Could we possibly have gone wrong at some point ? No shit ?
(28 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)
Loading...I can’t tell how it’s going in other countries, but at least in my country, the Japanese horrible tragedy, more precisely their problem with the Fukushima nuclear plants, stirs the same nauseatingly repeated debate. To make it into a caricature, it’s “Greedy brainwashed pro-nuclear realist neocons” VS “Unrealistic green khmers living on Care Bear Planet”.
The most sickening part in this is that nobody actually listens to the other party’s arguments, but everybody’s taking advantage of the shit hitting Japan to try and prove they’re right. The Japanese shouldn’t have used such a dangerous energy, the Japanese should have instead bought safer plants for instance the ones we’re selling… ¬_¬
Fuckers without morals.
Hey, I know, my post is pointless, but it’s MY blog, you can’t prevent me from posting useless stuff when I feel like it 
(more useless rambling follows, you may wish to skip it)
A summary, if you care, of what the real debate should have been ?
– nuclear energy sucks big time, even rich western countries can’t handle it as soon as shit hits the fan, and this alea is wrongly excluded from the calculation cost of that energy. Plus, there’s not even for a century left of uranium. We can replace it, right, then let’s do it… Can we ?
– gas-powered plants, hey, it’s better, extremely cleaner and safer ! Oh, but wait, if we replace nuclear plants with gas plants, we don’t even have 50 years of gas left, let’s hope global warming hits hard otherwise winters will be a pain in the ass.
– fuel-powered plants, it’s dirtier but at least it could last a bit more than 50 years, hopefully. Well, less, if developing countries aspire to western lifestyle and if it replaces gas or nuclear plants.
– coal power plants. WOOT, it could last 180 years if nobody ever lied on the subject (checking that figure shocked me, I thought it was 1000 years), and if it’s not replacing uranium, gas and fuel, and if the world stops developing itself and the population stops growing.
– fusion energy ? The most optimistic wisemen predict it could be made possible in 60 years at best, should it finally work. If it doesn’t work in time…
– otherwise, there’s reusable natural resources : wood-based power plants, and solar energy, and energy using sea currents, waves, wind and hydroelectric energy. Except that even the most optimistic laudators reckon it can only provide a part of a country’s energy mix, not provide energy for all the needs, it wouldn’t be producing enough even in the best case, and a too large part of it cannot produce energy 24/7 in every place needing it, leading to unsolved storing and transporting problems.
This brings back the title of my post : Could we possibly have gone wrong at some point ?
No shit ? No way !
We want a new TV, 2 or 3 kids, a new car, new plastic toys, bigger houses, holidays on another continent, new stuff, new machines, and more, and more, and more !
And we’re right to want it ! Metaphorically, we’re falling down from a cliff, but we’re right to trust we can find solutions before hitting the ground.
Or not.
Perhaps we could involve ourselves a bit more in supporting hope-bearing projects ?
Perhaps we could start devising ways to strongly reduce our environmental impact, consider having less kids, don’t you guys think ?
It’s so depressing, it’s safer to act as if wiser guys will find a magical solution worthy of Care Bear Planet, to forget about it and keep on downloading porn.
Sorry to post such a long rant from a pessimistic liberal European guy hopelessly wishing to finally read reasons to believe in a better future, that may sound rude and hypocritical to people not living with our comfortable lifestyle, or you may also disagree, but, hey, MY blog, MY ramblings
When I was a kid, I imagined things would stay the way they were until the end of the world. As a teenager and a young adult, I learned treasures of thought born more than two thousand years ago, I learned to love modern civilisation’s ambition to create principles available for a all mankind, as long as there would be mankind.
– And now, even a 150 year prospect into the future is beyond hazardous : this fact is enraging me.
Hey, if you feel I’m dead wrong, you’re more than welcome to prove me wrong !
were is my floating skate from back to the future
In my opinion i completly agree with u, there is always a risc in these decision. If it ain't nuclear it's oil and if it's not these u can always find others, i think most ppl just wanna find something to bash because they never had to deal with those type of decisions , they don't need to think about how to get energy to that many ppl while maintaning life style. Nature disasters are always awfull because u can never stop them, just make preventions against and cross ur fingers.
ps: Sorry about the bad english
Well, as for all the shit French ppl said lately, this is what I wrote like yesterday evening:
<~biribiri-chan>lol
<~biribiri-chan>people are panicing all over the world about nuclear plants xD
<~biribiri-chan>that's so stupid
*biribiri-chan facepalms
<~biribiri-chan>french and germans are boycoting nuclear plants in their countries
<~biribiri-chan>where they never had earthquakes
<~biribiri-chan>it's like "hey, japan had one of the biggest earthquakes ever and their plants are dangerous for 2 days now, nuclear energy is dangerous, if we keep using it in our earthquake/tsunami/tornado/huricane-free countries, they're gonna blow up and annihilate all human kind"
Hey, don't look down on us, we have a grade 5 earthquake per year in France, fuck yeah !!
OK, there's a log30 exponential difference between each of the magnitude levels when measuring the power of an earthquake, but still, it's not nothing
Just nothing to power plants.
Actually, our only recent "severe" incident was with water furnishing (same purpose as in Japan), an exceptional draught cause distress to a reactor that had to be halted until more water came from the nearby river.
ger talking here,
i could care less about the debate of atom plants, i just wanna say that the demonstrates here in ger are mostly targeted at the old plants, build ~1970 and the "building-standards" used in that time…
its not about the "oh-shit-what-if-earhtquake/tsunami/plane crash", its mostly about the security standards which are more than outrunning… with more than 80 "troubles" per year on one plant i can understand why the ppl want to shut down those…
Politicians in Germany are mostly acting all panicky because we have a few important elections coming up in several states. And it's not so much the earthquakes/tsunamis/planecrashes that worry them, it's more about the redundancy of the cooling mechanisms, which are … not redundant at all in most cases.
The 80 year estimate assumes only uranium supplies that we’re absolutely certain of. It’s likely to be around half of what than what we can really access in the long term. Breeder reactors would give us enough power for centuries even without discovering new things.
The argument against those is usually “the products could be used to make a nuke”. That doesn’t worry me. It would be easier to steal an existing one than steal reactor waste and construct a working nuclear weapon.
I think the future will eventually be solar, though. You can’t run the world purely on that, obviously, but there are great ways to store energy. My favorite is pumping water from one resivor to a higher one then letting it fall back down to spin turbines.
Water pumping requires energy and some dozens of percents of the energy it cost are lost in the conversion into electricity in the end. Meaning it serves as a delayed energy storing, not as an energy source.
Same confusion, almost, with hydrogen : hydrogen is not an energy source (it consumes energy to produce it), it is a vector (a storage and transportation means).
As for the "proven VS estimated" uranium resources, I read it is usually believed that the strongly growing needs from developed countries will absorb the estimated new fields.
You should take a look at the Generation IV Reactors that are in development, especially the traveling wave reactor. Theoretically you can even use it with burnt out fuel rods or natural (not enriched) uranium.
I'm not sure if any of you listen to "Coast-to-Coast" with George Noory, but last night he had a guest talking about safer nuclear reactors. Apparently, there's this company called Hyperion that can make reactors the size of a hot-tub that can power 20,000 homes. That way if a meltdown occurred it wouldn't be such a catastrophic disaster. I wonder if this is the future of nuclear reactors.
Nuclear is OK in my book, now I will admit, when the crap seriously hits the fan in a Nuke Plant it's very VERY bad. But for all the nay says, think back to when we last had a plant that started leaking or went into meltdown. For leaking, three mile island back in 1979, however no deaths were recorded to be caused by that leak (though cleanup took a few years) and as for 1986 Chernobyl… don't forget that Russia was still a growing superpower, I don't think coding was way up there in their planning, specially building a large public living sector very close by.
Still people are going to be worried about it, but still, we have had 24 years to Improve on the designs.
In Italy some people (premier and his friends who earn by nuclear power) want to come back to nuclear; i think they want only to build nuclear centrals with paper, let them survelled by monkeys. I think they are not serious and, even if we should need nuclear power, i prefer to be without energy that let security in their hands. I mean, i'm referring to italy, above all. Here we are full of earthquakes, as all of you knows.
But full of sea, and wind, and sun too.
I think we have to do much more on the minor power loss, and on unnecessary energy. Why to have a kindle when you can read with paper, or have an electronic scale, or an electric toothbrush, electronic gym tools and so on… i don't know why we have to use so much energy for simple things too
Hi, everybody, Ijust to share some thoughts with you:
1º Oliver, are you French? (Sorry for ask, you probably mention it before but until now, i didn't know it)
2º Humanity will not snap out of their stupidity of destroying Earth until we realized that we are at the edge of self-extinction. So, for those of you who think that a solution will be found in the short place, think again.
3º Finally, if we want to change something, we need, first of all, to rethink our lifestyle and make it respecting this planet. After all, we only have one planet… for now.
See ya.
P.S.: Keep posting your opinions, you could think that it's no big deal, but if one of us snap out of it, it's REALLY a big deal.
I agree, but sadly greed won't change. We will use fossil fuels until the last drop, no matter the consequences. We will poison our oceans until they die, and we will wipe out most species. By 2100 50% of all plant and animal species will be extinct, all for money.
Honestly, the only hope for humanity is space colonization and mining. We need to find another planet and kill it so save ours.
But is my opinion, I gave up on humanity long ago. We will have major extinctions in the future. Maybe humanity survives, but when we are out of food, billions will die. We are a species that will be nothing but a footnote in Earth's history.
sorry thought this thread was about 'missing points in Nuke' & sorry about your loss°!°
Will it be a Nuclear or Astronomical Desaster that wipes these billions out then?
And also would be nice to know why you gave up believing in this struggeling and still much kicking or pumping mankind-species? Errr you are a human hopefully?
Bb
I couldn't agree more with lollerskatz. In fact, I'm surprised that we haven't wiped ourselves out earlier than this. People will keep on using unclean sources of energy because it's easier to do so and won't make the corporations angry, among other things. For a lot of us, all those energy hogging luxuries are worth destroying our planet for; even the threat of imminent extinction won't change this type of terminal stupidity. Barring the very small possibility of our species pulling our collective heads out of our asses, the best case scenario would be for humanity to wipe itself out (whether it be through war, disease, famine, or some other type of disaster) before it renders the planet unable to support life ever again.
Short note : life on earth is nowhere near to be threatened, a giant meteorite crash would be MUCH more harmful, and that stuff happens "regularly" on a geological basis. Even manking should survive. The thing's that is deadly threatened is civilization and humane development.
I'm pretty sure the universe wouldn't care about the extinction of a group of talking monkeys who have a tendency to destroy whatever they get their hands on- and given our track record for taking care of the earth so far, I'm not quite as optimistic as you might be about all this. Besides, recent scientific projections say that it'll all go up in smoke within a few milennia when the earth enters another Ice Age and freezes us all in the process.
If you think this makes me look cynical or misanthropic, you'd be absolutely right. It's hard to be idealistic in times like these.
1/ yes, french
3/ that was the whole point of my post
Hah Oliver, I thought the same thing as you when i read the news…
Useless government bashing each others reasons pro/against nuclear instead of really helping japan, makes me sick.
wonder when mankind will get its ass spanked enough to live for everyone instead of living for oneself…
guess i'm too optimistic here
i can't really comment about the issue at hand, in my country (Costa Rica) we don't have anything like nuclear plants. However, what ollerskatz says about, search for another planet, and kill it, it's really similar to an story by Isaac Asimov called The Last Question.
Just wanted to share the link, it's kindoff related to everything that has been happening recently, so it's worth a watch
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
I am going 2 b “distastefull” and agree with you. We went wrong a very long time ago. I dont even want to drag on about it as I dont c a way for change or hope of any kind to our environment. The thing is, we are resilient as humans and we will find a way to cope with the changes. Dont get me wrong I am grate full to Japan 4 a number of things ranging from PS and fapping materials btu I do believe in Karma. They will live through this and emerge from the ashes. Its not the first time they were nuked!
PS:
Oliver, U better stay safe! France has a bad rep for the heatwave. Where am I going to get my daily FAP?:P
I liked your ramblings. I don't mind reading more of those. They were interesting and nerveless true.
Gentlemen, let’s be frank. This is the human condition. If you are sitting in a climate controlled room on the internet reading this then you are, by your own definition, part of the problem. As resources run out nuclear, and probably more dangerous fission and such later on, are the only realistic alternatives for energy. If you covered the earth with windmills and solar panels it still wouldn’t be enough. Even if you did it might be enough for a while but you would eventually arrive back at the same problem.
There are too many people on earth.
If we don’t run out of power first we’ll start running out of places to grow food. That money, and the pursuit thereof that you call evil, makes nations powerful and KEEPS THEIR POPULACE SAFE AND FED. (lol@Nkorea and, let’s face it, large chunk of the middle east and africa. Those are great places to live right?)
The state of comfort in which we live can only be criticized by those living within it. All others covet and pursue it, some even while saying they hate it. We have been at this, the pursuit of a better, safer, and more comfortable life since the birth of mankind.
Some work towards this goal, others elect those who would take from the former and have said goal handed to them. To whichever you subscribe the end result is the same. We are all the same. We consume and struggle for control. Control over resources, energy, food, and each other. Excuse me for wanting to be on top.
There is only so much space on this planet. Do not fool yourself into believing that there is peace without superior power. Throughout history those who have were quickly euthanized by their enemies. To give up this fight is death. Hell, for perspective chew on this: when the US was victim of a relatively minor attack we decided to occupy the country of origin and the guy standing behind him for 10 years JUST TO SHOW THEM WE MEAN BUSINESS.
Our only hope for long term survival, and of the planet remaining relatively healthy, in the long term is to hope that we manage to reduce our population by about 98%~99% every few thousand years.
This is what it means to be human. To hate it is to hate yourself.
Stop worrying about the planet. It will be fine, more or less. Spare me the sob story over the plants and animals. If you could conceive how many of them have gone extinct without any of our help through the history of the planet your liberal bleeding heart would explode.
Besides, after a few dozen millennium or so it’ll see like we were never here at all. If we’re lucky there might even be something resembling humanity left somewhere. You know, maybe.
So chill out and enjoy the ride. Given the size of the universe this has all probably happened before somewhere else. The best you can hope for is to go to liberal heaven where everything is given to you, love is free, and there is neverending booze. That’s where I wanna go anyway. Till then we all need to be realistic.
In closing allow me be frank again. Technologically speaking Nuclear power is proof that god is a wizard and wants us to use magic to be happy and blow each other to hell. If nothing else, of this I am sure.
Wow, sorry to be so depressing. Till rapture I’m gonna sit in my warm lit room, eat potato chips, and download some manga with titties. Because if I can’t have that, then what the hell is all of this for anyway?
So, who do you think should carry out the genocide and how do you suppose we choose who lives and dies? A Lottery?
Don't call it Lottey – Hundus and Bhuddists call that Karma.
What we see here at the nuclear crisis, could be called a visible form of national japanese Karma.
The Question is can we deduce something – a helpful plan – for our own Life from it. Nothing else can be done after some weeping.
BALDbald
I'm still bamboozled with the idea that people would ACTUALLY BUILD NUCLEAR PLANTS in areas known for earthquakes and tsunamies.
I mean… It would be nice if people knew how to keep said nuclear plants safe and running well. But, you know. Sacramento's Rancho Seco plant wouldn't've closed down a long time ago.
So yeah. I'm just going to root for the people trying to make sure that the nuclear plant situation doesn't get worse. They seem to be the REAL heroes up in 'ere.
I was gonna say something but then I was completely outdone by Kav and several other gentlemen.
So, Bravo and cheers to the end of the world.
"If you covered the earth with windmills and solar panels it still wouldn't be enough."
I saw a doc on nat geo the other day about solar power, they said USA could produces all electricity needed for the whole country by covering only a relatively small fraction of the Mojave desert with solar mirrors, they also showed a way to efficiently store energy for the night with molten salt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_therma…
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But i don' t think there will be only ONE solution, your calculations take x years of remaining uranium/coal/gas/petrol/whatever sort of combustible, but we use them all at the same time, not only ONE SORT. (And they must be additionned: all uranium+all gas+all coal+… =how many total years of power ?)
"there’s not even for a century left of uranium"
"we don’t even have 50 years of gas left"
"it could last 180 years if nobody ever lied on the subject"
So and then
Do we have to destroy the Earth or a part of it before we see that we are going on a wrong way (unluckily)
Does it always have to be : Well, (I'm afraid but I must admit, ehemm) we see now we went wrong…. (a false excuse because there were people who said what the risks are long before)
But these warners had nothing to do in this industry and had no big shares in it.
Its far from a matter of calculating figures when people loose their home for it or millions have to face a death of cancer soon. Cant these false weak excusers say this was worst lets fight for not repeat that every 20/15 years. AND to everybody who says that his technology is so good that nothing can happen – Ever thought of Terrorists that MAKE it in this place happen too??
Hello Awake now? – Nuclear Reactions are not fully controllable.dot! I'M SO TIRED of thes I HAVE NEW CONCEPT these ones are ABSOLUTLY SAVE annoied of these WE HAVE TO CLOSE THE ENERGY GAP – Lies! Because if they can't so, they can do it otherwise and they know it. Where's a market there's a seller.
And please don't say again its a matter of Price – for the costs of building one NPP you can build 3.500 Bio-gas-plants or 80.000 Wind-generators that are not unsure in dumping because they have none and have together more than a thirty times more LifePower, because they don't run out of their gas like the Uranium driven technology in some years.
btw we need all that stuff maybe later to ship it to the moon/mars for essential powerplants there. So why burn it off here when we have alternatives. °'_'°
BALDbald
That + CO² storage in order to reduce impact, added to all the possible renewable energy source, added to a more responsible system and less pure stupid useless waste consumption (so much electric devices have terrible efficiency, look at the internet boxes for example, and all the sleep modes that eat so much energy for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING§§§)
"fusion energy ? The most optimistic wisemen predict it could be made possible in 60 years at best, should it finally work. If it doesn’t work in time…"
With all of this combined, we have more than 60 years of energy for developping fusion energy. Problem solved if we launch serious research programs.
"If you covered the earth with windmills and solar panels it still wouldn't be enough."
I saw a doc on nat geo the other day about solar power, they said USA could produces all electricity needed for the whole country by covering only a relatively small fraction of the Mojave desert with solar mirrors, they also showed a way to efficiently store energy for the night with molten salt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_therma…
i don' t understand but half my comments don' t gets posted/are too long :/
"If you covered the earth with windmills and solar panels it still wouldn't be enough."
I saw a doc on nat geo the other day about solar power, they said USA could produces all electricity needed for the whole country by covering only a relatively small fraction of the Mojave desert with solar mirrors, they also showed a way to efficiently store energy for the night with molten salt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_therma…
Geothermy can also provide energy in compatible areas
comments with hyperlinks usually go into moderation queue waiting for manual approval. Approved
FFS don't write something different every time, I can't be sure and I need to approve everything even if most likely it's almost exactly the same
"If we don't run out of power first we'll start running out of places to grow food."
There is far enough place to grow food if we eat the food we grow instead of giving it to animals.
Yeah, vegetarian diet consume far less energy and resources than carnivore one.
We needs 7 vegetal calories to produce only one animal calorie.
Plus all the energy, petrol, water needed for breeding animals.
Plus all the added pollution produced by those animals, all the cow farts produce more gas emissions than all the cars put together…
Plus all the human health problems when eating meat full of all the toxic waste the animal ate when growing (pesticides/gmo/hormones/heavy metals/endless list…)
And I don' t talk about the ethics probelms behind growing and killing millions of animals only for the pleasure of eating some steaks everyday, because i know people don' t care about that.
Japan already found the solution to all energy problems :
(Mayonnaise) history of piston friction-powered electricity generation system via the female reproductive organ
http://desudesu0.com/archives/6585
And the last thing, we could drastically reduce birthrate by commissioning and distributing large ammounts of hi quality translated and uncensored full mangas to the citizens at the world scale :p
I'm with you on this Oliver, I'm not entirely objected to nuclear energy, but we can't risk this kind of accident. I have always been under the idea that Japan is extremely mature and understood the risks of such a resource–whether that's really the case, it doesn't matter, for a nation so well off technologically, it just goes to show how dangerous nuclear energy can be, even with the greatest of precautions, even if you go to every length possible to protect and prevent this kind of thing. You're simply never prepared for the unexpected, as obvious as that sounds, and that's what happened here, as no one was at fault for what happened.
I won't agree that,
if mankind makes not all resources it can eat available and protects these resources – mainly the sea – it will to 99.9% starve within a century. So its a matter of shelter and hinder spoiling and overconsumation for both, food and energy (brought together in the theme nature/ecologie), because both come from our shared Spaceship Earth. Activists don't shelter crappy dirt for crappy-animal-souls but shelter sea and soil for menkind as its (only) FUTURE resource. Get that and get a future!
I'm not an activist but I can't understand how anybody be this missmatched with their unegoistic idea(l)s and goals.
BALDbald
Sorry this was to another one it landed here°'_'°
Bb
Apparently coal naturally contains nuclear materials that don't burn with the rest of the coal. There isn't much of it, but because coal power plants use SO MUCH COAL, they actually generate more nuclear waste than a nuclear power plant does.
The problem with nuclear power is in plant construction and the stigma surrounding it.
>In human history there have been 3 nuclear accidents related to nuclear power plants. They happen about once every 20 years, and the damage is variable (the amount of radiation let out of Three Mile Island was equivalent to standing in front of your microwave, while the amount released at Chernobyl was significantly higher to the point of almost guaranteed cancer). In addition, the causes of these accidents are extraordinary (the tech in charge of safety at Chernobyl when it melted down was GROSSLY INCOMPETENT to say the least; the current crisis required a tsunami). Humans love to see patterns in things that are completely random, such as the failings of nuclear power. If I've been in 3 fights in my entire life does that make me a fighter? Toronto had ~60 murders last year, does that make it a dangerous place? (South Africa has ~50 murders per DAY)
>People fear nuclear power because it is something that commoners do not understand. They also associate it (unconsciously or even consciously) with the nuclear bomb, which is a fallacy. This stigma is far-reaching to the point that hippie and environmental groups lobby intensely against nuclear power, even though it may one-day save mankind because it is far more sustainable than oil or coal. Canada, where I live has very few nuclear reactors as a result of this, even though we produce most of the world's uranium. The United States has also fallen victim to this with the closing of Yucca mountain, a nuclear waste burial site that was meant to house all the country's spent nuclear fuel. Engineers and nuclear physicists know everything required to implement nuclear power – the technology has not been experimental for some time.
>Plant construction is also key. The reactor at Chernobyl was build like any other industrial facility; it had very little in the way of shielding. American nuclear reactors (and the Japanese ones since they are based on them) are built with much more shielding in place, but even they have their design flaws. American reactors use a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, which allows them to overheat and melt down. CANDU reactors (the Canadian variety, which is built all over the world) require the coolant water to sustain the nuclear reaction – in the event of a cooler shutdown the reaction itself will cease. This means that CANDU reactors will NEVER melt down. China recently built a whole slew of these in their quest for energy expansion (along with the Three Gorges Dams). Lucky them.
Nuclear power, when properly implemented, is very safe. The waste is fairly small and can also be used in medical supplies, water heating, or simply be buried deep within the Earth where it will degrade to some other material and the danger will scarce be a memory.
If mankind stopped moving forward at every setback, we'd have been finished a long time ago. This is a tragedy that will never be repeated, and as such humanity and its ability to implement such highly sustainable technology will improve. The Earth itself was the direct cause of this tragedy, nothing else.
.nuclear energy sucks big time, even rich western countries can’t handle it as soon as shit hits the fan, and this alea is wrongly excluded from the calculation cost of that energy. Plus, there’s not even for a century left of uranium. We can replace it, right, then let’s do it… Can we ?
sorry we rly cant replace it… there is more uranium for NP then for century. It is cleanest source of energy from nature resources (coal uranium gas fuel)
and for countries which dont have coal, have already used up all or most water resources for hydroelectric power plants and countries which dont have too much free land for solar energy its still best choice cuz it is still most power in smallest area.
– gas-powered plants, hey, it’s better, extremely cleaner and safer ! Oh, but wait, if we replace nuclear plants with gas plants, we don’t even have 50 years of gas left, let’s hope global warming hits hard otherwise winters will be a pain in the ass.
i agree better and safer but copared to NP it is rly costly powerplant even producing power in powerplant. for gas there r methods to "create It" by chemical methods – gas reforming – but it is still cheaper to gather it from nature resources
and for your info global warming wont be true warming but on other hand… global warming will rise warmth of plante to some degree but after it there will be huge jump in temperature down ( more normal water in oceans will make currents which warm planet disapear = lowering planet temperature and it will start smthing like "ice age")
– fuel-powered plants, it’s dirtier but at least it could last a bit more than 50 years, hopefully. Well, less, if developing countries aspire to western lifestyle and if it replaces gas or nuclear plants.
there is noway replace it with this kind power plant as u said not enough nature resources ( 50 – 80years for world and for US it is around 20years their own resources)
– coal power plants. WOOT, it could last 180 years if nobody ever lied on the subject (checking that figure shocked me, I thought it was 1000 years), and if it’s not replacing uranium, gas and fuel, and if the world stops developing itself and the population stops growing.
coal is cheapest way to "create" fuel and gas after nature resources run out. well it is little bit more for coal it would be less then 180years imo cuz it will be most used nature resource after gas/fuel run out
– fusion energy ? The most optimistic wisemen predict it could be made possible in 60 years at best, should it finally work. If it doesn’t work in time…
yeye it is dremlike energy making but still dont forget that u need HUGE energy source for developing it and HUGE energy source to start fussion
– otherwise, there’s reusable natural resources : wood-based power plants, and solar energy, and energy using sea currents, waves, wind and hydroelectric energy. Except that even the most optimistic laudators reckon it can only provide a part of a country’s energy mix, not provide energy for all the needs, it wouldn’t be producing enough even in the best case, and a too large part of it cannot produce energy 24/7 in every place needing it, leading to unsolved storing and transporting problems.
+ u forget (solar plants) isnt rly so effective as ppl say ye it is nice clean energy but – u need huge free land to build it here – u need +/- same energy to create solar collectors as it produce for its usage time – well there is still possibility create better solar panels with higher effectivity converting solar energy to electricity
+ next poit hydroelectric powerplants is problem too… not all coutries have huges rivers or possibility build bigh hoverdams and use/produce enough power from it
about producing energy from sea-waves i wont event write cuz it can be used only in coutries with acces to sea (not my country) and it is used in best way in Norway but damn.. look how huge acces they have to sea and more importannt look which land relief is in border sea/land in norway i think it is ideal for this kind "powerplant" and they use it ;p
wood-based power plants (biamass power plant) well imo it is same as coal with CO2 producing but ye u use trees and other plants which can be reused
there is small example from my country ( % of total producin energy to year 2004 -7years old)
Coal power plant 62%
nuclear energy 31,2%
gas power plants 3%
hydro-powerplants 2,4% (sadly usage of our water resources which r good for this kind power plant hitted more then 90% already )
other (solar/wind/biomass) 0,9%
so make it clear imo nuclear energy has own risks but still best energy resource and i rly wish my country had more nuclear powerplants (we have 2) cuz price of electricity in my country is kinda high
I live in Thai and see with my own eyes how global warming change our world. Water in streams and rivers evaporate quickly and we runs out of water for agricultural. Even global warming also cause heavier rains in rainy season but they all gone rapidly in dry season. Some villages even fights for water. More hopeless that our country have severe political conflict and no governments nor parties take serious on this issues. I only hope China will take a lead for global warming issue cause i sure they suffer more than Thai nor US because they are heavily based on agricultural too!!
Nowadays, i try to used fan, not air condition, even my room is hotter. :p (I live in company camp where electric bill is free.)
Why everyone keep on blabbing about this nuclear plant and forgets that tragedy that is going on in Japan. As far as i know there is no instant danger of huge radiation catastrophe but every western newsroom concentrates on that minor possibility and forgets those humans who are without power, food, shelter, drinking water, home..
Those people have lost everything, their lives are washed to Pacific Ocean. Not knowing about their relatives, future, not even about today's meal or tonight's sleep. Shouldn't we be debating about how to help those peoples rather than wonder if our plants will blow up or not.
Japanese people get a huge respect from me. Not even once on tv broadcasts i have seen a Japanese who would've lost his coolness. There's no reports about blunderings or any sorts of anarchy which probably would've been case in western countries, no shouting and blaming, no signs of panic.
Maybe rest of the world should concentrate on right things too.
The problem isn't with the reactors. Everything went exactly right with containment. The containment units are intact and weathered the earthquake and tsunami. The only mistake is that the fuel for the back up generators to cool the containment units wasn't contained in a secure internal location and got washed away by the Tsunami.
If anyone is using this as an excuse to ban nuclear power forever, shame on them. A freak accident with one unforeseen complication that no one expected is hardly a reason to abandon the whole idea.
About solar, do you talk about solar converters or solar mirror based ? Not the same.
Each place has it' s own solution, the thing everybody seems to forget is that there is no "unique perfect solution applicable everywhere with only benefits and zero flaws", we only need to find the best option for each situation considering all the parameters.
Logic & efficiency.
"Nuclear power, when properly implemented, is very safe. The waste is fairly small and can also be used in medical supplies"
You forgot we can also recycle the waste into useful armor piercing depleted uranium rounds.
Uranium isn't the only fuel out there for nuclear plants. It was only chosen because nuclear power was developed during WWII which made uranium a prime candidate because the possibilites for weapons development. Thorium is a better option for fuel. It only decays when triggered a source of neutrons, basically an built in off switch, making it impossible to trigger a meltdown, and theres a larger supply of thorium compared to uranium.
were i come fae in scotland theyre just trying to blow the whole thing out of proportion because it make the already tragic circumstances in japan worse.
after the first explosion at the power plant they were showing the explosion the footage of an oil refinery on fire to make it looklike the power plant had completelt went into melt down, and then they were showing so-called experts in nuclear fusion who wouldnt shut up about chernobyl and the daner nuclear power plants pose.
if you come from britain and want to know whats actualy happening in the countr then do what i do watch sky channel 516 its nhkworld an actual japanese channel designed for english speakers.
an amazing channel normally but in this time of crisis for japan lovers it's the best way to find out unbiased news.
I am VERY left leaning, but I am pro-nuclear power. Even after this… maybe ESPECIALLY after this.
No one has pointed out that if the same chain of events happened at the badly engineered soviet-era plants in Russia that there would of been total meltdown and everyone in the area would have been dead. It's only THIS good because the engineering was halfway decent.
When you get right down to it , all forms of power are dangerous. There are no safe ways to store nuclear waste.. Coal produces pollution that causes various cancers. Gas and oil are toxic, flammable and explosive. There isn't any way to win with these forms of fuels.
Solar, biomass, geo-thermal, wind would be safer. But then you start quibbling about cost and effectiveness. And, in the end, it all becomes a real missugoth.
Can Man ever win??
You wanna say “Fuckers without MORALS”. Not morale. It’s a big typo because it changes the meaning.
Morale, in English, means “esprit de corps”.
quick reply im not at home : right! thanks !
Sure there may only be about 100 years left of Uranium-235, the isotope that is used in modern nuclear power plants, but that only accounts for less than 1% of the world's Uranium. Uranium-238 accounts for 99% of the world's Uranium, has a half life of the Earth's current age, and can be bombarded with neutrons to form Plutonium-239, an isotope that can be used in nuclear reactors.
Nuclear energy has it's dangers to be sure, but its better than some other fuel sources. If we convert to fueling cars and power plants with biofuel (rather than electric cars powered by Nuclear plant electricity), we will run out of phosphorus, the element necessary for the manufacture of fertilizer, within a few decades. Without phosphorus based fertilizers, there will be mass starvation world wide, and by mass starvation I mean billions dead.
ill quote a comment from http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2113…
“To put what’s going on in perspective, the WHO estimates that Chernobyl will kill 4000-5000 from long-term cancer deaths (there were about 50 immediate deaths). It is thus far the only nuclear power accident in history with a significant number of fatalities.
Pollution from coal plants is estimated to kill 30,000 people a year in the U.S. alone. Coal generates about 45% of our electricity, about 2.25x more than nuclear. So if we converted our nuclear capacity to coal, it would cause an additional pollution-related 30000/2.25 = 13,000 deaths per year. Or put another way, our existing nuclear plants could cause 2-3 Chernobyl-scale accidents each year, and nuclear would still be safer than coal.
Wind power has a mortality rate of about 0.15 per TWh generated (it’s killed 13 people in the U.S. from 1970-2009). Nuclear power in the U.S. generated 254.8 TWh in 2009. So if we replaced all of our nuclear capacity with wind, we’d be looking at 38 wind-related fatalities per year in the U.S. Commercial nuclear power in the U.S. has had zero fatalities in ~60 years.
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/BreathLife.htm…
But what about Chernobyl? It’s not really fair that I’m leaving out the biggest nuclear accident in history, right? Nuclear power generated about 2200 TWh per year worldwide from 1985 (the year before Chernobyl) to 2009. So that’s 52,800 TWh in those 24 years. If all that nuclear capacity in those 24 years had been replaced by wind, there would have have been an expected 0.15*52800 = 7920 wind-related deaths in those 24 years – more than Chernobyl. Put another way, if wind were generating as much power as nuclear currently does, you’d expect wind to kill as many people as Chernobyl every 12-15 years.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedImages/org/i…
If you go through all the power generating technologies and systematically count up all the deaths they’ve cause in historical real-world use compared to how much energy they’ve generated, the conclusion you arrive at is that nuclear is actually the safest form of power generation (wind is the next safest).
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-f…
I've actualy stopped to watch any french news (I'm from french speaking part of swizterland so most my channels are from france) because of how retarded anything related to nuclear is right now. There's some of the same on swiss channels but much lower on the retard scale…which is quite surprising.
I find it sickening how some people can use ANYTHING to argue is favor of what they think whether it's relevant or not.
My personal thought on power generation is that right now nuclear is not a good solution, but it's the best we can realitsticaly do for large scale power production.Hopefully fusion will come to the rescue in 60-100 years but other than that, alternative sources of power will stay alternatitve for a very long time.
Who can say fusion reactors will be saver or even a quantum saver than nuclear reactors we know so far?
If you play with technology causing chain-reactions, anything can happen when the first domino-stone is tapped. In some scenarios nuclear fusion disasters can lead to a chain reaction in the atmosphere in which all oxygene is consumed within a few weeks/days.
Then its to late to say sorry because then Earth is dead like Mars now. The people who are warning aren't always the most retarded ones, on the contrary. I think they are the more reliable because neither they have an interest in keeping things going like they are, nor they would have own profit when things were changing. But I'm sure our technical lobbists are clever enough to survive anything unforseen coming upon us, giving already a shit on things like: parents, children, friends, beloved pets, fresh fish, edible crops etc. – Ah, I knew it, they don't have invested in shares of that!
So go on, go right on and keep it rolling on until there is no way back, you fools.
Nobody is as blind as the one who doesn't wants to see… no matter if the news were french or not.
BALDbald
Its like WTF, every one knows the risks of nuclear energy but they still build the palnts, even during a trategy ( sorry for spelling ) poeple are still just talking shit like Ooo, we must change plant protocalls, make them safer !
They discuss me every body on this planet lives on energy, lets have those green-pease assholes live in a forest with no power, no fuel and no damn phone to bother every body else.
What happened, happend, they should stop talking and start helping Japan, people are dead, thousands are gone. They don't need new protocalls, they need resources and every country is too greedy to give some, they just send people to "help"
If we can only make a Solar Energy mechanism like the one that they did in Gundam 00 then we could have clean and unlimited reusable energy! Though it would take years for that to happen but at least it's not impossible. Nothing is impossible.
under ideal lighting location etc on earth at 100% efficiency your only going to get 1000 watts/m^2
The major problem with nuclear energy, as so many of us are painfully aware, is that when shit goes wrong, it usually goes wrong to the point of major disaster. And yet, isn't nuclear power actually based on the same principle as coal power? It's still all about heating water that'll turn to steam and spin a turbine that'll produce the actual energy. Funny how that is, ain't it… well, actually no, it isn't all that funny.
Nuclear power, whether people see it as a threat, or as an asset, is still a potentially viable source of energy. It's always going to come down, however, to the factors that we CANNOT CONTROL… and as a result, people will scream, cry, kick and fight when something DOES go wrong, and it becomes a problem that we can't potentially get a grip back on.
But the world knows all about trying to control and influence things that are beyond man's means, don't we? And I'm not just talking about natural disasters that come along. Let's take a simpler example: California is SITTING atop of a heaven-forsaken FAULT LINE. People BUILD THEIR HOUSES on CLIFFS because it'll give them a nice view. Now tell me. Is there any fricking sense at all in doing so, when all it takes is a minor tremor to start a landslide… or a few good waves hitting the rock-face to do the same?
We live on this blue marble we call earth… going day to day, sometimes in terror, sometimes in pure arrogance… but rarely in true respect. Anyone care to speculate on what'll happen if the Fukushima reactors do end up cracking open like eggs, and instead of dispersal of the radiation skyward… it dives? If that radiation burrows down thru the island's bedrock, down to where it meets the ocean floor, and keeps on going… down into the core? The half-life of that radiation's not exactly short… so WHAT happens if it reaches the parts of the Earth's underbelly where it can spread? spread into the magma beneath us all… into the core… Or am I in fact mistaken, and it would in fact be overwhelmed by the pressures and heat that far down?
The inside of the earth is full of radioactive material. That's why it's so hot.
Now that is really wrong Spica – or would you say its so warm in sunshine because its of the unvisible radioactive light that comes with the visible light
I don't think its the problem of melting down to earth's ground – as a matter of fact that would be the best that could happen although it would not escape the world and with the next lava eruption the amount of radioative elements will grow.
But please remember the nuclear active Uranium 2000 Degrees or hotter is still encased in meterthick armed steelegg with an enormous pressure building in there – thats like an oversized fucking bomb and it gives a shit at the pissing with some water on it!
What I believe will happen soon – and I don't stand alone with it – though they try now to reactivate the cooling system. I belive its way to late for that even if the valves and pipes are still intact – what I put in a range of a wonder after almost a week now. The cooling can only be efficient when the uranium-bars are still in their seats and not lumped together in a state of half molten chaos on the ground of the reactor. They cant be cooled down – especially with water which brings in the threat of more blasts. The melted Uran will heat up the ground of the reactor until it is weakend and glowing white, then there will be the time that a leak in the ground appears which release the pressure and makes the reactor knock over like a glass of water. Uranium, Plutonium and other heavy and longest lasting radiating material will be set free then into the atmosphere in very small particles and under so much pressure that nothing can hold it back. Even if they heap on it a Mountain of Sand and Concrete, the high radiating substances will escape the reactor and they will be active for at least 1.500.000 years. The area of 150km around will not be bearable to live there for the same amount of years. I'm sorry but I believe this is going to happen there like in Cernobyl. My only hope is that they can stop the other 9 reactors at the very least, before there will be nobody able living and surviving there to control them. We will soon everybody meet at least one from Tokyo/NorthernJapan personally living in our neighborhood for sure. Let's welcome these people wholeheartedly for their rest of their lives – that may be shorter they'd thought. That would help to cure so much missfortune.
BALDbald
This is an ongoing crisis, the eventual outcome remains in doubt, caused by a 9.0 quake AND a massive tsunami, truly a worst case scenario's worst case scenario. So, instead of concentrating on a nuclear plant being hit by the worst earthquake in over 140 years of modern record-keeping in Japan, people are jumping to conclusions to support their belief on the subject. And when we say people are jumping to conclusions, let's not kid ourselves, it's the anti-nuke crowd that's doing this.
Let's wait till this story is over to finally start this debate so that it'll be an informed debate, rather than the hysterical Chicken Little attitude we currently see.
While Japan has a lot on his hands I am much more disgusted about the general public inability to avoid turning everything into a political problem. I'm just waiting for another global scale disaster to happen to knock some sense into people. I am annoyed more than annoyed by our total ineptitude to come together as a species and solve our problems.
So they didn't build a wall high enough to keep the sea out . Essentially the same problem in New Orleans. No one can plan for these mistakes caused by Mother Nature, you can only hope to learn from them.
"Hey, I know, my post is pointless, but it’s MY blog, you can’t prevent me from posting useless stuff when I feel like it"
Well put. What's the point of having your own blog page if you feel pressured to restrict what you post to it? Personally… While I admit I DO come here primarily for the porn, I don't resent being given something intelligent to think about now and again. Agree, disagree… in the end it hardly matters, as long as you're thinking about it and getting the brain some exercise.
Now if only you could magically post something that would get me out of this far too comfortably chair and halt my expanding waistline… but that's asking a bit much out of anything found on the internet.
3 times 20 pushups and 3 times 15 squats before you're allowed to download porn. The same before you're allowed to fap. Every time.
No need to thank me
Man, too much to read at this point, I'll say this:
I'm all for nuclear, but it better be some place that is suited to a place that is not unstable…
And about Obama, come on, people. This guy already got so many things on the table and I can only back up Obama so much. Even he baffles me sometimes about the things he say at crucial time…
Let's first just ignore the fact that this post is rife with spelling and grammatical errors and instead break down the most legible comments that were posed:
>Meltdown means that the nuclear fuel in a reactor core or in storage literally melts due to overheating where it can then be more easily dispersed via some form of leakage. This is the result of a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA), which has technically happened at Fukushima although no actual meltdown or confirmed leakage has yet occurred. My professor of Heat Transfer explained a little about this to us today as we discussed the problem in class.
>Burying nuclear material is a quick and easy disposal method, and is common practice in nuclear engineering. The material is buried deep underground in containers built to withstand anything, and I mean ANYTHING: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x283dt_nuclear-f…
>Radioactivity is radioactivity when it comes to gamma radiation, and radiation from coal is just as dangerous as radiation from nuclear waste so long as it is the same wavelength, with the exception of there being more waste coming from a coal power plant. The reason why this material doesn't melt down is that it is not undergoing nuclear fission that causes it to heat up. The danger with any radioactive leak is the dispersion of particles into the atmosphere that settle in unwelcome places and irradiate living tissue. There is a risk of this happening at Fukushima, although it has not happened yet.
>There is nothing proud about using nuclear power; it is a tool like any other using a science that man fully understands. Real pride is thinking that you know something about a topic of which you have no idea, and then spewing the out same rhetoric that every other uninformed opponent of something they don't understand does.
Oh I have some good news in response to your rant,
(only somewhat related to the having less kids(lowering our population count))
Lately the HIV drug research has made such a breakthrough that we'll now have less than half as many HIV related deaths (in people that can afford the medicine), which means the death rate of HIV afflicted humans will drop /somewhat/ dramatically, meaning the equilibrium of the planet will be even worse! And well have twice as many gay people who still won't learn that a condom is the way to go!
But hey, since humans have proven themselves to be smarter than every other species and not fuck up in any possible way… I guess it's okay
Fusion only 40 years to go. that 60 year estimate is 20 years old now.
At long last they are making progress.
In Germany we only have 16 or so nuclear powerplants of which we could take down 7 or 8 without the country having any trouble sustaining its own energy.
We generate 20% of our energy through rengenerative sources like wind.
I dont think it is that irrealistic to think that that could ceome up to 100% percent in 50 years or so.
I have nothing against nuklear energy, its extremely effective and good for the environment, except for the nuclear waste thats radiating everything for millions of years.
There are 3 factors that weigh heavy against it.
First there is the problem of how to deal with nuclear waste matter,
that may not be such a big problem in the US since you guys have a much bigger landmass and some parts are not inhabited that tightly, in europe we have to put the stuff basically right under our houses, where they are said to be safe from getting in our groundwater but that has been proven otherwise now (for example in Gorleben).
Second are Nukes…
selfexplanitory, every country with a nuklear powerplant has the potentional for weapons of mass destruction.
Its a risk for world safety but you americans should know about that, after Iraq and all…
Third is the remaining risk of a nuklear meltdown.
What happened in japan was not just any earthquake, the Powerplants there were probably among the safest in the world, but i grew a little anxious when i heard that the last time that a coolingsystem failed in a german powerplant was because of a thunderstorm.
It is like sleeping with a grenade under your pillow for thousand 1000$ a month.
Its pretty unlikely that it accdidantly goes off, but would you do it?
Japan will rebound, look at the two cities that were nuked back in World War 2 and how gorgeous they are.
The Japanese displays what we used to have called American Exceptionalism as well as a work effort that won’t quit.
After the Nuclear power plants are taken care of you can bet that the effected areas will be probably rebuilt faster than the Towers at ground zero (going on Year 10).