President Dennis Kucinich would move away from nuclear energy
January 10th, 2008
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Of all the candidates for US president, the only one who has taken a firm anti-nuclear energy stance is Denis Kucinich. It’s nothing to worry about though. The US is more likely to have a President Mickey Mouse than a President Kucinich. Here’s a video of his statement on the issue, in which he starts with the whole “nuclear and fossil fuel” argument, pretending that they are somehow related. Kucinich has actually been the darling of a few anti-nuclear wacko websites.
Not that any of this matters though. I think I’m more likely to win the election than he is, and I’m neither running nor over the age of 35, as required to be the president of the US. Perhaps Kuncinich is just hoping that by courting the anti-nuclear movement he’ll get a few more votes in the primary than the two he would be getting otherwise.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 6:58 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Nuclear, Politics, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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January 10th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Maybe one of the Americans then would tell us which of the candidates are pro-nuclear energy, and if any of them would be a particularly good choice overall?
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January 10th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Unfortunately from what I’ve seen they all pretty much say the same: “I think we need to look at all options and nuclear is something that needs to be considered along with renewables…” Probably McCain and Guliani would be the ones I’d say come across as supporting nuclear energy, although limited support.
Huckabee said some stuff about potential nuclear energy. Huckabee’s an idiot on the subject of energy though. I saw him talk about how we should consider hydrogen fueled power plants a while ago. So I doubt he even knows what he’s talking about.
Clinton seems more dodgy on it “potentially something to look at if research can make it safe” or something like that. Obama was a bit more supportive than Hillary.
I think the only one who I heard who seemed to be firmly convinced that nuclear was the way to go was Bill Richardson. He actually said “along with solar and wind and other renewable” which I think is what a politician kinda needs to say, but he did state that it was a good bet for CO2 reduction. But he bowed out of the race
The man was the head of the department of energy for several years so I’d imagine there’s a good chance he gained at least a little knowledge there on the subject…
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January 10th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
He’s also the one who believes in UFO’s and claims he saw one.
You can’t expect rational thinking from him.
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January 10th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Nuclear and fossil fuel are basically stuck with the same problem. They both pollute with the waste from them. Nuclear does not produce Co2, that’s true. But nuclear produces its own waste. At least with CO2 it isn’t forever because trees and plants are going to get rid of it. I agree that it’s a problem but nuclear waste is horrible and you can’t do anything about it except burry it and hope nobody digs it up and it doesn’t get unearthed for the next billion years. Also, nuclear has a lot of danger to it.
So I think he’s making a point that they’re not the same but they’re both bad for the enviornment. Maybe it would be a tossup between both except for we have free energy all around us. You know what I think is the definition of insanity? Even talking about building a nuclear or a coal or an oil power plant when we have sun and wind which is free and can fill all our energy needs.
That’s where it’s at and I think anyone who does the research can see that if we commit to it we’ll be tearing down power plants soon because we’ll all have wind and solar. And forign oil too is a problem and it polutes. Wouldn’t you rather just stick a solar panel on your car and drive all you want for free? I would. That’s what we need to work for!
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January 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am
CityG it’s time to do the numbers.
Every source of power, including solar and wind power, uses dangerous materials that last a long time. Solar power units use cadmium and lead, deadly toxins that remain dangerous forever, infinitely longer than any radioactive nuclear waste.
Per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced solar photovoltaic power requires more dangerous materials than nuclear. Only nuclear power has procedures for disposing of its waste so that it presents no danger to man or the environment.
This is easy to do because high level nuclear waste is solid, stable and tiny in volume (all the waste from nuclear power in the USA over five decades would fill one football field up to three yards). The fact is that production of all the electricity consumed in a four-bedroom house for 70 years leaves about one teacup of high-level waste. It also becomes less radioactive with time.
Even if this were not true and you and you have done the research as you claim, you will see that simple physical chemistry would not allow one to ‘just stick a solar panel on your car and drive all you want for free,’ under any technology. Not unless your definitions of ‘car,’ ‘driving’ and ‘free’ are radically different from the ones in general use.
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January 11th, 2008 at 11:36 am
That’s totally different waste. Yes solar panels are going to have lead and stuff in them, but so what? So do computers and everything else. It’s not like the panels are trash. We keep using them and yeah, eventually they wear out or something but so does everything. And that stuff is just metal which came from the ground to begin with. It’s just going to eventually rust away back to where it was. That’s not like nuclear which is going to have to make lots of toxic radioactive stuff that we can’t get rid of.
And I don’t know what your definition is of ‘car’ but I know that a car now won’t run on solar because it’s not electric to begin with. Yea, it’s too expensive to make solar cars and there are problems for people. They have them though but they only are prototypes. I’ve heard of solar cars my whole life and they have always been working on them. There’s only one reason why a real useful mass-produced solar car is not out there and that’s the oil companies and their profits.
Can you predict the future? I can’t. But I’m hopeful that if we get our act together soon we can have a car which is just as good as what we have now and powered by solar. It might need batteries for the dark but that’s fine too. They had battery cars for a long time and the oil and car companies killed those too!
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January 11th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride…”
You apparently have no idea of scale. The volumes of wasted from a solar powered society would be huge, concentrated heavy metals that would stay a hazard for ever. Recycling them is not practical because the energy that you would have to put in would be more that the energy you would get back from the new array.
Electric cars died because the market wasn’t there for the range that was available. The reason was poor electric storage technology and nothing else.
You have to stop dreaming in color. And you have to acquire at least some basic physics and chemistry if you want to hold an informed opinion on solar, nuclear or any other energy matter.
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January 11th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
“And that stuff is just metal which came from the ground to begin with.”
Hey CityG, where do you think uranium comes from? Just cause it comes from the ground doesn’t make it benign.
“It’s just going to eventually rust away back to where it was.”
Cadmium and lead? Are you sure you’re not thinking of iron when you say rust?
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January 11th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Sadly what CityG is saying is basically what most of the public believes: that solar energy can easily solve all our energy needs as soon as we work out some of the bugs and make it cheaper. That the future is electric cars with solar panels on them and solar and wind everything. That the only thing stopping this is big oil or not enough research.
People actually will say this stuff with a confident sound of authority “Oh yeah, well if we could get our act together we’d have had solar cars by now.”
It’s sad because it seems to be reenforced by society in general. I actually wrote about the electric car here:
http://depletedcranium.com/?p=305
The fact is that it didn’t go anywhere because the performance and range of gasoline is just far superior. It’s a better storage medium for energy. Electric cars can’t cut it for general purpose driving. They might even be okay 80% of the time, but the remaining 20% ruins it. I pointed out the Tesla as an example of how sparing no expense and cramming in all the best technology avaliable makes a car which has sufficient range but just barely and costs about as much as a Bently or an Aston Martin.
I’d personally love to see electric cars, but if we ever have them it will require dramatic improvements in battery technology. There are nano-tech ion-based batteries which might cut it, but they may be more than a decade from full scale production and much more from being afordable and practical for use in vehicles.
As far as solar. I actually talked to a guy from the Sierra club about this at an anti-nuclear rally. He was their PR person and a spokesperson. He didn’t even know the science behind it. I said “Covering a car with solar panels would not be suffecient to provide the necessary power even if they were 100% effecient. And it can never be 100% effecient anyway”
he said “What’s 100% effecient? You have one definition of effecient but why can’t we be more effecient in the future? I think we can improve a lot beyond what we consider effecient now”
I said that by 100% effecient I meant that the watts of electricity out would be equal to the area of the panel multiplied by the Luminous flux for the energy level of the spectrum absorbed. That seemed to go over his head.
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January 11th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Thing is if we want an electric car transportation system, we need a cheap, clean source of electricity and capable of delivering a great deal more power than the base-load generation we have now. Simple arithmetic shows that there is only one primary source that meet all criteria – nuclear.
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January 11th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
… and the same is true for the hydrogen that everyone says is going to solve the energy crisis. The most cost effective and emission-free way to produce hydrogen (so far as I know) would be electrolysis powered by nuclear. That’s assuming of course that the infrastructure could be established and storage safety could be addressed.
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January 11th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Hydrogen offers a lot of problems in terms of storage, transport, energy density and so on. My own feeling on it is that it could be part of the solution but that having everyone drive hydrogen-fueled vehicles is something which might never happen.
I think the best place to start off is fleet vehicles. If you can make energy cheap and plentiful enough then it becomes economically appealing for fleet operators who cover relatively small areas to consider installing a system to produce and store hydrogen.
You’d start off with something like cities going to hydrogen buses. That’s relatively easy because you don’t need gas stations carrying hydrogen, the buses can refuel at the bus depot. If hydrogen is cheap enough it pays for its self in diesel. Also a bus is large enough that you could tuck the tanks away somewhere, like under the floor in the rear (this is how some CNG busses store the gas). And if it’s cryo then boiloff is less of a problem because the buses just do daily routs and don’t need to store it a lot.
After public transit you move to other stuff: School buses, department of public works vehicles, other government vehicles.
If that kind of system could be implemented then the next place to move would be offering that kind of technology to other operators: UPS, Fed Ex, cable companies, phone companies, sanitation.
I’m not sure hydrogen would really work for consumer vehicles. It lacks the energy density so you’d end up needing a lot of deliveries to gas stations and big tanks. Or if the gas stations made it, you’d need a lot of electricity to each one. There are other issues too.
I think the best bet is plug-in hybrids. It’s a good transitional step and if you could get a lot of driving to be 100% electric, with fuel only being necessary over 30-40 miles, then that would be a HUGE reduction in fuel use.
The other thing about that is once you have an electric drive motor system in the vehicle it is much more futureproof. You can transition to better batteries, to alternative engines or even fuel cells without completely retooling. You could even refit the car with better battery systems.
But all this does indeed depend on having ample base load energy. Also, I’m not sure that going for 100% co2 elimination is a reasonable goal. If we cut out the CO2 from power generation, a good portion of it from cars and light trucks and just took a hit on stuff like aviation, where hydrocarbon fuels is really the only thing we have for that, then we’d be in pretty damn good shape.
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January 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Carbon dioxide emissions from shipping are double those of aviation and increasing at an alarming rate. They could rise by as much as 75% in the next 15 to 20 years if world trade continues to grow.
Figures from the oil giant BP, (which owns a large fleet of tankers), and researchers at the Institute for Physics and Atmosphere in Wessling, Germany reveal that annual emissions from shipping range between 600 and 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or up to 5% of the global total. This is nearly double the U.K.’s total emissions and more than all African countries combined.
While it is highly unlikely we will ever have nuclear-electric aircraft, naval reactors are a mature technology that has been around for half a century. There are more reactors afloat than in service on land, and with an enviable safety record.
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January 11th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
CityG, no component of nuclear waste is dangerous for billions of years. Please get some scientific facts (go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product for a start) and if you come back with a complaint on a roughly correct time scale, we can talk again.
(Tako: thermochemical hydrolysis sounds a lot better than electrolysis, and DME, ammonia, boron, methanol or practically anything might be a better motor fuel than hydrogen. But I agree, the energy to produce them will have to come from the fissioning of uranium and thorium.)
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January 11th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I’m not sure that hydrogen is less desirable than DME, Amonia, boron or methanol. Methanol would have some advantages but it’s not that much lower in Co2 than gasoline for a given amount of energy. Yes, it burns to two parts water to one Co2, but it’s energy density is low so that compensates for that. It does tend to burn cleaner in general though
Ammonia? Yeah.. no thanks on that one. pretty nasty stuff, not that a lot of other fuels aren’t pretty nasty too, but ammonia is something which would be very bad if it leaked. It also seems to me you’d get a lot of nitrous emissions from ammonia.
DME I don’t really know too much about but I believe it’s pretty hydrogen rich so I’m not sure how clean it would be. It’s a gas IIRC, does it compress well???
I don’t know that burning boron is that good an idea either. The air force experimented with borated fuel and it turned out to blow out toxic black smoke.
Of course hydrogen has it’s own problems, so it’s not an easy thing to replace gasoline. That’s why nobody has at the moment.
As far as thermochemical hydrolysis: yeah that’s the best way to go for any centralized largescale facility. Electrolysis works okay for small on-site hydrogen production. An electrical hydrogen generator is simple and small. So it’s a question if you want to do it onsite or in a large facility somewhere.
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January 11th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
DME- dimethyl ether will be produced from coal, and is the coal industry’s answer to biofuels. It’s just about the same as butane as a fuel
The boron fuel economy is a joke pushed by one guy with a lot of time on his hands.
Ammonia based fuels need a large source of hydrogen for production so what’s the point?
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January 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I can see from rereading my earlier comment why you all seem to think I’m advocating hydrogen. When I said “… the hydrogen that everyone says is going to solve the energy crisis.” The “everyone” I was referring to was all those people (and media outlets), and there are many, who advocate hydrogen as a means for eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels. It was meant as kind of a continuation of the previous commenter’s opinion advocating nuclear power to recharge electric cars.
As drbuzz0 said, there are many problems with hydrogen fuel for consumer use.
Udo Stenzel, sorry…
electrolysis is the word I learned for separating hydrogen and oxygen from water with electricity. I was just trying to stick with terminology that I am familiar with.
Don’t worry… I wasn’t referring to the removal of unwanted body hair
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January 11th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Na Tako, we often use a mention to segue into a critique. Doc doesn’t demand a lot of topic discipline, so threads tend to drift about.
Udo is talking about a different process – electrolysis is a valid term for splitting water.
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January 11th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
At the moment, nearly all large scale industrial production of hydrogen is from methane (natural gas). This presents two obvious problems: It gives off CO2 by removing the carbon from the methane and recovering the hydrogen and it is defendant on natural gas or LPG as the source of the methane. This just gets you back to the whole fossil fuel problem with imports/sources and such.
Unless the methane were to come from landfill gas recovery or something, which is going to be limited in size you’re still dealing with fossil fuel. Also, if you’re going to be using methane and releasing CO2 then you may as well just use that as fuel and not bother converting it to hydrogen. It’s a better fuel in a lot of ways anyway.
If you want hydrogen to be “clean” then it needs to come from water. This gets back to the original point: making hydrogen from water is no problem if you have a base source of energy to do so. Both electrical and thermal means of producing hydrogen require lots of energy. Thermochemical is attractive for large scale operations because you gain overall effeciency versus heat to electricity to hydrogen.
Really though it could be either. They’re both going to require a real lot of energy in order to get things going.
Making hydrogen from hydrocarbons is just more of the same problems we have now.
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January 11th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I don’t think you get what I’m saying. Yes, solar panels involve toxic substances when you make them, but then you use them and they’re not going to use any fuel. It’s like a car is always going to need steel and lead and plastic and rubber and everything. You can’t change that. A power plant is going to be made of steel and concrete too.
The diff is that solar doesn’t polute to make power, so if you put a solar panel on your car then that’s all the waste is the panel when you’re done with it and you could even have it reused or recycled. Solar is better because there’s no fuel. So it’s free and if you have a solar car you never need gas.
I don’t understand how you can stand there and say you’re for science and then go and say “Oh it’s impossible to make it that effecient” Why not? Why not mkae cars have less power needed and make solar panels make more power? Research! and that’s how we do new things like send people to space and make new inventions.
Nuclear is what they talked about in the 50’s and 60’s before they understood that it’s really worse for the environment. I can’t believe anyone would not want a solar car! That would be the best! And nuclear you have to figure it makes plutonium for the waste. Plutonium is the most poisonous substance on earth which is why you can’t ever figure out what to do with it.
So I don’t care if you say it can’t be done. I think it can if we actually cared and the oil companies didn’t have so much power and we actually made it a point.
I saw somewhere that there’s like a thousand times more power from solar power on earth in a day than all people combined use. When you want to use something that makes deadly plutonium and there’s free sun coming down then you are insane. If I were in charge I’d set a goal for ten years to having all cars powered by solar power. And not just cars but why not everyone’s house? Maybe planes? I don’t know if a jet will work but maybe with a propeller.
Solar and wind are here and they’re free and they are the obvious choice. I don’t think nuclear is a good idea. Maybe if we didn’t have solar or wind we’d have to go with nuclear but the good thing is we don’t and our grandchildren will thank us when they don’t have plutonium around killing everyone!
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January 11th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
“I don’t understand how you can stand there and say you’re for science and then go and say ‘Oh it’s impossible to make it that effecient’(sic)” “So I don’t care if you say it can’t be done.”
Well the thing is Iam what you would call a ’scientist’. That means I have spent the time and the effort to really understand these things, and the reason I say these things are impossible is because they ARE. You see the Universe doesn’t give a damn what you think or believe, it just is what it is.
Now consider that YOU cannot design or build the thing that you want, so you are dependent on folks like me to do it for you, and if we say it can’t be done, it can’t be done, whether you care or not.
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January 12th, 2008 at 5:26 am
CityG, what you are talking about is impossible because (as it says above) you cannot get enough energy to drive a car from solar energy, even if the surface area were entirely covered by solar cells. Light is a form of energy, just like electricity and you need a certain amount of light to make a certain amount of electricity. You need a certain amount of electricity to drive a car because of the air and rolling resistance and the need to accelerate. That’s not even to mention the inefficiency inherant to any motor and the accessories on a car.
Have you ever seen a solar car? They’re flat, extremely streamlined, covered with a massive area of solar cells and have one person baking in an unairconditioned pod while they roll by on bicicle tires at about 30 mph in the midday sun in someplace like Arizona or Southern California. There’s a reason for this, it’s because that’s the only way you can ever get enough power is by making a ridiculously small, light aerodynamic “car” by sacraficing speed/safety/comfort/capacity and even then it still only works in the best conditions.
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January 12th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Well if solar is really so bad at making electricity and really is impossible to use for cars and it is too expensive and uses too much toxic material to ever depend on, then explain why it’s been all I’ve heard of in my life as the best thing for power in the future? I mean ever since the 1980’s I remember always hearing about the development of solar cars and how solar power plants were being tested and how it was being installed on houses and just needed to get the cost down. I’ve ALWAYS heard solar is the next thing and they’ve done a lot with it.
When I was in high school I remember building solar powered house models in tech class with solar panels on the roof and I know that there are a lot of big companies who are all over solar even the oil companies because they know it’s the future. There’s a lot of money and a lot of time going into it and I don’t think the scientists would be doing that if they knew it was not that good for power.
Is everyone who is an environmentalist just stupid or are they lying or what? I think it’s more likely this page is untrue then all the environmentalists I know, because most of them are very sincere and actually go out of their way to support solar and even use stuff like that in some of their places. They’re stupid or liars???
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January 12th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Interesting question. I think the ones on the top are lying. The ones at the bottom are ignorant and probably buy into that bull. The ones in the middle are probably a combination and/or just delusional or in some sort of agenda-based denial. So it’s a combination.
As for the “scientists” who do big solar projects for the government, well it’s a political thing. if you work for the department of energy and your department gets assigned funding to work on solar energy, that’s what you have to do. So you bare it and do the best you can with what you’ve got.
The oil companies and other private venture? A combination of cashing in on subsidies and tax breaks, some good ole fashioned PR and it also helps attract investors and such when everyone thinks you’re in a field that is going to be the future.
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January 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
CityG, you use some interesting phrases in descrbing nuclear power. First you says it pollutes. Now think about that carefully – what do you mean by “pollute” here? Because I think you’re using this in an unreasonable way for nuclear power. Let me know.
You talk about “hope nobody digs [the waste] up”. You know that the proposals are for storage hundreds of metres deep into bedrock? “Digging up” accidentally is impossible.
“bilion years”… I’m inclined to give you a bit of a pass on this on the grounds you just mean “a long time”. But ten thousand years would easily be enough to make spent fuel save to handle; and the pyramids have already lasted over four thousand years with primitive bulding technology.
Then there’s the random, faith-based “nuclear has a lot of danger to it”. How so? It’s safer than everything else – people have been killed instlling solar panels and erecting wind turbines, which produce a tiny fraction of the electricity nuclear does. Hundreds of thousands have died from dam breaks.
“Plutonium is the most poisonous substance on earth” – this is flat-out wrong, a well-documented lie. The other stupidity here is to regard this as waste, when it can power a reactor for extra electricity.
“grandchildren will thank us when they don’t have plutonium around killing everyone” – they are more likely to curse us for ignoring a plentiful supply of energy that could have saved the atmosphere. Why should there be “plutonium around killing everyone”? All reactor fuel is contained. Even if we finally start breeders and reprocessing, it will still be held carefully as valuable energy material. Get your facts straight.
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January 12th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
“When I was in high school I remember building solar powered house models in tech class with solar panels on the roof” Tell me CityG, did you do the energy density calculations, site-selection, costing and the rest, or did you build a nice little stick and cardboard model?
These ‘tech’ classes are a monstrous rip-off, a farce of science education, stripped of any math, or theory and foster no understanding of technology and the science behind it. They fail miserably as well as any sort of industrial arts program as well, but that’s another issue.
If we want to know why people like CityG are labouring under nonsensical beliefs, we need look no farther than the schools and educators that poured this dreck into their minds
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January 12th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
CityG said:
“Is everyone who is an environmentalist just stupid or are they lying or what? I think it’s more likely this page is untrue then all the environmentalists I know, because most of them are very sincere and actually go out of their way to support solar and even use stuff like that in some of their places.”
I’m sort of glad that you brought this up, actually. When I was in school I was very much an environmentalist. I liked Sierra Club and Greenpeace. They used to be reputable in my opinion. but that was many years ago. I still am an environmentalist but I now realize that the environmental movement has largely been hijacked by lawyers who’s main concern is suing for profit.
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/194
If you google “Sierra Club run by lawyers” you will find many, many other scathing articles.
The environmental movement is not what it once was. It’s become very political in nature. Truth is not as important and politics anymore. Solar projects basically just serve to promote an image. To show everyone, “See I care about the environment and I’m doing something.” It doesn’t really matter if what their doing is worthwhile… just look busy. They have to appear to be doing something “green” regardless of actual effect.
Even Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace) got fed up with this attitude and quit Greenpeace. Moore has accused them of abandoning science and following agendas that have little to do with saving the Earth.
You can google “patrick moore quits greenpeace” if you’d like.
I’m not saying that solar power has no value. On the contrary, it has proven useful for many things. I’m just saying it’s definitely not going to “save the world.”
You might be interested in viewing the Penn & Teller BS episode on the environment. It certainly doesn’t cover every issue but they do a pretty good job of presenting both sides of the argument.
Part 1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1-qu_0KlMvw
Part 2
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zUp6STGJBwc&feature=related
Part 3
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C4uEMMg_YOE&feature=related
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
No they had real solar cells on them and you could charge a battery to power the lights. It was a project we did but I don’t remember. It might have been junior high or Freshman year. That doesn’t matter. I’m making a point. The past years I’ve always heard nothing but good about solar and from scientists and experts. Just look at any environmentalist group and they’re all about solar. And scientists are too. And countries and everything. It’s being worked on hard and they’re trying to build solar cars and houses and everything.
Germany is even planning to replace all their nuclear power plants with solar and wind in the next few years. And you hear about it all the time from the government and from charity and climate organizations and everything. Are they all stupid? Are you going to stand here and tell me you don’t constantly hear about projects and research?
If they knew it was worthless why is every government and group spending so much on it and building so much? Germany and spain too want to go with solar. Sure some guys might be wrong, but what about all the scientists and engineers doing it?
Are you going to stand there and say that it’s not being developed? people don’t develop stuff that doesn’t work. I think the solar people must know what they’re talking about by now.
Solar and wind are the future and if you look them up on the internet you’ll see I’m not alone. Every big place says the same!
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Ha. CityG, we are well aware that you are not alone, We know fine well that there are plenty of powerful interests out there pushing the wind and solar agendas, and in general, you’ll find that most (not all) nuclear proponents support those power sources too. And why not? they’re fine for some applications and may help to eke out the valuable but limited hydroelectric sources.
Those sources are not enough though. Mostly they need a stable grid to balance up their variable power, and sources to fall back on when they’re not running. For most countries in the world, that grid is powered by coal and balanced by natural gas. Where nuclear is dominant, it replaces coal first and then natural gas, the latter in hydro-poor areas.
Germany is a classic case of watching what they do, not what they say. There are numerous coal plants being built and getting life extensions there. They are heading towards a big miss on their CO2 commitments, because they are threatening closure to nuclear plants. If they succeed in closing their nuclear, they will be in deep ****.
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January 12th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Photoelectric/solar thermal base load power will not work, because there is not enough convertible energy available from the sun, and no good way of storing the energy when sunlight is not available.
This is not my opinion – opinion doesn’t count for anything – this is fact.
The people that are involve in these projects are not stupid; they are like everyone else – poor sods trying to make a living. Most of them know that even if their particular project comes on line, it will be a piss in the ocean.
Please look at the stated power production numbers they are promising from these various projects. The world’s biggest solar power plant uses 52000 photovoltaic module, a facility covering a 60-hectare chunk of land and delivers (drumroll) -11-megawatts when running full tilt. In comparison the smallest U.S. commercial nuclear power plants are the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant,and the Ginna Nuclear Plant, both have electrical output of 470 megawatts, and are sited on less than one hectare.
Do the math.
Germany is BSing when they claim to be moving to renewables because every Watt of power they make from wind will be backed up by one Watt of spinning reserve generated from coal. It was the coal lobby that is shutting down the German reactors because they were threatened – the renewables are just an attempt to greenwash the process.
And that by the way is the answer to your last statement. Most of these efforts are greenwash and nothing else; attempts to placate people like you who will not do the simple math to see that they cannot have what they want.
Now, start arguing with numbers, if you want to dispute with me – “there are lots of people that think this way” is not a telling point.
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January 12th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Well okay, maybe you are right and solar and wind can’t do the job. But if that’s the case then we’re in trouble, Then we have to cut back a real lot and conserve whatever we can and do as much as we can with solar and wind. Maybe then we have to accept that we need some power and if solar and wind can’t do it then we need to burn gas and oil and coal too. And we can do everything we can to try to keep it as clean as possible but if that’s the way it is then we’re going to have global warming and we may loose some land to the oceans rising and we may have problems. I think if we cut back enough it won’t be too disiasterous.
But that doesn’t mean we need nuclear. That’s the worst thing we could ever do. I’d rather accept that the world will be somewhat hurt by our actions and we just try to minimize it as best we can and use the absolute minimum we can get by with and use solar and wind for as much as we can. I cannot imagine how things could be so bad that we’d need to go to nuclear, especially because a lot of enviornmentalists can tell you that it actually makes it worse because it needs so much energy to run the factories to make the nuclear fuel.
So I think we should take nuclear out of the picture even if solar and wind are not the way to save the world.
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January 12th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
OK, then what are your issues with nuclear? We can show you that every on has already been dealt with.
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January 12th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I agree with CityG. I don\’t believe we can\’t do it with solar and wind, but even if not that doesn\’t mean we should go to nuclear. I think the best thing to do is to try to live more simple lives where we don\’t go for consumerism and the stuff that got us here to begin with. If we are willing to live in a way that is more in harmony with earth and doesn\’t fight earth so much then we can get by with what we have.
And I also agree that coal and gas and oil are bad, but we can still try to limit them without going to nuclear power. You have to remember that nuclear is all controlled by some very bad companies and its the reason why we have nuclear bombs that everyone lives in such fear of. I think it\’s terribly sad that science gave us such things as nuclear and we have to try to burry that whole idea before it bites us. if you look at that nuclear power plant which blew up in russia a long time ago you can see that it\’s really not safe and I don\’t want to see people die like that.
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January 12th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Do not listen to the nuclear scare stories. Groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Green Party have demonised nuclear power for many years and have learned how to influence our elected politicians.
However, societies with scientific expertise in engineering, energy and nuclear physics have publicly endorsed the new nuclear power station proposals.
Japan and Canada have been using nuclear power for decades, with out making bombs, without having a waste issue. Are you telling me that the USA is not capable of doing what Japan and Canada does?
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January 12th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Wow. U people really want to try to say that you know science and so that nuclear is good and we should listen to u? I think ur just really evil but I still am going to try to ask u something. I know u prolly make a real lot of money selling nuclear stuff or whatever to countries, but maybe u should ask if its worth it. Bc I am sure u don’t think about the ppl who can die, but ur on this earth 2.
don’t u love anyone? don’t u have friends or family who matter 2 u? BC what if it is them? Nuclear causes horrible cancer and they can’t get rid of the waste. U should ask how much it isworth if ur friend or ur family ends up dying, What if u die? How will the money help? Its not fair to expose kids to radiation and stuff.
U know there are some peace activists who are trying really hard to stop this. Like they are going 2 do some concerts 2 promote being good to earth. Maybe u should stop fighting.
I mean, just ask ur self how nuclear could possibly be ok. I don’t know much about it myself, but I think u do which means u should know how bad it is even more than me.
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January 12th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Do you want to engage in a reasonable discussion based on fact, or do you want to wallow in emotional beliefs driven by fear and ignorance?
I will not participate in the latter. If you have specific concerns they can be addressed, otherwise I bid you goodbye.
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January 12th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
This sort of mentality is all to common. The actual reasons for the belief cannot be given because they don’t exist beyond “that’s what all the environmentalists say” and “I just know it’s bad.”
This kind of bad science (or no science at all) is the entire reason I started this page and try to keep it updated (sorry about the past couple days.. work piled up on other things). It’s also the reason this website has become so big in nuclear energy. Becasue nuclear energy seems to be the biggest issue of bad science at the moment and it’s also an issue which is extremely important for numerous reasons.
I don’t know if I’m winning any converts, although I have had people tell me that the posts about hydroelectric power compared to nuclear energy and the post about spent fuel were eye openers and ones which they showed a lot of friends and MAY have changed some minds or inspired some thought. Maybe, I hope…
But this is the sort of thing which is everywhere. Dogma based policy and lack of scientific reasoning or facts. Hopefully those here like DV82XL, Joffan, Tako and the Giant Pulsating Brain will help work on the side to chip away at it.
Those like PhishingGirl are basically beyond hope, IMHO. They’ll change their mind and be pro-nuclear when and if being pro-nuclear is hip, in-vogue, progressive and seems like a good way to be rebelous and different (even though in reality it’s the complete opposite). But as soon as that movement turns… just wait and see. Of course, it may never.
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January 13th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Regarding motor fuels, I actually think hydrogen is a joke. It’s impossible to store in reasonable amounts without leaking, so it introduces new problems while solving none. Actually it’s not even a joke, it’s a convenient way to distract politicians from realitiy. There’s already talk about hydrogen fuelled power plants, how silly is that?
So given that hydrogen is not feasible, what else can you do? You could for another element with useful chemistry, and since carbon obviously is not the way to go, you arrive at boron. Pretty straight forward, and I’m surprised that Graham Cowan seems to be the first and only guy to come up with the idea. Other than that, you could bind the hydrogen to something else. Hydrocarbons are the obvious choice, and DME looks pretty good there: non-toxic, easy to store (under moderate pressure, like propane), short lived in the atmosphere, easy to remove from water, easily synthesized, and burns cleanly. Of course, in order to not emit carbon dioxide, the carbon in the compound has to come from the atmosphere to begin with, but extraction of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is definitely feasible.
If you want to avoid extracting something as dilute as carbon dioxide, you need to bind the hydrogen to something else. Since only nitrogen is there, ammonia is the only option. Again, it’s easy to store, relatively harmless in the atmosphere and burns cleanly. (“OMFG! NITROUS OXIDES!” was my immediate reaction, too, when I first heard that, but no nitrous oxides are formed if you burn ammonia with just the right amount of air and have a catalytic converter and an oxygen sensor available to control the process, and that’s the technology already employed in every modern gasoline fuelled car.) Unfortunately it’s toxic and diffcult to remove from water.
So there, boron, DME and ammonia all have something going for them and I can’t predict which of those fuels or maybe something completely different will be employed. But hydrogen?! Nah, not going to happen on a large scale.
@CityG: you come across as either an obnoxious troll or a person with the IQ of a cubic foot of dry peat. Yes, I *do* have people I care about, and I want them to have realiable and clean energy while not having to deal with toxic wastes. That’s why I’m in favor of nuclear power, the only industry that takes care of all their wastes and has a way to get rid of them in a reasonable amount of time (300 years). If you don’t want to get the facts straight on what’s actualy contained in nuclear byproducts, that’s your problem, but then you should also STFU about a topic you don’t know **** about.
And just for those with a short attention span, here’s the executive summary: Plutonium is an endowment, not waste. Burying it would be the true waste of money, time, energy and human lifes.
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January 13th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Yeah on the whole motor fuel thing. I’m pretty much convinced that there’s nothing that is going to replace hydrocarbon fuel in the next decade or so. I’d favor plug-in hybrids as a good way of reducing it but not eliminating it. You have to also consider that the cars on the road today are going have an average lifespan of 5-10 years and the commercial vehicles possibly longer, so it’s important to start a transition soon.
If a plug-in hybrid has good enough batteries it could drive maybe 30 miles before kicking in the gas engine. That’s enough for most people’s commutes and a lot of driving. That right there could cut gasoline use in half if everyone had one.
The other thing I’d favor is switching from petrolium-based gasoline to synthetics or alcohol based fuels which are high in hydrogen and ultra low in sulfur. DME is also an option.
This is not a perfect solution, but automobiles only account for about 6% of co2 and transportation only accounts for about 20%. It might simply be best to accept that there will not be 100% co2 free transportation and try to make it as low as possible. For absolute co2-neutral you could always go with air extraction for making the fuels.
But in the end I think that if Co2 emissions could be cut by 70% or so we’d be in great shape. Even if it were not cut by 100% it’d still make a HUGE difference. Hence, it might be best to just accept that certain sectors, like aviation, won’t ever be 100% co2 free and concentrate efforts where they make the most difference.
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January 13th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Doc, I agree. Plug-In-Hybrids are a nice low-hanging fruit that should be picked soon. Of course a partially electric car is nonsense without a commitment to phase out coal fired electrical generation, which must be the first and biggest step towards lowered carbon emissions anyway. Basically these synfuel ideas are just a retort to that tired “But nuclear plants cannot power your car!” argument—because damn well they can, it just doesn’t make economic sense yet. Same for this weird obsession with carbon emissions from airplanes recently observed. So what, getting rid of those coal burners is easier and has a bigger effect.
A few more minor points came to mind: maybe it isn’t necessary to extract CO2 from the air, the carbon could instead be taken from the gasification of biomass (-wastes) and trash. That’s cleaner than outright burning the stuff and has the advantage that the limited amount of biomass is just used as chemical feedstock, not really as an energy carrier. Also, a plug-in fuel cell car could be an excellent idea. A fuel cell car has an electric drivetrain anyway, so adding a battery is a nobrainer, and in fact a battery compensates for the poor load-following capability of a fuel cell. That would probably make methanol the natural fuel, but others are possible, too. (Funnily enough, boron is among them.) The design space is huge, but strangely only the most difficult idea (storing hydrogen) is always talked about. Just weird…
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January 13th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Udo and Doc are hitting on one of the biggest problems in the energy for transportation discussion: there are too many options.
For this sector to work effectively only one technology can win. It was bad enough when I was driving one of the first diesel personal cars, and every long trip had to be planned like a mission behind enemy lines, (this was before diesel was sold at regular gas stations) and the stress of wondering if one’s information on availability was right as the needle moved to ‘E’. Several competing fuels that can’t be used by the same powerplant would be a very costly nightmare.
That being said Plug-In-Hybrids are the obvious pick, however I would shy away from any exotic fuel or even fuel cells until some clear winner can be picked. DMFC and DEFC are not ready for the consumer market and others again use fuels not readily available.
In battery technology I would draw your attention to the Zebra battery, a molten salt system with beta-alumna electrodes which is already in production as a quick google search will show. The advantage to this system is that waste heat from the cells can be used to heat the cabin of the car – a small but important function here in the Great White North – always a issue we have had with electric vehicles.
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January 13th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
The main problem is entirely that you have to have something that will fit into existing infrastructure. Hence plug in hybrids work well. Once you have an electric traction system in cars then you can transition to that in terms of having mechanics who service them and have the factories tooled for that. Then you have the flexability to upgrade batteries and whatnot.
Hydrogen is basically something I can only see working for fleets, as mentioned, where they can aford a private purpose-built fueling station.
In the mean time what do you fuel cars on now? What do you use as a transitional fuel? I’d favor a mixture of alcohols and light synthetic hydrocarbons with low sulfur and other trace materials. Surprisingly, an internal combustion engine will run on quite a few things with zero or minimal modification.
So that would be what I’d consider the best bet: Make standard hydrocarbon fuels as clean and effecient as possible for the time being, since all cars can run on that, try to transition to a plug in hybrid system with electric-centric transport and have it backed up by clean electricity.
This is why electricity is key in the strategy of carbon mitigation. It’s the base source which can be installed as soon as possible and once avaliable is the energy foundation to fall back on and use to replace other forms.
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January 14th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Okay, to be honest I don’t know enough about nuclear power to know what questions to ask about what is wrong with it. I just know that it’s not the answer and I know that the waste is impossible to get rid of and a horrible thing for the environment. I know it’s unsafe and it’s expensive and it makes global warming worse in the long run.
I;m not an expert so I’m not sure all the details on this, but there are a lot of enviornmental sites out there which have the information on them and a lot of good reasons against nuclear. I’m not going to change my mind from you because I know what all the environmentalists and people who really care about the earth think and I can look up those reasons if I want.
Why should I believe you guys who are so pro nuclear when the pro environment people can provide all the scientific reasons that I need?
Yeah I know that sounds dumb, but I’m just going to have to research it and as far as I can see this is not something people who care about the environment generally support.
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January 14th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Spoken like a true moron. I think it’s just denial. Please do the research. I don’t think anyone here would discourage that except for maybe PhishingGirl, but don’t mind her she’s just really stoned I think.
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January 14th, 2008 at 2:48 am
CityG Says:
“I’m not going to change my mind from you because I know what all the environmentalists and people who really care about the earth think and I can look up those reasons if I want.”
Great… I guess we’re done here. Another closed mind who can’t or won’t look at facts, see more that just what they want to see and use his/her own mind to come to a conclusion. Too concerned with what others think.
“… I’m just going to have to research it and as far as I can see this is not something people who care about the environment generally support.”
Way to follow the uninformed agenda driven flock.
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January 14th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Aside from the obvious “you’re an idiot” I am not sure what there is left to say to CityG.
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January 14th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
For CityG; I suggest you read “Power to change the world” by Gwyneth Cravens.
And on environmentalists; those who change their minds on nuclear power get kicked out of the club, at least to-date, and hounded mercilessly by the remaining anti-nukes. However some of those who are still anti-nuke at heart have realised that their simple slogans are not actually true; for example David Suzuki has been doing some verbal gymnastics on this topic recently. There may be a sea-change coming; two more prominent “awakenings” from the anti nuke fantasy will do it, I think.
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January 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
You also might want to look at Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy that has branches in 18 countries so far.
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January 14th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
“Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up!”
Or as the greenpeace guy put it: “It’s not about science!” Indeed it’s not, for some it is about religion, faith, sin and redemption.
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February 1st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I am sure Dennis Kucinich can get all of Zeta Reticuli’s votes.
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