No Future for Nuclear Energy
Here they go again. After thirty years without a firm order, the atomic power companies are pushing their radioactive, costly technology for a comeback on the backs of you the taxpayers.
The old argument in the Seventies was that nuclear powered electricity would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. With only three percent of our electricity coming from burning petroleum, the pro-nuke lobby is now jumping on the global warming bandwagon. Uranium, they argue, does not release greenhouse gases like coal or oil.
What nuclear lobbies ignore is all the coal and oil that needs to be burned to enrich uranium, to transport radioactive wastes with protective highway and rail convoys and provide security since they would be a priority target for sabotage.
Apart from that, let’s start with the technological insanity of the nuclear fuel cycle-from uranium mines and their deadly tailings, to the refining and fabrication into fuel rods, to the multi-shielded dome-like nuclear plant, to the necessity for perfect operation of the facility, to the still unresolved problems of the location and containment of hot radioactive wastes and contaminated material for the next 200,000 years!
All this for one objective-to boil water into steam. A pretty complex chain of events in order to boil water. There are far better, cheaper ways to meet the electricity needs of today’s generation without burdening future generations for centuries with the deadly waste products.
Back in the Seventies, before the public rose up and said no to nuclear power, helped by Wall Street’s reluctance to finance these trouble-prone plants, the Atomic Energy Commission projected the construction of 1000 atomic power plants in the U.S. by the year 2000. There are today 103 plants.
Placing the predicted 100 plants up and down the California coastline would have been an act of peerless recklessness, especially given the earthquake faults.
Just this week, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Kashiwazaki, Japan and disabled a gigantic nuclear power plant which the New York Times reported, “raised new concerns about the safety of the nation’s accident-plagued nuclear industry.” It turns out that this plant, owned by Tokyo Electric Power, may be sitting directly above an earthquake fault line.
Each day, reports show damage greater than believed the day before, including radiation leaks, damage to exhaust ducts, burst pipes and other “malfunctions” beyond the fires. Several hundred barrels of radioactive waste were toppled.
The problem with nuclear power is that it gets one bite of the apple.
Just one major meltdown could provoke a demand to close the industry down by overwhelming adverse public outrage. You see, way back in the Fifties and Sixties, the Atomic Energy Commission, a booster-regulatory agency for atomic power plants, estimated that an “area the size of Pennsylvania” would be contaminated in such a disaster.
Remember, Chernobyl in Ukraine is still surrounded by vacant towns and villages following the 1986 tragedy. Radioactivity found its way as far as sheep in England, nuts grown in Turkey and elsewhere.
Do you know any other industry producing electricity that has to have specific evacuation plans for miles around it, is inherently a national security risk, cannot be privately insured without Congress mandating severe limited liability in case of massive casualties and requires massive taxpayer subsidies?
A most concise, authoritative case against the electric atom was recently released titled “Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry is Risky” by a group of environmental health and social investment groups. (See www.cleanenergy.org)
In the introduction to the report, the case against nuclear energy was summarized this way: “Wind power and other renewable technologies, combined with energy efficiency, conservation and cogeneration can be much more cost effective and can be deployed much sooner than new nuclear power plants.”
Yes indeed, efficiency or conservation, with a national mission, can cut in half the waste of energy, using currently available technology and know-how, before the first privately capitalized nuclear plant opens. One scientist once described the primary output of electric generating plants as “heating the heavens.”
If this insensitive industry cannot be revived by Uncle Sam’s tax treasury, Wall Street certainly has given no indication that private investment would take on the risk. Investment money is pouring presently into wind power, solar and other renewables and this is just the early springtime for these benign sources of energy.
The International Energy Agency sees a 25% cost reduction for wind power and a 50% cost reduction for solar photovoltaics from 2001 to 2020. Without Wall Street’s private capital and with rising construction and operating costs in other countries, the prospect for nuclear power being competitive, even deducting decommissioning costs, and the many
millennia of waste storage costs, is not there.
Add a major accident and you’ll see, in addition to casualties and contaminated land and property, every private investor running for cover while the bill is passed on to taxpayers.
Here is a suggestion to put the industry’s propaganda to rest. Will any high nuclear industry executive debate physicist Amory Lovins at the National Press Club filled with electric company leaders? If so, please visit http://www.rmi.org and contact Mr. Lovins.
There is also the little matter of the vastly underfunded insurance program. The nuclear electric power industry is suppose to be self insured, but the fund is SO underfunded that the U.S. Government tax payers may have to pick up a $500 billion tab if any one of the more than 100 nuclear power plants goes into melt down.
Ralph,
Please run for president so that I and others can vote for someone worthy of our vote. I will write in your name if you are not on the ballot in my state.
Yeh, run for president so the Democrats will have someone to blame when they cannot get the job done. For me, if ‘none of the above’ was a choice, that would be mine. The ignorance of the American Public leaves us unlikely to get a good man into office.
At no other than than now in our nation’s history has there been a critical need for a third party run for all national offices. Nader needs to get back into the political fray. The Demon-Democrats have tried to squash any attempts by him or the Green Party to run candidates in this country for fear that the electorate will wake up and realize just what the Democratic leadership and DLC are. The Greens just announced plans at their national convention to attain ballot access in every state and the district of Columbia. Since the Democratic congress failed to check Bush and his war machine, the Green Party has seen a surge of growth in membership. Nader is too much of a national treasure to allow him to sit this one out. His vast knowledge on so many issues that effect our quality of life is the key to blowing the lid off our rigged electoral system, those who run it and their hidden agenda.
Ralph, your voice of intelligence and reason is needed more than ever to expose what is leading this country into ruin. Join with the Greens who already have ballot access in many states, an orgainization from coast to coast that speaks to progressive issues, and together, rather than divided, Greens, other progressives and you can achieve what Americans need right now. Lead a united front in 2008. Expose the corporate owned government and the special interests for what they are doing to America. Educate the masses who can’t figure it out for themselves. Time is of the essence more than ever before.
After a democrat is elected president in 2008 and it turns out he or she isn’t any better
than what’s in there now, if you vote for Nader, you can say as I have for the last 30 years,
” Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him”. In my 30 years of voting, I’ve never voted for a
winner yet. Maybe if I had voted for bush the last 2 times, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The total costs of nuclear energy are staggering.
The total costs of renewable energy are tiny in comparison.
The people have a right to know these total costs.
The people have a right to choose the better value.
Okay folks, don’t touch your mouse,___ Billy__y4, the nuke fanatic and his cheering section, will be here shortly, live and in living black and white and filled with stupid wisdom.
Oh, we also will be hearng from the ex- Nader folks, who will say he cost Al Gore the election and those that say he didn’t. Who else? This should be a good one, hope we learn some facts about why nuclear power is a wide awake, living nightmare.
gore the election.
RUDYJO says, “” Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him”. In my 30 years of voting, I’ve never voted for a
winner yet. Maybe if I had voted for bush the last 2 times, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Love the humor!
I’m still upset about Al Gore costing Ralph Nader the 2000 election. Gore is just an arrogant jack ass and egomaniac.
I’m sorry but Ralph is wrong along with being right. The reality people is that the world uses 85,000,000 b/d of liquid. This includes fossil, synth and ethanols. Let’s just do the math bare with me…
85,000,000 barrels at 42 gallons per barrel is 3,570,000,000 gallons a day. There are 6,500,000,000 people on the earth and if the liquid was divided equally among them all each human would get .53 gallons of oil per day. Now food, transport, clothing, medicine, building materials, etc all require fossil fuel. Cooking a meal alone can require 1000’s of calories of heat to cook even fewer calories of food.
The US population at 300,000,000 relies on 5 gallons or more per person per day based on all things oil. This alters the figure above greatly, observe. 300,000,000 * 5 = 1,500,000,000 gallons per day US. 3,570,000,000 gallons total global per day - 1,500,000,000 = 2,070,000,000 remaining gallons to be divided against the adjusted global population minus the US population at 6,427,909,368 = .32 gallons per day.
Reactors are dangerous however there is simply not enough liquid produced each day and that number is in decline. We are already using all of the alternatives and solid fuels as well and there is simply not enough energy for everyone. The entire industrial world is about to collapse since it is unable to meet the growing demands of the growing population.
We are not going to stop the pollution, we are not going to stop using energy and we are going to go off the cliff! Once again my deepest sympathies go out to all of you!
I hate math Sh@dow, but I bet you are right.
No argument against nuclear power is complete without the positive alternative.
Conservation is dirt cheap now. A negawatt is always cheaper than a carbon-generated megawatt.
Solar is getting cheaper. Wind is getting cheaper. If Vestas Wind doesn’t drive down the cost per kilowatt-hour, maybe a startup like Mass Megawatts will. These are technologies that we know have a tiny carbon footprint and pay off nicely. Don’t compare nuclear against where oil will be in ten years, compare it against where solar and wind technology will be in ten years.
The main argument against photovoltaics and wind is that the electricity is random and can’t be stored. The truth is that we haven’t bothered to store solar or wind electricity yet, but our electric utilities already store electricity for other reasons. A good example is the pumped hydroelectric storage plant at Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River north of New York City. Excess power from Niagara Falls pumps water uphill for storage at night, and they generate peak power in the daytime for NYC.
Sun is stored in plants, animals and fossil fuel!
No nukes…
Here is Bingham Mine…
http://www.mining-technology.com/projects/bingham/bingham2.html
Here is some equipment used there…
http://www.mining-technology.com/projects/bingham/bingham3.html
Here is what powers the mine (coal)…
http://www.mining-technology.com/projects/bingham/bingham4.html
All of the photovoltaics and turbines originate from mines. Currently 6 different metals can be used to make photo cells. They are all expensive and going into depletion like everything else. We do need to ration everything but it will not matter as humanity is going off the cliff!
http://www.dieoff.org/page125.htm
Nuclear power is a source that fits in well with the current corporate energy paradigm. Technically complicated, with a high capital cost, it is a nice fit for the people who have their hands on the world energy tap.
Whatis next? Probably government subsidies, and lots of magazine and news articles on “little spherical nuclear fuel pellets” etc.. etc… ad nauseaum and how safe and fantastic 21st century nuclear power is.
Ralph should do one on LNG next. LNG ports are being planned and constructed all over North America.
The corporate world must have a long term strategy to keep energy costs low enough to prevent outside competition.
High oil prices are a dilemma for the energy industry.
It is not in their long term interests for oil prices to be high, because it fosters new technologies, though the short term profits are very nice.
Nuclear power could be competitive if oil prices stay high, and as is necessary for central control - cannot be produced locally.
Its a similar situation to the agribus system-which is directly linked to cheap American energy. Basic food products will always be kept at a level low enough to prevent markets seeking alternative sources enmass.
Hello from the shadow of the US, where everything American becomes Australian.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/downer-open-to-talks-on-nuclear-pact-with-us/2007/07/20/1184560040260.html
Solar has lots of it’s own problems with pollution created during manufacturing and reprocessing of batteries. Battery life makes it difficult, pollution aside to be competitive with current energy sources. Wind is not trouble free ecologically speaking and it takes one hell of a lot of windmills to replace current energy sources. Nuclear energy has an unbelievable number of problems outlined by this article. I heard one of Wall Street’s leading energy experts interviewed on Bob Brinker’s radio show a few months back. He contends that the U.S. energy policies or lack thereof is leading the U.S. full steam over the energy cliff and may take the rest of the wold with it. He is not some left winger but a guy who makes money for himself and other people by looking and analysing correctly the facts. He stated that the only hope is conservation. He gave the figures but basically nothing else adds up financially. Even if there were 200 nuclear power plants ordered today it would take a decade or more to get them on line.
1000s of these are in the works… (PBMR)…
http://web.mit.edu/pebble-bed/
On the other hand in Washington State 1,000,000+ gallons of HIGH LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE made it to Washington’s drinking water. Beyond that the big plan to get rid of all nuclear waste is to cast it in glass and drop it in the oceans!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1553896.shtml
We don’t have a chance folks so party like it’s 1999
Yes, there is LNG which has not been getting a big foothold in the U.S. yet even though the Bush Administration has tried to clear the way for those ports. The problem is that a tanker full of LNG could take out a city if it ignited. Even when the ports were promised to be offshore the City and even States have prevented the installation of LNG ports in the U.S. Now there is a huge LNG port being built on the Baja peninsula and with the trade laws it will probably be difficult to stop shipment of LNG to the U.S.
sh@dow, don’t worry Mt. St.Helen is going to erupt again and wash Hanford into the Columbia river licquifieng all their radio active waste containment vats thus making the area unlivable. Maybe the fish will make a comeback, they might glow for awhile
LNG = Liquefied Natural Gas\\
The Natural Gas that is also running out is liquefied (at a net loss) and put on special ships that bring it to the US. It is 1000s of times more explosive so special ports need to be constructed (at a net loss).
So you were talking LNG?
Our only real hope to survive would be to be saved by space men!
One nuclear waste products that our childkilling babybutchers really love is Depleated Uranium. How many megatons have we used to maim millions for eternity?
Shadow,___ how about space wemon?
I have lived most of my life next to the Hanford Nuclear reservation where, for years, the local mantra was that there was no problem with waste and contamination. Once the money for new reactors dried up someone discovered there was lots of money to be made in cleanup. So, I hope the vast sums currently going to Bechtel to build the vitrification plant, as well as other cleanup projects, are part of everyone’s Solar VS Nuclear math.
As to the economics of Solar, I recall the “clothesline paradox” (something I first heard explained in the late 70s). When someone develops a high tech solar solution like photovoltaic panels that can be metered then it is recognized and dismissed as prohibitively expensive, but when you dry your clothes on a line it is not measured or generally recognized as a contribution to our energy needs. There are perhaps a hundred other examples but they require individual lifestyles changes and not new industries or other measurable contributions to the economy.
Evelyn Smith July 21st, 2007 10:21 pm
You can be my spacewoman if you want!
We don’t need windmills to use the winds energy, the solar/wind Power Towers Australia and China are building will suffice.
On a twenty square mile of land, we could build enough towers to provide the electrical needs for ten million homes. Their free energy could also be used to crack sea water and make hydrogen fuel inexpensive. There would be no dangerous waste, no pollution, less energy and materials required to construct than to build a single nuke plant.
clean burning hydrogen fuel woud end the need for oil to gas our vehicles.
We could have dozens of those type plants in several areas of the country, interconnected to power grids now used by the the hydro electric dams. We could also start using geo-thermal and tide power, which is readily available and in our country is not used.
It is not only foolish for us to ignore those sources of energy, it is a crime. The crime is, we instead use air fouling coal and dangerous nuclear energy to suit our needs.
Well, the big boys don’t own the sun or the wind and until they do,__ hold your breath, because the air is full of poison and it ain’t gonna stop._____ Unless we stop it.
Evelyn Smith July 21st, 2007 10:41 pm
Optimism is very optimistic!
I suffer from hallitosis shadow___ Everyone else I talk to suffers also. I’m bald too. Better wait for the spaceship buddy. Might be full of Paris Hiltons, you could teach them how to parralel park.
Sh@dow, is there any way, in your opinion, of achieving justice for humans and the other life forms? What have you chosen to do with your life–if its pointless–because we’re going off the cliff? I’m serious. I’ve likened our behavior to lemmings. I just keep working on peace and solving the GHG problem, hoping…
Something I read, either here on Common Dreams, or on a closely-linked site, suggested that the only ways out of this mess will be either a military which refuses the administration or a federal civil service which does so.
There may be a third way — a class of scientists, thinkers, scholars, professionals, etc. which refuses to embark on bad ideas, to be a part of them, to further them, etc. In other words, they brain-drain them, by their absence.
The fact that so many top-FEMA/Homeland administration positions are vacant, that groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists have (unfortunately) had to become politicized because of today’s realities, etc. suggests that the best act any bright young physics scholar can do is to research something like clean solar, hydrogen, or some other form of power — and abandon the fission mission like the plague that it is. Brain drain them. If they can’t get anyone who knows what the hell he’s doing, they’ll become anachronisms.
Hope is a nice four letter word, with no action, it is just that, a nice four letter word. Most of us Lemmings have neither.
shadow may have a better answer. Probably does.
I believe Ralph is quite right in some regards:
If we build additional nuke plants in this country they will not directly replace oil. (Nuclear plants are direct competitors with coal fired electricity. Oil is no longer a major source of electricity in the US.)
They do have a long lead time to come on line from the start of the new liscensing process to first power is probably 10 years or so. (Half of this time is spent on investigations and hearings to ensure a safe and environmentally sound siting. Among other things, trying to avoid errors like locating adjacent to an active fault.)
One royal screwup and the nuclear train will get seriously kicked off track.
IMHO, the major lesson from the Japanese earthquake is a validation of the design of the reactors. They were subjected to a seismic load twice the design criteria and were safely secured. They are damaged; perhaps fatally, but they were safely secured. No one got hurt and no one got a high dose of radiation. What more would we want from such an installation?
Yes, they released radiation; it was the equivalent of 3 smoke detectors. The radioactive water that sloshed out of the storage pool drained into the sea of Japan in accordance with the safety plan.
Yes, barrels of low level waste were overturned and several spilled their contents. This low level waste is mostly dirty clothing and is, in truth, harmless. This will be cleaned up by workers wearing more of the same disposable coveralls, booties and gloves.
Yes, there was a fire. It was in the switch yard (electrical station) adjacent to the plant and was not a threat to any vital nuclear safety systems.
On to some of Mr. Nader’s other points:
Electrical power from uranium does emit greenhouse gases in the fuel mining, preparation, shipping and storing. It emits greenhouse gases in the manufacture of the concrete for the plant. The lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from a nuclear plant are lower than a solar PV plant for an equivalent amount of electric power produced. Compared to coal or natural gas electrical production, the greenhouse gases of both nuclear and PV are trivial.
Mr Nader is correct that wind power is expanding in the US. Electricity from wind power does not compete with nuclear-it competes with natural gas. Because of its unpredictable and intermittent nature it is not considered baseload power. Wind has less than a 1% market share of the electricity generated in the United States. It can expand up to about 6% before the unpredictabiity starts to introduce stability problems into the electrical grid. Beyond 6% energy storage of some sort will be needed to reduce the impact of the intermittency.
A recent solar installation in Nevada cost approximately $4000 per kilowatt (peak). New nuclear construction is projected to be between $1400 and $2000 per kilowatt depending on your assumptions. The solar plant will generate at capacity approximately 25% of the time. A nuclear plant should generate at capacity approximatley 90% of the time. This makes solar 8 or more times more expensive than nuclear. (The solar installation is a concentrating thermal plant, not a PV plant-PV would be more expensive.)
Mr Nader is right, there is a cheaper way to make steam than nuclear, its coal. It is cheaper but it is not better.
Paul Bramscher said:
>There may be a third way — a class of scientists, thinkers, scholars,
>professionals, etc. which refuses to embark on bad ideas, to be a part of
>them, to further them, etc. In other words, they brain-drain them, by
>their absence.
In my experience, such people are always in favor of using some technology to get us out of a hole, i.e. “better living through science.” And they’re mostly pro-nuclear power. I think the folks who were thinking of getting into science, or who were at one time in science, who were anti-nuclear, changed their mind and got out. Maybe I’m wrong.
Reading all of this, I think I see a new film for Michael Moore!!
Depends on how you measure cheaper. With containment & real estate costs projected into the centuries/milennia, it’s hard to beat nuclear for being the absolutely most expensive form of energy from a TCO perspective.
As for better, my bet goes to the most common element in the universe (hydrogen). Either directly (hydrogen power) or indirectly (solar).
Jen July 21st, 2007 11:13 pm
Sh@dow, is there any way, in your opinion, of achieving justice for humans and the other life forms? What have you chosen to do with your life–if its pointless–because we’re going off the cliff? I’m serious. I’ve likened our behavior to lemmings. I just keep working on peace and solving the GHG problem, hoping…
The best way to address you is with a link since I don’t want to be the bearer of bad tithes.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159&q=The+History+of+Oil&total=790&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Its a long video!
Folks keep on mentioning MONEY
The USA is $9TRILLION in the hole and we are in a dictatorship and import all of our energy and our money is WORTHLESS as it is backed by NOTHING
Economic collapse is here along with chronic depression!
Did any of you know that this happened the other day?
http://truthorlies.org/govtarticle0131.html
U.S. Treasury Holds Disaster Drill in Tampa Bay
They are getting ready for a RUN ON THE BANK
“Solar has lots of it’s own problems with pollution created during manufacturing and reprocessing of batteries. Battery life makes it difficult, ”
The solution is for humanity to resume going to sleep at sundown and rising at dawn. Everyone is right about there not being enough clean energy to sustain out current lifestyles.
Shadow,__if we do have a depression, it will be a very quick end of the United States. If we don’t, it will take awhile longer at the rate we are now going. ____Buttt, for the present, Billy___y4 has arrived.___ Yippeee.
Billy and I have some fun fun here, he thinks I may be insane and I am certain that he is, cause he works for a nuke facility.__ Nice guys can be wacko.
Okie Dokie Bill,__ here is the latest ADMITTED info, on the “minor” problems at the Japenese nuke facility. First, the sloshed, radioatively contaminated water you mentioned, was six hundred gallons. Sooo, just squegee it into the Sea of japan. It helps to tenderize the shushi and dopes up the whales for easier killing. I had a great big broiled whale steak dinner in Ashiya Japan once in 1960,__ yum yum.
Next? The barrels of radioactive waste that tipped over and many spilled their contents,__ was?__ It was 400 barrels, no report of what the actual contents were. Clothing, shoes, sox, undies, komonoes, jock straps? Those items would be assumptions. The drums may have held plutonium or some other nice poison. We just don’t know__ and we likely never will.
We have had quake damage to nuclear facilities here in the
United States, and most of us never hear of them. One good example of one, was at the Dresden plant in Illinois and liquid radioactive waste seeped into the ground water.
And another minor event at that time and place, oh__ that was hazardous radioactive isotopes, cobalt-60 and chromium-51, were emitted into the atmosphere. How much?? We will never find out.
The monstrous underground, and hidden from our wondering eyes proposed nuclear storage site, at Yucca mountain, we are working so diligently on and pouring billions into, is right on a spot where two earthquake faluts intersect, and a 5.4 jolt hit just ten miles from the site in 1992. There are more than a dozen fault lines in the area and that is a fact. All of what is written here, except the whale steak dinner and our being insane is documented, it’s un-arguable.
Those are just a couple of more than a hundred extreme danger areas, extreme when it comes to the local of nuclear power plants and where nucler waste sites are presently located. Those are also wonderful examples of really swift thinking and planning ahead, when dealing with the most dangerous and forever lasting poisons known to exsist in the universe.
One could fill this blog with this type of verified scary data, that would wear our mouses out scrolling down to the end. So I will stop here and shut my ever running mouth_____for awhile. Sorry if my writing is not that of a technical engineer type,__ but it should be understoodable, I get it anyway. ___Later Bill, and hurry back.__ Kem Patrick
You ever heard of Cheery-Noble? You ever heard of the mess at the Palisades and Silkwood and a dozen other places? Of course not. A major disaster WILL happen, maybe tonight, tomorrow, or next year. It will happen. Then you may have a much different opinion.
I and many others have chosen to subvert the dominant paradigm. You can too! Be the change you wish to see in the world.
I was replying with the cheery-noble bit to the blog of another who was just above it, it ain’t there now.
Billy_y4,
Good analysis. You sound like you just stepped out of a Utility Board room!
The problem with wind/solar power and baseload on a large system is an important issue for corporations, as is the glaring capital cost difference between solar/wind and nuclear.
For me, I’w with Local Geometery - bring on the clotheslines!!
I feel inspired enought to that I might just scrap my computer power supply, go buy one of those antique foot-powered sewing machines, and connect them together.
The USA solution currently in the works is to kill everyone that is not with “US” and spread DU dust to generally shorten lives and cause sterility! Essentially, wide scale eugenics is being used to thin the herd along with a global restructuring.
Since the “dust bowl” is making another appearance here in the US and since the global population of honey bees seems to be under attack (down to almost a 1/3) from a Chinese mite who’s name escapes me. In order to cope with a changing climate science has made GM crops and these produce their own pesticides along with lower water and fertilizer demands.
Now the assumption that we can “fix” any of this is erroneous at best. There is not one thing that we haven’t screwed up and I can think of anything we have actually fixed. There was some math I did regarding liquid fuels above; there is more math regarding a unit called a “calorie.” If we cease using nuclear we will be forced to burn more and more coal. Once coal goes into decline (that will come soon) we will take another energy step backward and be forced to burn wood! Mass extinction will likely happen between those events.
The Reindeer of St. Matthew Island ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Reindeer+of+St.+Matthew+Island&spell=1 )experiment is the most probable model of our true future and it is inevitable that humanity would face extinction but it just so happens that the combination of resource depletion and population overshoot will take us out. In a last minute sort of way we packed for a trip but got to the airport and realized we left our tickets home!
techie:
I don’t sit on any boards. I don’t make enough money and I hate ties.
Yes, the utilities worry about baseload and grid management. Personally, I’m fond of my electricity and glad that they do. The longest blackout I have experienced was about a week and it was a pain in the neck.
Evelyn,
I don’t work at a power plant so I don’t know specific procedures but I think I understand the nuclear culture. 95% of their low level waste would be disposibles used to control trace contamination which may or may not actually be present. It would be clothing, lay down paper, and cleaning materials.
If they had anything with serious radiation levels, say a primary coolant sensor that had been replaced, it would not be low level. It would be intermediate level waste and would be in a shielded storage container, not a drum. (There usually is not much high level material except the used fuel.)
Billy_y4 July 22nd, 2007 8:14 am
Years ago I worked directly in the “industry” and frankly if you want your computer, refrigerator, microwave, etc. to work the biggest requirement is mass production. All of our “stuff” starts in a mine and mines require massive amounts of energy. The machines that make machines must also be produced. Foundries, steel mills, machine shops, assembly lines, chemical plants and all of the rest will not exist without mines, water, energy and the machines that make that happen.
Hospitals will come to a screeching halt without electricity, running water and sanitation. There are about 1000 PBMRs in the works and due to our $9 Trillion of debt and worthless money the USA is in for pain since our plants are due to be decommissioned.
SHADOW says, “The USA is $9TRILLION in the hole and we are in a dictatorship and import all of our energy and our money is WORTHLESS as it is backed by NOTHING>” Not exactly nothing, bro… US military is a lot like the mafia’s hit men, that go out to make sure all profits remain skimmed off the top of everyone else’s industries (on a global scale). Now if the Bush wars of lopsided reasoning cause a collapse in our military, then the rebound will be felt. Without $, there is no mercenary force to buy… right now I don’t think China, Japan and other nations can afford NOT to bail the US out as their economies are linked with ours. If the Iran matter heats up, enough nations may choose to pull the plug for lots of reasons, nuclear emissions among them. NOT a pretty scenario in blood or treasure.
Siouxrose July 22nd, 2007 10:04 am
Again our money is backed by NOTHING. Plunder, empire and the rest have failed time and again. If we are talking about money then we must remember that ours is in reality worth 1 RED CENT per dollar. Many years ago the gold and silver backed certificates were eliminated and that was the moment when our true wealth was stolen. Since then everything is about BS.
It was good of you to point out that our military is actually a band of looting marauders plundering the wealth of the Middle East. Our Constitution clearly defines the limitations and operation of our militias for defense. With no formal declaration of war and no truth to the allegations about WMD and responsibility for 9-11 it is clear that our paid professional warriors are swashbuckling it in a sea of sand!
I’m on the wrong site, I thught this was the nuclear power debate.
The Nuclear Industries push for more Nuclear plants is simply a temporary grab for High profits. There simply isn’t enough available raw fissionable material to support a long running Nuclear energy program.
The result of such a short term program would be more Corporate Profits and high Public costs, and deadly Nuclear pollution lasting in relative Human life spans forever!
A KNESAL ….. “Liberal Warrior’ ….. “Little Beirut”
When money is the bottom line, you can forget safety! Talk about all the safety tech stuff you like, nuclear accidents are coming our way. I think using less energy is the beginning of many answers to the energy question. Yea, I’m hangng my clothes on the line too. We could turn off half the street lights….. There are some things we could do, right quick. But there are many many things that need to change, big time, life styles, gadets we don’t need. We are addicted to energy! Ya think maybe the bottom is near?
Link to ‘Available Material Article’
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070321092710.htm
I don’t get it. Clean energy is viable,__ it is affordable,__ it is proven beyond a shadow of doubt that it works__ and it is the only sensible way to go. America should begin a massive effort to kick start the program. If we would, we could have our cake and eat it too. The only roadblock, is the big money people who really control the world, they own us and our government____ and we allow it.
The reason why “clean energy” is not everywhere is because
OUTBELTWAY’s math does not consider entropy, or the “quality of the energy” - Billy_y4 is considering it in his cost analysis.
Solar, wind, tidal etc.. are all very difuse energy sources, and to concentrate them costs a lot of money.
Its not a matter of “can it be done” - lots of things can be done, its just some things cost a lot of money when you sit down and crunch the numbers.
Competent Environmenatists and ecologists attack the status quo using a “whole system cost” approach, pointing out that some sources of cheap energy (like coal) are not so cheap when you look at the big picture.
HOwever, the status quo hits back with their own “whole system cost” analysis of solar, wind etc.. and fossil fuel comes out not looking so bad.
Except for one little problem.
Corporations still look at processes with
infinite primary resources
infinite garbage can
The only way to force them to get out of this paradigm is to tax for depleting valuable, irreplaceable resources (like the air, water, etc…) , and tax them for garbage creation and garbage disposal.
That is all that is required. Its just as simple as that, in my opinion.
The problem is this:
Imagine you are an honest corporation and you do the right thing, clean up your act, and then the competition goes to the third world country and runs the same old processes with huge pollution, but they have the local corrupt government in their back pocket, so they win out over the “honest corporation” who tried to do it right.
Tech2 said:
The reason why “clean energy” is not everywhere is because
OUTBELTWAY’s math does not consider entropy, or the “quality of the energy” - Billy_y4 is considering it in his cost analysis.
Solar, wind, tidal etc.. are all very difuse energy sources, and to concentrate them costs a lot of money.
Its not a matter of “can it be done” - lots of things can be done, its just some things cost a lot of money when you sit down and crunch the numbers.
—————
I say:
3kWhours per square meter per day is pretty concentrated energy. My household electricity use is about 1000 KwHours per month (about average). My south-facing roof exposure is about 30 square meters. Assuming 15% capture efficiency, in 15 days of average sunlight, year-round, I can collect from that small footprint enough energy to power my house.
To me, that’s pretty concentrated. You didn’t refute the math about the power available - you just implied that it was too diffuse (I assume that’s your intent in the use of the word “entropy”) to be collected in an economically or energy-efficient (energy in .vs. energy out) manner. You’re right if you refer to the state of art for solar cells, but there are several examples of systems for which that isn’t true, for example windmills, hot water or home heat from hot water via solar collectors, passive solar building design) that are cost-effective right now, even at this nascent stage of technical development.
If just 10% of the smart, action-oriented types reading this list were to pick just one tactic to implement this year, whether it be solar hot water heater, tele-working, insulate your house, take public transport, buy more locally-grown food, etc. and make a success of it, and tell your friends, it would have a huge impact. Social change (and that’s what this is: social change - not technological revolution) comes bottom up - it’s demand driven.
Big companies are run by people who try to maximize the profit from an existing investment. That’s how you make money. You don’t replace plant and equipment until and unless you absolutely have to. Our job as change agents is to quickly obsolete their existing investments by refusing to buy their product. I assure you, as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow morning, they will find a way to overcome Tech2’s ever-weakening “entropy of energy” objection. If efficient, distributed power generation is the only thing consumers will buy, big business will darned sure find a way to deliver it.
Run your life according to your own interests. Renewable energy: accept no substitutes.
OuterBeltway:
The technical solutions have been around for years and years.
For a do-it-yourselfer, its all layed out in various books and internet sites, and for those wanting to do it and incur the high cost, or spend the countless hours getting up to speed on the technology, the opportunity is there.
You ask yourself - why isn’t it all more common???
If you are willing to do the work yourself, alternative energy can work. As a technology for mass implementation in cities, industry, and fat lazy Wal-Mart shoppers, it has a long way to go. That is just reality.
Its not a technical problem its a people problem.
The debate is not technical feasibility. Many soltuions were created during the last “oil crisis” in the 1970’s.
Have you never heard of Mother Earth NEws, Harrowsmith etc..
Its all been done before.
I have a Rodale Press “Home Food Systems” Catalogue from the 1970’s showing ultra-insulated fridges, grain mills, non-electric fridges, solar food dryers etc.. etc.. all products build by alterntaive energy dreamers and every single one went broke - financial dud.
I am telling you - hardly anyone is willing to spend the money for alternative energy. TELLING YOU FROM EXPERIENCE.
Three are too many problems when you start getting into the nuts and bolts of it.
Anyway, I am so tired of all you dreamers who go on and on about solartopia, but when you are told of the cost and the technical complexity, you all want to stay safe, and stay fossil fuel consumers.
However, I am at total peace, because I know:
Humans will never invent a better solar panel than a plant.
Humans will never build a better cellulose converter than a cow.
Humans will never build a better fertilizer factory than a chicken.
Humans will never build a better heater than the Sun.
(passive solar works very well)
The world is so perfect just the way it was created, but we humans are so arrogant, that we cannot see that simple fact.
God is good, humans are stupid.
A KNESAL:
It is quite true that uranium is, like all minerals, a limited resource. The Japanese, who have no indigenous uranium, has been working on uranium extraction from sea water. They estimate they can do it for under $150 per pound. This is not an infinite source but could keep the world supplied with uranium, using today’s style reactors (water cooled and moderated) for a couple of thousand years. This process probably will not be commercialized unless the market is constrained by geopolitics or the price of uranium is projected to stay above $150/pound for several years.
The spot price of uranium is currently over $100/pound but this is because the US and particularly Russia have been dumping strategic uranium stockpiles for the last several years and that program is winding down. (Actually it probably will be resumed with a new and more equitable marketing arrangement for the Russian material. They are currently kinda getting screwed.)
Water cooled and moderated reactors (about 350 of the 440 reactors in the world) are the most mature of the various options. They have proven reliable and safe. (Chernobyl style reactors are of a different design.) There have been accidents but no widespread injury or contamination. They are the only type power reactor in service in the US, Canada and Mexico. They are the only type liscensed for future use or under active study by the NRC.
Water reactors, for all their merits, have some drawbacks:
They don’t use the uranium very efficiently. When the fuel is removed from a reactor, about 95% of the uranium remains unburned.
Water cooled reactors both create and burn plutonium. Unfortunately, plutonium is created faster than it is burned. This means there is an inventory of plutonium builds up as the fuel is used. It is not suitable for weaponry but it present.
Water cooled reactor fuel also builds up an inventory of other transuranic elements(artificial elements beyond uranium in the periodic table). Some of these other transuranic elements are the real bad actors for long term disposal of used fuel.
There are alternatives to water cooled reactors:
Fast reactors (reactors which do not have water or graphite in them) can burn all or almost all the uranium. They can burn all or almost all of the plutonium that is created in the fuel. They create far less of the other transuranic elements and can burn most of what they create.
Fast reactors are not just paper dreams. The US has operated several fast reactors in the past. The Japanese, French and Russians currently operate fast reactors. Generally they are more expensive to build and more complex to operate, therefore utilities are not particularly interested in using them instead of water cooled units.
The fuel efficiency of fast reactors is quite remarkable. To use an analogy, if you think of our current reactors as getting 20 miles per gallon, a fast reactor would get about 400 miles per gallon. This would greatly extend the projected life of the known uranium inventories.
Used fuel disposal from fast reactors will be a matter of protecting the waste for about a 1000 years rather than the million now required for Yucca mountain. This is because a fast reactor can efficiently burn the transuranic elements.
Tech2:
Dude, you hammered it on that one. It is a people problem, and the solutions have been around for years.
My contribution to unraveling the mess is to keep reaching out to the few, maybe the some, that are trying to actually *do* something. The ones that still have a clue about what it means to be human.
Those people deserve a helping hand. I hope you will continue to debunk the baloney, temper the dreamers (like me) a little, and provide some stories about what you have done, and what worked, and what wasn’t worth the time.
There is another factor operative, though. It is becoming rapidly apparent to many Americans, and certainly the bulk of the rest of the world that the status quo is not feasible very much longer, and the “willingness to act” factor is rising very quickly.
Charles Darwin said “It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change”.
While that may not be much comfort to the Walmart shoppers, I assure you, there are new factory operators in China that relish the prospect of finding a market for their new evacuated tube solar collector production lines. If that market is in Europe, instead of the U.S., that’s good for them, right? It’ll reduce their holdings of U.S. dollars in favor of Euros.
Those of you that don’t want to get squashed under that steamroller are well advised to re-read what Darwin said, above.
Not everyone around the world is going to keep watching TV while the climate, and industry, and food production, and energy availability patterns change.
I understand what you fellas are saying and mostly agree. (fellas?) Anyway, my point is, and has been for years, there are excellent methods of producing clean energy and the technology is rapidly advancing in that respect.
The coal fired and nuclear power plants are polluting the entire planet and their fuel sources are finite. The aging nuke plants are prone for failure of critical pipe lines and pumps, ___ they are just NOT safe, in spite of being well designed to be ultra safe. Burning coal is a horrible atmospheric pollution problem. Replace those two types of power plants as soon as possible.
A sensible and affordable basic plan to accomplish that, would be for the United States of America, to initiate a massive, world wide program, of building clean energy power systems. We should be the primary country to fund the program, as we have been the major polluter of the planet.
There are practicle means and ways to utilize wind and solar power plants, that would be capable of providing enough electricity to replace all of the coal and nuclear plants. Begin that program now and insure that improvements and technalogical advances are continually being assured and then kick in the more expensive programs to initiate, of developing tidal and geo-thermal power plants.
That is a very basic plan, the logistics, funding and all the thousands of other major and minor details could be planned aforehand. Since some other countries are already well into it, their valued advice should be sought. Norway for example, is already producing 22% of their electrical needs by wind power alone and they plan to increase that to 60% within a few years. China and Australia are into solar/wind power in a big way.___ Not big enough, and the United States lags far behind them.
We have two choices; ___one, stay the course and destroy the planet,___ or two, stop what we are doing and save it.
Time is running out. Other than family,__ time is the only thing of importance that we really have.
While I was typing the blog where I wrote I agree with you fellas,__ Billy got in ahead of me. I do not agree with him on the subject of nuclear energy. I do agree with him that coal burnig is a major problem.
We do not have the time to plan and argue the nuclear power plants locations, designs, etc. It would be at least ten years, probably much longer, before only one more nuker is built. Meanwhile, the old ones continue to corrode away and continue to pose a grave danger for us and our land.
Put the money we are wasting on nuclear power into clean energy and we won’t have to worry about storing any more plutonium than the thousands of tons we are presently storing, with the vain hope it stays safely stored in a big hole in the ground___ “forever”.
Of course we aren’t storing the tons of that “strictly controlled” most deadly poison, which the NRC states is missing and unaccounted for. It isn’t lost, it’s somewhere on this little world of ours. We don’t need it and we don’t need to keep producing it. “Safe” nuclear energy is a lie.
Excuse me,___ Denmark, not Norway is producing 22 %.
Sh@dow,
The video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159&q=The+History+of+Oil&total=790&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
is the best video I’ve seen. Thanks for the link.
This should be required viewing for all Americans in and out of school.
Evelyn Smith:
I agree with everything you said. I, however, have little faith in “leaders”. I do, however, know how powerful an invention can be, and how powerful the decision of the individual can be. Those inventions and early-adopting behavior comes from individuals at the edges of society.
That would be us, more or less.
I have no expectation that leaders are going to lead. If it happens, hey that’s great! But I’m not betting my planet on it.
I have faith in us. How much time would it take to replace your hot water heater with a solar system backed up with a just-in-time in-line gas-fired booster?
It would pay for itself in 5 years or less. It would get you thinking. Most importantly, it would convert you from a thinker to a do-er.
You could propose a toast to yourself, and in a modest way, induct yourself into the Rosa Parks and Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison club.
Evelyn,
A check on Wiki shows that Australia has less than 1 megawatts of solar generating capacity. The US has in excess of 400 megawatts.
Germany has the most wind generating capacity. The US and Spain are basically tied for 2nd.
Denmark has a peculiar and desireable situation. It can generate wind power and export any excess. It then can order, on short notice, all the power they need from Sweden. Sweden has an abundance of hydroelectric power in addition to its nuclear plants. The intermittency of wind power is thus not a problem for Denmark.
fpal July 22nd, 2007 5:22 pm
Your welcome fpal. To those that didn’t get this there is a video that is powered by Eco Cyclists called “Robert Newman’s History of Oil” he is a political comedian and has grasped the reality of the entire situation. Please watch it for yourself since it is one of the most informative videos of our times.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159&q=The+History+of+Oil&total=790&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
By the way folks the least of the problems is electricity! The biggest is food then water and then the .53 gallons at best per person per day and sustaining that since oil is depleting faster than originally thought. Depletion is at around 8-10% per year.
Bill, ___Australia and China are developing major wind and solar power sources, they have at least begun and we have not realy done much in that regard. I do believe we like Denmark are in the peculiar situation of also having a few miles of coastline, where wind genertion would be very practicle and most beneficial. We could also use some of that clean power to crack sea water and produce clean burning hydrogen fuel at an affordable price.
Evelyn Smith July 22nd, 2007 5:52 pm
The law of diminishing returns requires more energy to to separate oxygen from hydrogen then is released from burning the freed hydrogen. Soon 7 billion humans will have to fight it out for that .53 gallons of oil a day. Again the main issue is that ammonium nitrate requires fossil fuel. Ammonium nitrate is fertilizer. Human waste is subjected to the laws of diminishing returns as well and is not safe to use.
Shadow,
Thermal processes used to generate electricity (either fossil or nuclear) have waste heat. Usually this is dispersed to the environment, either a body of water or via a cooling tower.
This waste thermal energy can be used, if the generating plant is near an appropriate water supply, to desalinate salt water.
Desalination is rapidly expanding. Saudi Arabian domestic water is mostly from desalination. San Diego and Tampa both have desalination plants. These generally are dedicated plants rather than as part of a power generation plant.
The dedicated plants generally are using a high pressure filtration system called reverse osmosis. If you wanted to use the waste heat of an electrical plant you would probably use a distillation process instead. A distillation plant is more energy intensive than a reverse osmosis plant but if the heat for a distillation plant is free, it is hard to beat.
A recent Science News article predicted that AI will soon overtake human intelligence. Maybe self-learning machines will save us from ourselves.
Billy_y4 July 22nd, 2007 6:29 pm
Your preaching to the choir relating to the tech. My position is that in reality the government has determined that they will cull the global population and thusly insuring their survival!
I might have brought this up but now I’m not sure?
2/3rds of the global honey bee population is dead! The remaining population is on its way out. They are almost sure that a small mite from China did them in. What do bees do? Pollinate those plant things?? This is creating food shortages NOW.
Well shadow, does that mean if we get electrical power from the wind (which discounting the “initial cost” of the power plants and parts)__is free energy. Does your ananlysis mean, that it would cost more for the wind to turn a generator, than any benefit we would derive from that power? If so, the same analysis would be true for solar power, and the production cost of the new solar tubes is far less than panels and they produce much more electrical power than the panels.
If you are correct, and I’m not saying you’re not, I just don’t understand why that analysis is correct. The FUEL for the wind /solar is free, so is the fuel for geo-thermal and tide power.
This is funny, not ha-ha funny though. Cost of electricity? ___I have an eighty seven dollar electric bill in my hands, there are eleven seperate charges and five seperate taxes listed. The actual cost of the electricity I used is $32.00
On human waste? Well,___ I lived in Japan for two years and they used all of theirs, they couldn’t get enough of that shit. I’ve seen men carrying radishes down the road on their sholders. The radishes were four feet long and they weighed thirty pounds. Never got sick from eating any of the food there either. Then in, I believe Denmak, they use human waste for fuel. They burn the gases off and the solids then turn to wonderful and safe to use compost. Sealed dry toilets, no odor and no water flushing necesary.___ That is some neat shit.
This thread appears to have devolved into a hyperventilation-while-doing-nothing thread. Oh, no! The world’s gonna end!
Yes, there are a bunch of problems. There is also a bunch of people. Some are solving problems, some are somnambulent, some amuse themselves by wildly flailing their hands in the air trying to point out all the problems.
Which group do you fit into?
See the issue is that we appear to be in a military dictatorship! The dictatorship plans on KILLING as many people as possible and if all the governments join in mass extinction may be adverted. So there are all of these “solutions” you would like to try and in the meantime they are drilling for a possible “Run on the Bank”
The dictator has announced that “we will participate in a North American Union” and it looks like the next currency will be the AMERO DOLLAR. So now 3 nations running out of natural resources can join together to defend against the Russians or the Chinese! See we have already crossed the Rubicon. We are going to attack Syria and Iran and the 5 battle groups parked off Iran make that crystal clear. Protesting seems to have been outlawed.
Who here rents a safety deposit box? You better clear it out and start hiding your valuables. It turns out that in a national emergency the Federal Government can and most likely will cease all of the gold, silver and platinum! This stuff is the direct problem and then there is a real food problem and frankly desalinization will not help to irrigate the already browning crops! Then again what about the frikkin bees? Are you going to do the pollination work for them?
I’m in both groups OuterBeltway,
I believe that every human on the planet is going to die,___ someday. I haven’t met anyone over 107 years old. I also am working on the design of a wind generation system that uses no windmills, it uses the process of divergent ducting and the phenomona of increased wind velocity near high rise buildings,which greatly increases the wind speeds and power at the flyweight turbine wheels. There are no moving parts before the flyweight/turbine and generator. Some more neat shit.
But___ if we continue to burn coal and use Depleted uranium for weaponry,___ well,___ then we are all gonna die, and not from natural causes or old age.
Shadow, we have a large garden and a small fruit orchard.
We always were able to give food away to several families and the localfod bank. This year we have very little fruit or veggies from it.__ No bees.__ No humming birds either.
Usually we will have at least thirty humers and many bees of several types. Not this year, we normally count from 70 to 80 different specie of birds in our backyard patio area. This year we have counted 11 and most are not small flocks of ten or more, it is one or two. Our weather pattern has not changed here to any degrree in the past few years. Something is terribly wrong and I do believe it is the Depleted Uranium now in the atmosphere and the ever increasing ammount being used has finally begun to take an effect on life all over the planet, not just in the Mid-East. And yes that new article on CD today, the ten worst. It pretty well sums it up.___ We are screwed.
Nevertheless, after getting whacked trees return to Niger…with a little help from human friends.
Yep, hang out clothes.
Permaculture.
Ration gas.
No nukes.
Evelyn Smith July 22nd, 2007 7:36 pm
It isn’t that alternatives don’t matter but over all of these ages humankind has only exceeded at being his own worst enemy. Call it what you want a cull, the Book of Revelations or even the art imitating life but only crazy people spread depleted uranium around the same place they live. Only crazy people trust crazy people with ICBMs.
Just in case empty out your safety deposit box(s) and draw down your accounts and stock up on plenty of canned food packed away in easy to get at bags, sacks or packs. Alternative energy will have to wait.
No Future for Nuclear (FISSION) Energy (Sorry, but Ralph is not right on this one..) Again the talk of Nukular Energy is all about fission.
Do not forget the genius amongst you, Oh American Friends. I am talking again of IEF, or Inertial Electrostatic Fusion, as demonstrated by Dr R Bussard and his team..
IEF uses Boron, an abundant and safe fuel, IEF is CLEAN, IEF has minimal to NO hazardous byproducts (except heat and electricity). IEF can BURN up a great deal of the currrent fission waste products. IEF has the POWER density to get us to the planets in no time at all.. Just imagine that, will you??
IEF generators could produce the power to clean the planet, to recycle our waste to restore our polluted world.
Pretty much all good news so far.. there must be a down side??
IEF cures the world’s indulgent almost total dependence on OIL… Oh oh… Look Out Israel.. NOT good news that one.. For them..
Centralised IEF generators would produce all the energy needed for industry to (cleanly and cheaply) recycle, refine and prepare the materials needed to build all the Solar Panels and Wind Generators and water and waste processing plant that we will need for our ever increasing, increasingly power and resource hungry populations, all over the world, particularly the developing world.
We could have dispersed, grid feeding home based power generation from PV panels, we could have huge areas of sunny marginal land converted to PV farms. Superconductor grids could circle the globe so that any part of the planet could draw power. Power could be stored, yes, in dams, (how many available?)developing ultra capacitors or nanotube based batteries or even in the worlds fleet of cars.. (etc etc) All of this backed up by clean IEF generators.
Why is this not happening??
Money. Fission is expensive because of the cost of construction, fuel, disposal and decommissioning. None of these consideration apply to IEF.
IEF would change the planet and the destiny of the human race.
Dr Robert Bussard and team have demonstrated the process at reduced scale.
The physics is largely understood, funding of the next stage is a piffling $200 million. Piffling because that is a fraction of what the US spends, per day, on killing foreign oil owning towel heads..
So why is this not happening????
Because Bussard’s theory___ is an unproven theory.
Evelyn Smith BSc, PhD
BBBBAAARRRPPPPPPP… WRONG.. Before their last test rig blew up, (it shorted out ) they achieved what they believe to be a sustained fusion. So what?? Every development starts with an idea and small steps. What interests me is how YOU are so incredibly negative.. We would still be living in caves and eating raw rabbit if his ancestors had listened to yours (How DID they survive??)..
Please..
1) Explain your conclusions. Voluminous references would be interesting.
2) Describe your own experience within this exotic branch of nuclear physics.
To Kem:
Hi Kem, as always your posts are a welcome relief. You actually propose solutions instead of wailing that all is lost. This is the kind of things we need.
To Sh@dow:
Your posts on this article I think may well be the most pessimistic I have ever read ever. It is true that so many things in the world are wrong now but despair does not help to solve anything. Even worse than personal despair is spreading despair to others since then not only do you do nothing to help the situation but you paralyze other people into not doing anything either. I prefer to side with Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he said “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”. We CAN work to save the world. Let us all work boldly and without fear AND WE WILL TRIUMPH !!
I have posted extensively in other articles on CommonDreams regarding energy. Recapping a small part of those posts:
1) Solar energy can indeed supply all the world’s energy needs. In fact it is the only viable option other than massive use of nuclearenergy (but even then the supply of uranium in the world is finite and will run out in less than a century so solar energy is the only realistic option). See
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/38350.pdf
I also posted another link in other commondreams articles about how a single very large solar cell manufacturing plant would have enough economies of scale to bring the cost of a complete installed solar energy system (with inverters , voltage regulators and everything else and including installation cost) to $1 per watt or less . See the NREL 2004 Study of Potential Cost Reductions Resulting from Super-Large-Scale Manufacturing of PV Modules
http://www.nrel.gov/pv/thin_film/docs/nrel_hp_super_large_thin_film_manufacturing_oct04_short_form.doc
This plant would produce not the latest and most hyperefficient solar cells but instead would produce only low efficiency simple solar cells that already existed in the 1960’s. It would simply make them cheaper by mass production.
2) Look up the work being made by Dr. Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in Kansas (as well as other research institutions) toward abolishing the plow and in doing so creating a form of agriculture that is actually sustainable. The grain would be planted once and never again. It’s roots would always remain in the soil and therfore no topsoil would be lost to erosion and in fact topsoil would be created. This form of farming would consume far les energy and the energy it needs would come from the Sun (including the energy needed to power the machines needed for harvesting). It would not be a monoculture of a single plant but would instead include many other plants such as certain types of flowers that would fix atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into fertilizer so the farm would need no nitrogen fertilizer (perhaps only phosphorus and some trace elements would need to be added). In essence, the original praire ecosystem found in the American Midwest would be recreated in a way that still would supply the food we need.
3) Regarding the storage of solar energy I have also posted about fuel cells and, in particular, about ultracapacitors. A capacitor is a very simple way to store energy and would not need the toxic heavy elements or corrosive acids found in batteries. It would also be, if properly designed, pretty much eternal since it would not need replacement hardly ever. An ultracapacitor is simply a far more powerful form of ordinary capacitors.
You are right about the terrible so called leaders we have today but we can make better choices in the future and despair is not the path to a good future. Again I say (as FDR did) “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”.
kind regards
hopeforthefuture
therzal July 23rd, 2007 9:49 am
Are there any working fusion reactors generating more energy than it takes to start a fusion reaction? There are none so don’t look too hard. So your point and your “BBBBAAARRRPPPPPPP… WRONG” comment seem to be ignorant and rude since fusion is at least 15 years away even though it has been 15 years away since the 40ies. I suggest that you lend a hand and help Dr. Robert Bussard and his crack team start generating power before we are killed in the cull!
hopeforthefuture July 23rd, 2007 10:59 am
Since you claim that it is possible and that you are an optimist then please by all means make it so number 2! It isn’t pessimistic to point out that 2/3rds of the global honey bee population is DEAD or that the “dust bowl” is making a come back or that the dollar is dead or that… What it is is direct and honest. You can pollinate all of the flowers and fruits and vegetables since the bees can’t because they are almost all dead! Your optimistic so just charge a carbon tax and you will solve all the ills! You can do it since there is always hopeforthefuture!
Search Google for “REINDEER OF ST. MATTHEW ISLAND” and face your denial.
It’s Dr KA-BOOOOOOM BUZZARD. The reaction lasted a fraction of a second when attempted at Princeton and they had to shut it down to prevent a disasterious meltdown. It is an unproven theory. Check the archives, we went over this extensively last week and you have all of the same websites we do. Buzzard and Kavorkian would make a good pair. Don’t bother to ever reply, you will be talking to yourself.
It would be great if Ralph Nader had written the same article about the dangers of coal fired power plants. Nuclear power has not been responsible for one death in the United States. No other industry has been under such scrutiny yet done so little actual harm. Furthermore, in the United States, uranium is disposed of after one use although it still contains a great deal of its energy. This outdated, short-sighted policy exacerbates the disposal issues. Ralph Nader, however defends the policy. I suspect he knows better, yet has found that his statements garner a lot of easy support for him.
Ralph has found political safety by criticizing the nuclear industry because of the strong and immediate reaction by the public. He even resorts to the old Chernobyl standby, while knowing full well that Chernobyl was an archaic plant, forced to run beyond its design limits. That is akin to claiming that you might die from ammonia poisoning with today’s refrigerators.
Another good article would be about the dangers of running against Al Gore, and splitting the liberal vote.
I have not seen this discussed much but I recently read an article where the Tata Truck company in India is going to buy these vehicles that run on air:
http://www.theaircar.com/
I am curious why more people are not discussing this and if anyone has actually seen this car or has any first hand experience of the pros and cons of the vehicle….it seems like a very positive step in the right direction.
grubstaker July 23rd, 2007 11:57 am
They run on compressed air and compressing air requires air compressors that use energy. These got their start as a solution for dock carts and fork trucks used in enclosed buildings that would otherwise use propane.
Sh@dow and others,
But wouldn’t this be a much cheaper, cleaner, and overall better alternative than the current options we have for vehicles? Would this not help reduce emissions? Are there other alternatives or better alternatives besides riding bicycles and taking public transport (which could effectively also use this type of technology?). I remember the electric car was weirdly phased out some years ago after receiving applause.
To Sh@dow:
I made no mention of any carbon tax so why do you bring that up ? Regarding the dollar (something else I did not mention) it can’t die since its not alive in the first place. Currencies can collapse and have done so in the past many times, look up the German mark just after the first worldwar. When a currency collapses it is terrible for the country but any currency is just a symbol of value not a valuable thing in and of itself. Look at Germany now and you would never know that its currency collapsed within the lifetimes of some of the german people that are alive now and were alive then. I fervently hope we don’t allow that to happen to America but even if we did it would not be the end of the world.
Regarding the honey bees (something else I did not mention, are you ever going to address any of the things I did mention ?) it is indeed a terrible thing and we must do all we can to find the cause and end it (no one is quite sure yet of the cause, could be a mite or pesticides or ultraviolet level or a combination of causes) but did you know that the honeybee is not indigenous to North America nor to South America ? It came from South East Asia. It was brought to the Americas by the Europeans and the Native Americans called them “the white man’s flies”. So the honeybee has inhabited the Americas for only a few centuries. Before the honeybee arrived plants in America were pollinated by certain native species of bees plus bumblebees and certain beetles. We must do all we can to save the honeybees and also to promote the alternative insect pollinators. It is never a good idea to depend on a single species of plant or animal for anything, biodiversity is most certainly a virtue.
Regarding the dustbowl we’re not quite there yet at least in the midwest. The southwest cetainly is very dry and going to get much drier if global warming is not stopped. I have also posted previously about global warming and possible solutions. Besides massive use of solar energy (we could totally eliminate fossil fuels in less than thirty years if we really get our backs into it and get rid of political anchors like our current so called leaders). But stopping emissions of greenhouse gases would just take the foot off the gas pedal of the global warming engine. If we want to press the brake pedal on global warming we must regulate the amount of sumlight that reaches our planet. We could do so by placing a network of many large translucent membranes at the Lagrange point (a point of relative stability where the gravities of the Sun and Earth cancel each other out) that could slightly disperse the cone of light that reaches Earth and therefore reduce the emount of sunlight that reaches our planet by about 1 % (we would not notice any change in the intensity of sunlight but the energy budget of our planet would definitely notice it). This would be extremely expensive but no expense is too much if the survival of our planet is at stake. I have also mentioned possibilities to reduce these costs such as laser propulsion and space elevators to reduce the cost of getting mass out of the Earth’s gravity well. These would actually be good ways to spend the money of NASA instead of stupid white elephants like the so called international space station or the Bushfantasy of basesin the Moon and Mars.
In any case Sh@dow if you are irrevocably convinced that everything is hopeless then why do you even bother posting at Commondreams (or any other site for that matter) ? You can huddle in the dark and await the end but I would much rather strive to make things better. Even if I fail the world is better off when someone at least makes the attempt to improve things. I think it was a poet (or writer ?) who said “Do not go gently into that good night, Fight, Fight, against the dying of the light !!).
Kind regards
hopeforthefuture
grubstaker July 23rd, 2007 12:27 pm
Basically it doesn’t matter what makes the car go. But if you think it matters go for it!
hopeforthefuture July 23rd, 2007 12:36 pm
Look,
If anything you posted can help civilization than go on and get it done. I don’t tell you what to talk about so don’t tell me what to talk about and I can post here or at other sites if I choose to and frankly you are full of hot air. If you can fix the issues like the death of the bees I will kiss your buttocks. Go on and show us all of these gadgets and techno fixes that will revolutionize the closing industrial age!
To Sh@dow:
You claim that “I am full of hot air” with no knowledge of me or what I work in. It turns out I am an engineer and my field of work includes renewable energy so I do indeed try to do my part to implement solutions to the problems we have. Just as you don’t know me I don’t know you so you kissing my buttocks or not is not really relevant for me. As I told you in my previous post honeybees are a recent arrival to the Americas (just a few centuries ago brought by the Europeans) so for many millions of years the ecosystems of America functioned quite well with no honeybees. Honeybees are a very important species and we must do all we can to save it but it is not the only option and we must look at other insect pollinators. As I said biodiversity is most certainly a virtue.
You also said “Go on and show us all of these gadgets and techno fixes that will revolutionize the closing industrial age!” but no one is an expert at everything. Laser propulsion requires expertise in high power lasers, a space elevator requires great expertise in materials science (particularly carbon nanotubes). I do my part within my field to try to make things better and I post about many things that others can implement. Posting about these things makes people think and maybe someone who reads Commondreams will implement some of these things. This makes a positive contribution.
What does not make sense is to post that the world is coming to an end and that no solution will ever be found and that we will become extinct. Believe me that I too sometimes feel depressed when I see the things that are happening in the world but then I realize that brooding about it does nothing to solve it. If you were to post to point out the problems that would be fine, muckraking journalism is something we sorely need and a great and noble tradition. But you go beyond pointing out the problems and say that there are no solutions. In doing so others may feel inclined not to try to improve things and that is not a good thing.
Believe me Sh@dow, beyond all the darkness there is light. The world can have all its many dictators and soulless megacorporations but we, as a species, still managed to produce people like FDR (won the Second World War and he and those who followed his legacy created the social safety net that republicans have not yet destroyed), Lincoln (ended slavery in America), Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and others (wrote the Constitution of America), Jean Henri Dunant (inspired the creation of the International Red Cross, the Geneva convention was based on his ideas, received the first Nobel Peace Prize), Florence Nightingale (saved uncountable lives by implementing sanitation in hospitals), Ghandi (established the concept of peaceful change for the betterment of humanity) Martin Luther King (civil rights leader) and others. Look at the bright side of things for it too , like the darkness , does exist. Let us all work together and do more than talk, let us all take bold action. The future is not written, we make it with our steps every day.
Kind regards
hopeforthefuture
“hopeforthefuture July 23rd, 2007 2:05 pm
To Sh@dow:
You claim that “I am full of hot air” with no knowledge of me or what I work in. It turns out I am an engineer and my field of work includes renewable energy so I do indeed try to do my part to implement solutions to the problems we have. Just as you don’t know me I don’t know you so you kissing my buttocks or not is not really relevant for me.”
You typed all of that out just for me and I stopped reading around your buttocks. I don’t need to know what you do I just know that for all of your typing you have nothing to show. You are full of hot air in reality and figuratively.
“Space elevators” ahahahahahahahahahahaha wawawawawawawa HAHAHAHAHA OMG LOL Sorry but that was almost as good as Abbot & Costello
To Sh@dow:
Your name seems to describe you very well. Not only do you try to stop others from improving things you don’t even bother to read what someone writes to you and yet repeat your claim that someone else is full of hot air. Hannity and O’Reilly do the same thing.
You also claim I have nothing to show yet you display nothing but nihility. Is there anything within you of value ? Is there nothing else within you than a desperate desire to stop others from doing good and disdaining things you know nothing about ? Have you even bothered to read the links I sent ? I doubt it since you gave very fast responses in too short a time for you to actually have read those links. You simply gave a snap answer that addressed none of the points I mentioned about solar energy or Wes Jackson’s work in sustainable agriculture but simply kept harping about the bees. Did you even read about what I said about alternative pollinator insects ?
Spewing even more disdain (it seems to be the only thing within you) you mock the idea of a space elevator and yet I doubt you know anything about it or the challenges involved. A space elevator may or may not be possible but you (as in all things) try to stop people from even trying through nihilism and mockery. How about if you read about Edwin Howard Armstrong the inventor of frequency modulation and how no one believed it would work until he (with his own money) built an FM station on his own and thus today’s radio and TV were born. Actually learn something and read about Robert Hutchings Goddard (father of rocket science) who in 1920 claimed that rockets could be used for travel in outer space and was mocked in a front page story by the New York Times who claimed in an unsigned editorial that Goddard “only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”. The New York Times did not admit its mistake until 1969 (just after the launch of the Apollo 11 that reached the Moon) titled “A Correction,” summarizing its 1920 editorial mocking Goddard, and concluding: “Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.” It only took them 49 years to admit they were wrong. These people are far greater than you will ever be and were mocked by people like you. Even those who try to do something and fail are far greater than you because they tried. That seems to be the one thing you will not do and the one thing you seem to want to stop everyone else from doing.
Taking your own words, what have YOU to show for yourself ?
You are a troll and your nickname describes you well. I tried to engage you in conversation and hopefully we could have learned from each other. I expect better from people in a site like Commondreams. You seem to be an exception and a disappointment. What a waste.
Still I wish you a happy life. Everything you said here was doom and gloom so if you’re wrong the world will become a better place. It will be far better for the world for you to be proven wrong. Maybe someday you will become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Kind regards
hopeforthefuture
“hopeforthefuture July 23rd, 2007 3:45 pm
To Sh@dow:
Your name seems to describe you very well. Not only do you try to stop others from improving things you don’t even bother to read what someone writes to you and yet repeat your claim that someone else is full of hot air. Hannity and O’Reilly do the same thing.”
There you said it all! “Not only do you try to stop others from ” is what you said LOL These are words and the sticks and stones must be of your own production. You stop you. I in fact said, “If anything you posted can help civilization than go on and get it done. I don’t tell you what to talk about so don’t tell me what to talk about and I can post here or at other sites if I choose to and frankly you are full of hot air. If you can fix the issues like the death of the bees I will kiss your buttocks. Go on and show us all of these gadgets and techno fixes that will revolutionize the closing industrial age!”
So go on and do it to it! Get it done and be a hero. Put your money where your mouth is.
“Nano Tubes” Ahahahahahahaha LOLOLOLOLOL Whhhaaaaaaaa woooooo.
To the troll who calls himself Sh@dow:
Again you do not address anything of substance that I said. The links to solar energy ? Sustainable agriculture ? Ultracapacitors ? Alternative Pollinators ? Edwin Howard Armstrong ? Robert Hutchings Goddard ? Carbon nanotubes are funny to you ? They were discovered in 1991 (actually two russianscientists detected them as far back as 1952) and at least by some calculations, have the tensile strength to form a cable long enough and light enough to support its own weight from sea level to geostationary orbit. A few years ago a professor of the Renseelaer Polytechnic Institute found a way to make single walled molecular carbon nanotubes 10 inches long and aligned linearly. Current research is being done on devising a manufacture technique for any arbitrary length. People like you also believed it was impossible to make transoceanic communication cables until they were done. Now they are very silent about it. All of these researchers are above you because they TRY. You will never do that. You prefer acting like a child example: “Ahahahahahahaha LOLOLOLOLOL Whhhaaaaaaaa woooooo.”. Any large complex research takes a lot of money and people, no one person can do it. Sites like Commondreams serve precisely to get people together to do what companies in their selfish self interest will never do. Those people who join together to accomplish great things are all heroes.
What are you ?
If mockery is all there is to you how about if you read the solar energy links I posted ? Do you also want to claim that they too are wrong ?
Look up information about the honeybee and how , as I said ,it is not native to the Americas and still the ecosystems of the Americas survived quite well without honeybees for millions of years. Do you have any solutions to offer ? I offered mine.
If you have the millions of dollars needed to complete the research projects I have mentioned then you become a hero and sponsor that research. Otherwise don’t disdain others attempts to get people together to pool their resources (financial, intellectual and otherwise) and get things done.
Become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
“hopeforthefuture July 23rd, 2007 5:01 pm
To the troll who calls himself Sh@dow:
Again you do not address anything of substance that I said. The links to solar energy ? Sustainable agriculture ? Ultracapacitors ? Alternative Pollinators ? Edwin Howard Armstrong ? Robert Hutchings Goddard ? Carbon nanotubes are funny to you ?”
What more do I have to say your future is the same as the 1000s of Reindeer that died on St. Matthew Island. Till then maybe you can eat the nanotubes. The most funny thing about you is that you said, “To the troll who calls himself Sh@dow” and what that tells me is that you are resorting to name calling and demonstrating your immaturity. There are people who I believe and who I agree with and you are not one of them. Not only do I have the right to disagree with you but I actually disagree with you. Please for another time if you have technology that could save the world or eliminate the need for nuclear and fossil fuel then go on ad implement it.
You can’t since you have no game. Your full of hot air and even that is debatable.
To Sh@dow:
So you say that “Not only do I have the right to disagree with you but I actually disagree with you.”
Exactly about what do you disagree with me ? The links to solar energy ? Sustainable agriculture ? Ultracapacitors ? Alternative Pollinators ? Edwin Howard Armstrong ? Robert Hutchings Goddard ? Carbon nanotubes ? Still you have said nothing of substance. If you haven’t even read the links I posted how can you disagree with them ?
You also said “Please for another time if you have technology that could save the world or eliminate the need for nuclear and fossil fuel then go on ad implement it.”. Read the second link I posted and there is the answer. You would know this if you had bothered to read it.
You are the one who’s got no game. Read, learn and then if you were to actually want to do something constructive then offer solutions.
Correction (one and only)..
I was wrong..
There are 2 fluent naysayers on this thread
Evelyn Smith Bsc PhD and Shhhh..(@)..Dow.. (????? KK)
“if you have technology that could save the world or eliminate the need for nuclear and fossil fuel then go on ad implement it.”
Wilbur..”Right, t