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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11956914 - 02/03/10 07:05 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Ego Questio said:
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zappaisgod said: Yes. I would much prefer that the effects of stupid people be limited to the stupid people as much as possible. If government of and by stupid people is limited than they have a lesser chance of fucking the rest of us.
You'll have to clarify that one for me buddy. I'm talking about pulling out some major social initiative to properly try to bring real education the poorest community, at least on a par to give them an even chance of attaining places at the top colleges. You simply mention limiting the effects of stupid people to themselves as much as possible-do you mean not attempt to lift them up in society, but instead isolate them and the ill-informed damage they can inflict?
You don't really want to inform people. You want to indoctrinate them. If people were informed they would run screaming from any leftism. Are you getting it yet?Quote:
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zappaisgod said: Which is almost all of them. It is a poor financial decision for a young person to pay for medical insurance.
How is that all of them? The way I understand your system, apart from free basic emergency care, any other medical treatment is charged, payable by insurance companies. Such premiums would be well out of the price range of the poverty-stricken teens. Oh, mommy and daddy suburbia can probably fund their middle class kids no problems, but what are the poor to do?
My system? There is no free basic emergency care. There is no free anything anywhere in the world. Somebody pays. Teens? teens are covered by their parents. I'm talking about young people in their twenties and young males in their thirties. Health insurance is a financial mistake for them. They almost invariably don't need it. They are better off taking the risk. It is almost always to their advantage.Quote:
Go through life with no medical insurance until that one fateful day when they break their back, get basically stitched up, then presented with the $400,000 bill for physiotherapy and medical care to learn to walk again without constant agony?
Quite the little horror story you've concocted. Do you realize that most people would be much better off never buying insurance? If that wasn't the case, there would be no insurance cmpanies. They make money on chickens like that.Quote:
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zappaisgod said: I don't think you understand soc sec. As a retirement investment, which is 90+% of it, it shows hideous returns. Young people getting support from soc sec? That is hardly the problem. Tiny poroportion better taken care of in other ways. Did you know that over 10% of the money you make is confiscated for soc sec? Did you know that it will be beyond broke, i.e. no money in the kitty, when you go to look for it? Do not for one second think that that (young people support) is what soc sec is about
I have to admit to total ignorance on your social security system. Yet you focus on the retirement aspect of it as an indictment of the entire system, when due to current economic factors as well as a massively bloating and ageing population, the pension pots of the world are in serious meltdown.
Just stop now. You do not know what soc sec is. Leave it at that.Quote:
Bear in mind the current system of pension payments is bloody Victorian in scope, where people would retire and if they lived to claim 5 years worth of pension, they were considered lucky! Now, of course, you have hundreds of millions more people now, all retiring healthy(ish) and living for decades off pension plans designed for payments of a few years.
That's right. When that fuck FDR invented soc sec the average life span was just a few years older than the age of eligibility. But it has crept. As they always do. 15% of worker pay is taxed off of dollar one to pay for soc sec and MC/MA. And it isn't invested. It is used to pay benefits. It is Madoff.Quote:
This model was collapsing mid last century, but the baby boomer generation provided a solution-link in directly to this flood of new taxes coming in, that'll solve it! So the old system continues to bloat and wheeze until we hit the 80's/90's and it's fit to burst. Then some genius says "Hey, we're in an eternal economic growth here, link the pensions to market speculation" so it bloats some more based on mythical money in the magic land of Finance...until now, and there's no more plugs for the tattered remnants of an antiquated pension system.
Ummm no. That didn't happen. I fact, there is no link to market speculation. Never was. If there had been it would be fully funded. Even now. THEY NEVER INVESTED ONE CENT! It was always a Ponzi scheme. All they have doe is raise the contribution level.Quote:
But social security as a term is distinct from this-yes, it may cover social pensions, but that's merely one facet of it's remit. Social programmes cover health, education, transport, community building, aid, Jeez, everything that can help society in general out, really.You can't deride the whole system that was forced to integrate an outmoded, ridiculously last-legs pension system...
Now you are going elsewhere. That has nothing to do with soc sec. And why should the fed government be building community centers in Osh Kosh? It shouldn't.
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Gastronomicus
3-0-G



Registered: 03/31/05
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#11957056 - 02/03/10 07:23 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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zappaisgod said: It isn't the governemt being stupid. It's the voters.
Laughably ignorant.
-------------------- Make my Funk the P Funk, I wants to get Funked up
LAGM2024
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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They didn't vote?
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P.C.Hunter
Shroob Noomy

Registered: 02/03/10
Posts: 7
Loc: USA, CA, Sierra Mtns. 200...
Last seen: 4 years, 6 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
#11957082 - 02/03/10 07:27 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Hello, I admire your enthusiasm, but there is more to this story.
I wanted to reply to your post mainly because you have most of the aspects of the Line we are fed from the DOE (dept. of energy) I am familiar with the 'Line' because I took some of my inventions and innovations (now called reinventing) to the DOE and was disgusted with and then dismissed by the corruption I found there. (literally I got the "we have no recollection of you ever contacting us" from the DOE; I wont mention names)
Below I have made comments based on the experiences I have had with the DOE. They are underlined.
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pothead_bob said: 1) The utility either stores the waste on site or we bury it in Yuka mountain. Either that, or we could go the route of reprocessing, which reduces the high-level radiation lasting from tens of thousands of years to about a hundred. Good Idea, but it is more profitable for the government to dump it and tell you that you are safe, or sell it to other governments for weaponry. It generates taxes or cash (if you are politically connected). Plus, you or I can't have a nucplant at home.
2) Many people. They're completely safe. That is the heart of the line. And it is not to calm you but rather to misdirect you. It is more profitable to have energy sources that can be taxed and regulated which generates $$$
3) No. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are different. Do you think a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear weapon? They are one in the same just like mycelia and mushrooms. Nuclear waste is the most viable form of fuel for weaponry; (again why reprocess?). Yes a plant can explode like a weapon, it would be very unlikely because of the needed compression to trigger the bomb effect. But as you point out in your next statement they are enclosed. This could form an explosion, if say a tower collapsed like three mile or half the plant was built backwards like the one in so-cal.
4) We MIGHT be doing it because it's cost effective, doesn't emit any greenhouse gasses, and has one of the best track records of safety (hydro-electric killed many, many, many more people than nuclear power). Radiation kills if you're exposed to it. You aren't exposed to it when the reactor core and submerged behind several feet of concrete. It currently accounts for 20% of the power generated in the US. Bullshit renewables (like wind and solar) account for less than a fraction of a percent. To make any serious dent in the power grid with such forms of energy, you would need to cover the entire seaboard with windmills and entire deserts with solar panels. What do you think that would do to the environment?
Yes we are at number 4 the mind, body and soul of the 'Line'.
~When I brought my inventions (which were described by 30 year veteran alternate energy developers as "machines that solved decades of alternate energy problems" and "the only real wind and solar solutions" the DOE said "look into bio-diesel because we are not generating enough tax revenue with wind and solar".
~Dihydrosoxide is the most lethal chemical on the plant! Mainly due to the majority of our plant is covered by it and because of drunken boaters on our hydroelectric lakes (all controlled by the DOE aka state and federal government.
~Please understand this is not personal, but; You have been trained well you even address 'the utility', if individual Americans were allowed to generate there own power (without being taxed equal to the electric bill they no longer pay) you would not see any extra wind or solar equipment except at residences and businesses; BUT there would not be lots of money for politicians to spread around to their friends and family.
~Keep in mind, as in this forum, individuals get worked up and will speak out, the masses just sit by and watch. So who does the government want to tax? The individual or the masses...? Nuclear Power is about TAXABLE energy.
Please to all who read this, Forget your party politics there is only one America, and really only one party with two flavors.
Thanks for listening, P.C.Hunter
p.s. FYI with 2 pieces of equipment, that amount to a tall lamp post and a large mail box plus a satellite dish, I can power an entire home and most my neighbors. The US government as it stands does not want true solutions that are not easily taxable. I know from experience.
Who are you going to be mad at Bush or Obama or the next Neapolitan whichever flavor or us citizens? If American citizens can hide a multi-billion dollar marijuana industry that requires thousands of acres of land we can make viable energy. nuclear or alternate just don't by the propaganda... why is it now NuClear...Duh!
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pothead_bob
Resident Pothead


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: P.C.Hunter]
#11959867 - 02/04/10 06:55 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Good Idea, but it is more profitable for the government to dump it and tell you that you are safe, or sell it to other governments for weaponry. It generates taxes or cash (if you are politically connected). Plus, you or I can't have a nucplant at home.
Dump it? Dump it where? What do you mean the government? Private companies own utilities and are responsible for storing the waste... not the government. They store it in spent fuel pools and, after it has had time to cool, in dry cask storage. I knew people who worked in dry cask storage.
What do you even mean by saying 'you or I can't have a nuc plant at home'? Clearly, you can't have one in you basement. That would be unbelievably unsafe and just asking for disaster. If you want to build one, though, there is nothing stopping you. Just get 4 billion dollars, start talking to Areva, GE, Mitsubisi, or Westinghouse about buying one, and get a team of engineers to submit a COL to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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That is the heart of the line. And it is not to calm you but rather to misdirect you. It is more profitable to have energy sources that can be taxed and regulated which generates $$$
So you're saying what exactly? That nuclear power plants aren't safe? What energy sources can't be taxed?
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They are one in the same just like mycelia and mushrooms. Nuclear waste is the most viable form of fuel for weaponry; (again why reprocess?).
And how are you going to get the waste out of the plant? Just pick it up and carry it? You'd be vaporized in 3 seconds. Not to mention the dozens of security checkpoints, physical barriers, and hundreds of security guards with assault rifles. We should reprocess because it practically eliminates nuclear waste and extends the fuel cycle from a few hundred years to thousands of years.
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Yes a plant can explode like a weapon, it would be very unlikely because of the needed compression to trigger the bomb effect. But as you point out in your next statement they are enclosed. This could form an explosion, if say a tower collapsed like three mile or half the plant was built backwards like the one in so-cal.
Okay, now I heard enough to know you have no clue whatsoever about how nuclear power works. A plant CANNOT explode like a nuclear weapon. Bombs are built with highly enriched uranium, over 85% u-235. Nuclear fuel uses uranium enriched to less than 5% u-235. It is physically impossible for a nuclear power plant to explode like a nuclear weapon. You mention TMI. Did you know that the reactor actually did melt and yet no injuries resulted? How come it didn't explode like a bomb? A tower collapsing would do nothing. You can fly a 747 into the reactor containment and it would not be breached.
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if individual Americans were allowed to generate there own power (without being taxed equal to the electric bill they no longer pay
Can I get a source for this nonsense?
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FYI with 2 pieces of equipment, that amount to a tall lamp post and a large mail box plus a satellite dish, I can power an entire home and most my neighbors. The US government as it stands does not want true solutions that are not easily taxable. I know from experience.
Something tells me that this 'invention' of yours violates the laws of physics, which engineers at the DOE realized immediately and sent you on your way.
-------------------- No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge which is itself based upon the mathematical sciences. -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519) Speak well of your enemies. After all, you made them.
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Ego Questio
Ghost in the Machine




Registered: 10/25/09
Posts: 1,141
Loc: UK
Last seen: 5 years, 11 days
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#11960067 - 02/04/10 08:02 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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zappaisgod said: You don't really want to inform people. You want to indoctrinate them. If people were informed they would run screaming from any leftism. Are you getting it yet?
OK,come on now,we've already spoken about your generalisations on "all liberals". You have no idea why I want to teach,and I really have little reason to lie to a name on a computer screen.My major problem with society is how vulnerable the completely ignorant of socitey are to any kind of propaganda.We foisted a vote on people who've never been given the education to truly understand the scope of the issues,nor had they been taught to independetly assess information in their own world view,objectively.Very few have the capacity for the seperation of instinct and intellect and live on pretty much one conscious level. This,to me,leads to a failed democracy,of massive voter apathy and a sad minimal of the electorate basing their votes on any indeological or policy related imperative,instead votting like cattle. This should not be.I intend to spend my life teaching young people to think for themselves,to assess both sides of any argument equally,even discounting their own preferences,before making an informed choice.Frankly,once people reach this point of intellectual development,I couldn't give a toss what political leaning they chose,left or right.Because it's their choice,which is the ultimate point,really.I appreciate the discourse (increasingly rare,alas) between to political extremes-such discussion is healthy! Why would I want to churn out indoctrinated liberals who wouldn't be able to understand or defend the ideologies?I want people in the world capable of rational,independent thinking,strong yet open minded. This is the kind of education I wish it to be the state's responsibility to provide.
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Zappaisgod said: My system? There is no free basic emergency care. There is no free anything anywhere in the world. Somebody pays. Teens? teens are covered by their parents. I'm talking about young people in their twenties and young males in their thirties. Health insurance is a financial mistake for them. They almost invariably don't need it. They are better off taking the risk. It is almost always to their advantage.... ...
Quite the little horror story you've concocted. Do you realize that most people would be much better off never buying insurance? If that wasn't the case, there would be no insurance cmpanies. They make money on chickens like that.
I meant free at the point of entry,NHS style.Of course that is paid for,but there is no onus on he patient to contriubute anything to the cost of their care,at any point. Should you have a little more free cash,we have options for private medical care too,so everyone's happy-free medical care for anyone who needs it,regardless on their class or wealth,and the option for richer folk to buy themselves "better" treatment. What's wrong with this system?To me,it seems infinitely preferable to the US-where there are circumstances where you will not recieve needed medical care if you do not have the wealth to cover it.How fiscally discriminative! You say I've concocted a horror story and I agree,but that doesn't make it a facetious one.This sort of thing can happen easily under such a system-someone,who cares who,cannot afford insurance.They get hit by a car.And they are fucked.What options do they have for the complete medical care they need? To make provisions for yourself and especially,in the case of young couples and young families,the young persons health is even more important-they canno afford to be unable to work,or leave partners/children stuggling to cope with huge medical bills-to do as you say and just not bother,on the hope you won't need it is playing the riskiest game of russian roulette,not only with yourself,but with all those dependant on you! I really don't see that as a decent,viable option for a supposedly civilised country-you can pay these premiums you can't really afford,or you can not bother and run the risk of ruinig your and your young family's life. If that's the best defece alternative you can come up with...
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Zappaisgod said: Now you are going elsewhere. That has nothing to do with soc sec. And why should the fed government be building community centers in Osh Kosh? It shouldn't
I had to look up Osh Kosh-Wisconsin,right?If it is,yes,I think the government should build community centres there.And everywhere!And libraries,schools,youth clubs,sports areas,invest in urban redevelopment-basically serve society by trying to better society,or rather provide an envrionment where people are capable and encouraged to better themselves,not just shove them into the ghetto to disappear and die quietly and unremarked.
-------------------- Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1806 - 1873) My UPDATED UK supplies thread My first trip report-Amsterdam wanderings Stonesun's sclerotia infodump Proudly discovered Highly Sensitive Person ~2009 To all you good gents, I say
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11960228 - 02/04/10 08:44 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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No. If Osh KOsh wants a community center then Osh Kosh can by gosh build it themselves. There is no earthly reason why money should be taken from NY to build a communty center or a bike path or dog walk or anything else in Osh fucking Kosh.
You still can't wrap your brain around the fact that your paternalism curtails freedom.
When I was a young lad enrolled in University and studying psychology there was much discussion about just how you should go about caring for the more challenged members of society. The idea was to strike a balance between total control and total autonomy, that is, the are on their own to make decisions. My key take away from the discussion was the concept of "Dignity of Risk". What dignity does a person have when he is totally taken care of? What freedom when all choices are made for him?
When the state compels your decisions you have no dignity. You are chattel. Forcing young people to make what is for them bad financial decisions because it eliminates risk is soul destroying in the worst way possible. Where is the dignity in that? Answer; Nowhere.
Then there is the whole issue that when something is available at no cost to the user the user will tend to overuse and waste the resource. It is inevitable. Unless you impose some overseer with the power to deny access. Also evil. I think the guy made a good point that rotine health care and doctor visits should be fee for service at the point of sale and borne by the user. Insurance is best left to handle catastrophic. But I can't buy that policy in NY. I have to buy a whole bunch of other shit I don't want. because the government mandates it. And I can only buy from an artificially restricted pool because there are no interstate companies. Another government restriction on MY freedom.
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Ego Questio
Ghost in the Machine




Registered: 10/25/09
Posts: 1,141
Loc: UK
Last seen: 5 years, 11 days
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#11962011 - 02/04/10 02:01 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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As much as I want to keep this up buddy,I do kinda feel we've kind hijacked this thread... 
we'll carry this on in another thread,I have no doubt. 
So...ahem,sorry OP.
Nucelar power,yes,spiffing stuff. My original point (and even I had to scroll up to remember it ) was given how fusion seems to be,I'm incredibly surprised there's not been a country that opened a state-funded project.
That is all.
..... sorry OP
-------------------- Over one's mind and over one's body the individual is sovereign. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1806 - 1873) My UPDATED UK supplies thread My first trip report-Amsterdam wanderings Stonesun's sclerotia infodump Proudly discovered Highly Sensitive Person ~2009 To all you good gents, I say
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
#11962048 - 02/04/10 02:06 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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There is state funding for fusion. But I think you and I would both like to see a lot more of it. Sometimes, though, a huge cash infusion is not necessarily the answer. I don't think the state of engineering research is quite to the point where a huge cash influx will generate proportional returns. Those crazy fuckers ar getting there though. I will probably not ever see a working fusion reactor but you might.
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dill705
Amazed



Registered: 12/10/07
Posts: 3,779
Loc: The Cat's Cradle
Last seen: 6 years, 7 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#11966115 - 02/05/10 12:54 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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leaving us so soon zap? At least stick around for harnessing the energy of the stars! That'll be the
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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xdzt

Registered: 02/05/08
Posts: 427
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#11966873 - 02/05/10 05:55 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
zappaisgod said: There is state funding for fusion. But I think you and I would both like to see a lot more of it. Sometimes, though, a huge cash infusion is not necessarily the answer. I don't think the state of engineering research is quite to the point where a huge cash influx will generate proportional returns. Those crazy fuckers ar getting there though. I will probably not ever see a working fusion reactor but you might.
Not to re-divert the thread, but I'm just curious for a quick answer on how you rectify wanting to see much more state funding for fusion and being so anti-leftist? Federal funding for science is what the left's all about. Why should you in NY pay for something that's going to benefit people in Osh Kosh and might not even work?
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
#11967435 - 02/05/10 08:52 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Because the project is generally beneficial to the entire nation, not just Osh Kosh, essential for human survival and too big for any other group.
I do not believe the government should get involved unless it meets those three criteia. Stop pretending you can't tell the difference between anarchists and conservatives. It demeans you.
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: dill705]
#11967455 - 02/05/10 08:54 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
dill705 said:
leaving us so soon zap? At least stick around for harnessing the energy of the stars! That'll be the 
I'm 53. My mother died at 48 and my father at 69. I've already had 3 cancers and I like living well too much. The chances of me having much more than 20 years left is pretty slim.
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dshow
Nomad



Registered: 01/22/09
Posts: 5,255
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#12019629 - 02/13/10 12:27 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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So what, some problems can occur with nuclear facilities? Yes alot could happen. Thats not the point, if it helps this country better itself, and overcome other countries then so be it. People need to stop being weaklings. Move away from it if you care so much. If it helps us be better then the next country then let it happen. People in this country think to much of what it could do to everyone else, but not what it could do for us. Be positive. We are where we are at now because we have been ruthless in the past, maybe not the best of ways, but it makes us what we are today.
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Flop Johnson
Praise Skatballah


Registered: 09/22/05
Posts: 13,789
Loc: TX
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
#12019635 - 02/13/10 12:28 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
EdgeChaos said:
At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.
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Shins
Fun guy



Registered: 09/15/04
Posts: 16,337
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
#12019963 - 02/13/10 02:22 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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I oppose this! i think obama is secretly trying to build a nuke! everyone should sanction america.
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pothead_bob
Resident Pothead


Registered: 04/12/08
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Shins]
#12020242 - 02/13/10 06:18 AM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Would it matter? Don't we already have the biggest stockpile of nukes in the world anyways?
-------------------- No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge which is itself based upon the mathematical sciences. -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519) Speak well of your enemies. After all, you made them.
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Gastronomicus
3-0-G



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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Shins]
#12024142 - 02/13/10 08:58 PM (14 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Shins said: I oppose this! i think obama is secretly trying to build a nuke! everyone should sanction america.
Al'Qaeda has known this for years, that's why they preemptively attacked us.
-------------------- Make my Funk the P Funk, I wants to get Funked up
LAGM2024
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ScavengerType



Registered: 01/24/08
Posts: 5,784
Loc: The North
Last seen: 10 years, 6 months
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I am really interested in energy policy and energy supply dynamics and I thought there were some things that I should point out from my observations.
First off, zappa knows nothing about either of these things, In fact it is arguable that he knows nothing else but how to perpetuate partisan bickering. He is an old man (near or past retirement age) who frequents this forum far to often for someone who believes in everything right-wing, except the war on drugs. He's commonly known for hijacking threads and ruining perfectly civil discussions (trolling). He is also below Luddite (the no word link spammer) on the list of names I would take off my ignore list. I would recommend a similar position to others, but to each their own.
Anywhoom, there are two particular issues here. Fusion and Fission.
Fusion: Awww, the future, fusion would be a godsend, but last I heard after some recent breakthroughs (outlined previously in the thread I think) prompted a PBS production on the future of fusion: This shit is kinda far off. A scientist quoted 2016 as a timeline to expect a realistic prototype and 2020-2030 as the years to expect some prolific building of the fusion generators. In actuality I apply pessimism to these predictions assuming no real first reactor on before 2025 prompting fast development onward from somewhere round 2027-2305.
Lets be honest, pollys are not given leadership to find long-term solutions, they are given power to fulfill short term interests. Fusion in many of it's countries is lucky it has gotten the funding it did when it promises such a long-term plan. Perhaps with a significantly larger contribution fusion would be here already but the promise of fusion is still not a politically important issue and I doubt the lay public could entirely understand the issue before the entire species is extinct. Remember, US pollys are not at the behest of the future economy of the US (should be obvious), but rather of the performance of companies that are able and willing to contribute to them or create immediate problems for them.
Also, the US has contributed greatly to the development of fusion reactors. I am unsure if they are still contributing anything to research in that field but were they to bounce back with a project, they still have the scientific community and financial underpinning to do so.
Fission: First off, the locations where waste is sent is significant. Notably, depleted uranium is used in munitions as an armor piercing agent, it is a known carcinogen (among numerous other things) and banned by most developed countries for such purposes. I am unaware of how much the US sells DU abroad but it does use a significant amount in it's own munitions manufacturing.
Some reactors can produce weapons grade uranium (name for it escapes me atm), but they are not popular for electrical production in countries that already have an ample supply. Most likely near all nuclear incidents will look like Chernobyl, not Nagasaki. This is kinda theoretical as some compounding factors could (possibly and hypothetically) cause something that would be more akin to a combination between the two.
Nuclear power is obscenely expensive and operates under many, many subsidies. Including the ultimate subsidy of state fostered insurance. Starting from there, as an insurance company you would have to be out of your mind to insure a nuclear plant on the off chance that something actually went wrong. Further the logistical preparations that are done for such a situation by the government to prevent/contain a Chernobyl type disaster are astronomical. Then the costs of decommissioning a plant which is expensive and if the utilities don't save for this inevitability, guess who pays for it. Storage costs for waste that will not break down for millions of years. These costs are often the major costs externalized by the exaggeratedly conservative estimates of nuclear-power's expense, that you often see quoted by those trying to bring it forward today. A massive amount of the other expenses are all upfront costs which make establishment of facilities fiscally difficult. Were it that a nuclear plant were made to bear their proportional costs of those I mentioned, set aside reasonable capital for a decommissioning and long-term waste storage account and pay for it's construction to meet strict regulations and codes to prevent incidents (something that caused Chernobyl/3MI), the costs would be prohibitive. If the costs are not ensured to be met they are left to the project to generate throughout it's life, where many of the market variables determining it's (in)ability to pay are left to chance.
Something seldom discussed is that nuclear has huge water demands (sorry California and others) and is only viable in large cities. Something often discounted with power distribution is that it causes massive amount of power losses. This is something in general, much of the power lost around the grid is from (something that small renewable projects like wind in rural areas have over other grid options), but also the problem is that many of these heavily populated urban areas with good water supplies are already stocked with nuclear or beginning to see water problems. Obviously many places with low water and/or moderate power demands are stuck on options like coal or whatever, even with a green light on nuclear.
There are probibly some places in the US where Nuclear is a positive option, but not as many as some make it seem.
Further, comparisons to wind and solar and hydro are relatively unfair, since wind/solar are modular and decentralized (work well in environments where nuclear doesn't). Also, all three are relatively clear in their upfront costs and have been shown to pay back initial investments, whereas nuclear is/has not (some hydro projects have these problems as well).
-------------------- "Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?" "The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything." - Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now. Conquer's Club
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
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Neither solar nor wind are cost competitive and cannot be relied upon to replace fuel based sources of energy due to their intermittent nature.
Fossil fuels and nuclear fission fuels are due to be exhausted in the next 100 to 200 years. If there is no fusion by then the bloodbath will be epic
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