We can solve 10 issues with one simple solution

[Que]

Something the other day gave me the idea you did avionics or something in that vein?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Something the other day gave me the idea you did avionics or something in that vein?

Aviation Ordnance Technician. Which in English means in the military I worked on bombs and guns for helicopters and jets. Almost exclusively Helicopters in practice and the gun I specialized in the XM-218 is one of the older weapons still in service. (Though they were phasing it out when I left.) Not that I talk about that over much, I only talk about my service when it's somehow relavent to the conversation which isn't overmuch.

 

[Que]

I was thinking black boxes. In any case...yes I have noticed you are modest and self-effacing about your time in. Thanks for your service.

 

[sethp]

Fukushima. We don't know how to have safe Nuclear power yet. Fukushima proves that.

We don't have viable plans to store, dispose of or recycle Nuclear waste. We don't have viable plans for nuclear emergencies. We just don't. It's dangerous energy that we don't need.

 

[Que]

Fukushima. We don't know how to have safe Nuclear power yet. Fukushima proves that.

We don't have viable plans to store, dispose of or recycle Nuclear waste. We don't have viable plans for nuclear emergencies. We just don't. It's dangerous energy that we don't need.

"We" don't?

Huh.

Well that's that, I guess.

 

[sethp]

"We" don't?

Huh.

Well that's that, I guess.

Nope. We as in anyone in the world. That's that.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I was thinking black boxes. In any case...yes I have noticed you are modest and self-effacing about your time in. Thanks for your service.

You're welcome and I'm sorry if I said something that gave you the wrong impression. I try to make it perfectly when it's something that I know well and stuff that I just read up on for the current conversation.

If you were thinking black boxes it might be because I was talking about Secret Level Clearance which I have an innactive one, but the point there is that they hand those out like candy and it doesn't actually mean a goddamned thing that something is labeled as secret.

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

Fukushima. We don't know how to have safe Nuclear power yet. Fukushima proves that.

We don't have viable plans to store, dispose of or recycle Nuclear waste. We don't have viable plans for nuclear emergencies. We just don't. It's dangerous energy that we don't need.

No we don't, which is a shame because the French do. They recycle 96% of their spent fuel and put it back into their reactors and only have to dispose of 4% their nuclear waste.

We on the other hand have a law that does not allow is to to recycle our spent fuel so it sits there decaying and needing cooling water. With no cooling water as what happened at Fukushima when the cooling water failed (poor design) there was contamination when the fuel rods over heated, melted their containers and spread radioactivity into the prevailing winds.

Had the Japanese done things the French do there would have been a lot fewer problems with contamination especially had they placed their emergency generators above the high water mark of the Tsunami.

Admittedly you can not reasonably plan for every single disaster that may happen, but you can reduce possible problems when you do not store spent fuel rods on site where they need constant cooling, without which the potential for nuclear contamination most certainly exists.

sethp, please read my previous post.

 

[Que]

No it was nothing I thought you were trying to convey...I like to guess things.

Some people call it "jumping to conclusions"

Like Byron...I have him as a defrocked Franciscan that makes nuclear devices as a hobby.

 

[cjh]

Okay, before we can take you seriously on nuclear physics, we need to see either your tits, or your girlfriend's tits.

Why would you want to see Cade's tits?

It's gracious of you, though, to give him the benefit of the doubt of having a girlfriend.

 

[policywank]

Fukushima. We don't know how to have safe Nuclear power yet. Fukushima proves that.

We don't have viable plans to store, dispose of or recycle Nuclear waste. We don't have viable plans for nuclear emergencies. We just don't. It's dangerous energy that we don't need.

Actually the three accidents - three mile island, Chernobyl and Fukishima - have taught valuable lessons and represent a microscopic portion of the total nuclear energy in service. No it isn't perfect but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than burning coal while waiting for fairy tales.

 

[policywank]

My question to those concerned about greenhouse gasses is "what do you suggest?"

Wind, solar, tidal, etc simply aren't even close to being able to pick up the slack of taking hydrocarbons off line. There are promising technologies, we should invest in them and hopefully we will get there but it won't be soon. This requires real applied science and technology and implementation skills.....not sound bites, rallies and hope.

Climate change scientists may know a lot about the impact of carbon emissions but they have no background in the implementation of large scale industrial projects. Even scientists who are building solar panels, wind turbines etc in the lab are used to operating with effectively unlimited budgets on a very small scale with no regard to operating costs.

I know people in the building industry and one of the things they consistently note is that even on something as relatively simple as building a house the "green" engineers are shockingly superficial in their understanding of costs and implementation. They will write a 20 page dissertation on building science then sum it all up with a two line assumption about costs and implementation that any first year business student could shred in 15 minutes.

Any large scale project is accomplished with careful planning, attention to detail and ruthless testing of core assumptions. Viability is established by attacking core assumptions and testing downside scenarios - the point is not to be pessimistic but to be rigorous and certain before betting the farm.

The "greens" still regard this type of objective scrutiny as unwelcome negativity. That is very dangerous. Would you want to buy a car that hadn't undergone rigorous testing because the designer didn't like the negative vibe?

Rigorous analysis untainted by emotion will shops that nuclear serves the need and has notable but manageable risks. It will also show that the pure green technologies are coming along but not even close to be perfected or ready for prime time.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Personally I'd rather see the money spent on fusion development.

I dunno . . . that might well be a dead end. Controlled nuclear fusion that can generate power profitably is one of those things that seems always to be 10 years away, like strong AI or nanotech. It was touted as the wave of the future back in the 1970s, but how much progress has been made since then?

 

[Que]

I dunno . . . that might well be a dead end. Controlled nuclear fusion that can generate power profitably is one of those things that seems always to be 10 years away, like strong AI or nanotech. It was touted as the wave of the future back in the 1970s, but how much progress has been made since then?

None.


With cold fusion you are trying to slowly release HUGE amounts of energy without the accompanying byproduct of heat. See the problem?

Actually the three accidents - three mile island, Chernobyl and Fukishima - have taught valuable lessons and represent a microscopic portion of the total nuclear energy in service. No it isn't perfect but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than burning coal while waitng for fairy tales.

Not to mention that scary as those accidents were...The total death toll of 50-ish is far less than many other forms of energy consumption. Deaths per kilowatt hour sounds like a cold calculation, and it is, but nuclear power engineer is not a dangerous occupation. Even Homer Simpson can do it safely. Oh wait...that show contributes to the hysteria.

 

[Liar]

Fukushima. We don't know how to have safe Nuclear power yet. Fukushima proves that.

We don't have viable plans to store, dispose of or recycle Nuclear waste. We don't have viable plans for nuclear emergencies. We just don't. It's dangerous energy that we don't need.

The idea here was nuclear instead of coal, gas and oil.

You may have noticed that we don't know how to have safe coal, gas and oil either.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Here's the problem, nobody is talking about taking hydrocarbons off line, certainly not all at once. When people talk about driving more hybrids and electrics we aren't talking about going and rounding up even all the Hummers much less all the ICE vehicles in the united states. That's just unrealistic. What we 're talking about is making strides in that direction in the same way nobody is talking about turning off the coal plants tomorrow or even likely in the next ten years but making investments and moving that way.

The problem query with the deaths, low though they might be of nuclear accidents is the same problem with terrorism. They're big and flashy and get people's attention. As Ish is more than happy to point out your chances of being killed by a terrorist in the United States is so small it's not even worthy of discussion. It's even lower if you do what both me and Ish seem to agree is appropriate to minimize 9/11 for statistical purposes. It's not that terrorsts get anywhere near that number on any sort of regular basis. However for those lives lost no amount of money spent is too much to have spent. Even at the time I was part of the "leave Iraq alone" club but knowing what we know now I might have pushed to find another solution for Afghanistan too. Regardless the point is big and flashy.

Nuclear disaster kills fifty odd people huge deal. Coal powered plants kill two hundred every year due to respiratory problems, just part of life. (Number pulled out of my ass.) That just how humans work.

As I've said though I'm not against nuclear nor do I know if any major group of people who are. Sure you can point to some knucklehead saying it but what's the percent?

 

[JohnnySavage]

None.


With cold fusion you are trying to slowly release HUGE amounts of energy without the accompanying byproduct of heat. See the problem?


....

Ummm.... the whole point of any kind of fusion (or fission for that matter) is to make heat. That heat then makes steam that turns turbines that make electricity.

Otherwise you were spot-on


You are such a bullshitter that, at times, I just sit here and laugh.

 

[Que]

Ummm.... the whole point of any kind of fusion (or fission for that matter) is to make heat. That heat then makes steam that turns turbines that make electricity.

Otherwise you were spot-on


You are such a bullshitter that, at times, I just sit here and laugh.

You want steam...not ionization. Heat is a relative term.

 

[Que]

Here's the problem, nobody is talking about taking hydrocarbons off line, certainly not all at once. When people talk about driving more hybrids and electrics we aren't talking about going and rounding up even all the Hummers much less all the ICE vehicles in the united states. That's just unrealistic. What we 're talking about is making strides in that direction in the same way nobody is talking about turning off the coal plants tomorrow or even likely in the next ten years but making investments and moving that way.

The problem query with the deaths, low though they might be of nuclear accidents is the same problem with terrorism. They're big and flashy and get people's attention. As Ish is more than happy to point out your chances of being killed by a terrorist in the United States is so small it's not even worthy of discussion. It's even lower if you do what both me and Ish seem to agree is appropriate to minimize 9/11 for statistical purposes. It's not that terrorsts get anywhere near that number on any sort of regular basis. However for those lives lost no amount of money spent is too much to have spent. Even at the time I was part of the "leave Iraq alone" club but knowing what we know now I might have pushed to find another solution for Afghanistan too. Regardless the point is big and flashy.

Nuclear disaster kills fifty odd people huge deal. Coal powered plants kill two hundred every year due to respiratory problems, just part of life. (Number pulled out of my ass.) That just how humans work.

As I've said though I'm not against nuclear nor do I know if any major group of people who are. Sure you can point to some knucklehead saying it but what's the percent?

We don't seem to have a huge number of fruitcakes protesting nukes...its not the haters, its that when discussing the problems of fossil fuels (and they are legion) nuclear is consistently left out when it is (currently) our BEST solution. If we got serious about building them they would get cheaper, more efficient and safer with each incarnation.

I was trying to watch a series of documentaries about alternatives to fossil fuels because i am interested in the (incremental) progress they are making on solar, (wind is as it was in Holland centuries ago) but I had to turn it off for how irritating it was in suggesting that alone is even in the realm of the maybe. Maybe if we lived a 1930's existence.

Childhood friend of mine had a job with Bently once upon a time using cad and advanced modeling to improve efficiencies of turbines for hydro-power. Similar to the work done on submarine screws.

He claimed at the time that no such work was being done or contemplated on air-flow with windmills but that it ought to be done. My gut says that if you can build windmills with seat of pants guesses and they turn and get subsidized why spend millions making them 10-15 or 20% more efficient.

One of the places I reside at is on a windy bluff. I would be very interested in a cheap, efficient vertical windmill. I know some home-built stuff has been done, but am unaware of reasonable homeowner stuff like that.

I like wind and solar for off the grid living. In a city it is impractical.

 

[Que]

The idea here was nuclear instead of coal, gas and oil.

You may have noticed that we don't know how to have safe coal, gas and oil either.

Succinctly put.

 

[Sean Renaud]

We don't seem to have a huge number of fruitcakes protesting nukes...its not the haters, its that when discussing the problems of fossil fuels (and they are legion) nuclear is consistently left out when it is (currently) our BEST solution. If we got serious about building them they would get cheaper, more efficient and safer with each incarnation.

I was trying to watch a series of documentaries about alternatives to fossil fuels because i am interested in the (incremental) progress they are making on solar, (wind is as it was in Holland centuries ago) but I had to turn it off for how irritating it was in suggesting that alone is even in the realm of the maybe. Maybe if we lived a 1930's existence.

Childhood friend of mine had a job with Bently once upon a time using cad and advanced modeling to improve efficiencies of turbines for hydro-power. Similar to the work done on submarine screws.

He claimed at the time that no such work was being done or contemplated on air-flow with windmills but that it ought to be done. My gut says that if you can build windmills with seat of pants guesses and they turn and get subsidized why spend millions making them 10-15 or 20% more efficient.

One of the places I reside at is on a windy bluff. I would be very interested in a cheap, efficient vertical windmill. I know some home-built stuff has been done, but am unaware of reasonable homeowner stuff like that.

I like wind and solar for off the grid living. In a city it is impractical.

I don't think leaving them off the table is particularly indicative of anything however. I see what your saying but I think it's kind of the same as when people talk about clean energy vehicles we talk hybrids and electrics. Nobody (at least in any serious way) talks about improving the bus system or train system or finding ways to work on coordinating the two. It just means that it's not brought up.

I think you get annoyed because you for whatever conservative reason hate the concept of green energy.

Maybe your friend is some kind of super genius, any maybe he was jsut wrong and someone had tried his design and it didn't work. There is a reason why we still have to build things for real to see how well the work, and ultimately have to build them full size because not everything that works in minature works full size (A great example from Mythbusters being lead balloons. Long story short a small lead balloon doesn't work because lead is heavy. Once you get big enough however the amount of helium, hydrogen, hot air what have you inside gets past it.) on the other end of the equation you have things like helicopters where there appears to be an upper limit to how big you can build one because of the amount of air pushed down and blah blah blah. (Never concretely tested). Either way those millions are needed to build and test and all the other things that go into design.

At any rate the major issue here is do we push forward on our own as a nation or trust private industry to do it. The reality is that no matter what crap people might try to sell you about businessmen being risk takers the reality is that most of them are not and with good reason. A sure bet, even with fairly "modest" profits is more likely to be taken than a risk that could have awesome rewards and the reason is obvious.

We can point to the space race and all that came from it as a grand example of something only a country can accomplish. (Recently private industry has gone into space but not without building on things from the government and with a fair amount of government assistence. That's not to take away from SpaceX or Elon Musk only that at best they are the exception that proves the rule, not the norm.) Only the government has the kind of money to effectively throw good after bad until results happen or in other cases to think consistently long term without worrying about today overmuch. There is little reason to think that private industry will break through in this, certainly not before China or some other country that is supporting the industry will.

As for on the grid vs cities I'd love to see the math on that. I find it difficult to believe that taking the basically everything south of say Mason Dixie and west of Texas and making it mandatory that public buildings have solar panels and encouraging private business to do the same wouldn't produce a considerable amount of energy. While it should be more than enough to power most things even if it's not a thirty percent decrease in coal and oil coupled with pushing for more energy efficient appliances seems like a damn good plan.

 

[Mello_SixtyNine]

America needs more nuclear power plants. What good is an electric car when the electricity is generated by Coal, Gas, or Oil? Seems to be counter productive...

'Greener' energy! Recycle the spent nuclear product. Not saying lets cut out wind or solar but I find it funny that Germany shut down their nuclear power plants to go great (which didn't work) so they are buying energy from Chernobyl, hum....interesting

One of the biggest solutions Nuclear power will give America...wait for it... we get out of the middle east and let them duke take care of themselves.

Actually, it would have been a much better idea to develop Thorium reactors instead of the Plutonium reactors that we have today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY

 

[JohnnySavage]

Actually, it would have been a much better idea to develop Thorium reactors instead of the Plutonium reactors that we have today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY

Commercial nuclear power plants use Uranium, not Plutonium. Dummy.

 

[Disgustipated]

Commercial nuclear power plants use Uranium, not Plutonium. Dummy.

He needs to stick to pic threads.

 

[Mello_SixtyNine]

Backgrounder on Plutonium

Printable Version

Plutonium is a radioactive, metallic element with the atomic number 94. Created when uranium atoms absorb neutrons, it was discovered in 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley. Plutonium was made during World War II for use in atomic bombs. It can also fuel nuclear reactors.
Nearly all plutonium is man-made. It does occur naturally in very small amounts in a type of ore called pitchblende. Once the main source of uranium and radium, pitchblende contains one part per trillion of natural plutonium.
Plutonium predominantly emits alpha particles—a type of radiation that does not penetrate and has a short range so it is easy to contain. But plutonium can be long-lived. It can deposit in the bones and lungs, and could increase an individual’s cancer risk. Therefore, exposure limits are set very low.
In spite of its potential dangers, plutonium has several unique properties that make it useful. It gives off heat and has been used in generators that power space program instruments and heart pacemakers.

Bonus!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI
(Start at 2:15 asshole)