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ATOMIC ANGLOSPHERE
Soaring oil prices would push Australia more quickly towards the “inevitable” use of nuclear power, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
The US:
President George W. Bush said the nation “must start building nuclear power plants” in a videotaped address to the nation’s nuclear energy industry leaders.
The UK:
In a speech likely to provoke protests within his Government, Prime Minister Tony Blair said nuclear power was “back on the agenda with a vengeance”.
#1 Michael, that was my first response, as well.
Now if we could just get the government to allow off-shore drilling and the development of the Alaska fields, we could tell Chavez, Iran, SA, and all the rest to go to hell.
“Get the government to allow”: now there’s a phrase for a supposedly free society.
This is so going to bite us on the ass.
Listen, I don’t wanna be a dorkweed about it, but this shit is really dangerous, and there’ve been no fundamental breakthroughs in any of the issues (safety, disposal) that worried us about it when I was a lad.
An economy based on oil is underated. This is a bad time, and the middle east is still a shitbath, but we’re going to regret further reliance on nucular.
and there’ve been no fundamental breakthroughs in any of the issues (safety, disposal) that worried us about it when I was a lad.
There have been two nuke accidents ever, right? Three Mile Island, which killed nobody, and Chernobyl, which killed lots. And the latter was Soviet technology. As far as disposal, both the US and Oz have huge deserts.
Seems safer and more enviro-friendly than coal, which we’re using lots of now.
As far as disposal, shit, we have Tehran…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 20 at 02:19 AM • permalinkLook, I’m against anything that will slow a rise in seas levels. According to this site (which I confess to linking to in an earlier thread) it’s only got to rise 14 M for me to have the waterfront at my front gate.
Howard you gaia loving bastard. Don’t you realise we have mega tonnes of cheap coal?
I think that popping sound just then was Helen Caldicott’s head…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 20 at 02:52 AM • permalinkThis is part of the 6 country initiative and is to be part of the St Petersberg G8 initiative.
The N option has already been signalled as well as the new energy transpearancy initiatives.
From the g8 energy ministers joint statement in march…
Khristenko said resources should be diversified along various lines, and alternative energy sources and new technologies should be explored.“The joint efforts of G8 and other countries on the broader use of sustainable and alternative energy sources, and the development of innovative technologies in the energy sphere…can make a significant contribution to the solution of this strategic task,” he said, adding that safe nuclear energy was also important.
The session has come to a conclusion that for some leading economies, nuclear energy will inevitably be part of the future,” he said.
“The meeting touched upon such sensitive issues as nuclear energy, environment, and nonproliferation,” he added.
“Nuclear energy was in the focus of the ministerial meeting. Capabilities of and prospects for world nuclear energy industry are in any case connected with Iran’s nuclear program,” Khristenko said.Since then agreements providing around 150gwh of N Energy have been signed
Posted by maksimovich on 2006 05 20 at 02:56 AM • permalinkListen, I don’t wanna be a dorkweed about it, but this shit is really dangerous, and there’ve been no fundamental breakthroughs in any of the issues (safety, disposal) that worried us about it when I was a lad.
No, it’s not dangerous, unless you have your reactor designed and run by idiots; and yes, there have been fundamental breakthroughs on he issues, unless you were a lad last week.
> There have been two nuke accidents ever, right?
You jest. There have been two famous catastrophic fires that we know about. There have been thousands of accidents.
> bleeping Fraaance beg to differ.
Interesting choice of examples. Can you imagine any, like, POSSIBLE scenario wherein there was a profound change in the sociological temperment of their nation? One where educational sophistication and the late-20th standards of comity no longer seemed like virtues to the majority of their citizens? Just asking.
> there have been fundamental breakthroughs
> on he issuesCare to list them?
Californians are suckers and we deserve to have rolling brownouts and blackouts. It’s been 45+ years since we built a new dam to generate hydro power and provide the great valley with water for agriculture - I think Shasta and Oroville are the last to be built. Pacific Gas and Electric has been trying to sell off its Feather River hydro assets for years now (they tried to sell it to our county a few years back). The Auburn dam project was shot down because of Sierra Club and EDF scare tactics. Rancho Seco nuclear power plant was shut down because of the fear mongering led by the same old Stalinist sharpy lawyers employed by the The Sierra Club. These crypto Stalinists live in SF and operate out of SF’s tallest skyscrapers.
Our power grid depends on hydroelectric generated in Canada and Washington State. We have huge reserves of Natural Gas and offshore oil but the NIMBY/Enviro crowd won’t allow them to be tapped.
*Los Angeles depends on water from the Colorado River and Northern California snow melt (snow melt contained by the earthen dams Shasta and Oroville) to keep its lawns green and for potable drinking water.
*Water wars between north and south have always been contentious and will only worsen when we have to endure another eight year California drought. The political power lies in the south and the Bay Area will get screwed out of water.. and they deserve it.
*San Francisco depends on the Hetch Hetchy water project -circa 1907. HH feeds into a 400 mile long aqueduct that ends at the Pulgas Water Temple - very cool Greek monument which is the water head for Crystal Springs Lake - at that time the largest concrete dam in the world- built circa 1890’s.
# 2004 - September - Environmental Defense Fund publishes a new study that shows that Hetch Hetchy can be restored in a way that would continue to supply the Bay Area with the same high-quality drinking water from the Tuolumne River.Bullshit. Pure. Bullshit. - F- John Muir and the horse he rode in on. Nuts.
# 2004 - November - Schwarzenegger administration announces it will study restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite - Study will look at costs for replacing water storage and economic benefits of restoring public access to unique valley.
Where will the drinking water for 32 million Californians come from Mr.Schwarzenegger? Arnold is a complete moron, just listen to his commentary on the Conan the Barbarian DVD. He doesn’t even understand the simple movie he starred in, how the hell can he understand how to run California. These bloody morons will cause the collapse of our state and they are determined to make water and hydro power as expensive as a barrel of oil.
First nuclear reaction and radiation are not only man made they are also part of nature.
Look up at the sun and the cosmos to view thermonuclear reactions.Visit geothermal areas and view the enrgy released as the earths own core thermonuclear reactions.The result of decaying uranium and thorium at the earths core.
You are naturally radioactive ,Each of us every minute has radioactive atoms decaying in us around severel million per minute.If we remove the life element potassium and replace it with sodium a similar element you would die instantly.
Each glass of water you drink is 370ppm deteurium (heavy water).
Every time you are outside in a thunderstorm and lightning occurs you witness a thermonuclear detonation equivalent to 1kt and 150 times the background radiation input.
What do you suggest we ban Gaia?
Posted by maksimovich on 2006 05 20 at 04:10 AM • permalink#15 Cridland
You jest. There have been two famous catastrophic fires that we know about. There have been thousands of accidents.
I followed your link, Cridland. It does not list “thousands” but to be fair, it does describe many accidents that are not well-known.
However, what you don’t mention is that almost all of these accidents are relatively minor, and most didn’t kill anyone.
And if we look at the serious end of the spectrum of accidents….
From your link: - “March 28, 1979 – Equipment failures and worker mistakes contribute to a loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This is the worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States to date. Site boundary radiation exposure was under 100 millirems (1 mSv) (less than annual exposure due to natural sources), with exposure of 1 millirem (10 µSv) to approximately 2 million people. There were no immediate fatalities, although followup radiological studies predict at most one long-term cancer fatality.”
One long-term cancer fatality, dude…
ONE.
Christ, I bet the “special herbs and spices” in Kentucky Fried Chicken have a higher kill-rate than that…
“April 26, 1986 – The worst accident in the history of nuclear power occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant located near Kiev, USSR (now part of Ukraine). Fire and explosions resulting from an unauthorized experiment left 31 dead in the immediate aftermath. Radioactive nuclear material was spread over much of Europe. Over 135,000 are evacuated from the areas immediately around Chernobyl (or, in Ukrainian, Chornobyl) and over 800,000 from the areas of fallout in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. About 4,000 mi² (10,000 km²) were taken out of human use for an indefinite time. In 2005, a comprehensive study on the long-term health consequences of the accident was completed by the IAEA, World Health Organization and six other UN agencies, as well as the governments of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The findings include 60 radiation-caused fatalities to date, with an estimated 4000 additional fatalities to come within the lifetimes of those exposed; however, this is not nearly as many deaths as were predicted in the more-immediate aftermath of the accident.”
Now I’m not making light of the Chernobyl tragedy, Cridland, but that figure does need to be put in perspective:
In USA alone: - “Total Number of Coal Mining Fatalities from 1900 through 2005: 104,574”
Cridland, the reality is that the number of people killed/injured by nuclear power-generation is not very great, and no more cause for alarm than all the other forms of industry our societies use.
cridland: Sorry, you are a dorkweed and ignorant about it.
I loath duelling links and arguments in forums like this - nobody proves anything and converts are rarely made. But….
* ALL radio active waste can be stored very safely in geologically stable environments, such as in many places of Australia and elsewhere. Worried about leakage? How can it leak? No ground water in them thar rocks and no earthquakes. And what about the uranium deposits that are all over the place now, on the surface and leaching into rivers! Uranium comes from the earth, you know. Also, another word (and Aussie discovery): synroc
* Worried about long half-lives? OK, so some radio-active isotopes are poisonous for hundreds of thousands of years. Chemical waste is toxic FOREVER. Lets focus on the bigger problem of eternal poison, eh?
* “Ban nuclear power” - OK, let the bastards freeze in the dark.
* Prefer thermal power? OK, how are you disposing of the thousands of tonnes of radioactive wate that coal fired power stations produce every year. It mostly goes into uncontraolled landfill!! Don’t bitch about nuclear power until “you” clean up the coal fired waste.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 20 at 05:07 AM • permalinkI’m a bit nervous about nuclear power plants in earthquake prone California and prefer new water projects that capture snow melt in the Sierra Nevada mountains and feed that water through a series of high tech - man made hydroelectric reservoirs. We get a triple punch for our money using water to generate power and later use the same water for drinking and agriculture.
I’m less worried about someone turning the wrong valve or mashing the wrong button at a nuke plant than having a earthquake rupture important containment vessels/pipes or whatever else that can snap, bend, crush or break in a 45 second quake.
1906 SF quake 8.1 Richter lasted 45+ seconds and Loma Prieta 7.1 Richter only lasted 15-20 seconds.It would require roughly 30 1989 Mw=6.9 Loma Prieta earthquakes occurring simultaneously to equal the energy release of 1906. We get hit by a 8+ jolting then rolling 45+ second quake and that nuke plant will come down. I’ll take an apocalyptic dam break over an apocalyptic nuclear accident any day.
I’ve been through many earthquakes and 4.8 jolters seem worse than a 6.6 rollers. Loma Prieta was a wimp quake and look at the trouble it caused. My brother bloody napped throught it when he lived in Palo Alto which was 16 miles from epicenter - well he awoke from his nap becuase he was knocked from his bed onto the floor. I live 200 miles north of SF in Chico and the Loma Prieta was felt here, water sloshed from swimming pools and overhead lamps swung back and forth.
#6 says My God the Arabs will be in trouble when they aren’t selling oil…
I must beg to differ - the Arabs have been making untold squillions from oil for decades. Decades!! They have diversified into many, many different areas - property, commerce, travel, entertainment ( think F1 ). They own a huge slice of England including the Dorchester and Harrods to mention just two little insignificant tidbits.
Like many people who have made an absolute fortune, they have spread their wealth across the board - do you imagine that every penny Richard Pratt has made is still tied up in cardboard? Nup!!
So, if the Arab oil revenue was to stop tomorrow, would they go under? I don’t think so.
#23 Cuckoo, you would no doubt have noticed that the Greenpeace mouthpiece didn’t actually specify any of these ‘renewables’.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 05 20 at 05:58 AM • permalinkNa, one big windmill in all our backyards would solve all our problems.How dare Austrailians build nuke power stations, who do they think they are Iranians????
Posted by Torontosteve on 2006 05 20 at 06:11 AM • permalinkSoaring oil prices would push Australia more quickly towards the “inevitable” use of nuclear power, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
May happen in OZ, seems as though you have less of a ‘lunatic fringe’.
President George W. Bush said the nation “must start building nuclear power plants” in a videotaped address to the nation’s nuclear energy industry leaders.
Never happen here, to many of the “lunatic fringe”...and for some odd reason the socialist/communist is also a no go. Sorry if those two groups are redundant.
In a speech likely to provoke protests within his Government, Prime Minister Tony Blair said nuclear power was “back on the agenda with a vengeance”.
Poor Tony, according to quite a few Brits, if he wasn’t such a lapdog to Bush, he’d stop speaking to ‘nuke power’ in the U.K. and start talking about ‘nuke power’ for Persia…oh, wait…he did…:).
Well actually GWB has had the same thought…delivery systems would differ though.
Anthony ‘Luddite’ Albanese bespeaks the official ALP line:
“...opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said nuclear power in Australia was inevitable only if the Coalition was re-elected next year.
“John Howard’s nuclear fantasy is Australia’s nightmare,” Mr Albanese said.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 05 20 at 07:51 AM • permalinkHooligan /28
those investments are for the A-rabs in the same way as Mugabes wealth is for the Zims and Castro skimmed his billions to feed the Cuban peasants.
How’s that an objection to You Bet /24 ?
Like many people who have made an absolute fortune, they have spread their wealth across the board
He’s telling you that the owners of that wealth have diversified their re-investment OF that wealth; and you’re objecting that they haven’t redistributed that wealth. Diffrunt thangs, there.
Posted by Huck Foley on 2006 05 20 at 07:54 AM • permalinkSpeaking of the Anglosphere, it seems at least one of its historical members is also moving towards greater use of nuclear power.
South Africa has recently announced plans to build the country’s second nuclear reactor to supplement the existing one at Koeberg. This has predictably made the greens fairly upset, but the ANC government refuses to be held to ransom by nutcase environmentalists.
The most promising bit, however, is the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) design. This is a new type of nuclear reactor, relying on inert Helium for the cooling process rather than water, resulting in a reaction that simply cannot go into meltdown.
The SA government has underwritten the development of the PBMR, and the first demonstration reactor is to be built within the next three years. Following that, the SA govt plans to procure at least 30 of these new reactors to disperse around the country.
The US is also showing quite a bit of interest in the design. With its greater level of inherent safety as compared to older designs, it presents a possible way of getting nuclear power accepted by a public largely afraid of anything nuclear.
#30 Not objecting Huck, just observing that the financial position of the Saudi prices, and the financial position of the Arab nations are not the same thang. If the oil revenues dry up the Arab nations will have decidedly less financial and strategic clout. And even the princes will feel the pinch - no way will retail clothes sales etc match oil revenues
Impi beat me to it. Yes, pebble bed reactors.
By the way, cridland, if you were able to read, you would have found that the page you listed (a) events that had nothing to do with nuclear power plants and (b) potential problems at nuclear power plants. Under “NRC ASP Analysis Program”, almost all of the entries were situations where it was judged there was a 1 in 100 or less chance of damage to the reactor core; none of these involved containment failure at all, not even Three Mile Island.
Three Mile Island was run by idiots but fairly well-designed. So, no danger. Chernobyl was badly designed and run by idiots, thus a minor disaster.
I like the disposal idea of dropping hardened containers into the mud in really deep sea trenches where the plate is moving downwards and the waste does back into the earth. So simple - beats me why it isn’t being done. Either that or put it in the bottom of some of our abandoned open cut iron ore mines and fill the buggers back in.
Strange, isn’t it, that the recent Saudi announcement of an oil price drop coincides with all this renewed talk of nuclear energy in the consumer nations?
I think nuclear energy is inevitable, and it will cause no more death and destruction than the last few centuries of coal mining, or the last century and a half of oil drilling. Possibly not as much, safety conscious as we are today. Enviroacolytes will be thrown into chaos, however, as this is a classic case of trying to have it both ways.
As for the Middle East, their robber barons who made all the oil money will end up immigrating to palaces in the West, leaving behind their ragged masses to sit on their Korans. *shrug*
Is it a juggernaut yet? The Greens will certainly try to make it seem so.
Personally, I think the environmental lobby is losing its edge in the US. Concerns about
global warmingglobal coolingclimate change aside, people are weary of the hold the crazies of the world have on us because they control most of the oil. In addition to nuclear power, we need to sink new wells and build new refineries. And experiment with/invest in new technologies and alternate forms yada yada yadaYes, Rebecca, the oil barons, in particular Saudi Arabia, seem quite nervous about this whole business of weaning ourselves from foreign oil, don’t they? It’s almost the best part.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 05 20 at 10:39 AM • permalinkGo nukes!
As for drilling new fields in the US-it’s better we leave them alone for now. Our whole food chain is dependant on fossil fuels. Always will be too. 95% of our fertilizer is from natural gas, just to name one example. All those miracle crops that feed the world are completely dependant on so very many things that any problems will cause a crash into chaos. The four horsemen are just on the horizon.
Those oil / gas fields will come in real handy in 30 years or so.
I do know one other thing. Our decendents will curse us for burning up their futures.The morons in our gov’t., led by the ones from Fler’da and Cali, again blocked offshore drilling—something about sites located 3 miles offshore looking “ugly” to beachgoing tourists.
Can people actually see. on a horizon, stuff that’s 3 miles away? I’m not talking about being on a mountaintop and looking around—I’m talking about sitting on a beach and looking out at the water.
My favorite disposal method for ‘hot’ radioactives (i.e. waste from power production—not the secondarily radioactive the anti-nukes always want to count, too) is to mix it with molten glass then cut it into 10 foot cubes and stack them in a reasonably remote desert. After all, we may want to access them again someday. Waste is really only a currently non-useful resource.
Then you put up a series of signs at appropriate distances. Like: Danger! Radioactive sources ahead. Followed by: Hey! Moron! It’s gonna get hot real soon and you could get sick. Then: Hey! Stupid!! Yes, you!! It’s probably too late you imbecile, but if you can drag yourself out of the danger zone, someone may try to pick you up and see that you get treatment, not that it’ll probably help much. And, finally: Welcome you totally ignorant piece of shit! No one will even try to get your body. This is what roasting in Hell (where you’re undoubtedly destined to be soon) probably feels like, only for eternity. Have a nice whatever remains of your day.
Then all we’d have to do is arrange for surveillance cameras to keep a watch out for people in radiation suits (although that’s fairly dangerous in the desert), who might want to steal some of it. I should point out that getting enough to be useful in any real way would probably require the resources of a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet if not a real country.
Safe, secure, self-protecting. What could be better.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 05 20 at 11:34 AM • permalinkPixy, do you figure most people go the beach to stare at the horizon? Just askin’.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 05 20 at 11:35 AM • permalinkYes you can see them three miles out. Case in point is Oxnard, Kalifornia. I don’t know the exact distance but they are clearly visable.
Besides, if a Kennedy or a Cronkite can see a windmill from six miles out we should be able to see them from three miles out. Of course, they are far superior to mortals so maybe I should withdraw that last remark. Heh!
> It does not list “thousands” but
> to be fair, it does describe many
> accidents that are not well-known.Follow the links and you’ll find as many listings as you have eyes to read about. It demonstrates convincingly that’s monstrously stupid to say there have been “two” accidents.
> these accidents are relatively
> minor, and most didn’t kill
> anyone.I live near beaches that have had oil spills, and would invest on waterfront property without hesitation. But would you buy a place that had been the scene of a nuke accident? Of course not. Listen, if you’re old enough to read, you’re old enough to appreciate the science of the creeping death that nuclear poisoning can deliver, and the political intrigues by which these studies are wrought. To say “no one’d been killed!” is INFANTILE.
> One long-term cancer fatality, dude…
> ONE.Golly, you say that with masculine—yet poetic—certainty! So who is this (single) cancer fatality? No one knows, and no one ever will. It’s a cynical rhetorical ploy.
> Coal Mining Fatalities
All energy sources have costs. But oil accidents from 10 centuries ago aren’t still killing people today, or inflicting the sort of financial hardship that the Chernobyl sarcophagus will give to Ukraine evermore.
> no more cause for alarm than all
> the other forms of industryBegging the question, kitten.
> and no more cause for alarm
Again.
> Sorry, you are a dorkweed
> and ignorantHey! Don’t hurt my feelings!
> nobody proves anything and
> converts are rarely madePeople prove things all the time. Besides, point of these discussions is not to swing a full-scale religious conversion with four shiny sentences. I’m content to nurture doubt in some hearts and erase it from others.
> ALL radio active waste can be
> stored very safely in geologically
> stable environments, such as
> in many places of Australia
> and elsewhere.Three troubling words. Seeing “radio active” spelt in two parts like that makes me think you don’t type it very often and haven’t given it much thought. “Very” safe is an unnecessarily high standard, and simply glib. “Australia and elsewhere” is similarly wordy and vague… If Oz has been selling itself as a global destination for nuke refuse, I haven’t heard about it. Yet again, QED: arguments are restated instead of answered.
> if you were able to read
Why, that’s just MEAN!
> (a) events that had nothing
> to do with nuclear power
> plants and (b) potential
> problems at nuclear power
> plants.People can read the link and judge for themselves. Nuke plants are specifically mentioned, as are links to other resources. Knowing that accidents happen OUTSIDE of electricity-generation facilities is not likely to give people warm fuzzies about the technology.
> Chernobyl was badly designed
> and run by idiots, thus a
> minor disaster.Exactly how many square miles of inhabited real estate have to be taken off the map for 250,000 years before a disaster is regarded as ‘major’? No one’s addressed my earlier point about France: The culture is in transition from western discipline to Arab indolence. Is this a good time for them to invest in nukes?
> oil barons, in particular
> Saudi Arabia, seem quite
> nervous…A pendulum is swinging. In these years we’re mortified by the photos from Abu Gharaib. In the years to come there’ll be an event that produced photograpy like this, and it will swing back again. (Turn off the sound if you want, but be sure to watch the whole thing.)
Five dead today in a Kentucky coal mine. Lots more in China last week. Dorkweed is right: Nuclear power is dangerous. Lots of things are dangerous, but nuclear power is relatively VERY safe compared to so many other activities.
With reprocessing, the waste problem becomes trivial (especially compared to other waste problems such as coal ash). After reprocessing you have hot stuff #42 Jorgx talks about. Self protecting: I like. Mostly Sr-90 and Cs-137 with half lives very short compared to other industrial toxic wastes. And those might not be “waste” if research into self-healing semiconductor batteries (beta cells) pans out. They could be used to generate electricity directly from their decay.
Proliferation concerns about reprocessing are minor compared to “conventional” methods of obtaining nuclear weapons a-la USA ca. 1945, contemporary Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.
Pressurized light water reactors are a darn safe design, for many reasons. And they’re rugged—we’ve used them in hundreds of warships (including surface warships) for this reason among many others. Case in point, TMI-II was a success story. Earthquakes won’t hurt ‘em like the crazy scenarios pushed by activists.
As for “mashing the wrong button,” that poster is taking The Simpsons too seriously.
My problem with PBMRs is that as I understand them, they make reprocessing marginally used fuel more difficult than PWRs. But I like the helium coolant as the working fluid: Non-corrosive and works at a higher more thermodynamically efficient temperature.
#17, Mak, deuterium (H-2) is not radioactive, though there is a wee bit of radioactive tritium (H-3) in drinking water. Lightning and U/Th decay are not thermonuclear reactions though they exist as the result of the thermonuclear reaction in the last local supernova. Otherwise, you’re right about the K-40 we are all steeped in, plus cosmic radiation
I liken the antinuke crowd to a scene in the old Tarzan movies. Remember how the natives gathered around the white hunter and when he flicked his Zippo they all went boga boga, boga boga? The cridland’s of the world are the natives.
And by the way cridland, Chernobyl now has the highest concentration of healthy wildlife in Russia.That video you linked to, cridland (or is it LLL/Addamo?) proves absolutely nothing except that the maker visited some area around Chernobyl. Those kids could as easily be victims of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, in a country where alcoholism reigns supreme, and that’s exactly what they look like. Even the video-maker admitted he didn’t know what’s wrong with them. And birth defects are far more numerous in countries with poor rates of nutrition and backward medical care.
It was propaganda, whether by the maker or by the money-hungry people anxious to show him what he came to see.
Chernobyl’s in (the) Ukraine
Hells bells, how silly of me.
My point is the enviroment forgives. Check out the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. The Brits nuked them big time and now? Life. You and the twits like you require unrealistic and unnecessary standards that apply to nothing else on earth. Your Chicken Little squawks have delayed clean energy production to the point that our decendents may have not future at all. A pox on you and your kind.> It was propaganda
Absolutely. Those were my first critiques as well. But we’re never going to know how much of it is baseline wretchedness and how much was Chernobyl. In any case, cultures that care for their weakest as the former Soviets do aren’t the ones who should be playing with matches. The rest of the world is hot for nukes for the same reason that midwestern in the United States sold their souls to the National Football League: They want to play with the Big Boys.
> My point is the enviroment forgives.
It forgives petroleum more readily than nuclear radiation.
> and now? Life.
Single. Word. Sentences. don’t mask logical errors. Are you buying real estate on the Montebellos? Do you eat fruit that was farmed there? Mere “Life” is not the standard most would apply to the environment. We want PEOPLE to do well.
> A pox on you and your kind.
You feelings have been hurt, we can tell.
No one’s addressed my earlier point about France: The culture is in transition from
western discipline to Arab indolence. Is this
a good time for them to invest in nukes?No, the point is France has already invested heavily in nuclear power plants, and somehow avoided the nuclear disaster you seem to regard as inevitable.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 05 20 at 02:05 PM • permalink#59 We want PEOPLE to do well.
Who’s we? The POEPLE have doubled in my lifetime. Wonder what the PEOPLE will eat in the furture? Be sure and fill us in on how your solar panels will provide for us. Love to see the data.
My solution is when push comes to shove, I’ll take what you have, sorry but that’s what PEOPLE do. Kind of a predator/ prey kind of thing. Yes, you did hurt my feelings. I was sure Booga was spelled Boga, but I suppose a Yallie would know these things.> and somehow avoided the nuclear disaster
They have so long as the western social currents have predominated in their culture… Those days are a closing. As noted by several commenters above, the Soviets got into trouble because they were fuckups playing with fire. France is drifting closer to the Russian currents of development than to the American.
#59, I didn’t understand half of what you said in that post. You threw up a link to a video as some kind of vindication, and then backed away from it when challenged. And what has any of this got to do with football teams?
It forgives petroleum more readily than nuclear radiation.
You can’t even get this right. Have you ever seen a Texas pasture with a pumping jack in the middle of it? Thirty-five years after the jack is gone, the ground is still dead, not one living thing growing on it. No one knows if anything ever will. That’s how forgiving nature is of petroleum.
> then backed away from it when challenged.
If you think you can convince people not to worry about about health consequences from nuclear power accidents, good luck. You’re up against some powerful stuff, including logic and decency.
> football teams?
Small cities want football teams so they can pretend to be big cities. Bullshit countries want nuclear power so they can pretend to be civilized powers. (And if there’s a weapons angle that comes from it, so much the better.) EVEN IF the advanced powers can continue to develop accident-free stations, it’s not an example that the third world can follow.
> Thirty-five years after the jack is
> gone, the ground is still dead…The floor of reactor number 3 is not presently hospitable to mice and rabbits either. For humans, the surrounding 30km is gone, essentially, FOREVER. Would you eat deer meat from Pripyat?
Consider the surrounding economy. Do you doubt that people DO eat things from the Zone? Are you happy about it?
I trust Texas cattle to avoid feed that tastes too oily.
If you think you can convince people not to worry about about health consequences from nuclear power accidents, good luck. You’re up against some powerful stuff, including logic and decency.
You mean, like you’re doing with petroleum and coal health consequences? As for logic and decency, do not invoke that which you do not employ.
Bullshit countries want nuclear power so they can pretend to be civilized powers.
Or maybe these “bullshit” countries just want cheap, clean energy so they can build up their economies, and become non-bullshit countries? Just a thought.
EVEN IF the advanced powers can continue to develop accident-free stations, it’s not an example that the third world can follow.
We were discussing nuclear options in the Anglospheric countries, not the third world, but there is no reason they couldn’t eventually use the safe designs of the West. Even being “bullshit” countries as you so colorfully term them.
The floor of reactor number 3 is not presently hospitable to mice and rabbits either. For humans, the surrounding 30km is gone, essentially, FOREVER.
Again, you cite the example of a single nuclear accident. Which happened to a reactor whose design no one will ever use again [see examples of newer, more efficient designs mentioned above]. And FOREVER is a long time. What’s amazing to me is that human beings have continued to live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after atomic bombs were dropped on them. That was a horrific event, but if the health risks were so unacceptably widespread, why are those people still there?
France is drifting closer to the Russian currents of development than to the American.
What are you talking about? Political developments? Reactor designs? Crappy cars? What? What is your proof of this?
Anyway Rebecca, you’re right, but the forces of persuasion use black and powerful magic.
What does this mean? Which forces of persuasion? About what? This talk of “black and powerful magic” makes you sound powerfully paranoid, and I mean that in the kindest possible way.
Saltydog, I’m not sure I understand your question.
The French piss me off. They build reactors for Saddam, and then deeply corrupt the United Nations processes which were designed to keep him “in his box”, then complain that those corrupt processes were working when they obviously weren’t. Then they scoot down to the south pacific to pull stunts like this without regard to the concerns of nearby nations. Then they act unilaterally in Cote d’Ivoire and pretend we can’t see them. Then they park millions of immigrants in slums and keep them unemployed. Then the immigrant’s kids start burning cars for the hell of it. Then their white native kids skip school to riot for retirement benefits that they haven’t shown the slightest inclination to earn.
Get the picture? The French are fucked up. But they’re a western democracy. So in the postwar 20th century, nobody was concerned when they became a nuclear power, whether for energy or for weapons. But France is going to be going through a lot of changes in the decades ahead, as these unemployed immigrants start demanding health care and so forth. You don’t have to be a pessimist to see that things could go really badly there… Not as bad as Russia today, but not as good as America tomorrow.
For France to continue to invest in nuclear may not be wise. In a generation or so, they may not have the educated class or social stability to support it.
So, cridland, because France screwed up its social policy, the English-speaking countries have to forego cheap, safe, and reliable energy.
Makes no sense. But then, I get the feeling you’ve been out-argued, and are just clutching at anything.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 05 20 at 04:14 PM • permalink> the English-speaking countries have to
> forego cheap, safe, and reliable energy.France shows us that times change, but the impact of nuclear power does not. Yushchenko’s great-great-great-great-grandson is going to have to worry about the condition of the sarcophagus. Rebecca’s oil wells aren’t going to be that kind of problem.
> petroleum and coal health consequences
I said that all energy sources have costs. If you really want to make the case that nukes are a bargain, we’re ready to listen. But too much of the pro-nuke rhetoric seen lately is a twitchy sensitivity to oil’s downsides.
> petroleum and coal health consequences?
The relationship the West has chosen to have with its oil vendors has often been problematic. I’m pleased that oilman George W. Bush is trying an innovative and democratic alternative.
> these “bullshit” countries just want
> cheap, clean energyEverybody does, but they’re not up to it. Again, see Chernobyl.
> the safe designs of the West.
Design is not the largest part of the equation. COMPETENCE is.
> you cite the example of a single
> nuclear accidentIt’s a compelling example. How large a sample size do you want?
> That was a horrific event.
The hazards are not perfectly comparable, now are they?
> What is your proof of this?
Honey, read the papers.
> worst case scenario for future
> nuclear disasterWorst case? The sky’s the limit, isn’t it? I don’t think bad outcomes are certain. But nuclear accidents damage things for thousands of years.
> my scenario of economic and social
> collapseIs that what worries you? Have faith. There’s plenty of oil in the ground, and clever people will find better ways to get energy than nuclear.
Cridland, Yes, I’m not concerned with 3 dollar gas or even 6 dollar gas. No gas is a different story. While there is still quite a bit of fossil fuel in the world there isn’t enough to keep burning it. Oil and gas and coal will be needed for other things and our decentents will curse us for squandering it.
I do have faith in clever people. I don’t however believe in magic. If you wish to bring up alternative energy and greater efficiencies, etc, then keep to existing technology and reasonable progress. Energy isn’t like the internet or some other future wonder. You can’t make steel or plastic or even a box of corn flakes with a computer or wishfull thinking. Every unit of energy that you want to get out of a system has to be put into it first (first law of thermodymanics). Actually you have to put more into the system than you get out (second law of thermodynamics) and the system will degrade over time (the third law of thermodynamics). What source do you propose to keep your toes warm on a frosty night? Remember, no magic and please factor peoples like India and China who want their share.Fella, relax. We are not responsible for collecting all the energy everyone will ever need before Monday morning. The clever people you mentioned are working in an economy that reward innovation.
And what the hell is “reasonable progress,” and why are you quoting a sixth grader’s guide to physics?
My points:
1) All energy sources have costs
2) Nukes are trendy because oil’s had a bad decade
3) capitalist, non-theocratic democracies will solve the problems long before anyone else does.
‘K? ‘K.
Dorkweed Crindland, I’d eat game and veggies from the Chernobyl area of the Ukraine. In. Single. Word. Abundance.
Somewhere there’s a line where it’d be bad for you, in high doses, but the line drawn resulting in all those square miles is very conservative.
The dose makes the poison. If ANY dose is bad, then where are the excess deaths from cosmic radiation in Denver USA and Albuquerque USA compared to sea-level Los Angeles USA, where natural doses of radiation are about 100 mrem/yr lower. Those are the kinds of dose differences we are talking about that result in the “future cancer cases.”
They are the result of faulty extrapolations of the “linear no-threshold” (LNT) model of looking at things, with no consideration of benefits. LNT is preposterous, as shown by the Denver/LA example for radiation exposure (in small doses), as well as the case of, say vitamin D: essential for life, yet DEADLY in large doses.
Again, you have deference for the “dangerous” nuclear power industry, but none for the more prevalent dangers of excessive energy scarcity.
Ah Ha!
“Well, I’m writing during renders at work”
Now, where have we heard that before?
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 05 20 at 09:53 PM • permalink#74 “cridland” Well, I’m writing during renders at work.
AH Ha! indeed MentalFloss. Yes, I think it was our mate Adammo, aka AddamsFamily who once felt the need to share with us that he was writing “during simulations and renderings at work”. Could be a co-incidence of course. I note that cridland doesn’t have the AddamsFamily’s spelling ability.
On the other hand, cretin cridland’s (small) rebuttal of my post at #20 was pretty lame and in keeping with the AddamsFamily’s abilities.
What a tosser.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 20 at 10:07 PM • permalinkIf you are still about cridland, don’t worry about the entomology of “radio active” or “Australia and elsewhere” or degrees of “very” but if you have any technical knowledge, have another go:
* ALL radio active waste can be stored very safely in geologically stable environments, such as in many places of Australia and elsewhere. Worried about leakage? How can it leak? No ground water in them thar rocks and no earthquakes. And what about the uranium deposits that are all over the place now, on the surface and leaching into rivers! Uranium comes from the earth, you know. Also, another word (and Aussie discovery): synroc
* Worried about long half-lives? OK, so some radio-active isotopes are poisonous for hundreds of thousands of years. Chemical waste is toxic FOREVER. Lets focus on the bigger problem of eternal poison, eh?
* “Ban nuclear power” - OK, let the bastards freeze in the dark.
* Prefer thermal power? OK, how are you disposing of the thousands of tonnes of radioactive wate that coal fired power stations produce every year. It mostly goes into uncontraolled landfill!! Don’t bitch about nuclear power until “you” clean up the coal fired waste.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 20 at 10:11 PM • permalinkReese I was using the examples of common radiocative materials found.Whilst the materials are radioactive as a description sych as naturally decaying U235,there a naturally ocurring transmutations.
Deuterium is always present in water: on average, a molecule of DHO (water, where one of hydrogen atoms is replaced by deuterium) falls to 6,800 molecules of H2O. That means - taking into account the quantity of water vapour available in the atmosphere (i.e. 5х10^-4 g/cubic centimeter) - there will be 10^15 deuterium atoms per cubic centimeter. In lightning, these atoms turn into ions and are capable of gathering speed up to considerable energy.
With the lightening canal diameter varying from 2 millimeters to 5 centimeters, and discharge duration making the ten-thousandth of a second, it proves that billions of deuterium atoms will have time to start reacting with each other and to generate precisely two times less atoms of helium-3 and neutrons. These neutrons already possess enormous energy - 2.45 MeV. However, in the atmosphere of our planet they are capable of living at most for 0.2 seconds, during which they will be absorbed by nitrogen atoms.The time frame allow neuton dispersal of around 2.5km.The neutron emmissions peak in thunderstorms exceeding background radiation hundreds of times.
Posted by maksimovich on 2006 05 20 at 10:59 PM • permalink#80 Dorkweed,
The science ain’t mine. It just is. Thank you Galileo.
I said the difference in yearly natural doserates between LA and, say Denver is about 100 mrem. I didn’t look it up, it’s just what I recall. Suppose it’s 30? Suppose it’s 300? The point is that the LNT model used to find 4000 bodies after Chernobyl or to find #19 ekb’s single body is flawed.
We’ve had that debate in these parts (eastern New Mexico, USA) for a number of years. I paraphrase someone else’s wording of the argument: Suppose a truck full of radioactive material had a (non-natural) doserate of 1 mrem/hour at one meter spends one hour passing each of one million people. One of them will supposedly die as as a result. For that, many here are “concerned.” Preposterous
—Sugar
And… I now say, I’ve always liked the name ‘Rebecca.’
I saw somw papers relating to the cosmic radiation ,I think it was in a backgrounder to the major solar event of November 2003.
As an aside it is because people think that because of The N bomb we are the cause of the radiation found on earth.They immediately consider in as a man made event.
In Russia on the weather report they have the solar forecast and state the solar flares,and emitted readiatio,Following this people feel melancholic and blame the solar.cosmic radiation.Interesting enough PMT/PMS does not exist in Russia as they have not heard of it,it is merely the solar events and it effects both male and females.
Posted by maksimovich on 2006 05 21 at 12:06 AM • permalinkAvoiding a few things cridland/AddamsFamily?
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 21 at 09:01 AM • permalink> That was a horrific event.
The hazards are not perfectly comparable, now are they?Another thing to consider about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ushie, is cridland’s assertion that the hazards are not comparable to a Chernobyl-style nuclear meltdown. And he’s right, they’re not. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were infinitely more catastrophic than any reactor meltdown would be, and yet… the people are still there.
I’m not saying nuclear energy is without risks, and neither is anyone else here. I’m just saying avoiding the technology because somebody might get hurt misses the point and is a backward-looking head-in-the-sand approach to life. Luckily for us, most humans (lefty, envirosissies aside) aren’t known to practice it in any appreciable way.
Don’t bother with the usual facile, snide putdowns, cridland/LLL/Addamo. I’m done with the thread.
Madeja look! Har!
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki were infinitely more
> catastrophic than any reactor meltdownSays who? By what measure? If I understand correctly, the radioactive material from those attacks was dispersed very, very quickly. In a plant accident, these sources can cook and fester for a long time.
Anyway, that’s a wrap. Any questions, see #78. Thanks for playing.
Oh, please don’t run away cridladdamo. So many open queries… for someone with the answers, you seem to ignore much that is put to you.
The only conclusion so far is that you’re a fuckwit. Oh! Have I heart your feelings again?
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 21 at 06:14 PM • permalink
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