Forum Post: 1 gram of uranium fuel produces the same energy as 2 million grams of oil
Posted 11 years ago on April 29, 2012, 5:53 p.m. EST by arturo
(3169)
from Shanghai, Shanghai
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
It would take 2 million grams of oil or 3 million grams of coal to equal the power contained in 1 gram of uranium fuel. Unlike oil and coal, nuclear fuel is recyclable and, in a breeder reactor, can actually produce more fuel than is used up! For these reasons, nuclear energy is by far the best means now available to power a modern industrial economy.
Nuclear power is a gift to humanity, and only the propaganda of Malthusian extremists, dedicated to stopping human progress and reducing the world’s population, has created public fear and skepticism.
The best way to overcome irrational fear is through knowledge. To this end, reviewed here is the process by which natural uranium ore is turned into fuel for a nuclear reactor, how it is used, and how it can be recycled, such that the reader will come to understand that there is really no such thing as nuclear “waste”:
http://schillerinstitute.org/economy/phys_econ/2006/beaut_nuke_cycle.html
Yep nuclear b good if there was no money, or human beings, or weather or unpredictable natural occurences involved anywhere in the , manufacture, and operation of a power station. Chernobel wasnt a problem that happened years ago. Its still a problem just like fukashima will is and will be for a long time. Short memories are persistent. Greg Palast - investigative journalist, has some eye opening info about Fukashima and why it really melted down. Chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
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I can't believe how stupid I have been to be duped by the Malthusian extremists. Had I known there were Malthusian extremists about I would have been more on my guard. I truly wasn't aware that there was no problem with nuclear waste. I am so proud to be educated now and I repent my Malthusian ways. God-complex much?
Good Malthusian, repent.
So, one gram of uranium costs how much more than 2 million grams of crude oil?
It's not like I can tip uranium into a tanker, and make anything out of it at home.
"...the total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD are typically about a third of those for a coal-fired plant and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant."
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
MMBTU = million BTUs as energy measure.
Cost per MMBTU for coal ------ $ 2.27.
Cost per MMBTU for oil -------- $ 9.54.
Cost per MMBTU for Natgas -- $ 5.09.
Cost per MMBTU for uranium - $0.38 for Texas including non-fuel transportation and special security costs.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. State of Texas.
That is not a close race. We have POE costs for U3O8 processed fuel at less than $0.20 for a megaBTU equivalent.
Add on the global warming impact costs and it's gotta be 100:1 overall costs.
may i ask where you go those
U.S. Energy Information Administration and the State of Texas.
o easy enough
In principle I'd be all for clean, safe, too cheap to meter nuclear power. I know that leaders of many nations hold it to be necessary and a good thing. I hate Malthusianism and I regard every baby born as a blessing, a potential genius and problem solver. I see nuclear though as very dangerous. I don't see how you can simply tell us that the events of Chernobyl and Fukushima are just evil propaganda. Seems to me really bad things did happen, and that uncountable numbers of human beings are suffering and dying due to those "accidents." Such potential for harm in the hands of the irresponsible psychopaths who are at the top of political and economic pyramids is to me real cause for alarm. This alarm is not simply the result of Malthusian propaganda though it can be used to feed into that.
One other little factor to consider in this little technocornicopian fantasy, peak uranium. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27549.html
"1 gram of uranium fuel produces the same energy as 2 million grams of oil"
And a half-life of 10,000 years of toxic radiation. How wonderful. Tell it to the Japanese in Fukushima.
i am not convinced by the toxic argument
burning oil or coal beltch on the order of 1,000,000 times the toxins into the air
plenty of lung cancer cases cased by contaminates
far exceeds cancers by radiation
CArbon has an atmospheric half life of about 50 years. The by products of U235 for 10,000 generations.
No one is advocating a false choice between oil and coal on the one hand and nuclear on the other. We need to stop both.
again long half means the product rarely radiates
No, a long half life means it continues to radiate, and in the case of U235 by-products, radiate dangerously.
What's more, it doesn't take that many RADs to cause cancer. Very very few, in fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
At a half life of 10,000 years, it can still be fatal 100,000 years from now, depending on the initial toxicity. Lets take Plutonium a an example. Would you like to be the person standing next to an exposed Plutonium pellet 100 years from now? It is still more than 90% the toxicity of when it came out of the plant. U235 by-products are hardly better.
each particle can only decay once
And with trillions upon trillions of particles, that represents a lot of toxic radiation over an inconceivably long time. I hope you are not suggesting that spent nuclear fuel rods are SAFE!
How many people have died from radiation in Fukushima?
China is going full speed ahead with the construction of nuclear power plants, despite Fukushima.
The same as have died from smoking. That's what you were told by the actual nuclear scientist on this thread, but of course you know better.
Its claimed that over 5 million people die each year from tobacco use. I think that if that happened in Fukushima, somebody would probably have noticed.
We don't yet know what will happen as a result in Fukushima. It will take years to find out. Indeed, we will likely never know the full extent, because the chromosomal damage might not show up for another generation and never be attributed to Fukushima, even though it will have been caused by it.
if one looks at global warming,
one can see the temperature rising since the industrial revolution
generations indeed
And how does that argue for nuclear power? One can have enough energy without the need for either.
indeed
I recommend lighter cars
That's one part, among hundreds of others. MOre public transportation is another. Less suburban sprawl and better land use is another. And so on. I think we have grown past the need, or even ability, for simple solutions. I think a complex of solutions will be necessary. Solar, for example works better in some regions, wing in another, geothermal in yet another. One size fit all will likely no longer apply.
I am offended when people start telling me solutions are complex
that ends up being an excuse to pass bad law
because it was packaged with military or health spending
Don't be so offended.
One size fits all doesn't work with solar and wind and public transportation. Lighter cars would be a good thing, but will it solve the issue? Solar is a good thing, but will IT solve the entire issue? Wind power i a good thing, but will IT solve the whole problem? The answer is no to all of the above.
The solutions need to be multi-pronged.
But the one single mindset is simple: Conserve energy usage and make whatever is used safe and sustainable. That part is not complex at all.
Most bad laws are not due to their being overly complex, but overly broad. There are exceptions, but that's it most of the time.
Besides, we aren't necessarily talking about laws, but local solutions tied to a national or regional grid. In fact if the various solutions are robust enough, and specific enough for the area, each home can potentially be entirely off any grid whatsoever.
Hopewell Project. Its on my green energy post.
Yes, I remember reading about it. It is another promising start.
in fact, i wonder is that was partly in the back of my mind when mentioning being of the grid.
I also saw a renovation of a commercial and residential building in Manhattan from beginning to end. When finished, it was about 90% off the grid, IN the middle of New York! A couple of tiny wells were drilled a few hundred feet down and tapped into the geothermal heat under the building. The building was almost entirely self-sufficient and virtually carbon neutral. All heating and cooling, as well as lighting were taken care of by a tap well no wider that 4 inches. I think there was also some water capture done on the roof, and the circulation of air in the building was designed to be optimal. Large amounts of glass were also used to allow in maximin light and interior wall were minimized for that reason.
That level of engineering creativity could easily be translated on a broad scale.
Exactly - there is so much that is available - right now - today - it just needs to be implemented. New jobs - updating existing structures.
my local Representative calls issues complex to sidestep complaints brought by the people
people who say issues are complex are correct. issues are not as they seem. You say lighter cars well cars are getting lighter every year and engines are becoming more efficient. But we have to look at issues more deeply than that. It would be wonderful to build the car out a super magnesium alloy or completely carbon fiber but we have to think of the practicality of buyers and if it possible to do it main stream or is it safe enough for everyday road use.
The same goes for electricity production if the percent yield doesn't reach a realistic number the project will be terminated. There is no one answer and all possibilities are being looked into in fact energy problems may not be around in 2030 if Fusion takes off and is workable. solutions are being found people need to be more open than to just say solar or wind.
issues should be what they seems
if they are not, they are ill define
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yes issues should be what they seem, but there is always lurking variables. Even in design we expect things to blow up in our faces for no apparent reason
one person can not define all problems they would be a demi-god if they could
Don't worry: I'm not your local representative.
I would agree with you to the extent that we don't know what will happen.
I know lots of people with breathing issues
but none that got damaged by radiation
and I grew up next to the Lawrence Livermore National Radiation Laboratories
The real point is the potential harm. (And, of course the harm that has been done but unidentified in terms of cause.) That harm can be catastrophic. Murphy's Law is not to be trifled with when it comes to such consequences.
Energy use in Europe per capita is half that of of the USA. If this country became serious about conserving energy consumption, it could go a long way toward solving a whole lot of problems. Alternative and creative sources of energy would go another long way toward it. Complete solutions are not yet available, but a great deal of very good ones are. Instead of jumping head first into an expensive and potentially catastrophically dangerous energy source, we can start with better solutions already available.
harm is already an issue of air quality
nothing potential about it
No one is disputing that.
Again it is implying a false choice fallacy.
We need not choose between two from of poison. We can choose neither and work towards alternate solutions, many of which already exist.
I'm excited about work on boron fusion reactors
Fusion seems promising, if a long long way into the future. As of now, there seem to be currently insurmountable issues. But, as they say, fingers crossed.
not that long
don't put things off
I'm not trying to put things off! LOL.
It is only that I have read what some scientists in the field have been saying. Have you some info about more optimistic projections? I would love to hear them.
Saudis are building them too
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577164742025285500.html
im not surprised. i dont understand the idea of producing energy out of oil combustion
If we could cool those uranium rods in a way that doesnt leave behind irradiated water yes you are right. Untill then we are just boiling water.
it's been done with liquid mettle but that got it's own problems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_metal_cooled_reactor
and also ends with radiated materials though mettle being solid is easier to contain
still
I'd take a little bit a radiation of bad air quality
Nuclear power plants are being build by the scores in China, India and other Asian countries. They know that the engineering problems have been solved.
-- Economically, import of fully processed U3O8 fuel is quite cheap. $50 at POE powers a small car for 12,000 miles, a typical year driving.
-- Contrast oil and gasoline. The oil cost goes $1,500 a year at import. $3,000 at the pump at 24 m.p.g.
America has had nuclear power f-- or 60+ years. Dead toll from all this hyper-dangerous evil-tech madness ??? Zero, at least for nuclear accidents related to making power. Painting and falling off ladders have been the big killers, trailing car accidents driving to work.
Operating a standard-design nuke plant is one of the dullest activities known to mankind. Plant redesign in the 1980s and then another round of redesign in the late 1990s removed the threats.
Btw: the actual hard core reactor structures, themselves, run to a half-meter of steel. It's kind of similar to a military main battle tank, just five times thicker. Helluvan "egg." When the tsunami of 3/11/2011 wiped out the various support structures at Fukushima, those inner reactor structures were not damaged in the least.
The TEPCO engineers had to pump in more water to them -- the cooling rods had been inserted in seconds to shut down power production -- so contaminated debris was the one and only undefined problem they faced.
Fukushima was not another Chernobyl. They're Japanese, not vodka-for-lunch Russians. The cooling rods worked perfectly in every one of the Fukushima reactors. That damn Chernobyl reactor didn't have a safety-triggered cooling rod systems.
Meanwhile, coal and oil and natural gas are burned by staggering amounts.
-- In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh) -- equivalent to 15 terawatts (1.504×1013 W)
-- Oil 50% (3,941 Megatons), gas 25% (149 bcm), hard coal 14% (845 Megaton)
-- The planet is getting fucked toward oblivion. With nukes that would decrease by an 8:1 ratio fro natural gas and 15:1 for coal.
-- 5% increase annually after the recession ended. This will only get worse.
Uranium is as plentiful as tin and you don't need yellowcake U3O8 to make that economical. There's a case to be made that using $75 per car-year-equivalent uranium would be safer at the mining sites.
Thanks for your contribution.
This national anti-nuke campaign has been an amazing hoax. It's gone on for decades in the face of clear evidence.
Btw: the Germans are putting huge money into the tokumak nuclear fusion Iter reactor at Cadarache, France. Billions of euro. This is the plant with the 48 ultra-massive containment magnets. 200,000 times the magnetic field of Planet Earth.
500 megawatt capacity.
Costs for the second and third ones are expected to decline substantially. At 24 a year the cost runs to $300-million more than a simple reactor system, but there's no uranium to buy. (Cutie, but that's all. Both are dirt cheap to operate.)
European Union, India, Japan, the People's Republic of China, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- the big boys.
I'm awaiting the Huffington/drudge/dailykos/cesspool line telling us why copying these systems would cause The End of the World.
Are you just a shill for the corporate nuke industry? You post this drivel over and over,. corporate nuke energy is terribly costly, dangerous, and simply not needed. The costs are pushed on communities and the people, while the corporate nuke industry insiders run away with loads of the peoples money,. leaving the mess for the communities we live in to clean up. There is nothing irrational about opposing unneeded dangerous technology, that is imposed from above and is always anti-democratic. It is however irrational to keep posting propaganda for this terrible idea.
We need more wild nature, not more dirty corporate nuke plants.
lies every single thing that you said is a huge stack of lies spouted into the face of the people for progress
are you talking to me? show anything I say to be a lie.
anti-democratic corporate nuke plants are not needed, not clean, and the 'owners' or builders always leave a costly mess when they are gone from the picture,. the community is invariable left with the mess, and get to pick up the tab for the dine and dash 1%,. once again,. they are nothing but greedy pirates. stop the 1%, stop nuke plants! support local appropriate energy production.
yes im talking to the person whose tree hugging mother drop him on his head.
Burden of society thousands of jobs are created. The energy the created is 8c for kilowatt and coal and others are 12c a kilowatt.
Nuclear plants break even after years of operation. This is a technology that will be a major part of the future.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnfXLws40Q
Edit
found a great book in my university library its called "the future of nuclear power" by john Lillington. i dont know where you can pick up a copy but check your local engineering university they should have it.
You fail to show 'the lies' you accuse me of, and then engage in a lame personal attack that ignores any issues or logic. thanks for playing, you show your true colors.
so i gave real facts and now you ignore me. You cant ignore the truth that nuclear power is our future for energy production.
You are just wrong, simple as that. Your pro-nuke plant agenda does not equate with 'truth'. Nuke plants are dangerous, expensive, and many better ways of generating energy are available. Why stay with a proven loser?
Why do you deny progress of the scientific field
explain how the whole entire scientific field is wrong on this one. Explain why every single engineer i know is for nuclear power. We dont have hidden agendas we just like to build shit. Also that is including three environmental engineers one of which specialized in waste disposal
it is great that you and your friends all agree. however, there is no agreement in all of science, in fact, I would argue, that the majority of consensus goes against nuke power;
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_and_global_warming/ucs-position-on-nuclear-power.html
http://shepperdineagainstnuclearenergy.blogspot.ca/2011/05/top-bulgarian-nuclear-scientists-wants.html
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_india-does-not-need-nuclear-energy-top-scientist_1607088
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The "corporate nuke industry" is a tiny little thing compared to oil, coal and natgas.
The nuke environmental impact is also as close to zero as you are going to get. Fear talk is a hoax.
as it is with the costs, it is with its claims of greenness,. . cost are not added up,. where is the cost of forever storage of the wast products and eventual cleanup of failing plants? these cost are pushed on the future,. when the benefits are long gone. more plant failures are inevitable,. so the true destructive power of this bad tech is also in the future,. but we do have plenty to see already. The mining of the fuel sure aint clean,. Chernobyl, Fukushima now giant contamination zones, and we have over a hundred plants here in amarica, we do not need more, we need to, safe as can be done, decommission them all.
Decommission =requires= burning more coal/oil/natgas.
Maybe a very wealthy country such as Germany can replace nukes with solar and wind. Maybe.
Replacing coal/oil/natgas with nukes makes more sense environmentally.
sounds like a good idea for the new space companies.. take the waste off the planet, then no worries about what to do ,, and cheaper cleaner energy can be realized in more places . you cannot argue that nuclear is cheaper.. and now theres a way to eliminate the waste. and dont cry that you cant release it into space.. space IS radioactive.
Yeah,. because no rocket ever blew up on the way up,. are you serious? Can you imagine an explosion in the high atmosphere?
No, corporate nuke power is not cheaper, the costs are just pushed on the future. (another form of ponzi scam) Where is the permanent wast storage that was promised to be 'just around the corner' in the 60s! The 0.1%ers that push for these plants make their profits off the build and start-up,. then get the hell out of dodge, taking their wheelbarrows full of tax/rate-payer money to their gated compounds. Corporate nuke plants are a scam.
Nevada.
Nukes cost less than 5% the cost of oil/gasoline for driving cars.
as long as you don't add up the costs of decommissioning, and forever wast disposal and monitoring. the costs the nuke industry gives are lies, the real costs are pushed on to the future,. your kids get to deal with the mess,. . not a good tech or strategy for the future it is only a strategy of immediate want, childish.
Fission nukes will last till fusion nukes replace them.
Compared to global warming, nuclear power has about 1/1,000,000th the extrinsic costs of coal/oil/natgas.
Look at a map of the world with sea water up by 100 feet.
nuke plant are in no way slowing global warming,.
Bad, bad engineering. In operation the nuke plants present a tiny fraction of the heat that goes with burning fossil fuels to create electricity.
Do a little research.
nuke plants are less than 10% of american power generation,. their environmental benefits are small (when all the costs/concerns are accounted for), and they can be replaced by wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, etc. etc, the global warming problem is coal, the most used one. "clean coal" is a PR campaign not an actual generation technology in use.
I have done much research, as I find doing just 'a little' is often misleading.
That was a try. The 10% guess is only off by.......
"As of 2011, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008. The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power."
Edited. I had to trek all the way to Wikipedia. Knew the ratio was close to 20%.
We sell advanced reactors to a couple dozen countries.
you has a serious ability to miss the point,. may come in handy one day?
nuke energy is not producing very much for the many costs,. it can easily be phased out, and replaced by much more benign forms,. . I do not support it and will always fight against it, unless and until, you have a proven full cycle system. dangerous and toxic. BOOO
Evidence. Evidence. Evidence. The foundation for inductive logic.
In 60+ years running nukes in America, the body count from power related accidents is zero. Your notions about "dangerous and toxic" would matter if the world did not have competent engineering -- but we do. And on the scale of things, running nukes is not at anywhere near the top of the difficult problems list.
As to waste and renewal issues -- again -- we know how to do all of this. You don't but so what? Your argument from ignorance -- a.k.a. argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance" -- is a sad example of applying this Informal Fallacy.
your ignoring the great danger to your fellow humans. We are flawed engineers. we cannot control this power and people will die as they have. The financial benefits you site are irrelevant when measured against human life. don't you care about people? you assertions we have competent engineers or that we have solved certain problems ignores the fact that we are flawed creatures and will eventually make a mistake and millions of people can die. Support ows. Support Alt energy! vote out alt energy hating politicians!
You're an engineer too so am i
I am not an engineer I meant "we are flawed engineers" as a speicies. Sorry
really? you can see no examples of the destructive nuke industry? Fukushima and Chernobyl, seem the be good examples. having a giant No Go zone surrounded by zones of lesser contamination for miles and miles,. seems like a cost and a risk.
mining uranium is not clean or green,. http://www.ccnr.org/uranium_deadliest.html
"we know how to do all of this" Only we have no plan for forever-storage. ?
Did you know in the 1940-50 they put uranium in plate ware to make it have a nice color. So these plate are putting out more radiation per day than what nuclear operators get in a year.
If you are also scared of radiation stop eating bananas the have a high does of radiation naturally. it is called the "Banana Equivalent dose"
the point is things in this world are naturally more dangerous than nuclear power. To worry about something that will not affect you is bad for your health.
link http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/08/bananas-are-naturally-radioactive/
Chernobyl was not a standard design reactor. In fact, it was the only such reactor ever built for power production. The ultimate outlier.
Fukushima ??? Body count apart from the tsunami and one worker's heart attack is still zero.
Evidence. Evidence. Evidence. On the evidence, the anti-nuke fear mongering is a hoax.
What do you think of this?
http://inhabitat.com/new-piezo-crystals-harness-sound-waves-to-generate-hydrogen-fuel/
sounds interesting,. there are many ways to generate electricity that do not create toxic wast or pollute the world,. I just don't get the public pushing of bad tech, that has no mechanism to deal with the toxic by-product it creates. This is just another example of corporate externalites,. where some capitalist creates a profit for themselves in that short term, by leaving a giant mess, that the people that actually live in the area, are left to clean up, at their own experience,. ponzi sht.
Here are some other thoughts on nuclear waste processing:
The spent fuel from nuclear power plants is actually a precious resource: About 96% of it can be recycled into new nuclear fuel. No other fuel source can make this claim—wood, coal, oil, or gas. Once these fuels are burned, all that’s left is some ash or airborne pollutant by-products, which nuclear energy does not produce.
Thus, nuclear is a truly renewable resource. Furthermore, unlike wind, solar, and other so-called alternative energy sources, a nuclear fission reactor (the fast reactor or breeder reactor) can actually create more fuel than it uses up.
In the Atoms for Peace days of the 1950s and 1960s, it was assumed that spent reactor fuel would be reprocessed into new reactor fuel. The initial plan was for the United States and other nuclear nations to have closed nuclear fuel cycles, not “once through” cycles. In the closed fuel cycle, uranium is mined, enriched, and processed into fuel rods; then it is burned as fuel and reprocessed, to start the cycle again.
http://larouchepac.com/node/14724
And on the economics of nuclear energy:
Nuclear energy is, in many places, competitive with fossil fuels for electricity generation, despite relatively high capital costs and the need to internalise all waste disposal and decommissioning costs.
From the outset the basic attraction of nuclear energy has been its low fuel costs compared with coal, oil and gas-fired plants. Uranium, however, has to be processed, enriched and fabricated into fuel elements, and about half of the cost is due to enrichment and fabrication. In the assessment of the economics of nuclear power allowances must also be made for the management of radioactive used fuel and the ultimate disposal of this used fuel or the wastes separated from it. But even with these included, the total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD are typically about a third of those for a coal-fired plant and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant. The US Nuclear Energy Institute suggests that for a coal-fired plant 78% of the cost is the fuel, for a gas-fired plant the figure is 89%, and for nuclear the uranium is about 14%, or double that to include all front end costs.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
isnt the only way to get more wild nature is to depopulate the earth?
LOL, too funny. How about we stop logging and mining operations, etc. in national parks and national forest! That would be a great place to start re-wilding some of our planet.
It is not a this or that proposition (us OR nature) it is a simple choice to not develop some areas so the natural world can have some space to breath. Most people live in cities and then suburbs anyway, we only need to set aside and protect from development/resource harvesting a percentage of the land for nature to flourish.
There is completing research, that I have just recently found, that show that people who get to visit or even just see natural areas, are way healthier that those that don't, and the benefits last weeks to months after visiting these natural spaces. One of the most conclusive bits of info I saw was that prisoners with courtyard views from their cells compared to prisoners with outfacing views of the countryside,. the measurable health benefits are astounding. There are so many benefits besides health of people, for preserving/re-wilding at least some of the worlds natural heritage that arguing against preserving nature seems to be pure anti-intellectual self-hatred.
im not arguing that its not better, but its not realistic to think you can increase consumption while decreasing use of resources.
why do you think we need to 'increase consumption" ?! quite the opposite it true. we need to decrease material consumption, and increase the consumption of creativity. this is our task.
population expansion will increase consumption regardless of any behavior modifications.
What if the behavior modifications stopped the population from growing?
This problem of building a sustainable civilization has many roots in our global society though, population is just one of them. Our constant expansion of cultivated land is another root. These two are probably the largest roots, and they are interrelated (we did not always breed like rabbits, hunter gatherers and the successful agriculturalists intentionally kept their population's low).
Human depopulation is part of the answer for sure, but more important than depopulating is making people receptive to the idea. If that can be done, then we might be able to actually solve our problems.
Who knows, maybe in a million years Earth will be a barren wasteland or another runaway greenhouse planet like Venus. Or maybe there will be a couple billion of us living all over in different ways alongside technology and ecology.
"First I want to say that carrying capacity was a poor choice (I actually regretted it before you replied). I do assume you are familiar with the ecological devastation we have caused on this planet over the past 7000 years. I will also make the assumption that you are familiar that such destruction is still going on, more efficiently than every before. I make the third assumption that you understand that we still rely very heavily on ecological services, stable climate, and countless other natural services, that in total (at least 15 years ago) rivaled the entire global economy when valued in USD. The estimate of the value of ecosystem services was between 16 trillion dollars and 54 trillion dollars (most likely closest to about 33 trillion dollars, world economy was 27 trillion dollars when this study was published). And I am sure you are aware of the real kicker, the climate shift that we are causing by increasing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. This will not have good effects on an already depleted biosphere."
What is an "ecosystem service"? It sounds like you are applying monetary values to a very abstract concept. "Ecosystems" in of themselves are problematic, since the science behind them are based, oddly enough, on electronic circuit boards. A British botanist named Arthur Tensley actually coined the phrase, "ecosystem" and it was later expanded by other scientists into a mechanistic model.
Here's a link to a great documentary on it, by Adam Curtis. (I recommend viewing all of his documentaries, by the way. He has an extensive catalog.)
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/
You can skip to the second episode, "The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts", if you don't have time to view the entirety of the documentary, but I recommend it as a whole.
Depopulate yourself.
Did I strike a nerve? Am I perhaps voicing your hidden doubts?
Our experiment with civilization will come to an end unless we do something. I don't advocate suicide either, but rather searching for a new way of living that will not put us at war with every other living thing on this planet. Depopulation is a good answer, but even if 6 billion people died today, in 200 years or so we would have 10 billion people again, and would be again facing a set of problems essentially analogous to the ones we face now.
But this is our planet after all, we don't have to share it with any other species, except those that are good, and we know better than all of the gods how to go about creating paradise.
http://www.occupywallst.org/forum/the-mentally-ill-at-occupys/
You do realize the small irony in telling someone who is mentally ill to commit suicide when you write about detesting a eugenics based population control scheme.
Did I call for the end of civilization? No. I just said we as a civilization have been playing god and there will be catastrophic results for our civilization from the ecological damage that we have inflicted, to put it in the simplest terms. We have decided what animals and plants shall live, and what animals and plants shall die. Thinking we know better than 3 billion years of evolution.
I recommend two readings. A New Green History of the Earth written by Clive Ponting and Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.
I would rather see someone who wants to impose their depopulation ideology on others go, than see innocents be harmed by the ideology of depopulation. With that said, what would be best is if people saw through the mental traps being created in the books they read.
The idea of finite resources and ecological doom imposed on a species that can split the atom, travel into space and recreate the surface of the planet is absurd.
First of all impose? That is a little bit strong for what I have in mind. I don't want to create some system that will force people to depopulate. Granted my ideas may be unwanted by many, and they are free to reject them. Therefore not impose. Share, spread, discuss are much closer, even if it might offend people.
Depopulation is not about killing people or ending the human race or any such nonsense. So I do not see why you talk of innocents being harmed (perhaps some people will advocate that, and we should oppose violent depopulation. It is only going to work effectively if its voluntary to begin with, otherwise we would just have World War 3 on our hands.
Depopulation as I see it is about ensuring that we do not exceed the carrying capacity of our planet/current level of technology and be forced to play a deadly game of catching our technology up with the degrading biosphere in order to maintain (or heavens forbid keep expanding) our population.
We have to stop growing our population at some point, you seem to (I hesitate to say you do) want to see us grow to the limits of the Universe (and we would reach those limits inevitably as well, though that would definitely take a long time).
And really, the idea of finite matter/energy is absurd? The idea that we need the other species on this planet is absurd? I almost think you are a poe talking like that. Because it really epitomizes the idea that our civilization knows what is best.
We can make infinite resources! We can control everything! (yes hyperbole I know) And some people think depopulation sounds crazy.
There are a number of fallacies I am going to point out in your last message:
Clearly, one of the means of depopulating is by killing people.
"Carrying capacity" is an arbitrary concept based on neo-Malthusian models. In a scientifically progressive society, humanity has always outgrown its "carrying capacity".
Using the Universe as an analogy to the Earth is unscientific. No one really knows the limits of the Universe, (space/time, mass/energy) as it goes beyond our day to day idea of what "space" is. And even based on the assumption of the Universe as "fillable" and the idea of humanity "filling" it is grandiose:
"The observable universe contains about 3 to 100 × 1022 stars (30 sextillion to a septillion stars), organized in more than 80 billion galaxies, which themselves form clusters and superclusters."
And note that that's just what's observable.
We're running out of thread! I am unable to reply to your message below. Could you create a new thread to this article, copy/pasting your most recent message?
I'll look for it tomorrow.
First I want to say that carrying capacity was a poor choice (I actually regretted it before you replied). I do assume you are familiar with the ecological devastation we have caused on this planet over the past 7000 years. I will also make the assumption that you are familiar that such destruction is still going on, more efficiently than every before. I make the third assumption that you understand that we still rely very heavily on ecological services, stable climate, and countless other natural services, that in total (at least 15 years ago) rivaled the entire global economy when valued in USD. The estimate of the value of ecosystem services was between 16 trillion dollars and 54 trillion dollars (most likely closest to about 33 trillion dollars, world economy was 27 trillion dollars when this study was published). And I am sure you are aware of the real kicker, the climate shift that we are causing by increasing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. This will not have good effects on an already depleted biosphere.
Now, all of what you say does make sense to me logically and scientifically except this.
"In a scientifically progressive society, humanity has always outgrown its "carrying capacity"."
I just cant make sense of this statement. It seems so certain of itself with little more than a couple hundred years of not destroying ourselves in a very spacious world and perhaps 50 years of managing to not do so in our now very crowded world.
As new resources are discovered scientifically (an example being as when the energy in atoms was unlocked) it adds to the overall resources we have. It is unscientific to say we know the limits to future resources we don't know of yet. Hypothetically, these resources may not have any limits.
Feeding the soul is healthy as long as the food is wholesome - like nature in it's glory.
Actually not, we can grow more wild nature through projects like NAWAPA, which would bring large amounts of fresh water down from Alaska to the central American desert:
http://larouchepac.com/infrastructure
After being used in agriculture, the water would evaporate and increase rainfall substantially across America, replenishing our diminishing underground water supplies, and greening both wild and agricultural lands nationwide.
and you would move this water how? solar energy? build an aqueduct? or more oil exploitation?
Through a combination of hydro-power and nuclear power, actually. This is why we have to solve the problems of nuclear power. We need more powerful power sources to solve the technical problems of our future.
And of course, yes, it would be the biggest aqueduct project in the history of the world.
Over and over? Aren't you exaggerating quite a bit? The last time was weeks to months ago.
Some day we will run out of fossil fuels, that is certain. If we don't have an alternative source of energy by then, we will be in deep trouble. We have to solve the problems of nuclear energy, not just write it off.
Also, I received 14 comments so far, that's a fair amount of interest at OWS these days.
shilling is shilling,. it is still the same pro-nuke crap where you deny the evils of the nuke industry like they don't exist, you even use the same defense (how many people died in the japan disaster, when how long will that giant prefecture be uninhabitable, and how many people will eventually succumb to the cancer and radiation is a better question) and you push for technology that does not exist in any meaningful way, as if it does. (just like the 'clean' coal pure BS) Nuke plants make loads of money in the building and start up phase for the selected few (0.1%ers), and the real costs of operations, wast storage and decommissioning are left for rate payers in the future when the capitalists have built their island compounds well away from the wast, and contamination.
Yes, the oil is mostly over, and the same is inevitable for all the fossil fuels, these are one time use, finite and depleting. We should be using the oil to build permanent renewable systems, and we should be working to fix our culture so vast amounts of energy is simply not needed. Decentralized renewable energy is all we need, the sun is a near infinite source of energy, tides are rather stable, (even if papa bear don't understand that the moon generates a nice gravity pull), and on an on,. Why do you focus on a destructive dangerous non-democratic form of dirty energy ? What's in it for you? NO NUKES!
Permaculture, Degrowth, Relocalize, SlowMoney,. .
"how many people will eventually succumb to the cancer and radiation is a better question" and that is precisely what it is, a question. Some day we will have the answer.
The Chinese have not slowed down their production of nuclear power plants, despite what happened in Japan, which will provide us with a substantial amount of evidence to evaluate as well.
Did you know the world's most powerful financial oligarchs support the anti-nuclear movement:
"A cluster of London-centered hedge funds and elite family fortunes, led by Inter-Alpha Group leader Jacob Rothschild himself, is funneling immense amounts of money into German anti-nuclear, pro-"renewable energy" groups, who are seeking to create a "Hot Autumn" of protests that would immediately end German use of nuclear energy. "
http://larouchepac.com/node/15843
Did you know:
"there has never been any nuclear accident in the United States that has endangered the health or welfare of the public. The worst American accident, at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, in 1979, injured no one."
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/3405_nuclear_myths.html
This is a safety record much better than in many other industries.
Chinese syndrome????
dude, it is not a question, look at Chernobyl. history predicts the future,. the concept is simple. why do you pretend nuke power is clean or cheap? it is not.
then this conspiracy crap? are you twelve years old? if nuke power is so cheap and clean why do we see so many examples of debt produced by the plants,. and communities with contaminations?!? try to stay in reality,. not some dumbass x-files of corporate dominator pretend.
Q: What about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine in 1986?
A: The severity of that accident was a function of a poor reactor design, and inadequate training of plant personnel. In the United States, oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides the standards for reactor design and plant operation, which has contributed to our excellent nuclear power plant safety record.
The new generation of nuclear power plant designs, already being built internationally, feature passive safety systems, which simply shut the plant down if there is an operator error or equipment failure.
So a green can complain that people are getting rich off nuclear power plant construction, but when I tell you that the super wealthy are financing the anti-nuclear movement that's a conspiracy theory? Your type always stoops to insults because you haven't got a better argument. Please provide us with some more examples of that.
ok, tell me why "the super wealthy are financing the anti-nuclear movement"? and please provide an example of your claim. where is this financing??
I do have a better argument; decentralized local energizer production, utilizing non-destructive clean democratically controlled technology. as opposed to corporate nuke plants.
Here are some articles about what and who are behind the green/environmentalist movement generally. Undoubtedly, you'll consider the author a raving conspiracy theorist, and you'll probably hate and disagree with everything you read in these articles.
However, good intelligence requires a thorough understanding of your enemy. That's what I sought. I used to be a green, for over ten years, then decided to read all the criticisms of environmentalism. I realized that the financiers of the green movement were using a good idea, a clean environment, as a weapon against us.
Time Magazine Exposes Green Mafia Running Obama Programs http://larouchepac.com/node/13849
Prince Charles As the Green Marie Antoinette http://larouchepac.com/node/15543
Al Gore, Sarkozy Announce New Green Financial Bubble http://larouchepac.com/node/4647
European Climate Foundation: Fascism with a Green Face http://larouchepac.com/node/15874
From the Slate: Only Glass-Steagall Will Stop Green Genocide http://larouchepac.com/node/18134
John Train's New Green Mujahadeen http://larouchepac.com/node/12843
London's terrorism support apparatus: environmentalism, indigenism, and NG http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2245_terror_support.html
The Green Bomb http://larouchepac.com/node/20919
Thanks for this SINGLE SOURCE of all your info.
Perhaps you should look around a bit more that a single kook site, with a particular agenda? The re-industrialization plank of the LaRouche movement is clearly feed by this nonsensical denial of environmental issues that result from this throwback thinking (denialism). The anti-union rhetoric coupled with the re-industrialization stuff clearly shows where these 'deep thinkers' are heading,. Perhaps you can find some source of info to back your claims that does not emanate from a rather confused and violent technocratic cult??
Industrialism is a step backward, we are heading to a new age of democratic decentralized appropriate technology with a new lower-material-consumption agrarian re-greening of our world. Not some racist/sexist/homophobic nuke-powered technopoly.
No thanks.
Sorry, but environmentalism is the cult, the ancient cult of earth-goddess worship.
If you want re-greening, NAWAPA is the way to go. It would be the biggest aqueduct project in history, bringing vast amounts of water from Alaska to the central American desert. After irrigating crops, the water would evaporate and be distributed across America as rainfall, greening both wild and agricultural land nationwide, as well as replenishing our diminishing underground water supplies.
Your "new age" would be an age of serfdom, which the global elite would very much like to see us return to.
environmentalism is not a single top down monolithic entity like the LaRouche cult. environmentalism is simply people recognizing their selves as a part of a larger organism. could be some "earth-goddess worship"ers, i have not seen them, and that don't sound like it bothers me anyway, I worship the SUN. animism is the true history of humanity, not the johnny-come-lately dogma pushing mono-theist cults.
NAWAPA is a horrible idea. but it is LaRouche dogma, so I guess you are obliged to push it like the rest of the herd. hugely destructive, expensive, and not needed, again! We need decentralized, appropriate tech for energy and water systems,. not more corporate mega projects, that line the pockets of the 0.1% while mutilating lands they have never even seen in person. local communities need to decide what happens to their resource base, not technocrats.
"serfdom" ? you can not have serfdom when no one is given too much power,.
people with a culture that is rightfully suspicious and watchful of concentrating power, and actively works to defuse it, at all levels, is very difficult to subjugate. real participatory consensus democracy is a root of so much good, and its time has come.
Thankfully, most Americans do not share your extremist views. American independence was founded on industrialism, and the movement to destroy industrialism is motivated at the top by our old enemy, the British empire, which you might recognize today as the financial empire of Wall Street and the City of London.
If you take power away from the people, in the form of energy, the only power left will be in the hands of the elite, a return to feudalism, which your movement is, unconsciously pushing for.
"extremist views" ? this from the LaRouche cultist? Ok then. seriously you are afraid of the "British empire",. what year is it in your reality?
industrialism is a system of capitalist exploitation, a relic of the past, and not a good one. what we are heading to is a system of cooperation, and investment in community for the betterment of all. try; http://www.globalsafe.org
Wikipedia is just the opinions of some people. The Larouche group is tight knit, and it has had some problems, like most groups do, but personally, I think it does a lot of good.
Capitalism doesn't exclude collectives.
NAWAPA would bring much more to life than it would kill. 50% of the fresh water that falls in the US comes down in Alaska and runs off into the ocean. Better to put that water to work for living things.
dams would be more popular than oil wells
when you can do it with underground 'laser tunnels' perhaps,. but the destruction that plane proposes is too immense. deserts are also needed,. perhaps all these people living in the d e s e r t should learn to live within their means,. also it looks like water theft from some angles.
industrialism does.
yup opinions,. all we ever get.
Larouche is basically an American patriot. He follows the traditions of such US presidents as JFK, and FDR. What is cultist about that? Its about as mainstream as you can get.
The world has had empires for over four thousand years, what makes you think they would disappear just like that? Now, they are financial empires though.
Capitalism can be exploitive, but there are more than one form of capitalism. British free trade capitalism, in the tradition of Adam Smith, is exploitive. Its what established slavery in America, and sweatshops in China.
American style industrial capitalism, used to pay the equivalent of about $30 per hour to unionized workers having no college education. They were able to buy houses, and cars, and put their children through college. That's freedom, not exploitation.
NAWAPA is very popular with the American people when they hear about it and understand what it is. We've been on the streets lately telling everybody about it, and they're all for it.
just read the Wikipedia under "Larouche" and go from there, it is not me calling it a scary cult, it is just people that have heard of it and see how it operates.
lots of stuff just "disappear just like that".
industrialism implies a owner/worker relationship,. I do not agree with this model,. :. i do not support industrialism. Rather I support workers as owners, collectives foremed to build a product or provide a service, no capitalist needed, thanks.
NAWAPA would kill so much stuff it is hard to imagine. simply too large of a disruptive project, forcing rivers to flow backwards, destroys whole ecosystems. boo, hissss
The super wealth are financing the anti-nuclear movement, because they are against giving "power" to the people. The more power-ful people are, the less control the super wealthy will have over them.
I gave you the example a few posts above of Jacob Rothschild leading a wealthy group of individuals financing the anti-nuclear movement in Germany. I'll see if I can find some more.
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And you have your degree in nuclear physics from?
Mine is from the University of Tennessee
Nuclear power - if properly designed - produces waste that CANNOT be recycled.
Most fission SPLITS U235 into smaller atoms that cannot be altered into something safe and release radiation via high decay energy, such as: Strontium-90 (high energy beta, half-life 30 years) Caesium-137 (high energy gamma, half-life 30 years)
Why do you think the Japanese disaster was so dangerous - do you remember the months of news coverage of the fear of the "waste" pools?
Would you want to live near there today? or Chernoble?
Another bit of info you should check out - the second source of nuclear power PLUTONIUM fuel - is the most poisonous substance on earth. A few pounds - released into the atmosphere is enough to give cancer to everyone on earth.
The only thing that keeps nuclear power an option in America is the fact that while no insurance company will insure a new facility, the government will
Do you know how many reactors a built near major earthquake fault lines? Or how many Americans live within 100 miles of thise sites? Or why the NRC is relicencing plants beyond their original de signed lifetime? Or where all of the nuclear waste from our existing reactors is stored? Did you know that Germany cut their nuclear power by 25% 2010-2011?
Lets take the oil company tax subsidies and nuclear power insurance subsidy money an spend it on solar.
You forgot to give the half life of U235 which is 700 Million years.
A typical fuel rod is comprised of 95% U238 and 5% U235...
And the kicker U238 has a half life of 4.5 Billion years. There is no disposing of this stuff.
the u235 in the rod is virtually all used up and
the u238 is not the real danger -
it is the byproducts of the u235 fission such as radioactive caesium & strontium
The rod has a lot of components besides U
U238 is no danger when dispersed, but in a rod its concentrated and will eventually have to be dealt with, like the core components, valves, piping, intercoolers, which become irradiated.
The more reactors that go on line, the more waste of the above types will have to be dealt with. When you talk about a 4.5 Billion year half life, long term storage over extreme geologic timescales, locking that crap up in glass doesn't really cut it.
Run a large power plant for a year.
The waste product is roughly two cubic yards. None of it goes airborne.
Big whoop ! Airline pilots and attendants see 100 times the radiation anybody in America will ever see in operation of a nuclear power plant.
Start licensing and opening up more nukes to replace all the coal plants. Now multiply that number by 2 cubic yards...every year for the life of the nuke plant.
Yep.
That makes for about one railroad car equivalent -- by volume -- for every 65 years of operation. In practice you could ship one car, a third loaded every 20 years and get along quite nicely.
The hole in Nevada could accept 10,000 railroad cars of nuke waste in just one of its prime areas.
I guess you forgot the contaminated cores, piping, valves, intercoolers, and other large pieces that qualify as radioactive waste.
The hole in Nevada can not guarantee the safety of waste that has half lives on a geologic scale.
Yes, and there's no telling what the earth or weather is about to dish up, with forecasters saying that weather extremes will become normal weather patterns, and geological predictions for the Yellowstone caldera are more than grim.
Look at what happened recently in Japan. There's been no way of telling what the effects on the ocean are, with the release of all that contaminated cooling water.
Well, we cut through the crap and got to reality pretty quick didn't we? This time I read the thread before I said anything. After reading, I found about everything that needed to be said, had been said, Nice work.
Have you read about Yucca Mountain at all.
Been there. Worked for the DoE as a geochemist. Spent 18 years in environmental remediation with private consulting firms.
i have too
then you know someone i know when he sued you guys the government for calling Indians too stupid to run yucca mountain
What does that have to do with the whole concept of Yucca not being viable for the long term (on a geological scale) storage of rad waste that has a half lives of 4.4 Billion years?
everything for establishing the green light for the project then pulling it away for project just like this. They wanted to make sure that there would have control over the project for 99 million years something that is unrealistic. Most of theses deposits will be mined for resources one we become space bound. Or better yet new ways to contain them will be found and implicated.
i honestly think it should be dumped right where they launched all of those nuclear war head which is very close to yucca mountain. So why when the are is unlivable for miles around not being used as something useful.
everything for establishing the green light for the project then pulling it away for project just like this. They wanted to make sure that there would have control over the project for 99 million years something that is unrealistic.
Politics aside, the idea of just dumping extremely hazardous waste is not a good one technically.
Most of theses deposits will be mined for resources one we become space bound. Or better yet new ways to contain them will be found and implicated.
Nice thought, but we can't project like that. I'm still waiting for my flying cars and living like the Jetsons, from the exhibits I saw at the 1964 Worlds Fair. According to them we should have had those 10 years ago.
i honestly think it should be dumped right where they launched all of those nuclear war head which is very close to yucca mountain. So why when the are is unlivable for miles around not being used as something useful.
Have you visited Hanford, Washington? It too was in the middle of nowhere yet the impact from rad waste dumping there has been extreme.
Ok so what is the magical solution to the energy crisis then
No it isnt good idea but people do it everyday people put waste in trash that shouldn't be thrown away. I had to argue with my roommate die-hard liberal that throwing a printer away in the trash is bad and that it needs to be taken to be processed. This "waste" can be used many times for breeder reactors and for other sources. This is just a stepping stone to fusion.
I haven't been to Hanford but done by the public sector people who dont take responsibility for their actions it was also before we knew about radiation and the affects it had.
To your flying cars comment those were impractical and were never implemented due to that we do have them just they aren't as wonder as we thought they were. Now space mining is moving forward as we speak. Companies are looking for young people like me to join them and create this new era. I will do anything to get on board with that. To establish bases and reasonable support on the moon we will need nuclear power to keep it self running for the two weeks that it will not see sunlight.
I'm not against other type of powers i just know that they are those most practical also i know a lot about the field and know a major amount of the good and bad that can happen.
Thing is take a look at the hopewell project and all of the working and applicable technology displayed there, and then look at the power cell plant opened in orange county - and you see all of the possibilities to implement right now while moving towards thorium reactors or cold fusion.
Green Tech.
This is where we should be going: Green Energy we have the technology we just need to use it. This is what I am talking about. A clean future to be implemented NOW!
http://www.hopewellproject.org/
http://ecat.com/
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
FuelCell Energy http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=600
[-] 1 points by DanielBarton (680) 9 minutes ago
Ok so what is the magical solution to the energy crisis then
No it isnt good idea but people do it everyday people put waste in trash that shouldn't be thrown away. I had to argue with my roommate die-hard liberal that throwing a printer away in the trash is bad and that it needs to be taken to be processed. This "waste" can be used many times for breeder reactors and for other sources. This is just a stepping stone to fusion.
I haven't been to Hanford but done by the public sector people who dont take responsibility for their actions it was also before we knew about radiation and the affects it had.
To your flying cars comment those were impractical and were never implemented due to that we do have them just they aren't as wonder as we thought they were. Now space mining is moving forward as we speak. Companies are looking for young people like me to join them and create this new era. I will do anything to get on board with that. To establish bases and reasonable support on the moon we will need nuclear power to keep it self running for the two weeks that it will not see sunlight.
I'm not against other type of powers i just know that they are those most practical also i know a lot about the field and know a major amount of the good and bad that can happen. ↥twinkle ↧stinkle permalink
like i said stepping stone. Thorium is on the moon we must used the basics to get to the more advance better technologies
I've read all of those before i ever saw your comments i enjoy what the future will behold.
bury it
it was radio-active in the earth before it was found
stop tossing it at enemy troops
can't believe the poser is on top
It was radioactive and dispersed as a rare element in nature before it was found. Now its concentrated in a rod and there is no container that can be constructed that is guaranteed to keep it away from the environment for 4.5 Billion years or longer.
could it not be re dispersed ?
If thats required as a remediation technique you have just taken the price advantage out of using nuclear power.
uranium nuclear power
and I question that such a technique would be anymore labor intensive than the mining
You are ignoring the fact that the Uranium is concentrated and far more radioactive than uranium ore. The equipment used to disperse it would be 'hot' as well, creating even more waste. The people would need protective gear and have limited time due to exposure with the equipment.... for starters. I can think of more obstacles, but this alone makes it far costlier than mining ore.
I disagree
I believe it mat not be dispersed because people wwant to keep a hold of it
I have many years experience in environmental remediation as a geochemist/project manager. The old adage 'The solution to pollution is dilution' is used quite a bit.
It is not cost effective to dilute radioactive substances to any real degree.
Why would people want to keep hold of it? I don't know of anyone who wants to live next to a radioactive stockpile.
I was thinking deep ocean dilution
no one would want to live to such a stock pile
Uranium is a radio-active that has medical and weapons application
No not the oceans, for one it wouldn't stay deep. The oceans are the dumping grounds for all of industry. Look at the plastics problem alone.
near shore plus plastic float
the bulk of petroleum products far exceeds the bulk of nuclear waste
Plastic floats? Until a typhoon or cat 5 hurricane comes along and makes confetti out of the floats. Most petroleum products biodegrade over a long period of time, except certain plastics.
Irradiated water? is that a possible effect of dumping in a trench? I don't like to think what that might do.
Ocean water, salt water, is one of the most corrosive environments on earth. Whatever you used to sink the dump, would not stay in tact for long, especially if you are dealing with isotopes that have a 4.5 Billion year half life.
When I did seawater analyses, (I spent 4 years doing oceanographic/geochemical research for DoE) we had to use special nickel alloy valves because of the corrosion. High grade Stainless Steel wouldn't hold up, and the nickel valves would be destroyed in less than a year.
So the possibility of chunks of this stuff breaking loose is high. Not that water gets irradiated but, sea creatures/plants, from plankton on up will ingest it and become irradiated. Like mercury poisoning, it will become concentrated in the food chain as larger and larger sea life prey on eachother....until we eat them.
if the half life is 4.5 Billion , the material is not radiating fast and therefor not as dangerous
the intention is dilution so containment should be avoided
The material is not as dangerous as others like U235 which has a shorter half life, but if ingested is extremely dangerous none the less.
If containment is to be avoided how do you disperse the stuff evenly? Thats a tough trick. Hanford, Washington is where our nuclear material is now kept. Various containers have leaked over the years and radioisotpes have become water soluble, migrated through the groundwater to the Snake River and out into the Pacific Ocean. There are Sea Cucumbers at the mouth of the Snake River that are now highly radioactive (a few Rad in readings) and plumes out into the Ocean can be followed that coincide with Ocean currents.
Also think of the possible sea life death and mutations. I suppose if you could safely "plant it" on a subduction plate, it could be carried back to the crustal interior after a few thousands of years. But again "safely" (?) I can not imagine that.
There is no safely, I agree.
spread out and damage the environment with radiation that tears dna molecules assunder
much like the sun's UV radiation damages dna
One good space project. Would really have to be some awesome containers to risk launch but send it all on a course into the Sun. Just can't leave it lying around. Too much potential to get into the wrong hands.
I'm not convinced that
the toxicity these radio active materials are so toxic that
we have to launch them into the sun to deal with them
lunching it into sun is a waste of materials. The Spent fuel should be used as breeder reactors and recycled. This is a scientific process that is not approved.
Megawatt reactors can be built and power colleges and small towns making us less dependent on fuel and coal.
The spent fuel can be turn into yellow cake but the process is noticeable but i can destroy my laptop in a way that can be just as effective. Dirty dispenser units are least of our worries. We should worry about more productive and efficient ways to get energy out of them.
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Good to see an informed response. I think we could agree that current fission power production is the "mother of all bad ideas." The question I have for you, as a nuclear physicist, is the one I asked MattHolck below. Are you familiar with LENR?
I have a degree in NP
LENR is in the same category as 12.21.2012
solar may still be too pricey - but i t is where we need to go
"...in the same category as 12.21..." Joseph Zawodny, senior research scientist at NASA Langley research, (among many others), seems to disagree. Is he just wrong? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2816297/posts
same family as perpetual motion - he is wrong and 99% of the world's scientists agree
I think you have some catching up to do. You might want to look at this. http://cleantechauthority.com/lenr-resurrected-by-mit-the-early-detractors/
"COLD FUSION" is fusion of two atoms as occurs in the sun where two hydrogen atoms FUSE into one helium atom. It as DEFINED as a nucluear reaction - not a chemical reaction. It requires & generates millions of degrees.
Here's the thing. The theory presented may be inaccurate. The term "cold fusion" may be a bit off the mark, but the production of anomalous heat has been observed hundreds, if not thousands of times. I contend Pons and Fleischman were NOT proven wrong. I am not contending anyone has produced an accurate theory as to how it works.
OK- but you should be aware - and so should anyone discussing this subject - "cold fusion" is a red flag to any scientist. Rather than labeling it, the key to this technology ( or any other ) is summarized in one word - REPRODUCIBLE
how many organizations have independently duplicated this process ?
This article contains a list of organisations. http://www.padrak.com/ine/MALLOVECF.html
FROM YOUR LINK: dated 1995
If this tech is real,
who reproduced the results and who is making $1,000,000/day profit?
"We believe that before the year 2000 there will be cold fusion powered automobiles, home heating systems, small compact electrical generating units, and aerospace applications. These technologies will revolutionize the world as they speed the end of the Fossil Fuel Age."
I don't know if you are a troll wasting my time, but you are wasting yours.
Who is making 1,000,000/day? No one. We never got those flying cars either. Who reproduced the results? If you had read a little further; Electric Power Research Institute/Stanford Research Institute Los Alamos National Laboratary Oakridge National Laboratary Naval Weapons Center at China Lake Naval Reasearch Laboratory Naval Ocean Systems Center Texas A&M University California State Polytechnic University ENECO, Salt Lake City Hokkaido National University ENEA, Italy National Institute for Nuclear Physics Italy Osaka National University National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Nagoya Tokyo Institute of Technology Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Bombay India Technova Corporation IMRA Corporation NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph co E- Quest Sciences (Calif,) Shell Recherch (France) Tsinghua Univesity, China University of Illinois, Urbana Oh and more recently, a high school kid. http://www.scribd.com/doc/959393/Cold-Fusion-Replication-Experiments
I would suggest you look here. http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/
I never said I had a degree in nuclear physics, I was just quoting a source. How many people died from exposure to nuclear radiation in Japan? Yes, there was news coverage, a substantial amount of propaganda intended to prevent the emPOWERment of humanity.
Countries like China are still going full speed ahead with the development of nuclear energy. This will provide quite a substantial demonstration of whether nuclear energy is worth while or not.
yes - lets follow china's environmental policy
there are communities in china where everyone has to wear protective gear
Yes - you are right, the Japan reactor radiation disaster killed no one - just like cigarettes
Aside from nuclear energy, much of China's environmental policy is made to suit global corporations, many based right here in the US. The Chinese want to eventually end their role as the world's factory, by developing a more diversified economy.
I asked you a question "How many people died from exposure to nuclear radiation in Japan?" Your reply was not much of an answer.
the same number of people who died of smoking - using the same logic
Is this what you teach young Ben?
Can't all be Gators !!
Solar, wind, combined with pumped storage hydroelectricity, is a great solution (in "some" cases), but what do you think about thorium as a solution where it's impractical (or impossible) to build a pumped storage infrastructure (which is needed if you want to use intermittent power sources as base power).
don't know about the availability of thorium
lighter cars would go a long way in helping with energy consumption
We have plenty of thorium in the US (much more thorium than uranium), so the supply is plentiful ... but indeed, better materials for building cars would certainly help quite a bit (but we need to reduce so much of our CO2 output to avoid serious ecological consequences that we'll really need to completely stop burning coal, natural gas, and oil to produce electricity, and at least almost completely eliminate tailpipe CO2 emissions, which implies transitioning a good portion of our vehicles to electric, at least within urban areas). So this is quite a large challenge (to say the least), and I doubt the viability of solar and wind in many applications (so we'll need a safe and clean alternative, and I would think thorium is a really good option to consider). Solar and wind are great, but we would need to build pumped storage hydroelectric capacity to use solar or wind as base power (and I don't think that would be feasible in many cases, particularly large cities on the east coast).
pumped storage hydroelectric capacity
sounds like pumping what up hill to drain back down later
Exactly. The problem with solar or wind is they're intermittent power sources (solar only works during the day, and wind only when the wind is blowing), so we need a way to store that power (and as simple as it sounds, pumping water uphill and using gravity to bring it back down & rotate turbines when the energy is needed, is the best known way to accomplish this on the scale needed in electrical production). The problem with doing this in every case is pretty straightforward (you need adequate space to build these facilities, although I can conceive how relatively simple advances would allow us to build these things in cities).
M.I.T. was working on giving a twist to the idea of pumping water uphill by having air pumped into an undersea container using available intermittent power and releasing that air to produce power as needed. By putting the installation undersea, it will avoid the real-estate problem and besides many cities are near the sea where the generated power is needed. There are also ready-made underground caverns or containers left by oil, coal, and natural gas extractions where the same idea can work -- such as compressing varying amounts of air and natural gas when natural gas is cheap and/or cheap intermittent power is available and burning the mixture to produce power later as needed.
Compressed air is another way to do the same thing (store power), and conceivably we could have wind farms on our seas (far enough out so they're not visible from shore), we could have containers for compressed air deep enough so it doesn't interfere with ocean traffic, and indeed, it could be a potent solution. I'm not sure how much energy we could feasibly generate using this approach (but I'm sure it would be substantial). We may need other sources to augment renewables (such as thorium reactors), but an electrical grid that does not emit any CO2 within say the next 15 years, is absolutely doable. I would just say we should remain flexible and leave our options open. There are safe forms of nuclear (e.g. thorium liquid fluoride reactors and other technologies), so we shouldn't write off nuclear without understanding the distinctions between different technologies. Nonetheless, we should maximize the potential of renewables.
The northeastern U.S. that needs huge quantities of electricity is reasonably close to the Bay of Fundy which has tremendous tidal power potential. Developments there can bring prosperity to some of the poorer maritime provinces.
Esthetics of wind farms (and anything else) are always relative to the knowledge base of the observers. Some of the "ugliest" things to some people can be the "most beautiful" to others. Imagine a wildcatter striking a gusher dancing deliriously and totally drenched in the black goo. People who sail can often appreciate the beauty of wind farms better than people who do not. People who know aerodynamics and electric hybrid technology can see and feel the beauty of a Toyota Prius whereas others would call it ugly.
We most likely will have to use some form of nuclear power technology if we want to avert the very bad results from major economies denuclearizing and possibly resorting to coal. Uranium nuclear technology was "accidental" in the sense of being a "bastard" of the Cold War because it could produce plutonium for making nuclear warheads so we do not and should not pay undue respect to staying with it. The rather long but not long-enough half-life of plutonium creates the radioactive waste problem that will linger for many centuries. If we avoid producing plutonium in the first place, the problem of radioactive waste would become much more manageable. Yes, there are radioactive isotopes that have half lives of decades but they would be greatly weakened within two centuries, unlike plutonium.
Why am I suddenly reminded of the story of Sisyphus...?
Wouldn't pumping the water up use the same amount of energy as what would be generated by the turbines in the downflow? It seems to me that the energy of gravity is a constant and would therefore follow the laws of conservation. 15 p/si going up is the same as 15 p/si going down.
It's not extremely efficient from the perspective of in/out ratio, but it's being done successfully (for example, in Portugal, where over 50% of its electricity comes from renewables). So the operable word here is "sufficiently efficient" (I mean, no fuel is perfectly efficient, and in/out ratio is only one of many factors taken into account in the overall analysis).
that's great
lighter cars could help reduce energy demand
Indeed, we'll need to fire on all cylinders to solve this problem, and lighter cars & trucks would help a lot (it's a matter of simple physics, the heavier something is, the more energy you need to move it).
It sounds very good, actually.
The idea is to use extra energy produced during the day to subsidize energy during the night.
I always through it'd be efficient to make silos that have half the tank on the bottom of the hill and the other half on the top of the hill and use the magnified sun to evaporate the water up the hill and allow it to condensate once at the top. A giant elevator silo that uses no electricity.
OK, got it. It would simply transfer the latent energy to be used later. It would represent a net loss of say, 1/3 of the power captured during the day in order for it to be used during the night. There would be no net gain, but the energy would be shifted in time.
There is another system like that being developed out west. It uses a tower to absorb the heat from mirrors all day, using some of it to generate electricity during the day, but with enough residual heat to keep producing at night.
Yes, I've heard of those. the salts hold the heat longer than water or oil.
http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Solar_Tower#How_it_Works
ideally
some energy would enviably be lost in the process
but the idea is to store energy when excess energy is produced from wind and solar
You dont have a Nuclear physics degree. You spit up facts that tree-huggers spit in my face all the time. No i dont have a nuclear physics degree i am getting a mechanical engineering degree.
My roommate on the other hand is getting his degree in Nuclear Engineering and he would love to talk to you. We invite you into our home to have a "chat" about waste and breeder reactors.
Also i looking to get a job to clean up Chernoble or Fukushima. I find this stuff is very interesting and know a decent amount about it. I've been around the waste and have seen the new designs for storage of waste. To deny the cleanest way of energy at the present moment is stupid.
As a nuclear physicist you should know that nuclear fusion is the future of clean energy. Of course we wont know until 2016 if is what we have hoped for.
edit
By the fact you haven't responded is proof enough that i called your bluff
most uranium mined is not used in reactors but is still poisonous
I understand we use that in weapons to puncture armor
funfact: radioactive elements keep the earth's core molten
funfact: radioactive elements keep the earth's core molten
There are three main sources of heat in the deep earth: (1) heat from when the planet formed and accreted, which has not yet been lost; (2) frictional heating, caused by denser core material sinking to the center of the planet; and (3) heat from the decay of radioactive elements.
This last source (3), is as of now completely unquantified as to how much radioactive elements actually contribute to heating the core. We know that some radioactive elements must have come along for the ride with the descent of metal rich rocks so its listed as a source.
thanks
(1) and (2) are the same
material grinding down a gravity well
No. When the planet formed it generated heat by coming together, once it was solid, the 'coming together' process stopped, but the latent heat of that process is still there.
The frictional heating of number 2, is caused by convection moving around areas of the mantle. Mantle material rises and sinks due to temperature differences.
when the planet comes together there is lots of friction
convection suggests heat from the solid core
Well, yes... the solid core is 4300 deg C, the Inner Mantle is 3700 deg C, and cools to around 1000 deg C at the base of the crust.
I'd prefer to see the development of LENR.
nuclear boron reaction radiate popcorn like alpha particles
that are easy catch and harness
without creating much radioactive waste
.
I think boron reactors could lead to a better choice of energy
Are you familiar with LENR?
haven't looked up that acronym
I know fusing partials have to cross an energy barrier before they can combine
that energy barrier is high, and "hot" particles are more likely to combine
You are referring to the Coulomb barrier. LENR= low energy nuclear reaction. There is some controversy about whether a true nuclear reaction is taking place, and there are still many skeptics as to the phenomenon itself, but it's a fascinating subject. Here's a link. http://lenr-canr.org/
Between ITER and LENR it's going to happen that fusion comes on line.
Let's hope.