283 replies to this topic

[Phil]

Yikes!  Pretty depressing stuff.    I don't see the world changing direction any time soon,  it will most likely be a gradual shift.  Somewhere I read CO2 is 40% infrastructure, 40% transportation, and 20% industrial.  That means individuals are responsible for 80% of the problem, from home energy use to cars/trucks/busses, etc.

Even if you went 100% nukes, that still leaves 40% transportation plus perhaps 20% infrastructure plus 20% industrial, (natural gas/propane heating, water heaters, etc. vs. electric), and that means everybody has to buy a BEV or FCV not to mention busses, trains, planes, etc., and convert to electric heat/water heaters.  That alone will take at least a couple of decades assuming people even have the money to do so.  Building all those nukes would also take decades even in this country since sympathetic environmental impact statements would be fought like hell by anti nuke environmental groups.

Above all that the US does not control the world, the last I heard China is already putting out double the CO2 we are and have scheduled hundreds more coal plants.  India is also set to surpass us in the not too distant future as they also have hundreds of coal plants in the pipe line.

Lastly, people will not give up comfort without a fight.  We are borrowing 40% of what we spend now yet people refuse to give up anything.  Around the world people are fighting to get to where we are, telling them they can't is a non starter.

For this reason I have no doubt the world is going over what ever cliffs there are and it is completely out of the US's hands.

[eds]

Nuclear had a short at curing the worlds energy problems and
. . . Instead produced Nuclear waste,
. . . that we will have to live with for hundreds of years.

Gen IV Nuclear Plants were supposed to clean up the Nuclear waste,
. . . but after the multi-year Fukushima Nuclear problem,
. . . keeps sucking up money, with no end in sight,
. . . it's understandable that nobody wants to invest in anything labeled "Nuclear."

Japan, Germany, US and France have given up,
. . . on the Nuclear plants, the now have and
. . . investors are nervous about losing money,
. . . paying for losing money on cleaning up decommissioning and
. . . waste disposal of existing aging plants.

Developing countries don't have the money to buy into something that
. . . rich countries don't want.

Nuclear . . .  a good idea . . . that didn't work . . . it's dead . . . move on!

[Besoeker]

eds, on 29 September 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

Nuclear . . .  a good idea . . . that didn't work . . . it's dead . . . move on!

I respectfully disagree.
In UK successive governments of different hues sat on their hands for decades following the Chernobyl incident. Public perception of them is deeply unpopular so not a vote winner and the gestation period is longer that a government term between elections. So, not surprisingly, it doesn't get on to election manifestos. Elections are about winning votes, seats, and power. I think doing the right thing for the people, the electorate, may be some way off to top slot it should occupy. In the meantime our electricity supply has got close to breaking point mainly because of decommissioning of many of our existing nuclear power stations.

Fossils pollute. Renewables are a long way off meeting demands. Going down the nuclear route is at least part of the solution and there are now plans in place for new build. Too little too late in my opinion.

Nuclear does work and it isn't dead.Check out France. It is largely nuclear. Is as in present tense is.
Currently, at the time of making this post, UK demand is 37GW. Around 1.5 of that is being imported from France which rather makes a mockery of British objection to nuclear.

The nuclear bete noire is perceived as the waste issue.
The residual radiation is attenuated to safe levels by burial and not all that deeply.
Vitrification, stainless steel flasks and deposited in deep geologically stable strata negates the risk.
That can be done. It just needs the political will to do so. And common sense.


Th nuclear bête noire

[eds]

Source:  Blog  France  Nuclear is dead

[Phil]

It' certainly dead in this country.  Plants are shuttering early because they can't be cost competitive with solar or wind.  Our supply is not close to breaking or they wouldn't be shutting plants down.  Last I heard we have a transmission line issue, not a generation issue.

[Besoeker]

eds, on 30 September 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

Source:  Blog  France  Nuclear is dead

His point about the water use is a bit silly.

[Besoeker]

Phil, on 30 September 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

It' certainly dead in this country.  Plants are shuttering early because they can't be cost competitive with solar or wind.  Our supply is not close to breaking or they wouldn't be shutting plants down.  Last I heard we have a transmission line issue, not a generation issue.

Currently (just after 18:00 here) UK total production is 39.7GW of which 7.5GW, about 19% in nuclear.

[eds]

Besoeker, on 30 September 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

Currently (just after 18:00 here) UK total production is 39.7GW of which 7.5GW, about 19% in nuclear.

Most of the plants being decommissioned in the US
. . . are old, NOT upgradeable, and can no longer compete economically.

Solar Energy, LED Lighting, Energy Storage, Electric Vehicles,
. . . had been considered unreachable dreams for so long,
. . . that it's nice to see, they are becoming practical answers to our problems.

[Dustoffer]

The last one I know was in China last year.  There are long term experimental ones in Russia, France, India and more that can be discerned if you read deep.  http://www.world-nuc...s/#.UkndVRDp-So
http://www.eoearth.o...article/152940/
http://peakoil.com/a...ller-technology
The cost is a lot and with the world at the beginning of a depression 4x worse than the 1930s from overpopulation, it is doubtful they will rescue humanity.  Changing over to LEDs and all hybrid/electric transport will also not be enough.
http://www.theguardi...-climate-change
The articles in the link to envirolink show Hansen at 2016 and 350.org at 2023 for crossing the tipping point to this;
http://www.wundergro...change-20130927
So, ed, you and I just may live long enough to see the beginnings of the collapse.
http://www.theguardi...-global-warming
http://www.theguardi...-act?CMP=twt_fd
I guess this could be part of a how-to revolution.  JTR also lived through the depression and is now 81;
http://www.angelfire...ross/howto.html

[eds]

I looked at the links you posted and
. . . still can't find a location of a single Gen IV Nuclear power plant.

I thought that Gen IV, was supposed to solve the problem of Nuclear waste,
. . . by using it as fuel and if that's True,
. . . you should have no trouble finding one, solving that problem somewhere.

[Phil]

I too may be around for the collapse.  I personally think there will be an economic collapse long before an environmental one and that will actually hasten environmental issues since there will be no more money to spend on green projects.  The interest on our debt alone could easily eat up all discretionary spending in the not too distant future.

[Besoeker]

Besoeker, on 30 September 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

His point about the water use is a bit silly.

SP, it is silly.
You neg repping me doesn't change that.

Power stations whether nuclear or coal uses water but don't consume it in the sense that a coal fired station consumes coal.
Water is superheated to produce steam to drive the steam turbines, condensed and gets re-used.
Cooling water, if it is taken from a nearby stream, is returned after it has done its job.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Jellyfish swarms close nuke plant in Sweden.
http://www.nytimes.c...tw-nytimes&_r=0

[Besoeker]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 02 October 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

Jellyfish swarms close nuke plant in Sweden.
http://www.nytimes.c...tw-nytimes&_r=0

Well, at least the reactor got shut down, presumably in an orderly fashion.
I'm sure they would have monitors to detect cooling water flow, pressure, and temperature to instigate a shut down procedure in the event of cooling water anomalies.

I know that water pumping stations do to protect pumps from overheating and failing.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

A blog piece from Ralph Nader on nuclear power.
Atomic Energy -- Unnecessary, Uneconomic, Uninsurable, Unevacuable and Unsafe

http://www.huffingto...=green&ir=Green

[Mr_Flibble]

Nuke plants cost to much and take to much time because of peoples distrust. The never ending lawsuits from nimbies. the hoops that the construction companies have to jump through the regulators taking forever to sign off on things. Then in certain countries the government ban the best reactors because it has the potential to be used to make bombs.

The bigger question is how can I make my own reactor for me.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

New York Times piece on the mutations and deformities in birds and animals in the region of
Chernobyl- 28 years later. On the bright side; adaptations and evolutionary change.


http://www.nytimes.c...l?src=vidm&_r=1

[Dustoffer]

IF, a BIG if, population was at sustainable we would not need such large base load power.  Hansen thinks Gen IV is the answer in those many places without enough solar, wave, wind, or other hydro power nearby.
To me, the whole idea of "the Grid" is wrong.
The main thing---will the emissions reductions be enough and in time??  I would like to see a long term benevolent biosphere.

[eds]

Dustoffer, on 15 May 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

Hansen thinks Gen IV is the answer in those many places without enough solar, wave, wind, or other hydro power nearby.

Generation IV designs are still on the drawing board and will not be operational before 2020 at the earliest.

April 2014 Source:  World Nuclear Association

Meanwhile, Germany hit 74% Renewable energy of both Solar and Wind.
. . . I wish I could say that about myself.

2014-05-13 Source:  Germany hit 74% Renewable

[Dustoffer]

So, with all the red tape, the Gen IVs will not be enough in time.   Non-emissions power is what is needed, with transportation, too.
I was a cold warrior patrolling the Czech border, and the German weather is really lousy for solar.  It shows some desperation to mount double the per person wattage of panels, or more.
Like Seattle, where you need 4 times the batteries and panels as in the sunbelt here.  Can we count on more cloudy days because of CAGW----YES!  I don't like the grid or grid connected systems, but I suppose if you don't care about payback time you can have someone else install the system and subsidize the overage on panels.
Well, we may know this month (a new report from Dr. Natalia Shakhov) or late August, if we even have 9 more years to reduce emissions enough(90%?).
The Gen IV should have started in 1994 when Clinton derailed the project that had a good viable design, because of the idiotic anti-any-nuclear crowd that supported the weasel.  Of course it was Reagan who gave the infinite Earth ideal that half the low brow population believes.  He did not stop the invasion, and now we are even more grossly overpopulated with dummies who will never be able to install their own non-emissions power or even understand AGW.