Could Nuclear Power Wean the U.S. From Oil? 1615
bblackfrog asks: "Is a Federal nuclear energy program viable? That is, can the USA eliminate our economic dependence on crude oil with a large scale federal program to build and maintain enough nuclear power plants to replace our current oil-based energy needs? The obvious political hurdles are (a) the left opposes nuclear energy, (b) the right opposes federalizing energy, and (c) the oil companies and Saudis wield a lot of clout. This makes a federal nuclear energy program far fetched I admit, however I'm more interested in the economics. Slashdot has covered advances in nuclear power technology. China's doing it." (Read more, below.)
"How much energy is required to replace our fossil fuel consumption? What are the initial costs of the program, and just how cheap could the electricity be? How expensive would it be for our industries to convert? How expensive for home and auto conversions? How much of this cost should be picked up by the government? Bottom line: is nuclear power cheaper than our current oil-driven middle-east policy, with all of its blowback?"
And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:5, Insightful)
Privatize (Score:4, Insightful)
(D) One problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Dream on (Score:1, Insightful)
Not likely.
Pop quiz: (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Develop a nuclear energy program;
2. Develop an alternative energy program;
or
3. Relax regulations for pollution control, so that fossil fuel energy can be more conviniently utilized?
The question is moot anyways (Score:2, Insightful)
Mini Nuke-Plant (Score:2, Insightful)
(d) (Score:3, Insightful)
Environmentalist for Nuclear Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, we should be looking to renewable sources, but its just not cost effective right now. Invest in the distance future with renewable research, and invest in the present with nuclear.
Anything to stop the 'burning' (Score:5, Insightful)
When you burn them, they're effectively gone.
When they're gone, you can no longer use them to create the materials that, to a large extent, drive the production of goods in this country. Just think of it: Fertilizer, toys, drugs, etc. They are all largely based on petroleum derivatives.
Some can be recycled, which is great.
But if you just burn the petroleum, you lose it forever, and create toxic emissions to boot.
If nuclear power could help stop the petroleum 'burning' I'd be all for it. The problem is safety.
Can nuclear energy ever be truly safe?
Re:(D) One problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Insightful)
How many accidents have there been?
Just think what we could do with modern plants. It would be an awesome cheap, non-polluting, power source.
I do wonder how many plants would be required though. Because that would mean more "terrorist" targets. Maybe we could just have one huge national nuclear plant that's protected like Fort Knox. Haha, yes I realize the potential problems involved with something like that, it's just an idea.
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:1, Insightful)
You're making the assumption that Kerry would be more receptive to building more nuclear power plants? ROTFL
Dammit (Score:3, Insightful)
Crimony--what color is the sky, black or white?
Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as some people hate to hear it, we're not fighting in the Middle East because of oil. We're there because we're fighting Islamofascism. Otherwise, we would have used Saddam as an oil-for-food crony the way France and Germany were.
We can wean ourselves off oil better with deisel-electric hybrids, which would give us the same efficiencyt as is projected with fuel cells, and burn vegetable oils as well as (or instead of) petroleum. Vegetable oil powered electric hybrids are actually Solar Powered (think about it.) Which means they're Nuclear Powered. So maybe that's how nuclear weans us off petroleum.
Re:(D) One problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Not in my back yard? Screw that!
I say, not in my lungs.
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact is, Bush (and Cheney) aren't simply pawns of the oil industry, they ARE the oil industry. Moving away from oil is a conflict of interest for them.
Anyone who thinks that any substantial change in energy policy will happen in the next four years is naive.
Nevada's (Score:3, Insightful)
Politically it's also a big win. Nevada has a low population, so it has few Representatives in the House. Plus, it voted for the Dear Leader despite his approval of Yucca Mountain. So if any locals do object, there's no real leverage for them politically.
Re:(D) One problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Power? (Score:5, Insightful)
I ditched my beemer and am walking and such now. Not only is the stress of driving and owning a car that costs way too much to maintain in its glisteney state gone, but I lost ten pounds and save about a thousand a month.
We want it all, but simply cannot have it all. For long anyway.
Quick Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:(D) One problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would also note that Islamic Fundamentalism stoked by our dependence on oil has already killed more US citizens than the nuclear power industry.
Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
The way investors look at it, a natural gas power plant can be installed for half the price, half the time, and can break even in a third of the time any nuclear plant can. We as consumers of electricity have to make a effort to bear the additional cost of cleaner production means.
If you really want to talk green power, stop thinking nuclear and solar and think WIND. Wind power could provide the USA with more electricity than it currently needs if it is installed properly. The problem? again, wind electricity at the moment is a couple cents more per kWh than natural gas and coal. Are you willing to add the money on your bill each month? I am. Ever wonder why california has more wind turbine farms than any other area, even though they have one of the lowest wind potential west of the missippi? Because people are starting to want cleaner power, even at a cost.
Did you know a single 750 kw turbine can provent as much CO2 emmision as a 500 acre forest can absorbe annually?
Did you know, at the current death rate due to living in proximity to a coal plant, for every 33 wind turbines installed, we save a life. thats one less person who will die from lung related problems caused from emmisions. Coal plants are esimated to cause the death of over 35,000 americans a year.
If we want to get off the oily road we are one, we must make an effort and bear the cost of doing so. It is the only way this will ever work. And it can work. Look at europe, note germany's emmisions over the past 15 years and how they have dropped to next to nill. Ohio alone now produces more NOx emmisions than germany does per year. think about that.
Nuclear Power is the only thing that can (Score:5, Insightful)
Without question the green party and it's movement are the largest impediment to nuclear energy out there. It's a power trip really, one that has no scientific weight. Now the good news is that some of the greens are starting to realize that their opposition to nuclear power had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with science, and are starting to renew the calls to look at nuclear power.
From pebble bed techniques to better designs, there is no reason we cant build nuclear power plants that can provide widespread clean energy for the masses. Really, if groups like greenpeace were serious about the environment, they would be spending money on research for safe ways to store and process nuclear waste, not fighting it at every turn.
I know ... (Score:1, Insightful)
I believe you when you say that there are good methods to contain waste. But since when has government followed good methods and not cut corners? Since when has industry (because no doubt much will be privatized) followed safety before profit?
I think people need to face facts.
There is a carrying capacity for the earth - a resources to population limit. You can use technology to get more out of things, but in the end you will hit a roof. And there are only two things you can do:
a) reduce consumption
b) dispell the myth we need billions more people on earth. We are doing just fine without an extra two billion on top of the current six... why to we need more?
In the case of western countries, who's populations are shrinking, that leaves - reduce consumption.
I have made a commitment to not owning a car until there are viable electrics I can run off green grid power. And will be moving into hooking my power up to green grid energy soon. And solar water heating is on the cards. Reduce the amount of computers you use, LCD over CRT etc. etc. Plan houses better, have "GPL" house designs that are energy efficient that people can download off the net etc. etc.
We need to just reduce consumption and push green energies. What better engineering principle is there than a decentralised grid running off a resource which is "unlimited" such as the sun or the wind?
It is the supreme principle.
It is also very interesting re: libertarian principles. When everyone has a water tank and their own electricity - they are not only more independent, but feel and think more independantly of government.
So, to sum up:
I don't see a future for nuke because of the dangers. I know it's safe in theory. But it's not going to be in theory, it's going to be in the realities of government or capitalist administration both of which I don't trust with a freakin 100 foot pole with running a plant (even a failsafe no-core meltdown modern design) OR with getting rid of the waste properly.
Green energy IS viable, it just needs some effort to reduce costs. And in the end produces a better result, with decentralised (more terrorist aircraft proof than a reinforced dome) system. There is a beauty to decentralised systems from an engineering standpoint. As is there a beauty to harvesting energy which is readily available rather than forcing it out of atoms with quite large industy (and don't talk to me about the "mini-reactors" which are prime candidates to get stolen... and I know you can't get a nuke out of them immediately, but you can get a dirty bomb).
All I am saying, and I might get modded down for this, is that there ARE real concerns about nuke power that aren't hippy ravings. And there IS an interesting scientific and political case for solar and wind, and hydro etc. combined in a decentralised manner.
Waste (Score:2, Insightful)
Modern nuclear technology is not only outrageously safe, but can also create significantly less spent fuel per gigawatt.
Less what? People complain about the very idea of nuclear waste, but personally I'd prefer to see waste products in storage (yes, back in the ground (where it came from) than in the atmosphere (where fossil fuels absolutely didn't).
Simon
There are really two separate energy problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
The second problem is stationary energy, that is electricity and natural gas. We have enough coal to generate electricity for many decades. In most cases, electricity can be substituted for natural gas The only constraint on coal is global warming. Nuclear can help here. I will not get into the debate of safety etc.
Re:The question is moot anyways (Score:4, Insightful)
If we are really "stealing" oil, then why does the price of gas continue to climb? I just love those leftists that claim the war in Iraq is for oil. Been to the pump lately?
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting that Bush has been pushing hydrogen technology. Nuclear power works well with hydrogen technology, letting us cleanly generate hydrogen, and replace our biggest fossil fuel burners with cleaner electric and hydrogen powered ones.
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:3, Insightful)
Solor power
Wind power
Hydroelectric power
BioChemical power
(insert others)
Cost of plant construction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Insightful)
We often marvel at how economically solar cells function, forgetting to include in energy calculations the energy required to construct/maintain the magical apparatus. Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to provide the U.S. with even a tenth of its consumption? How much energy (not to mention materials and labor) will go into this incomparable armada?
Corps steal to sell (Score:4, Insightful)
Big Profits! Big Bonuses! Happy Wall Street! Happy Oil Company Directors! Sad car driver, sad environmentalist, sad poor original owner of said oil.
Re:(D) One problem (Score:4, Insightful)
There are ALREADY cases where there have been problems with buried nuclear waste and water leakage. And this is within decades, not within the THOUSANDS of years need. I am sorry, but with 4 year election terms and 80 year lifespans and legal devices to abjure resposibility like the "corporation" human organisations are always going to be far too optimistic about their capacity to contain waste which lasts for that long.
Even some of the more innovative techniques with encasing the waste in glass and stuff like that are not proven.
It comes down to how I put it elsewhere - do you *really* trust government or corporations to do it properly and not cut corners?
Remember also, the US economic situation might be quite bad in less than 100 years. What happens then if the US becomes like a 2nd world Russia? Just look at those submarines rusting away and tell me you can see two decades into the future let along hundreds of years. You can't.
N.B.
My first comment isn't a vote for coal. My vote is for a combination of renewables, solar, tide, wind, hydro in a decentralised grid.
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing standing in solar's way is the large up-front cost.
Fusion would be cool too, though.
25,000 years is a long time... (Score:2, Insightful)
A far better solution would be to switch as much as possible to natural gas which burns far cleaner and is in pretty good supply in the US and then put a huge effort into really making solar and wind viable options.
We got to the moon in ten years and built a nuclear bomb from scratch in 6. Seems like we could develop hydrogen fuel cells and cheap solar/wind power if there was any real governmental/financial commitment to it.
Europe is diversified (Score:4, Insightful)
FYI, while France has a lot of nuclear power plants (75% of the nation's electricity), Italy has none (barred by referendum), and neither does Norway (they don't accept anything dirtier than hydro power, gas turbines with CO2 removal are already looked with skepticism).
Honestly I don't know much about the situation in Japan, but in most european countries nobody wants nuclear: the people still remember Chernobyl (it was not just a "thing in the news", I had to stop eating yoghurt for a month or two); the decision-makers are well aware of the costs of nuclear power, and most countries (as Sweden or Germany) are gradually phasing it out. Even France has had a longtime stop to its nuclear program.
I'll remind that nuclear power is a source which is economically insane. The costs of maintenance, security, and especially initial investment dwarf the cheap production price. Pro-nukes will point only to the last ones, conveniently "omitting" that an investment should repay itself.
Scientific evidence has shown that, even in the best possible scenario for nuclear, which is quite unlikely to happen anyway, the economic relevance of nuclear power is "marginal at best", with payback times well in the 30-years range and final internal rate of return of 3%. Given these data it should not surprise that private companies avoid nuclear like the plague (unless someone--the state-- is contributing).
And to head off any anti-Bush crap.... (Score:1, Insightful)
The poster is correct, the left is against nuclear power. Why? I don't know.
When electricity first came out, people were afraid of it... people protested it, especially when someone was electricuted, and people just plainly would not accept it. But today, electricity is a given in everyday life in most countries.
Nuclear power is no different in this case. There are those who protest it, especially when there is a "disaster" like Chernobyl... and people just won't accept it. It's new... anything new will be shot down by fear.
And, yes, nuclear fuel is limited, as is oil. The point of building nuclear plants would not be to replace oil, but to reduce our reliance on oil for energy. This technology exists (while bio-tech is still an emerging technology). If we help reduce emissions with the use of nuclear energy, we can focus more time on bio-tech and less time complaining about global warming.
Nothing in life is risk-free (Score:5, Insightful)
IAASE (I am a safety engineer).
This is not a very good way to frame this question, because nothing is truly safe. It's not truly safe to drive to work in the morning, for example, because there's a relatively high risk that you'll be killed in an auto accident. But it's not truly safe to lie in bed either, because you could get hit by a meteorite, or more likely, suffer from health problems related to lack of exercise. Nothing is "truly safe".
A better question to ask: is the expected net cost/benefit operating nuclear plants better or worse than the expected value cost/benefit from operating conventional plants? The risks of nuclear energy include improper waste disposal and radiation release due to nuclear plant malfunctions. The risks of conventional energy include global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, increased illness due to other pollutant emissions, economic harm due to trade deficits with oil producing countries, and possibly, terrorist attacks funded by oil revenues.
The risks involved in waste disposal and plant malfunction can be mitigated - think vitrification of waste and fail-safe reactor designs. Some of the risks of conventional plants can also be mitigated - think carbon sequestration, higher efficiency plants, and increased domestic production of oil. These mitigation measures also have costs, both economic and other. The question is which option produces the required quantity of energy at the lost cost in economic and environmental terms. Safety is one of the costs.
Sean
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:4, Insightful)
But there's no chance for increased nuclear power with the current administration. GWB was president of an oil company, for goodness's sake! Plus, he's so tight with the Saudis, it's ridiculous. No, we'll have to stick with more instability in the Middle East, and US troops on the ground to protect oil^H^H^H democracy.
Re:Power? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear power can generate as much energy as we need, for at least several million years.
Now, we might be able to conserve energy, but how much? Are you going to go without air conditioning? Are you going to go without lights, radio, television?
As long as people use energy, we'll have to generate energy, whether it's a little or a lot. This concept seems to be completely beyond the greens, who seem to think that if we all used half as much energy we wouldn't have to generate the rest.
Since it's accepted that we will need some quantity of energy (whether its a little or a lot), there's no reason to get it from coal as opposed to nuclear, no matter how much or little it is. Nuclear is simply better. It kills fewer people, releases no pollution, and is actually cheaper once you start factoring in medical costs. It also doesn't cause the world's fish stocks to be laced with mercury (as they are today).
the way i see it (Score:3, Insightful)
1. pebble bed reactors. they don't melt down. no china syndrome, no 3 mile island, no chernobyl, no silkwood. but of course, all the nimby's who wouldn't let these things be built would apparently rather ship their children to falluja to protect oil than build a completely safe pebble bed reactor. meanwhile, china is investing heavily in this technology. so while the us wears itself down fighting islamonazi wackjobs sitting on top of their precious oil, places like china will enjoy air pollution free totally safe pebble bed reactor power. because the morons in the west don't understand the science, but know how to yell loudly and chain themselves to train tracks to prevent uranium shipments. stupid fucks.
2. biodiesel. during the last oil crisis in the late 1970s, the us started a program that culminated in algae ponds producing diesel at good yields. the program was of course trashed in the early 1990s, but the data is still there, and some scientists have even sequenced the genome of the biodiesel producing algae to increase yields. this is pure gold. remember, diesel himself demonstrated his engine running it on peanut oil. of course, we are talking about increases in air pollution here by going all gonzo for biodiesel, but emission standards and catalytic converter tech should scrub most of that.
3. fusion. always the pie in the sky. fusion is the holy grail of energy needs. but of course, as you well know, we don't have much to go on right now. however it is a fact that some genius, hopefully in this century, will forever place his name alongside the likes of einstein and newton by figuring out how to get fusion working.
boondoggles:
1. hydrogen. what BULLSHIT. i don't understand what the fucking point of hydrogen is. yes, clean emissions. but do people understand the energy conversions required to make hydrogen? what is the fucking point of turning gas or coal or sugar or ANY energy medium into hydrogen, therefore burning MORE energy and making MORE pollution, just so your car smells nice. hydrogen, if you understand the science and the costs of converting from one energy medium to another, is a laughable waste of time.
2. solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave, etc.: in certain locations, these things are fucking great. i had the pleasure of visiting the largest geothermal electricity plant in the world, in leyte in the philippines. it's a giant electric plant that supplies electricty as far north as manila, in the middle of the fucking rainforest (where it is always raining, btw, because of all the steam). you don't get much more environmentally friendly than that! near where i live in manhattan, they are building a turbine field in the east river to harness tidal energy. awesome! but, these sources of energy are always fringe, always tiny, always exotic. they will never be the meat and potatoes of energy needs. like solar: if you understood that problems in energy needs is more about storage and converting between energy mediums than about the actual source, you realize something like solar can never scale. put those solar panels on the roofs of homes in arizona though! feed it back to the grid: have the power plant pay you instead of vice versa! but again, not the meat and potatoes, because converting it, and storing it, and the finicky nature of the weather, means that solar will always be fringe. do the math.
Re:The Bush Factor (Score:1, Insightful)
What about our cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corps steal to sell (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, wouldn't high gas prices lead to happy environmentalists?
Finally, Oil rich nations tend to reap gigantic profits off thier natural resources.
I'm pretty far to the left and I'm for it. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think a well thought out program of nuclear power development could be a part of a comprehensive energy independence program, along with conservation and development of renewable resources.
What I do oppose is a rush to nuclear power as a quick fix and as the sole solution to our problems. There are probelms of safety, decomissioning and of course disposal. However, I believe a modest, well thought out nuclear program would, while having negative aspects, be a net plus compared to practically exclusive use of fossil fuels.
Why should leftists be against nuclear power? Well, historically because it was pushed by environmentally and socially irresponsible companies. It doesn't have to be that way. Granted, nuclear power is far from perfect. It would be a bad thing for us to put all our eggs in the nuclear basket. But diversifying our energy sources would reduce the horrendous environmental impact of fossil fuels while simultaneously contribute to detoxifying our foreign policy.
In the end, the great untapped resource is of course energy conservation. Even renewables such as tidal power or biomass have undesriable enviornmental impacts. But energy conservation is not going to succeed on its own in the short term, because it involves a combination lifestyle changes that will be hard to absorb and technologies that haven't been developed yet.
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally don't think that Europe or Japan (or Canada for that matter) is more left than the US, which I think is what you are implying. Instead I think that Europe and Japan are more reasoned. That they are more rational societies than the US.
Watching the election, watching the US media coverage of it, listening to voters, journalists, and pundits commenting on it, I was frightened and disappointed. And not because of any particular winner of any particular election or any particular ballot measure (though I did find all the anti-gay marriage measures chilling).
What I found truly frightening was the apparent decline of reason that seemed like an undercurrent of the entire electoral process. People in the United States of America no longer seem to be making fewer and fewer decisions based on rational analysis of the situation. Instead decisions are being made based on irrational belief systems. And I am in no way singling out Christianity here. Animal rights, environmentalism, gay rights, anti-nuclear, you name it, all have become extreme belief systems that people blindly attach to and allow to make all of their decisions for them.
This seems very apropos to the parent's point that Japan and Europe use nuclear power. It's not because they're more left (which the parent seems to find hard to reconcile with their apparent "leftness"), it's because they're a more reasoned society. They don't just scream "Three Mile Island!" when someone discusses nuclear power, instead they make a reasoned analysis of the situation (power needs, costs, available resources) and then pick the most logically sound option.
Energy is not the only oil dependence (Score:2, Insightful)
What about "free" energy? (Score:4, Insightful)
This reminds me of an episode of Futurama where New York shot all their garbage out into space in the early 21st century, saying "It'll return, but not in my lifetime, so it's not my problem." It returned in early year 3000. After shooting a rocket into space to "bounce" the garbage rocket into space again, Dr. Farnsworth exclaimed that it wouldn't return in his lifetime, so it wasn't his problem anymore. Sense a theme?
We (America) should immediately invest in clean energy sources like wind and solar. The prices of these sources are now extremely competitive with oil or coal burning sources. The sun and wind aren't going away any time soon.
Re:The question is moot anyways (Score:3, Insightful)
If we are really "stealing" oil, then why does the price of gas continue to climb? I just love those leftists that claim the war in Iraq is for oil. Been to the pump lately?
OK, I'll bite. There are three reasons the prices are so high even though the war was about oil:
We need to get serious about this (Score:3, Insightful)
1) You have to compare the hazards of nuclear power against ALL of the health hazards resulting from using coal. (including mine and air pollution) If you were to assume that we had a major disaster today and then repeated the history of nuclear power over and over (doing no better), you might still be better off than with coal.
2) More readlily available power is a key factor in making electric vehicles more cost effective.
3) If we stop burning natural gas for fixed power, then it is available for heat (instead of burining heating oil, a.k.a. diesel fuel) and becomes a better option for natural-gas powered vehicles.
4) global warming, global warming, global warming
The power debate has neglected a sane analysis of the appropriate role of nuclear power in the mix. I dont advocate plopping nuclear plants right in the middle of urban areas or doing a sloppy job of building and runnign them. I think we should be seriously considering them where appropriate.
Re:Biodiesel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, I got more dosage flying from PA to LA than the average plant worker did during the TMI Plant "meltdown".
Re:Biodiesel (Score:3, Insightful)
Modern agriculture depends heavily on fossil fuel energy for plowing fields, harvesting, synthesizing fertilizers (which are mostly petrochemical-based), transporting to markets, etc. Were you planning to run your tractor on biodeisel too? It may turn out that the fuel used to plow a certain area of a field needs the same area's worth of produce to make the biodeisel that powers the tractor. It will be very hard to break even.
You could envision a system where the farm equipment used petrochamical fuels to make biodeisel for use by urban transportation vehicles. This solves a lot of the problems with urban air pollution. A similar idea is to use electric cars for consumer transportation and to generate the electricity away from urban centers using petroleum/coal/etc.
The heavy reliance of modern agriculture on petrochemicals is troubling. The human population explosion is largely based on the increased food supply generated by agriculture. What happens to the food supply when the fossil fuels run out? What happens to the human population? Our current tragectory is not sustainable with the technology available today.
Re:Power? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an answer - sustainable existance. You live like a Bangladeshi farmer and you would use less energy. You might also only live to be 45 or so, leaving a lot more room for children and their future.
The livestyle of the Bangladeshi farmer doesn't appeal to you? Well, then there is your answer. High-energy lifestyles imply that resources are being used to provide them. Where are we going to get our resources from? Well, we should start looking at the answer for that - we already know what the answer is, we just need to formulate the will to implement it. How much Uranium is on Mars? The asteroids? Moons of Jupiter like Io and such? Come on, folks humanity is too important to keep all our eggs in one basket.
The alternative is a lot fewer of us folks and everyone gets to live like Bangladeshi farmers. I have reasonable estimates that we could live perfectly sustainable lives with natural processes recycling all wastes if there were about 50 million people on the planet. Maybe with some technology we might be able to squeeze 100 million, but that is. Today, there are upwards of 6 billion people on the planet. There are four options that I am aware of:
- 50-100 million people leave "sustainable" lives with reasonable comfort.
- 6 billion (and more coming every minute) people live like Bangladeshi farmers. Short, unproductive lives at that.
- We run out of resources. Sooner or later, if we do nothing this could happen. Like it or not, the planet isn't really capable of sustaining 6 billion people. And more are being born every minute.
- We go elsewhere to get what we need.
I think we need to start planning for the last alternative in that list. Real soon. Failure to plan means that one of the other three take us over, possibly as a big surprise to some unforward-looking people. This isn't something that "liberal", "conservative", "left" or "right" is going to be able to ignore.Unless they really like the idea of killing off 6.3 billion people so 100 million can live in relative comfort.
Re:Uh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, we *are* still reliant on foreign oil, and we should spend time considering possible solutions.
Re:Uh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Trouble is that Iraq was a plain old-style dictatorship country before you messed up things there, specificaly a *laic* dictatorship (to the point of having a ministery held by a catholic person), happily killing anybody regardless of faith , sex and skin color, and NOW, yes, you're facing Islamofascism turned on you *because* you removed the firm lock which was stetteled upon extremists by Saddam_the_evil. And you did so because you're completely lacking knowledge of middle east recent history. That really is ironical to watch you fight the devil you summoned yourself. Now, of course, if I was a GI, I certainly wouldn't appreciate the full fun of it. That's the sad part of history : young nice guys and civil populations are always paying with their blood the short sight, plain stupidity and / or greed of those in power.
Re:Europe is diversified (Score:2, Insightful)
So what does Norway do with its oil?
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:3, Insightful)
They forgot:
(d) We don't even know how the hell to deal with the solid waste we're producing from nuclear plants now, let alone if we ramped it up.
Here in Minnesota, we are storing our nuclear waste on a swampy island, and the storage facility is running out of space. A proposal was brought up to ship the stuff out of the state to a safer location, but Democrats in our state government shot it down, because they seemed to think that it anything which makes nuclear storage safer will only encourage its use.
Until we get a handle on a safe way to harness fusion, nuclear power has some major drawbacks.
In terms of the amount of power generated for the lowest cost and least environmental impact, it's still hard to beat oil. Even solar power can't compete yet, as you would need to cover the whole damned Earth in mirrors to meet our electricity needs.
Short-term, oil remains the way to go. Long-term, I think space-based solar collectors & nuclear reactors, using targeted radiation transmission to get the juice down to us, or something along those lines, is probably what it will take as more and more of the world catches up with our level of industrialization.
Re:I know ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Fission seems very likely in the future, but the main thing is that we have to run our cars and homes and other "stuff" at higher efficiencies. In Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio their is an enviormental sciences building that has all these features to save power and and use waste by products and recycle them to get energy etc.
America is a very gun-ho(e) country where people like to do things no matter what rest of the world does ( look at women's voting rights and slavery etc...). Americans just ignore the fact that there suburban homes with their cars will not last very long because of a limites source of oil. There are two versions to this theory and one of them is that either we run out and think about it when it happens and the second one is more optimistic that says that we will evolve out of the dependence on oil. As humans have done from wood and coal burning times.
But there is always a cost-benefit ratio. And it differs from society to society. And the cost beneifit of having these hybrid cars and maybe other forms of transportation. In short they should be more cheaper avaialable for people to use. I mean there is no reaon for Hummer on a street. If you guys see a Hummer on the street honk at it and flash your lights and flick them off. Make them feel "Un-Wanted" or "un-welcomed". Where I live now I have access to wind power, and I signed up for about 50% of my electricity to come from that source. And I do have a car which I drive to work maybe twice a week( I wake up really late like 10 or so ) and rest of the time I walk or take the company shuttle. We all must do our part.
Nuclear power is not a solution but rather a path in the right step. But to use electricity for combustionable transportation I would recomend using hydrogen powered vehicles but then there are other issues with hydrogen being "explosive" ( not just flamabale ). So
Why don't you answer the original questions first? (Score:5, Insightful)
- "How much energy is required to replace our fossil fuel consumption?
- Depends on the definition of "fossil fuel consumption". It would take around 200 GW plus losses to replace the US consumption of petroleum-based motor fuel, according to my analysis. [blogspot.com] (Yes, I know, the EIA has broken the important links. Worse, they've split the data which used to be on one page over several.) [doe.gov]
- What are the initial costs of the program, and just how cheap could the electricity be?
- The problem comes in two parts, generating the power from nuclear and then transforming it to something which can be put aboard a vehicle. As a quick BOTE calculation, if you need 250 GW of generation at $1110/KW, that's $275 billion dollars. The most efficient way of getting it aboard vehicles is to use batteries. Add 20 KWH of batteries for 100 million vehicles at $100/KWH and I get an additional $200 billion. Over ten years that would be about $50 billion per year.
- How expensive would it be for our industries to convert?
- Industries which need oil as a chemical feedstock would be largely impractical to convert to non-fossil, though non-petroleum is much easier. Industries which simply consume electricity would require no conversion. Industries which use process heat would pay a lot more if they used electricity instead, or perhaps less if they were close to a nuclear plant and could get spent steam.
- How expensive for home and auto conversions?
- It's not going to be practical to convert most cars; they will be replaced. Neither are you going to convert a home to nuclear. Converting to electric is cheap, converting natural gas appliances to hydrogen would also be cheap if it could be made safe enough (which I doubt). Cost of energy would be much higher; it would be cheaper to re-insulate, change building codes and use e.g. solar water heaters.
- How much of this cost should be picked up by the government?
- Do you mean paid out of increased taxes or added to the deficit? (The question betrays stupidity.)
- Bottom line: is nuclear power cheaper than our current oil-driven middle-east policy, with all of its blowback?
- When we could do it for $100 billion/year or less over 10 years? Absolutely.
Your questions are easy. We could easily set up a bunch of thorium-breeder reactors and start them with our surplus fissionables from decommissioned nuclear weapons, and the fission products (the real "nuclear waste") needs to be isolated for only a few thousand years, save for a few troublesome isotopes. It's not our chemists and engineers who have trouble with this, it's the politicians and activists.Finland (Score:1, Insightful)
Thing is, most people have irrational fears of nuclear power. I am quite frankly amazed that Finnish people seem to support nuclear power - this level of rational thinking would be unheard-of in the States. It's really quite simple: 1) Chernobyl-like reactor designs have never been used outside Soviet Union (and nobody in their sane minds would build them like that anymore), and 2) Three Mile Island didn't cause one single death.
Coal and oil power plants shoot up hundreds of tons of particulate matter into the sky every year, and some of that is radioactive, too. I'd much rather deal with easily containable highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants than the output from fossil fuel burning plants which is impossible to contain.
Using oil for electricity generation supports terrorists, no matter how many times you try to change the regime - Middle East pretty much proved this already. Uranium does not. The biggest producers of uranium are Canada, USA, Australia and France.
Nuclear energy. It's the logical choice. Make Spock proud.
Re:Actually... (Score:1, Insightful)
Nuclear is a practical solution to the problem at hand.
Re:Europe is diversified (Score:2, Insightful)
And the cost of the destruction of the nuclear plant after its 20 or 30 year lifespan is completely omitted as well!
Conflict of Interest?! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Where France Gets It Right (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you brought this up because in the news last week was "the power stations are getting old, what do we do now?". The equipment is geting old, some plants are ready to be closed and no new plants have been built in a while. So it is far from perfect.
The other big problem is we get sent the nuclear waste of other nations because they don't have the means to treat it. Germany's waste is OK but waste being shipped from Japan is a lot less cool. Think of the kind of accidents it could have on the way. In the Panama canal for example...
By the way George (the old one) never had any problem with the French. I would appreciate very much that republicans like yourself cut the crap and get on with the idea that there are sovereign countries outside of your borders. France said "No we aren't coming, this is a bad idea" to the war in Iraq. So did Canada and New Zealand for that matter. OK Canada and New Zealand are popular destinations for draft dodgers...
If we dont we are idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear is just cleaner and cheaper then oil, and if done properly, safer.
Will it last forever, no of course not, but a few more generations of power will give us time to figure out a permanent solution to the energy needs of the country.
Re:Europe is diversified (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not Biodiesel, Lipodiesel! (Score:2, Insightful)
But it wouldn't solve the SUV problem plaguing the United States
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you may've confused Europe with Vulcan.
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Power? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, gotta love the arrogance of the Western culture. By loosing that attitude first, we can then start looking at reducing energy intake, otherwise I agree with looking for a new place to live.
Oh, Honestly! (Score:3, Insightful)
You could level an entire freaking state and people would barely bat an eyelash as long as they can still drive a vehicle you could land an aircraft on. One trillion dollars? No problem! Try to take away my Maibatsu Monstrosity and you'll hear some real whining.
Anyway, it doesn't matter yet. We'll stick with oil as long as it's so "cheap" to pump oil out of the ground. When oil goes up to $200 or $300 a barrel, then we might start looking at other options.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but LESS waste than otherwise. Moreover, it would produce more usable fuel than it would consume, [wikipedia.org] making the " If it took 30 years to do a transiton you would only have 30 years before you would need to do the next one." argument a moot point.
Apart from that, it does not take a "nuclear" economy to prduce radioactive wastes, hospitals being one of the better producers of radioactive waste. In addition to that, remember that between the US and Russia, there are between 3000 and 4000 nukes to be dismantled. [fas.org]
would you prefer that nuclear material to pay for itself producing energy, or simply stored somewhere? and where?
Re:Where France Gets It Right (Score:5, Insightful)
It is true that having 75% or so of electric power coming from nuclear power has its advantages, but as others mentionned already, this is only one side of the overall issue here (car fuel? truck fuel?).
However, the use of nuclear plants is not the ultimate solution we all dream of. Cooling the reactor uses a lot of water taken from the rivers, thus warming them (heat pollution). The very same issue also means that during very hot periods of the year, nuclear plants needs to be throttled down or even stopped down to stay within safe operationnal boundaries. What's the power source then when you suddenly can't rely on nuclear plants?
Moreover, our plants are getting old, and maintenance costs are getting higher. One might state that 'there has not been a major nuclear accident in France since the program began.', but what if these accidents are yet to come? We had pretty good maintenance as long as the company owning the plants was owned by the state, but now that it's a private company, what about the maintenance funding if the company needs to cut some budgets to stay competitive? (You've had some idea of the issues caused by private power companies in Calif. lately, don't you?)
On a side note, nuclear fuel reprocessing is supposed to be handled properly here - the US even sent us some old nuclear warheads load to be converted to plant fuel, but the reprocessing facilities lack transparency in their operation. We know that it is a sensitive activity, but because of that, we can't really measure the pollution impact of it.
Well, as you can see, nuclear fission power might be a better solution than coal or oil, but it's still needs huge improvements on the long term.
Then, what could be the ideal power source for the US? Hmmm, geological power can be a good alternative seeing the US geography : Iceland uses geothermy, and France is doing research on this field. In the US, the Yellowstone region seems to be a good candidate for pollution-free geothermal plants. Dams might also be something you guys could invest more into : Just look how the single Hoover Dam can power the whole Las Vegas!
Nuclear fusion is another issue as long as Humanity hasn't yet designed a useable plant using it. It is a shame (IMHO) that unrelated political issues slows down international cooperation on fusion plant research, as the US pushes hard the international negotiations to make sure the experimental fusion plant is NOT located in France, even though the local needed research facilities are available.
Well, let's put our differences apart for a while and look at what we _should_ do together. NOt a simgle country has yet the ability to work alone on fusion research. Pollution management is also an issue that can't be managed without every country investing in it (Kyoto protocol, anybody?). So we ALL should overcome our differences to make sure OUR children can enjoy oil independance and a pollution free world someday.
> Besides, we can't let the French beat us, can we?
Beating the French isn't the issue here, preserving the occidental way of life is, don't you think? Let's focus on what we have in common, and work on it together.
Best regards from abroad.
Re:Europe is diversified (Score:3, Insightful)
> after stealing 70% of it. (also known as taxes).
Hey? Arguably oil is a natural resource that belongs to the people. Norway is very generous in allowing companies to take 30% of the profit in return for getting it out of the ground and selling it...
Anyway, wish I lived in Norway where the country is running at a *surplus* of $20Bn. The rest of Europe or the US are not going to see the words "budget surplus" for such a long time, the word might fall out of use!
Re:What about our cars? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Individually wrapped cheese (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. The individually wrapped sliced sheese was just an example. The US is certainly more wasteful than it has been in the past. A few decades ago, most people got their milk delivered in a bottle which was then reused by the milk company. Coke and other soft drinks where sold in bottles that were also generally reused by the manufacturer. Now everything comes in disposable stuff, often wrapped by more disposable stuff. Not only is this wasteful, but it fills up landfills at a faster clip.
Have you studied chemistry? (Score:5, Insightful)
Boiling water reactors are designed to deliberately produce plutonium in the normal course of operation. Plutonium can be easily refined from spent fuel rods.
You cannot make gun-type (hiroshima) bombs with plutonium: you can only make them out of uranium, the isotopes of which are rather hard to separate out. Implosion-type bombs (trinity, nagasaki and pretty much all the rest) can be made from plutonium, and the excess polonium found in spent fuel rods make the use of initiators irrelevant.
Proof That It's Possible (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Doable: We've had a widespread nuclear program running the entire US submarine fleet for somelike like 50 years with nary a hitch. They dispose of their spent fuel correctly and I know several people that have worked on these boats and they are fine, healthy people. The oldest is around 52 and he is in perfect health.
2. Renewable, Recyclable and Long Lasting: Proof that nuclear energy could last a good long time. Using breeder reactors you generate more nuclear fuel by using plutonium etc. This means we have a nearly inexaustible supply. One of the problems is that Jimmy Carter (ironically a submariner himself) signed the law that forbids us in the US from using recycled nuclear fuels. This means that if it's used once it becomes hi-level waste Thats insane and it generate mre radioactive waste. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
3. Safe: By designing the damn thing right in the first place you prevent meltdown accidents from happening. How? Install a pebble bed reactor. The nuclear fuels are engineered into glass spheres designed so that they can only react with a certain amount of volume of neighboring spheres. They can never meltdown because it's physically impossible. When they are spent, you simply recycle the spheres until 99.9% of the fuel is gone. Then you bury them.
4. Rational: For a pittance of what it costs to police the planet, slaughter innocent civilians by the 10's of thousands and just generally create bad PR you could set up a series of pebble bed reactors across the US which would generate electricity for homes/businesses and hydrogen to be used in hydrides to power cars and/or power cells. Any wastes that are created are used until they are almost used up. Anything left is buried safely. Small contingents of special forces could protect these installations against terrorists and theft. Multiple independent safety auditors and inspects keep track of fuel, procedures and any contamination. You could overdo this entire design 10 times over and still not have spent what it took to just deploy our troops to Iraq.
No, it's not completely safe, but very little in this world is. It keeps the pollution in one place where it can be controlled, checked and inspected instead of spreading it through the air for us to breath etc. How many people die a year from lung diseases brought on by hydrocarbon pollution. How much vegetation dies because of acid rain.
When I see trainloads full of coal heading for St. Louis's power plant I just shake my head.
When the left gets off it's religious crusade against Nuclear energy we might have a chance. Until then they are the best friends the Bushs ever had.
I'm all for saving the environment. Let's start with the stuff we are being forced to breath.
Somebody do the calculations.
Re:Power? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good for you! But your comment came off sounding a bit self-righteous. I'd love to walk (or ride a bike) every day if I could but I live 20 miles from work and it gets to -70F here at times. I agree with your sentiment, there is far too much waste these days and recycling would be great - if it didn't take more energy to do it than it is worth. After moving to Alaska, I found myself still separating out the glass and plastics - only to find there was no place to bring them but the local land-fill. Then again, how much would it cost in energy and $$ to package it up and ship it to somewhere that could process it - and then you still have to process it after that.
I'm glad you can feel all warm and fuzzy and superior and everything, but I find nothing wrong with having creature comforts as well as the necessary tools to get things done quickly and efficiently. I like having a warm house in the winter, just as you probably like having a cool house in the summer. I have 12" walls to help reduce my energy consumption. Do you have 12" walls to help yours? Why not? You'd probably use a lot less energy for your AC if you did. I also like my power-tools. It may be "cooler" and "greener" to use a hand saw to cut that sheet of plywood, but I'll stick to my table saw thank you. I could use and axe to get my fire-wood, but I'll use my chain saw if it's all the same to you.
Up here in Alaska we get a lot of "environmentalists" who think that because they live in Kalifornia and think happy thoughts they somehow have the moral imperative to come up here and teach us the error of our ways. I laughed my ass off the other day when I saw an all-electric car in Fairbanks. Yup, the lady looked pretty smug driving it. She even had some veggie bumper sticker on it. She's obviously brand new to town. I'd love to see what her battery performance will be when it drops to -40 or -50. I'd also like to see her get around in the snow with those tiny little wheels. To top it all off, the body looks like it's 100% plastic. The first time someone looks at it wrong when it's cold it'll shatter. Now, as a summer car for short commutes, I'd say that would be a pretty good idea - but c'mon it's November!
I'm all for being environmentally "conscious", but I'm really sick of others feeling superior and trying to dictate how others should live based on their own, special set of circumstances. Yeah, if I lived in LA or London, I probably wouldn't have a car either. But not everybody lives in the "big city" - I think this fact was revealed quite clearly in the last election results. When you look at how America voted - especially when viewed at the county-level, you saw a sea of red surrounding a few small islands of blue where the big cities were. The news anchors were commenting on how the democrats seemed to have "lost touch" with the heartland; the hard working, church-going, middle-american. I think they are right. Most of America isn't "inner-city". Most of America doesn't have everything within walking distance. Most of America is sick of the yuppie city-folk dictating how everyone else should live their lives based on their own limited view of the skyline and "warped" social/moral landscape.
I also don't understand the "environmentalists" continual aversion to nuclear energy. Most people don't know it, but in Alaska, we have quite a bit of nuclear energy. That's right. The military has many remote sites for monitoring and what-not that are powered by their own nuclear generator - just like many satellites are. It makes sense. The locations are very remote - often only accessible by helicopter. The nuclear generator is about the size of a 55-gallon drum and last almost 20 years and need little-to-no maintenance. When word leaked out ab
Re:Europe is diversified (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Its funny how the left is against Nuclear Power (Score:5, Insightful)
In the U.S., our government can't just tell us what to do. The power relationship doesn't work like that. In France, if the Ministry of Education decides it wants all fourth graders taught calculus, it sends out a directive to the schools, which are expected to implement the program. In the U.S., if the Department of Education issued the same "directive," it would get a good chuckle out of thousands of local school district superintendants, and then get pitched into the nearest garbage receptacle.
This system (or, more accurately, this conception of the relationship between a government and those it governs) has its disadvantages. However, I'm sure you can see it has its advantages as well.
- Alaska Jack
Jimmy Carter (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting weapons-grade materials from a fast breeder reactor is not the best (or only) source. The former Soviet Union seems to hold a lot of weapons-grade plutonium in a usable form. Wouldn't it be better to secure that?
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's clear the air somewhat: "it should have gone critical and it didn't" is as likely as " I should be flying by flapping my hands but can't": pure nonsense. The physics of the beast have been well investigated.
Then again, there's something to be said about luck: in all fields of human endeavour, if you think you need luck, go back to the drawing board and buy some more. It may as well be that it is the same luck by which Tiger Woods beats me at golf: he makes sure he's done everything to be the best.
Re:As a card-carrying member of the "left" (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to look at what the left thinks of nuclear power, look at how widespread use of nuclear power is in Europe (left), China (left), and the former USSR (left).
Re:Yes, definitely. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you use an average of 6.5 kWh/m^2 for the whole state (it's high, but it'll do for these purposes), you end up with a potential of almost 2 trillion kWh of energy produced every day. Supporting structure will cut that down a bit, of course, but let's use the 2 trillion number.
There are several problems that we'll have to overcome before solar energy can be used for electricity on a large scale:
I'm not saying that it's impossible, but it doesn't look too terribly practical today, or in the near future.
Re: what to do with Pu? (Score:2, Insightful)
[Queue Monty Python voice]
So, what should we do with the plutonium??
Burn it! Burn it! Burn the Pu!
Finally some truth and common sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Argonne labs designed the Fast Integral Reactor and proved its concept by 1994 before Clinton shut them down. This is a very good design and much better than breeder reactors.
With a reactor fleet such as this, the spent fuel can be burned as well as the depleated uranium and this would provide about 5,000 years energy supply using just the exisiting depleated uranium and spent uranium.... this is meeting 100% of USA energy requirments as well, and that means no oil, no gas, no hydro, no solar or anything else - just nuclear.
Doing something like this would mean building about 1300 reactors each in the GWe size range. However clearly there is no reason to not use traditional energy sources other than perhaps coal and oil and gas which should be saved for chemical feedstocks...
Furthermore Canada has offered to take the spent fuel because it is a lot hotter than natural uranium and our CANDU reactors can easily burn it. It should be re-processed though so that the nuclear poisons are removed - but this costs money and makes mined uranium a little cheaper than the USA spent fuel. The impass seems to be that the USA wants Canada to pay for the re-processing. The logic of this idea fails me.
Nevertheless, the spent fuel can be used and will supply a fleet of about 100 CANDU reactors for about 50 years. Then the Fast Integral reactor can kick in and run for additional 1000's of years.
The best idea however is to re-instate the Argonne Labs Fast Integral reactor program and get fuel reprocessing underway.... these are programs which have been shut down for political reasons.
With these two programs underway the waste problem actually disappears because a reactor like the Fast Integral will burn up the actinides and turn them into electricity. In addition there is also spallation technology that can be deployed.
So, the technology is there. Its the politics that is standing in the way and creating the problem. Many lives will unnecessarily be lost before this problem gets resolved. But I guess this is not unlike religeous wars in the past, the difference being that the public has been lied to so much about nuclear energy that it has almost taken on a religeous tone.
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:3, Insightful)
But if you DO take into account reprocessing, you can arrive at an estimate of a 1,000,000,000 year supply of fission fuel on Earth. See this FAQ [stanford.edu] on some of the issues involved in nuclear power. It's an excellent FUD-buster.
The major premise of that faq and its related site is that human progress depends on, and will benefit tremendously from, MORE energy, not less. Conservation is a false "alternative" for energy problems. Fuel efficient vehicles that still burn petroleum products only postpone the inevitable.
I wish people would better understand how amazingly safe nuclear energy is, and can continue to be, and especially how in the big picture is is much much MORE safe than coal, or natural gas, or oil. Thousands of people die EACH YEAR in accidents related to those industries, whereas a TOTAL of about a thousand have ever died from nuclear accidents, EVER.
Everyone just thinks of "nuclear" as scary.
Even the waste issue is easily solved: bake the stuff into glass or ceramics, which makes it chemically stable. Then store it away somewhere. It doesn't matter if that somewhere has an earthquake, because the waste won't "leak" even if shattered.
But as this election cycle has shown more clearly than ever, Americans cannot have a rational discussion about pretty much anything, because rational discussions don't fit into soundbites.
- Peter
Re:Whose responsibility? YES, the GOVERNMENT's! (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a better suggestion: fix the system!
Corporations and Governments are treated, legally, as entities in their own right. Their plan of framing the arguments, of changing perceptions, has been so completely successful that most around us even think of them as such: Big Oil, Evil Corporations, The Government.
Newsflash: They're run by PEOPLE. P-E-O-P-L-E, PEOPLE!
From the smallest to the largest company/governmental body, they're all planned, operated, and owned by INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE. (Even groups/collectives are made up of multiple INDIVIDUALS...)
Change the broken legal (and other) system(s) to take this reality into account: hold the PEOPLE who make, enforce, enact, enable, and/or subvert company/government resources to do bad things accountable for THEIR actions. Don't slap Evil Corporations with a fine - it's big money to you-and-me, but always a mere drop to their corporate bottom line. (Plus, as a loss, it's a tax write-off. Go figure. Furthermore, who in the company REALLY suffers? The peons at the bottom who do the actually work in the company, that's who; layoffs, pay decreases and/or lack of raises, less hires [so more work required of those left behind], etc.) If the PEOPLE involved in the wrong-doing are held PERSONALLY accountable, with FINES, IMPRISONMENT ( real time, too), SIEZERS, etc., then I think the INDIVIDUALS considering driving companies/governments to do bad things would think twice.
Why Libertarians, of all people, who are all about individuals being personally responsible for their own actions, can't, or won't see this obvious (to me) truth and use THAT as a rallying point, I'll never know.
INDIVIDUALS can only make a CHOICE when there are more options than
Again, as a 98% Libertarian, I believe the government, fundamentally, exists for a few simple purposes, like to protect ME from all of YOU. (Whomever YOU turns out to be; an angry mob, "terrorists", a foreign power, etc.) It's to be the Great Equalizer when it comes to Li'l' ol' Me v. Big Bad Deep-Pockets Corporation. By all means, let me make my own decisions, take personal responsibilities, live in a truly free society, with truly free markets. (Well, I dream of such a day...
Somewhere (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the "somewhere" that's the problem
One other issue is that while there's little question a nuclear reactor _can_ be operated very safely, there are entirely reasonable doubts over whether a government can effectively ensure that a large collection of nuclear reactors _are_ operated safely.
Sloppy operation is a risk, as is insufficient inspection and monitoring. Another potential issue is underfunding (especially with privatised operation) of safety measures. Even if abundant government funds were thrown at the task, there's the risk they'd be abused or redirected to other things and still leave safety underfunded and undermonitored.
The Japanese government was unsuccessful. If they can't do it, there's no chance in hell we (Australia) can with our current government. I wouldn't rate the US's chances as even worth considering, especially as right now a reactor program would probably be contracted out to private industry (buddies, no doubt), probably with terms that paid well but didn't do as much for proper regulation, inspection, and safety requirements as required.
My big problem with nuclear power is that it only takes one big fuck up to do major amounts of essentially permanent damage. If you're running several thousand reactors for extended periods of time, almost no risk is only questionably good enough.
If I thought I could trust an organisation to get it right, I'd be all for it anyway - I do think it is possible to make it low risk enough. I don't think there is any such organisaion, and people being what they are (as you noted yourself) I'm not sure there ever will be.
Insanity (Score:2, Insightful)
When an industry is nationalised, which is to say, funded by tax rather than its customers, that industry no longer has ANY need to produce a service which is in ANY way desirable to its customers.
The connection between customer and provider is unlinked.
In this case, customers like reliable, cheap electricity. What exactly is supposed to lead to this sort of electricity being generated?
The National Power Company, being part of the State, will have it's wages bill paid no matter what happens, as long as it doesn't become *so* awful that it becomes politically necessary to dispose of it.
A real private company has an extreme sharp and pointed need to provide electricity to its customers satifaction; they pay its bills, and if they don't like it, they leave.
How do you leave a National Power Company, when there ARE no other companies to turn to? and why should the NPC even care, since its bills are paid by the State?
You'll also find, as the UK experienced during it's period of nationalised power, that the National Power Company has responsibility for ensuring adequate power generation reserves, whcih is to say, for deciding how many power plants are built.
Now, who else but the NPC are competent to decide such a matter? so their recommendations are acted upon. However, building a power plant is an expensive and profitable construction, for the various private construction companies involved, and for the taxpayer, since he's funding all this.
What happens is the construction companies become rather pally with the NPC, who tend to be rather generous in their estimation of the necessary power reserves.
All of which increases both taxation, to pay for unnecessary power plants and their maintaince while they turn over, idle.
Nationalisation is almost invariably a disaster. Economics has a reputation as a boring subject, which is why, I suspect, almost everyone is so uninformed, and why people keep touting these insane ideas.
--
Toby
Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi (Score:4, Insightful)
After removal from the reactor, the spent fuel itself is temporarily stored in pools of water in concrete tanks, awaiting shipment to a final disposal site. Those temporary tanks are now full to capacity, and they are degrading quite rapidly (continual neutron bombardment is not healthy for things like concrete.)
All the power plant operators in the country are pretty much hoping that a national disposal site like Yucca Mountain will be opened to them soon for storing their spent fuel. But dealing with nuclear waste is quite literally a "hot" potato for any politican. Nobody wants to store it short term in their back yard, nobody wants to store it long term in their state, and the states in between the plants and the waste site don't even want the trains of waste to cross their state.
Yucca Mountain has long been talked about as a national disposal site, but the native Americans in the area are opposed to the idea. (They were once in favor of selling the site to the federal government, but have since changed their mind.) The proposal is to dig tunnels under the mountain, load in the waste, and backfill the tunnels with concrete.
There have been other interesting proposals to permanently store the waste. One is to bury it in the sea bottom, using drilling rigs similar to that used for off shore oil drilling. They'd plant the waste several hundred feet below the sea floor, and backfill them with the naturally present clay. Models show that the radiation would leach no further than a few dozen feet from each glass log, even after 20,000 years. But try to imagine the reaction when you tell the Greenpeace organization that you want to study planting radioactive waste under the ocean. Not a popular proposal.
Spent reactor fuel has a fairly long half life, and it will take 20,000 years for the radiation levels to drop to "safe" levels. Humans have never built a structure designed to last 20,000 years. Modern engineers realize they have no way to build anything that permanent; and even more so they know they cannot build a structure that would be able to withstand continual radiation for 20,000 years. The best they can hope for is to bury the waste deeply in an area that is as inaccessible as possible.
So, the "temporary" storage tanks remain full, and there are no current plans to empty them because there is no final disposal site. But there needs to be.
wind/solar cheaper (Score:1, Insightful)
Thats quite a doozy of an assumption.
The Left dosnt 'oppose' anything. The left is not a single, uniform group -- with a single opinion.
Further, I am of the left. I oppose nuclear energy. Why? Risk. Why would I willingly accept the risk of a nuclear accident? Why would I welcome the cost of handling nuclear waste?
When you add the costs of the risk (which is currently handled by the government (not by private entities paying for insurance (not that they could 'afford it'))) and the cost of handling the waste, nuclear energy gets very VERY expensive.
Why would i want expensive energy (when the formally externalized costs are included)?
There are better, simple, more-sustainable, cleaner, cheaper alternatives: Reduction in Demand is the first one. I am not willing to accept the risk/cost of nuclear so that people can waste energy. As long as the costs are externalized, people will not conserve.
If a conservation effort were mounted, and it was taken seriously, you could save alot of oil.
If people refuse to conserve -- or pay the true cost of energy (even oil/coil based energy enjoys externalizing costs of increased health care costs, pain/suffering, pollution, etc).
Truely renewable sources are far and away the cheapest energy. Wind and Solar, when full-cost accounting is used, is by-far the cheapest energy.
Why even consider nuclear?
Why the left hates nuclear power (Score:3, Insightful)
"Giving Americans lowcost access to highly abundant energy supplies would be like giving a 5 year old a stick of dynamite" is what a prominent 70s environmental leader said in a speech to his loyal followers. Their thinking is actually logical and makes sense, however I disagree with it and I think its very disingenuous to hide their real agenda. They believe that if energy prices are low and it's available in near infinite supply, a lot of inefficient manufacturing and consumption will result. This will result in a lot of other waste materials. It's easy to take production data and find that even if energy is completely 100% nonpolluting and free, higher energy consumtion will equal higher production waste.
Let's just take a pretty simple demonstration of their techniques. I live in Washington state. Environmentalists who opposed nuclear power have for years given hydro electric as the wonderful alternative. Well, they succeeded in shutting down and halting nuclear plants. Yet 15 years ago they decided they'd like to shut down all the hydro plants in Washington as well (because of the salmon issue which was really just a red herring).
So, dont believe them when they say they only want clean energy. What they want is decreased consumption of energy, which is a perfectly reasonable position. They just know that not a lot of people would agree to conservation if they knew there was a reasonable alternative.
Re:Energy saving is the key ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Second: godds *could* travel by train. Would use less energy. But if you don't care, you don't care
If you compare the distances: Compare Europe to the US. Results won't be that different.
An example: Do you think that for example a Volkswagen is built in Germany as a whole? No, it is build from brakes produced in the Czech Republic, wheels from Portugal, seats from Slovakia, etc. pp.
Crabs from the north sea are transported to Marocco, cleaned there (wages are much lower in Africa) and are transported back to northern Europe.
No no, the degree at which the European economies are coupled/interweaved isn't that much lower.
I don't have a link, but even if you take into account that the US is much bigger and that US people cummute farther than typical Europeans, the average consumption of a US car is higher than the European car. In fact, the consumption in the US has gone up over the last 20 years, where in Europe it has gone down (although not much).
You can look at energy consumption of the houses: Much lower in Europe than in the US. It's that extreme: Houses in scandinavia, where it's much colder than the US, use less energy, despite the fact that they need a lot energy to heat their houses.
An American fried who was over here some years ago always wondered, why we close the doors inside our house. It's simple; when we sit in the living room, we heat the living room and not the whole house. This was unimaginable for him.
Just let me state: We're not the good ones and your the bad ones. Energy is just much more expensive here than in the US (due to taxes). And people do what they're supposed to do: In the US people don't care cause it doesn't cost, in Europe people care, cause it is expensive.
Bye egghat.
Re:Oil is more than energy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And what'll wean us from nuclear power? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, it turns into 100 million+. You can get uranium from seawater [stanford.edu]. And since the uranium in seawater is constantly being fed by the earth's crust, (and there are 10^18 tons of the stuff in the crust - the limit seems to be a saturation point of water) we could expand our lifestyle to the rest of the world until the sun expands into a giant.
Furthermore, these plants could be absolutely safe, based on passive technology, like Edward Teller suggested. 10GW passive reactors, no less. It'd be a beautiful thing, but we so happen to live in a world where people are even scared of the word atom.
Re:Energy saving is the key ... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Russia uses a lot of natural gas, and has centralized heating systems for houses. With hot water radiators in every room. When any of those systems fail, you can see all the boo-hoo-hooing about hundreds of people having cold apartments, however the same systems are responsible for the fuel economy.
2. Speaking of apartments, all of them have two-layer windows, with wooden frames, and an air gap between the layers, usually with foam insulation tape, that tenant change every few years. As opposed to the single-layer glass with some unreliable, easy to bend, aluminum and plastic frames, used in US.
3. Russian cities are planned, with public transit system being as much a part of the design, as electric grid or water pipes -- no city would allow a creation of "suburb" with bus service that can not possibly accommodate all the inhabitants. All commute within cities can be done without a car, in a reasonable time, at a fraction of the cost of the fuel that cars would consume.
4. Russia has a large and dense railroad system, that provides a cheap way to move cargo and passengers pretty much everywhere where people live.
5. Despite the large size of the country, densely populated western part of it is relatively small. Distances are much more of a problem in Siberia, however this is also where oil and gas are coming from.
This is why Russia can have the same gasoline prices as US, yet much lower salaries (and much lower prices on domestically produced goods). Russia has a lot examples of energy waste, too, however if anything, the above is an example of people at least trying to keep energy consumption under control -- as opposed to US, where it's all limited to empty words.