Global warming

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Agreed, wish the environmental movement would get out of the way and let those who want to build nuclear power plants do so. This right here could decrease the amount of pollution right away.
And where would all of the (poisonous, heavy metal, radioactive) uranium fuel for all of these nuke plants come from then? Just magically appear in finished fuel-rod form, out of thin air?

Answer this, please.
 
simple question to those who believe in AGW. Do you support nuclear power?

You already know I do. Anyone with an understanding of the science of both issues pretty much has to support nuclear power. Heck even one of the founders of green peace does for exactly that reason.
 
Much of the problem with Nuclear power plants is 'regulatory ratcheting' of costs which have increased the costs of building plants tenfold (or more). Here's an interesting link which discusses this problem:

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html

Cost increased because the NRC actually started to care about safety. That's the ratchet part of the regulatory ratcheting (ever increasing safety measures ->ever increasing cost).

Expect this to increase again in the aftermath of Fukushima.

Personally, I'm firmly in the camp of the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (LFTR) which at long last, appears to be garnering some attention. Forty years ago, the Americans decided that they didn't want to continue developing this promising technology, preferring to chuck their money at the Sodium-Cooled Reactor boondoggle.

Molten salt reactors were abandoned because corrosion was more than twice as bad as anticipated and because salt purification chemistry was poorly understood.

Liquid metal (N, NaK) breeder reactors seemed simpler at the time. It turned out they weren't simple, or cost effective at all.

However, the Chinese are now putting resources into researching this technology so it wouldn't surprise me to see them selling such reactors back to the West in a decade or two.

The chinese also built entire wind power parks that aren't connected to the grid. It seems to me they are exploring every single avenue of power production. Makes sense to me to be honest.

Meanwhile their power demand is met by more and more coal burning plants.

Cheers.
 
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And where would all of the (poisonous, heavy metal, radioactive) uranium fuel for all of these nuke plants come from then? Just magically appear in finished fuel-rod form, out of thin air?

Answer this, please.
It has to be mined and refined obviously. Though have you seen the amount of pollution generated by coal plants? Do you know how much of that poisonous, heavy-metal containing radioactive stuff these plants generate? Have you compared the amounts of energy output vs pollution between them?
To a degree. But in many ways it's just faster and cheaper to go whole-hog on solar and wind power coupled with robust energy storage systems.
Solar power can efficiently used in relatively small parts of the world. In colder parts where energy usage is higher due to the need of heating it's especially ineffective while nuclear plants could help tremendously by providing directly both heat and electricity.
 
Solar power can efficiently used in relatively small parts of the world. In colder parts where energy usage is higher due to the need of heating it's especially ineffective while nuclear plants could help tremendously by providing directly both heat and electricity.
There's wind as well. And electricity can be transmitted over significant distances.

The primary problem with nuclear is that it takes a long time for a nuclear plant to be built. We really need solutions now, not ten years from now. Solar and wind are great for that, if we had the political will to actually invest in them.
 
There's wind as well
And that's even more limited in where you can use, not to mention how horribly fluctluating it is.
And electricity can be transmitted over significant distances.
Can you define "significant distance" in kilometers? From what I understand anything over 1k km is pretty much a waste.
Solar and wind are great for that, if we had the political will to actually invest in them.
Both will need HUGE energy storage devices that are simply unviable and both will need extra energy production in colder climates for heating.

I strongly suggest to read through this blog in it's entirety to get a rough idea what it really means to use "green"/alternative energy sources in significant amounts:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/

There are incredibly detailed and math-heavy posts that cover pretty much all energy sources possible. The discussion is also rather informative.
 
Can you define "significant distance" in kilometers? From what I understand anything over 1k km is pretty much a waste.

A waste? That is certainly news... maybe less efficient over long distances, but it certainly can be transmitted a long way with fairly low losses.
 
maybe less efficient over long distances, but it certainly can be transmitted a long way with fairly low losses.
Sure it can be but the losses will be quite significant. Of all the electricity transported in US around 6.5% is lost during transport. No, not when converting from one voltage to another but just moving in the power lines. Now imagine how would you provide enough solar+wind electricity to feed Canadina or Northern European power + heat needs.
 
It has to be mined and refined obviously.
...Which is a very far from clean, or safe process. If we want to add the perhaps paranoid danger of terrorism to this equation there is a threat against several steps in this chain, from refining of raw ore to transport of fuel rods, to transport and refining of spent fuel.

Also, many quite serious mishaps have occured in this chain, with loss of lives as a result. Greatly expanding nuclear power generation will greatly increase this danger.

Though have you seen the amount of pollution generated by coal plants?
Thanks, I live next to Denmark, which is predominantly coal-powered, and with the generally prevailing eastward winds in this part of the world, most of their shit rains down on my country, damaging our forests, lakes and waterways. We should fucking tax them for that (through buccaneering if neccessary) but our gov't is too pussyfied to actually do it.

However, pollution from coal power plants equipped with modern filtration tech is not acutely dangerous like the release of radioactive materials will be from a nuclear disaster, nor is it anywhere as long-term either. I never heard of mass-cases of thyroid cancer for example because of coal powerplants.

Solar power can efficiently used in relatively small parts of the world. In colder parts where energy usage is higher due to the need of heating it's especially ineffective while nuclear plants could help tremendously by providing directly both heat and electricity.
Heat should never be generated from electricity except in emergencies (or, for cooking obviously), that's an awful waste. We're simply going to have to become far less wasteful of electricity; just generating more and more so we can casually burn it for the sake of our own whims isn't going to be justifiable forever regardless what tech we use to generate power in the first place.

It's not a human right to be wasteful.
 
Also, many quite serious mishaps have occured in this chain, with loss of lives as a result. Greatly expanding nuclear power generation will greatly increase this danger.
When you calculate deaths per TWh produced then nuclear will be by far safer than solar, not to mention coal that is the worst of all of them :)
I never heard of mass-cases of thyroid cancer for example because of coal powerplants.
Any actual researches that have managed to link the cancer cases to nuclear fallout? From what I know the Chernobyl stuff did have pretty severe effect around a few hundred km's from the plant but the rest of the Europe was pretty much unaffected. At least cancer cases didn't seem to increase enough to differ from margin of error. I tried researching this a little some years ago but didn't manage to find anything reliable. I hope you've had different luck :)

I may have linked to this before but it is quite interesting. Especially when you see numbers like this:
In the USA about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 2000 TWh.
15 deaths per TWh.


Heat should never be generated from electricity except in emergencies (or, for cooking obviously), that's an awful waste
Sure but how will you heat homes in big apartement buldings then? Biofuels of all sorts are pretty much the worst answer.
 
Thanks, I live next to Denmark, which is predominantly coal-powered, and with the generally prevailing eastward winds in this part of the world, most of their shit rains down on my country, damaging our forests, lakes and waterways. We should fucking tax them for that (through buccaneering if neccessary) but our gov't is too pussyfied to actually do it.

What shit? Denmark was the first nation in the world to add sulphur removing tech to our power plants. You haven't had any acid rain from us since the early nineties.

Oh, and let's not forget the nuclear power plant you built next door to our capitol. Now thankfully closed.

And you don't seem to mind buying our power from our state of the art power plants in the winter time when you can't supply your own demand.

If anyone should be deploying their fleet it's us :!:

:D

Cheers
 
When you calculate deaths per TWh produced then nuclear will be by far safer than solar, not to mention coal that is the worst of all of them :)
Any actual researches that have managed to link the cancer cases to nuclear fallout? From what I know the Chernobyl stuff did have pretty severe effect around a few hundred km's from the plant but the rest of the Europe was pretty much unaffected. .

Depending on who you trust, 9000 to 985.000 is dead or will die as a result of Chernobyl.

And vast areas of Europe was/is affected. There are still regions in Finland and Sweden where you cannot eat wildlife because of caesium contamination.

Cheers
 
What shit?
Indeed it would be interesting to know if after installing those filters situation has got ant better and if there are still any kind of problems with the pollution :)
Depending on who you trust, 9000 to 985.000 is dead or will die as a result of Chernobyl.
vs how many deaths due to coal pollution that people think are caused by other things? There are big uncertainties on both sides.

Though "will die" sounds rather suspicious. Also it would be rather interesting to compare the amount of cancer cases/deaths in Europe to other parts of the world at the same time. I've yet to see any data showing Europe having bigger problems in that regard. One of the big reasons why cancer cases have become much more frequent in last few decades have been most likely not due to more cases but simply far better diagnosis that picks up stuff that wasn't picked up earlier.
And vast areas of Europe was/is affected. There are still regions in Finland and Sweden where you cannot eat wildlife because of caesium contamination.
Interesting. Estonia is closer to the accident location and I've never heard any such areas around here. Any links?
 
Depending on who you trust, 9000 to 985.000 is dead or will die as a result of Chernobyl.

The serious problems with the LNT model would seem to indicate that none of these sources will be overly accurate. There is actually evidence that low-level doses of radiation are actually beneficial to health. A BBC programme investigating nuclear power recently looked into the aftermath of Chernobyl and the evidence seems to indicate that few deaths have been caused by the accident there as yet.

The accuracy of the LNT model is a rather difficult thing to research, of course!

Incidentally, your earlier post regarding the reasons behind the closure of the MSR programme was incorrect. Hastalloy N piping resolved the corrosion problems of the molten salts and I don't believe I've ever heard anybody claim there were any other problems in the processing of the salts. Just a basic industrial process as I understand things.

Here's an interesting Google TechTalk which discusses the (mostly) political reasons that the LFTR and other molten salt reactor designs were ignored in favour of the sodium cooled fast reactors:

http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/12/23/techtalk-why-tmsr/

Thankfully China and others (Czech Republic and possibly India?) are now finally resuming research into designs such as the LFTR and there is also research into the use of fast molten salt reactors to destroy long-lived waste.

Both seem a very good idea to me. I'm rather less convinced that Wind and Solar will ever be able to provide the world's energy needs.

Storage is a problem at present (where Hydro is not available) but it will be interesting to see if Isentropic can come up with the goods.
 
Both will need HUGE energy storage devices that are simply unviable and both will need extra energy production in colder climates for heating.
Why? Wind, for one, varies actually rather little when the wind farms are spread over a large enough area (that is, thousands of miles). And many of the complaints are overblown (skimming that blog, for example, he mentions the danger to birds from wind farms, which is just completely incorrect).

I strongly suggest to read through this blog in it's entirety to get a rough idea what it really means to use "green"/alternative energy sources in significant amounts:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/
Really? A whole blog? Um, no. I don't have that kind of time.
 
Chanloth you are incorrect about wind sorry. I have given you academic papers on the subject before, but you just ignore them b/c they don't comply with your worldview. We have wind droughts over large enough areas to be problematic. It obviously isnt free either, and if you get enough wind eventually you will start seeing significant weather effects due to slowing the boundary layer.
 
then I suggest you 'do the math' :LOL:
-> http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/energy-score.png

though they're missing one important (perhaps the most important) metric cost which certainly is not going to make nuclear more attractive
Now tell me what technologies from that table are usable far away from equator? You can pretty much ignore everything above conventional fission there as they are simply either not existing (geothermal), not abundant enough (solar, biofuel, wind, tidal) and/or just far too inefficient (solar, biofuel). You can't set up solar panels in Sahara and transport electricity from there to Northern Finland.

Biggest problems for nuclear plants are that the fancy stuff (breeder/thorium) aren't all that well developed yet and that people are (needlessly) afraid of them. Without those problems they'd be far higher in the table. Big difference with wind/solar/biofuel etc is that these are realistically solvable while you can't really make all that much use of energy from Sun when you have long nights and relatively little sunlight per m^2
Why? Wind, for one, varies actually rather little when the wind farms are spread over a large enough area (that is, thousands of miles).
Not really. To get significant enough energy from wind you'll need either massive storage (blog discusses that. Basically take Hoover dam times 10000) or set up farms with peak capacity exceeding the required amount by several orders of magnitude. Also transportation over long distances is inefficient. There is a reason why power plants are spread out relatively evenly.
Really? A whole blog? Um, no. I don't have that kind of time.
Obviously it's a lot to take in all at once but it's definitely a good read. You can just start by going over the headlines and digesting the stuff that's more interesting to you. E.g wind + storage.
 
if you get enough wind eventually you will start seeing significant weather effects due to slowing the boundary layer.
Hurm. I can't even imagine how many turbines you'd have to erect for that to actually happen, seeing as the actual area covered by the turbine blades and the pylon they're mounted on is actually quite insignificant compared to the full diameter of the blades themselves.

Now, if each turbine had carried say, eight or ten blades or something like that, maybe that would have been a cause for concern if there had been tons of turbines put up everywhere, but as it is now I can't imagine it to have all that much impact really.
 
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