# Nuclear power is safe, but countries forced to shut down nuclear power stations



## qubit (Nov 17, 2013)

I pretty much agree with this commentary about nuclear power. The sodding greens and anti-nuclear activists have really put the spanner in the works for the building of new nuclear power stations, which are badly needed now more than ever. Worse still, this pressure has caused Japan to close down all of their nuclear power stations in the wake of Fukushima and now Germany is doing the same.

_Health Warning: this is an interesting and controversial subject, as nuclear power always is. Please keep it civil and don't flame or troll me for my opinion about it, or each other._



> If we were to close down industries on such grounds, we would not have any industry left and we'd have to live in mud huts and die like flies from disease and malnutrition. Other industries have accidents in which scores (or hundreds, or even thousands) of people are directly measurably killed all the time, and most of them emit huge quantities of stuff into the environment which a keen scientist could easily point to and say they are causing thousands of deaths. Yet they are not closed down.



Read the rest at The Register


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 17, 2013)

http://www.generalnonsense.net/showthread.php?t=14391

USA's nuclear industry is going to have to start shutting down soon because most of the plants in operation today or operating beyond their intended life spans.


Also, this anti-nuclear fiasco is sponsored by the oil and gas industries.  They promote "green" like wind and solar because wind and solar is synonymous with natural gas.  Gas turbines power up to fill in all the gaps when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.


FYI, the only power source safer than nuclear is wind.  When you scale deaths per gigawatts produced, nuclear power is the absolute safest power source available.


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## remixedcat (Nov 17, 2013)

Ha! They need to stop with the fracking and the real killers, the polluters (chemical companies/coal companies/)need to be shut down. The water here in my area (OH Valley) has tons of polutants in it and there's C8 and all kinda bad stuff in the water and it's not safe to drink it. You do and you get sick. I literally throw up if I drink the water here. People here also have tons of skin problems including myself I am itching a lot and have tons of breathing problems. I see a lot of people do around here as well. Yet, NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT IT! 

I really need to move but it's so expensive and so hard!


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## Steevo (Nov 17, 2013)

remixedcat said:


> Ha! They need to stop with the fracking and the real killers, the polluters (chemical companies/coal companies/)need to be shut down. The water here in my area (OH Valley) has tons of polluters and there's C8 and all kinda bad stuff in the water and it's not safe to drink it. You do and you get sick. I literally throw up if I drink the water here. People here also have tons of skin problems including myself I am itching a lot and have tons of breathing problems. I see a lot of people do around here as well. Yet, NOTHING IS DONE ABOUT IT!
> 
> I really need to move but it's so expensive and so hard!



chemical companies, like bottled water plants, cause water is a chemical and all.


I agree the place for engineered and industrial use chemical plants is not in populated areas, we have these huge wastelands unsuitable for habitat and agriculture, why we are putting petro and other plants in the middle of populated areas still floors me. 

High desert plains of Nevada and Utah are worthless. Bury nuclear plants there.


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## SKBARON (Nov 17, 2013)

Mistakes made in the past when it comes to nuclear waste disposal and the wrong way of building reactors are things that give nuclear power the bad rep. For instance, there are thousands of steel barrels filled with nuclear waste on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Just another ticking time bomb waiting to harm the environment. 

The only way I see nuclear power being reintroduced on a large scale is when fusion will become easy and cheap.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 17, 2013)

Steevo said:


> I agree the place for engineered and industrial use chemical plants is not in populated areas, we have these huge wastelands unsuitable for habitat and agriculture, why we are putting petro and other plants in the middle of populated areas still floors me.


Because of transportation costs.  Most chemical plants are near water because shipping (on ships) is the cheapest way to move product.  Nuclear power plants are next to rivers/oceans because pumping water to cool the reactor is cheaper than building cooling towers.  Moreover, power plants are often built close to where the power is needed because it is most efficient to do so.  The vast majority of world population is next to rivers and oceans, so nuclear power plants are a stone's throw away from them.




SKBARON said:


> The only way I see nuclear power being reintroduced on a large scale is when fusion will become easy and cheap.


Probabilities are very high you'll need something like nuclear power to start and maintain a fusion reaction.

The "bad rep" came from Three Mile Island.  Environmental activists would have swarmed the place had the media not told them it was radioactive.  In truth, very little radiation escaped and the other reactor on the island continued to operate for years.  The "bad rep" was reinforced with Chernobyl reactor 3 melting down.  The remaining three reactors at Chernobyl continued to operate for over a decade after the incident.  Just when people were starting to talk about nuclear again, the tsunami happened that caused the multiple meltdowns at the Fukashima Daichi plant.

What people fail to realize is that the scenario that caused all of the above to happen have been addressed in the 1990s by the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (an Integral Fast Reactor).  It is completely incapable of melting down and it reprocesses its own uranium which means very little waste has to be disposed of (plutonium).  Not to mention, that plutonium can be used to power satellites.  Breeder reactors was always where nuclear physicists imagined nuclear power to go.  LWR/PWR/BWR is what was commercialized because they were already being used in nuclear submarines.


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## McSteel (Nov 17, 2013)

Geothermal, anyone?

I acknowledge that nuclear is relatively safe, it's only sin being the prolonged heightened radioactivity level when something goes horribly wrong, or when waste management isn't paid enough attention to. However, geothermal is even cleaner and safer, and there's plenty of it to tap into.

Nuclear power bears the stigma of air commerce. Airplane crashes are few and far between, but the media coverage is humongous because there's usually a massive loss of live involved. But when you think about it, more people lose their life in a car accident in a month than is lost in airplane crashes in several years...

Same is true of energy/electricity production. The old methods are consistently and continuously harmful to nature (with an occasional spike, say a tanker spill), so their effect is below media/mob fad threshold. Nuclear power is cleaner and safer day-to-day, but makes quite a bang when it's mishandled.


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## remixedcat (Nov 17, 2013)

More people die of cancer and falling off buildings


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## Agility (Nov 17, 2013)

Problem is most of them relate to the causes from radiation in the air...


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 17, 2013)

Nothing wrong with nuclear power, it's mismanagement and building in the wrong place without flood protection for backup generators that causes the problem.


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## MilkyWay (Nov 17, 2013)

I never hear about hydrogen or geothermal anymore. You think they could store up energy from solar for times its not shining, i mean its not hard to stick a solar panel on every roof and use some sort of cells to store up the energy for times the suns not out in force.

In theory Nuclear power is clean and efficient, but people fuck it up. Nobody can deny though that storing the waste is a current problem.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 17, 2013)

McSteel said:


> Geothermal, anyone?
> 
> I acknowledge that nuclear is relatively safe, it's only sin being the prolonged heightened radioactivity level when something goes horribly wrong, or when waste management isn't paid enough attention to. However, geothermal is even cleaner and safer, and there's plenty of it to tap into.
> 
> ...


Do we really want to find out what happens when we artificially cool Earth's mantle?  Not to mention the potential of creating cavities that will eventually collapse.  There's only a handful of places on Earth where geothermal makes sense and those places, like Yellowstone, are dormant volcanoes.

Small scale geothermal, wind, and solar (e.g. to heat/cool a house) makes sense.  commercial scale geothermal does not (which is why few exist).




Agility said:


> Problem is most of them relate to the causes from radiation in the air...


You do realize that there's background radiation everywhere, all the time, right?  It gets higher the higher in elevation you go.  That's why incidences of acute radiation exposure are rare.  The only case where radiation exposure can be directly related to a nuclear power plant is 53 (if memory serves) that were on the clean up crew for Chernobyl reactor 3.  Most of them were working on the roof of the destroyed reactor pushing the radioactive debris into the hole the explosion created.  Bare in mind that Chernobyl did not have a containment structure where Three Mile Island and Fukashima Daichi did.


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## qubit (Nov 18, 2013)

I've now added a poll everyone.



FordGT90Concept said:


> What people fail to realize is that the scenario that caused all of the above to happen have been addressed in the 1990s by the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (an Integral Fast Reactor).  It is completely incapable of melting down and it reprocesses its own uranium which means very little waste has to be disposed of (plutonium).  Not to mention, that plutonium can be used to power satellites.  Breeder reactors was always where nuclear physicists imagined nuclear power to go.  LWR/PWR/BWR is what was commercialized because they were already being used in nuclear submarines.



This. Even getting rid of the waste isn't a problem any more. The scientists and companies behind the latest generation of nuclear reactors must be frustrated as hell that all this intense lobbying by the ignorant and undeservedly influential anti-nuclear brigade is putting the brakes on the solution to the world's energy problems. :shadedshu



MilkyWay said:


> In theory Nuclear power is clean and efficient, but people fuck it up. *Nobody can deny though that storing the waste is a current problem.*



See Ford's reply above about the waste solution.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

Also, the amount of waste we're talking about is minimal.  All of the nuclear waste the USA has produced in the last 60 years fits in a space 300' x 160' x 10'.  297' x 160' x 10' of that was produced by LWR/PWR/BWR and can be reprocessed in an IFR.  Only 3' x 160' x 10' is the plutonium that can't be used in nuclear reactors for power generation.  Plutonium has a 10,000 year lifetime but there's so little of it that we could certainly manage it (the intent of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository Harry Reid killed).  It's certainly preferable to the tons of pollution put out by the alternative (#1 coal and #2 natural gas).  As I previously mentioned, that plutonium stays warm for a long time and that can be used to power satellites where radiation isn't a concern.

Put bluntly, it's idiotic not to be pursuing nuclear energy.  We're digging our own graves if we don't.


90%+ of the anti-nuclear campaign originates with the oil and gas industries.  If 80%+ of the grid is made up of nuclear energy (like it is in France), not much is left for them.


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## Fourstaff (Nov 18, 2013)

Where is my thorium reactor? China is more or less starting to take lead in nuclear energy, and we all know China is not above letting a few power plants explode in the name of energy production. Much better if someone more sensible take the lead and show China the way.

Edit: I think it has been shown that coal power plants spew out more radioactive waste than Nuclear plants.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Edit: I think it has been shown that coal power plants spew out more radioactive waste than Nuclear plants.


That they do.  The whole objective of nuclear power is to contain the radiation.  You can walk in and around 99% of a nuclear power plant without radiation protection and be perfectly safe.  Stand down wind from a coal fired power plant and prepare to get all kinds of sick.


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## Aquinus (Nov 18, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Edit: I think it has been shown that coal power plants spew out more radioactive waste than Nuclear plants.



Without a scrubber, I'm sure. Coal plants retrofitted with a very expensive scrubber can reduce emissions quite a bit.

The simple fact is that for the amount of capability that nuclear power generation can accomplish, it makes more sense to focus on making it safer because we're not going to be making oil and gas work any better than it is now.

Let's think for a second here, what's the CO2 footprint for a nuclear power station versus a natural gas or oil power station? I bet you for the power that each plant can generate, nuclear has everything you want, plus the trimmings.

The simple fact is that when nuclear goes wrong, it can be catastrophic. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. It just means we need to use it better.

Do you think people using muskets decided to not use them because their aim was terrible and they might hit the wrong target? No. They figured out how to rifle barrels and accuracy got a lot better. Nuclear power might be more complex and harder to get right, but that doesn't mean it isn't the future.

There will come a day where we'll use up all the fossil fuels in the world. Nuclear is much more sustainable than oil and natural gas... and cleaner, depending on the scenario.


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## xenocide (Nov 18, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Edit: I think it has been shown that coal power plants spew out more radioactive waste than Nuclear plants.



This is true.  Coal Ash is 100x times more radioactive than anything coming out of a Nuclear Power Plant.  Being at work I'm not sure I can find a valid source (most things are blocked).

EDIT:  Source - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> The simple fact is that when nuclear goes wrong, it can be catastrophic. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. It just means we need to use it better.


IFR can't go wrong.  They invited dignitaries from all over the world to EGR-II and while they were standing there, they simulated worse case scenario: shut off water pumps, shut off diesel generators, shut off all the back ups and shut off the main power (what would become the Fukashima Daiachi scenario).  The temperature in the core climbed from about 100 C to 400 C...then started going down.  They then started everything up again and demonstrated what happened at Three Mile Island: shut just the water pumps off.  The temperature in the core climbed from about 100 C to 400 C...then started going down.   EBR-II cannot meltdown under any circumstance.

The Clinton administration terminated the EBR-II project in 1995.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 18, 2013)

They should build reactors under water, and use big radiators that stick up to cool it using the sea water. There would be no contamination, and no overheating reactor. It might heat the sea up a tad though.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Nov 18, 2013)

Well I'm all for nuclear over coal and fossil fuels in general.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Nov 18, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Do we really want to find out what happens when we artificially cool Earth's mantle?  Not to mention the potential of creating cavities that will eventually collapse.  There's only a handful of places on Earth where geothermal makes sense and those places, like Yellowstone, are dormant volcanoes.
> 
> Small scale geothermal, wind, and solar (e.g. to heat/cool a house) makes sense.  commercial scale geothermal does not (which is why few exist).
> 
> ...



I think all 53 of them probably died too.


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## qubit (Nov 18, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Edit: I think it has been shown that coal power plants spew out more radioactive waste than Nuclear plants.


Now there's an irony if ever there was one. The ground over the whole planet has various degrees of radioactive elements within it. In other words the damned thing is glowing to some degree or another.

It's facts like this that help to point up the corruption by the traditional oil and gas industries which are in turn corrupting our governments. I wonder just how many of these allegedly green and anti-nuclear groups are really shills set up by these huge companies?


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

tigger said:


> They should build reactors under water, and use big radiators that stick up to cool it using the sea water. There would be no contamination, and no overheating reactor. It might heat the sea up a tad though.


Two problems with that:
1) salt water is a bitch
2) if something goes wrong, you not only have the radiation and a melting core to contend with, you also have water that's pressing in on the facility from every direction.

I assume you are aware that the expulsions that happened at Chernobyl and Fukashima were steam explosions that occurs when the molten uranium comes into contact with water that is much cooler (like ground water).  The uranium causes the water to instantaneously convert into gas which has no where to go so it makes a way.

Now imagine if it wasn't just a little water, but hundreds of feet of water.  I don't know what would happen but it wouldn't be good.  Everyone inside the plant would be killed, that's for damn sure.  All sea life close to the plant would be killed too from the shockwave(s).




tigger said:


> I think all 53 of them probably died too.


That's what I meant.  Only 53 deaths have ever been directly attributed to nuclear power.  There were 10s of thousands that worked on Chernobyl clean up after the explosion.  When you put in context, the fatality rate of the worst incident ever was less than 1%.


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## Solaris17 (Nov 18, 2013)

plenty of geo thermal sure but none of them can produce the close to 4k Mw that current gen 4 reactors produce, assuming normal 3 reactor plant


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## Drone (Nov 18, 2013)




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## micropage7 (Nov 18, 2013)

i said i dunno since many aspect that need to considered when using nuclear power, if our technology better than now we can manage nuclear power better. one that need to underlined is how about waste material and example when japan hit by earthquake and failing those reactor.
personally i prefer the other source, like wind, sea. sometimes i just think why we move to nuclear is because we cant maximize wind or solar power to give us enough energy.
so we take "the easy way" and using nuclear


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## Fourstaff (Nov 18, 2013)

micropage7 said:


> i said i dunno since many aspect that need to considered when using nuclear power, if our technology better than now we can manage nuclear power better. one that need to underlined is how about waste material and example when japan hit by earthquake and failing those reactor.
> personally i prefer the other source, like wind, sea. sometimes i just think why we move to nuclear is because we cant maximize wind or solar power to give us enough energy.
> so we take "the easy way" and using nuclear



Solar is very viable especially in the Sahara region. The only problem is that its completely populated by unstable states which makes investment highly unlikely.


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## Frick (Nov 18, 2013)

I wouldn't say THE way, but it's certinaly A way.


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## W1zzard (Nov 18, 2013)

MilkyWay said:


> I never hear about hydrogen or geothermal anymore.



Geothermal is too high cost per megawatt to build and run power plants. They make sense in very few places like Iceland, but generally they are a waste of money and resources.

Hydrogen is a form of energy transport, because you can't just dig hydrogen out of the ground. Need to invest energy first to get the Hydrogen (out of water), then burn it and get less energy back. You can get Hydrogen from oil and gas deposits, too, but not nearly enough to burn it in power plants.


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## RCoon (Nov 18, 2013)

I was under the impression that tidal power is the most effective solution besides nuclear(which too many hippie activists will deny in every country).


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## micropage7 (Nov 18, 2013)

RCoon said:


> I was under the impression that tidal power is the most effective solution besides nuclear(which too many hippie activists will deny in every country).



yeah, wave could be one of power source especially for country like indonesia , but so far nuclear power takes more attention than that 
for future i believe we switch to green technology like that, but i guess theres long way to go


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## AsRock (Nov 18, 2013)

Steevo said:


> chemical companies, like bottled water plants, cause water is a chemical and all.
> 
> 
> I agree the place for engineered and industrial use chemical plants is not in populated areas, we have these huge wastelands unsuitable for habitat and agriculture, why we are putting petro and other plants in the middle of populated areas still floors me.
> ...



Actually the desert is a very very livable place and if people got their shit together wind and solar power sources would work there the best.

Although the biggest issue with it is cost but dumping all our crap in the desert going solve nothing.



tigger said:


> Nothing wrong with nuclear power, it's mismanagement and building in the wrong place without flood protection for backup generators that causes the problem.



Japan did have back up systems in fact 2 and they fail if you cannot sort thee issue out enough.  Although there is safer places to have such and Japan i cannot honestly say is safe to have them.


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## xenocide (Nov 18, 2013)

AsRock said:


> Japan did have back up systems in fact 2 and they fail if you cannot sort thee issue out enough.  Although there is safer places to have such and Japan i cannot honestly say is safe to have them.



Fukushima failed for a number of reasons.  You have to look at what happened in order.  For starters, the Earthquake hit, it knocked out power, and initiated a shutdown on reactors 1-3.  At this point diesel generators kicked on to keep the pumps going, but then a ~14m Tsunami hit--which Daiichi was not designed to withstand.  The building which housed the diesel generators flooded and the generators turned off.  TEPCO informed the government, and then started deploying mobile generators to the site to get everything hooked back up, but all the incoming connections routed through the flooded levels of the site so it took drastically longer than intended (plus they had just experienced the worst recorded Earthquake in Japanese history).

Some fun facts:  Before building the Fukushima plants they landscaped the entire site lower it about 10m, according to TEPCO it was so they wouldn't have to pump water uphill, if Dai-ichi had been 10m higher the area which housed the backup generators would not have flooded.  There was a study done in 2008 which warned about the Fukushima sites vulnerability to Tsunami's, but also pointed out it was need something like 12m+ waves to be impacted--these were dismissed as unrealistic.  The closest Nuclear Power Plant to the epicenter of the 2011 Earthquake was Onagawa Nuclear which shut down as planned after the earthquake and was fully protected from the Tsunami.  Why did Onagawa survive unscathed?  Because Onagawa had a 14m high seawall, where as Fukushima had a 5.7m seawall.  Why was Onagawa's seawall higher?  Because the guy that designed the site was pissed off at the beaurocrats in Japan and built it 3 times as high as they requested--no joke.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

Fourstaff said:


> Solar is very viable especially in the Sahara region. The only problem is that its completely populated by unstable states which makes investment highly unlikely.


Solar is AKA natural gas.  What do you think supplies power at night?  Hint: it isn't batteries.  Pretty sure the Sahara doesn't have access to natural gas in sufficient quantities.



RCoon said:


> I was under the impression that tidal power is the most effective solution besides nuclear(which too many hippie activists will deny in every country).


The tide only happens twice per day.  It's worse than wind in that regard.  Interrupting ocean currents is foolish.



micropage7 said:


> yeah, wave could be one of power source especially for country like indonesia , but so far nuclear power takes more attention than that
> for future i believe we switch to green technology like that, but i guess theres long way to go


Nuclear is the greenest power source currently available.  CO2 emissions are almost zero on day-to-day operations.



AsRock said:


> Actually the desert is a very very livable place and if people got their shit together wind and solar power sources would work there the best.
> 
> Although the biggest issue with it is cost but dumping all our crap in the desert going solve nothing.


Except on cloudy days and in between fronts.  In order to live with solar/wind alone, you have to be used to not having power at all.  Most people find that unacceptable; hence, why solar/wind alone is not enough.



AsRock said:


> Japan did have back up systems in fact 2 and they fail if you cannot sort thee issue out enough.  Although there is safer places to have such and Japan i cannot honestly say is safe to have them.


As I said previously, research EBR-II and Integral Fast Reactors.  They can be made to be completely incapable of melting down even duplicating the situation that happened at Fukashima Diachi.


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## AsRock (Nov 18, 2013)

other country's are already doing it, and lets face it every bit helps if it means less fossel crp burning.
UAE Plans Solar City: Dubai authorities promoting ...
Japan's Solar City of Future - YouTube
Babcock Ranch 100% Solar Powered City - YouTube


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

UAE = nothing extraordinary
Japan = draws power from the grid at night (almost entirely fossil fuels because after Fukashima, they stopped nuclear).
Babcock Ranch = will draw from the grid (#1 coal, #2 natural gas, #3 nuclear) at night.


France is 80% nuclear and produces 5 tons of CO2 per capita; Germany is moving to remove nuclear entirely (switching to wind especially) and it produces 10 tons of CO2 per capita.  Who's approach is better for the environment?


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## DayKnight (Nov 18, 2013)

The way forward?.

They ARE the way!.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Nov 18, 2013)

AsRock said:


> other country's are already doing it, and lets face it every bit helps if it means less fossel crp burning.
> UAE Plans Solar City: Dubai authorities promoting ...
> Japan's Solar City of Future - YouTube
> Babcock Ranch 100% Solar Powered City - YouTube



In the uk they are throwing up turbines like crazy and throwing grants at anyone interested in redecorating there roof with solar tat.
We're still seeing record energy price hikes , threats of blackouts and were having to pay for the construction of more new nuclear plants by the French gdamit.
I find it amusing that the anti nuke crowd are the same not near my house crowd smothering wind farms with law suits.

I once fitted a solar road safety sign in a small village only to be accosted by some stupid biatch moaning at me for ruining the aspect of her nearby house.
I simply retorted she was on crack and that it was her Village that had ruined this bit of forrest a few hundred years ago , she left tutting and threatening a letter.

For my other vote id point to alternative nuclear like thorium for eg as we don't need any more warheads anyway.


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## rangerone766 (Nov 18, 2013)

we have the computing power to safely control nuclear power nowadays. you just have to be smart where you build them. don't put them on the coast where they can be hit with tidal waves or hurricanes. don't build them near active earthquake zones.

but all of that would take someone using a little brain power when choosing building sites. and we all know how smart the people in charge are now.


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## kn00tcn (Nov 18, 2013)

when the people/gov/lawmakers in charge arent reliable or just plain stupid or bribed, it's hard to trust any power system to get done properly


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## AsRock (Nov 18, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> UAE = nothing extraordinary
> Japan = draws power from the grid at night (almost entirely fossil fuels because after Fukashima, they stopped nuclear).
> Babcock Ranch = will draw from the grid (#1 coal, #2 natural gas, #3 nuclear) at night.



It's better than doing nothing at all..


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

Not really because of the way the grid works.  If there is a coal power plant filling in the night gaps, for example, they take 48 hours to turn on and off. In other words, they're producing an equal amount of carbon emissions with or without those solar panels.  Seeing how Japan is almost entirely powered by coal and USA is over 40% powered by coal, odds are this is exactly what is happening.  The same will likely happen in UAE.

Not only is it worse from the carbon stand point, it is also worse for the environment because creating photovoltaic panels is a very dirty industry.

So yeah, doing nothing at all is better.  Wind doesn't make sense ever because it doesn't produce when you need it.  Solar makes sense (and not the PV kind, the mirrors and steam kind) when it is connected to a nuclear and hydroelectric backbone.  Solar produces maximum output when power demand is also at it's peak.  It's also relatively easy to predict what days are going to be big producers and what days are not.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Nov 18, 2013)

To be blunt, nuclear is the only viable option as a backbone.  There's room for other forms as supplementary power, but they either don't have the availability or the endurance.

Nuclear technology, the stuff we think of traditionally, is too old.  Plants built 30+ years ago are still running.  If we built new plants we could have safety, greater output, and decrease waste output.  The public stigma is keeping them from becoming a reality, but I have the feeling that $5 per gallon of gas (in the US) would change peoples minds.  Too bad that our educational system has failed people so completely.

Solar is a great opportunity.  Not solar panels, the redirection of sunlight onto a central sodium boiler mechanism.  The thermal energy will continue to produce power for hours after the sunlight diminishes, and the efficiency of the boiler will not substantially degrade over time.  

Wind and tidal generators are interesting conundrums.  They don't have the general viability to work everywhere, and creating the power requires heavy metals.  Those solid state magnets and copper windings aren't exactly environmentally friendly.  On top of this, there are limited viable designs to put them in dangerous areas.

Geothermal is another puzzle that has yet to be solved.  It's effectively just a boiler that is powered by Earth heating.  The problem is that super heated water has the tendency to dissolve things, and forced cooling has the tendency to create stresses.  If you have a chance look up Rupert's Drops to get an idea there.  Those kinds of unknowns have the tendency to be caustic, and the limited areas in which it is feasible are a huge problem.


Closing this out, the future is in question.  Fossil fuels will see their end in our lifetimes, and it doesn't seem like we've got an answer.  It's shameful to say this, but the future is still far too vague.  Hopefully the computer of the future can run a lifetime off a single nuclear battery.  It's a great dream.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 18, 2013)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> To be blunt, nuclear is the only viable option as a backbone.  There's room for other forms as supplementary power, but they either don't have the availability or the endurance.
> 
> Nuclear technology, the stuff we think of traditionally, is too old.  Plants built 30+ years ago are still running.  If we built new plants we could have safety, greater output, and decrease waste output.  The public stigma is keeping them from becoming a reality, but I have the feeling that $5 per gallon of gas (in the US) would change peoples minds.  Too bad that our educational system has failed people so completely.
> 
> ...



Ya know back in the mid-80s there was talk of using the strong current of the Florida straights between Key West and Cuba to build a 10 mile hydro electric plant. The idea was scrapped for lord knows what reason but, I remember them saying it would generate enough power for at least 50% of the state at the time. The concept was so cool. Looking back it seems almost science fiction. However with the right budget I bet it could be done.

Edit: One thing I will disagree with you on is the end of fossil fuels in our lifetime. No way is that happening. The US now produces more oil than Saudi Arabia and we haven't even scratched the surface of what we have.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 18, 2013)

Disrupting ocean currents can translate into serious biological and climate problems far away.  That's a road best left untraveled.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Nov 18, 2013)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Edit: One thing I will disagree with you on is the end of fossil fuels in our lifetime. No way is that happening. The US now produces more oil than Saudi Arabia and we haven't even scratched the surface of what we have.



Allow me to frame this correctly.  I'm currently about 1/3 of the way through my life (based on current estimates of life spans).  In the later half of my life (likely the 2060ish era), we'll have run out of the fossil fuels we use today.

I base this assumption on two things.  The amount of life on earth that was condensed into fossil fuels is finite.  Finally, our population is demanding more and more of this finite resource.  

You can take this estimate with a grain of salt (a huge one), but I balance this out by saying that alternative fossil fuels are being found relatively plentifully.  Fracking and other technologies may extend the use of fossil fuels significantly farther than I estimate.  You're welcome to assume that fossil fuels will outlast us, but I don't see any way that fossil fuels can be the primary source of power for the rest of my estimated lifetime.

Hyperbole aside, my statement was not correctly executed.  My oversight.


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## W1zzard (Nov 19, 2013)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> but I don't see any way that fossil fuels can be the primary source of power for the rest of my estimated lifetime.









"The United States consumed a total of *6.87 billion barrels *(18.83 million barrels per day) in 2011 and 7.0 billion barrels (19.18 million barrels per day) of refined petroleum products and biofuels in 2010. For both years, this was about 22% of total world petroleum consumption."

7 BBL USA per year, 20% of world. world = 35 BBL. Oil reserves: 1500 BBL

-> 42 years

and then there is all this shale oil and gas, consumption reduction by efficiency and price increases.

So I think another 60 years isn't unrealistic.

and there is still the potential of finding another untapped reserve like shale


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 19, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Disrupting ocean currents can translate into serious biological and climate problems far away.  That's a road best left untraveled.



Slowing 10 miles out of 90 miles of high current isn't a big deal.



W1zzard said:


> http://img.techpowerup.org/131118/Capture3092.png
> 
> "The United States consumed a total of *6.87 billion barrels *(18.83 million barrels per day) in 2011 and 7.0 billion barrels (19.18 million barrels per day) of refined petroleum products and biofuels in 2010. For both years, this was about 22% of total world petroleum consumption."
> 
> ...



North America has more shale and natural gas than all the OPEC nations combined. I have to find the estimates but the last I read we have about 180 years left of usable fossil fuel.


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## FordGT90Concept (Nov 19, 2013)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Slowing 10 miles out of 90 miles of high current isn't a big deal.


The same was said about wind turbines until birds starting falling out of the sky and weather patterns started changing.

Nuclear power has been utilized (still ~20% of all power generated in the USA today) in the USA without incident for the past 40 years.  France has 80% of their power from nuclear reactors and they have not had a single environmental leak of radiation yet.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Nov 19, 2013)

kn00tcn said:


> when the people/gov/lawmakers in charge arent reliable or just plain stupid or bribed, it's hard to trust any power system to get done properly


Did I mention were getting the french in to build our jap designed one's


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