genetically engineered super ears that allow us to hear the temporal distortion introduced by the voltage transition across the zero volt line of an audio AC waveform, but that day has not come. So "audiophiles" should be happy with any system that has a THD lower than 0.001%, is properly equalised and drivers that are all in phase, they should strive for perfect reproduction not re-reproduction.
At the same time, from a production point of view I'd be the first to line up for those super ears, but until that day I'll just lament that valve amps aren't illegal for anyone except professional musician who use them with artistic intent, and while you say it isn't what you paid to hear, I can assure you it isn't the sound the musicians or producers have laboured to bring you either.
I'm totally conscious of the loudness war when I record, mix and master music and it's hard to tell whether all that effort will be appreciated by the listener but your understanding of the issues illustrates some people are prepared to understand the art and science behind it to put the music first. At the end of the day I prefer to mix for people that appreciate the music rather than their stereo system or who are just looking for a soundtrack to life so thanks for your well considered comments.
The loudness wars is about radio stations, not mp3's. Mp3's (for all it's faults) should be allowing a new phase of music appreciation because they free the producer from considering the audio compression of the radio stations that has to accounted for when we mix/master, that's what started the loudness wars. If anything the mp3 should deliver the producer the freedom to create mixes with MORE dynamic range or different types of mixes (i.e radio vs hi-fi vs car vs gym vs commuter) download-able from the band's web site because the data compression does little to affect dynamic range. Sadly a records companies idea of innovation is 'can you make this louder'. *sigh*
There is two types of compression going on here, Audio compression and Data Compression. This article is talking about Audio Compression, I doubt the mp3 processing is going to have a huge impact on the Dynamic range of the music which is what is at issue here. The closer that the peaks and troughs of the waveform in the recording are to the 0Db the more likely that the mp3's you rip will be files of similar size for the same amount of time. Sure the quality and settings of the mp3 encoder are going to have an effect the ambient sounds and high frequencies in the recording but that's a different discussion from this one.
I've been mixing music that I've recorded and I can see it when I look at the waveforms. When I mix I use a VU meter and some pink noise output from the (commonly seen) computer's master peak meter and align some point on peak meter with 0 on the VU meter depending on how in your face I want the music.
Imagine it this way, -18db is less in your face than -12db which is less than -10db (which is really getting in your face) - the git in yor face-0-meter is the VU because it's characteristics are similar to the ear, the more in-yor-face it is the more likely those needles are going to be pegged on the other side of the meter. Sometimes thats exactly what I want, I want you to feel it, but in the end when I mix the music I want your reaction to be "turn that volume knob up right now!!".
It's a fine line and also taste in the way it's mixed, because there is science and art in there. In reality it should be a non-issue for both the Audio and Data compression because moving/storing the amount of data that makes up a CD quality song at 44.1Khz becomes more trivial daily. If anything we should be talking about can we buy recordings of artists at higher sampling rates, like 88.2Khz because we are more likely to hear ambient sound detail we missed at lower sample rates or with a mp3 compression that loses some of that data because that sound was less energetic than some of the other sounds it was compared to in the recording whilst encoding.
If you want a visual representation, imagine 10 seconds of waveform rendered in wood about the size of your keyboard. If you take that waveform and sand along the edge of the peaks and troughs you will still see a impression of the sine wave, now turn up the git in yor face-o-meter and the waveform looks more and more like your keyboard and there is less work for the encoder and less detail to make out.
Modern digital recording systems just keep getting better and soon I doubt that an analogue verses digital recording argument will exist. Digital will offer the highest resolution BUT analogue systems differ by having better frequency response in the upper midrange where digital lends itself to creating recordings containing more low frequency energy. Nothing wrong with either approach - just taste. If the music producer has made a good mix it should just sound better on a better audio system than your pc's speakers.
In the end it's about dynamic range versus more dynamic range. More dynamic range is good it should be up to the listener how loud it it whether it's a 24bit 92Khz waveform or a mp3.
Yeah, same. But you will find that some of those recordings have a good dynamic range, it also illustrates some differences between Analogue and Digital recording and mixing - not better or worse - just different. Some really good examples of the top of my head is Tool - Anema, Rage Against the Machine's first album, sounds great on a good stereo, I just put undertow on the stereo and loud cause it just sounds fucking great, but it's the same if you play some Black Sabbath or Kiss Dynasty (Analogue) and they're some good examples. But also the Talking head's album (Digital) with "burning down the house" is fucking awsome. Classical pieces have similar "movement" of the waveform.
But a bad example is Visual Audio Sensory Theatre (Digital) who I think could sound more interesting if there was more dynamic range in the music, there are others but I tend to forget them.
Dynamic range in music is what makes you want to turn it up, when the studio does it for me, I turn it down.
Short summary, good energy return on investment, Hot Dry Rocks, Steam, Turbine. Investments required, Locating suitable site, connection to infrastructure.
Re: precious little real estate - Little is relative.
Chernobyl 2640 Square kilometres of farmland, 1900 sqkm of forest. How big would that solar array be?
re: radiation compared to coal
Then collect it and use it a feul. I think money should be diverted from coal into renewables too, or at least augmented with. For that matter so should nuclear plants.
3MI
172,000 cubic feet high level radioactive waste into Chesapeake Bay, 1949 incidents involving transportof radioactive material, 402 fatalities. Strontium 90 release into atmosphere.
Which means some LEAVES the food
Strontium 90, 600 years, Calcium analogue, leukemia.
So your bar for ecconomical use is 1GWe for 1000 years?
No, My bar is 5Gw and 5000 years. Not up to the challenge?
You want to design a power station that will last 1000 years. I'm sure storing some 'trash' for 600 won't be a problem.
Exactly.
Just because it can be made abundant does not mean it will be too cheap to meter.
promises, promises.
Sorry, troll. People like you scream from the rooftops about the 'dangers of nuk-lear power' while not even understanding the facts that you're so badly twisting.
No, I just want the waste containment infrastructure engineered properly based on sound geological science instead of a politicised process as a start, talk about other nuclear infrastructure can occur then.
Long term solution - Nuclear power is the only CURRENTLY VIABLE solution to fixing the mess we're in with burning coal and other fossil fuels.
No it isn't there are other viable options we haven't invested enough in
Maybe one day someone will invent a 90% efficient solar cell that can be made for $100/KW.
Go ahead, corner the market, I'll buy one.
So please, continue to cry about the dangers of everything you don't understand
Ok, well which specific part don't I understand,
is it the medical affects of radioactive isotopes,
could it be the mining,
or the enrichment,
the types of plants,
is it their lifspan,
the core disposal,
the waste containment
THE POLITICAL PROCESS,
the subsidies,
du weapons,
of course some nukes,
And A Partridge in a Pear Tree!!!!!!!!!!
(-: well, everything else around me has gone christmas crazy, why not this?:-)
Geothermal scares me because I don't know how the earth can replenish its internal heat if it's surrounded with so much water and air that's rarely above 100F.
yeah, if we are not careful the earth might stop spinning and the density of the earth's crust will increase by.000000000000002%, by all means be careful
Then there's nuclear. By itself, it consumes precious little real estate,
That's what they said in Chernobyl, "Hey let's put this reactor here, it will consume precious little real estate."
I notice that the key difference from these orbital photos of nuclear power plants how "little" real estate they consume. The difference is they consume arable land, and wind can be put in remote areas or at sea.
the only output is steam...and the radiation output is a fraction of coal
I've seen this laughable point brought up so many times like some
sort of card trick that *suddenly* coal power is more radioactive
that nuclear power. All it illustrates is how blaze ah the nuclear
industry is with radioactive isotopes that are cancerous to humans
depending on what element they analogue. Of course it's qualified
with the phrase "In normal operation" to distance the nuclear
industry from it's many 'incidents' where radioactive elements are
released into the environment. Windscale, Three Mile Island,
Chernobyl and a plethora of 'accidents' that, because it's "an
accident", doesn't get included in the radiation released by
nuclear power plants cause it's "not normal operations". Beside
older Nuclear power plants vent approximately 100 cubic feet of Noble gasses roughly every two weeks,
that decay into deadlier elements, and
thats NRC standard operating procedure.
It is irrelevant how much radioactive elements are released "in
normal operation" because the entire supporting cycle releases so
many radioactive elements and radioactivity and only exists to
support reactors "In normal operations". Incidents are a fact of
life for nuclear power, they happen because the nuclear industry
exists, so telling me that the entire coal industry worldwide
releases more radioactivity than Chernobyl released and will
continues to release just illustrates that nuclear industry and it's
supporters cannot take responsibility for it's failures and instead
tries to qualify it with "In normal operations" . Beside's, all
radioactive elements accumulate in the food chain.
If you toss in breeder reactors, or reprocessing of spent fuel,
sure, when the material sciences advance enough to solve the engineering problems that prevent building a reactor above 1Gw that last's longer than 40 years - let's say a facility should last 1000 years. Sure breeders will be useful one day, but today alot more work needs to be done to develop that technology.
then you end up throwing out the whole Yucca Mountain problem
and replace it with the mess you have now, dood A geologically stable (yes I know this is not Yucca) waste repository is the begining of a breeder program - not an after thought
and are left with a 100 year half life problem to deal with
600 years for that sort of fissile ash, but also ALOT more radioactive emphasizing the need for a waste dump made of GRANITE, not pumice.
and more power than mankind can calculate using any time soon
Do you reckon it will be too cheap to meter?
All this benefit, and it's a constant supply of power, too.
Oh really, then why do Nukleer power plants struggle to get 24 "Full Power Years" out of a reactor designed to last 40 years?
Nuclear is here, it's clean and it's safer than burning coal. There's plenty of research to do to add to its benefits,
you don't get a link, if you can't understand why a nuclear process is thousands of times as energetic as a chemical one no link will help you.
Now, now don't be overbearing if you can't backup your case. This is in not a matter of a nuclear process vs a chemical one, it's about the energy yield from the technology available. Existing reactor technology does not provide a net energy benefit in the long term when you compare the energy inputs to outputs.
You can't even reason correctly about an engineering problem, no need to meet 100% of our electric needs in the next five decades, growing to 30 or 40% from 20% will do nicely.
hahahaha, personal attacks instead of rational argument! Most of the 100 odd reactors in the U.S are approaching old-age and have to be de-commissioned long before your fantasy comes true. The last one was built in the 70's, from memory, and since they only have a 40 year life span that's getting pretty close. So what does your "reasoning" suggest we replace them with eh? AP1000's with shit containment or PBMR that produce deadlier waste and have deadlier failure modes.
In reality what you are saying is to build 200 new reactors in America, when even 100 new reactors in America, assuming you can keep the old ones running, is a massive task - and still no geologically stable waste repository. There are much better energy investments in the US, why not utilise those? They have a much better energy return and even without the generous subsidies that Nuklere bower gets, wouldn't it be logical to invest something into them to enhance that technology?
And a link to a (badly formatted) web page by two fringe nutjobs proves nothing, the economics of nuclear power work out just as well as oil (include most military spending) or other fossil fuel subsidized energy source.
More personal attacks, I guess they were concentrating on being nuclear scientist's rather than web programmers. Here is a link to their paper as a pdf. If they were fringe nutjobs then the nuclear industry itself would not have spent so much time attempting to refute their research. YOU however do not have THEIR qualification's so who are you to cast aspersions on their reputation or their work which has been peer reviewed in a proper scientific manner using U.S government standards for industrial process measurement.
I know you want to believe, but it's not just the science, it's the economic and medical consequences of having an operational nuclear industry without proper supporting technology to utilise the material safely and effectively.
AND you talk about the economics of the OIL industry which clearly proves your ignorance of the subject matter. The economics of the oil industry doesn't work either because you have reserves being inflated for political reasons so that production quota's can be kept artificially high. Petrol in your country is so cheap because of those subsidies, and with every oil field in the world in decline, you have picked an example that illustrates my argument. As the raw materials get harder to produce and they become more energy intensive and produce a lower energy return, offsetting the costs to another generation.
AND If both these industries are so good - why do they need subsidies?
You don't need to buy into anything, already happening.
Where in America has the soil been turned, where is the actual CONSTRUCTION taking place?
Apparently most of the educated engineering world disagrees with your assessment of the economics, and so the plants are being built.
Oh Dear, I guess that's because engineers do engineering and economist's do economics. You see ruby ruby ruby ruby so-ho, details like that are important thats why the people who actually ARE educated, or educate themselves about nuclear energy, don't support it. They underst
since we won't have to do uranium extraction from seawater for at least 4,000 years,
In other words - you don't know! You don't know about any polymer extraction technology and you don't know how seawater extraction of Uranium occurs, let alone being able to make any comparison between the energy efficiency of the two processes and if there is an energy return, because it's still theory and not a measureable industrial activity. The only thing you do know is that is might be possible sometime in the future and you don't know if it will produce a net energy deficit.
I'll make a wild guess
And I'll call Bullshit, you're a bullshitting bullshitter. Third time I've asked you to provide a link for your initial remark yet you still haven't even backed it up with a link. Clearly you're unable to read and absorb the science, and will instead resort to guesses to make a point.
a very cheap solution will be found by then if we really needed fission power at that time.
heavily, because it isn't self sufficient, so how can it possibly be a reliable source of energy for the furture? The Nuclear industry can't even insure itself, and that can't be said about other industry. Is over half a trillion dollars too much, do ya think? What about spending even a tenth of that on Geothermal and Hot Dry Rock which CAN provide baseload power, something that our ill informed "activist" does not seem to be aware of.
I'm sure. who is it profitable for, stockholders and anyone who can use electricity to make a profit
Uhhh, no. They are the one's that will get fleeced, only a narrow elite will make a profit. Go read your history about the 1929 stock market crash for an idea why PUCHA was put in place.
Smarter ways and cleaner ways to produce power or not, doesn't matter, the choice has been made for mankind, the 21st century is the century of fission power. u-235 at 3-4% PWR for now and more nifty things later.
What a pile of crap, mankind can't afford the infrastructure. You would need 10,000 reactors to even having a hope of meeting our current energy needs with nuclear reactors, today we have roughly 450, and look at the mess they have left and so on. They all have leaks, they all have pathetically short life spans compared to the fuel and today they are underwritten by Uncle Sam to the tune of $1/2 Trillion taxpayer dollars, how can America even afford it.
Yet you want me to buy into the nuclear dream of all the races of the world holding hands together, walking as one, singing KOM-BY-YAH unified by the prosperity of the nukleia age, power too cheap to meter...
Which type of seawater extraction methods are you talking about on an industrial scale?
How much energy does it take to produce 1 ton of uranium?
long term storage?
Yes, in something geologically stable like granite, you see you'd need it in one place to be able to utilise it for your next statement
the so-called "spent fuel" is a gold mine of energy, it's over 95% untapped in its current condition.
Indeed it is an extremely valuable material, one that almost deserves our reverence as it's lifetime is in geological ages, and certainly our respect with respect to it's toxicity to life. So considering existing "commercial" reactors are in the 600Mw - 1Gw range you are talking about a Shiney New Generation 4 Liquid Metal (either Sodium or lead folks) reactor, and whilst I support research into the development of these reactors as perhaps the only means to deal with the issue of atomic waste within our generation or the next, any such reactor would have to overcome the following design rules;
1. It has a lifespan of hundreds if not thousands of years, preferably thousands - you are talking about a serious piece of infrastructure here.
2. It has a minimum output of Gw's per cell and large and centralised enough to provide redundancy for itself.
3. Is preferably located in the core of a geologically stable area, like a mountain.
4. Is a facility capable of long term storage of transuranic waste and fissile ash.
and frankly in no way are the material sciences available (yet) to overcome such engineering feats to make such a reactor a possibility. Of course if you did have such material sciences available and the pragmatism to design such a reactor, free of commercial interests and political oversight, you would probably already have built a space elevator and realised that the best way to dispose of the waste was to use it as fuel for space craft exploring our solar system.
But I forgot, this is reality.
It will all be burned up in breeder reactors.
And that reactor could only be the Integral Fast Reactor (I know cause of the fuel burn-up rate you mentioned). Indeed a design worth developing but far far, far from being a commercial reality without overcoming the significant engineering and material science's issues mentioned earlier (Which would probably be easier than overcoming the political issues). And whilst I'm aware of the theoretical passive safety feature of IFR's, breeders are a fickle beast with finer margins of safety, and less time to react to problems.
Even with our science fiction engineering, that would have to be very good science fiction engineering, laced with un-obtainium. Filled with safety cultured, highly trained, alert, well paid people.
And whilst I support the development of IFR as perhaps the only means to dealing with the toxic mess the nuclear industry has left behind if we can't escape our gravity well, I really think the best use of it is fuel for spacecraft that are to large to practically land on earth and well outside our gravity well.
All the major powers outside the U.S. are developing breeding technology - China, Russia, India.
Yeah, so? Same problem, less safety standards, same world, same foodchain and the same cumulative health effects as more radioactive toxicity analogues itself to internal organs in bodies. Hey, my cancer came from the chocolate that came from the milk which came from the cow eating the grass that some isotope settled on from a routine venting of noble gasses that had decayed.
The cost of the fuel is then negligible.
Based on what figures. The fuel cell process is yet to be constructed let alone perfected. The fue
I understand very well the ratio of required energy for a polymer absorption process compared to a conversion of matter to energy with a c squared term.
What has any of this got to do with the exceedingly poor net energy return of the Nuclear fuel cycle? Seawater extraction of Uranium is a best a prototype not far removed from theory, not an industrial process and changes very little. Net energy return, in simple layman's terms is, do you put more energy into the process than you get out of the process?. Seawater extraction of uranium looks good in economic terms when you specifically look at the cost of extraction, but not in energetic returns simply because it doesn't factor the entire Nuclear fuel cycle.
Do you?
Why is this sort of attitude so typical of a nuclear industry shill? I might understand what you are talking about if you hadn't used such a vague statement. Ok, why don't you tell me how much energy, in Joules, used to extract a ton of uranium from seawater using the "polymer absorption process" you mention?
When you've finished that you can tell me the energetic costs to enrich that uranium so it can be used in a modern reactor,
then tell me the energetic cost to cool the waste product in preparation for long term storage,
then the energetic costs to transport it *safely* - in bulk,
then the energetic cost to build a suitable long term waste storage facility that does not exist yet (Yucca is NOT suitable).
And that's just the fuel cycle, not the energetic costs for a *safe* demolition of the "now intensely radioactive reactor facility" at the end of it's life, but tell me that too and compare the sum of those figure with the amount of energy you will extract from the uranium. THAT'S what I mean by "Net Energy Return", I am referring to the entire industrial process, that when examined demonstrates that the Nuclear power cycle provides little or no energetic benefit.
You're not Recalling Correctly, it's more like 600 years for the type of wastes you are talking about and thats IF (and thats a big IF) we have the material sciences to build liquid metal cooled reactors that can maintain the type of 'burn rates' (currently under 1%) required to burn up the transuranic wastes that are our major woe into the type of 'fissile ash' you are thinking of.
A lot better that thousands of years, in any case.
Whilst Plutonium has a half life of 25 thousand(s of) years, the time it will be radioactive is a lot longer than that, the rough guide to calculating how long an isotope will be radioactive for is by multiplying the half life by 20, so for plutonium you are looking at 500000 years of unpleasantness.
The trade-off is that the 'fissil ash' you are refering to is extremely deadly, very nasty stuff indeed. But if you could rise above the political, overcome the corporate greed, solve the material sciences issue and the meet the engineering challenges - you might be able to do it. The reality of course is that the sort of pragmatism required to produce those outcomes is even rarer than helium 3.
Slashdot Mirror
It might be about time we found a way for the first world to invest in the third world, the reality of our lifestyle is that we have plundered a significant amount of resources from those countries so whilst it may only be a stop-gap activity addressing deforestation (a carbon sponge - so to speak) maybe what we need to do to address secondary issues that aren't directly manifest from carbon emission and tertiary issues that come from those. For example, in Australia, the Koori's (our aboriginals) are paid to manage the bush for carbon credit's. The irony is that they burn it - something they have been doing for 10's of thousands of years. On two front's this is found to benefit our industry, One it keeps more carbon in the ground compared to the savage bushfires we have (think California), and secondly it reduces the risk of those same bushfires destroying a significant amount of property. So tying up carbon in forests may not be the answer, just an answer.
In third world countries better forest management may result in more potable water being available in many areas, so maybe a 'let's start here' approach is basically all we have to offer because it's so obvious.
Nothing, but it implies quota's for your daily energy consumption, what if you were limited to 10kw hours a day? That's a brute force approach.
But we aren't, so we continue to do enrichment and use a once through cycle. Any other discussion about nuclear plants has to occur after a suitable waste repository is constructed - in granite - not pumice.
Sure, what about algae sequestration and then turn that into bio-fuels.
Who really know's, I suspect we are going to have to do alot better than balance very quickly, and why not pay them to grow trees, what else are they going to do? Again it's not THE answer, just AN answer. All we can do is act on what is certain.
C'mon dood, it's the 21st century not world war two. It's not the army's job to manage climate change. It has to start with us taking a really good look at how our economy works and realising that it's completely flawed. The climate change issue is just one of a serious set of consequences left over from the fact that cost of managing externalities is offset onto the community, i.e. you and me, based on the theory that the community has the resources to deal with that toxic output. Constant growth in our economy isn't working, we should be striving to conserve resources that allows our civilisation to thrive, not nose dive after a steep climb. The reality of our situation is th
Other advanced features include
The sun is actually engineered, by nature, to provide all of the energy requirements for several planets, one planet already bears life.
waste management, containment, fuel reprocessing are located in one area, terrorist's cannot steal nuclear material from the sun.
the fuel cell is a handy "sun sized mass" which conveniently provides a orbital mass to anchor planets off.
Is engineered to operate long enough to allow several phases of civilisation to arise and become space faring.
C'mon, the hand of terrestrial nuclear power advocacy has got to be sore by now, but not from knocking. When we have a pragmatic look at nuclear power in commercial operation it is clearly not ready. If anything the last 50 years of nuclear reactor operation, and operating the fuel cycle has proved this conclusively. I'm not saying that research and development into better nuclear reactors shouldn't occur, just that the material technology to commercialise it on an industrial scale is not available in this point in history.
Sure, we have a responsibility to develop nuclear technology in our generation to address the waste issues, but only so we don't leave a toxic mess for a human civilisation that may look radically different to our own.
Why does a conversation about solar power automatically mean someone pipes up with the standard "build more nuclear power plants" argument? Nuclear power is a heavy greenhouse gas emitter and it just shows our politicians has run out of ideas when they disassemble economic protections for the American people to allow the oil companies to access nuclear industry subsidies. Clearly both industries are in decline and it's time to start divesting that funding into solar, wind, wave and geothermal power in a more balanced manner.
Which is why Solar energy research should get immediate increases in funding right now! Take $10 billion dollars of the $70 billion spent on nuclear energy subsidies and allocate it to renewable's such as solar and you have doubled the R&D into these alternatives. Thats right folks the nuclear industry gets 7 times the funding allocated to ALL the alternative technologies COMBINED ($10 billion) and approximately 3 times the funding allocated to the oil industry ($25 billion). Little wonder why development of alternative energy technology has progressed at a snails pace. And that doesn't even include the tax subsides dolled out to nuclear, and even then it's still left behind a toxic mess of mine tailing, high level post reactor waste, depleted uranium etc etc etc. How can this corporate welfare be justified in America of all places.
Just follow the money. With $100 billion to nuclear/oil and $10 billion to EVERYTHING else you don't have to be a scientist to work out why these industries want to hang onto their share of the taxpayers pie. They don't care about the future - they just want their money now. America is awash with energy alternatives that are non-polluting, you are clearly blessed. You are a technological society so it's not beyond America to drive efficiency into the grid, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear development, coal sequestration ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Instead the nuclear/oil advocate wants us to believe that nuclear is the only way to address base load power when it is patently not
Fixed that for ya, Mr AC.
Let's look at the overall reality of the solution and examine it critically.
toddhunter:
Environmentalist's are bad, beeeeeeccccaaaauuuusssseeee....duuuuhhh....uuuummmm
Clearly, your mind is fossilised, so before I shatter it with a well deserved hammer consider this. Alot of very educated people are "environmentalists" and they have been saying for at least 10-20 years to just start researching alternatives and not put our eggs in one(coal) or two(nuclear) small baskets and explore other options. Now the consequences that those "environmentalists" have been warning about (Dr David Suzuki comes to mind) are starting to become reality.
You know toddy boy people like you are the worst because you just don't even try to understand an argument. Your beliefs are so entrenched that your mind is clinically dead. So before you go shoving your tongue up someone else's ass why don't you see if there is anything of value that you have to add before you open up your mouth and shit out of it.
Further the emission of CFC's attacks the ozone layer which has an effect on the ocean based algae that is the primary producer of the oxygen that we breathe. So in the scheme of things the technology to produce nuclear power, if we look at it pragmatically, is still clearly in the developmental stage until fundamental long-term technological issues concerning transuranic waste management and processing, actinide storage and metal embrittlement are addressed.
I think we are in a phase where the development of solar alternatives are not funded. The reason they do attract funding is because the economics of solar look good without it, but key technological issues can't be addresses without the heavy lifting government subsidies can provide, which is why solar doesn't live up to the hype. Even so, coal and oil is just stored solar power and has run our economy for the last 50 years, so with sheer volume of solar energy falling on the earth's surface daily it's hard to imagine that the engineering problems involved are insurmountable.If this is project is feasible and is what can be achieved without subsidies I wonder what solar energy projects (and indeed other alternative energy projects) can be created with funding.
I just wonder if it has happened anywhere else, china was repressive enough, who knows what else they will enact.
From a producers point of view I find nothing more infuriating than a "Stereophile" boasting to me about their valve amps sounding so warm to them when I know it's introducing an unintended third harmonic distortion to music that has already been produced OR they continuing to boast about their bi or tri amped electrostatic speakers that "sound so great" but I know have bumps and dips all over the audio spectrum. It's downright insulting when you offer them a pink noise generator and some measurement microphones to balance their system out to be told that they "can do it by ear" (well come help me with my studio pal!!).
Maybe one day we will have genetically engineered super ears that allow us to hear the temporal distortion introduced by the voltage transition across the zero volt line of an audio AC waveform, but that day has not come. So "audiophiles" should be happy with any system that has a THD lower than 0.001%, is properly equalised and drivers that are all in phase, they should strive for perfect reproduction not re-reproduction.
At the same time, from a production point of view I'd be the first to line up for those super ears, but until that day I'll just lament that valve amps aren't illegal for anyone except professional musician who use them with artistic intent, and while you say it isn't what you paid to hear, I can assure you it isn't the sound the musicians or producers have laboured to bring you either.
I'm totally conscious of the loudness war when I record, mix and master music and it's hard to tell whether all that effort will be appreciated by the listener but your understanding of the issues illustrates some people are prepared to understand the art and science behind it to put the music first. At the end of the day I prefer to mix for people that appreciate the music rather than their stereo system or who are just looking for a soundtrack to life so thanks for your well considered comments.
The loudness wars is about radio stations, not mp3's. Mp3's (for all it's faults) should be allowing a new phase of music appreciation because they free the producer from considering the audio compression of the radio stations that has to accounted for when we mix/master, that's what started the loudness wars. If anything the mp3 should deliver the producer the freedom to create mixes with MORE dynamic range or different types of mixes (i.e radio vs hi-fi vs car vs gym vs commuter) download-able from the band's web site because the data compression does little to affect dynamic range. Sadly a records companies idea of innovation is 'can you make this louder'. *sigh*
I've been mixing music that I've recorded and I can see it when I look at the waveforms. When I mix I use a VU meter and some pink noise output from the (commonly seen) computer's master peak meter and align some point on peak meter with 0 on the VU meter depending on how in your face I want the music.
Imagine it this way, -18db is less in your face than -12db which is less than -10db (which is really getting in your face) - the git in yor face-0-meter is the VU because it's characteristics are similar to the ear, the more in-yor-face it is the more likely those needles are going to be pegged on the other side of the meter. Sometimes thats exactly what I want, I want you to feel it, but in the end when I mix the music I want your reaction to be "turn that volume knob up right now!!".
It's a fine line and also taste in the way it's mixed, because there is science and art in there. In reality it should be a non-issue for both the Audio and Data compression because moving/storing the amount of data that makes up a CD quality song at 44.1Khz becomes more trivial daily. If anything we should be talking about can we buy recordings of artists at higher sampling rates, like 88.2Khz because we are more likely to hear ambient sound detail we missed at lower sample rates or with a mp3 compression that loses some of that data because that sound was less energetic than some of the other sounds it was compared to in the recording whilst encoding.
If you want a visual representation, imagine 10 seconds of waveform rendered in wood about the size of your keyboard. If you take that waveform and sand along the edge of the peaks and troughs you will still see a impression of the sine wave, now turn up the git in yor face-o-meter and the waveform looks more and more like your keyboard and there is less work for the encoder and less detail to make out.
Modern digital recording systems just keep getting better and soon I doubt that an analogue verses digital recording argument will exist. Digital will offer the highest resolution BUT analogue systems differ by having better frequency response in the upper midrange where digital lends itself to creating recordings containing more low frequency energy. Nothing wrong with either approach - just taste. If the music producer has made a good mix it should just sound better on a better audio system than your pc's speakers.
In the end it's about dynamic range versus more dynamic range. More dynamic range is good it should be up to the listener how loud it it whether it's a 24bit 92Khz waveform or a mp3.
But a bad example is Visual Audio Sensory Theatre (Digital) who I think could sound more interesting if there was more dynamic range in the music, there are others but I tend to forget them.
Dynamic range in music is what makes you want to turn it up, when the studio does it for me, I turn it down.
Thank you!
Ok, well which specific part don't I understand,
is it the medical affects of radioactive isotopes,
could it be the mining, or the enrichment, the types of plants, is it their lifspan, the core disposal, the waste containment
THE POLITICAL PROCESS,
the subsidies, du weapons, of course some nukes,
And A Partridge in a Pear Tree!!!!!!!!!!
(-: well, everything else around me has gone christmas crazy, why not this? :-)
It has an effect on us all.
it happened a long time ago and was far far away...
Awesome books, I'm up to the prefect now. Best sci-fi I've read in a long time.
3......2......1...???where's the start button?
yeah, if we are not careful the earth might stop spinning and the density of the earth's crust will increase by .000000000000002%, by all means be careful
That's what they said in Chernobyl, "Hey let's put this reactor here, it will consume precious little real estate."
I notice that the key difference from these orbital photos of nuclear power plants how "little" real estate they consume. The difference is they consume arable land, and wind can be put in remote areas or at sea.
I've seen this laughable point brought up so many times like some sort of card trick that *suddenly* coal power is more radioactive that nuclear power. All it illustrates is how blaze ah the nuclear industry is with radioactive isotopes that are cancerous to humans depending on what element they analogue. Of course it's qualified with the phrase "In normal operation" to distance the nuclear industry from it's many 'incidents' where radioactive elements are released into the environment. Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and a plethora of 'accidents' that, because it's "an accident", doesn't get included in the radiation released by nuclear power plants cause it's "not normal operations". Beside older Nuclear power plants vent approximately 100 cubic feet of Noble gasses roughly every two weeks, that decay into deadlier elements, and thats NRC standard operating procedure.
It is irrelevant how much radioactive elements are released "in normal operation" because the entire supporting cycle releases so many radioactive elements and radioactivity and only exists to support reactors "In normal operations". Incidents are a fact of life for nuclear power, they happen because the nuclear industry exists, so telling me that the entire coal industry worldwide releases more radioactivity than Chernobyl released and will continues to release just illustrates that nuclear industry and it's supporters cannot take responsibility for it's failures and instead tries to qualify it with "In normal operations" . Beside's, all radioactive elements accumulate in the food chain.
sure, when the material sciences advance enough to solve the engineering problems that prevent building a reactor above 1Gw that last's longer than 40 years - let's say a facility should last 1000 years. Sure breeders will be useful one day, but today alot more work needs to be done to develop that technology.
and replace it with the mess you have now, dood A geologically stable (yes I know this is not Yucca) waste repository is the begining of a breeder program - not an after thought
600 years for that sort of fissile ash, but also ALOT more radioactive emphasizing the need for a waste dump made of GRANITE, not pumice.
Do you reckon it will be too cheap to meter?
Oh really, then why do Nukleer power plants struggle to get 24 "Full Power Years" out of a reactor designed to last 40 years?
Wind
Sounds like CRUD to me.
Please, a link this time, or are you doing your sweeping statement thing again to make yourself look credible.
Now, now don't be overbearing if you can't backup your case. This is in not a matter of a nuclear process vs a chemical one, it's about the energy yield from the technology available. Existing reactor technology does not provide a net energy benefit in the long term when you compare the energy inputs to outputs.
hahahaha, personal attacks instead of rational argument! Most of the 100 odd reactors in the U.S are approaching old-age and have to be de-commissioned long before your fantasy comes true. The last one was built in the 70's, from memory, and since they only have a 40 year life span that's getting pretty close. So what does your "reasoning" suggest we replace them with eh? AP1000's with shit containment or PBMR that produce deadlier waste and have deadlier failure modes.
In reality what you are saying is to build 200 new reactors in America, when even 100 new reactors in America, assuming you can keep the old ones running, is a massive task - and still no geologically stable waste repository. There are much better energy investments in the US, why not utilise those? They have a much better energy return and even without the generous subsidies that Nuklere bower gets, wouldn't it be logical to invest something into them to enhance that technology?
More personal attacks, I guess they were concentrating on being nuclear scientist's rather than web programmers. Here is a link to their paper as a pdf. If they were fringe nutjobs then the nuclear industry itself would not have spent so much time attempting to refute their research. YOU however do not have THEIR qualification's so who are you to cast aspersions on their reputation or their work which has been peer reviewed in a proper scientific manner using U.S government standards for industrial process measurement.
I know you want to believe, but it's not just the science, it's the economic and medical consequences of having an operational nuclear industry without proper supporting technology to utilise the material safely and effectively.
AND you talk about the economics of the OIL industry which clearly proves your ignorance of the subject matter. The economics of the oil industry doesn't work either because you have reserves being inflated for political reasons so that production quota's can be kept artificially high. Petrol in your country is so cheap because of those subsidies, and with every oil field in the world in decline, you have picked an example that illustrates my argument. As the raw materials get harder to produce and they become more energy intensive and produce a lower energy return, offsetting the costs to another generation.
AND If both these industries are so good - why do they need subsidies?
Where in America has the soil been turned, where is the actual CONSTRUCTION taking place?
Oh Dear, I guess that's because engineers do engineering and economist's do economics. You see ruby ruby ruby ruby so-ho, details like that are important thats why the people who actually ARE educated, or educate themselves about nuclear energy, don't support it. They underst
Yet you want me to buy into the nuclear dream of all the races of the world holding hands together, walking as one, singing KOM-BY-YAH unified by the prosperity of the nukleia age, power too cheap to meter...
You've quite untidily side stepped the questions;
Which type of seawater extraction methods are you talking about on an industrial scale?
How much energy does it take to produce 1 ton of uranium?
Yes, in something geologically stable like granite, you see you'd need it in one place to be able to utilise it for your next statement
Indeed it is an extremely valuable material, one that almost deserves our reverence as it's lifetime is in geological ages, and certainly our respect with respect to it's toxicity to life. So considering existing "commercial" reactors are in the 600Mw - 1Gw range you are talking about a Shiney New Generation 4 Liquid Metal (either Sodium or lead folks) reactor, and whilst I support research into the development of these reactors as perhaps the only means to deal with the issue of atomic waste within our generation or the next, any such reactor would have to overcome the following design rules;
1. It has a lifespan of hundreds if not thousands of years, preferably thousands - you are talking about a serious piece of infrastructure here.
2. It has a minimum output of Gw's per cell and large and centralised enough to provide redundancy for itself.
3. Is preferably located in the core of a geologically stable area, like a mountain.
4. Is a facility capable of long term storage of transuranic waste and fissile ash.
and frankly in no way are the material sciences available (yet) to overcome such engineering feats to make such a reactor a possibility. Of course if you did have such material sciences available and the pragmatism to design such a reactor, free of commercial interests and political oversight, you would probably already have built a space elevator and realised that the best way to dispose of the waste was to use it as fuel for space craft exploring our solar system.
But I forgot, this is reality.
And that reactor could only be the Integral Fast Reactor (I know cause of the fuel burn-up rate you mentioned). Indeed a design worth developing but far far, far from being a commercial reality without overcoming the significant engineering and material science's issues mentioned earlier (Which would probably be easier than overcoming the political issues). And whilst I'm aware of the theoretical passive safety feature of IFR's, breeders are a fickle beast with finer margins of safety, and less time to react to problems.
Even with our science fiction engineering, that would have to be very good science fiction engineering, laced with un-obtainium. Filled with safety cultured, highly trained, alert, well paid people.
And whilst I support the development of IFR as perhaps the only means to dealing with the toxic mess the nuclear industry has left behind if we can't escape our gravity well, I really think the best use of it is fuel for spacecraft that are to large to practically land on earth and well outside our gravity well.
Yeah, so? Same problem, less safety standards, same world, same foodchain and the same cumulative health effects as more radioactive toxicity analogues itself to internal organs in bodies. Hey, my cancer came from the chocolate that came from the milk which came from the cow eating the grass that some isotope settled on from a routine venting of noble gasses that had decayed.
Based on what figures. The fuel cell process is yet to be constructed let alone perfected. The fue
What has any of this got to do with the exceedingly poor net energy return of the Nuclear fuel cycle? Seawater extraction of Uranium is a best a prototype not far removed from theory, not an industrial process and changes very little. Net energy return, in simple layman's terms is, do you put more energy into the process than you get out of the process?. Seawater extraction of uranium looks good in economic terms when you specifically look at the cost of extraction, but not in energetic returns simply because it doesn't factor the entire Nuclear fuel cycle.
Why is this sort of attitude so typical of a nuclear industry shill? I might understand what you are talking about if you hadn't used such a vague statement. Ok, why don't you tell me how much energy, in Joules, used to extract a ton of uranium from seawater using the "polymer absorption process" you mention?When you've finished that you can tell me the energetic costs to enrich that uranium so it can be used in a modern reactor,
then tell me the energetic cost to cool the waste product in preparation for long term storage,
then the energetic costs to transport it *safely* - in bulk,
then the energetic cost to build a suitable long term waste storage facility that does not exist yet (Yucca is NOT suitable).
And that's just the fuel cycle, not the energetic costs for a *safe* demolition of the "now intensely radioactive reactor facility" at the end of it's life, but tell me that too and compare the sum of those figure with the amount of energy you will extract from the uranium. THAT'S what I mean by "Net Energy Return", I am referring to the entire industrial process, that when examined demonstrates that the Nuclear power cycle provides little or no energetic benefit.
The trade-off is that the 'fissil ash' you are refering to is extremely deadly, very nasty stuff indeed. But if you could rise above the political, overcome the corporate greed, solve the material sciences issue and the meet the engineering challenges - you might be able to do it. The reality of course is that the sort of pragmatism required to produce those outcomes is even rarer than helium 3.