'Only nuclear power can now halt global warming'

EmperorChrostas the Cruel · Post by **EmperorChrostas the Cruel** » 2004-05-24 10:59pm

Do some research, and/or grow some thicker skin, Plekanov.
You never hesitate to berate others for differences of arguable opinion, and you object to being mocked for matters of verifiable science?
If you dish it out, expect to take it.
Well, do you know the downside of coal and oil? Because the idiot greens you are stating influence you so much propose human misery as the only acceptable alternative. I read the article you linked, and the Green answer is:

"Lovelock is right to demand a drastic response to climate change," Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said last night. "He's right to question previous assumptions.

"But he's wrong to think nuclear power is any part of the answer. Nuclear creates enormous problems, waste we don't know what to do with; radioactive emissions; unavoidable risk of accident and terrorist attack."

Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Climate change and radioactive waste both pose deadly long-term threats, and we have a moral duty to minimise the effects of both, not to choose between them."

Nuclear power creates no new problems, just concentrates the old ones.
The Greens answer is cut back on power use. Fucking Luddites.
Once again, do you have any idea how much shit already exsisting energy systems pump into the environment? Find out, and get back to me.
Between spilled oil, burned oil, strip mining, and air pollution from burning ANYTHING, nuclear is by far the least dangerous, and cleanest.
Green arguements are stupid, and apeal to the ignorant.
We know what to do with the waste, and the emissions of radiation are LESS from a nuclear plant than a coal burner.
Accident or terrorist attack are stupid arguements. Reactors are the most heavily armored and guarded places on earth, and only through polital nightmare like the former Solviet Union could produce an other nuclear accident. You do know HOW Chernobl was caused don't you?
Three Mile Island, (The SCEOND greatest nuclear accident) released less radiation than a coal burner puts out every YEAR, on a regular basis. (A tribute to different design concerns) TMI was just a burp, not a year long case of foul body odor. Net effect, more radiation is produced from a single coal fired plant over a normal year, than the second worst nuclear accident in history.
The ONE good thing Chernobl did was shake up the world, and change even the stupidest of administrative systems, and cause nuclear power to be reevaluated. The effect of Chernobl was localy devastating, but on the planetary scale, only a small thing. We, as a species, got off cheaply, and learned much. It sucks to be them, though. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html
Sucks hardcore.
http://www.endgame.org/oilspills.htm
The PRESENT system is not without it's problems, but will not be going anywhere until replaced. If you add the possibility of global warming into the picture, and factor in to play human greed and selfishness, you will see that reducing energy use isn't going to happen.
The ONLY choice is the TYPE of energy being used, not the AMOUNT.
If you are against nuclear power, you are dooming the world if you believe in global warming. This is very binary.
More nukes, or more oils.
Less energy use is like communism. Looks good on paper, ain't gonna happen.
Renewable energy, like solar, wind, and geothermal are wishful thinking. Like rainbows, chirping birds and dancing bears, they are pretty, but they aren't useful for forming policy about economics, and energy.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-05-24 11:00pm

Plekhanov wrote:I’ve been to the alternative energy village in Wales and just found the whole place incredibly pleasing at a really basic almost emotional level, then again I did choose to cycle a few hundred miles to get there so I’m clearly in the target audiece for alternative energy stuff.

See that's the thing, it's a village, and in the right location, and the right location part is very important, it's possible to run a village on solar, wind, tidal, or other renewable sources. But that's because villages don't have all that many people and they don't need much power. A single highrise office building needs more power to light up its lights than a village, never mind the HVAC, computers, phones, water pumps, and all that other stuff. The other problem is those "right locations" are pretty hard to come by.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-24 11:18pm

Another reason I’ve never liked nuclear is because I find alternative forms of energy so appealing. I’ve always loved the idea of solar, wind, tidal… energy I don’t really know why but they’ve always seemed beautifully elegant solutions no matter how impractical they may be to serve all our energy needs.

Alternative energy sources sound nice but they dont generate enough power to be effective. They are also very expensive for the small amount of power generate. Alternative power sources can not meet all of the power needs of the present day civilization.

Plekhanov · Post by **Plekhanov** » 2004-05-24 11:22pm

aerius wrote:See that's the thing, it's a village, and in the right location, and the right location part is very important, it's possible to run a village on solar, wind, tidal, or other renewable sources. But that's because villages don't have all that many people and they don't need much power. A single highrise office building needs more power to light up its lights than a village, never mind the HVAC, computers, phones, water pumps, and all that other stuff. The other problem is those "right locations" are pretty hard to come by.

I realise how impractical this stuff is, a visit to the village helps convince you of that, although the atmosphere created by a group of committed, likeminded enthusiasts was inspirational the fact was that despite the village being a concentration of wind turbines, solar panels and hydro electric pumps the people living their have to be very careful in their energy use. My point was more just how attractive at an emotional level non-nuclear stuff can be (at least to soft headed left leaning types such as myself).

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-05-24 11:24pm

Plekhanov wrote:
aerius wrote:See that's the thing, it's a village, and in the right location, and the right location part is very important, it's possible to run a village on solar, wind, tidal, or other renewable sources. But that's because villages don't have all that many people and they don't need much power. A single highrise office building needs more power to light up its lights than a village, never mind the HVAC, computers, phones, water pumps, and all that other stuff. The other problem is those "right locations" are pretty hard to come by.
I realise how impractical this stuff is, a visit to the village helps convince you of that, although the atmosphere created by a group of committed, likeminded enthusiasts was inspirational the fact was that despite the village being a concentration of wind turbines, solar panels and hydro electric pumps the people living their have to be very careful in their energy use. My point was more just how attractive at an emotional level non-nuclear stuff can be (at least to soft headed left leaning types such as myself).

Unfortunately, no one's yet found a way to harness good feelings to power the masses of stuff mankind has today. Of course, there's nothing wrong with exploiting the alternative energy we can; wind farms in perpetually windy valleys, solar panels in the desert, all these things are fine. But they cannot and will not become viable for our power generation unless mankind suffers a really nasty dieback.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-05-24 11:55pm

Plekhanov wrote:
Shinova wrote:So I say go nuclear all the way, and use that fuel reprocessing thing France has. But I have a question though: Once they reprocess the fuel and use that, what does that turn into?
And where can we put it? I know some countries have large deserts you can burry it in, the UK doesn’t this is always going to be a major political problem for us. I’ve yet to hear someone give me a straight answer as to where the UK is going to put all its high level waste and how we are going to persuade the NIMBYs to put it there.

Well France doesn't have large deserts or whatever and they seem to be doing fine with their nuclear stuff. Reprocessing is taking the usual waste people think of and turning that into useful fuel again.

What I'm asking the people here is what that reprocessed fuel turns into after it in turn gets used. I think I'll go Google searching in the meantime.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-05-25 12:07am

My point was more just how attractive at an emotional level non-nuclear stuff can be (at least to soft headed left leaning types such as myself).

Well, if it makes you feel better we'll probably be seeing fusion power become a viable source of energy sometime within our lifetimes (in fact, France has already picked out the site where they want their first fusion generating station). Fusion is THE most promising source of power for the future. Most of the alternatives touted by the greens (wind, solar, tidal) are too unreliable and innefficient, and must be set up in very specific locations, and another source (geothermal) still gives off highly toxic pollutants anyway.

EmperorChrostas the Cruel · Post by **EmperorChrostas the Cruel** » 2004-05-25 12:07am

Let us not forget the need for truly NASTY heavy metal laden chemical waste that results from making solar cells, and chemical nastyness that results from the plastics and exotic metals needed to make wind turbins and hyrdroelectric generation components. These manufacturing plants need energy not generatable by these low pollution methods. Big things like hydroelectric turbines need nasty coal burning steel plants for parts, and manufacturing facilities to turn those huge chunks of raw metal into precision turbines, huge pipes, and monster valves to make the water make this clean power. The little community of like minded individuals are relying on the big bad nasty outside world to build their little world, and make the replacement part it can't make on it's own. Just because you don't see the nastyness needed to jumpstart and maintane your micro-utipia, doesn't mean it isn't there.

Your communty of like minded individuals is only a convincing illusion of being ecofriendly. You have looked too closely at the whole thing to buy into the illusion. How many living there refuse to see what you have?

Do they plan on using computers too? You have no idea how polluting and energy intensive the computer manufacturing factories are do you?
As long as the crud is somewhere else, you can ignore it eh?
Well guess what, the rest of the world is just like you! Out of sight, out of mind. This little community still generates garbage and uses a landfill, right? They just ship their garbage far away.
Pollution somewhere else doesn't bother them either.
You just showed why things are the way they are. Only the scale is different.
How far away, and how much is the variable here.
You do have the advantage of at least admitting intelectualy you are wrong about it.
Living next to a solar farm is definatly better than living next to a nuclear power plant, but, livng next to a nuclear power plant is better than living near a landfill, or oil refinery. There MUST be refinerys, and landfills though. Just the ugly side of modern living. It goes with modern medicine, and computers. Gotta have both, if you want one. I just get so sick of people who want one without the other, and claim it can happen.

A ray of hope. When forced to cut back on heavy metal poisoning of the environment, the semiconductor industry found out it actualy SAVED money while polluting less, because the heavy metals they were pouring into the sewers were quite expencive. Recycled byproducts saved more money than it cost them to remove them from the waste water.
The future is more technology, not less. But not new tech for the sake of newness. Sewage treatment is OLD tech, and can only be fine tuned, not fundamentaly changed.

Plekhanov · Post by **Plekhanov** » 2004-05-25 12:16am

Ma Deuce wrote:Well, if it makes you feel better we'll probably be seeing fusion power become a viable source of energy sometime within our lifetimes (in fact, France has already picked out the site where they want their first fusion generating station). Fusion is THE most promising source of power for the future. Most of the alternatives touted by the greens (wind, solar, tidal) are too unreliable and innefficient, and must be set up in very specific locations, and another source (geothermal) still gives off highly toxic pollutants anyway.

That makes me feel much better thank you, but you better not promote this fusion thing too much or all the anti-fission types (knowing full well just how far off viable fusion is going to be) will start insisting that we don’t invest anything else in fission as fusion will soon arrive to solve all our problems.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-05-25 12:17am

Plekhanov wrote:
Ma Deuce wrote:Well, if it makes you feel better we'll probably be seeing fusion power become a viable source of energy sometime within our lifetimes (in fact, France has already picked out the site where they want their first fusion generating station). Fusion is THE most promising source of power for the future. Most of the alternatives touted by the greens (wind, solar, tidal) are too unreliable and innefficient, and must be set up in very specific locations, and another source (geothermal) still gives off highly toxic pollutants anyway.
That makes me feel much better thank you, but you better not promote this fusion thing too much or all the anti-fission types (knowing full well just how far off viable fusion is going to be) will start insisting that we don’t invest anything else in fission as fusion will soon arrive to solve all our problems.

Too late. The retards think Fusion has all the problems of Fission. Which is really fucking amusing, especially when they state a Fusion plant can go off like an H-Bomb.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-05-25 12:35am

Plekhanov wrote: That makes me feel much better thank you, but you better not promote this fusion thing too much or all the anti-fission types (knowing full well just how far off viable fusion is going to be) will start insisting that we don’t invest anything else in fission as fusion will soon arrive to solve all our problems.

I realize that, but there are still some people who have concerns about fusion power that are based in ignorance (read: the sci-fi brainbug that fusion reactors go boom-boom big time, among other misconceptions). Greenpeace (in their prepetual stupidity) is also apparently under the impression that fusion will "have all the problems of fission power and solve nothing" (there was a thread way back about this). So, there is a need to educate people about both fusion and fission, and present a balanced view of both methods of power generation.

I imagine I will be long dead before fission power is no longer in use, not that I think this is a bad thing: the sci-fi fan in me is very excited about the prospect of fusion power, but at the same time I keep in mind in that fission is already a safe, clean, highly efficient method of power generation. The only significant problem with fission is the nasty spent fuel, but as stated earlier this isn't a much of a problem if handled properly (such as France's fuel-reprocessing program).

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-25 12:49am

SirNitram wrote:
Plekhanov wrote:
Ma Deuce wrote:Well, if it makes you feel better we'll probably be seeing fusion power become a viable source of energy sometime within our lifetimes (in fact, France has already picked out the site where they want their first fusion generating station). Fusion is THE most promising source of power for the future. Most of the alternatives touted by the greens (wind, solar, tidal) are too unreliable and innefficient, and must be set up in very specific locations, and another source (geothermal) still gives off highly toxic pollutants anyway.
That makes me feel much better thank you, but you better not promote this fusion thing too much or all the anti-fission types (knowing full well just how far off viable fusion is going to be) will start insisting that we don’t invest anything else in fission as fusion will soon arrive to solve all our problems.
Yep. Greenpeace thinks that fusion has all the disadvantages of fission and generates radioactive waste.

Too late. The retards think Fusion has all the problems of Fission. Which is really fucking amusing, especially when they state a Fusion plant can go off like an H-Bomb.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-25 12:50am

Sorry made a typo. The previous post should read

Yep. Greenpeace thinks that fusion has all the disadvantages of fission and generates radioactive waste.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-25 12:51am

Sorry made a typo. The previous post should read

Yep. Greenpeace thinks that fusion has all the disadvantages of fission and generates radioactive waste.

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-05-25 01:21am

Fusion will solve any power problems we have, I just don't understand why government money isn't being poured into it as much as other programs. We are reaching oil's limit, I guess all the energy barons want to horde the profits when energy becomes scarce. From what I understand fusion will cause a major human revolution along with room temp superconductors and genetics/medicine, just seems right those are top priority.

http://www.iter.org/ITERPublic/ITER/new_text_Feb04.html Things like that pisses me off, don't get the ITER site, withdraw all together, morons.

"The project is expected cost ~$10 billion over its complete life." Sounds reasonable to me.

Also is there any good use of the helium byproduct?

Cool Guy · Post by **Cool Guy** » 2004-05-25 01:29am

I found this nice section on PBS's website that dealt with Nuclear Power:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/

Specifically the FAQs and the "Did You Know... facts about radiation"

(the latter gives neat facts such as living within 50 miles of a Coal Plant exposes you to an estimated .03 mrem while living within 50 miles of a Nuclear Power Plant exposes you to an estimated .009 mrem)

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-05-25 02:44am

On this subject, I'm sure that the Chernobyl incident is responsible for 99% of the opposition to nuclear power.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-05-25 02:50am

Too bad that a smooth-talking retard can convince more people to his cause than a poor-speaking researcher.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-05-25 03:00am

Peregrin Toker wrote:On this subject, I'm sure that the Chernobyl incident is responsible for 99% of the opposition to nuclear power.

Well, I'm sure TMI also holds a significant chunk as well...

The Third Man · Post by **The Third Man** » 2004-05-25 03:21am

EmperorChrostas the Cruel wrote: The Greens answer is cut back on power use. Fucking Luddites.

I can't agree with that, at least not as a blanket statement. There's nothing luddite about, say, an insulated, double-glazed home heated by a condensing combination boiler, compared to a draughty, energy-leaking home heated by a hissing, pissing, steaming, gas-guzzling Victorian relic. This is personal experience speaking - I fitted myself a beautiful hi-tech energy saving boiler, complete with enough LEDs, dials and on-board processors to satisfy even my technophile instincts, and it was one of my smartest moves ever; a 30% reduction in fuel costs straight off and as much hot water as I want, whenever I want.

EmperorChrostas the Cruel wrote: The future is more technology, not less. But not new tech for the sake of newness. Sewage treatment is OLD tech, and can only be fine tuned, not fundamentaly changed.

Now that I do agree with.

From where I sit, in the UK, it seems the nuclear industry's biggest handicap is its history, which is all tangled up with the nuclear weapons programmes of the 1950s and the ensuing rabid government secrecy and sensitivity on one side, and anti-nuke-weapon attitudes on another. These attitudes still persist. What's needed here is some sane energy policies at the government level and a good helping of transparency.

I cannot dismiss alternative energy either, although admittedly this may be because of my location (it's windy here). It seems to me that the two approaches are beautifully complimentary: Nuclear requires a huge infrastructure and administrative overhead, but can consistently satisfy high demand. Wind can be implemented at a very local level with little infrastructure (a private citizen can set up a viable revenue-earning generator) but is a top-up only. There are also some wind applications that (it seems to me) are just crying out to be implemented - for example top-up turbines and ni-cads on top of street-lamps, I mean, why not? What's to lose by doing it?

On topic; this news about Prof. Lovelock can only be good, as it opens up the dialogue and hopefully will encourage people from out of their entrenched positions.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-25 03:51am

Peregrin Toker wrote:On this subject, I'm sure that the Chernobyl incident is responsible for 99% of the opposition to nuclear power.

Three Mile Island incident also caused a lot of negative publicity for nuclear power.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-05-25 05:48am

evilcat4000 wrote:
Peregrin Toker wrote:On this subject, I'm sure that the Chernobyl incident is responsible for 99% of the opposition to nuclear power.
Three Mile Island incident also caused a lot of negative publicity for nuclear power.

Yeah, every time I argue with my father about nuclear power, he brings up TMI and Chernobyl as reason enough to not use nuclear power....

Replace the word "nuclear power" with "rear-engined cars", "Three Mile Island" with "Chevrolet Corvair" and "Chernobyl" with "ZAZ" and the argument is exactly the same, just more obviously fallacious.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-05-25 10:18am

Meest wrote:Fusion will solve any power problems we have, I just don't understand why government money isn't being poured into it as much as other programs. We are reaching oil's limit, I guess all the energy barons want to horde the profits when energy becomes scarce. From what I understand fusion will cause a major human revolution along with room temp superconductors and genetics/medicine, just seems right those are top priority.

http://www.iter.org/ITERPublic/ITER/new_text_Feb04.html Things like that pisses me off, don't get the ITER site, withdraw all together, morons.

"The project is expected cost ~$10 billion over its complete life." Sounds reasonable to me.

Agreed. I've never seen a power source more promising than fusion. There's almost no danger of the reactor going unstable, there's no waste produced, and it generates more power than nuclear fission with a fuel available in basically limitless supply. Why money is being wasted on anything else is beyond me.

Also is there any good use of the helium byproduct?

It can make nuclear engineers' voices sound funny.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-05-25 10:22am

BNFL made a white paper not long ago looking into ways of dealing with nuclear waste. Right now, the UK is the largest processor of nuclear waste on the planet and the stuff comes from all over the globe to places like Sellafield (formerly Windscale after the accident) and Springfield (sans-Homer Simpson).

Several methods have been used in the past, usually dumping it in the Irish Sea, much to the chagrin of the Irish dudes. So we stopped that since the way we were going you could see the shore glow green from Blackpool.

We have instead taken back the old idea of burrying it deep and en masse so as to contain it with limited problems. The containers that hold such waste are solid concrete cubes with steel reinforcement. Short of ramming several freight trains into them, they won't open (though putting them in a huge oil fire might work). These would be more than enough to safeguard against any radiation leak. Couple this with the quarries and plains that have mines hundreds of metres below surface and you have a good place to store the stuff.

Future proposals were to ship it out of the country and let someone else deal with it, not use nuclear at all (wow, smart) or just blast it into the sun (risky). With the most powerful laser in the world being used in Scotland to transmute some waste to less harmful isotopes, such a process is promising as it gets smaller and more able to cope with the masses of waste out there. It will at least calm down some who see any nuke waste as a fuse to be lit for global armageddon.

An atomic future is a bright future. You're kidding yourself if you think fossil fuels will last indefinitely or greener alternatives will supply ever Watt required. Oil will peak its output sooner or later and when it does, prices will rocket making today's look pitiful. Environmentally friendly energy sources are good for smallscale projects, but powering big cities like London, NYC or Tokyo with such technologies is nigh impossible without various methods, a lot of cash and far more efficient tech.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2004-05-25 10:45am

Durandal wrote:Agreed. I've never seen a power source more promising than fusion. There's almost no danger of the reactor going unstable, there's no waste produced, and it generates more power than nuclear fission with a fuel available in basically limitless supply. Why money is being wasted on anything else is beyond me.

Fusion isn't going to come right away, and we can get a lot of good right now with fission. There is the potential to make small fission plants, while fusion looks like it would take very large facilities. Can you imagine a fusion reactor powering a rocket? It might be possible, but a fission reactor can do it today. Fossil fuels suck, but they aren't going away either. Good money is being spent making older power plants more efficient and cleaner, and I consider that money well spent. And that's why money is being wasted on other things.

That said, we do need to spend more on fusion, and maybe stealing Greenpeace's drug stash.