# University hit by new climate leak ahead of talks



## f22a4bandit (Nov 22, 2011)

Anyone remember the leaked emails on climate change about two years ago? Apparently, some more have been leaked (think 5,000) ahead of the upcoming talks on climate change. Think what you will, just thought I'd post this here.

Read the article here: Associated Press


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## erocker (Nov 22, 2011)

Combine politics with anything and you have this.


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## the54thvoid (Nov 22, 2011)

Pretty clear cut article.  To summarise:

Old news rehashed, questionable practices by some to freeze out sceptics but the research itself has been verified by multiple sources, i.e. climate change theories proposed by unit have been accepted as valid. Leak is another clutch at straws by those afraid to let go of oil, gas and carbon.

Long live Nuclear.


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## Peter1986C (Nov 22, 2011)

the54thvoid said:


> Long live Nuclear.



I suppose I don't have to remember you of Chernobyl Reactor 5 or Fukushima I? If something goes wrong with nuclear plants, folks get severely screwed.


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## DannibusX (Nov 23, 2011)

Dude, you totally forgot to mention Three Mile Island and Lucens!

Nuclear is safe enough, it's clean and we have the facilities to house nuclear biproducts safely.  4 major accidents in the entire history of (civilian) nuclear power is a pretty good track record.


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## Peter1986C (Nov 23, 2011)

I did not know about the two you mentioned. Even though it is but for accidents, the problems they caused still seriously give me doubts.


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## qubit (Nov 23, 2011)

DannibusX said:


> Dude, you totally forgot to mention Three Mile Island and Lucens!
> 
> Nuclear is safe enough, it's clean and we have the facilities to house nuclear biproducts safely.  4 major accidents in the entire history of (civilian) nuclear power is a pretty good track record.



Not only that, but in those incidents, there was always the fact that proper procedures had not been adhered to, such as in the recent Japanese one.

Also, modern reactors use much more advanced technology, making them orders of magnitude safer still.

Finally, we have masses of storage capacity to house spent rods for around 100 years or so, until a new way of reprossessing them can be developed. Nuclear is the way to go, no doubt about it. Even the anti nuclear Greens who are normally cool about this technology are warming to it.

I got this info from science mag, BBC Focus Magazine, among other sources.


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## adulaamin (Nov 23, 2011)

the54thvoid said:


> Long live *RENEWABLE ENERGY*.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Nov 23, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> I suppose I don't have to remember you of Chernobyl Reactor 5 or Fukushima I? If something goes wrong with nuclear plants, folks get severely screwed.



Chernobyl: A soviet system builds a budget reactor, mans it with people who can barely tie their shoes, and expects great things.  Is this really the argument you want to stand on?

At the time the soviets could not reasonably run farm equipments, this was not the glory days of Sputnik.  They did everything half-a$$ed, and unsurprisingly things went bad.




DannibusX said:


> Dude, you totally forgot to mention Three Mile Island and Lucens!
> 
> Nuclear is safe enough, it's clean and we have the facilities to house nuclear biproducts safely.  4 major accidents in the entire history of (civilian) nuclear power is a pretty good track record.



THANK YOU!

While I try to stay away from all caps, it is warranted in this case.

Three Mile Island was a programming failure.  The fault could not be traced to a source, because the only thing that printed out was the newest fault in a never ending cascade.  This is completely overlooking that a post incidence reports has said there was "an unknown amount of radiation" leaked at the site.  Unknown means everything from a couple of hours in the sun up to a couple of chest x-rays.  Nothing the average human could not, and does not endure on a regular basis.

Fukushima experienced hell (whether you believe in god or not, this is a fair description) on Earth.  An earthquake ripped apart the land, a tidal wave washed over huge amounts of the island, and the cooling system failed completely.  The police, fire, and industry were washed away and became ocean based polution.  What happened to the reactor?  The reactor overheated, released doses of radiation that could be meted out by staying inside on a couple of sunny days, and nothing more.


Reactor design is amazing.  They build new reactors (read: existing "upgraded" reactors are less safe than the potential new reactors) to withstand the brunt of mother nature's fury, and it has been proven that they can.  Nuclear reactors produce steam and mildly reactive material as a byproduct (read: direct exposure to "spent" fuel rods for short periods of time is acceptable based on current radiation absorbtion guidelines).  

What alternatives do we have?  Coal, oil, and other hydrocarbon based plants generate tons of carbon dioxide and monoxide, not to mention sulfurous compounds.  Wind is only viable on a small amount of areas on Earth.  Solar is prohibitively expensive, and not particularly useful in several locations on the planet Earth.


So let's look at the safety concern.  The amount of reactors that have gone critical is, let's say 4 for the sake of this discussion.  60+ years of nuclear reactors, and 4 have been problematic, so a problem every 15 years.  On the other hand, I have been driving for less than 10 years.  I have been hit by 2 reckless drivers (and have luckily never been injured).  Objectively, my car poses a three-fold increase in danger for me.  I am aware of over 5 train de-railments in the US in the past two decades.  Trains represent a 50% greater danger than a nuclear reactor.  Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes represent a greater risk to humans than nuclear reactors.


In short, get off your high horse.  When the liberal media starts saying nuclear reactors are a good idea (New York Times), you know that there are no other reasonable options.  Every hippy that views nuclear reactor, and reads nuclear bomb, is myopic in the extreme.  While exercising caution is 110% necessary, disqualifying nuclear reactors as an option is a fools errand until a real and plausible alternative is developed.  As yet, we are years away from any real alternative...


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## Completely Bonkers (Nov 23, 2011)

Q. Where do heavy metals come from?
A. The fusion reactors of Alien Civilisations long dead

I do believe Nuclear is a good thing... just to leave a permanent footprint here on Earth that WE were here. Because in 10 million years I doubt there will be any life left on Earth... But some nice heavy metal isotopes will let Aliens Archaeologists know it's worth digging for fossils. And maybe they will find the TPU archives and go "whoa, cool!" 

LOL


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## Inceptor (Nov 23, 2011)

On the Nuclear, side-discussion:
I recommend this documentary
http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/
It documents the plans and first stages of construction of a nuclear waste containment facility deep in the granite bedrock of northern Finland.  A 200 year construction period, and designed to last 100,000 years...


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## erocker (Nov 23, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> On the Nuclear, side-discussion:
> I recommend this documentary
> http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/
> It documents the plans and first stages of construction of a nuclear waste containment facility deep in the granite bedrock of northern Finland.  A 200 year construction period, and designed to last 100,000 years...



Wow, that's impressive.


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## Peter1986C (Nov 24, 2011)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> Fukushima experienced hell (whether you believe in god or not, this is a fair description) on Earth. An earthquake ripped apart the land, a tidal wave washed over huge amounts of the island, and the cooling system failed completely. The police, fire, and industry were washed away and became ocean based polution. What happened to the reactor? The reactor overheated, released doses of radiation that could be meted out by staying inside on a couple of sunny days, and nothing more.



Exactly. Natural disasters are one of the reasons why should only go nuclear as a last resort.
And I know that the Chernobyl disaster was caused by retards but that is what much people are.

@ Inceptor: interesting stuff. Now let's hope that environmentalists don't start blocking transports to what may be the safest nuclear waste storage built so far.


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## bostonbuddy (Nov 24, 2011)

just acadamia bs, connected professors getting huge grants to research a hugely complex system with a near infinate amount of variables and feedbacks, so they fudge numbers and write papers.
Climate change is probably real but in order to prove it would take a few thousand years of recording data.


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## qubit (Nov 24, 2011)

bostonbuddy said:


> just acadamia bs, connected professors getting huge grants to research a hugely complex system with a near infinate amount of variables and feedbacks, so they fudge numbers and write papers.
> Climate change is probably real but in order to prove it would take a few thousand years of recording data.



Oh, climate change is happening all right and it's clearly measurable, but it's the _why_ that's the problem. Put the complexity of the problem (all those variables and unknowns) politics and financial interests together and what you get is a basketcase of corruption, with vested interests all over the place trying to further their own agenda. And the poor consumer is stuck in the middle of all this.

This why I don't buy into the whole "green" BS being peddled everwhere.


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## the54thvoid (Nov 24, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> On the Nuclear, side-discussion:
> I recommend this documentary
> http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/
> It documents the plans and first stages of construction of a nuclear waste containment facility deep in the granite bedrock of northern Finland.  A 200 year construction period, and designed to last 100,000 years...



Yeah, i saw that a few months back.  Biggest quandary is what symbols to use for whoever stumbles across it in 2000 years time scenario.  Really cool and very forward thinking.

And as for the nuclear naysayers, until fusion comes along in 50-100 years we need something more than coal and gas and renewable.  Green energy, wind/wave solar etc is geographically dependent and terribly unreliable. 
Nuclear is very safe unless you build reactors poorly (Chernobyl) or place reactors on tsunami prone coasts in earthquake zones (Fuk-up-Shima).

I think our nuclear waste should be jettisoned into space along with racists and hippies.


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## Completely Bonkers (Nov 24, 2011)

How's this for a fanciful idea: it would make for a great movie or game.

Blow the earth into two halves (or think of a planetary system where there is a planet twin in close orbit with each other)

Build a space elevator between the two planets.

Live on the first planet. Plunder the other planet for resources, and dump all waste there, incl. criminals, hippies and racists.

"Heaven" is the beautiful paradise on planet 1.  "Hell" is planet 2.

After 10,000 years, a hell-civilisation has developed on planet 2 and...

+++++++++++++++++++++

Could be more fun if the two planets were in an orbit where the only practical meeting point was "once every 10 years"... people getting stuck on the planet... significant regime changes between "meets". etc. Obviously the gravitational effects of these "meeting points" would cause all kinds of great tides, storms, earthquakes, etc.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Anyway, back to the point. If you accept the twin planet concept of dumping waste on one planet and living on the other, actually, why not make it simpler and just say "this part of our planet is our rubbish dump" ie Africa and the rest of the world is beautiful.

I deliberately said Africa for effect. But we could replace that with US, or UK (actually, happened already), Australia (did it before), Siberia (did it before), or Lapland/Finland (happening now!)


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## DannibusX (Nov 25, 2011)

Completely Bonkers said:


> How's this for a fanciful idea: it would make for a great movie or game.
> 
> Blow the earth into two halves (or think of a planetary system where there is a planet twin in close orbit with each other)
> 
> ...



Been tried.  We got Australia out of the deal.


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## Inceptor (Nov 25, 2011)

The way to reduce climate change is to replace coal fired electrical generating plants with nuclear/hydro/wind/solar.  Not necessarily in the 'first world' but in emerging economies where coal-fired generation is the main source of electricity.  China is the best example, with cities with the most polluted air in the world, due to coal fired electrical generating plants, as well as other 'dirty air' manufacturing plants.
Not gonna happen.  They won't do it, coal is cheaper.
The wealthier countries would have to finance the change, and that's never going to happen, it's political suicide for the politicians to throw that much money outside their countries.

Unfortunately, Geoengineering is going to happen, and potentially cause longer term problems with short term gain.

Outside possibility - last hope:
There is the possibility that we will be going into a Solar Minimum in 10 years, which only happens every 300-400 years.  That would lower the amount of energy sent our way by the Sun, lowering temperatures a bit.  It may temporarily (for 40-50 years), completely or partially negate the last 100 years of warming.


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## Peter1986C (Nov 26, 2011)

Inceptor said:


> Outside possibility - last hope:
> There is the possibility that we will be going into a Solar Minimum in 10 years, which only happens every 300-400 years.  That would lower the amount of energy sent our way by the Sun, lowering temperatures a bit.  It may temporarily (for 40-50 years), completely or partially negate the last 100 years of warming.



Earlier this year, the Dutch popular science magazine _Kijk_ stated that the solar activity is actually rising since a few years back. I forgot their sources, but I can see whether I find that issue and post their literature list here (no point of putting the article itself into a PDF because it is Dutch and I don't trust Google's translation skills sufficiently, nor do I have the time to translate myself).


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## Inceptor (Nov 26, 2011)

We're coming out of a Solar minimum at the moment, one that had the fewest sunspots in in quite a while.  What the scientists think might be possible, based on old observations, is that it is a precursor to a relatively quiet Solar Maximum.  The effect of that is to lower the sun's energy output during the next maximum, in a handful of years, which might then be a precursor to an even more quiet and sunspot-less Solar minimum in 10-12 years.  Less Sunspots = less energy radiated.
Main sequence stars lose their variability in energy output as they age; 'main sequence' presupposes stability in energy output.  The Sun was much more variable in its early existence.  This long period variability in Solar Maximums/Minimums is probably the remnant of its earlier, much larger fluctuations.

It's just a possibility, it might not even happen.


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