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OfflineDJ_avocado
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Registered: 11/19/09
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Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?!
    #11951833 - 02/02/10 11:42 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

So I hear over NPR, that Obama is pushing for NUclear power as an alternative energy.  This scares me on so many different levels. 

1) How the hell do we dispose of nuclear waste?  Actually....maybe the all the $ NASA used for research might come in handy when we simply launch it all into a black hole or the sun.  Ideas?

2) who is going to work at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT?  Gauran-fuckin-tee they're not being built in the hills..

3)  The thought occured to me that energy could be marketed...or sold country to country.  Even though we have no way to ship it or store it.  It's making me sense another Cold war type nuclear power race, a race for power once again. Possible?

4) We can't burn coal forever...What alternative power source would be best?  By best, I mean safest in the long run.  I don't know why the fuck we MIGHT be doing nuclear power.  WE ALREADY KNOW RADIATION KILLS!  It's shit like this that makes me think there's something wrong with the way I think, like my brain is just way too simple.

IDK.

:macdre:  WTF OBAMA?!?!

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OfflineEdgeChaos
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Registered: 08/04/06
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #11951862 - 02/02/10 11:49 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

:rofl: At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.

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OfflineDJ_avocado
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Registered: 11/19/09
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #11951917 - 02/03/10 12:02 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Whoa, Whoa, WHoa...elaborate.  Are you FOR nuclear power?

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OfflineEdgeChaos
Still a stranger


Registered: 08/04/06
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #11952033 - 02/03/10 12:32 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Of course I am.

If you examine the amount of deaths associated with running different types of electric plants, nuclear plants kill far less people.


http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html

That will get you started. Make sure you check the last paragraph. It has a nice breakdown of deaths related to types of energy plants.

The only two meltdowns in history were directly related to unsafe practices and one of them no one got hurt.



edit: For clarity.

Edited by EdgeChaos (02/03/10 07:12 PM)

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Offlinejimbotron
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Registered: 02/24/09
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #11952244 - 02/03/10 01:24 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

I understand there are better and safer reactor designs nowadays, but for some reason everyone has chosen the old-fashioned kind as their hill to die on, liberals shouting "Chernobyl!" and conservatives shouting "Pussies!"


--------------------
BEST TEAM IN THE UNIVERSE

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #11952543 - 02/03/10 03:29 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

> If you examine the amount of deaths associated with running different types of electric plants, nuclear plants take the lead by far.

Uh... sarcasm?

> The only two meltdowns in history were directly related to unsafe practices and one of them no one got hurt.

Sarcasm again, or do you need to go back to remedial history?


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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OfflineJT
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #11952671 - 02/03/10 05:02 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

i'll take the nuclear reactor. you can have the trash burning plant in your neighborhood :lol:

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #11953607 - 02/03/10 10:57 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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.

2) Many people.  They're completely safe.

3) No.  Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are different.  Do you think a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear weapon?

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?


--------------------
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.

Edited by pothead_bob (02/03/10 11:00 AM)

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Offlinedill705
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #11953676 - 02/03/10 11:12 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

:werd:


--------------------
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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OfflineSmackshadow
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: dill705]
    #11953887 - 02/03/10 12:00 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Nuclear power isn't all that scary.  Back in the 60-70s they were safe, and now they are even more so.  Only real problem is storing the waist, but most countries reprocess it which significantly reduces it.  It also does not significantly pollute.  I read somewhere that coal contains trace amounts of uranium, but because it is burned in large quantities they actually generate more radio active waist in their smoke than nuclear plants generate and contain in storage.


--------------------
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
     
~H. L. Mencken~

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OfflineEdgeChaos
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #11954048 - 02/03/10 12:29 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> If you examine the amount of deaths associated with running different types of electric plants, nuclear plants take the lead by far.

Uh... sarcasm?

> The only two meltdowns in history were directly related to unsafe practices and one of them no one got hurt.

Sarcasm again, or do you need to go back to remedial history?






The two significant accidents in the 50-year history of civil nuclear power generation are:

    * Three Mile Island (USA 1979) where the reactor was severely damaged but radiation was contained and there were no adverse health or environmental consequences
    * Chernobyl (Ukraine 1986) where the destruction of the reactor by steam explosion and fire killed 31 people and had significant health and environmental consequences. The death toll has since increased to about 56.


Seriously...Uh... Read the link.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html

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OfflineAltecLansing
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #11954058 - 02/03/10 12:30 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

I'm down, and it's about time.


--------------------
I don't use jelly.

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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: AltecLansing]
    #11954447 - 02/03/10 01:47 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Ah, roll on nuclear fusion... :sad:

:atom:

:awesome:


--------------------
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 :hatsoff:

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954474 - 02/03/10 01:52 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
Ah, roll on nuclear fusion... :sad:

:atom:

:awesome:




Fusion is the only hope for mankind.  Anything else is temporary.  Anything else and everything else.


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

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Offlinedill705
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954493 - 02/03/10 01:55 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/41540
Quote:

Researchers in the US have simulated a magnetic field structure normally produced by the core of a planet, and they say that their design could lead to an efficient way of harnessing nuclear fusion for power generation. The experiment, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), could also provide an opportunity for space physicists to model the dynamics of planetary magnetic fields and their interaction with charged particles from space.

Nuclear fusion is the powerhouse of stars resulting in the release of vast amounts of energy and the formation of heavier elements – the building blocks of the world we see around us. Some physicists believe that fusion could be harnessed as a source of energy here on Earth by combining deuterium and tritium at high temperatures to form helium-4 plus a neutron. The abundance of its raw materials, the absence of direct carbon dioxide emissions, and the minimal amount of harmful waste are among fusion's major selling points.

One of the most promising ways of reaching the appropriate temperature and pressure is to use magnetic fields to "confine" plasma – clouds of ionized gas. In the majority of these experiments, plasmas are confined inside large doughnut-shaped vessels called tokamaks. Physicists have so far failed, however, to get more energy out of a tokamak than the energy used to heat and confine the plasma.

Planetary inspiration
In this latest research, Michael Mauel of Columbia University, New York, and his colleagues explore an alternative design inspired by observations of planetary magnetic fields. They suspend a half-ton magnet using powerful electromagnetic fields, and use this to manipulate plasma at 10 million K trapped inside a steel ring structure in an experiment called the Levitated Dipole Experiment, or LDX. The results confirm the researcher's prediction that random turbulence inside the magnetic chamber increases the density of plasma – a crucial step towards fusion.

"This experiment was inspired by space research that has occurred over the past 50 years," says Mauel. "Satellites have explored the magnetospheres of planets such as Earth's or Jupiter's and these space observations showed a dipole magnetic field could confine hot ionized matter at high pressure."

Mauel says that the LDX has distinct benefits over tokamak experiments because the dipole magnetic field is not "twisted or helical" and the plasma is able to circulate from the edge to the hot core without producing a drain on the plasma's energy. He says that confining fusion with dipole fields would be particularly suitable for so-called "second-generation" fusion fuel, which avoids the need to breed radioactive tritium from lithium, which is the fuel of choice for tokamaks.

Manuel believes that these results could also aid space science. "These results will be of interest to space physicists who study the dynamics of ionized bases confined to outer space by the dipole magnetic field of planets."

To develop their work, the researchers intend to create hotter plasmas to increase the rate of fusion. They also wish to improve the precision of temperature measurement in their experiment.

This research is published in Nature Physics.

About the author
James Dacey is a reporter for physicsworld.com







Fusion FTW


--------------------
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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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11954517 - 02/03/10 01:58 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

I've always wondered why the US hasn't pulled fusion out of the bag by now. For 70 years, the states have been the richest and one of the most scientifically advanced countries on the planet. With all the trillions the US government has dished out on bum schemes, did no-one really think "I know, we'll develop this clean, safe, efficient, highly reliable and advanced power generation source that'll save the planet on pretty much every level it needs saving and then sell this shit to every country on the map and rule the world?!

Apparently not. :sad:

Then again, you could consider the way the US government (more than mine, anyway) has been influenced by big business dollars and interests, who only want to safeguard the brand and the product, you could say it's no wonder.... :eek::tinfoil:

Still, viva the French for working on the first operational model! :grin:


--------------------
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 :hatsoff:

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Invisiblexdzt

Registered: 02/05/08
Posts: 427
Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954547 - 02/03/10 02:02 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
I've always wondered why the US hasn't pulled fusion out of the bag by now. For 70 years, the states have been the richest and one of the most scientifically advanced countries on the planet. With all the trillions the US government has dished out on bum schemes, did no-one really think "I know, we'll develop this clean, safe, efficient, highly reliable and advanced power generation source that'll save the planet on pretty much every level it needs saving and then sell this shit to every country on the map and rule the world?!

Apparently not. :sad:

Then again, you could consider the way the US government (more than mine, anyway) has been influenced by big business dollars and interests, who only want to safeguard the brand and the product, you could say it's no wonder.... :eek::tinfoil:

Still, viva the French for working on the first operational model! :grin:





The US would love to "pull fusion out of the bag", anyone would. If -- and I stress if -- practical fusion power is achievable, it's going to be a long, difficult, and expensive road to get there.

But in the meantime, fission is awesome. :atom: :thumbup:

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954558 - 02/03/10 02:04 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Well, part of the problem is that it turns out to be a lot fucking harder than anybody thought in the sixties.  But there is progress:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8485669.stm

Quote:

The fear has been that the plasma, a roiling soup of charged particles, would interrupt the target's ability to absorb the lasers' energy and funnel it uniformly into the fuel, compressing it and causing ignition.

Siegfried Glenzer, the Nif plasma scientist, led a team to test that theory, smashing records along the way.

"We hit it with 669 kilojoules - 20 times more than any previous laser facility," Nif's Siegfried Glenzer told BBC News.

That isn't that much total energy; it's about enough to boil a one-litre kettle twice over.

However, the beams delivered their energy in pulses lasting a little more than 10 billionths of a second.

By way of comparison, if that power could be maintained, it would boil the contents of more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools in a second.




Movement.  Forward.


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

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Offlinedill705
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
    #11954560 - 02/03/10 02:04 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Yup


--------------------
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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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
    #11954582 - 02/03/10 02:06 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

xdzt said:
The US would love to "pull fusion out of the bag", anyone would. If -- and I stress if -- practical fusion power is achievable, it's going to be a long, difficult, and expensive road to get there.

But in the meantime, fission is awesome. :atom: :thumbup:




In the meantime it will have to do, along with everything else.  But fusion is virtually limitless.


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

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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
    #11954650 - 02/03/10 02:14 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

xdzt said:
The US would love to "pull fusion out of the bag", anyone would. If -- and I stress if -- practical fusion power is achievable, it's going to be a long, difficult, and expensive road to get there.

But in the meantime, fission is awesome. :atom: :thumbup:




:lol: granted, I don't expect them to set up a quango and a fortnight later, lo and behold, we've got a flipboard presentation on feasible fusion!
I'm just surprised they didn't set up a funded government body, NASA stylee, oh I dunno, in the bloody 50's! Once they had the H-bomb and recognised fusion reactions were attainable on Earth (granted, with a fecking fission compression on that one :facepalm::rolleyes:), I guess it's just the next logical step to create a large agency to devlop the technology-hell, with MiT and some of the technic universities working on it for the last 60 years, with NASA level funding...

Then factor in development costs compared with royalties from the infinite applications (right up to bailing NASA out of a lot of logistical problems!)

Stupid governments. :sad:


--------------------
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 :hatsoff:

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 11 months
Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954727 - 02/03/10 02:24 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

It isn't the governemt being stupid.  It's the voters.


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

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Offlinedill705
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11954743 - 02/03/10 02:26 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

I vote yes! :awesome:


--------------------
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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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11954808 - 02/03/10 02:34 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
It isn't the governemt being stupid.  It's the voters.




But voters don't really have any say in policy. It's not like you could start an independent petition and present a bill to congress to be voted on as a citizen, could you? Best you can do is lobby a congressman, and if they're influenced by a partisan party line that's being propped up by campaign dollars from a company that disapproves...

I can't blame the citizenry, who have no real control on this level. But 60 years of successive governments who knew about the potential of this technology and did precisely dick....
:kingcrankey:


--------------------
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 :hatsoff:

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954877 - 02/03/10 02:41 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
Quote:

zappaisgod said:
It isn't the governemt being stupid.  It's the voters.




But voters don't really have any say in policy.






Sorry, I disagree.  They are 100% to blame.


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

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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11954907 - 02/03/10 02:44 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
Sorry, I disagree.  They are 100% to blame.




Why? Their only power is to vote in one of a two-party system, neither of which, once they're in, pay much heed to what the voters want, until election rolls around and the smoochy campaigning begins.

Where's the power/fault?


--------------------
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 :hatsoff:

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11954941 - 02/03/10 02:47 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Nuclear fusion sounds promising, but it's been 'around the bend' for decades.  In the seventies, they were saying it would be here in 30 years... now, thirty years later... well, it should be here in just 50 more years.  Is it any wonder the government is not spearheading it?  Nobody even knows if it's feasible.  Scientists have and will continue to hit major setbacks in engineering like never encountered before.  I think fusion research has been getting the funding it deserves.  The French, US, Koreans and others agreed to spend some $12 billion on building a research reactor, ITER back in 2005.  We'll see what comes out of that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  Even after the reaction is sustainable, there's the issue of what utility, in their right mind, will buy into building a fusion reactor, which will likely be many factors more expensive than any fission reactor ever built and will undoubtedly run into operational issues, being the first-of-its-kind energy source.

Right now, though, nuclear fission is feasible, economical, and proven and, with reprocessing of waste, can provide us with safe, clean energy for thousands of years.  I'd bank my money on that for now and continue with the kind of funding that fusion has always received.


--------------------
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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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11955007 - 02/03/10 02:55 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
Quote:

zappaisgod said:
Sorry, I disagree.  They are 100% to blame.




Why? Their only power is to vote in one of a two-party system, neither of which, once they're in, pay much heed to what the voters want, until election rolls around and the smoochy campaigning begins.

Where's the power/fault?



The power is in the vote.  They let it happen.


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

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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #11955048 - 02/03/10 03:00 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

pothead_bob said:
Nuclear fusion sounds promising, but it's been 'around the bend' for decades.  In the seventies, they were saying it would be here in 30 years... now, thirty years later... well, it should be here in just 50 more years.  Is it any wonder the government is not spearheading it?  Nobody even knows if it's feasible.  Scientists have and will continue to hit major setbacks in engineering like never encountered before.  I think fusion research has been getting the funding it deserves.  The French, US, Koreans and others agreed to spend some $12 billion on building a research reactor, ITER back in 2005.  We'll see what comes out of that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  Even after the reaction is sustainable, there's the issue of what utility, in their right mind, will buy into building a fusion reactor, which will likely be many factors more expensive than any fission reactor ever built and will undoubtedly run into operational issues, being the first-of-its-kind energy source.

Right now, though, nuclear fission is feasible, economical, and proven and, with reprocessing of waste, can provide us with safe, clean energy for thousands of years.  I'd bank my money on that for now and continue with the kind of funding that fusion has always received.




Granted, the ridiculousness of the projections, but I think it's been because of the lack of funding that fusion has been such a unicorn, not the other way around. Studies all over the world have been edging closer to sustainable fusion for decades on pittance research funding-I'm talking about a fully-fledged government initiative back in the day, with full state funding, purely on developing sustainable reactions-imagine where we'd be now...

ITER is the reactor I was talking about, yes, but look at that-$12billion. It's pittance, on international monetary scales! Yet they're forging ahead, and more power to them.

You also raise a good point that any prototype is going to be fraught with setbacks and inefficiencies, but it's exactly that-a prototype, built for that reason. If they even manage to break even with the energy in the reaction, that's enough. You spread the word "This is what worked, this is what we totally screwed the pooch on and how to fix it, there, go build your own Mark IIs that are productive.

Any prototype is expensive to contruct, but then you have a decided mark-down on any future production. Secondly, typically with fusion power, it is an expensive process to set up such a facility, but look at the business model-expensive set up, but then ridiculously low operational costs, and a constant stream of an uninterrupted valuable commodity that will never go out of demand and where the major waste substance (helium) is so useful, we have massive polluting industries set up just to manufacture that!

All it takes is a little long-term vision. Even economically, you'd be making money on your deal within 1 decade or two-infinately quicker if you had a stake in the technology itself, rather than just a slice of a particular station.

Unfortunately, long term vision has been slightly lacking around here, of late... :sad:


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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11955073 - 02/03/10 03:03 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
The power is in the vote.  They let it happen.




:confused:

How is that logical? Their power consists of two options-Republican or Democrat. And neither of those options gives them any more say in how the country is run, policies passed, funding directed, nothing. They just get to pat one of a few candidates on the head in absolution, and off they toddle to toe a party line entirely removed from the people they are "representing".

A choice forced between two options, neither of which is different from the other in your utter impotence after the fact is no power at all. They didn't let anything happen-barring countrywide revolution, how could anyone have made anything happen any other way?


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11955271 - 02/03/10 03:26 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

No.  They let that option happen.  And they seem to be taking some of it back by reshaping the Republican Party back into fiscal conseravitism.  Looking good so far.


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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11955288 - 02/03/10 03:28 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
No.  They let that option happen.  And they seem to be taking some of it back by reshaping the Republican Party back into fiscal conseravitism.  Looking good so far.




OK...you take over here. You say they let that happen-you tell me how it could have gone down any other way, how people could have changed it..?


--------------------
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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11955442 - 02/03/10 03:47 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

By voting for different parties.  Did you know they already got rid of one?  They were called the Whigs.  Gone.  Aside from that, the people can shape each party.  In spite of what the disaffected youth say, they are not identical.  Not by a long shot.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11955482 - 02/03/10 03:52 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
By voting for different parties.  Did you know they already got rid of one?  They were called the Whigs.  Gone.  Aside from that, the people can shape each party.  In spite of what the disaffected youth say, they are not identical.  Not by a long shot.




Ok...but how can the vast majority of poor, uneducated, zero-prospect people shape any political party? They have no prospects of being voted in to do it from the inside of the system, and they have no power out of it.
So what do they do?

And maybe the youth are disaffected because they see things differently from you? You say the youth are plain wrong in that belief, but why would the vast majority of the young today say this unless they felt that way? The young are idealists at heart, yet see election after election herald in an effectively clone-party, more concerned with the stable stasis of the system "because it works" than any real drive for improvement of any kind, for that would mean change, and we fear change, we who are at the top of what we see as a very shaky pyramid of power...


--------------------
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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11955599 - 02/03/10 04:07 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
Quote:

zappaisgod said:
By voting for different parties.  Did you know they already got rid of one?  They were called the Whigs.  Gone.  Aside from that, the people can shape each party.  In spite of what the disaffected youth say, they are not identical.  Not by a long shot.




Ok...but how can the vast majority of poor, uneducated, zero-prospect people shape any political party? They have no prospects of being voted in to do it from the inside of the system, and they have no power out of it.
So what do they do?




What?  Poor, uneducated, zero prospect people are exactly what have brought us this asshole President and asshole Speaker.  THEY are the ones who have brought us here.  The idiots.
Quote:

 

And maybe the youth are disaffected because they see things differently from you? You say the youth are plain wrong in that belief, but why would the vast majority of the young today say this unless they felt that way? The young are idealists at heart, yet see election after election herald in an effectively clone-party, more concerned with the stable stasis of the system "because it works" than any real drive for improvement of any kind, for that would mean change, and we fear change, we who are at the top of what we see as a very shaky pyramid of power...




I was young once, too, ya know.  The young do too much feeling and not enough thinking.  And the parties aren't clones.  Consider this.  Mandatory health insurance is a horror for young people.  Social security is a horror for young people.  One party would increase both, the other party would decrease both.  What party do young people support?  The one that wants to fuck them.  But that's OK, they have the right to be stupid.  Here we can actually apply Franklin's quote about essential liberty (the freeedom to take risk and decide for yourself) and temporary security (the illusion that there'll be any money left when it's their turn to collect).


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11955720 - 02/03/10 04:26 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
What?  Poor, uneducated, zero prospect people are exactly what have brought us this asshole President and asshole Speaker.  THEY are the ones who have brought us here.  The idiots.




Y'see, from an outside perspective, I'd have said it was the eight years of Bush on the throne that got you where you are today-in every way. You can hardly blame the "poor, uneducated, zero prospect" people for putting Obama in the White House when it was pretty much them who elected Bush two terms running too!
People stuck in such a rut, who have so little education they're not really learned to think for themselves, as such, are as impressionable as a blob of hot wax. I know you have issues over the negative campaigning run in your country, and damned rightly so, but it is these people who it hits, and where it sticks-they simply do what they're told-by the parties themselves.

Hence the horrible, cyclical cycle continues.

I would argue that yes, such people can drain a society and economy in the state that they perpetuate in, so something has to be done to alter that state!They have not the means to do this themselves, so it must be done for them-and, as far as I can see, that comes down to massive funding in education and social policies that will help the children of such people elevate themselves out from the illiterati rut they were born into, and actually make them into people whose vote actually counts for something, under the ideal of democracy.

But I think you object to such government interference on ideological grounds, right?

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
I was young once, too, ya know.  The young do too much feeling and not enough thinking.  And the parties aren't clones.  Consider this.  Mandatory health insurance is a horror for young people.  Social security is a horror for young people.  One party would increase both, the other party would decrease both.  What party do young people support?  The one that wants to fuck them.  But that's OK, they have the right to be stupid.  Here we can actually apply Franklin's quote about essential liberty (the freeedom to take risk and decide for yourself) and temporary security (the illusion that there'll be any money left when it's their turn to collect).




I see your point in that example, but I would argue that the example is flawed. I would say:

Health insurance is a horror for young people"> who have no problems currently getting medical insurance or those fortunate enough not to have had so severe an illness or injury to experience what a black hole medical care can cost under a PIP system.

And

Social security is a horror for young people who have no need, or know no-one who has a need to draw upon it-for them it is a draining waste of no import. But for the young people who do need such support, or who live in families propped up by such support, it is pretty much their only lifeline above the poverty line and into solvency.


--------------------
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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11955888 - 02/03/10 04:50 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
Quote:

zappaisgod said:
What?  Poor, uneducated, zero prospect people are exactly what have brought us this asshole President and asshole Speaker.  THEY are the ones who have brought us here.  The idiots.




Y'see, from an outside perspective, I'd have said it was the eight years of Bush on the throne that got you where you are today-in every way. You can hardly blame the "poor, uneducated, zero prospect" people for putting Obama in the White House when it was pretty much them who elected Bush two terms running too!
People stuck in such a rut, who have so little education they're not really learned to think for themselves, as such, are as impressionable as a blob of hot wax. I know you have issues over the negative campaigning run in your country, and damned rightly so, but it is these people who it hits, and where it sticks-they simply do what they're told-by the parties themselves.

Hence the horrible, cyclical cycle continues.

I would argue that yes, such people can drain a society and economy in the state that they perpetuate in, so something has to be done to alter that state!They have not the means to do this themselves, so it must be done for them-and, as far as I can see, that comes down to massive funding in education and social policies that will help the children of such people elevate themselves out from the illiterati rut they were born into, and actually make them into people whose vote actually counts for something, under the ideal of democracy.

But I think you object to such government interference on ideological grounds, right?




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.
Quote:



Quote:

zappaisgod said:
I was young once, too, ya know.  The young do too much feeling and not enough thinking.  And the parties aren't clones.  Consider this.  Mandatory health insurance is a horror for young people.  Social security is a horror for young people.  One party would increase both, the other party would decrease both.  What party do young people support?  The one that wants to fuck them.  But that's OK, they have the right to be stupid.  Here we can actually apply Franklin's quote about essential liberty (the freeedom to take risk and decide for yourself) and temporary security (the illusion that there'll be any money left when it's their turn to collect).




I see your point in that example, but I would argue that the example is flawed. I would say:

Health insurance is a horror for young people"> who have no problems currently getting medical insurance or those fortunate enough not to have had so severe an illness or injury to experience what a black hole medical care can cost under a PIP system.




Which is almost all of them.  It is a poor financial decision for a young person to pay for medical insurance.
Quote:



And

Social security is a horror for young people who have no need, or know no-one who has a need to draw upon it-for them it is a draining waste of no import. But for the young people who do need such support, or who live in families propped up by such support, it is pretty much their only lifeline above the poverty line and into solvency.




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


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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11956084 - 02/03/10 05:18 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

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?

Quote:

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?
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?

Quote:

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.
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.

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.

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...


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OfflineGastronomicus
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #11956307 - 02/03/10 05:41 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
:rofl: At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.




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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Gastronomicus]
    #11956577 - 02/03/10 06:19 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

So Obama supports it but I'm wondering what he's gonna do about it. Loan guarentees would probably jump start the construction of new plants. Either way, I think the first build is coming soon. The NRC has been receiving combined build and operating licenses left and right and the vendors have been gearing up. Its a shame most of the American vendors have evaporated, or been bought out, but I guess the French and Japanese will be happy to fill the void.


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11956914 - 02/03/10 07:05 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Ego Questio said:
Quote:

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:



Quote:

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:

 

Quote:

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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OfflineGastronomicus
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11957056 - 02/03/10 07:23 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
It isn't the governemt being stupid.  It's the voters.




Laughably ignorant.


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Gastronomicus]
    #11957072 - 02/03/10 07:25 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

They didn't vote?


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #11957082 - 02/03/10 07:27 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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.


Quote:

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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Offlinepothead_bob
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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)

Quote:

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. 

Quote:

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? 

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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?

Quote:

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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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11960067 - 02/04/10 08:02 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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...

Quote:

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
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To all you good gents, I say :hatsoff:

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11960228 - 02/04/10 08:44 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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OfflineEgo Questio
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11962011 - 02/04/10 02:01 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

As much as I want to keep this up buddy,I do kinda feel we've kind hijacked this thread...
:jacked:

we'll carry this on in another thread,I have no doubt. :wink:


So...ahem,sorry OP.

Nucelar power,yes,spiffing stuff.
My original point (and even I had to scroll up to remember it :lol:) was given how :awesome: fusion seems to be,I'm incredibly surprised there's not been a country that opened a state-funded project.

That is all.



.....:facepalm: 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 :hatsoff:

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Ego Questio]
    #11962048 - 02/04/10 02:06 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11966115 - 02/05/10 12:54 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

:sad: leaving us so soon zap? At least stick around for harnessing the energy of the stars! That'll be the :boobs:


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #11966873 - 02/05/10 05:55 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: xdzt]
    #11967435 - 02/05/10 08:52 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: dill705]
    #11967455 - 02/05/10 08:54 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

dill705 said:
:sad: leaving us so soon zap? At least stick around for harnessing the energy of the stars! That'll be the :boobs:



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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #12019629 - 02/13/10 12:27 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #12019635 - 02/13/10 12:28 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
:rofl: At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.



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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #12019963 - 02/13/10 02:22 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

I oppose this! i think obama is secretly trying to build a nuke! everyone should sanction america.


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http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Shins]
    #12020242 - 02/13/10 06:18 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Shins]
    #12024142 - 02/13/10 08:58 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Gastronomicus]
    #12025555 - 02/14/10 02:27 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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.
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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12025798 - 02/14/10 05:29 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType] * 1
    #12026087 - 02/14/10 07:54 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

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.




I'm sure you could have made your post without this stupid shit.

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Redstorm]
    #12026110 - 02/14/10 08:04 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

I thought that was his post.  It made more sense than the rest of it.


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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12032526 - 02/15/10 08:17 AM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Hey, you think you could provide some sources to your claims that nuclear power is absurdly expensive?



http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

Quote:

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.




The utilities pay for it with a surcharge on your electricity bill.  A tenth of a cent per killowatt-hour is added to your electric bill for plant decommissioning and waste storage costs.  But hey, you want to talk about who pays for the waste?  The nuclear utilities PAID $22 BILLION DOLLARS to the construction of Yukka Mountain.  And now the politicians, after promising that they would be able to store their waste there, have said, "it's no longer a viable solution".  Furthermore, because the promise has been broken, the utilities had to dish out money to come up with new strategies for storing their waste and guess what, THE PLANTS ARE STILL PROFITABLE.

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Storage costs for waste that will not break down for millions of years.




Thousands of years, not millions.  And if reprocessed, the figure drops to hundreds.

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pay for it's construction to meet strict regulations and codes to prevent incidents (something that caused Chernobyl/3MI)




You don't think plants are engineered to withstand such incidents?  The insane number of safety features are part of the huge cost of building these plants.  BTW, you do realize that when you mention Chernobyl and TMI, you're comparing apples to oranges, right?  TMI is a PWR-style reactor while Chernobyl was the hugely unstable RBMK, which are no longer even built.  First design flaw of the RBMK -- NO FULL CONTAINMENT.  Hence the steam explosion that blew the building open.  It isn't legal to build a nuclear plant in the US without a full containment.  Second major design flaw -- it had a positive void coefficient, meaning, by it's very nature, it was unstable.  It is also required in the US that reactors have a negative void coefficient, meaning temperature excursions will case a drop in reactivity.  Apples to oranges, man... Chernobyl will NEVER happen in the US.  It's physically impossible.  Going back to TMI, the safety features worked as intended and there was no radiation release to the environment and no casualties.  In fact, the only reason the disaster went as far as it did was because the operators interferred with the engineered safety systems.  The operator would have been better off going into the containment and firing a rocket propelled grenade at the reactor cold leg because the plant was designed to safely shut down in minutes of a large break loss of coolant accident.  It was their fucking around with the safety systems that caused the core to melt.  That won't happen again after the tremendous overall of the nuclear community that took place.

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Something seldom discussed is that nuclear has huge water demands (sorry California and others) and is only viable in large cities.




So use ocean water then like Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Mass.  I'm pretty sure CA has enough ocean water to meet the demands.

Quote:

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.




such as....

Quote:

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.




Coal plants, gas plants, oil plants, nuclear plants, biofuel plants, all use the Rankine power cycle.  Do you know how that works?  It heats up water by burning whatever will burn or produce heat and extracts the thermal energy and converts it to electrical energy by dissipating the energy to the environment.  All heat engines need a cooling mechanism.  Whether it be water from a river, the ocean, or evaporative cooling using cooling towers.  Doesn't matter if it's nuclear powered, coal powered, or gas powered.

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There are probibly some places in the US where Nuclear is a positive option, but not as many as some make it seem.




A private utility that has shareholders and a bottom line to meet will not build a nuclear power plant somewhere where it is not cost effective to do so.

Quote:

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).




Yeah, the fact that nuclear power accounts for 20% of the electricity produced in this country doesn't demonstrate the fact that it has been successful in paying back its upfront costs.  Nor does the fact that nearly every utility that owns nuclear power plants that are approaching end of life have submitted life-extension applications to the NRC.  Now why would they do such a thing if the plants weren't hugely profitable?  You are right about one thing, though, it's unfair to compare nuclear power to wind/solar.  Wind/solar can in no way compete with the efficiency, availability, and cost-effectivness (without the tremendous subsidies they receive, of course) of nuclear power and can not be a large-scale energy solution.


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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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12054713 - 02/18/10 03:10 PM (14 years, 3 months ago)

Small Reactors Generate Big Hopes

A new type of nuclear reactor—smaller than a rail car and one tenth the cost of a big plant—is emerging as a contender to reshape the nation's resurgent nuclear power industry.

Three big utilities, Tennessee Valley Authority, First Energy Corp. and Oglethorpe Power Corp., on Wednesday signed an agreement with McDermott International Inc.'s Babcock & Wilcox subsidiary, committing to get the new reactor approved for commercial use in the U.S.

Although none have agreed to buy a reactor, the utilities' commitment should help build momentum behind the technology and hasten its adoption across the industry. It's a crucial first step toward getting the reactor design certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Early support from the three utilities, and four others that are mulling the agreement, increases the odds that customers will come forward in the future.

The news comes just as President Barack Obama announced more than $8 billion in loan guarantees this week that would pave the way for the first nuclear power plant in the U.S. in almost 30 years. He has proposed accelerating nuclear development by tripling the amount of federal loan guarantees for reactor construction to $54 billion.

The smaller Babcock & Wilcox reactor can generate only 125 to 140 megawatts of power, about a tenth as much as a big one. But the utilities are betting that these smaller, simpler reactors can be manufactured quickly and installed at potentially dozens of existing nuclear sites or replace coal-fired plants that may become obsolete with looming emissions restrictions.

"We see significant benefits from the new, modular technology," said Donald Moul, vice president of nuclear support for First Energy, an Ohio-based utility company.

He said First Energy, which operates four reactors at three sites in Ohio and Pennsylvania, has made no decision to build any new reactor and noted there's "a lot of heavy lifting to do to get this reactor certified" by the NRC for U.S. use.

Indeed, the smaller reactors still could incite major opposition. They face the same unresolved issues of where to put the waste and public fear of contamination, in the event of an accident. They could also raise alarms about creating possible terrorism targets in populated areas.

Still, the sudden interest in small reactors illustrates a growing unease with the route that nuclear power has taken for half a century. What many regard as the first commercial reactor built in the U.S., in 1957 at Shippingport, Pa., was only about 60 megawatts in size. By the time construction petered out three decades later, reactors had grown progressively bigger, ending up at about 1,000 megawatts of capacity.

Now, after a two-decade lull in construction, the U.S. is gearing up for a robust revival of nuclear power. Expanding the nuclear sector, which currently produces 20% of the nation's electricity, is considered essential to slashing carbon emissions.

Companies such as NRG Energy Inc., Duke Energy Corp. and Southern Co. are planning large reactors that cost up to $10 billion apiece and can generate enough electricity to power a city the size of Tulsa, Okla.

But there is growing investor worry that reactors may have grown so big that they could sink the utilities that buy them. An increasingly global supply chain for big reactors also worries investors.

"We think the probability that things will go wrong with these large projects is greater than the probability that things will go right," said Jim Hempstead, senior vice president at Moody's Investors Service. He warns that nuclear-aspiring utilities with "bet the farm" projects face possible credit downgrades.

The large price tag has begun to spook some utility executives. John Rowe, the chief executive of Exelon Corp., which operates the nation's largest fleet of nuclear plants, had hoped to build a new reactor in Texas. But, having failed to get federal loan guarantees, he recently said he's having second thoughts.

Instead, his company is expanding the capacity of its existing nuclear plants and is looking at Babcock & Wilcox's design. Amir Shakarami, Exelon's senior vice president, said mPower provides "an alternative that is practical and scalable," offering a way to add zero-emission power in small amounts and avoid the rate shocks that accompanied big reactors in the past.

Already, the high cost of large reactors is generating friction among partners. CPS Energy and NRG Energy Inc. sued each other recently when CPS, a city-owned utility in San Antonio got cold feet about investing in a new nuclear plant that could push up power costs for its customers. On Wednesday, the two agreed to a settlement in which CPS will reduce its stake in the project to 7.6% from 50% in exchange for a $90 million payment from NRG and dropping its lawsuit.

The two agreed Wednesday to a settlement in which NRG will pay CPS $1 billion to reduce its ownership interest in the project so it can proceed.

For utilities, a small reactor has several advantages, starting with cost. Small reactors are expected to cost about $5,000 per kilowatt of capacity, or $750 million or so for one of Babcock & Wilcox's units. Large reactors cost $5 billion to $10 billion for reactors that would range from 1,100 to 1,700 megawatts of generating capacity.

While large reactors are built on site, a process that can take five years, the mPower reactors would be manufactured in Babcock & Wilcox's factories in Indiana, Ohio or Virginia and transported by rail or barge. That could cut construction times in half, experts believe.

Because they could be water-cooled or air-cooled, mPower reactors wouldn't have to be located near large sources of water, another problem for big reactors that require millions of gallons of water each day. That could open up parts of the arid West for nuclear development.

The first units likely would be built adjacent to existing nuclear plants, many of which were originally permitted to have two to four units but usually have only one or two.

Down the road, utilities could replace existing coal-fired power plants with small reactors in order to take advantage of sites already served by transmission lines and, in some cases, needed for grid support. Like any other power plants, these small reactors could be easily hooked up to the power grid.

One of the biggest attractions, however, is that utilities could start with a few reactors and add more as needed. By contrast, with big reactors, utilities have what is called "single-shaft risk," where billions of dollars are tied up in a single plant.

Another advantage: mPower reactors will store all of their waste on each site for the estimated 60-year life of each reactor.

Nuclear development moves at a glacial pace. The next wave of large reactors won't begin coming on line until 2016 or 2017, at the earliest. The first certification request for a small reactor design is expected to be Babcock & Wilcox's request in 2012. The first units could come on line after 2018.

However, some experts believe that if the industry embraces small reactors, nuclear power in the U.S. could become pervasive because more utilities would be able to afford them.

"There's a higher likelihood that there are more sites that could support designs for small reactors than large ones," said David Matthews, head of new reactor licensing at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

That twist has some observers worried. "Nuclear power requires high-level security and expertise to operate safely," said Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It seems like something that should be concentrated rather than distributed" or dispersed.

Experts believe small reactors should be as safe, or safer, than large ones. One reason is that they are simpler and have fewer moving parts that can fail. Small reactors also contain a smaller nuclear reaction and generate less heat. That means that it's easier to shut them down, if there is a malfunction.

"With a large reactor, the response to a malfunction tends to be quick, whereas in smaller ones, they respond more slowly" which means they're somewhat easier to control, said Michael Mayfield, director of the advanced reactor program at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Once on site, each reactor would be housed in a two-story containment structure that would be buried beneath the ground for added security. They would run round the clock, stopping to refuel every five years instead of 18 to 24 months, like existing reactors.

For communities looking for job creation, the smaller reactors promise fewer jobs than a large plant, which offers 700 to 1,000 permanent jobs. Small plants would have to satisfy the same security and safety standards as large plants but likely would require a somewhat smaller work force because they would run much longer between refueling outages.

Some critics are convinced that nuclear power will never be cost effective, no matter what the size. Amory Lovins, founder of the environmental think tank, the Rocky Mountain Institute, said it's a "fantasy" to imagine that small reactors will be any better than big ones. He notes that nuclear energy is inherently expensive because of the special precautions that must be taken in the handling of nuclear fuel and nuclear waste, which are radioactive, not to mention the tight security at nuclear plants. Also, there still is no permanent federal site for nuclear waste.

The electricity industry was burned once before by nuclear power, and many utilities remain skittish.

Forty out of 48 utilities that issued debt for nuclear projects during the past construction cycle—20 to 30 years ago—suffered credit hits in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, most with downgrades of four notches, said Moody's Investors Service.

Now some of these same companies are looking at the nuclear option again. Energy Northwest is a wholesale utility in Richland, Wash. It's the successor to the Washington Public Power Supply System, which acquired the unfortunate nickname of "Whoops," after it canceled construction of two partly built reactors in the 1980s.

At the time, the utility thought demand would grow briskly. Instead, the economy slowed and so did demand. Nuclear plant costs for the five units it planned to build swelled to nearly $24 billion in 1982 from $5 billion in the 1970s That set the stage for WPPSS's $2 billion bond default, at the time the largest in U.S. history.

Today, Energy Northwest is talking to NuScale Power Inc. in Corvallis, Ore., about a reactor design which measures 15 feet by 60 feet. Each unit would be capable of turning out 45 megawatts of electricity.

Jack Baker, Energy Northwest's head of business development, says he was initially skeptical about small reactors because of the "lack of economies of scale." But he says he now thinks small reactors "could have a cost advantage" because their simpler design means faster construction and "you don't need as much concrete, steel, pumps and valves."

"They have made a convert of me," he says.

Babcock & Wilcox's roots go back to 1867 and it has been making equipment for utilities since the advent of electrification, even furnishing boilers to Thomas Edison's Pearl Street generating stations that brought street lighting to New York City in 1882.

Based in Lynchburg, Va., the company has been building small reactors for ships since the 1950s. In addition to reactors for U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers, it built a reactor for the USS NS Savannah, a commercial vessel which is now a floating museum in Baltimore harbor. It also built eight big reactors, in the past construction cycle, including one for the ill-fated Three Mile Island plant.

When a U.S. nuclear revival looked imminent, the company debated what role it could play.

"Instead of asking, 'How big a reactor could we make?,' this time, we asked, 'What's the largest thing we could build at our existing plants and ship by rail?' " said Christofer Mowry, president of Modular Nuclear Energy LLC, Babcock's recently created small-reactor division. "That's what drove the design."

As interest in small reactors grows, other makers of big reactors are dusting off old designs.

Westinghouse, a unit of Toshiba Corp., is taking another look at its 335-megawatt reactor called Iris. Mario Carelli, Westinghouse chief scientist, said his firm is considering marketing Iris to nations with small grids, "where a big reactor won't fit." He figures that's 80% of the world's grids.

Many obstacles remain. The NRC still is reviewing certification requests for five big reactors and won't be able to consider certifications of small reactors until its work load lightens. But Mr. Matthews of the NRC says he expects the commission will review as many as four small-reactor designs in the next two or three years.

Meantime, interest in small reactors is likely to grow.

"If we can't figure out how to build large plants economically, then small ones may be the way to go," said Ronaldo Szilard, director of nuclear science and engineering at the Idaho National Lab, part of the Department of Energy.

Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703444804575071402124482176.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read



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OfflineDJ_avocado
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12059950 - 02/19/10 01:37 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Small reactor or big reactor, we still need a place to put the waste.  I am amazed that science has brought such a machine into existence, the most important question still remains.

What are we going to do with the waste?

Until I know, I will always be anti nuclear energy.  No amount of energy will be worth poisoning the planet and possibly destroying ourselves.  The consequences are great for not thinking ahead,  far too great.  But I will agreed that the benefits are spectacular!

Quote:

GI_Luvmoney said:


"With a large reactor, the response to a malfunction tends to be quick, whereas in smaller ones, they respond more slowly" which means they're somewhat easier to control, said Michael Mayfield, director of the advanced reactor program at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Once on site, each reactor would be housed in a two-story containment structure that would be buried beneath the ground for added security. They would run round the clock, stopping to refuel every five years instead of 18 to 24 months, like existing reactors.

For communities looking for job creation, the smaller reactors promise




  Holy shit, every 5 years?

BUT THOU WILST NOT TEMPT ME!  TIS' NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF NOT PLANNING AHEAD!  HOW I YEARN FOR INFINITE ENERGY AND A REACTOR IN EVERY HOME, BUT ALAS.........I ALSO DON'T WANT TO JEOPARDIZE


OUR



LIVING



PLANET.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12062535 - 02/19/10 09:24 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

*sigh*
Bob do you know what kind of source you are citing here? the WNA is a confederation of various nuclear power providers and related companies under a group to speak for their interests. In other words it is a lobby group for the nuclear industry. They are in a conflict of interest to be a fully impartial judge of the economics of nuclear power plants.

Further, that graph is obviously wrong. The last time wind power was that expensive, there wasn't even a thing called euros and you may have to go back beyond the time where there was even written agreement that eventually something would exist that is now called euros. That price is entirely made up, and go figure so is the nuclear figure. In fact the nuclear figure doesn't even cover the real costs per mwh of construction (before delays).

Don't believe me? Where am I getting this information?

Well for starters I've read a few books on GW policy solutions and the future of energy policy/energy solutions and every single one of them, believe it or not, has a chapter on nuclear energy. And every single one of them calls it expensive, some call it necessary, but they all call it expensive.

What if a financial institution whom would hypothetically be asked to pony up funds for private nuclear projects in the future were to state the issues of the economics of nuclear power plainly and simply?
New Nuclear – The Economics Say No - Citigroup-Research feb.12.2010
Quote:

Highlights:
• We calculate that a new nuclear station will require €65/MWh in real terms year in year out to hit its breakeven hurdle rate.
• The returns for new nuclear development will need to be underpinned by the government and the risks shared with the taxpayer / consumer.
• Evidence to date suggests time delays in new nuclear construction can be significant.
• Construction delays and planning problems have led to a 77% increase in construction costs at the Olkiluoto site [in Finland].
• In a purely merchant market (such as the UK) where wholesale power prices need to cover construction costs over the life of the project, there is no active way for a developer to recover cost overruns.
• Neither the UK nor the US have yet approved any designs and although it will be a lengthy process anyway, amendments and additional configurations for each country’s demands could be highly problematic




The only thing that could make these plants financially worthwhile would be a severe carbon taxation scheme and even then there issues of fuel shortages.


The problems with saving for decommissioning a nuclear plant is that it is a major expense that is externalized from the rate price. Like the surcharge for example. This is a subsidy that the plant is receiving from the utility. Charging the surcharge separate of the kilowatt-hourly rate. Further I had left a citation of some reactors where changing economic circumstances were endangering their ability to pay such costs. Not many plants have reached their decommissioning ages yet and there could be problems with some plants when their time comes.

Yucca mountain was a nuclear waste processing and storage facility that was almost built on an earthquake fault-line. I don't think it stands as a positive example of storage problems with nuclear waste. Also according to this article, only $8bn had been spent on it before making this discovery. From a $58bn total budget. I am pretty sure the storage company (one: Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects) will only have to nick the lost cash off their customers or shareholders (taxpayers).

Perhaps I am wrong for saying that this presents a problem?

Quote:

And if reprocessed, the figure drops to hundreds.



IF, it is than that is what will happen, but alternatively in a far more likely IF, the agencies whom are responsible for storage probibly won't recuperate their investment in a timely enough manner to justify the process. The process will only be undertaken if it becomes mandated by nuclear regulatory agencies and will also add another hidden cost to the nuclear mix.


I will have to assume you are right about the dangers of nuclear incidents from new reactors. It is an obvious field of speculation and it requires too much reading in a field I am not interested or knowledgeable in.

Quote:

Quote:

Something seldom discussed is that nuclear has huge water demands (sorry California and others) and is only viable in large cities.




So use ocean water then like Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Mass.  I'm pretty sure CA has enough ocean water to meet the demands.





You are right, I was unaware that ocean water could be used and in fact desalinization can be a byproduct of a plant if it is designed to co-generate with a nuclear plant (something relatively new in design). However there are a lot of landlocked areas with water shortages.

However it is possible to cool the water back to liquid form and reuse it, so long as these additional costs are factored for in the construction and hot days may put the breaks on nuclear power if a cool source can not be obtained.

Quote:

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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.




such as....



Here's a map of areas where water demands could be a problem.



Quote:

A private utility that has shareholders and a bottom line to meet will not build a nuclear power plant somewhere where it is not cost effective to do so.



see the citybank paper I cited earlier.



Just as some companies are profitable, some have also had serious cost overruns and even loan defaults. For these reasons the US has to subsidize the industry by guaranteeing loans to cretin amounts. In the abcense of these loan gaurentees, few banks (0) have been jumping at the prospects of funding a nuclear plant construction. In fact some banks are coming out with papers critical of such measures (see above).

Meanwhile, were it that the US was to offer similar loan guarantees to persons trying to put up wind turbines or solar cells, (even if it were restricted to an approval process that assessed their plans for capability of power production) banks would finance them en mass.


--------------------
"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

Edited by ScavengerType (02/19/10 09:34 PM)

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12063912 - 02/20/10 04:22 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

I'm not going to fisk that entire thing, but your own link regarding Yucca mountain says this:
Quote:


DOE has stated that seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. Yucca Mountain lies in a region of ongoing tectonic deformation, but the deformation rates are too slow to significantly affect the mountain during the 10,000-year regulatory compliance period. Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that Yucca Mountain comprises reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrological characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years. The engineered barrier system components will reportedly provide substantial protection of the waste form from seepage water, even under severe seismic loading.[9]




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InvisibleGI_Luvmoney
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12066976 - 02/20/10 06:10 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

What have we done with the waste from the super nova explosions billions of years ago?  Some of the background radiation comes from natural uranium and thorium in the ground which came from super nova explosions.  Radon is a decay product from both of these elements. 
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/2006/07/radon-from-thorium-i-dont-think-so.html
Cosmic rays from space continually bombard the earth.  Also, burning coal tends to produce uranium pollution which is spread through the air.  I don't know if coal deposits everywhere have enough uranium in them to be a problem.  There are different types of coal.


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Edited by GI_Luvmoney (02/20/10 06:13 PM)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12067413 - 02/20/10 07:23 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Radioactive waste can be produced naturally by the universe, but it dissipates differently across the universe compared to being created by us.  We have the knowledge of what radiation does to a human.

Burns, deformities ( including being born without skin, eyes, or even a SHAPE.)  Poisons food, water, and land for generations, people in the Pacific are still suffering from the effects 60-70 years ago.

Saying that there will be no trace of nuclear energy production on earth is ridiculous. Radiation permeates damn near everything, and you can't even feel it.  I think it's too deep of a hole for us to dig and we're going to find ourselves genetically destroyed.  Just my two cents, I got something against nuclear testing in the past...

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12070490 - 02/21/10 11:26 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

and even then there issues of fuel shortages.




This is a non-issue.  If the industry picks back up, there will be increased investing into fuel development to meet the demand.  That's how economics works.

Quote:

The problems with saving for decommissioning a nuclear plant is that it is a major expense that is externalized from the rate price.




and the problem in that is? 

Quote:

Further I had left a citation of some reactors where changing economic circumstances were endangering their ability to pay such costs.




where?

Quote:

Not many plants have reached their decommissioning ages yet and there could be problems with some plants when their time comes.




Lots of plants have reached their decomissioning age, but hardly any have decomissioned.  That's because the units are so profitable that nearly all utilities are filing for lifetime extensions to the NRC. 

Quote:

I don't think it stands as a positive example of storage problems with nuclear waste.




I never said it was a positive example of nuclear waste storage.  I think it's an example of how fucking inept the US government is.  I believe we should reprocess the waste.

Quote:

IF, it is than that is what will happen, but alternatively in a far more likely IF, the agencies whom are responsible for storage probibly won't recuperate their investment in a timely enough manner to justify the process. The process will only be undertaken if it becomes mandated by nuclear regulatory agencies and will also add another hidden cost to the nuclear mix.





Not true, reprocessing will be undertaken if it is economically viable to do so.  When the price of mining uranium ore becomes prohibitive, or when the cost of storing the high level nuclear waste becomes prohibitive, or when further advancements are made in reprocessing technology, then reprocessing will be the obvious solution.  Until then, the storage of the nuclear waste is not a problem.  It has been safely stored for many decades now on site and nuclear power plants across the country.

Quote:

However it is possible to cool the water back to liquid form and reuse it, so long as these additional costs are factored for in the construction and hot days may put the breaks on nuclear power if a cool source can not be obtained.




Once again, what is your point?  This is not a nuclear power problem, it's a power generating problem in general (if you even want to call it a problem).  The majority of our electricity production comes from the Rankine cycle, which requires an environmental temperature sink. 

Quote:

Just as some companies are profitable, some have also had serious cost overruns and even loan defaults. For these reasons the US has to subsidize the industry by guaranteeing loans to cretin amounts. In the abcense of these loan gaurentees, few banks (0) have been jumping at the prospects of funding a nuclear plant construction. In fact some banks are coming out with papers critical of such measures (see above).




Yeah, and a big problem with the delays in construction was the faulty regulatory structure.  The utility was first required to get a site permit just to build the plant.  Before they got the permit, the public could interject and protest.  Once the utility invested billions and built the plant, they then had to get an operating permit to turn the thing on.  Once again, the public could interject.  That's bullshit.  The public should be given one chance to file lawsuits.  You can't let the utilities build these plants and then not let them turn them on.  Thankfully, the NRC has changed the regulatory process so now the utility can get a combined construction and operating license.  In other words, if they are approved to build, they are approved to operate.

Another thing that has changed is that vendors have now went to standardized reactor designs.  Back in the 70's, plants were custom built for each site.  Now, the vendors do all the design work and make one standard cookie-cutter design, they take the plans to the NRC and get their design licensed.  That saves time and expenses when a utility actually goes to build one since the design will already be licensed.

The loan guarentees will cost the taxpayers nothing so long as the plant is completed and starts to generate power.  Of course there is some risk, but what do you propose we do for power?  What about the risk associated with fuel price swings that coal-fired power plants are susceptible to?  What about the possibility of new greenhouse gas emission legislation?  Forcing the coal industry to clean up after itself would cripple it.  And who wants to live next to a coal-fired power plant anyways?  They dump tons of shit into the air and actually release radiation to the environment.  With environmentalists blackballing the coal power industry, I ask what exactly we will do for power in this country?

Quote:

Meanwhile, were it that the US was to offer similar loan guarantees to persons trying to put up wind turbines or solar cells, (even if it were restricted to an approval process that assessed their plans for capability of power production) banks would finance them en mass.




What and wind and solar power aren't subsidized?  You complain that nuclear power is expensive and then you offer wind and solar power as a cost-effective means of solving the energy crisis?  Here's a figure from the Wall Street Journal showing pre-subsidized costs of various forms of energy.  Look at the cost of wind and solar compared to coal and gas. 



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126290539750320495.html

And then what about the footprint of these solar and wind farms?  The newely built Nevada Solar One 64 MW plant covers 400 acres.  Compare this to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant near New York City, which generates just over 2 GW of power and sits on 239 acres of land.  For a solar field to generate as much as Indian Point, it would need to cover 12,500 acres.  That's 52 times more land covered.  What kind of environmental impact do you think that would have?  And what about the impact of manufacturing all those solar panels.  And that's just to replace one nuclear power plant.  Let's calculate the amount of land coverage required to generate 20% of the US power requirements.  In 2007, the US generated 4,119 billion kwh of power (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states#tab1).  20% is 823 billion kwh.  In 2007, Nevada Solar One was estimated to generate 134 million kwh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One).  You would need 6,141 Nevada Solar Ones to generate 20% of the US power demands.  That's 2,460,000 acres of land coverage.  Then there's the issue of cleaning and maintaining all those solar panels.

I think the take-home message is that we need to get power from somewhere.  All sources have their pros and cons.  Nuclear power should remain a viable option and should account for a significant portion of our power generation as it currently is.


--------------------
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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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12070506 - 02/21/10 11:32 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Saying that there will be no trace of nuclear energy production on earth is ridiculous. Radiation permeates damn near everything, and you can't even feel it.  I think it's too deep of a hole for us to dig and we're going to find ourselves genetically destroyed.  Just my two cents, I got something against nuclear testing in the past...




What do you mean that radiation permeates everything?  It has been safely contained by US nuclear power plants for their decades of operation.  You get the majority of your yearly radiation dose from the earth's crust.  Then comes medical x-rays and consumer products and food (do you like to eat bananas?).  In total, the average American gets 360 millirems of radiation per year.  Less than 2 millirems come from fallout from all the nuclear weapons testing ever done http://www.jlab.org/div_dept/train/rad_guide/sources.html.  By the way, there's a big difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.


--------------------
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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OfflineScavengerType
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12091535 - 02/24/10 08:25 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

pothead_bob said:
This is a non-issue.  If the industry picks back up, there will be increased investing into fuel development to meet the demand.  That's how economics works




This report was that from lack of development and from growing international demand. Without large projects to develop new resources for nuclear fuel the price will likely go higher, without significant development, the price is not likely to fall. I'm sure that if the industry can't get enough development on it's own it will just sit there twiddling it's thumbs and rolling it's eyes while the government is forced to do something.

Quote:

Quote:

The problems with saving for decommissioning a nuclear plant is that it is a major expense that is externalized from the rate price.



and the problem in that is?


 

Externalizing the cost by charging a surcharge for it rather than saving from revenues is an additional subsidy.

Quote:

Quote:

Further I had left a citation of some reactors where changing economic circumstances were endangering their ability to pay such costs.




where?



Go and see my first post for the link of plants that the NRC said were having shortfalls on funding their decommission. *repost*

Quote:

Lots of plants have reached their decommissioning age, but hardly any have decommissioned.  That's because the units are so profitable that nearly all utilities are filing for lifetime extensions to the NRC.



No it's because the utilities have low maintenance costs while running and ridiculously high costs while being constructed/deconstructed. Further it has a lot to do with the fact that many utilities would have a difficult time replacing the power-load occupied by these plants.


Quote:

I never said it was a positive example of nuclear waste storage.  I think it's an example of how fucking inept the US government is.  I believe we should reprocess the waste.




Yes, because only people in the government make mistakes not people in the buisness sector. However, have you contemplated the possibility that all people make mistakes regardless of who they work for? Like this individual who claimed the yacca incident cost $22b when it really cost $8b. Was he private or public sector? Does it matter?

Quote:

Not true, reprocessing will be undertaken if it is economically viable to do so.



I believe that is what I said. My point was that it's not. I mean can you imagine making an investment with a return that would only come after a couple hundred years? Interest bro, not gonna happen.

Quote:

Thankfully, the NRC has changed the regulatory process so now the utility can get a combined construction and operating license.  In other words, if they are approved to build, they are approved to operate.




So when banks don't fund private plants (they won't), in the coming years I should bunp this thread? How long should I wait till I use the word liar?
I should add that many other countries have high levels of delays with different nuclear regulatory structures. Do you mean to say that every country where nuclear power plants have been built (often on public money or loan guarantees) allows lawsuits to prevent the start-up of the plant? Further are you not downplaying seismic related issues as well as other logistical construction complications as an issue of certification? If your going to continue claiming this sort of thing I'm going to need a credible citation.

Quote:

Another thing that has changed is that vendors have now went to standardized reactor designs.  Back in the 70's, plants were custom built for each site.  Now, the vendors do all the design work and make one standard cookie-cutter design, they take the plans to the NRC and get their design licensed.  That saves time and expenses when a utility actually goes to build one since the design will already be licensed.



I agree, and this is good for a few reasons, particularly in cross-troubleshooting and diagnostics information exchange and comparisons. It makes it some what safer as well as more economical.

Quote:

The loan guarentees will cost the taxpayers nothing so long as the plant is completed and starts to generate power.  Of course there is some risk, but what do you propose we do for power?  What about the risk associated with fuel price swings that coal-fired power plants are susceptible to?  What about the possibility of new greenhouse gas emission legislation?  Forcing the coal industry to clean up after itself would cripple it.  And who wants to live next to a coal-fired power plant anyways?  They dump tons of shit into the air and actually release radiation to the environment.  With environmentalists blackballing the coal power industry, I ask what exactly we will do for power in this country?




Hey I agree with you here, this is the #1 reason why nuclear has a chapter in all GW policy books (ever produced?) I've read. I never said that it was entirely a bad idea, I only said that it has a limited capacity and it would be negligent to give excessively to nuclear, as if it were some sort of goose that lays golden eggs or something.


Quote:

What and wind and solar power aren't subsidized?  You complain that nuclear power is expensive and then you offer wind and solar power as a cost-effective means of solving the energy crisis?  Here's a figure from the Wall Street Journal showing pre-subsidized costs of various forms of energy.  Look at the cost of wind and solar compared to coal and gas. 



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126290539750320495.html





These are somewhat anti-green energy figures. I think a more solid comparison for non-subsidy costs was best done by the ozzys in a report cited here a few other places.

Quote:

Levelised energy costs for different generation technologies in Australian Dollars (2006)
Technology  ↓ Cost (AUD/MWh)  ↓
Nuclear (to COTS plan) 40–70
Nuclear (to suit site; typical) 75–105
Coal  28–38
Coal: IGCC + CCS 53–98
Coal: supercritical pulverised + CCS 64–106
Open-cycle Gas Turbine 101
Hot fractured rocks  89
Gas: combined cycle 37–54
Gas: combined cycle + CCS 53–93
Small Hydro power 55
Wind power: high capacity factor 55
Solar thermal 85
Biomass 88
Photovoltaics 120




Quote:

I do not know where you got these figures, but I suspect they are biased



Hey man the feeling is obviously mutual, your figures look like they are from mars to me. The first one was an obvious misinformation, but the latter could be true based on current running models (not future running models or current selling ones). However to be fair the figgures in the paper I cited were not exclusive of subsidies. I only argued that the costs of nuclear subsidy (much greater than other "renewables") were being externalized.

Further, I know that PVs always look like they cost more than they are really worth. It is important to note that PVs make power almost exclusively during hours of peek demand. As a supplement to otherwise expensive peek power generation it is actually quite profitable for how it looks.


Quote:

And then what about the footprint of these solar and wind farms?  The newly built Nevada Solar One 64 MW plant covers 400 acres.  Compare this to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant near New York City, which generates just over 2 GW of power and sits on 239 acres of land.  For a solar field to generate as much as Indian Point, it would need to cover 12,500 acres.  That's 52 times more land covered.  What kind of environmental impact do you think that would have?




First off, a lot of wind resources are on farms and I don't know if you know this but a relatively small amount of ground land is covered by the turbines.

Secondly in places like nevada, cali and other desert locations with prime solar resources, many solar resources are built right in sand. The environmental impact to sticking a solar collector in the desert is basicly that maybe there will be enough shade that moisture can stay long enough that something green may actually be able to grow up from the ground (Provided good rain/dew/whatever remaining "soil" resources).


Quote:

I think the take-home message is that we need to get power from somewhere.  All sources have their pros and cons.  Nuclear power should remain a viable option and should account for a significant portion of our power generation as it currently is.




Other than your use of the word should I agree. I do not think that nuclear should be significantly expanded, particularly if it is going to have future problems like this:
In Historic Vote, Vermont Poised to Shut Down Lone Nuclear Reactor Vermont yankee

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12091569 - 02/24/10 08:31 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

You say that nuclear has limited capacity.  Is that not even more true of solar, wind and geothermal?


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OfflineDJ_avocado
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12092825 - 02/25/10 12:02 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

pothead_bob said:
Quote:

Saying that there will be no trace of nuclear energy production on earth is ridiculous. Radiation permeates damn near everything, and you can't even feel it.  I think it's too deep of a hole for us to dig and we're going to find ourselves genetically destroyed.  Just my two cents, I got something against nuclear testing in the past...




What do you mean that radiation permeates everything?  It has been safely contained by US nuclear power plants for their decades of operation.  You get the majority of your yearly radiation dose from the earth's crust.  Then comes medical x-rays and consumer products and food (do you like to eat bananas?).  In total, the average American gets 360 millirems of radiation per year.  Less than 2 millirems come from fallout from all the nuclear weapons testing ever done http://www.jlab.org/div_dept/train/rad_guide/sources.html.  By the way, there's a big difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.




Look.

I fuckin love bananas.  I don't think the radiation in a banana amounts to anything.  There'd have to be a lot of fuckin radiation in them for being so tasty.  I knew it!


Less than 2mrem a year from residual fallout is an average taken, probably, from all parts of the world.  NOT Bikini atoll.  among many affected.  Islanders were transported and studied in America and were found to have many times the amount of radiation an average human accumulates in a life time.  No I don't have a link, I learned this in my Hawaiian history class, on video...so sad.

I know that energy and weapons aren't the same, but they both deal with that same type of power. Only in one were trying to manage and and harness it. I don't think that a power of this magnitude should be unleashed upon the world.  I just watched Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum owns that shit, predicting that the dinosaurs would adapt and reproduce, that mo'fucker, he knew that shit would adapt!  That's why I don't think we should be tinkering with shit like this.:macdre:

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12093434 - 02/25/10 04:34 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

I don't think that a power of this magnitude should be unleashed upon the world.




It is unfortunate that you are trying to take away the only practical clean energy solution ever invented.

In the future, food will be delivered to supermarkets using bicycles with trailers.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
    #12093460 - 02/25/10 04:53 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

> It is unfortunate that you are trying to take away the only practical clean energy solution ever invented.

Clean?  Fission based nuclear power?


--------------------
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #12093523 - 02/25/10 05:52 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Just read the whole thread.  It is very interesting and I learned a lot. 

Next time I will read the thread before posting.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12093803 - 02/25/10 08:18 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

I'm sure that if the industry can't get enough development on it's own it will just sit there twiddling it's thumbs and rolling it's eyes while the government is forced to do something.




Haha, yeah, just like they sat on their asses when the government broke its promise to open Yukka Mountain on time.  Every plant that has been running out of space in the spent fuel pool has been building dry-cask storage facilities on site for several years while the government sat on its collective ass getting nothing accomplished.

Quote:

Externalizing the cost by charging a surcharge for it rather than saving from revenues is an additional subsidy.




A subsidy paid by the users of the power.  What's the problem here?  Should they attempt to collect the subsidy from the US taxpayers?

Quote:

Go and see my first post for the link of plants that the NRC said were having shortfalls on funding their decommission. *repost*





From your link...
Quote:

This is not a current safety issue, but the plants do have to prove to us they’re setting aside money appropriately.


 

I think your overblowing this issue.  The utilties only have 40 years till decomissioning, dear god.  And the NRC is on their ass already to make sure they're going to have funds when the time comes, proving how much of a non-issue this is. 

Quote:

No it's because the utilities have low maintenance costs while running and ridiculously high costs while being constructed/deconstructed. Further it has a lot to do with the fact that many utilities would have a difficult time replacing the power-load occupied by these plants.




Exactly!  They'd have a difficult time replacing the base-load.  Now why is that?  Could it be because the local citizens don't want a filthy pollutant-spewing coal plant in their backyards - they probably couldn't even get a license to build one.  Or could it be because 'green' energy would cost way too much to build?  Or would it be because you could never generate the same amount of power from 'green' energy without covering 50 times the land area with noisy, unsightly, bird-killing windmills?

Quote:

Yes, because only people in the government make mistakes not people in the buisness sector. However, have you contemplated the possibility that all people make mistakes regardless of who they work for? Like this individual who claimed the yacca incident cost $22b when it really cost $8b. Was he private or public sector? Does it matter?




Are you denying the fact that the government is slow and inefficient?

Quote:

I believe that is what I said. My point was that it's not. I mean can you imagine making an investment with a return that would only come after a couple hundred years? Interest bro, not gonna happen.




Where did you get the 'couple hundred years' figure from?  Whoever does the reprocessing will be paid to take the waste.  Then they'll be paid again on the other side of the cycle when the sell the newley-made fuel to the vendors.  The utilities will be saving money on long-term storage design, construction and maintenance.  You mentioned that fuel prices may go up... if they go up enough, it will be cheaper for the utilities to buy recycled fuel, thus saving them money again.  The whole process will just be shifting the costs from one type of waste disposal to another.

Quote:

So when banks don't fund private plants (they won't), in the coming years I should bunp this thread? How long should I wait till I use the word liar?
I should add that many other countries have high levels of delays with different nuclear regulatory structures. Do you mean to say that every country where nuclear power plants have been built (often on public money or loan guarantees) allows lawsuits to prevent the start-up of the plant? Further are you not downplaying seismic related issues as well as other logistical construction complications as an issue of certification? If your going to continue claiming this sort of thing I'm going to need a credible citation.




Do you mean without loan guarentees?  Your assertation that banks won't fund is incorrect, btw.  They'll fund, but they will charge much higher interest to account for their perceived risk.  The government's guarentee to pay if the utilty defaults brings the cost of interest down.  So long as the utility doesn't default, everybody wins and it costs the taxpayers nothing extra.  But they do, however, end up getting a cleaner power source as opposed to having dirty fossil-fired power plants built in nuclear power's place. 

No, I don't mean to say that every country allows lawsuits.  How'd you get that out of my talk on the licensing process?  Geographical issues, such as seismic activity and weather activity (huricanes, tornadoes) is covered in the licensing process.  First, a utility will apply for an Early Site Permit.  This covers the above-mentioned site saftey issues, environmental issues, plans for coping with emergencies, but doesn't go into details about the specific plant design.  The NRC will also contact the public and let them know when they can participate in the licensing process.  They tell them when they are allowed to interject, basically.  The utility can secure the ESP for little cost and the license is good for 10-20 years from the issuance.  When the utility decides they want to build a pre-certified reactor design, they submit the Combined License application.  This covers plant-specific issues, in detail.  Along with the COL application, the NRC receives a plethora of information and analysis from the utility.  The NRC reviews the information and brings up any safety issues they have concern for and request additional information from the utility.  Additionally, they keep the public informed of all isues every step of the way.  THIS IS WHEN THE PUBLIC MAY RAISE CONCERN.  If they have any safety issues, they bring them up at that point.  The utility must resolve all issues before the COL is issued.  Prior to the issuance, there is one last public meeting, which is the public's last chance to raise legitimate concerns.  Once the COL is issued, the utility may build and operate the plant.  The only remaining task they have is to submit a Final Safety Analysis Report, which details all the hypothetical accident situations and any necessary changes that were made.  So long as the FSAR is in agreement with the terms of the COL, the utility is able to start up the plant without getting their balls busted by the regulators.

Now, if there is some issue that comes up that was unforseen and it is legitimate, the NRC will ask the utility to provide proof that it won't be an issue or they will ask them to take measures to correct the issue, but it is highly unlikely that it will be an issue that will prevent the plant from running and generating boatloads of $$$.  It's unlikely because the utility takes everything into consideration and designs are very conservative.  Just look at Turkey Point outside of Miami.  In 1992 it got hit head-the-fuck-on by Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 hurricane and the only damage was to a water tank and a smoke stack on one of the fossil-fired units.

Quote:

I only said that it has a limited capacity and it would be negligent to give excessively to nuclear, as if it were some sort of goose that lays golden eggs or something.




Of course it isn't perfect.  My point is that nothing is and we need power from somewhere.  I believe it is highly competitive with other energy forms considering its cleanliness, low operating cost, great safety record, and small footprint.

Quote:

I do not think that nuclear should be significantly expanded, particularly if it is going to have future problems like this:
In Historic Vote, Vermont Poised to Shut Down Lone Nuclear Reactor Vermont yankee




You make a link between future nuclear power and a 40 year old plant?  Christ man, a lot has changed in 40 years.  That plant was the flagship and the accidents were minor.  What about boiler explosions in coal-fired plants that literally killed people?  Oh yeah, that only made page 10 in the newspaper because everybody understands coal power.  Nuclear power, though, shit now there's the fear factor.  We can sell that story.

Quote:

I don't think the radiation in a banana amounts to anything.




Of course you don't, you don't know anything about how radiation works.  Your typical banana will give you 0.01 millirems of radiation exposure.  If you eat one banan a day, that's 3.6 millirems a year.  That's almost fucking TWICE the yearly exposure you get from ALL OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING EVER DONE.  You worry about weapons testing, which is mostly banned now, and yet you're probably getting more radiation dose from K-40 from eating bananas.

Quote:

I know that energy and weapons aren't the same, but they both deal with that same type of power.




No, they don't.  A nuclear weapon is an uncontrolled reaction with the intent of releasing as much energy possible in the shortest amount of time.  It's designed by teams of engineers and physicist for PRECISELY this purpose.  Nuclear power is designed for the purpose of providing a controlled source of thermal energy over long periods of time, SAFELY.  It is physically impossible for a nuclear power reactor to release the kind of energy that a nuclear weapon does.  IMPOSSIBLE.  Your use of the word, unleashed, is interesting and also quite deceiving.  Nuclear power is one of the most highly regulated and safe industries around.  Here's some interesting info for you:  In the world, between 1970 and 1992, there were 6,400 on-the-job deaths in coal-fired power plants, 1,200 on-the-job deaths in natural gas power plants, and 4,000 deaths to the GENERAL PUBLIC caused by hydro-electric power station disasters.  Nuclear power plants experienced 39 on-the-job deaths.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#cite_note-ComparativeDeathRates-5

If you're on a crusade, you should probably go boycott hydropower.


--------------------
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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OfflineDJ_avocado
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12094629 - 02/25/10 11:16 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Certainly the energy that is created is awesome and would solve the energy crisis...I just don't trust the human race with containing that much power.  I'm sure that it is extremely safe and energy producing, but I'm a firm believer in "SHIT WILL PROBABLY HAPPEN".  I would give it more thought maybe if there were plans for disposing of the waste...

You are very thorough pothead_bob, you know your shit.  I'm not on a crusade, I'll just go with the flow.  But history shows that we don't always know what we're doing and shit that can go wrong will go wrong.  I just don't think that nuclear energy should be an option.

I wouldn't say that I'm scared or anything, maybe concerned, but assuming that in the future, energy is produced solely from nuclear plants....and something goes wrong for whatever reason.  LIke a big fuckin mistake, giant plant takes out Australia or something, and now Earth is really fucked.  ( I don't know specifically what will happen).  But assuming shit goes wrong,  would you still be for nuclear power after that happens?

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12094746 - 02/25/10 11:32 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Here's the first major item you need to look at - we need power.  So I ask, where will we get it from?  Just from my figures alone, you can see that nuclear power is far safer than coal, gas, and hydro power.  I don't have a figure for biomass, but the logging industry is one of the deadliest, so you can throw that on the list too.  Would you rather live next to a coal fired power plant, which releases over 100 times the amount of radiation that a nuclear power plant does amongst tons of other shit like mercury and sulfer, which contributes to acid rain, or would you rather live next to a nuclear power plant?  I, for one, would go with the nuclear power plant.  Wind and solar are great for certain regions of the country and at certain times of the day, but we, as a country, will never base-load with wind or sun power.

The second issue you need to look at is - what is going to happen?  Really, what can go wrong?  Forget Chernobyl.  It was an RBMK, a design which would never make it through the US regulatory process (or any country's regulatory process anymore, for that sake).  I understand your concerns, but I can guarantee that they stem from lack of knowledge about how nuclear power works.  Personally, I can't even conjure up what kind of situation would need to occur for a nuclear power plant mistake to wipe out Australia. 

Shit has went wrong in the past - such as the vessel degradation at Davis-Besse or the steam dump radiation release at Indian point, or the more notable example of Three Mile Island - but I'm still for nuclear.  If anything, events like this strengthen my support because each event proves that the plant operated as expected.  The engineered safety systems did their job.  Meanwhile, you have coal mines collapsing and coal power plant boilers exploding, which actually kills people.  Furthermore, each event adds a little more knowledge to the utilities and regulators so that future accidents can be more rigorously defended against.

You are right to say that shit can go wrong, but we need the power from somewhere.  At least nuclear power plants are designed ultra-conservatively and have a proven safety track record behind them.


--------------------
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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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
    #12095355 - 02/25/10 01:07 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

> Just read the whole thread.  It is very interesting and I learned a lot.

Do you want a gold star to put next to your name?

> Next time I will read the thread before posting.

I wasn't replying to the whole thread, I was replying to your claim that fission based nuclear power is "the only practical clean energy solution ever invented."  I did go back and read the post you were replying to, along with a few posts before that.  Did I misread your intent?  Perhaps you were trying to be sarcastic?  I guess that is why I included the question marks, to show my uncertainty.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #12098160 - 02/25/10 08:13 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Recently I've been having my mind blown away by new ideas.  First it was JUrassic Park, then in my botany class today, we talked about energy.  What I came to understand is that all energy comes from bonds that are broken.  It happens in all cells, in all forms, where ever there is movement or an action taking place.  I also found out that the sun is green.  Someone please correct me because I feel very decieved.  Apparently, plants are green and some algae blue-green, because that is the spectrum in which the sun DOESN'T have.  Which, if you grow plants, makes sense because plants feed off of the other wavelengths. ( Blue-ish and red-ish)

But I digress...

I spoke to my proff. after class and we talked about nuclear energy.  I told her that fact about bananas and she didn't believe me.  I think that fact needs a LOT of explaining.  If you eat a banana every day for a year, the 3.6 mrem of radiation in your body, is not the same amount that is in your body from the 2mrem in the atmosphere from testing.

But I digress..

She told me that the sun is producing energy, much like a nuclear reaction.  The radiation is normal and natural though, even in our our bodies, isotopes of carbon(carbon 14 I think), are used to produce energy and release radiation.  Meaning that all things emit radiation of some form.

Maybe I am against nuclear because I don't trust it.  I fear that there will be mistakes that just aren't worth it, but only time will tell.  As of now though, I only care about the aina (Land), not about energy for everybody... maybe cause I don't use a lot besides a 1000w HPS..

I know that we need energy, and that it will probably come from nuclear, but I'm expecting it to cause more harm than good in the long run. Just one question...what do nuclear plants use as fuel?  Anything? Renewable?  Maybe I AM just afraid of the unknown...

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12099845 - 02/26/10 01:57 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

OK, lets recap with a quote from the vid clip I posted earlier:
In Historic Vote, Vermont Poised to Shut Down Lone Nuclear Reactor
Quote:

Guest intro:
The man who first sounded the alarm bell on Vermont Yankee is a nuclear engineer. His name is Arnie Gundersen. Two years ago he was appointed to an oversight panel to study the plant. He and his wife Maggie are contracted consultants to the Vermont legislature. Arnie Gundersen was a nuclear industry executive for many years before blowing the whistle on the company he worked for in 1990, when he found inappropriately stored radioactive material.
...
AMY GOODMAN: Why are you recommending a no vote?

ARNIE GUNDERSEN: My recommendation is based on a couple things. The plant has had a long history of problems. We had a transformer fire, which was quite dramatic and well publicized, and then we had the cooling towers collapse, and then we also have lost some nuclear fuel. By “we,” I mean Vermont Yankee. And now we have a tritium leak that has gone undetected for probably a year.

On top of those mechanical problems, there are some other problems. Entergy is planning on spinning off this old plant and five other old plants into junk bond-rated company called Enexus. And there’s concern that there won’t be enough working capital to maintain the plant and enough capital to dismantle the plant when it’s due to shut down.

And then the last piece is the fact that the Entergy has not told the truth to the Public Service Board, at least three times. They were fined $51,000 in 2003, $82,000 in 2004. And for Vermont, those are big deal numbers. And now, of course, they’ve, over a period of about eighteen months, told the Public Service Board and me on the Public Oversight Panel that they had no underground pipes. That, of course, was proven wrong with the tritium leak.




I think that This one quote from that article speaks volumes to a lot of the real issues that I have been insisting to you all along. I'm not sure you actually listened to or read the transcripts. It's all there in the bold, decomp problems, other weird financial shit I never even thought of, missing fuel, leaks of radioactive material into drinking water. Fuck dude, this is shit even I thought was beyond a realistic concern with private nuclear companies.

I mean, you think yucca mtn is an incident. Look at how this nuke plant is behaving about it's problems, what are going to be the issues when the corporate sector has an incident? Will they lie to protect the bottom line?

The inability of a utility to bear the loss of one of it's largest power suppliers at the moment is not a reflection of the superiority of the plants. It is a logistical nightmare for the utilities to decommission a plant because of the fact that it leaves a massive hole in the grid supply. This is not a testament to it's cost effectiveness or ability to produce power, but of it's real scale of operation.

Further I am concerned that with the possibility that some of the other reactors whom are going up for approvals for extensions may be even somewhat similar to this one, a plant that actually is so bad it looks like the cartoon satire in comparison to the one from the Simpsons. These are the nuclear plants you were just holding up as examples of how safe nuclear power was.

When I heard you explain the regulatory structure in the US the first time I did not misunderstand. However, other countries have more lax nuclear regulation, Existing and operating plants, higher rate costs and in some places lower construction costs. However, nowhere in the world has a financial institution backed this kind of risk without a guarantee. If this is the case, it would stand to reason that this regulatory change in the US will not likely yield a new flow of investment.


Also:
Quote:

pothead_bob said:
And if reprocessed, the figure drops to hundreds.



Quote:

pothead_bob said:
Where did you get the 'couple hundred years' figure from?



WTF?


--------------------
"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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12100331 - 02/26/10 06:52 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

I spoke to my proff. after class and we talked about nuclear energy.  I told her that fact about bananas and she didn't believe me.  I think that fact needs a LOT of explaining.  If you eat a banana every day for a year, the 3.6 mrem of radiation in your body, is not the same amount that is in your body from the 2mrem in the atmosphere from testing.




A quick google search will clear up any doubt you have about the radioactivity of bananas.  You do realize bananas have potassium in them don't you?  Well, some of that potassium is potassium-40, a naturally radioactive isotope.  No, that 3.6 mrem is not the same as the 2 mrem from testing - it's nearly twice as much.  The unit, rem, measures dose equivalent to the person.  It makes account for the type of radiation: be it alpha, gamma, or beta.  Now, depending on where in the body the exposure is, and what type of radiation it is, it will have different effects, but focus on the big picture here.

Whether you're eating bananas or ingesting fallout particles doesn't matter - the two sources are virtually insignificant.  The majority of your exposure comes from cosmic rays and the earth's crust.  Did you ever hear of radon problems in peoples' basements?  That can be dangerous, but it's a completely natural radiation source from the earth.  Do you smoke?  Smoking is  a HUGE source of radiation.  A person who smokes 30 cigarettes a day has been estimated to receive as high as 8,000 mrem a year of exposure.  Compare that 8,000 mrem to the 2 mrem you get from nuclear fallout.  My whole point is, there are much more significant sources of radiation than that from nuclear power or nuclear fallout.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12100400 - 02/26/10 07:33 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

I read your article and frankly I'm not impressed.  I'll ask you again - Where will you get the power from?????  Let me re-post this for you:

Quote:

Nuclear power is one of the most highly regulated and safe industries around.  Here's some interesting info for you:  In the world, between 1970 and 1992, there were 6,400 on-the-job deaths in coal-fired power plants, 1,200 on-the-job deaths in natural gas power plants, and 4,000 deaths to the GENERAL PUBLIC caused by hydro-electric power station disasters.  Nuclear power plants experienced 39 on-the-job deaths.




By the way, those coal-fired power related deaths are only on the job.  Let's not forget about the health problems inflicted upon the general public by the pollution. 

But you throw all that under the bus and complain about a tritium leak that didn't even make any significant impact on the nearby Connecticut river.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Yankee_Nuclear_Power_Plant

The tritium hasn't even been measured at all in the River or in any drinking water supply, contrary to your accusation.  http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/radioactive_tritium_leaking_fr.html

But boo-fucking-hoo over the insignificant tritium leak.  Let Vermont shut the plant down and enjoy a 20-30% electricity cost increase since the plant accounts for 35% of their electrical power.  Not too mention all the health problems that come from REAL POLLUTION should they replace the power with a coal-fired plant. 

And good job, like any anti-nuke, blowing the 'missing fuel' thing out of proportion.  The fuel was never 'missing'.  It was in the spent fuel pool all along.  The fuel wasn't accounted for due to a record keeping mistake, which happened due to transfer of ownership of the plant.  http://safecleanreliable.com/07152004.htm

I mean, really, how does anybody who knows anything about nuclear power think highly-radioactive material can go missing?  You'd be fucking vaporized if you tried to remove spent fuel from the site, short of having some heavy equipment to shield you from it.  With all the security there, there's no way someone can take fuel out of the pool and slip away undetected.  You would need a small army and big-time equipment.

Yes, they lied and I don't condone them lying.  I think it makes the whole industry look bad and it's great that one guy blew the whistle, but there's immoral people in all walks of life.  You can't possibly dismiss the nuclear power industry's impeccable safety record and incredible potential for clean and reliable power over such a minuscule incident. 


Quote:

I mean, you think yucca mtn is an incident.




No, I don't think yucca mtn is an incident.

Quote:

The inability of a utility to bear the loss of one of it's largest power suppliers at the moment is not a reflection of the superiority of the plants. It is a logistical nightmare for the utilities to decommission a plant because of the fact that it leaves a massive hole in the grid supply.




What is your point?  How would a fossil-fired plant be any different?  Or do you think Vermont will be putting up a 650 MW wind farm? :lol:

Quote:

Further I am concerned that with the possibility that some of the other reactors whom are going up for approvals for extensions may be even somewhat similar to this one, a plant that actually is so bad it looks like the cartoon satire in comparison to the one from the Simpsons. These are the nuclear plants you were just holding up as examples of how safe nuclear power was.





You come up with one practically insignificant example and now you extend it to ALL PLANTS UP FOR LICENSE EXTENSION?  Prove it to me that all the other plants are having similar problems.  Or why don't you open your eyes and realize that this ONE plant had some problems and it is now BEING SHUT DOWN AS A RESULT?  If the other plants aren't having problems, why should they be shut down?

Quote:

When I heard you explain the regulatory structure in the US the first time I did not misunderstand. However, other countries have more lax nuclear regulation, Existing and operating plants, higher rate costs and in some places lower construction costs. However, nowhere in the world has a financial institution backed this kind of risk without a guarantee. If this is the case, it would stand to reason that this regulatory change in the US will not likely yield a new flow of investment.




Your logic is flawed.  Once again, the loan guarantees are just that, A GUARANTEE.  The utility is still the one making the loan payments and building the plant.  How is that not a new flow of investment?

Quote:

Also:

    Quote:
    pothead_bob said:
    And if reprocessed, the figure drops to hundreds.


    Quote:
    pothead_bob said:
    Where did you get the 'couple hundred years' figure from?


WTF?




If you think that is somehow conducive to your argument then you didn't understand one or either of those quotes.  In the first quote, I was referring to the amount of time fuel remains radioactive for.  It drops from thousands of years to hundreds of years if it is reprocessed.  That doesn't mean that the people who reprocessed the waste would have to wait hundreds of years to get their investment back.  They would be paid to take the waste and paid again when the resell it as new fuel.  They would be left holding onto a very small percentage of unusable waste, but they would still have been paid for their part in the fuel cycle.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12100842 - 02/26/10 09:42 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

DJ_avocado said:
Recently I've been having my mind blown away by new ideas.  First it was JUrassic Park, then in my botany class today, we talked about energy.  What I came to understand is that all energy comes from bonds that are broken.  It happens in all cells, in all forms, where ever there is movement or an action taking place.  I also found out that the sun is green.  Someone please correct me because I feel very decieved.  Apparently, plants are green and some algae blue-green, because that is the spectrum in which the sun DOESN'T have.  Which, if you grow plants, makes sense because plants feed off of the other wavelengths. ( Blue-ish and red-ish)

But I digress...

I spoke to my proff. after class and we talked about nuclear energy.  I told her that fact about bananas and she didn't believe me.  I think that fact needs a LOT of explaining.  If you eat a banana every day for a year, the 3.6 mrem of radiation in your body, is not the same amount that is in your body from the 2mrem in the atmosphere from testing.

But I digress..

She told me that the sun is producing energy, much like a nuclear reaction.  The radiation is normal and natural though, even in our our bodies, isotopes of carbon(carbon 14 I think), are used to produce energy and release radiation.  Meaning that all things emit radiation of some form.

Maybe I am against nuclear because I don't trust it.  I fear that there will be mistakes that just aren't worth it, but only time will tell.  As of now though, I only care about the aina (Land), not about energy for everybody... maybe cause I don't use a lot besides a 1000w HPS..

I know that we need energy, and that it will probably come from nuclear, but I'm expecting it to cause more harm than good in the long run. Just one question...what do nuclear plants use as fuel?  Anything? Renewable?  Maybe I AM just afraid of the unknown...




It sounds like either your prof doesn't know what he's talking about, or you grossly misunderstood what he said, or both.

As for the sun being green, that's not entirely true. The peak of the sun's blackbody spectrum is in green, but it also emits tons of radiation in red and blue, which is why it looks white, not green. White = red + green + blue. Understand?

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: drewmandan]
    #12109463 - 02/27/10 05:29 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

I thought solar energy peaks in the yellow part of the spectrum, or is it green-yellow or yellow-green?  Why do they consider indigo to be a separate color?  It looks like blue-violet to me.  It makes more sense to say the spectrum is made up of only primary and secondary colors, but a tertiary color?

Some people compare the fusion process we're trying to do on earth to the fusion process in the sun.  I read somewhere that 1 ton of the sun material at the center of the sun produces only 5 watts of power, so it would take 20 tons to power one 100 watt light bulb.  Here on earth we're trying to produce fusion using the most popular process which fuses deuterium and tritium (there are other processes) to generate energy.  This has been done with the H bomb, but we're trying to develop a controlled process, typically using magnetic confinement or shooting deuteride/tritide mixtures with lasers.  Hydrogen isotopes are easy to fuse.  The problem is producing more power than what is put in.

Quote:


The pressure at the center of the sun ranges from 3.4 × 10^8 atm to 2.25 × 10^11 atm depending upon the source.




http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/MarinaTreybick.shtml

1 atm = 1 atmosphere or 101325 Pascals or about 14 psi or 760 mm of pressure.


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

Edited by GI_Luvmoney (02/27/10 05:32 PM)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12109654 - 02/27/10 06:06 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Here's an insteresting article about the sun.
http://www.ucolick.org/~jones/sun.pdf


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12125693 - 03/02/10 03:40 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Obama's Nuclear Power Breakthrough
The same critics remain, but their arguments have been proven wrong or become outdated.

By WILLIAM TUCKER

President Obama's announcement last week that the federal government will support new nuclear reactors through loan guarantees has reinvigorated the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and other opponents of nuclear energy. Their objections to this proven technology—which already generates about 20% of our electricity—have barely changed since the 1970s. But most of their arguments have either been proven wrong or become outdated. Here's a rundown:

• Nuclear isn't safe. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident—in which a faulty cooling valve led to a meltdown without injuring anyone—occurred when computer technology had barely penetrated the U.S. industry. In the 1970s, each reactor was an island unto itself. Industry officials barely communicated. The valve that failed at Three Mile Island had failed nine times previously, yet nobody said a thing about it.

Today, thanks to the Price-Anderson Act, first adopted in 1957 and amended several times since, each of America's 104 reactors is now on the hook for $100 million in damages for an accident at another reactor ($10 billion coverage in all). You can bet they talk to each other. Accidental "scrams" and safety outages have been reduced to nearly zero. Our entire fleet is up and running 90% of the time. That's why, even though nuclear constitutes only 11% of generating capacity, it provides 20% of electricity.

• Nuclear is too expensive. Building a 1,500-megawatt reactor will cost around $5 billion, which seems expensive until you compare it to everything else. The equivalent capacity in wind power would easily cost $4 billion because you have to build 4,000 windmills at $1 million apiece plus hundreds of miles of transmission lines and an almost equal capacity of natural gas generators to back them up when the wind doesn't blow.

Building zero-emissions coal plants that capture the carbon dioxide and bury it underground will probably cost more, but nobody really knows because it's never been done. Only natural gas is cheaper to build, but that's because 95% of the cost is in the fuel. (With nuclear it's only 26%.) Natural gas prices fluctuate. Would anyone care to predict what the price of natural gas will be in 25 years?

• A hijacked jet liner crashing into a reactor would cause a nuclear holocaust. Go to YouTube and search "plane crashing into wall." You'll see a video of an F-4 fighter jet hitting a concrete containment wall at 500 miles per hour. The plane simply disappears. The wall barely budges. Nuclear opponents argue that a jumbo jet would have a greater impact, but the laws of physics say it would be about the same. A jet is a hollow metal tube. Even at the speed of a bullet (700 mph) it could not penetrate a concrete containment wall.

• We haven't figured out what to do with the waste. Basically, there is no such thing as nuclear waste. The reason we have the controversy over the Yucca Mountain storage facility is because we gave up fuel reprocessing in the 1970s. Reprocessing reduces the volume of spent fuel—already remarkably small—by 97%. The French reprocess and store all their high-level waste from 30 years of producing 70% of their electricity beneath the floor of one room in their La Hague plant.

• We can't reprocess because that will lead to nuclear proliferation. The conceit of the 1970s was that if we isolated plutonium in an American reprocessing plant, some foreign terrorist would steal it to make a bomb. Half a dozen countries have since built nuclear bombs, none of them with stolen American plutonium. North Korea built its own reactor. Iran has been enriching uranium. France, Japan and Russia all reprocess and no one has stolen their plutonium. Reprocessing American fuel has nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.

• The nuclear revival is being forced on America by the powerful nuclear industry. There is no American "nuclear industry." Westinghouse is now owned by Toshiba. Areva is French. GE partners with Hitachi but is running in last place. Only three of the 33 proposed American reactors are GE designs. The biggest new international competitor is South Korea, which just won a $20 billion contract to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates. China is building four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, even though its design has not yet been approved by our Nuclear Regulatory Commission. When the first new reactors are built here, 70% of the parts will come from abroad.

We've essentially fallen 10 years behind the rest of the world in nuclear technology, but the Obama administration's decision to support nuclear will finally get the ball rolling. Within a decade we may very well catch up with the rest of the world in developing the energy technology of the 21st century.

Mr. Tucker is author of "Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey," published in October by Bartleby Press.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703787304575075413484405770.html


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12125694 - 03/02/10 03:41 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

To the global warming believers:  Remember, if there is a nuclear melt down, you asked for it.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12126966 - 03/02/10 10:59 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Help me understand.

No such thing as nuclear waste? Please dumb this down and explain a little for me, please.

I liked that sun article.  :thumbup:

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #12127012 - 03/02/10 11:08 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

The man is being a bit disingenuous with that comment.  What he means is that if the nuclear waste is reprocessed, the majority of the waste is converted into fresh fuel which can be stuck back into the reactor to get more power out of it.  There is still waste left over, but much less of it (only 3% of the original waste) and it presents much less problems because it decays faster.  That's because the longest-lived isotope - pu-239/pu-240 - is removed from the waste and reused.  The waste goes from being dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years to only being dangerously radioactive for a few hundred years.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12128518 - 03/02/10 03:21 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Yep.  Natural uranium is mostly U238 which isn't fissionable by slow neutrons.  It has to be enriched so you have at least 3% U235 which is fissionable by slow neutrons.  A lot of the U238 is converted into Pu239 which is also fissionable by slow neutrons and can be used in a reactor.


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

Edited by GI_Luvmoney (03/02/10 03:27 PM)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12128579 - 03/02/10 03:32 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

I'm sure he does mean that, but despite that fact, there will still be a (very small) amount of actual waste left that will require storage - a fact which he mentions in his diatribe.  But, that aside, the guy is pretty spot on and his words are a great rebuttal to the cookie-cutter leftist fools like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow who ignorantly hold onto old wives tales that originated in the sixties.  It simply amazes me to see these supposed 'environmentalists' blast the only real solution to greenhouse gas reduction as well as a plethora of other pollutants released by fossil fuel power plants.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12128740 - 03/02/10 04:02 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Deleted... trying to be nice.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

Edited by Seuss (03/02/10 04:04 PM)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12128753 - 03/02/10 04:04 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

A lot of people without much science education automatically assume scientists are all righteous and free of corruption, which isn't always true.  Science needs debate and democracy, which is opposed by a lot of the leftist corrupt environmentalists.  Al Gore is a good example, but he isn't a scientist.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #12128758 - 03/02/10 04:05 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

It is correct.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12132658 - 03/03/10 05:27 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

> It is correct.

For fission, what really matters is the neutron cross section of the isotope in question at the energy levels of the neutrons in question.  To make a blanket statement, such as "Natural uranium is mostly U238 which isn't fissionable by slow neutrons" is misleading.  Although true, it is barely fissionable (i.e. has a low probability of fission) by fast neutrons and is not a viable fuel source for fission with either slow or fast neutrons.

You go on to say that "A lot of the U238 is converted into Pu239" which again is more or less correct, but misleading (or incomplete). I say more or less correct because U238 is not transmuted directly into Plutonium; instead U238 captures a neutron turning into U239.  U239 undergoes beta decay becoming Neptunium-239 which again undergoes beta decay to become Plutonium-239.  It is also inaccurate to claim "a lot of the 238 is converted".  Depending upon the energy level of the reactor, Pu240 is also produced.  The harder one runs the reactor, the more Pu240 you get.  Unfortunately, Pu240 is very 'hot' and much more difficult to utilize that Pu239.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #12132945 - 03/03/10 08:01 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

U-238 is fissionable but not fissile.  Fissile isotopes are ones which have a low enough critical energy that the absorption of a zero velocity neutron alone will cause fission.  The binding energy of the stationary neutron alone will cause the nucleus to become unstable and fission.  Popular fissile isotopes include U-233, U-235, Pu-239 and Pu-241.  U-235 is the only one that occurs in nature, while the others must be created in a reactor.  Fissionable isotopes are ones that require more energy than the binding energy of the incident neutron to fission - in other words, they require the neutron to be traveling at a minimum speed. 

So it's true that U-238 cannot be fissioned by slow neutrons at all.  The neutron must have an energy greater than about 0.6 MeV.  This is the reason why U-238 cannot be used for bomb-making.  You need fissile fuel to make a bomb so that it will continue the nuclear reaction when detonated. 

There is more to the story.  After fission occurs, neutrons are released in addition to the byproduct isotopes.  It's these neutrons that go on to cause other fissions.  On average, a U-235 isotope will release 2.068 neutrons per fission.  This means a fission of U-235 can, in theory, lead to the fission of two more isotopes.  U-238 has a similar release of neutrons per fission, however it is only the neutrons that are above the threshold energy that can cause fission of more U-238.  This is why it is impossible to build a reactor with fissionable material alone.  After you account for the fact that a certain fraction of those high-energy neutrons are absorbed inside the reactor, there is never enough high energy neutrons left to sustain the reaction. 

While fissionable material alone is not useful for nuclear fuel, that's not to say it isn't valuable in the fuel cycle.  For example, the CANDU reactors operate on natural, un-enriched uranium.  They can do this because they are moderated with heavy water (deuterium instead of hydrogen -- D20 instead of H2O).  The heavy water has a very low cross section and doesn't slow down the neutrons too much, which means that there are more fast neutrons available for fissioning U-238.  Still not enough to run the core on U-238 alone, but the small percentage of U-235 present in natural uranium is sufficient to make up the difference of the neutron deficit. 

I wouldn't say that Pu-240 is particularly 'hot' in comparison with Pu-239.  Its half-life is on par with Pu-239.  There are much 'hotter' by-products like americium-241.  I think it is easily utilized for fuel-making purposes since it is a fissionable isotope.  It even has a higher fission cross-section than U-238, but I couldn't find the number of neutrons released per fission, so I could be wrong.  To my knowledge, though, the only thing it's not useful for is bomb-making due to it's high rate of spontaneous fission.  As for fuel, though, while in the reactor, Pu-240 can actually absorb a neutron and become Pu-241, which is a very useful fissile isotope.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12135496 - 03/03/10 03:42 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

They typically use U238 neutron shields in dirty H bombs.  When the H bomb goes off the U238 fissions.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12159210 - 03/07/10 01:37 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

pothead_bob said:
The tritium hasn't even been measured at all in the River or in any drinking water supply,



Quote:

From your own cite:
Since then, the levels of contamination found in some wells has risen dramatically. The federal safety standard for tritium in drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter, but water from one monitoring well measured nearly 2.6 million picocuries per liter.



Further the wikerpedia you cited asserts (from the source)
Quote:

While samples taken from the river have shown "no detectable levels" of tritium, the state is not assuming tritium is not making it into the water, said Davis. Because of the flow of the river and the amounts of water passing the power plant, any tritium leaking into it might be too diluted to be measured.




Quote:

{potheadbob}
And good job, like any anti-nuke, blowing the 'missing fuel' thing out of proportion.  The fuel was never 'missing'.  It was in the spent fuel pool all along.  The fuel wasn't accounted for due to a record keeping mistake, which happened due to transfer of ownership of the plant.



Case and point. Corporations should not be able to run nuclear plants, or more likely the example of the company trying to combine the plant with other failing plants into a derivative which would fail and need to be bailed out for it's decommissioning price-tag. Corporations are not responsible enough for it and regulation to keep plants in line with their final expenses is insufficient. This is why I suggested the initial costs ought to include enough money to be saved to decommission the plant.

Further, though I did not know that the "missing fuel" was just in the spent fuel pond, it is a significant issue in general. For example, the dumping by "mysterious European ships" of nuclear waste into the oceans of Somalia. This is the horrors that the market has in store for nuclear waste.

Quote:

Yes, they lied and I don't condone them lying.  I think it makes the whole industry look bad and it's great that one guy blew the whistle, but there's immoral people in all walks of life.



All corporations lie to save their ass.
This is just one endemic example of what is in store for the future of any nuke plant having problems. Few if any will disclose them publicly without being forced.

Quote:

You come up with one practically insignificant example and now you extend it to ALL PLANTS UP FOR LICENSE EXTENSION?  Prove it to me that all the other plants are having similar problems.  Or why don't you open your eyes and realize that this ONE plant had some problems and it is now BEING SHUT DOWN AS A RESULT?  If the other plants aren't having problems, why should they be shut down?




It is unlikely that all nuclear plants are having as many problems as this one, but were it not for one whistle blower, none (or a majority) of this would not have been known.

Other reactors have tritium leaks and other plants have many problems.

Quote:

Your logic is flawed.  Once again, the loan guarantees are just that, A GUARANTEE.  The utility is still the one making the loan payments and building the plant.  How is that not a new flow of investment?




And it would be at the same cost as if the government guaranteed the loans and utilities had owned them, or guaranteed them under a NPO. If the "free market" can't bankroll these sorts of projects on it's own the government ought to tell it to "fuck right off until it can" instead of subsidizing it's movement into the market. Where the fuck is the government to guarantee my loans to build a permacultural farm or send my ass to school for a degree. Fucking nowhere. So why in the fuck should the government subsidize these individual twads when they could fund them as enterprises owned by the public? Why should the public pay the cost only if these enterprises fail but not reap benefits if they succeed? Because it's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

This is only made worse by the obvious irresponsibility that corporations in general have demonstrated in running nuclear power. Public safety is not on their balance sheets as much as the bottom line. To come and say that they need a guarantee in order to finance a power plant is an affront to the public, who would be made to bear the costs either way but is not getting the benefits under such a guarantee.


I am not a nuclear physicist so I will refrain from investigation into this reprocessing procedure, but suffice it to say I am unaware of it's nature or costs and no longer wish to speculate. I obviously misunderstood thinking it was reprocessing the bulk of the matter into a lower decay waste.


However, I think you make a mistake here. I have made it quite clear that I think that nuclear power is partially important, somehow you have taken my criticisms of it to mean I am against it. In fact I support moderate nuclear power and I am definitely not against building new plants to replace old capacity. I just have made clear, some ambiguities that I have seen commonly permeate public discussion of nuclear power. Just because I am saying bad things about nuclear power does not mean I am for or against it, but that they are real issues that ought to be disclosed.

Frankly, I do not like nuclear power, but as you said I also do not like coal or global warming. Some of the issues related to nuclear power scare the shit out of me, but not as much as the effects (observed and impending) of global warming and the popular (cheaper) "geo-engineering" schemes that I have heard about from the recent talking that has begun on these matters.

I only think that nuclear power is partially practical in a part of a larger energy scheme. Nuke power is expensive and it would take some real and effective carbon legislation (and/or other true cost measures) to make it and most "green energy" a market reality. The reality of modern electrical distribution networks and legislation in the world is that it is in general antiquated and obsolete as well as irrespective of externalized environmental costs.


--------------------
"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."
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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12159307 - 03/07/10 01:53 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

There is no globull worming.  Phil Jones sez so.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #12163408 - 03/08/10 08:53 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

    pothead_bob said:
    The tritium hasn't even been measured at all in the River or in any drinking water supply,


    Quote:
    From your own cite:
    Since then, the levels of contamination found in some wells has risen dramatically. The federal safety standard for tritium in drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter, but water from one monitoring well measured nearly 2.6 million picocuries per liter.


Further the wikerpedia you cited asserts (from the source)

    Quote:
    While samples taken from the river have shown "no detectable levels" of tritium, the state is not assuming tritium is not making it into the water, said Davis. Because of the flow of the river and the amounts of water passing the power plant, any tritium leaking into it might be too diluted to be measured.




Do you have a point here?  The tritium showed up in monitoring wells.  It hasn't been detected in the drinking water.  If it is such an unbelievably minuscule amount of tritium that you can't even measure it in the river, how is it a threat?

Quote:

Case and point. Corporations should not be able to run nuclear plants, or more likely the example of the company trying to combine the plant with other failing plants into a derivative which would fail and need to be bailed out for it's decommissioning price-tag. Corporations are not responsible enough for it and regulation to keep plants in line with their final expenses is insufficient. This is why I suggested the initial costs ought to include enough money to be saved to decommission the plant.




The government is inefficient and no better at maintaining public safety than a private corporation.  Case and point - Chernobyl.  These corporations that run these plants are on the hook for heavy fines and lawsuits if they fuck up.  They also have future problems operating their plants due to having a negative image of nuclear power after an incident.  They have plenty incentive to run them safely.  Mistakes will always happen.  And that's why these plants have defense-in-depth safety systems - to protect against the hypothetical situations.

Quote:

All corporations lie to save their ass.
This is just one endemic example of what is in store for the future of any nuke plant having problems. Few if any will disclose them publicly without being forced.




And the government doesn't lie?

Quote:


Further, though I did not know that the "missing fuel" was just in the spent fuel pond, it is a significant issue in general. For example, the dumping by "mysterious European ships" of nuclear waste into the oceans of Somalia. This is the horrors that the market has in store for nuclear waste.




Your source provides no proof that nuclear waste was being dumped and furthermore, there's no proof it was from the nuclear power industry.  Is this supposed to be another case against nuclear power?

Quote:

Other reactors have tritium leaks and other plants have many problems.




And if you can demonstrate these 'many problems' and fill us all in on just how serious they are, I'll be happy to consider your position.

Quote:

And it would be at the same cost as if the government guaranteed the loans and utilities had owned them, or guaranteed them under a NPO. If the "free market" can't bankroll these sorts of projects on it's own the government ought to tell it to "fuck right off until it can" instead of subsidizing it's movement into the market. Where the fuck is the government to guarantee my loans to build a permacultural farm or send my ass to school for a degree. Fucking nowhere. So why in the fuck should the government subsidize these individual twads when they could fund them as enterprises owned by the public? Why should the public pay the cost only if these enterprises fail but not reap benefits if they succeed? Because it's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.




Fucking nowhere, my ass.  The government gives out millions upon millions of dollars in the form of grants for kids to go to school.  I myself received around $10,000 in grants to go to school.  That is money that NEVER has to be paid back.  You can't even compare that to a loan guarantee unless the utility defaulted on the loan.  If your permacultural farm can hugely benefit society, then perhaps the government would subsidize it.  Apparently, it isn't that important.  Providing clean, reliable electricity to the masses is important enough, apparently. 

Quote:

However, I think you make a mistake here. I have made it quite clear that I think that nuclear power is partially important, somehow you have taken my criticisms of it to mean I am against it. In fact I support moderate nuclear power and I am definitely not against building new plants to replace old capacity. I just have made clear, some ambiguities that I have seen commonly permeate public discussion of nuclear power. Just because I am saying bad things about nuclear power does not mean I am for or against it, but that they are real issues that ought to be disclosed.

Frankly, I do not like nuclear power, but as you said I also do not like coal or global warming. Some of the issues related to nuclear power scare the shit out of me, but not as much as the effects (observed and impending) of global warming and the popular (cheaper) "geo-engineering" schemes that I have heard about from the recent talking that has begun on these matters.

I only think that nuclear power is partially practical in a part of a larger energy scheme. Nuke power is expensive and it would take some real and effective carbon legislation (and/or other true cost measures) to make it and most "green energy" a market reality. The reality of modern electrical distribution networks and legislation in the world is that it is in general antiquated and obsolete as well as irrespective of externalized environmental costs.




What scares the shit out of you about nuclear power aside from a possible fear of the unknown?  I'm actually kind of confused on your position on nuclear power.  You come right out and say you don't like it.  You talk about how bad it is and how irresponsible the corporations are that run it.  Then you say that you support it maintaining its current share of energy generation in the country.  It's proven itself safe, clean, and reliable over the past 50 some years, so I can't understand why you would be opposed to increasing the amount of nuclear power we generate in order to displace a great deal of the greenhouse gas emitting electricity production that is currently in place.  It's the most logical solution to slow down this global warming that you're worried about.  I've asked you before and I'll ask again, what other solutions do you see for obtaining energy?


--------------------
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which is itself based upon the mathematical
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Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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InvisibleGI_Luvmoney
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #12165336 - 03/08/10 03:41 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)



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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12165348 - 03/08/10 03:43 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

ugh

/hidethread

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: GI_Luvmoney]
    #12166776 - 03/08/10 07:54 PM (14 years, 2 months ago)

> Tritium can be found in keychains and watches.

As long as you don't eat them, you are safe.  Tritium is only dangerous when inhaled or ingested.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #12168811 - 03/09/10 05:17 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

Can you use neurosoup's anal tek with tritium safely?


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #12169309 - 03/09/10 08:43 AM (14 years, 2 months ago)

> Can you use neurosoup's anal tek with tritium safely?

Probably not.  Tritium, as part of the water molecule, would end up in whatever you are growing.  Not only would this increase the potential for mutations in whatever you are growing, it would also be dangerous to anybody that smokes or eats whatever you are growing.  Large numbers of mutations, without giving the species time to adapt through natural selection, is typically a bad thing.  We saw this with the PF strain when UV light was used to initiate pinning.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14129032 - 03/16/11 03:26 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

pothead_bob said:
What scares the shit out of you about nuclear power aside from a possible fear of the unknown?




this
“This Could Become Chernobyl on Steroids”: Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen on Japan’s Growing Nuclear Crisis
Quote:

So, basically, three units are in meltdown condition. One is definitely worse than the other two. But, you know, "meltdown" and "worse" are relative terms. It’s very bad in three units. The fire in the fourth unit is also a serious concern.
...
It’s very difficult to determine that right now. You have to remember, with the explosions, most of the radiation detectors have been destroyed.
...
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: What are the efforts right now to cool down the plant? Why do these explosions keep happening? This is the third explosion now.

ARNIE GUNDERSEN: Yeah, that’s a great question. They will continue. I think, given that the site has been evacuated—you know, those 800 people were not sitting around playing poker. They were all doing critical, critical things. So, if you’ve let 800 people go and are trying to do the work of 800 with 60 people, clearly critical items are not going to be accomplished.
...
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: How similar is the plant in Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi plant, to many of the nuclear power plants in this country?

ARNIE GUNDERSEN: It’s almost identical to 23 of them. For instance, the Quad Cities and the Dresden plant in Illinois, the Vermont Yankee plant here in Vermont, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Pilgrim in Massachusetts—it’s almost identical to those and more than a dozen others.

You know, this reactor design, this containment design, has been questioned since 1972. The NRC in 1972 said we never should have licensed this containment. And in 1985, the NRC said they thought it was about a 90 percent chance that in a severe accident this containment would fail.
...
GOV. PETER SHUMLIN: Well, you know, I spoke with the President about that directly a couple of weeks ago at the White House. And I said, "You know, Mr. President, if you want to convince us that new nuclear has a future in America, you have to help us deal with old nuclear in a more rational way."

And, you know, we have a number of challenges right here in Vermont that should be an example for the country. The first is, our plant keeps leaking. It’s leaking tritium, other nuclear substances, into the ground right here in Vermont, in a state wherein—a Green Mountain state—there is nothing that Vermonters cherish more than our quality of life and protecting our natural resources. We are the environment state. So, that’s a challenge.

Second, the NRC currently is allowing the nuclear plant operators to determine, once a plant is shut down, whether they decommission it, which is what they all promised to do when they built them 40, 50 years ago, or whether they put it in something called "safe store," which allows the carcass of the plant to sit in its location for up to 60 years, because the companies who own them have been unwilling to fill up the decommissioning funds to take them away.




Running nuclear power in a safe manner is inconsistent with the mechanics of capitalism.

Here's a good example.


--------------------
"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.
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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14129097 - 03/16/11 04:09 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

> Running nuclear power in a safe manner is inconsistent with the mechanics of capitalism.

Running fission based nuclear power in a safe manner is inconsistent with the laws of physics and biology.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14129451 - 03/16/11 07:59 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Everything has risk.  Coal power plants and hydro-electric has killed far, far, far more people than nuclear power ever has. 

Coal power plant pollution may cause as many as 24,000 deaths per year. 

Here's a nice graphic I found when looking for deaths associated with hydro power:

Energy Source              Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average              161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China                      278
Coal – USA                        15
Oil                                36  (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas                        4  (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass                    12
Peat                              12
Solar (rooftop)                    0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind                                0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro                              0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao)    1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear                            0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

So how again is it impossible that nuclear fission can be used safely?  The media most certainly lies... but the numbers don't.  Or perphaps we should shut down all our power plants that have risk (coal, gas, oil, nuclear, hydro dams), live with no electricity, and enjoy the glamorous life of the Haitians.  Yeah, they faired pretty well with their last earthquake...


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14129467 - 03/16/11 08:06 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

“This Could Become Chernobyl on Steroids”: Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen on Japan’s Growing Nuclear Crisis"




What you cut and paste doesn't really get the message across.  What, specifically, are you afraid of here?  What I mean is that the article seems to be a lot of rambling that doesn't really hit on a specific point.  As for the whole "chernobyl on steroids" bit... I doubt it.  Particularly due to the design differences.  Chernobyl, by this point in the accident, was already long gone.  It blew instantly due to a positive void coefficient of reactivity.  These reactors are shut down.  It is hard to get specific, though, because at this point in time, there is little accurate information.  Mostly media spin and hype.  It's going to take time to get the whole story on this situation. 

As for your misguided beliefs on the safety of nuclear power, please see my above post.  Numbers don't lie.


--------------------
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.

Edited by pothead_bob (03/16/11 08:11 AM)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #14129502 - 03/16/11 08:20 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

DJ_avocado said:
So I hear over NPR, that Obama is pushing for NUclear power as an alternative energy.  This scares me on so many different levels. 

1) How the hell do we dispose of nuclear waste?  Actually....maybe the all the $ NASA used for research might come in handy when we simply launch it all into a black hole or the sun.  Ideas?

2) who is going to work at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT?  Gauran-fuckin-tee they're not being built in the hills..

3)  The thought occured to me that energy could be marketed...or sold country to country.  Even though we have no way to ship it or store it.  It's making me sense another Cold war type nuclear power race, a race for power once again. Possible?

4) We can't burn coal forever...What alternative power source would be best?  By best, I mean safest in the long run.  I don't know why the fuck we MIGHT be doing nuclear power.  WE ALREADY KNOW RADIATION KILLS!  It's shit like this that makes me think there's something wrong with the way I think, like my brain is just way too simple.

IDK.

:macdre:  WTF OBAMA?!?!





Nuclear power is so stupid. It takes 20 years to build them. Seriously. SPEND THE FUCKING MONEY ON R&D and WE WILL HAVE A BETTER ENERGY SOURCE IN 20 YEARS. FUCK NUCLEAR POWER! MAKE A NEW POWER SOURCE!

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Offlineiluvfungi
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14129515 - 03/16/11 08:24 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

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.

2) Many people.  They're completely safe.

3) No.  Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are different.  Do you think a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear weapon?

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?




No its much worse when a nuclear power plant explodes vs a nuclear bomb; dumbass.
Nuclear bombs are typically under 50 megatons and are designed to just go boom and have local radiation, not radioactive fallout that goes around the fucking world and takes hundreds of years to settle back into the Earth. We don't even know the long term affects of Russia's little accident, let alone Japans.

Shit the USA did so much nuclear testing that we are all slightly radioactive. Where the fuck do you thing increased cancer rates actually come from?

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: iluvfungi]
    #14129547 - 03/16/11 08:36 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

No its much worse when a nuclear power plant explodes vs a nuclear bomb; dumbass.
Nuclear bombs are typically under 50 megatons and are designed to just go boom and have local radiation, not radioactive fallout that goes around the fucking world and takes hundreds of years to settle back into the Earth. We don't even know the long term affects of Russia's little accident, let alone Japans.

Shit the USA did so much nuclear testing that we are all slightly radioactive. Where the fuck do you thing increased cancer rates actually come from?




Alright, let's get the facts straight.  First, nuclear power plants don't explode like a nuclear weapon.  It's completely impossible.  All you need to do is look at video footage of nuclear weapons that were tested to see that nuclear weapons are much different animals. 

Secondly, nuclear power plants are designed for safety.  Hence the good track record and hence the low release of radiation from the Japanese plants thus far. 

As for radiation sources, nuclear power/nuclear weapons aren't even a blip on the radar.  See the following figure ~ nuclear fuel cycle and fallout account for 0.4%.



--------------------
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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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: iluvfungi]
    #14129607 - 03/16/11 08:54 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

It doesn't take 20 years to build a nuclear power plant.  Your recommendation to "put money into R&D" is not well thought out.  The vendors, like GE and Westinghouse, that design nuclear power plants do put money into R&D, and nuclear reactor designs like the Mark I or new, advanced pressurized water reactor (APWR) are the things they come up with.  They come up with them because they are economically feasible.  You will never baseload with wind and solar power.  That is not feasible.  We need to use electricity now, not in 30 years from now.  Utilities, that make and sell the power, know this.  That's why they buy them.

There is plenty of money that goes into R&D for new energy sources, but until it yields something that can be deployed on a mass scale that doesn't have its own problems, we're stuck with what we already have.  And considering nuclear power's good track record, I think it's the best that we have for large-scale use.


--------------------
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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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: iluvfungi]
    #14129747 - 03/16/11 09:36 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

iluvfungi said:
Quote:

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.

2) Many people.  They're completely safe.

3) No.  Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are different.  Do you think a nuclear power plant can explode like a nuclear weapon?

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?




No its much worse when a nuclear power plant explodes vs a nuclear bomb;




Bullshit.  Prove it.

Quote:

dumbass.




That was uncalled for
Quote:


Nuclear bombs are typically under 50 megatons and are designed to just go boom and have local radiation, not radioactive fallout that goes around the fucking world and takes hundreds of years to settle back into the Earth. We don't even know the long term affects of Russia's little accident, let alone Japans.




Chernobyl stayed local.  The sun blankets the earth with far more radiation every day.  Three Mile Island resulted in nothing.  Panic panic panic, the sky she is falling.
Quote:



Shit the USA did so much nuclear testing that we are all slightly radioactive. Where the fuck do you thing increased cancer rates actually come from?




One dental X-ray causes more exposure.  Learn something.  Increased cancer rates are the result of better diagnosis and longer life spans.  There hasn't been an aboveground US nuclear test in your lifetime and none at all for almost 20 years.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14129964 - 03/16/11 10:30 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Japanese disaster doesn't deter Obama on nuclear power
New Mexico Business Weekly
Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 8:36am MDT
Related:
Environment, Energy
Enlarge Image
Japan earthquake tsunami Fukushima nuclear power plant

Officials in President Barack Obama's administration sought to reassure Americans that nuclear power is safe and that danger to the U.S. from radiation coming from Japan is minimal.

Some Congressional leaders called for an evaluation of the U.S. nuclear safety practices as workers in Japan tried to control explosions, fires and radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the wake of Friday's 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami. Some lawmakers have proposed halting new nuclear construction.

Obama has called for quicker approval and construction of nuclear power as part of his clean energy initiative to reduce reliance on technologies that emit carbon dioxide and other gases linked to climate change.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday said the president still supports nuclear power and lessons from the Japanese accident will be worked into regulations.

New Mexico's senior senator, Jeff Bingaman, released a statement this week in which he said the U.S. should learn from the situation in Japan. He said additional precautions may be necessary regarding nuclear power plants, but he did not call for a moratorium on building new ones. Bingaman is the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee.




http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2011/03/16/japanese-disaster-obama-nuclear-power.html

I'm very concerned about the events at the Daichi station in Japan and am, first and foremost, worried about their successful closure.  My secondary concern, though, is that this event will do what Three Mile Island did to the US nuclear power industry on a global scale.  The fact is that nuclear power is a clean, effective, and safe way of providing a valuable resource that we cannot possibly live without.  A nation's standard of living is directly correlated with its ability to produce abundant power.  Japan currently gets 30% of its power from nuclear, the US 20%, France 80%.  You can't replace that volume of electricity with renewables - it's not even remotely possible.  So how would we meet our energy needs without nuclear?

It's reassuring to see the administration is still on-board, but ultimately, it's going to come down to public opinion that gives nuclear the green light.  And it's frustrating to see how the media handles these situations.  They're only around when things are going badly and every time nuclear is in the news, there's a good chance you're going to hear about an event that happened over 30 years ago that ended well, considering.

The thing about the nuclear industry is that it is a tightly knit community and it really does learn from its mistakes.  Three Mile Island, for example, could never happen today because of the way that information now travels between operators.  The funny thing is that back in 1979, the same thing happened at, I wanna say, Davis-Besse (stuck open pressurizer relief valve), but the operators caught on immediately.  If that info was passed to the TMI operators, they would have known the problem before anything happened.  And furthermore, there are now detailed operating procedures available for all such events.

Well, that's my rant.  I find the most accurate information on these events can be found at www.ansnuclearcafe.org and the links found therein for anyone interested in following the crisis.


--------------------
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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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14130176 - 03/16/11 11:19 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

I agree that the hysteria mongers will likely grasp this as an opportunity to retard, yet again, real energy development in favor of idiotic green pipe dreams.


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OfflineFlowing
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14130290 - 03/16/11 11:47 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Thorium_as_a_nuclear_fuel

:sun:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth ...is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
- Abraham Lincoln

Why don't we revolt and try again to be by the people for the people supplying everyone with their necessities and focusing on progress instead of profit? If we had this energy it would be really easy to set up vertical farms to locally produce food.
Viva la thorium.  :smile:


--------------------
He believed that educated people
could make up their own minds.
His motto, as head of one of the first and
most important review panels, was great encouragement: "We're not here
to play God."


-DMT: The Spirit Molecule

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14130866 - 03/16/11 01:21 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

> So how again is it impossible that nuclear fission can be used safely?

Because it produces lethal toxic waste the will outlast mankind.  The numbers you posted are pointless.  Nobody can quantify the number of deaths caused from nuclear fission, or other forms of pollution.  What we can quantify is how long the pollution lasts in the environment.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14131069 - 03/16/11 01:43 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

I believe there is a wonderful mountain repository waiting for Harry Reid to be removed from office.  Reminds me of the Kennedy resistance to the Cape Cod wind farm.


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

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14131158 - 03/16/11 01:53 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Because it produces lethal toxic waste the will outlast mankind.




If stored safely, this is a non-issue.  The volume of that high-level radioactive waste is extremely small, btw.  If you reprocess it, it does not outlast mankind.

Quote:

The numbers you posted are pointless.  Nobody can quantify the number of deaths caused from nuclear fission, or other forms of pollution.




They are pointless to you.  Likely because they don't agree with your argument.  You most certainly can quantify the impact of energy sources on human life.  If a dam bursts and kills 300 people, how many people died as a result?  There may be more that were indirectly affected, but that doesn't mean you throw everything out the window.  You can ballpark things.  The 'deaths from coal' nubmers are based on health effects stemming from fine particulates in the atmosphere that only come from combustion and SO2/NOx emissions.  If we know how many emissions come from coal-fired plants, and how those emissions affect human life, we can put a number on that energy source's effect on life. 

Nuclear power plants don't use combustion, therefore, no fine particulate emissions.  You look to completely throw away all the facts, the numbers, the science because the spread is so mind-boggingly huge that it, without a doubt, proves the safety of nuclear power.  But without a doubt, it's going to take one enormous level of uncertainty to account for a difference in 161 vs. 0.04 deaths per TWH without conceding to the fact that coal power has more risk based on historical information. 

Quote:

What we can quantify is how long the pollution lasts in the environment.




Yes, we can, along with how many deaths each power source is expected to cause.  We can also quantify what the effects of different pollutants have on the environment. 

Your typical coal fired plant releases CO2, SO2, NOx, CO, hydrocarbons, VOCs, mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, heavy metals, uranium, and 100 times more radiation than its counterpart nuclear power plant.  This all leads to acid rain, chronic bronchitis, asthma, lung inflammation, headaches, poisoning of the food chain, and cancer.

Nuclear waste sits in a spent fuel pool for 30 years and then in dry cask storage (if not recycled) sealed off from the environment.  The times that radioactive material has been dispersed into the atmosphere amounts to less than 0.5% of radiation exposure to the public.


--------------------
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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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14131479 - 03/16/11 02:42 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

They have been talking an awful lot about radiation escape from the plants on the news and I believe the way the media presents this information is confusing.  Most of the public probably has a difficult time grasping the concept of radiation, let alone what the numbers mean.  I found the below graphic on the New York Times' website that does a good job of putting things into perspective.  It gives radiation readings around the plants over the duration of the crisis along with benchmark numbers.



--------------------
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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OfflineScavengerType
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14132027 - 03/16/11 04:17 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

I followed your link and here's the first thing I saw...

Quote:

NEW YORK TIMES March 16, 2011, 21:00 GMT                                                 
U.S. Calls Radiation ‘Extremely High’ and Urges Deeper Caution in Japan The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a significantly bleaker appraisal of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government, saying on Wednesday that the damage at one crippled reactor was much more serious than Japanese officials had acknowledged and advising to Americans to evacuate a wider area around the plant than the perimeter established by Japan.

The announcement marked a new and ominous chapter in the five-day long effort by Japanese engineers to bring four side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and tsunami last Friday. It also suggested a serious split between Washington and Tokyo, after American officials concluded that the Japanese warnings were insufficient, and that, deliberately or not, they had understated the potential threat of what is taking place inside the nuclear facility.




That's the US NRC is claiming that the Japanese government is understating the level of contamination. Most of the numbers that you see in the media are received from the government through the plants. As Ernie Gunderson had said in the earlier post from his experience the numbers released are always much lower than the actual numbers and we can expect them to move upward. If you thought the quotes were inaccurate why didn't you listen to the whole interview?

In reality the people who are going to have to bear the costs for this incident are the Japanese tax payer and the citizens themselves who will probibly not be compensated by the companies for exposure, just like in any other country. The government should not give nuclear these kinds of subsidies, if nuclear plants need the kind of insurance the government offers for them they should have to pay for it. Further as Gov. Peter Shumlin pointed out in the interview I cited it is pertinent for the government to expect a decommissioning fund to be populated soon after the initiation of the plant, not just to prepare for a unpredicted early need for decommissioning but also just to make sure the money is actually put there at the end of the plant's life.

Do you work for a nuclear company? Why are you such a shill for the nuclear industry?


--------------------
"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.
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14132603 - 03/16/11 06:09 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

That's the US NRC is claiming that the Japanese government is understating the level of contamination. Most of the numbers that you see in the media are received from the government through the plants. As Ernie Gunderson had said in the earlier post from his experience the numbers released are always much lower than the actual numbers and we can expect them to move upward. If you thought the quotes were inaccurate why didn't you listen to the whole interview?




I never said this was not a serious incident.  Who is Ernie Gunderson and what are his credentials to be making those claims?  If I thought what quotes were inaccurate?  Did I say that somewhere?

Quote:

In reality the people who are going to have to bear the costs for this incident are the Japanese tax payer and the citizens themselves who will probibly not be compensated by the companies for exposure, just like in any other country. The government should not give nuclear these kinds of subsidies, if nuclear plants need the kind of insurance the government offers for them they should have to pay for it. Further as Gov. Peter Shumlin pointed out in the interview I cited it is pertinent for the government to expect a decommissioning fund to be populated soon after the initiation of the plant, not just to prepare for a unpredicted early need for decommissioning but also just to make sure the money is actually put there at the end of the plant's life.




What citizens were exposed? 

What subsidies?

Plants are already required to handle their decomissioning costs.

Quote:

Decommissioning Funds

Each nuclear power plant licensee must report to the NRC every two years the status of its decommissioning funding for each reactor or share of a reactor that it owns. The report must estimate the minimum amount needed for decommissioning by using the formulas found in 10 CFR 50.75(c). Licensees may alternatively determine a site-specific funding estimate, provided that amount is greater than the generic decommissioning estimate. Although there are many factors that affect reactor decommissioning costs, generally they range from $300 million to $400 million. Approximately 70 percent of licensees are authorized to accumulate decommissioning funds over the operating life of their plants. These owners – generally traditional, rate-regulated electric utilities or indirectly regulated generation companies – are not required today to have all of the funds needed for decommissioning. The remaining licensees must provide financial assurance through other methods such as prepaid decommissioning funds and/or a surety method or guarantee. The staff performs an independent analysis of each of these reports to determine whether licensees are providing reasonable “decommissioning funding assurance” for radiological decommissioning of the reactor at the permanent termination of operation.

Before a nuclear power plant begins operations, the licensee must establish or obtain a financial mechanism – such as a trust fund or a guarantee from its parent company – to ensure that there will be sufficient money to pay for the ultimate decommissioning of the facility.




http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html

Quote:

Do you work for a nuclear company? Why are you such a shill for the nuclear industry?




I, like all other first-world-dwelling humans, have a need for electricity.  I, like most others, have a vested interest in having it come from a clean source.  I, however, don't live in a fantasy world where I think any significant amount of it can come from solar panels, windmills, or unicorn farts.  I'm intrigued by the idea of nuclear fusion, but it's deployment is nowhere near our present day, and I don't know what problems that energy source will have when/if it does get here.  I'd pick to live 20 miles from a nuclear plant over living 20 miles from a coal plant any day.  Look at the numbers again - they don't lie.


--------------------
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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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14132732 - 03/16/11 06:32 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

> If stored safely, this is a non-issue.

There is no such thing as "stored safely" when it comes to hundreds of thousands of years, thus it is an issue... and a pretty @#$ing big one at that.

> Do you work for a nuclear company? Why are you such a shill for the nuclear industry?

Woah, we agree on something!  :smile:


> I, like all other first-world-dwelling humans, have a need for electricity.

So what?  There are better ways of producing it.  Yeah, it may cost us more money to produce electricity by safer means, but given the alternative, who really cares?

> Look at the numbers again - they don't lie.

Of course they lie. 

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OfflineSmoky McPot
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #14132780 - 03/16/11 06:40 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

There's nuclear power all over the world dude.  It seems to work pretty well as long as you dont have 8.9 earthquakes.


--------------------
[quote]
Free.Your.Mind said:
jesus btw had part alien DNA
how do you think was able to preform miracles?
i look at the bible from a scientific stand point [/quote]            :africaface:

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Smoky McPot]
    #14135227 - 03/17/11 04:07 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Please do a little research on nuclear radiation that is currently present in the USA due to nuclear testing. Regarding nuclear power plant technology, it's old. This same philosophy of using old technology is what fucks us in the end. That is why we still use the gasoline automobile; because we invested to much infrastructure into it and getting out of it is a really big economic deal.

You say nuclear power plants do not take 20 years to build. Ok, well to be cost effective they must be used for 20 years. They cost astronomically to build as well. If they put half as much money into nuclear power as they would into quantum research we'd already have a much better power source then nuclear today.

If you look historically at technology, nothing significant besides the microprocessors has primary been developed. To those of you who bash solar power, it is such in an infancy stage; just like computer chips were 50 years ago. In the 1950, when computers were developed, if those were a source of power, they wouldn't have been developed into the computers they are today using your logic.

Developing the power of the future is strictly based on technology. Even Wind Power has vast potential in the future compared to where it is today. Look at a cell phone. Even 10 years ago they were a joke compared to today. Given the rate of technological development, nuclear power is completely unnecessary, harmful, dangerous and I believe it to be the primary reason for increased cancer rates globally.

Do me a favor and look up on wikipedia regarding the nuclear radiation levels in the USA because of all the nuclear testing we did. Increases seem to directly coincide with cancer rates. Maybe because radiation that is in the ground, air, water is breathed and eaten by all of us. I just can't wait till the next nuclear power plant blows up and exposes us to even more radiation, don't you.

I think the message was LOUD AND CLEAR to the USA to NOT DEVELOP nuclear power. Why do you think the accident happened in Japan recently. The public should outcry over nuclear power plants today. Honestly I'm not sure what Obama will do, but be aware he is just another bitch who is 1000000% owed by Corporations and any fuck with lots of money.

Edited by iluvfungi (03/17/11 04:18 AM)

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14135529 - 03/17/11 07:25 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

There is no such thing as "stored safely" when it comes to hundreds of thousands of years, thus it is an issue... and a pretty @#$ing big one at that.




It's been stored safely.  There are other means of disposing of it.

Quote:

So what?  There are better ways of producing it.  Yeah, it may cost us more money to produce electricity by safer means, but given the alternative, who really cares?




And these other means are?...  It's not just about costing more money, either.

Quote:

Of course they lie. 




Prove it.


--------------------
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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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: iluvfungi]
    #14135562 - 03/17/11 07:38 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Please do a little research on nuclear radiation that is currently present in the USA due to nuclear testing. Regarding nuclear power plant technology, it's old. This same philosophy of using old technology is what fucks us in the end. That is why we still use the gasoline automobile; because we invested to much infrastructure into it and getting out of it is a really big economic deal.




I gave you the numbers.  Feel free to provide a source to back your claim up.

Quote:

You say nuclear power plants do not take 20 years to build. Ok, well to be cost effective they must be used for 20 years. They cost astronomically to build as well. If they put half as much money into nuclear power as they would into quantum research we'd already have a much better power source then nuclear today.





Why would you not want to get your money out of an investment?  How old is the hoover dam? 

Quote:

If you look historically at technology, nothing significant besides the microprocessors has primary been developed. To those of you who bash solar power, it is such in an infancy stage; just like computer chips were 50 years ago. In the 1950, when computers were developed, if those were a source of power, they wouldn't have been developed into the computers they are today using your logic.




The problem with solar is the amount of land mass it takes up and the fact that you can't base-load off of it.  Perhaps if we can set up a solar farm in space and beam the electricity back to earth, it will be a viable source of mass energy production.  I think fusion will be here before we can manage that feat.

Quote:

Developing the power of the future is strictly based on technology. Even Wind Power has vast potential in the future compared to where it is today. Look at a cell phone. Even 10 years ago they were a joke compared to today. Given the rate of technological development, nuclear power is completely unnecessary, harmful, dangerous and I believe it to be the primary reason for increased cancer rates globally.




Nuclear power produces 13-14% of the world's electricity.  It's hardly useless.  It's safer than any other viable source of energy.  That's been proven.  Find me a credible source that links nuclear power to increased cancer rates.

If you would take a radiation detector right outside of an operating nuclear power plant, it would read nothing above normal.  Coal power plants produce about 100 times more radiation than nuclear power plants.  So how is it that nuclear power increases cancer rates?

Quote:

Do me a favor and look up on wikipedia regarding the nuclear radiation levels in the USA because of all the nuclear testing we did. Increases seem to directly coincide with cancer rates. Maybe because radiation that is in the ground, air, water is breathed and eaten by all of us. I just can't wait till the next nuclear power plant blows up and exposes us to even more radiation, don't you.





How about a source to support your claim?  Once again, the radiation you receive is primarily from natural and medical sources.  Nuclear power/fallout doesn't even comprise a half of 1% of what you get.  I'm starting to think you didn't even read my last post to you.  Or perhaps it's just that you anti-nukes just disregard all the facts.

Quote:

I think the message was LOUD AND CLEAR to the USA to NOT DEVELOP nuclear power. Why do you think the accident happened in Japan recently. The public should outcry over nuclear power plants today. Honestly I'm not sure what Obama will do, but be aware he is just another bitch who is 1000000% owed by Corporations and any fuck with lots of money.




Now let's step out of the tree-hugger fantasy world for a moment.  Where are we going to get our electricity from?  Please, enlighten us all.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Smoky McPot]
    #14135577 - 03/17/11 07:43 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

There's nuclear power all over the world dude.  It seems to work pretty well as long as you dont have 8.9 earthquakes.




The key is what the design basis of the plant is.  The Fukishima plants were designed to withstand a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and a 20 foot tsunami wave.  They got hit with a 9.0 and a 30 ft wave.  The quake was 100 times more powerful than the design basis.  And actually, it wasn't the quake that damaged the plant.  It was the tsunami wave damaging the emergency diesel's fuel supply.  It was an event of biblical proportions and I think that's the real disaster over there.  It has destroyed peoples' homes, their livelihoods, and taken thousands of lives.

I think the reactors have stood up well, considering.  I also think it will be a success if they can come out of this with no significant radiological release to the public.  But it will take a time for all the facts to come out and be sorted through.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14141151 - 03/18/11 01:21 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

first off bob your post bout solar shows you don't know jack bout how solar can/is applied. So how can I take anything else you say bout renewables seriously? If your going to spout any other nonsense bout renewables feel free to provide a source.

Frankly I think this last incident proves my claim. Regulation of nuclear is not taken seriously enough by governments and they don't deal with all realistic probibilities. Yea a 9.0 quake was not likely to hit that region but over the long life of that reactor it was a remote possibility. Japan has been hit by a lot of quakes and it is not unreasonable to expect them to anticipate something like this. But they didn't, and the design failures of the plant contributed to the problem. Action on these design failures were halted by the industry because it wouyld have meant a loss of profits and closure of plants. Why should we wait till some other danger we didn't know about confronts us? Every time there is a nuclear desaster it happens for some new reason we couldn't anticipate. I can't tell you why too much bout what will happen to make plants go wrong in the future but unless a more stringent regulations are adopted for nuclear plants in the US I will probibly be radiated from a plant that isn't even in my homeland.


--------------------
"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.
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14141964 - 03/18/11 07:42 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

first off bob your post bout solar shows you don't know jack bout how solar can/is applied. So how can I take anything else you say bout renewables seriously? If your going to spout any other nonsense bout renewables feel free to provide a source.




Posted by me, 1 year 24 days ago in this thread...

Quote:

What and wind and solar power aren't subsidized?  You complain that nuclear power is expensive and then you offer wind and solar power as a cost-effective means of solving the energy crisis?  Here's a figure from the Wall Street Journal showing pre-subsidized costs of various forms of energy.  Look at the cost of wind and solar compared to coal and gas.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126290539750320495.html

And then what about the footprint of these solar and wind farms?  The newely built Nevada Solar One 64 MW plant covers 400 acres.  Compare this to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant near New York City, which generates just over 2 GW of power and sits on 239 acres of land.  For a solar field to generate as much as Indian Point, it would need to cover 12,500 acres.  That's 52 times more land covered.  What kind of environmental impact do you think that would have?  And what about the impact of manufacturing all those solar panels.  And that's just to replace one nuclear power plant.  Let's calculate the amount of land coverage required to generate 20% of the US power requirements.  In 2007, the US generated 4,119 billion kwh of power (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states#tab1).  20% is 823 billion kwh.  In 2007, Nevada Solar One was estimated to generate 134 million kwh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One).  You would need 6,141 Nevada Solar Ones to generate 20% of the US power demands.  That's 2,460,000 acres of land coverage.  Then there's the issue of cleaning and maintaining all those solar panels.

I think the take-home message is that we need to get power from somewhere.  All sources have their pros and cons.  Nuclear power should remain a viable option and should account for a significant portion of our power generation as it currently is.




I give numbers and facts and you give words... lots and lots of words.  I also give sources.  If you think wind/solar can be deployed in a manner to base load off of, then by all means, the stage is all yours.  Prove it.  The bottom line question, in my mind, is where is all the electricity going to come from that powers our high standard of living?

Perhaps we can harness the energy in all the hot gas produced by the anti-nuke, "environmentalist" crowd?

Quote:

Frankly I think this last incident proves my claim. Regulation of nuclear is not taken seriously enough by governments and they don't deal with all realistic probibilities. Yea a 9.0 quake was not likely to hit that region but over the long life of that reactor it was a remote possibility.




And the reactor safeguards may have held up well to the extreme stress they've been put under.  We won't know the full extent of what has happened until the crisis is over.  Reactor safeguards are constantly updated.  You think the US industry hasn't made significant changes since Three Mile Island?  The industry learns from its mistakes and takes them seriously.  You choose to ignore that because it doesn't jibe with your position.

Quote:

Japan has been hit by a lot of quakes and it is not unreasonable to expect them to anticipate something like this. But they didn't, and the design failures of the plant contributed to the problem.




This is the biggest earthquake ever known to hit Japan.  Not just another run-of-the-mill earthquake.  It has been confirmed to have killed more than 6,500 people now.

Quote:

Action on these design failures were halted by the industry because it wouyld have meant a loss of profits and closure of plants. Why should we wait till some other danger we didn't know about confronts us? Every time there is a nuclear desaster it happens for some new reason we couldn't anticipate. I can't tell you why too much bout what will happen to make plants go wrong in the future but unless a more stringent regulations are adopted for nuclear plants in the US I will probibly be radiated from a plant that isn't even in my homeland.




Your mind is obviously clouded.  Why do you fail to look at the safety record of nuclear power?  Why do you throw it all under the bus?  Nuclear power regulations are amongst the most stringent in the power industry.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14142062 - 03/18/11 08:18 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Keep in mind this is a 41 year old reactor that was hit by a magnitude 9 earthquake, a 20ft sea swell followed up by a hydrogen explosion and the core is still relatively intact. I understand the worries concerning nuclear power, it should be done with the utmost safety and if things go wrong it's a terrible situation.

However I'm relatively confident in nuclear systems in the US, since 9/11 the government heavily invested in to nuclear safety. What we shouldn't do is sit idly, we should make the existing plants even safer while we phase them out with new nuclear power technology and newer, safer plants. What else can you do? Fossil fuels are depleting, we fund our own problems in the Middle East, wind and solar energy isn't feasible and our appetites as a whole are growing.

There is always probability in this world. There is at any time in a given chance anything can happen anywhere, but what are the odds. Learn from the incident but don't shelter yourself because of it. What you don't hear about is that 14 elderly hospital patients who died fleeing is more deaths then this incident likely will cause. Nuclear energy is dangerous but it's a power we have to harness until something better comes along, in my opinion.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: gzuf]
    #14142224 - 03/18/11 09:14 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

However I'm relatively confident in nuclear systems in the US, since 9/11 the government heavily invested in to nuclear safety. What we shouldn't do is sit idly, we should make the existing plants even safer while we phase them out with new nuclear power technology and newer, safer plants. What else can you do? Fossil fuels are depleting, we fund our own problems in the Middle East, wind and solar energy isn't feasible and our appetites as a whole are growing.

There is always probability in this world. There is at any time in a given chance anything can happen anywhere, but what are the odds. Learn from the incident but don't shelter yourself because of it. What you don't hear about is that 14 elderly hospital patients who died fleeing is more deaths then this incident likely will cause. Nuclear energy is dangerous but it's a power we have to harness until something better comes along, in my opinion.




Truer words have not been spoken.  The earthquake killed 6,500 people - that is the real disaster there.  There is a lot less control in this world than many would like to admit.

I'd also like to emphasize:

Quote:

What we shouldn't do is sit idly, we should make the existing plants even safer while we phase them out with new nuclear power technology and newer, safer plants.




This is exactly what we need to be doing after this crisis is sorted out.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14148372 - 03/19/11 01:21 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

You can't base load an entire country off one power source at all. I never made this claim I just said that your claim that lack of space was the limiter on solar power was blatantly false. This is not the dominant problem with solar power by far.

all I hear from you is excuses and denial. sometimes a big earthquake will hit an earthquake prone zone, with things that have such long life and more disastrous consequences more precautions should be taken. However they are not.


--------------------
"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.
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14148516 - 03/19/11 01:51 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

From what I have seen regarding the current Japanese nuclear problems the containment vessels have held the core but the stored spent fuel is causing serious problems.  Can anyone say Yucca Mountain?  Who put the kibosh on Yucca Mountain?  Harry Reid.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14151131 - 03/19/11 10:27 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

I always wondered why we couldn't shoot that thing in the sun in the futur . instead of putting it in our water and the ice of the north pole.

To be honest there is only 1 nuclear power plant in quebec and i am opposed to it since the norms are simply fucking disgusting in canada. our country is a prostitute to the united states and the worse of it is for french canadians, who bear the brunt of the relentless attacks of not only the whole continents. but also of france, when pro-american president sarkozy attacks the quebec independance movement. fact is only france truly supported the movement.

Cold hard fucking fact: we can build nuclear plants in 500 years. Nuclear energy is a domain where the regulations should be stricter than required for moral purpose, have any of us ever listened to fucking 5000 years of wisdom. this is the time to apply the wisdom of our ancestors, now that we have the power to destroy so much.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14152834 - 03/20/11 09:05 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

The US base-loads of nuclear right now.  France gets some 80% of their electrical supply from nuclear.  Do you know what you're talking about? 

Quote:

I just said that your claim that lack of space was the limiter on solar power was blatantly false




You say a lot of things.  The problem is you never back your claims up.  2.5 million acres of land for 20% of our electrical generation isn't a problem to you? 


Quote:

This is not the dominant problem with solar power by far.




Of course not, it has many problems.  I ask, for the 5th or 6th time, where should we get the electricity from?


Quote:

all I hear from you is excuses and denial. sometimes a big earthquake will hit an earthquake prone zone, with things that have such long life and more disastrous consequences more precautions should be taken. However they are not.




All I get out of you is hot gas.  You talk a lot, never back your claims, never provide sources.  All you do is complain without providing real solutions.  Where does that get us besides in the dark? 

There are many precautions involved with nuclear power and I have already said that there should be lessons learned and implemented from this crisis.  What's more is that every person in the nuclear power industry that I've seen interviewed has said the same thing.  You foolishly won't accept them until there is zero risk, though.  My point, which you don't seem to be listening to, is that there is risk in EVERYTHING.  You can't control everything - you can hardly control anything.  And the risks of using coal, natural gas, and even hydro power is higher than the risk of nuclear power.  Higher by orders of magnitude in some cases. 

If you have another solution, please, we're all listening.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14152928 - 03/20/11 09:38 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

> You talk a lot, never back your claims, never provide sources.

Speaking of blowing hot air, how about you back up your silly claim, such as the one below:

> And the risks of using coal, natural gas, and even hydro power is higher than the risk of nuclear power.  Higher by orders of magnitude in some cases.


--------------------
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14153087 - 03/20/11 10:35 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Already did...

Quote:

Energy Source              Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average              161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China                      278
Coal – USA                        15
Oil                                36  (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas                        4  (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass                    12
Peat                              12
Solar (rooftop)                    0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind                                0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro                              0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao)    1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear                            0.04 (5.9% of world energy)




I asked you to prove otherwise before.  You didn't.  No one has yet.  If you believe otherwise, please provide a valid argument proving your belief.


--------------------
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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14153342 - 03/20/11 11:35 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

OK I misunderstood. But actually you can base-load off of those electrical supply. I know for a fact, I was watching a TED talks with someone speaking about power and he had said that even though the wind only blows at one station intermittently, on average over the whole grid there was a constant supply from wind. Same principle with solar. So yes you can't achieve base-load of the full production capacity, but there is a lower limit that you can base-load from.


--------------------
"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.
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14153369 - 03/20/11 11:40 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

I'm pretty sure he means that he wants to know where you got the numbers from.


--------------------
"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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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: ScavengerType]
    #14153426 - 03/20/11 11:53 AM (13 years, 2 months ago)

The source was also provided in the post I made.  Here it is again, though.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html


--------------------
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.
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Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14154793 - 03/20/11 04:39 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

> Already did...

Bunch of BS, as I stated before.  If you want to wallow in ignorance, feel free.  Those "death rate" numbers are meaningless.  Nobody can accurately quantify the death rate of various pollutants in the environment over a long period of time.  Beyond that, you are confusing "risk" with "death".  These are not the same.

> I'm pretty sure he means that he wants to know where you got the numbers from.

Not really.  Those numbers are meaningless.  If they are what he is using to back up his claim that hydro power is orders of magnitude more risky than nuclear power, then his claim is meaningless as well.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14155613 - 03/20/11 07:26 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Bunch of BS, as I stated before.  If you want to wallow in ignorance, feel free.  Those "death rate" numbers are meaningless. 




If those numbers are meaningless, PROVE IT.  You didn't before and you didn't again.  Just more hot gas and no sources.  The number of deaths obviously speaks for the safety record of a power source.  Anybody thinking different is just ignorant or in denial of their blatantly false beliefs. 

Quote:

Nobody can accurately quantify the death rate of various pollutants in the environment over a long period of time.  Beyond that, you are confusing "risk" with "death".  These are not the same.




Where, oh, where did you get the foolish idea that you can't observe the effects of something on another thing and make reasonable estimations to within a given uncertainty?  The effect on quality of life of environmental pollutants in the environment can most certainly be quantified.  It is not an exact science.  There is no such thing.  But we can make estimations to within an uncertainty.  This is how science works. 

Most simply put, scientists can take measures of air pollution levels in different locations and then find a correlation between mortality rates (particularly ones relating to the lungs and heart) and air pollution levels.  Case and point:

Quote:

Air pollution and survival within the Washington University-EPRI veterans cohort: Risks based on modeled estimates of ambient levels of hazardous and criteria air pollutants

Abstract: For this paper, we considered relationships between mortality, vehicular traffic density, and ambient levels of 12 hazardous air pollutants, elemental carbon (EC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO 2), and sulfate (SO42-). These pollutant species were selected as markers for specific types of emission sources, including vehicular traffic, coal combustion, smelters, and metal-working industries. Pollutant exposures were estimated using emissions inventories and atmospheric dispersion models. We analyzed associations between county ambient levels of these pollutants and survival patterns among approximately 70,000 U.S. male veterans by mortality period (1976-2001 and subsets), type of exposure model, and traffic density level. We found significant associations between all-cause mortality and traffic-related air quality indicators and with traffic density per se, with stronger associations for benzene, formaldehyde, diesel particulate, NOx, and EC. The maximum effect on mortality for all cohort subjects during the 26-yr follow-up period is approximately 10%, but most of the pollution-related deaths in this cohort occurred in the higher-traffic counties, where excess risks approach 20%. However, mortality associations with diesel particulates are similar in high- and low-traffic counties. Sensitivity analyses show risks decreasing slightly over time and minor differences between linear and logarithmic exposure models. Two-pollutant models show stronger risks associated with specific traffic-related pollutants than with traffic density per se, although traffic density retains statistical significance in most cases. We conclude that tailpipe emissions of both gases and particles are among the most significant and robust predictors of mortality in this cohort and that most of those associations have weakened over time. However, we have not evaluated possible contributions from road dust or traffic noise. Stratification by traffic density level suggests the presence of response thresholds, especially for gaseous pollutants. Because of their wider distributions of estimated exposures, risk estimates based on emissions and atmospheric dispersion models tend to be more precise than those based on local ambient measurements. Copyright 2009 Air & Waste Management Association. (81 refs.)





Those air pollutants they were looking for are the same ones released from coal power.  I can't post the whole paper due to copyright reasons, but I can PM you it if you want to read it.  So how about instead of saying over and over, "the numbers are meaningless, nobody can quantify that", you actually attack scientists' actual methodology and back your claims up with credible sources.  A peer-reviewed paper that demonstrates nuclear power being more risky and/or causing more premature death than coal power would be much appreciated.

Quote:

Not really.  Those numbers are meaningless.




Prove it. If the science that is used to make the correlation between air pollution and premature death is so faulty, then you should have no problem finding many credible journal articles that come to that very conclusion.

If probabilistic risk assessment is, in your mind, meaningless and doesn't work, then why are insurance companies profitable? 

Quote:

If they are what he is using to back up his claim that hydro power is orders of magnitude more risky than nuclear power, then his claim is meaningless as well.




You need to re-read my post.  I didn't say that hydro, specifically, was orders of magnitude more riskier than nuclear, but guarentee you that dam breaks caused orders of magnitude more deaths than the nuclear power cycle. 

Quote:

The Banqiao Dam failure in Southern China directly resulted in the deaths of 26,000 people, and another 145,000 from epidemics.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity

My oh my, imagine if a natural disaster resulted in a dam break.  It could kill tens of thousands of people or more.  We better start dismantling all our hydro-generation facilities in this country.

Plus, there is a limited capacity for hydro-electric.  You can only dam up a river so many times and we only have a limited number of larger rivers.  Don't forget the drawbacks of eco-damage, land loss, and relocation requirements.

I'm not saying we shouldn't get electricity from hydro.  It's a good source of power.  We also need power from coal and natural gas (albeit hopefully we stop increasing electricity capacity from coal power because it truly is dangerous).  The hating on nuclear power is completely unfounded and illogical, though.  People gotta realize there's risk in all of it and somebody's gotta expose the obvious.

edit:  btw, I'll be away on business this week and probably won't be posting for that time, so take your time in gathering sources.


--------------------
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.
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Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

Edited by pothead_bob (03/20/11 07:31 PM)

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14155717 - 03/20/11 07:47 PM (13 years, 2 months ago)

pwoove it, pwoove it, pwoove it... :rolleyes:

> It could kill tens of thousands of people or more.

You are still equating death to risk.  These are not the same thing.

> Where, oh, where did you get the foolish idea that you can't observe the effects of something on another thing and make reasonable estimations to within a given uncertainty?

We aren't talking about "something" in general, we are talking about "something" very specific.  Don't try to generalize your way out of the hole you have dug.  And speaking of uncertainty, that is exactly what I claimed... the numbers you are providing are meaningless because of their uncertainty.

As an example, with the risks associate with nuclear power, it is unfair to ignore the events that have occurred since the mid-1940s that have increased the levels of radiation across the planet.  How do you quantify the risk this increase in radiation has created?  Not only with respect to death, but also birth defects, genetic mutations, cancer, a lower standard of living due to increases in medical costs, etc.  It is impossible.  Even worse, how do you separate the causes of the above... did their increases come from radiation, or from other pollutants?  You are playing with numbers as if they are an absolute, yet claiming that they are valid because of their uncertainty.  Again, the numbers are BS, and so is your long winded claim to the contrary.

> edit:  btw, I'll be away on business this week and probably won't be posting for that time, so take your time in gathering sources.

I don't need a source to show the fallacy of your claim.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14162713 - 03/22/11 01:10 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

well, it doesn't look like obama is going to meet up with 'better than bush standards'


he came close, and I know obama can out ball bush, but really, this is pretty much what people sum obama up as these days:


http://www.freep.com/article/20110322/BLOG24/110322002/Mike-Thompson-Obama-leaves-town?odyssey=mod|newswell|img|Life|p


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14162946 - 03/22/11 02:42 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> If stored safely, this is a non-issue.

There is no such thing as "stored safely" when it comes to hundreds of thousands of years, thus it is an issue... and a pretty @#$ing big one at that.
 





What are your main objections to nuclear power, Seuss?

Am I correct in understanding it to be plant accidents and waste storage?  One thing I don't understand is why the waste storage is such a big deal.  The earth is big.  Is it not feasible to put the waste, say, in a mine with impermeable rock strata below it and bury the waste witha  density such that it it doesn't require cooling and still be practical as a storage solution?  This seems too easy given the efforts toward disposal and the controversy over it, but I don't understand why this can't be done unless the density would have to be so low that it would be monumentally expensive. 

Do you oppose nuclear power generations of essentially all types for mainstream civilian power generation?  Ship propulsion, military use?  Nuclear weapon production?

Also:  I'm curious what you think about fusion.  Despite teh talk about it, its my understanding that there's no known way we even have a chance of implementing it for power generation barring unforseen advancements in knowledge.  Is this correct?  Pretty much a pipedream unless some new science comes along?  My understanding of the current investigations are that they are pretty muc incremental advances in knowledge that remain miles away from a practical solution.

(These questions are for anyone, I just addressed them to Seuss because I'm curious as to his position on this given his education/background)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: johnm214]
    #14163161 - 03/22/11 05:08 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> Am I correct in understanding it to be plant accidents and waste storage?

Much less about plant accidents.  Modern nuclear power plants are very safe, except in extreme circumstances (such as what we see in Japan).

My big gripe is how people ignore the massive dangers of nuclear waste.  It is a huge problem that has been well hidden from the public eye.  I'm not only talking about the waste produced in a power plant, but also the waste produced when mining and manufacturing nuclear fuel. 

It is the disconnect that people have towards nuclear power that annoys me.  As an example, people are up in arms about how mining coal destroys the environment, but nobody even things about uranium mines.  Most people that support nuclear power never even thing about where the nuclear fuel comes from.

The nuclear plants have done an excellent job of hiding the nuclear waste produced during fission.  They have pools filled with years and years worth of spent fuel rods waiting for a long term storage solution.  The waste has to be transported, processed (a very dirty job that produces even more waste), transported again, and then stored for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years before it is safe.

The final nail in the coffin is the limited age that a nuclear reactor can operate.  After fifty years, plus or minus a decade, the reactor can no longer be operated.  Great, so the nuclear waste can be stored forever, theoretically, in some safe location, but how do we safely store an entire nuclear reactor, the size of a large building?

If people want nuclear power, then so bit it... but they should be told the entire truth so that they can make an informed decision.  Instead, you have idiots parroting how safe nuclear power is compared to coal or hydro, pointing to meaningless numbers as if they have significance, while pretending that they are experts in the field.  Before switching to electrical engineering, I was in the nuclear engineering program.  I'm no expert, but once I saw the reality of the industry and what is being hidden, I switched majors.  I've actually operated an experimental nuclear reactor (under supervision), something I doubt the "expert" proponents of nuclear power that have been arguing against me have done.

> Do you oppose nuclear power generations of essentially all types for mainstream civilian power generation?  Ship propulsion, military use?  Nuclear weapon production?

I pretty much oppose all civilian use of nuclear power.  I also oppose nuclear weapon production, though I support continued research (computer simulations) to maintain a lead in the field.  I do not oppose the use of nuclear power for ship propulsion by the military.  (These reactors use highly enriched uranium and produce very little waste compared to a civilian nuclear power plant.)

> Also:  I'm curious what you think about fusion.  Despite teh talk about it, its my understanding that there's no known way we even have a chance of implementing it for power generation barring unforseen advancements in knowledge.

I support fusion research.  We continue to make advances in the field, and I honestly believe that this is our best chance of providing energy for an energy hungry population without resorting to war over lack of resources.  I tend to be a bit :tinfoil: on the subject... because fusion power, in theory, is cheap and limitless, there is no desire by anybody associated with the energy industry to see it advance.  The Japanese have put a lot of money and research into fusion power.  After their current problems with fission power, and once their economy recovers, I suspect they will push forward and find a solution.  Necessity is the mother of invention.


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OfflineEdgeChaos
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: johnm214]
    #14163654 - 03/22/11 09:37 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> If stored safely, this is a non-issue.

There is no such thing as "stored safely" when it comes to hundreds of thousands of years, thus it is an issue... and a pretty @#$ing big one at that.






Simple reprocessing can reduce your "hundreds of thousands of years" to hundreds of years.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #14163691 - 03/22/11 09:47 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> If stored safely, this is a non-issue.

There is no such thing as "stored safely" when it comes to hundreds of thousands of years, thus it is an issue... and a pretty @#$ing big one at that.






Simple reprocessing can reduce your "hundreds of thousands of years" to hundreds of years.





i'd imagine. Chernobyl was quarantined for a much longer amount of time then hiroshima or nagasaki ever were. of course tolls were taken in those japanese cities leading to proof that much radiation was still toxic, causing cancer, loss of hair, etc. decades and decades after what happened.

still though, not all radiation lasts in such long forms


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #14163693 - 03/22/11 09:47 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> Simple reprocessing can reduce your "hundreds of thousands of years" to hundreds of years.

Not unless you are changing the laws of physics.  No amount of reprocessing is going to change the half-life of a radioactive element.  At best, reprocessing concentrates the really bad stuff while allowing us to use some of the leftover good stuff.  Concentrated 'really bad stuff', while taking up less space to store, has a whole slew of new problems and dangers.  In addition, reprocessing is a very dirty and dangerous endeavor, which is why there are very few reprocessing plants in the world (and many of them, at least in the US, are EPA superfund sites).

> Chernobyl was quarantined for a much longer amount of time then hiroshima or nagasaki ever were.

You are comparing apples to oranges.  The amount of nuclear material inside a nuclear bomb is insignificant compared to the amount of nuclear material inside a civilian nuclear power plant.

Oh, and Chernobyl is still quarantined.  The exclusion zone extends 30km (19 miles) from the reactor, in all directions.  The radioactive pollution within the zone is not evenly distributed.  There are hot spots, and cold spots.  Because of this, people can enter the exclusion zone for short periods of time with minimal health risks as long as they avoid the hot spots.  They are planning to start tours within the exclusion zone this year.  However, it will be well after you and I are dead before anybody can live in the exclusion zone without worrying about their health.

> still though, not all radiation lasts in such long forms

Correct.  Each radioactive element (actually, each isotope) has a different half-life.  This is the time it takes for half of the number of atoms in a sample to decay.  Some elements/isotopes decay very quickly and will be gone withing hours while others last for millions of years.  Beyond half-life, there are also different types of radiation and different energies that we have to worry about.  It isn't easy to classify for the layman.  What is safe in some circumstances is extremely dangerous in others.  Alpha particles, for example, will typically not penetrate the skin, making them fairly safe.  Unfortunately, if you inhale or swallow something that emits alpha particles, you are at a huge risk for cancer.  The large mass of the alpha particle blows apart DNA, causing massive amounts of mutation.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14163721 - 03/22/11 09:55 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> Simple reprocessing can reduce your "hundreds of thousands of years" to hundreds of years.

Not unless you are changing the laws of physics.  No amount of reprocessing is going to change the half-life of a radioactive element.  At best, reprocessing concentrates the really bad stuff while allowing us to use some of the leftover good stuff.  Concentrated 'really bad stuff', while taking up less space to store, has a whole slew of new problems and dangers.  In addition, reprocessing is a very dirty and dangerous endeavor, which is why there are very few reprocessing plants in the world (and many of them, at least in the US, are EPA superfund sites).





wow. that sucks. if you could answer my question, why WAS the fallout in places like hiroshima and nagasaki SO bad but was repopulated fairly quickly, while chernobyl in pripyat is to my knowledge still un populated and deserted.


i've heard if they could make fusion power work there would be considerably less radiation. but none the less fusion power would hold risks of it's own wouldn't it, and i'm sure many of those risks would include radiation/leaked sources, maybe not as drastic as fission power, but none the less much more drastic than coal power i'm sure, which has zero chance of meltdown and releasing rads


of course with fusion you would have an unfathomable amount of energy released


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: imachavel]
    #14163765 - 03/22/11 10:08 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> why WAS the fallout in places like hiroshima and nagasaki SO bad but was repopulated fairly quickly,

Several reasons, but the biggest is the amount of nuclear material present.  The type of pollution created by a bomb is also different than the type created by a power plant (due to differing energy levels).  The bomb only lasts for a few microseconds before it blows apart while Chernobyl, as a graphite moderated reactor, burned for weeks.  The list goes on, but the two types of events are really not very related, thus it is difficult to compare them.

> but none the less fusion power would hold risks of it's own wouldn't it, and i'm sure many of those risks would include radiation/leaked sources

There are different types of fusion reactions, but the two biggest worries are high energy neutrons and gamma rays.  Both of these can easily be contained.  When the reactor is turned off, the radiation stops.  There may be a few radioactive elements present, such as tritium, but these are not too dangerous.  A fusion reactor doesn't produce waste the way a fission reactor does.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14164321 - 03/22/11 12:17 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Regardless of any safety issues, and I do not share Seuss's negativity about fission waste (Yucca MT works for me), Fusion is the ONLY hope for mankind's energy needs.  Nothing else can come close to ensuring our energy requirements for the coming millenia.  We will either make fusion work or we will, at some point, fall back into small tribes fearing the night.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14168631 - 03/23/11 07:28 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

there is a lot of free energy to use... eolic, solar, hydroelecric.... geotermic...

IM COMPLETELY against using reactors.... they are a threat to mankind... there will always be earthquakes and disasters... and to them add the fucking reactors... cmon peolpe wake up... we must stand against them....

they are even prime military targets... NO TO NUCLEAR REACTORS

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: AIRDOG]
    #14169335 - 03/23/11 11:01 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

There is no such thing as free energy.  None of the things you cited are free.  And you might as well worry about a meteorite landing on your head as theer being a damaging earthquake on, say, the Hudson River.  Go hide somewhere, preferably where the wind turbine noise will drive you insane.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14170474 - 03/23/11 02:26 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

There is no such thing as free energy.  None of the things you cited are free.  And you might as well worry about a meteorite landing on your head as theer being a damaging earthquake on, say, the Hudson River.  Go hide somewhere, preferably where the wind turbine noise will drive you insane.




the renewable energy is free... you just have to make an initial investment in the equipmente... like in everything else... i dont know the cost of a nuclear reactor but i bet it must be fckn expensive...

Anyway, meteorites have landed on earth before you know?? the probablities of that happening anytime soon are scarce however??? but imagine it might happen... on top of all the destruction that it will create... you want to add the radiaton from the destroyed nuclear plants???

Nuke energy will just make any natural cathastrope worse.... even terrorists could attack a nuclear facility with terrible consecuences... just think about it....

why would we want to increment the risks?

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: AIRDOG]
    #14170548 - 03/23/11 02:42 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> you just have to make an initial investment in the equipmente...

Not to mention maintenance costs, replacement costs (as things wear out), operational costs, insurance costs, etc...


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14171355 - 03/23/11 04:58 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Let's not forget the enormous environmental costs from heavy metal mining.:grin:


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OfflineDarwin23
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: DJ_avocado]
    #14173315 - 03/23/11 11:07 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

DJ_avocado said:
1) How the hell do we dispose of nuclear waste?  Actually....maybe the all the $ NASA used for research might come in handy when we simply launch it all into a black hole or the sun.  Ideas?





Launching it out to space would be the best possible solution, however I don't know how practical that is. Who knows, if we could use the power generated from the plants maybe it could work. I'm no physics major though. As for what we do with waste. Currently there are over 100 different specially designed facilities that store waste (in the US.)

Quote:

DJ_avocado said:
2) who is going to work at a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT?  Gauran-fuckin-tee they're not being built in the hills..





Nuclear energy on the grand scale is actually far safer than most other forms of energy. The thing is every time some plant has a meltdown (which is extremely rare) people freak out and think they're dangerous. I think a lot of people would work at one. I would as well if I couldn't find a job that had more satisfaction/better pay.





Quote:

DJ_avocado said:
3)  The thought occured to me that energy could be marketed...or sold country to country.  Even though we have no way to ship it or store it.  It's making me sense another Cold war type nuclear power race, a race for power once again. Possible?





I don't think so. If we get rid of nuclear then it's possible, but it works well enough. Selling power on a global level is almost impossible. I heard this statistic that if we covered 3% of Arizona with solar panels, we would have enough power to give power to the entire nation. The problem is that the power used in actually getting it across the country would be so significant, it wouldn't even be worth it. So basically, if you could turn a poor country like Paraguay into a power whore, by the time its power reached New York or London, there would be little or no power left. 

Quote:

DJ_avocado said:
4) We can't burn coal forever...What alternative power source would be best?  By best, I mean safest in the long run.  I don't know why the fuck we MIGHT be doing nuclear power.  WE ALREADY KNOW RADIATION KILLS!  It's shit like this that makes me think there's something wrong with the way I think, like my brain is just way too simple.





Well we can use, wind power, solar power, tidal power (all of which are infinite unless you're looking 2 billion years in the future haha) or geothermal power (basically infinite.) There are more actually, I sat here and started to list the pros and cons of each then just realized you can look it up on Google. Search "Comparing production of energy" it should eb the first one.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Darwin23]
    #14173395 - 03/23/11 11:29 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Electricity FTW. We already have three great sources for electrical power. No byproducts that need to be disposed of, no harm to the earth, year around source in one way or another.

1)Solar Power
2)Wind Power
3)Water Power

Why do we need nuclear power? What could we gain from it that another source of energy couldn't provide? It all narrows down to the greed factor of our and other countries. Like oil for example, there are various technologies out there that would give us better means of transportation other than gas that wouldn't cause damage to our already dying planet. Hydrogen cars, electric cars, shit they even have near perpetual movement engines out right now that require little fill up, based off of solar power and mechanical energy. But where would the government get all of this extra money if we weren't paying for gas? The inflated price keeps our government in the green, outside of our debts to other countries, which I'm sure we have no intention of paying. Nuclear power can be transformed into something quite a bit more powerful and less innocent. I think Obama's nuclear power curiosity is based on something more devious, disguised as something more innocent.

IMO

Sure, electrical plants are responsible for more deaths, but that is from improper handling, electricity doesn't just go haywire when it is properly controlled and stored. In the long run, nuclear energy will be of a greater detriment to the earth and it's inhabitants.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Microppose]
    #14173499 - 03/23/11 11:53 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

The alternative energies you have cited do not offer base load.

Base load is required to keep the grid operational 24/0. You can't store electricity in a practical manner in the scale required for a city. This means sources of energy must be ongoing, such as coal, gas-fired, nuclear, or hyroelectrical and geothermal. The latter two sources only occur discretely.

Before folks shill the wonders of alternative energy they must understand their limitations. Alternative energy will, at best, replace just 15% of the base load, otherwise the grid will be unreliable.

By all means set up your own home off the grid. The only thing presenting a hurdle is the cost. This is why we still burn coal. Alternative energy is not cheap energy and that means a lower economic standard of living.


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Edited by Starter (03/23/11 11:54 PM)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Microppose]
    #14180645 - 03/25/11 06:48 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Azurascender said:
there are various technologies out there that would give us better means of transportation other than gas that wouldn't cause damage to our already dying planet. Hydrogen cars, electric cars, shit they even have near perpetual movement engines out right now that require little fill up, based off of solar power and mechanical energy.




Please demonstrate your claims'' validity.  If greed is the reason for oil and there are equal, let alone better as you say, technologies to produce energy for our needs, what are they?

Hydrogen is mentioned, but you might as well say "giants pushing cars".  Where do you get the hydrogen from?  They don't sell it at the supermarket and every hydrogen scheme I've seen is basically just an energy carrier rather than energy source.

You mention electric cars.  Again, where do you get the electricity?  This is the same as the Hydrogen example: you aren't even providing energy sources, meerly carriers.  If we had electricity to replace fossil fuels with we wouldn't have this problem.

What is this near-perpetual motor based off solar and mechanical energy?  Why would we want a motor based off that anyways- we want to output mechanical energy, not use it as the energy source (unless you were thinking of having giants push the car like I mentioned).
Quote:




But where would the government get all of this extra money if we weren't paying for gas?




Huh?  What does gas have to do with government making money?
Quote:


The inflated price keeps our government in the green, outside of our debts to other countries, which I'm sure we have no intention of paying.




What debts to other countries aren't we paying?  I'm unaware of any loans the US is the debtor on that don't require pretty clear repayment terms that are met.  Name one.


Quote:

Nuclear power can be transformed into something quite a bit more powerful and less innocent. I think Obama's nuclear power curiosity is based on something more devious, disguised as something more innocent.






such as....?



Quote:

Sure, electrical plants are responsible for more deaths, but that is from improper handling, electricity doesn't just go haywire when it is properly controlled and stored. In the long run, nuclear energy will be of a greater detriment to the earth and it's inhabitants.




Nothing goes haywire when it is "properly" controlled and stored.

Also, how are you distinguishing between "electrical plants" and "nuclear"? 

You've made pretty sweeping claims: that the only reason oil is used is because of government corruption and that technologies equalling it exist for replacement.  So far as I've seen, you haven't explained this at all, and most of the energy sources you refer to aren't even that: they're storage and transportation mechanisms (hydrogen, electricity, mechanical, et cet)

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Microppose]
    #14182064 - 03/25/11 01:07 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Azurascender said:
Electricity FTW. We already have three great sources for electrical power. No byproducts that need to be disposed of, no harm to the earth, year around source in one way or another.

1)Solar Power
2)Wind Power
3)Water Power

Why do we need nuclear power? What could we gain from it that another source of energy couldn't provide? It all narrows down to the greed factor of our and other countries. Like oil for example, there are various technologies out there that would give us better means of transportation other than gas that wouldn't cause damage to our already dying planet. Hydrogen cars, electric cars, shit they even have near perpetual movement engines out right now that require little fill up, based off of solar power and mechanical energy. But where would the government get all of this extra money if we weren't paying for gas? The inflated price keeps our government in the green, outside of our debts to other countries, which I'm sure we have no intention of paying. Nuclear power can be transformed into something quite a bit more powerful and less innocent. I think Obama's nuclear power curiosity is based on something more devious, disguised as something more innocent.

IMO

Sure, electrical plants are responsible for more deaths, but that is from improper handling, electricity doesn't just go haywire when it is properly controlled and stored. In the long run, nuclear energy will be of a greater detriment to the earth and it's inhabitants.




if only we lived in this dream world.

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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14191026 - 03/27/11 08:20 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

pwoove it, pwoove it, pwoove it... :rolleyes:




How pathetic.

Quote:

We aren't talking about "something" in general, we are talking about "something" very specific.  Don't try to generalize your way out of the hole you have dug.




So in other words, you were wrong.

Quote:

And speaking of uncertainty, that is exactly what I claimed... the numbers you are providing are meaningless because of their uncertainty.




Almost any measurement that is made has uncertainty.  This is a basic fact of all science and you once again demonstrate your lack of knowledge.  The question is if the uncertainty is acceptable.  There is no way the uncertainty in those numbers is enough to account for the deaths caused between coal and nuclear which are orders of magnitude different.

Quote:

As an example, with the risks associate with nuclear power, it is unfair to ignore the events that have occurred since the mid-1940s that have increased the levels of radiation across the planet.




What radiation increase?  You mean the 0.4% increase.  Oh yeah, that's significant :rolleyes:.  And contrary to your outlandish claims, yes, medical experts actually do know the effects of radiation. 

Quote:

How do you quantify the risk this increase in radiation has created?  Not only with respect to death, but also birth defects, genetic mutations, cancer, a lower standard of living due to increases in medical costs, etc.  It is impossible.




Uh, by conducting a longitudinal study, as I told you about in the last post.

Quote:

You are playing with numbers as if they are an absolute, yet claiming that they are valid because of their uncertainty.  Again, the numbers are BS, and so is your long winded claim to the contrary.




And surprise, surprise, you don't give a source because you don't think you need one.  Well then give us all your credentials, Seuss, to be making such claims.  I don't believe that the uncertainty of those numbers can account for orders of magnitude, so prove it, dude.  You won't because you can't... because you're wrong.

Moving on to the rest of your illogical claims...

Quote:

As an example, people are up in arms about how mining coal destroys the environment, but nobody even things about uranium mines.  Most people that support nuclear power never even thing about where the nuclear fuel comes from




Wow, is all I can say.  I think people are more concerned about the pollution from coal mining due to the huge difference in the amount of it you need.  A 1000 MWe coal power plant requires 18,000,000 lbs of coal a day.  A 1000 MWe nuclear powered station requires 6.6 lbs of U-235 a day.  Perhaps it's the uncertainty in the numbers, right?  http://www.ocean.washington.edu/courses/envir215/energynumbers.pdf

Quote:

The nuclear plants have done an excellent job of hiding the nuclear waste produced during fission.  They have pools filled with years and years worth of spent fuel rods waiting for a long term storage solution.  The waste has to be transported, processed (a very dirty job that produces even more waste), transported again, and then stored for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years before it is safe.




They store it safely on sight and monitor it closely.  As opposed to blowing millions of tons of radioactive fly ash into the atmosphere.  The waste is not transported anywhere in the US. 

Quote:

The final nail in the coffin is the limited age that a nuclear reactor can operate.  After fifty years, plus or minus a decade, the reactor can no longer be operated.  Great, so the nuclear waste can be stored forever, theoretically, in some safe location, but how do we safely store an entire nuclear reactor, the size of a large building?




The crutch of a nuclear power facility is the reactor pressure vessel, which can only be used safely for so many years.  The reason the power plant is shut down is because it is not economically feasible to anneal such a huge component.  So the facility is decommissioned and disassembled.  Big whoop.  What's your point?

Quote:

f people want nuclear power, then so bit it... but they should be told the entire truth so that they can make an informed decision.  Instead, you have idiots parroting how safe nuclear power is compared to coal or hydro, pointing to meaningless numbers as if they have significance, while pretending that they are experts in the field.  Before switching to electrical engineering, I was in the nuclear engineering program.  I'm no expert, but once I saw the reality of the industry and what is being hidden, I switched majors.  I've actually operated an experimental nuclear reactor (under supervision), something I doubt the "expert" proponents of nuclear power that have been arguing against me have done.




I would think that someone who is so quick to ban someone for something as trivial as calling another poster a liar would more carefully choose their words when referring to somebody on here.  Nuclear power is safe compared to coal.  I clearly demonstrated my case.  Your 'experience' sitting in a control room for a research reactor in no way qualifies you to be making claims, without sources, on the safety of nuclear power or the nuclear power fuel cycle. 

Quote:

I pretty much oppose all civilian use of nuclear power.  I also oppose nuclear weapon production, though I support continued research (computer simulations) to maintain a lead in the field.  I do not oppose the use of nuclear power for ship propulsion by the military.  (These reactors use highly enriched uranium and produce very little waste compared to a civilian nuclear power plant.)




So you support driving a nuclear reactor all over the ocean, but not having one in one place, monitored by a large security force, with several defenses in place to prevent release to the public.  Civilian nuclear power also provides millions of homes with electricity.  How fucking illogical is your case?  How about some numbers?

Quote:

Not unless you are changing the laws of physics.  No amount of reprocessing is going to change the half-life of a radioactive element.  At best, reprocessing concentrates the really bad stuff while allowing us to use some of the leftover good stuff.  Concentrated 'really bad stuff', while taking up less space to store, has a whole slew of new problems and dangers.  In addition, reprocessing is a very dirty and dangerous endeavor, which is why there are very few reprocessing plants in the world (and many of them, at least in the US, are EPA superfund sites).




More bullshit.  Clearly, you don't know much about physics to think you need to change the laws.  The whole point of reprocessing is that you are re-using the elements that have a high half life.  Duh.  The 'really bad stuff', which is plutonium, is re-used and converted to other elements.  The elements which cannot be re-used, i.e. americium, is only 3% of the waste and is turned into a small glass cylinder which can be safely stored for hundreds of years until it is no longer dangerous.  There are no reprocessing plants in the US.  Another demonstration of your lack of knowledge on this matter.


So, Seuss, I'll ask for the 4th or 5th time... where is the energy gonna come from?


--------------------
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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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Microppose]
    #14191045 - 03/27/11 08:26 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Electricity FTW. We already have three great sources for electrical power. No byproducts that need to be disposed of, no harm to the earth, year around source in one way or another.

1)Solar Power
2)Wind Power
3)Water Power




Do any of you 'green energy' folks ever stop to wonder why private companies that specialize in making electricity... companies that have share holders and a primary interest of turning a profit... aren't using these 'free' energy sources in any significant way, but instead turn to coal and nuclear power?  If the energy source was so cheap and efficient, then why wouldn't they be using that to make even more money?

Did you read my post about the amount of solar panels needed to supply as much power as nuclear power provides in the US?  You should.


--------------------
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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InvisiblePsychoReactive
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #14202273 - 03/29/11 04:27 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
:rofl: At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.




Then I would be happy for you to go live in Chernobyl restricted zone for a few weeks, I bet you are too scared to even handle fluorescent lamps!

Obama is a NWO puppet just like all the previous pawns (I mean presidents except for JFK and Lincoln who were assasinated) and United States of Corporations (I mean America). He doesn;t give a slight fuck about the people in US, he will place 1000 nuclear plants if it smells like money for the elite.

Get ready for FEMA camps America... your government loves you.



EDIT: removed the profanity

Edited by PsychoReactive (03/29/11 05:12 AM)

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: PsychoReactive]
    #14202299 - 03/29/11 04:49 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> I bet you are too chicken shit to even handle fluorescent lamps, you douchebag!

Be nice, please.  Flaming is against the forum rules and can result in a ban from the forum.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14202332 - 03/29/11 05:12 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> I bet you are too chicken shit to even handle fluorescent lamps, you douchebag!

Be nice, please.  Flaming is against the forum rules and can result in a ban from the forum.



Done...

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OfflineEdgeChaos
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: PsychoReactive]
    #14203752 - 03/29/11 01:24 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> I bet you are too chicken shit to even handle fluorescent lamps, you douchebag!

Be nice, please.  Flaming is against the forum rules and can result in a ban from the forum.



Done...





I can handle the heat.

Using Chernobyl as an example of why the US should not use nuclear energy is a bit dishonest. It is however a great example of why we need to constantly improve our safety and regulatory prevention methods.

As already stated in this thread, the Chernobyl indecent was caused by an unsafely constructed reactor and the small number of safety features they did have were turned off for a "test". Our current technology and regulatory infrastructure are far superior than anything the Russians have ever built.

I recommend that you actually read up on the subject before making outrageous claims and making an ass of yourself.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #14208069 - 03/30/11 07:09 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> I bet you are too chicken shit to even handle fluorescent lamps, you douchebag!

Be nice, please.  Flaming is against the forum rules and can result in a ban from the forum.



Done...





I can handle the heat.

Using Chernobyl as an example of why the US should not use nuclear energy is a bit dishonest. It is however a great example of why we need to constantly improve our safety and regulatory prevention methods.

As already stated in this thread, the Chernobyl indecent was caused by an unsafely constructed reactor and the small number of safety features they did have were turned off for a "test". Our current technology and regulatory infrastructure are far superior than anything the Russians have ever built.

I recommend that you actually read up on the subject before making outrageous claims and making an ass of yourself.




The Chernobyl accident happened in what 1986?? Ages ago, since then, off course things have improved, then again, nuclear power plants are never safe, look at Japan buddy, there are radiation traces in US now. Then again Obama, doesn't give a damn, he (just like Bush) likes to fight illegal wars with Libya.

PS Russia wasn't dumb, they build Chernobyl nuclear plants in Ukraine...

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: PsychoReactive] * 1
    #14208107 - 03/30/11 07:24 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> I bet you are too chicken shit to even handle fluorescent lamps, you douchebag!

Be nice, please.  Flaming is against the forum rules and can result in a ban from the forum.



Done...





I can handle the heat.

Using Chernobyl as an example of why the US should not use nuclear energy is a bit dishonest. It is however a great example of why we need to constantly improve our safety and regulatory prevention methods.

As already stated in this thread, the Chernobyl indecent was caused by an unsafely constructed reactor and the small number of safety features they did have were turned off for a "test". Our current technology and regulatory infrastructure are far superior than anything the Russians have ever built.

I recommend that you actually read up on the subject before making outrageous claims and making an ass of yourself.




The Chernobyl accident happened in what 1986?? Ages ago, since then, off course things have improved, then again, nuclear power plants are never safe, look at Japan buddy, there are radiation traces in US now. Then again Obama, doesn't give a damn, he (just like Bush) likes to fight illegal wars with Libya.

PS Russia wasn't dumb, they build Chernobyl nuclear plants in Ukraine...





What does the fact the soviets built Chernobyl in Ukraine have to do with anything?  How does that make them not dumb?

What does the time that has passed since Chernobyl have to do with anythihng?  You say that this has something to do with it and that things have improved with time, but what argument do you have for this postiion?  This seems like a dishonest or ignorant picture your painting: what about Chernobyl would have been different had it happened twenty-five years later?

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InvisibleHeavyToilet
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: PsychoReactive]
    #14208569 - 03/30/11 09:58 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
then again, nuclear power plants are never safe, look at Japan buddy, there are radiation traces in US now.




You're using the nuclear plants in Japan to prove your point that "nuclear power plants are never safe"? If you were trying to prove that point, then wouldn't it be better to show examples of reactors that were based on current technology, and under the most strict observation & care that have had catastrophic events, rather than using some of the most poorly designed reactors (which probably had corners cut during its building), which were based on half century old technology that were built in a location notorious for earthquakes?

I think the only times a possible disaster could have happened were when using experimental reactors.

What about the hundreds of nuclear plants over the world which have been fine for years, and even decades?

Edited by HeavyToilet (03/30/11 10:10 AM)

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: HeavyToilet]
    #14209010 - 03/30/11 11:28 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

You're using the nuclear plants in Japan to prove your point that "nuclear power plants are never safe"? If you were trying to prove that point, then wouldn't it be better to show examples of reactors that were based on current technology, and under the most strict observation & care that have had catastrophic events, rather than using some of the most poorly designed reactors (which probably had corners cut during its building), which were based on half century old technology that were built in a location notorious for earthquakes?




Actually, Japan has some of the safest nuclear power plants in the world.  Their building codes, because of the seismic activity, are the best in the world.  Also, considering the majority of nuclear power plants across the world are what you consider "old technology" (not that nuclear power plant technology changes quickly), then shouldn't we be focusing on them in our discussion?

Quote:

I think the only times a possible disaster could have happened were when using experimental reactors.




And yet history proves you wrong.  Chernobyl, three mile island, greifswald, wendscale, chalk river, etc.  And these are just power plants... the list of nuclear disasters related to processing and storage of nuclear material is much larger.

Quote:

What about the hundreds of nuclear plants over the world which have been fine for years, and even decades?




It is the ones that have problems that I am worried about... along with the long term repercussions of those problems... along with the long term repercussions of dealing with the waste from those hundreds of nuclear plants.


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OfflineMelloRed
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14209116 - 03/30/11 11:44 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
Actually, Japan has some of the safest nuclear power plants in the world.  Their building codes, because of the seismic activity, are the best in the world.  Also, considering the majority of nuclear power plants across the world are what you consider "old technology" (not that nuclear power plant technology changes quickly), then shouldn't we be focusing on them in our discussion?




Not really, unless your trying to shut down all existing plants.  I guess some people want that, but I don't see it happening.  The more important discussion is where to go from here which would entail building newer, safer plants.

Quote:

Seuss said:
And yet history proves you wrong.  Chernobyl, three mile island, greifswald, wendscale, chalk river, etc.  And these are just power plants... the list of nuclear disasters related to processing and storage of nuclear material is much larger.




Outside of Chernobyl (which was gross negligence), Mayak (also some pretty irresponsible Soviet management), and possibly the Japanese problems (which required a once a millenium type natural disaster), the other problems have had almost no impact on the general public.  If this is the worst I can expect, build them down the road from me please.

Quote:

Seuss said:
It is the ones that have problems that I am worried about... along with the long term repercussions of those problems... along with the long term repercussions of dealing with the waste from those hundreds of nuclear plants.




Balance those considerations with concerns about global warming and concerns about people if cheap, plentiful power is not available.  I would argue that unless we magic fussion or some other power source quickly, nuclear power is the best out of a number of non-optimal alternatives.

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OfflineEdgeChaos
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: PsychoReactive]
    #14209680 - 03/30/11 01:45 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Quote:

psycho4ctive said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> I bet you are too chicken shit to even handle fluorescent lamps, you douchebag!

Be nice, please.  Flaming is against the forum rules and can result in a ban from the forum.



Done...





I can handle the heat.

Using Chernobyl as an example of why the US should not use nuclear energy is a bit dishonest. It is however a great example of why we need to constantly improve our safety and regulatory prevention methods.

As already stated in this thread, the Chernobyl indecent was caused by an unsafely constructed reactor and the small number of safety features they did have were turned off for a "test". Our current technology and regulatory infrastructure are far superior than anything the Russians have ever built.

I recommend that you actually read up on the subject before making outrageous claims and making an ass of yourself.




The Chernobyl accident happened in what 1986?? Ages ago, since then, off course things have improved, then again, nuclear power plants are never safe, look at Japan buddy, there are radiation traces in US now. Then again Obama, doesn't give a damn, he (just like Bush) likes to fight illegal wars with Libya.

PS Russia wasn't dumb, they build Chernobyl nuclear plants in Ukraine...





Correct me if I'm wrong but last I checked no one had suffered a lethal dose of radiation from the Fukushima plant. Also, The radiation that is measurable in the states is negligible in comparison to the amount of radiation we receive from the sun and microwaves every day.

A nuclear plant being hit with a tsunami and a huge earthquake at the same time and no casualties from radiation, so far, is a testament to the safety of these reactors. I suggest that you consider the basis of your fear.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #14209870 - 03/30/11 02:29 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but last I checked no one had suffered a lethal dose of radiation from the Fukushima plant. Also, The radiation that is measurable in the states is negligible in comparison to the amount of radiation we receive from the sun and microwaves every day.




No one's had a lethal dose and doubt anyone will.  The next part is not exactly true though.  The reporting has been awful, but here's a map trying to track the highest levels reported by prefecture:

http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4870

This is in nGy/hr.  Normal background radiation is somewhere around 30 nGy/hr.  The readings in the plants' prefecture are censored, but the prefecture to the south has reports that are as much as 70 or so times that.  That amount is not great and if it was a continual exposure for years could increase the risk of cancer.  That was an outlier and most recent readings have been half that.  Below the threshold for a noticeable increase in cancer risk.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: MelloRed]
    #14211832 - 03/30/11 08:28 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

MelloRed said:
Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but last I checked no one had suffered a lethal dose of radiation from the Fukushima plant. Also, The radiation that is measurable in the states is negligible in comparison to the amount of radiation we receive from the sun and microwaves every day.




No one's had a lethal dose and doubt anyone will.





How do you figure?

To my knowledge, the figures thrown about discuss radiation dosage and death in terms of a single exposure over a short period of time and the associated acute sickness resulting in death of healthy people.  To say that if the doses recieved over a relatively small time frame are less than the threshold for acute illness resulting in death of normal people is not to say that the doses are not lethal.  This is an important distinction in the statistics being cited that are often glossed over and give a spurious impression.



BTW:  Does anyone know why the plant released figures orders of magnitude too low?  I know after Chernobyl the soviet officials were using tools that could not measure levels anywhere near the magnitude present, and erroneously reported the figures indicated by their equipment as accurate.  This would seem to be a pretty negligent and idiotic mistake: its basic procedure to ensure the tool your using can measure what your trying to measure, and if your results are at or near the limit of the device's sensitivity, you should not trust the readings.

Did the Japanese company's officials repeat this historic blunder?  It would seem this is the easiest answer for how they could be off by so many orders of magnitude, but its a bit difficult to understand how they could be that dumb- especially given how notorious the Chernobyl response was with all its mistakes.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: johnm214]
    #14212821 - 03/31/11 12:33 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> Does anyone know why the plant released figures orders of magnitude too low?

Hard to know for certain.  My guess is that it was a mistake in translation from the people working to the people reporting with too many "men in the middle".  It is an easy mistake for somebody to state milli-xyz and somebody else to repeat micro-xyz, especially if the somebody else is not a scientist or engineer.

I also believe there is an element that does not want to admit that it is as bad as it is.  This seems to be a general failing within the nuclear community as a whole.  Perhaps it is related to constantly fighting the anti-nuclear people, but in my experience with the industry, the insiders always embrace a best case scenario while refusing to acknowledge the worst case possible.  As I said in an earlier post, it is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.  They keep talking about the iodine-134, which has a short half-life of under an hour, but it is the cesium-137 I want to know about, with a half-life of over 30 years.  Where there is one, there is usually the other.  That they haven't mentioned cesium, given that they like to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong, has me very concerned.  Hopefully I am wrong.


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OfflineMelloRed
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: johnm214]
    #14215251 - 03/31/11 02:47 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

johnm214 said:
Quote:

MelloRed said:
Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but last I checked no one had suffered a lethal dose of radiation from the Fukushima plant. Also, The radiation that is measurable in the states is negligible in comparison to the amount of radiation we receive from the sun and microwaves every day.




No one's had a lethal dose and doubt anyone will.





How do you figure?

To my knowledge, the figures thrown about discuss radiation dosage and death in terms of a single exposure over a short period of time and the associated acute sickness resulting in death of healthy people.  To say that if the doses recieved over a relatively small time frame are less than the threshold for acute illness resulting in death of normal people is not to say that the doses are not lethal.  This is an important distinction in the statistics being cited that are often glossed over and give a spurious impression.




I'm not following...how is something that won't cause death be lethal?  Here's a list of dosages within one day and effects:

    0 – 0.25 Sv (0 – 250 mSv): None
    0.25 – 1 Sv (250 – 1000 mSv): Some people feel nausea and loss of appetite; bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen damaged.
    1 – 3 Sv (1000 – 3000 mSv): Mild to severe nausea, loss of appetite, infection; more severe bone marrow, lymph node, spleen damage; recovery probable, not assured.
    3 – 6 Sv (3000 – 6000 mSv): Severe nausea, loss of appetite; hemorrhaging, infection, diarrhea, peeling of skin, sterility; death if untreated.
    6 – 10 Sv (6000 – 10000 mSv): Above symptoms plus central nervous system impairment; death expected.
    Above 10 Sv (10000 mSv): Incapacitation and death.

The highest reading I've heard of is the water leaking out which was measured at 1 Sv/hr.  Quite serious, but no one except plant workers are anywhere near it.  The workers are being limited to a total accumulated dose of 250 milli-Sv.  That plus people being evacuated around the plant almost ensure no one will die from this directly.

Quote:

johnm214 said:
BTW:  Does anyone know why the plant released figures orders of magnitude too low?  I know after Chernobyl the soviet officials were using tools that could not measure levels anywhere near the magnitude present, and erroneously reported the figures indicated by their equipment as accurate.  This would seem to be a pretty negligent and idiotic mistake: its basic procedure to ensure the tool your using can measure what your trying to measure, and if your results are at or near the limit of the device's sensitivity, you should not trust the readings.

Did the Japanese company's officials repeat this historic blunder?  It would seem this is the easiest answer for how they could be off by so many orders of magnitude, but its a bit difficult to understand how they could be that dumb- especially given how notorious the Chernobyl response was with all its mistakes.




I remember in the early days of this they reported a few figures 1000x times too high (milli-Sv instead of micro-Sv), but I haven't heard of them under-reporting levels.  I'd be curious if that's been confirmed.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: MelloRed]
    #14216217 - 03/31/11 05:55 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> I'm not following...how is something that won't cause death be lethal?

There are two forms of death... "immediate" death from radiation poisoning and "long term" death from cancer caused by exposure to abnormal amounts of radiation.  The first form is easy to quantify, but the second is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.  Take the cesium-137 that is spilling into the ocean as an example.  It has a 30 year half-life which means it is going to stick around much longer than you or I will live.  Plankton will absorb the cesium, concentrating it.  Small fish will eat the plankton, concentrating the cesium even more.  Bigger fish eat the smaller fish, etc, etc.  Eventually humans eat the bigger fish, dosing ourselves with a larger than normal amount of a very nasty carcinogen.  Before, we had to worry about mercury and other heavy metals in our fish.  Now we have to worry about radioactive carcinogens as well.


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Offlinepothead_bob
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: MelloRed]
    #14219458 - 04/01/11 08:03 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Outside of Chernobyl (which was gross negligence), Mayak (also some pretty irresponsible Soviet management), and possibly the Japanese problems (which required a once a millenium type natural disaster), the other problems have had almost no impact on the general public.  If this is the worst I can expect, build them down the road from me please.

    Quote:
    Seuss said:
    It is the ones that have problems that I am worried about... along with the long term repercussions of those problems... along with the long term repercussions of dealing with the waste from those hundreds of nuclear plants.



Balance those considerations with concerns about global warming and concerns about people if cheap, plentiful power is not available.  I would argue that unless we magic fussion or some other power source quickly, nuclear power is the best out of a number of non-optimal alternatives.




That is the key consideration in my mind.  And no anti-nuke ever does that - put things into perspective.  To the question of "where will all the electricity come from?" is the sound of wind blowing through the trees.

The media only has a vested interest in selling fear to the public.  The fact that over 10,000 people were killed because of the earthquake takes the back burner.

As I said before, it's too early to know what the specific environmental/societal impacts of this accident will be as all the information is not known yet and because the crisis is not yet over.  But I do know that it will result in a thorough review of safety procedures by the entire nuclear industry, just as TMI changed the face of the industry in the decade after.

But the vendors aren't stupid, and they weren't waiting for this event to start thinking outside the box... they've been very proactive.  Westinghouse, for example, has already implemented passive safety features into their AP1000 design.  This means that core cooling can be accomplished without the use of external or on-site diesel power.  Twelve of these reactors have already been ordered and are under construction in China.  The design is based off of their previous AP600 design, approved over a decade ago by NRC in 1999, which took 1,400 man-years to design.  No other power technology goes through such a thorough, scrutinized design process.  Other vendors are no different. The goal is to develop the safest, most economical design to sell to the utilities.


--------------------
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.
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Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: pothead_bob]
    #14219870 - 04/01/11 10:08 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> To the question of "where will all the electricity come from?" is the sound of wind blowing through the trees.

How about "use less electricity"... The earth cannot support the current population boom of mankind.  Where the electricity comes from is the least of our problems.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14219973 - 04/01/11 10:36 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

How about "use less electricity"... The earth cannot support the current population boom of mankind.  Where the electricity comes from is the least of our problems.




It's hardly the least of our problems.  Unless you can reduce the electricity we use by about 80%, you will still need to be heavily dependent on fossil-fuels if you don't get power from nuclear. This number is, of course, completely unreasonable to expect considering that the world population keeps growing and that emerging nations desire a lifestyle commensurate to those of first-world countries.  A society's standard of living is well correlated with their availability of cheap, abundant electricity that provides essential tasks ranging from powering hospitals to providing clean drinking water.  Telling third-world countries they aren't allowed those luxuries is a bit tyrannical, don't you think?  I'd just rather they power them with a clean, safe energy as opposed to a dirty, polluting one.

When I was asking "where will the electricity come from?", I was looking for a practical answer.  Besides, this thread is about the validity of nuclear power as an energy source.  Whether the earth is overpopulated or not isn't really relevant.


--------------------
No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
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Speak well of your enemies.  After all, you made them.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14220147 - 04/01/11 11:11 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

A wholesale decrease in energy usage will cause vast and pervasive misery.  Everything we have is a result of harnessing external energy sources.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14220305 - 04/01/11 11:40 AM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> To the question of "where will all the electricity come from?" is the sound of wind blowing through the trees.

How about "use less electricity"... The earth cannot support the  Where the electricity comes from is the least of our problems.





This is the worst possible solution. Electricity is directly proportional to human kinds ability to survive. The only way we will make it through the "current population boom of mankind" is to harness every possible energy resource we have, including nuclear power, to produce enough to support life. If at the same time we want to stop using oil and coal then we are only left with one real choice because we all know the "alternative" sources don't supply us with enough.

Just think, if we had enough energy we could grow food under lights in buildings. Food crisis solved.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14220556 - 04/01/11 12:30 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

That's something I've been increasingly entertaining as well Seuss.  Looking at the numbers: it doesn't seem like there's going to be the kinds of answers to where our food, energy, material goods, and so forth will come from that we've traditionally relied upon.  Additionally, the environmental problems are almost all proportional to population, with some not even being a factor without a large population.

Unfortunately, the use of third party enforcement mechanisms is a bit totalitarian, and has a sordid history evoking memories of eugenics and authoritarian states.

The more I think about it though, the more I think reducing population might be a worthwhile goal for national security and standard of living concerns.

One thing I wonder, however, is how the economy would be hurt by this.  I suppose as a national movement it would have somewhat of a blunted impact as it will almost certainly not be a realistic possibility in much of the world.

There's also the problem of the entitlement ponzi schemes the US and other countries continue to have.  Some jerkoff congressman was recently giving an interview where he spoke of his eight children as "doing his part" to ensure social security's solvency.  These kinds of programs that use one class's money to pay for another's could be highly problematic.


Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> To the question of "where will all the electricity come from?" is the sound of wind blowing through the trees.

How about "use less electricity"... The earth cannot support the  Where the electricity comes from is the least of our problems.





This is the worst possible solution. Electricity is directly proportional to human kinds ability to survive. The only way we will make it through the "current population boom of mankind" is to harness every possible energy resource we have, including nuclear power, to produce enough to support life. If at the same time we want to stop using oil and coal then we are only left with one real choice because we all know the "alternative" sources don't supply us with enough.

Just think, if we had enough energy we could grow food under lights in buildings. Food crisis solved.




What about reducing population?  Then the energy and material needs aren't so problematic.

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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: johnm214]
    #14221100 - 04/01/11 01:54 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

What about reducing population?  Then the energy and material needs aren't so problematic.




It's a valid point, but that scenario (as a means to reduce energy consumption) is an idealized one.  The practicality is a major issue.  Furthermore, it's a problem that would take generations to solve, whereas we need electricity right now.  It's also not in keeping with the topic of this thread.  However, just for shits and giggles, even if we did reduce population (and how much is reasonable here? by 15%), our electricity consumption would still be at something like 80%.  Considering that the world's 2007 total energy consumption was 18.8 trillion kwh, even if you cut consumption in half (an unreasonable number), you'd still need to produce over 9 trillion kwh per year. 

A 1000 MWe plant proudces 1 000 000 kw * 365 day/year * 24 hr/day = 7.9 billion kwh/year, assuming 90% availability.  9 trillion / 7.9 billion = 1,142 1000 MWe power plants to supply that amount of electricity.  That's still a shitload of coal plants if you're going to get that power from coal.  It's an unreasonably large amount of power to get from renewables.  Hydroelectric is the only renewable power source that you can get cheap, abundant, effective electricity from and that has it's own issues.  My point is that even in such an idealized scenario is still one that you'd want nuclear power involved in.

edit:  To better put wind power into perspective, a big, 1 MW windmill with a capacity factor of 35% (the wind isn't always blowing) will produce 3.07 million kwh a year.  9 trillion / 3.07 million = 2.9 billion windmills!  Dear lord, save the birds.


--------------------
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.

Edited by pothead_bob (04/01/11 02:15 PM)

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Offlinesmokin427
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: EdgeChaos]
    #14221566 - 04/01/11 03:11 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

EdgeChaos said:
:rofl: At anyone who thinks nuclear power is bad.




im glad this was the first response, thanks


--------------------
I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: johnm214]
    #14222388 - 04/01/11 05:54 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

> What about reducing population?  Then the energy and material needs aren't so problematic.

It will happen one way or another.  Mass extinction is a bitch, but doesn't really matter if nobody is around to see it happen.


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Re: Obama wants Nuclear Power?!?! [Re: Seuss]
    #14243235 - 04/05/11 05:49 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

i think we have more nuclear power plants than any other country on the planet. i suppose the nwo has been hard at work for awhile.


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