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2004-05-24 Britain
Environmentalist Saint is in favor of nuclear power - lessor Greenies seeth and whine
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Posted by mhw 2004-05-24 9:48:16 AM|| || Front Page|| [11137 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Loveless, not Lovelock, in the Wild Wild West series
Posted by Frank G  2004-05-24 9:53:52 AM||   2004-05-24 9:53:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Geee, the EpiphanyBat strikes 84 yr old! Knocked him from the loonie bin into the light. Slather on the sunscreen, Jimmy.

"an article of faith"
Yeah, you gotta watch those little buggers - they'll trip you up every time...
Posted by .com 2004-05-24 10:13:44 AM||   2004-05-24 10:13:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Thank you, Frank G, for providing that vital clarification. I was going to post the exact same thing. People must get their fictional history straight.

While expanded nuclear power generation could go a long way towards altering some very basic energy relationships, both with the environment itself and our friends enemies the Saudis, it is fusion power that desperately needs increased funding.

Confronted with contaminant half-lifes of days instead of tens of thousands of years, such technology holds the real key to environmentally friendly electrical power generation.

Humanity has historically built its cities on ocean waterfronts that will all be submerged if significant melting of the ice caps occurs. This single potential economic loss alone drives the need to harness clean power generation.

All who are interested may wish to peruse a link I have posted before. It is a splendid primer on laser fusion as envisioned by scientists seeking to go beyond current inertial confinement research being conducted at the National Ignition Facility.
Posted by Zenster 2004-05-24 10:28:14 AM||   2004-05-24 10:28:14 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 that was my picky asshole attitude poking through...BTW - Lovelock is also a town in Nevada, northeast of Fallon
Posted by Frank G  2004-05-24 10:42:03 AM||   2004-05-24 10:42:03 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Zenster I'm sorry, while you can be funny, you have shit for brains when it comes to actually understanding things. Fusion power may or may not work at some indeterminate time in the future, but despite many billions of dollars spent it does not work today, nor will it work on any relevant timescale.

Disposing of waste from nuclear power stations is a complete non-issue. Just put it in a deep hole. End of story! We dig up Uranium which has a half life of millions of years and bury byproducts that have a half life of tens/hundreds of thousands of years. Please explain the issue?
Posted by Phil B  2004-05-24 10:42:40 AM||   2004-05-24 10:42:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Isotopes with 10,000+ year half-lives are just barely radioactive. The truly nasty ones have half-lives of 30-40 years.
Posted by mojo  2004-05-24 10:47:36 AM||   2004-05-24 10:47:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Phil B, just because we have available fission based power generation right now does not preclude the importance of pursuing fusion as well. Burying highly radioactive nuclear waste makes about as much sense as digging a septic tank next to your water well. The uranium we mine up is far less concentrated than the stuff we bury.

While it represents a short term solution, we owe it to future generations not to rely upon stopgap measures and come up with some truly viable long term solutions. Advances in materials science will solve issues like hydrogen embrittlement and other problems facing fusion power generation.

Mojo & Phil B, just for the record:

U-234: half life = 244 thousand years, 0.0055% of all uranium.

U-235: half life = 704 million years, 0.72% of all uranium.

U-238: half life = 4.5 billion years, 99.28% of all uranium.

-------------------------

From the EPA website:

U-238 99.27% 4.47 Billion years

U-235 0.72% 700 millions years

U-234 0.0055% 246,000 years

-------------------------

NOTE: Gratuitous personal insults do the most damage to those who succumb to such ill-mannered conduct.
Posted by Zenster 2004-05-24 11:14:40 AM||   2004-05-24 11:14:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Adding to what Phil B and mojo said, I sometimes point out to the antinuke types that the half life of some of the stuff that comes out of coal power plants and from the left over material that makes solar cells (e.g., mercury, arsenic) is basically forever. Of course this doesn't get very far because they then get into the 'we use to much energy - why can't we be more like Sweden' argument.
Posted by mhw 2004-05-24 11:15:06 AM||   2004-05-24 11:15:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 The uranium we mine up is far less concentrated than the stuff we bury. So mix it up with the stuff we dig up in the first place. Ergo no problem.

And BTW my comments are not gratuitous personal insults. They are considered and objective observations.
Posted by Phil B  2004-05-24 11:28:40 AM||   2004-05-24 11:28:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Zenster -- Where do you get these figures that the oceans will rise and submerge cities from? This is an honest question, not a flame.

Granted, melting the ice and snow on land surfaces such as Antarctica, northern Russia/Siberia, and northern Canada will affect sea levels, but the Arctic ice pack displaces the same volume of water it would occupy if it melts.

I'm not saying, "Go ahead, melt the poles!" I just find all of this global warming "science" and "facts" very suspect. After all, the Ice Age 10,000 years ago wasn't caused by man. The drastic climate changes over the millenia (inland seas and rain forests in the Dakotas and Montana as shown by fossil records, for example) weren't caused by man. Maybe this "earth goddess Gaia" the enviros love so much has a mind of her own.
Posted by Dar  2004-05-24 11:31:57 AM||   2004-05-24 11:31:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 NOTE: Gratuitous personal insults do the most damage to those who succumb to such ill-mannered conduct.

Not really.
Posted by Orson Buggy 2004-05-24 12:08:22 PM|| []  2004-05-24 12:08:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 BTW - Lovelock is also a town in Nevada, northeast of Fallon

Lovelock: Not a whole lot in the middle of nowhere. ;)
Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2004-05-24 12:10:12 PM||   2004-05-24 12:10:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Where do you get these figures that the oceans will rise and submerge cities from?

----------------------

Ice caps are found in several places in the Arctic region (Greenland, Iceland, Baffin Island, and the island of Spitsbergen) and over most of the Antarctic region. Approximately 90% of the ice on earth, is found either in Greenland or in Antarctica. The largest ice caps on the planet are found there. Greenland is a plateau surrounded by mountains. Antarctica is composed of mountains, valleys, and lowlands. From my research, I have found different values for the volume of the polar ice caps. For Antarctica, the approximate volume is 30,000,000 km3. For Greenland, it is approximately 3,000,000 km3.

... Since the 1900s, the climates of Antarctica and Greenland have been gradually warming. Since 1850, the mean temperature of the earth has risen by one Celsius degree. As temperature rises, glaciers will melt, especially the the ones outside of the north and south poles. By 2100, melting glaciers will contribute to a sea level rise of 50 cm. This will cause coastal flooding.

----------------------

That's 50 cm. just from Greenland, which is exhibiting significant melting. Remember, many coastal beaches are very flat and even a rise of one inch represents a lot of sumbersion. Greenland's ice melt alone would result in almost two feet of rise and Greenland is puny compared to Antarctica.

Although there remains important work to be done concerning verification of global warming, it certainly behooves us to address the topic with some sense of priority.

----------------------

They are considered and objective observations.

That doesn't stop them from being ill-mannered.
Posted by Zenster 2004-05-24 12:14:30 PM||   2004-05-24 12:14:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Adding to what Phil B and mojo said, I sometimes point out to the antinuke types that the half life of some of the stuff that comes out of coal power plants and from the left over material that makes solar cells (e.g., mercury, arsenic) is basically forever.

This is a very salient point regarding why we need to migrate away from fossil fuel based power generation. Worst of all, even if all the major industrialized nations abandon coal fired generation, just China, using its own domestic coal reserves, could negate all other attempts at reducing CO2 emissions.

Coal is still the main source of energy in China today because it's cheap and plentiful (China has the largest coal reserves in the world) ... China consumes only twice the energy as Germany (China has about 17 times more people) but emits 15 times more dust and 4 times more toxic gases. This is mostly due to emissions ... By the year 2020, China is predicted to be the world leading producer of carbon dioxide and other gasses that cause global warming.
Posted by Zenster 2004-05-24 12:25:53 PM||   2004-05-24 12:25:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Lovelock: Not a whole lot in the middle of nowhere. ;)

I spent a month in Lovelock one week.
Posted by Zenster 2004-05-24 12:27:05 PM||   2004-05-24 12:27:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Zenster
And the coal problem is one reason why the Chinese are building their version of the TVA. Of course the greenies are against that too -- big time.
Posted by mhw 2004-05-24 1:37:37 PM||   2004-05-24 1:37:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Uh just so ya know zenster there are several potential ways of fusion as a viable source of energy. The current way is to look at a helium-tritium mix (which has a half life of 12.5 years). Thats actually extremely radioactive but also gives the most energy output and is a lot easier to achieve, the mix you're thinking about thats not so radioactive is the deuterium mix that has a lower energy release amount but theres a lot more of it around. The safest mixture would be deuterium + He3 but the US for instance has only about 200 or so kilos and there is much more on the rest of the planet.
Posted by Valentine 2004-05-24 1:53:54 PM||   2004-05-24 1:53:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 I'm not up on the latest fusion stuff but my memory is that the neutrons from the various fusion reactions are quite energetic; typically upwards of 10 Mev.

Have we made any progress in how to build structures which capture the energy from these energetic neutrons (I suppose the structures would hold water which the neutrons would boil) and yet don't destroy the material that makes up the structure?
Posted by mhw 2004-05-24 2:07:44 PM||   2004-05-24 2:07:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Actually fission is very viable in a particle accelerator driven thorium reactor. This has multiple advantages. Thorium is 3 times as plentiful as uranium. Thorium dioxide is not corrosive (compared to uranium compounds) and thorium dioxide has a high melting point (ca. 3800 C). The particle accelerator is needed to turn on the reaction since thorium is fertile not fissile (i.e. turn off the accelerator the reaction stops). A thorium reactor could easily produce both hydrogen and electricity. Finally nuclear waste could be mixed with the thorium to increase the energy production and transmute the long life waste into short life waste of low radioactivity. Another advantage for the US is that thorium is found, among other places, in the Northeast; no importation.
Posted by Chemist 2004-05-24 2:50:48 PM||   2004-05-24 2:50:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 By God, how I love Rantburg. Only here can I get intelligent discussion of the science behind nuclear fusion as an energy source (as opposed to the politics) posted next to a story of a bicycle-thieving moose!
Posted by mjh  2004-05-24 3:10:39 PM||   2004-05-24 3:10:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Adding onto what Chemist has posted, check this specs page describing the process and this recent (last Fall, the most recent authoritative article I found) article about US - Russian joint project status.
Posted by .com 2004-05-24 3:13:14 PM||   2004-05-24 3:13:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 I've got this Z-28, Sucker just gulps it down!
Posted by Lucky 2004-05-24 3:20:24 PM||   2004-05-24 3:20:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 The Indians were trying to build Thorium cycle breeders (irradiate one Thorium isotope to breed another fissile isotope, distinct from what chemist is describing above). I don't know how far they got.
Posted by 11A5S 2004-05-24 3:51:51 PM||   2004-05-24 3:51:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 I thoroughly enjoyed this exchange. Well done (except for the ocasional insult)
Posted by Evert V. in NL  2004-05-24 4:06:02 PM|| [http://srv.fotopages.com/?o=935389&t=2]  2004-05-24 4:06:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 There are two myths in these comments that should be knocked down.

1. The last ice age ended 10K years ago. In fact we are still in an ice age and the last 10K years have been what is called interglacial, where the ice sheets temporarily retreat.

2. Coastal flooding/inundation is caused by rising sea levels. This is simply not true! Far and away the major cause of coastal flooding is the land sinking. You can think of the continents as floating on the earth's mantle and for every piece that is rising up (effectively for every mountain range) another part is sinking down.
Posted by Phil B  2004-05-24 8:29:02 PM||   2004-05-24 8:29:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Nuclear power is a failed technology. It isn't going to be vastly expanded because the hidden costs associated with waste disposal, health risks and accidents are such that expensive "green" alternatives are actually cheaper in the long run. They have bigger startup costs but over time it evens out.

There are other alternatives that can't be used. They may not offer the seductive big hit of energy but long-term they are more cost-effective in social, environmental and dollar terms.

Radiation causes cancer, period. The more cancers and birth defects you get in a target population, the more it costs that population in terms of time off work, hospital and palliative care and associated drug and illness costs.

As for global warming: nothing can be done about it now anyway. If all the industrialised countries followed Kyoto to the letter, we would only hold back global warming by 3 MONTHS. Can't remember where I read it but it was a scientific study exploding the myth of Kyoto.

Kyoto was all about punishing developed countries for being rich and successful, and trying to give money to poor countries. It was global socialism pure and simple, nothing to do with the environment.

The best we can do is wean ourselves of Saudi Black Slag so we aren't paying money to people who are trying to kill us, and just deal with the effects of global warming as they arise.
Posted by Anon1 2004-05-24 8:52:57 PM||   2004-05-24 8:52:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Radiation causes cancer, period.

How linear, non-threshold of you.

"Green" energy is a myth. If it were real, it would be funding its own way, not sucking off the government teat and using the force of law (aka "regulations") to make us adopt it.
Posted by Robert Crawford  2004-05-24 9:00:58 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/]  2004-05-24 9:00:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Radiation also kills germs period. Radiating meat would reduce poisening by toxins.

Of course the deeper greenies don't want us eating meat anyway.
Posted by mhw 2004-05-24 9:47:19 PM||   2004-05-24 9:47:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 Radiation causes cancer Correct! but is also used to cure cancer. There are two issue here.

1. An enormous number of things cause cancer. So the issue is not whether, but how much they cause.

2. All fossil fuel based energies release more radiation than nuclear power.

Nuclear power is a failed technology.

So why is the world's largest producer of nuclear power (France) also the worlds biggest exporter of electricity (by a long way).
Posted by Phil B  2004-05-24 11:53:33 PM||   2004-05-24 11:53:33 PM|| Front Page Top

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