Bob Axtell wrote: > James, sorry. Nuclear is NOT our best hope. > Hear me out. You are a brilliant guy, you'll see > why. Interesting stuff Bob. I want to throw a few small items into the fray... > I never said using oil and gas is better, because when you use then, you > simply add more to the carbon > dioxide burden of the atmosphere. In this we agree. There's been some VERY interesting new work in the last few years on a completely different phenomenon, which there was a recent Nova special on here in the States. Do some searches for "Global Dimming". Basically -- and you're really advised to read the real data of course, but I'll summarize it as I understand it -- all of our burning of various things has created enough VISIBLE polution that there are now areas of the Earth's surface where sunlight energy reaching the surface is lower by almost 15% (some areas of Siberia, ironically). From the Nova special, it sounded like at least three good studies of three completely circumstances now confirm this. So Global Warming -- as we've all heard about -- is being actively countered by Global Dimming to some extent. The Nova special even talked about scientists trying to measure the exact amounts each is "pulling" the environment warmer and cooler. Warming is winning, according to the initial studies. This leads to some corolaries: - Global Warming (as we have traditionally defined it) is likely already far worse than we originally imagined. - Global Warming is not going to be worse AWAY from populated areas where pollution is created and tends to remain, and not as bad in populated areas or areas downwind of population centers for many hundreds of miles. - Reducing visible emissions while not reducing greenhouse gases and other types of emissions causing the warming side of things -- will continue to make the imbalance worse. But, visible emissions *tend* to be the emissions that cause humans the most distress and health problems in the short-term, so they're always attacked first. >> I would be pleased to host one in my town or back yard assuming it would >> remove the areas dependence on fossil fuels. >> > No you wouldn't. Not really. Think about it. No one really wants anything to do with making modern "civilization" in their back yard, really. Chemical plant? No don't want that... (But everything within eyesight here was made with chemicals, especially the plastics surrounding me here at my typical American cubicle desk.) Oil refinery? No. Chicken farm (for the other thread about mistreating poultry)? Not nice to have around the average city. Chip fabrication plant and associated wastes? (Since this *is* the PICList after all...)? Don't really want that too close to my back yard, either. Big HDTV tower? (The local "hot issue" right now, even though the tower folks want to take DOWN three others in the process of erecting the new one). No. Cellular phone towers? No one wants those either. Coal-fired power plant? Nope. Nuclear power plant? Not really. >> People need to pull their heads out of the emotional fog at look at these >> issues with reason. Agreed. ;-) But I contend that the emotional fog is that we can fix it. Humans make messes. We're tragically sad that way. > plants. So the REAL costs of operating nuke plants hasn't even begun, > has it? The REAL costs of "modern society" are never paid by the current generation. And typically humans are too short-sighted to see that. I'll be paying for WWII heavily in my generation (mid-30's)... WWII ends, Baby Boom starts, Baby Boomers retire in the U.S. in a few years, and my generation -- will be paying for their care via government subsidies until they die. I think the numbers show I'm supposed to pay for three to four people in retirement out of my wages. The math shows it isn't going to work, no matter how you slice it. If you'd have all kept your ****s in your pants after the war... LOL... just kidding... just one of many examples... This whole "leave the world a better place" is a fallacy. ALL humans alive -- ruin the planet in some small way, no matter how "green" or "off the grid" they live. Just digging up a small plot of land for a garden leaves a scar that wouldn't have been there "naturally". Of course "naturally" assumes humans aren't natural, which is the ultimate silliness of all of these arguments. If humans are "natural", then it's pretty "natural" for us to screw up the planet. > 1. The fuel is costly to acquire and concentrate enough to be made > useable. Sources of yellow cake are becoming > harder and harder (Do ya think maybe that "harder to find" = higher > costs?) to locate. The best source now is > Nigeria... an ISLAMIC country. Sounds like costly oil all over again, > doesn't it? We just CAN'T catch a break, can > we? Similar to the need for nitrates for explosives and fertilizer at the turn of the century. Peru and India were the major sources, people fought over the trade routes, the nitrates themselves, etc... until an aspiring German chemist figured out how to make man-made nitrates in a lab. It's just a different material the whole world is struggling to find and use. Same problem, different material, different millennium. > 2. Despite a lot of interesting ideas, storing spent fuel long enough > for it to be rendered inert still seems to be insolvable. > Hasn't been solved in 60 years. well, maybe we will get lucky somehow. Physics says that's not likely, but who knows... > 3. Nuclear power plants are costly to operate and costly to maintain. > The pressure vessels become damaged (made > brittle) by the radiation and must be periodically replaced... and the > old ones cut up and buried. All power production facilities (when the entire system is taken into account) are MASSIVELY costly. This argument that nuclear is somehow more expensive forgets the billions and billions put into the existing infrastructure for oil/coal/gas power production and the resulting system of power plants in most of the "civilized" world. That wasn't free either, but it was spread out over time and people don't count it anymore "against" those systems. Costs are a straw-man argument anyway -- people are going to pay whatever it costs to have power. Case-in-point: Gasoline prices rising in the U.S. lately... people haven't stopped driving. It just pushes the price of EVERYTHING up. Why? Because it's not about the GAS... it's about TRANSPORTATION. People in "modern society" need to be able to travel many miles every day. Until you take the TRAVEL pressure off the system, gas prices simply don't matter... the prices of everything else will just follow the TRANSPORTATION opportunity cost spent. > I (and many others) have had the solution since I was a kid. Solar > energy. Not with photovoltaics; they presently use > up more energy to make than they generate. No, just raw solar heat energy. I thought there have already been test systems that do this by heating a central "tower" and they've been found to be buggy, hard to maintain, and expensive? > Imagine a 10 square mile area of the Arizona desert - probably Indian > land, since there is so much unused. Rainfall here > is less than 5 inches a year, and the sun shines with incredible > intensity here all year long. Concentrate sunlight with simple > parabolic mirrors made of stainless steel, and heat water into steam, > and spin turbines. Just like a nuke plant, but no nuclear > material, no containment vessel, no spent fuel. Disadvantages? Well, > the sun goes down every day, but there is a simple > solution for that too. Here's MY list: > > 1. We have calculated that a solar plant that can capture 5 square miles > of desert sunlight will generate enough electricity to > meet the electrical needs of the USA even as the needs expand for the > next 50 years. Again, there's been a test system somewhere, and I remember reading that it didn't produce anywhere NEAR that level of power. It's efficiency was highly overrated, and operating it was difficult. Plus, you have transmission losses, and other serious problems in DISTRIBUTION of that power. How are you going to get your power from the Arizona desert all the way to NYC where the sunlight just isn't close? Maybe from Florida? Texas? > 2. Excessive capacity will be used to breakdown water into oxygen and > hydrogen, which will be first stored to generate > heat for running some turbines at night, providing the grid with energy > during the night. Excess hydrogen will be shipped > to special "gas stations" that will provide fuel for the thing that will > power cars. AND this hydrogen will be CHEAP. > The burning of hydrogen and oxygen produces ONLY water, NO carbon dioxide. Sounds nice. And expensive. People would pay it once your system is in place, (as I mentioned above) but getting them to pay to SWITCH isn't going to be easy. > 3. No extra heat is created when using solar energy, as it would have > fallen on the desert anyway. Its OUR sunlight, not > imported from Saudi Arabia. Moving it around will certainly have untold effects on planetary weather patterns, etc... but we're seeing that already happens with all us humans doing things like flying around the world in hollow aluminum tubes at high altitude and leaving vapor trails in the sky where none should have ever been naturally. ;-) > No, instead of doing it right, the American public is being "forced" to > use nuclear power because "its our best hope". > I sure hope people wise up. This isn't being pushed much because it is > just too simple for words... I don't think it's as simple as you think it is. But I'll agree that at least for the electrical part, it's an incremental change to "the grid". Fuel for vehicles? Not going to happen without massive funding dragged en-masse out of people's wallets to build new infrastructure for hydrogen. > My philosophy of life is that I must NOT leave a big mess for my > children to forced to deal with. And nuclear power > is about the biggest mess POSSIBLE. You never threw anything in a trash can to be put in a land fill? ;-) Congrats. Humans are just a mess... admit it. :-) Nate -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist