What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Aethelwulffe]

Originally Posted by Aristophanes

How do we create a nuke economy? Do you have a plan that I can sell to the other nonbelievers? Is this us just spending time jawing? The last I checked this was an oligarchy, we better find a way of making everyone a little money and the rich a lot. If this is not your thing, cool. Finding and spinning stats and research is more fun to most and I will be the first to admit that I am as guilty as the rest of having bias (I AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU ARE SPINNING). If we were committed to making nuke work and I was as invested as you are in it, where to we start?
Aristophanes

No, no spin, just making the argument that Nuke is not what some folks think it is.
We have an infrastructure that supports nuclear as an option right now. We are using it as a mainstream power source right now. Some countries it is the primary source. As far as the politics, they must change obviously. We can't be treating material that can be 95% recycled into cladded reprocessed fuel as waste and hauling it around. That is dumb. We need better political options for using the PUREX process that allow transparency for all nations to see that the process isn't used for enrichment, and to allow all to benefit from the reprocessing.
Using Nuclear on the road? If you go all nuclear, you have a direct step for EPRI batteries on the road. Obviously, a social plan would require a shift from sprawl to centralization, and the obvious requirement for rail to be the ultimate primary transport. This is most difficult here in the US. This is something that has to be pushed with a social program of zoning and the like. It will happen eventually anyway.
"
How pray tell is hydrogen an abundant fuel? ...... WATER"

Water is a fuel? No. Water is a solvent, but not a fuel. To elements as you know make up a water molecule. This is an extremely well bonded little molecule. It releases a lot of power when it is made, and takes an equally great amount of power to break it apart. Methane, where we get almost all of our hydrogen, only takes about 1/3 of the energy to crack. Hydrogen from natural gas isn't where we want to be though, is it? We need to crack water right? Well that has an efficiency of about 64% to do. Doing a simpler reaction to store electricity (using electrolyte acid in a battery) is more efficient. Total power plant masses, not to mention road safety currently leans more to the "plug in" car crowds ideas than anything else.


"You must crack it out to get any here on earth. ..TIDAL, SOLAR, NUKE & WIND"
Agreed. But you need not crack it twice. I am saying as a storage medium it IS less efficient. We use it in rockets because of how energetic the reaction is, and it's fuel density. This lets us get a LOT of thrust very quickly in a rocket, even though it isn't all that efficient. In that situation, rapid acceleration is the key to efficiency. Quite different reason for using LOX/LH.

As for "low pressure" hydrogen tanks, what are you talking about?

"Hydrogen is either a cryofuel (liquid at a very very low temperature in tanks that must be kept heavily insulated but constantly gas off as they warm) or is a very very non-dense gas that cannot be contained in any sort of reasonable sized fuel container (unless you are in a blimp).... HYDROGEN (NON FUEL CELL CARS APPEAR IN CALIFORNIA & ARIZONA SHELL HAS HYDROGEN FUEL STATION IN BOTH PLACES"

I know this well. That does not mean that it is a particularly great storage medium compared to the current generation of batteries.

"It is a storage medium, not an energy source.... AGREED, AS IS OIL COAL, WIND AND (AND PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME ARGUE IT) NUKE"

True, but we have enough radioactinides here on Earth in easy reach to last about 5 billion years. This equates to the life expectancy of the sun.


"Period. As for fuel cells, they are not impractical at all, they are simply costly....
(CURRENTLY) HUGE CARBON FOOTPRINT IN MANUFACTURING, HENCE DEFEATS PURPOSE" excellent point. I don't know about defeats, but certainly a concern

As far as other factors, a typical nuclear plant produces about 18gwh. That is equal to the annual output of 1184 wind turbines in location such as Wichita or Corpus Christi. It is equal to the output of 2617 large turbines in Chicago. Some areas, you just can't use them.
The average wind farm right now is under 20 turbines. I AM FINE WITH THOSE STATS, NOW TURN IT INTO AN ECONOMY. I BELIEVE IT CAN BE DONE BUT I DON'T SEE HOW. CREATE JOBS FOR ME.

Nuke economy? As I said, it is already part of the economy. You could regulate it into being the energy monopoly. There are plenty of Nuke associations that have plans and contingencies that you could read up on online, but none of it is much of a stretch. Infrastructure supports it much better than it does wind or solar. If all we had was wind and solar, and we were each alloted 1kw a day energy, I could deal with that. Nuke will be there however. Science does not support stopping it's use. I am pretty sure it will be used and it will grow ever more important.

Thanks for your feedback.

[the1much]

here comes "hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth,,therefore, the most abundant fuel which partially sustains itself by producing water" spiel ,,,foolish greenies,,,hehe

[Meanz Beanz]

Nuclear has been demonised and is widely misunderstood. I think that we will come to realise that radioactivity is not all bad, believe it or not. I have read of one study that suggests populations living in areas of higher background radio activity are healthier... not an expected find. We live on a radioactive planet and to a degree it is a part of our environment, it seems that, like most things, a little is good, alot is bad. Some where around 55 people died from Chernobyl, that is all in what was a really bad event. Animals are living in the dead zone quite well, scientists are studying them and finding higher levels of radio activity but they seem to be finding less damage than they expected. Oddly the event might yet turn out to be net positive, by that I mean the lessons learned could be very constructive.

Nuclear has had allot of bad press, I would suggest mostly born of competitive pressure. Under these circumstances its hard to form an objective view of the real risks.... the French seem to have managed quite well.

Do you know that coal power stations pump out more radio active material than Nuclear... or so I am told.

There are greater evils than nuclear, I think the area is also ripe for technical advances in shall we say `materials handling`... it would not surprise me if we advance in this area somehow.

I'm not pro, not anti and mostly uninformed like most people I suspect... after all this one "is rocket science"!

If hot Russian chicks on motor bikes do it for you; Kid of Speed - Riding the Dead Zone. A look at the Chernobyl area.

[Meanz Beanz]

Originally Posted by the1much

here comes "hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth,,therefore, the most abundant fuel which partially sustains itself by producing water" spiel ,,,foolish greenies,,,hehe

As I understand it and simply, the trouble with hydrogen is that it takes energy to make it, its effectively a storage medium, a battery, not a source.... we still need a source.

[the1much]

i think we need to look into this "sausage" energy,,hehe

[the1much]

we did some things with uranium and mice,when i worked at the Jackson Lab,,,,was skeery,,,then they injected that other mouse with something radioactive (was before i worked there) and it glowed pretty good,,,hehe,,,but he was also pretty sick,,,,they kept the "string" going for many generations,,,,always had the same ending,,poor mouse but we used to have to always have the warning badges,,,and a geiger counter was on 24/7,,,used to have all the stupid "shower" drills and crap,,,what a bunch of hoopla,,hehe

[Meanz Beanz]

Then you run into something like this...

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=84561

and think hmmmm..... wouldn't it be great if, I wonder if there's a gotya?

[the1much]

hehe,,,do they run props or water jets on that car?,,hehe

[Aethelwulffe]

Water is a waste product of a reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, not a fuel. That car has the same system I built into the picnic baot I built. It is a Hydride-fueled car that uses water in the reaction. It is what is called a "hydrogen on demand" system. In boats it is nifty. The system we used (in conjunction with a fuel cell stack and an asymetrical wound motor, controller etc) takes borax, uses it in a reaction to create hydrogen as it is needed. Later you can (guess what) plug the system in, reverse the process and create boarax again, re-cycling it. Basically, all it is is another battery. The cool part is that your range is only limited as to how much borax you can carry. In a car, that stuff gets heavy, but a boat can carry all the gear neccessary for the system. You don't need a humoungumugigantic super frigidare cryotank full of highly dangerous liquid hydrogen. Just a little bitty one, and a whole bunch of TIDE laundry detergent (well pure powdered borax). Yep, that is the catch. It doesn't run on water anymore than a car that uses water in the coolant system does. They are full of poo and should be shot for screwing with peoples minds when they are so full of mis-information anyway.

[Aethelwulffe]

Coal plant radiation...Yes, I have seen that cited in a hundred places. A typical coal plant does apparently emit 100 (I have seen 100 stated too) times more radiation than a nuke plant...which is to say just about nothing. Coal is not exatly pure stuff. All the stuff in the Cretaceous peat bogs had heavy metals in it when it died, and it still has that stuff now.
Radium, BTW, which is the most abundant surface radioactinide, is many times more toxic to humans than plutonium. We used to use it in paint....

[Meanz Beanz]

Originally Posted by Aethelwulffe

They are full of poo and should be shot for screwing with peoples minds when they are so full of mis-information anyway.

Hmmm yes... they say in the video all you need is the water! Sounds to good... don't it?

[Meanz Beanz]

Originally Posted by Aethelwulffe

Coal plant radiation...Yes, I have seen that cited in a hundred places. A typical coal plant does apparently emit 100 (I have seen 100 stated too) times more radiation than a nuke plant...which is to say just about nothing. Coal is not exatly pure stuff. All the stuff in the Cretaceous peat bogs had heavy metals in it when it died, and it still has that stuff now.
Radium, BTW, which is the most abundant surface radioactinide, is many times more toxic to humans than plutonium. We used to use it in paint....

I'm never sure if they are comparing leakage or waste.... thats never made clear. Is it possible that over time a coal station does out do a nuclear station in the waste department?

[the1much]

i wonder if you could do your laundry in ya gas tank?,,,,hehe
niterz Beanzy, Mas., everyone else ,,,,,imma go to sleep and dream of my new venture,,,"suds stations" ,,hehe

[Meanz Beanz]

You do that Jim... sleep well.

[tinhorn]

That biker chick was cute! Did you read what she wrote about the protective cover?!

The plant was closed down for good in 2000. They must build a new sarcophagus soon, because the original one was hastily constructed and is disintegrating.

Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far actually escaped. More then 90% is still under sarcophagus. I heard with all the concrete they put down, the construction became heavy.. some day it may fall down, get in subterranean waters and leave Europe with no water.