Stop Microsoft
Miscellaneous => The Lounge => Topic started by: skyman8081 on 6 August 2005, 06:58
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This is the thread for friends of Nuclear Power to fight the forces of mass hysteria against nuclear power.
San Onofre will NOT explode in a Hiroshima style mushroom cloud. Coal Plants release more radiation than a fission plant. And the US Capitol building is far more radioactive than any Nuclear Plant is ever allowed to be.
Nuclear Power, is the safest, most economical, and most efficient power source that is currently available.
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As a guy who used to live next to a Superfund cleanup site, I have to say "whatever".
Radiation is one thing. Strontium-90 that seeps into the groundwater and causes fish to grow extra heads is another. And there is nothing anyone can do to prevent toxic leakage. It can be minimized, but not prevented.
And what do you plan to do with all the leftover shit? "Rocket it to the moon, dude". Uh, no.
Nuclear power does have its advantages, but its faults cannot be ignored.
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Correct, but they shouldn't be overstated.
You're right that rocketing it to the moon is a bad idea. That's what Yucca Mountain is for.
And in the future, rocket it into the Sun.
You are right that Strontium-90 seepage is a problem, but one that can be solved.
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I've got a better solution: use the strontium-90 to get high.
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I think if you're going to have nuclear power, you have to do it right. Consider France for example. They've been using nuclear power for a long time, and haven't had an accident yet - plus, people trust the nuclear plants as totally safe. One reason for this is the standardization. All the plants in France are based on a singular model, which has been approved as 100% safe by the government atomic agency. Contrast this to the US, where every power plant is designed by some individual corporation, with very little government oversight. Standardization would be like socialism to these cats. Since the French method works so well, I think that any place considering nuclear power ought to study how they did it.
Yucca Mtn - I can't wait until there is a 1,044-car pileup on the interstate, caused by a drunk driver and a toxic waste transport truck. That will sell you on Yucca Mtn.
FYI, the disaster at 3-mile Island was caused by a burned-out indicator bulb. One of the selling points of coal is that the county doesn't blow up if an indicator light burns out.
The disaster at Chernobyl was human error. And we get plenty of that in the US.
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It should also be noted that the anti-nuclear lobby is very successful at block anything new in terms of nuclear energy. This includes new, safer, plant and reactor designs.
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Chernobyl was a piss-poor design as well. It had no fail-safes on it.
Three Mile Island was the second worst nuclear accident in history, and ended up with 0 injuries and fatalities.
There is a restriction on the quantity of nuclear material that may be transported at any one time, to reduce the consequences of any accident. Material must also be shipped in specially designed containers that a resistant to all manner of external stresses including a direct collision by a train travelling at 100mph.
The new Generation III and IV reactors, are designed to be much safer. The new pebble bed reactor (http://web.mit.edu/pebble-bed/) is designed to prevent meltdowns, testing of the design has shown this to be true.
I'd love to see some pebble bed reactors in the US.
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Not much chance of that happening here in NZ, too many frenzied greenies.
But the media are giving it a chance nowadays. I've several documentories that conclude that Nuclear power is the cheapest, most efficient, safest and cleanest power when used correctly.
Probably gonna have to wait till my generation gets into power.
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I'de love to see Gen III and IV reactors built in the states as well.
But the greenies won't hear of it.
Because the land wasted from wind power and solar is trifle compared to a fission plant, and I'm sure the animals who live in river valleys would LOVE hydro-electric power. :rolleyes:
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i don't see what's wrong with wind power, no waste, no fuel requirements, it's all installation and upkeep, and compared with a fully staffed power plant, the upkeep for wind generators is minimal.
why create toxic waste or burn the core of the planet out when there's a solution staring us in the face?
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Do you have ANY idea of the land requirements for Wind Power.
I've driven through wind farms, they are a fucking massive eyesore. And they are very good at dicing up birds (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/bdes/altamont/images/baow-clip.jpg).[1]
It is also terribly inefficient at power generation. And if there isn't enough wind, they turn into large electic fans.
If you are ever in southern california, go along the I-10 near Palm Springs, there is a huge valley filled with windmills.
Wind and solar are good, but they will never be enough to replace all power with, there are only good for supporting roles on the power grid.
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Well, I
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I agree, fusion would be good.
But right now the insane enviromentalists want us to depend a fusion source thats 93 million miles away, and is only in the proper LOS for a few hours each day.
Until fusion, fission!
PS. Maxis are enviromentalist hippies.
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I've seen wind farms in Colorado and Wyoming, and I think they look fucking cool.
From what I've heard, jet airplanes kill more birds than any windmill.
My idea is to put little tiny windmills on the side of the freeway. Every time a car drives past, electricity is generated. I-10 running through Houston, I happen to know, has pretty decent traffic 24 hours a day - I bet you could at least power all the allnite convenience stores with car wind.
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By the way, if you are not opposed to having a nuclear power plant next to your house, you should tell someone right away. One of the primary hurdles to building them is finding an acceptable place to put them. I'm sure they would appreciate your willingness to sacrifice yourself and your neighborhood.
Of course, your neighbors might think differently, and you'll have a rough time convincing them.
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Unfortunately, the efficiency of a single windmill is 90%, which is about the best you can do. But they output so little power that it is hardly as cost efficient.(ignoring the mega cost-incentive the govt. puts on wind)
Wind and Solar power will always be delegated to supporting roles on the grid, when more power is needed for a short span of time.
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By the way, if you are not opposed to having a nuclear power plant next to your house, you should tell someone right away. One of the primary hurdles to building them is finding an acceptable place to put them. I'm sure they would appreciate your willingness to sacrifice yourself and your neighborhood.
Of course, your neighbors might think differently, and you'll have a rough time convincing them.
I don't actually live that far from one already.
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is 15 miles from my house.
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Unfortunately, the efficiency of a single windmill is 90%, which is about the best you can do.
Well, since your refrigerator operates at about 18%, and your car operates at 25%, I think 90% is pretty fucking good.
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Well, since your refrigerator operates at about 18%, and your car operates at 25%, I think 90% is pretty fucking good.
It is good in terms of mechanical, rotational efficiency. That is very good.
However, they put out such little power, that you need tons of them to be in the black.
And with any mechanical device, it WILL wear down, and when you have a lot of them, there will always be a breakdown which needs repaired.
Solar and Wind power are good at burst power, if you need to pump more electricity onto the grid, use them. But nuclear power is a stable alternative that would make a good baseline for power generation.
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Do you have ANY idea of the land requirements for Wind Power.
actually they have banks of them mounted at sea off the hebrides, no land required there. also, i take it you know people can set one up in their backyard and it will generate more than anough power for their house, this is the case in scotland anyway, what isn't used can be sold to the national grid (albeit for a paltry sum) and resold to those who don't have backyards. for scotland, i think wind power is a completely self sufficient prospect if implemented properly.
I've driven through wind farms, they are a fucking massive eyesore. And they are very good at dicing up birds (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/bdes/altamont/images/baow-clip.jpg).[1]
eyesore? i suppose you have photos of your favourite prettiest nuclear power plants on your bedroom wall, then?
It is also terribly inefficient at power generation. And if there isn't enough wind, they turn into large electic fans.
oh dear, what a shame. where are the figures to back up this claim of inefficiency? i thought you liked to have statistics to back your arguments up.
If you are ever in southern california, go along the I-10 near Palm Springs, there is a huge valley filled with windmills.
ok, because i like to visit windmills when i travel internationally...
Wind and solar are good, but they will never be enough to replace all power with, there are only good for supporting roles on the power grid.
again, supporting evidence please? stating an opinion is misleading, in that it may be based completely on assumptions.
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Well, I
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For a solar plant to power new york city, you would need a solar collector that is about 300 square miles.
That doesn't even account for when solar power in unusable, e.g. during dawn, dusk, and night.
What do you want, 1 nuke plant or 100 square miles of wind turbines?
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I heard they are developing a new solar panel that pumps hydrgen through the panel and the hydrogen gets hot or something, I for get exactly how but it powers a 4 cylinder engine that drives a generator with no emissions
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Fair enough we need a replacement for fossil fuels as they're non-renewable but wheather neuclear power is good or bad it's still non-renewable so it's no permanent solution to our energy problems.
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If you're talking about Hydrogen Fuel Cells, it takes more energy to split the hydrogen out than it does to recombine them.
Simple thermodynamics.
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Fair enough we need a replacement for fossil fuels as they're non-renewable but wheather neuclear power is good or bad it's still non-renewable so it's no permanent solution to our energy problems.
100% renewables are not going to be a solution, there is always going to be something lost in the conversion of any kind of energy into useful electricity.
Fossil Fuels like coal and oil will run out, and unlike uranium, cannot be reprocessed back into useful fuel.
To think that the ENTIRE energy demands of the world can be met with non-renewables, is simply deluded and foolish.
Yes, uranium will run out with the open cycle, where uranium is used once and locked away. But the closed loop cycle, in which spent uranium is reprocessed into useful fuel is incredibly efficient and most of the fuel is re-used, only the waste products from the fission reaction would get tossed into Yucca mountain.
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not hydrogen fuel cells, I saw it in Popular Science but cant seem to find it on there website
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Like I said, if it is solar, there is the inherent weakness of the fact that there are about 12-18 hours when it cannot be used at all.
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Correct, but they shouldn't be overstated.
You're right that rocketing it to the moon is a bad idea. That's what Yucca Mountain is for.
And in the future, rocket it into the Sun.
You are right that Strontium-90 seepage is a problem, but one that can be solved.
Rocketing nuclear waste into space, now or in the future, is, to be blunt, a very stupid idea.
Space launches require enourmous amounts of energy just to get something into orbit. Even more to get it out. You going to spend billions of dollars to get rid of your nuclear waste? No. It is going to be stored on the Earth for a fraction of the money, whether or not it's good for us because that's the way things work in this world.
And there is one other big problem. Every once in a while, rockets explode. Remember Challenger? Don't kid yourself if you think it can't happen again. If you start sending rockets up on a regular basis to get rid of nuclear waste, there is a good chance that one of them is going to blow up and spread nuclear waste all over creation, as in a "dirty bomb." The ecological damage and death toll would be enormous, worse than Chernobyl because the rocket would be high in the air and the prevailing winds would carry the radioactive debris all over the place.
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also there us the risk that the container will come out of orbit and enter the atmosphere. They are working in a new thing on the existing holes that the waste is dumped, They are going to insert to thick electrodes in the gorund with the tips just below the hole. and they are somehow going to put a piece of grahpite between the to electrodes under the hole. They are going to power it up and leave it running for about a week, the graphite should get ultra hot and after the week is up turn the ground around it to glass stopping the radioactive waste from seeping
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BUT, if you used solar power at high noon to run a bolt of electricity through plain water, you can create portable hydrogen fuel. I think a wind and solar based hydrogen production system will cover all of our needs and then some.
As long as we can make hydrogen safe enough for vehicle use, this is the way to go.
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It takes more energy to slpit Hydrogen and oxygen that what you get out by recombining them.
Hydrogen isn't cheap, and not natually occuring on earth by itself.
It is a PITA to store, and can only be efficiently stored as a liquid, which is several hundred degrees below zero.
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so we're not talking about alternatives then, just amusing ways of using nuclear "technology", yes?
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so we're not talking about alternatives then, just amusing ways of using nuclear "technology", yes?
No, I'm just saying that nuclear is better than your "Alternatves".
And it's here NOW.
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And it's here NOW.
Just remember, it has it's problems, problems that cannot be ignored.
We don't needa drop everything else and go all-nuclear too soon.
Also, it'd be nice to see more renewable energy being produced.
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It takes more energy to slpit Hydrogen and oxygen that what you get out by recombining them.
Not exactly. And even if, it is irrelevant. Remember the conservation of energy law? The amount of energy is exactly the same, but even if it wasn't, it is not important how much energy you need to split the hydrogen (if it comes from the Sun, who cares if you lose some). A certain amount of solar/wind/hydro energy WILL produce a certain amount of hydrogen, and that in turn will produce a certain amount of electric energy (equaling the input minus losses, most in the form of heat). The goal is to maximise the output for a given input, thus minimising losses.
It's just relative. To date, the cost of the production is higher than the profit from the sold energy. That will change, as the losses diminish...
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No, I'm just saying that nuclear is better than your "Alternatves".
again, i like how you back yourself up with convinving evidence, nice job.
And it's here NOW.
unlike wind power, i suppose, which will obviously only be developed in the future. what have you been smoking?
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It takes more energy to slpit Hydrogen and oxygen that what you get out by recombining them.
Hydrogen isn't cheap, and not natually occuring on earth by itself.
It is a PITA to store, and can only be efficiently stored as a liquid, which is several hundred degrees below zero.
So what? You're not hearing what I am saying. Hydrogen production may not be all that efficient, but it is simple. All you have to do is arc a bolt of electricity through water. The electricity produced by wind and solar DURING THE DAY can be used to make fuel to use during the night. The storage problem will be simple to solve, because our technology can do that - we do it now, just not on a mass level.
To recap - your argument against windfarms as ugly is stupid. I've been to mines of all types, and they are some of the ugliest fucking things on the planet. Seriously, they are nasty. And they fuck up the surrounding environment like CRAZY. You might as well put fucking Manhattan in the middle of the mountains, that's how much garbage and air pollution and noise and loss of habitat they produce. The nastiest ones I have seen are the Anaconda copper mine in Montana, and the Klimaxx molybdenum mine in Colorado. PLUS, the cost of mining is extreme. If you think about all the processes that go into getting any mineral at all out of the ground, they become very expensive and very inefficient. I think mining should be absolutely minimized. No more coal, no more uranium.
My plan contains no harmful byproducts, and can be put into use right now.
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How much power does one of these magic plants of yours put out?
How many would have to be built to supply to world energy needs?
And I assume that you are talking photovoltiac cells for solar, and that the arsenic, gallium, and cadmium are safe and non-toxic?
I don't want to give up the beautiful, pristine california deserts, for "clean" alternative power sources.
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Well, I don't want to give up Africa and South America to your unending search for fissionable material.
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So what? You're not hearing what I am saying. Hydrogen production may not be all that efficient, but it is simple. All you have to do is arc a bolt of electricity through water. The electricity produced by wind and solar DURING THE DAY can be used to make fuel to use during the night. The storage problem will be simple to solve, because our technology can do that - we do it now, just not on a mass level.
To recap - your argument against windfarms as ugly is stupid. I've been to mines of all types, and they are some of the ugliest fucking things on the planet. Seriously, they are nasty. And they fuck up the surrounding environment like CRAZY. You might as well put fucking Manhattan in the middle of the mountains, that's how much garbage and air pollution and noise and loss of habitat they produce. The nastiest ones I have seen are the Anaconda copper mine in Montana, and the Klimaxx molybdenum mine in Colorado. PLUS, the cost of mining is extreme. If you think about all the processes that go into getting any mineral at all out of the ground, they become very expensive and very inefficient. I think mining should be absolutely minimized. No more coal, no more uranium.
My plan contains no harmful byproducts, and can be put into use right now.
On the history channel i saw somwthiing about that this town had an abannded mine and one day they were burining stuff near the entrance and it lit some coal dust and even to this date the mine is still burning, underneath the town
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On the history channel i saw somwthiing about that this town had an abannded mine and one day they were burining stuff near the entrance and it lit some coal dust and even to this date the mine is still burning, underneath the town
Thats coal mining.
Nuclear Power doesn't use coal. Nuclear should replace coal.
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I think we should all just drink Cyanide to decrease the amount of energy we are using.
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There's a point, Kintaro. There are WAY too many people on the world. I once read that the Earth could sustainably "feed" (that is supply all they need and absorb their waste without being changed herself at all) about one and a half billion people. One quarter of the current pop, 6 G.
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yeah, we should have let SARS spread
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But wouldn't that mean you die as well? ;)
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some sacrifices have to be made somewhere, and the preservation of human life at all costs is not in my opinion the top priority. This is complicated by the natural animal reaction to try and preserve your own personal life at all costs.
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Chernobyl was a piss-poor design as well. It had no fail-safes on it.
I'll just have to comment on this one. Chernobyl HAD failsafes and safety systems. They had all been INTENTIONALLY turned off prior to the accident, because the safety systems wouldn't allow performing the experiment they were doing. And it just happens that the experiment was known to be dangerous by designers of the plant, and it was strictly against the safety code to perform a lot of the things that were done that day.
Go on, look up the net about it, you'll find that they were performing an experiment there, the staff on-site didn't have a clue about technical details of how the plant worked and didn't know about how to safely operate it. The design had some "counter-intuitive" details, which were properly documented and had safety systems so nobody could screw up, but they broke the rules, multiple times, and turned off most of the safety systems of the plant to proceed.
"Human error" is a polite way to put what happened as a result. Some jerk wanted to try out something with a live plant, and didn't bother to do the paperwork to get the experiment approved by people who understood stuff. Ofcourse, he probably knew it wouldn't be approved because it broke several safety regulations, and that's why they proceeded with it...
As long as workers are properly educated about the plant operations and safety, such events aren't going to happen again.
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As long as workers are properly educated about the plant operations and safety, such events aren't going to happen again.
That was never the problem in Chernobyl.
The city was a paradise, looked more like a west European city than a Russian one.
If an employee fucked up, they would be fired. And since unemployment doesn't exist in communism, they would get a new job in Siberia.
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If an employee fucked up, they would be fired.
I seriously doubt that. Everyone has a job because nobody gets fired. It always worked like that here, during communism.
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What muzzy said is true. Except it ought to be mentioned that the people doing the experiment with the failsafes off had never been to Chernobyl before that day. I believe they were execs from another nuclear power station, which was of a different design. This is why I advocated studying France in an earlier post - all their nuclear plants are the same. This standardizes behavior and regulations, making things much safer.