Nuclear is better than coal, natural gas. 'Green' energies not so green.

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by snowisfun, Mar 14, 2012.

  1. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    I am a supporter of nuclear/atomic energy.

    Almost all the people killed in the 2011 Japanese earthquake & tsunami were killed by debris, disease, pneumonia, etc. The same risks are found with hydroelectric dams. If a hydroelectric dam is destroyed in an earthquake, massive flooding can happen- people can drown, be killed by electrocutions, epidemics can spread from dirty H2O. Also people can be killed by the floods coming into contact with dangerous chemicals. There's 100* more radiation from coal & natural gas emissions which cause more deaths & diseases such as asthma, lung cancer, heart attacks, etc. So many get killed in coal mining accidents. Yet many give little thought to this.

    Windmills and solar panels, are sold as ‘green’, but they are not so. They need more land, use more materials, generate less energy-both the wind and sun are intermittent. Windmills have killed endangered birds and bats. People who live near windmills have higher incidence of hearing loss, migraines, nausea, etc. Solar panels have dangerous chemicals some of which are carcinogenic. Yes, we must also use windmills and solar panels when possible, but let’s end the idea that windmills and solar panels are ‘green’ & there must be more environmental impact statements on this before approval. The views of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc. against nuclear energy only uses some science & is more on politics. The Sierra Club's views against nuclear energy rerun the same 1970s arguments-more on politics & little on science. The Sierra Clubs views on this is poop :toilet: because they go with the religion that in order to be an environmentalist that they must oppose nuclear/atomic energy.

    We must use geothermal when possible. With nuclear, the newer nuclear power plants run on less uranium which lasts longer and generates less waste. Eventually they’ll perfect a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. Thorium is better than uranium. They will also come up with better reactors in the future, underwater reactors such as Flexblue along with underground reactors will be there. There are also small nuclear reactors which can be underground & you'll see more of this + ships which run on nuclear-Russia uses nuclear powered icebreakers.

    What happened in Japan in 2011 got the nuclear industry hostility– most of it unjustified. The earthquake forced nations to reevaluate their nuclear powerplants & some nations policies with Germany & Switzerland passing phaseouts & Italy refusing to reintroduce nuclear. Germany in the meantime has built or building more coal, buying more Russian gas, so their energy policy is a joke. But the nuclear topic is not going away. India, China, U.K., Poland, etc. are building new nuclear powerplants. Whether people like it or not, nuclear energy toipic is not going away, just as BP did not go away after the 2010 spill. BP was negligent. It was condemned, got congressional hearings. BP’s business was hurt for a time, but BP is still in business. Finally it must be said that the nuclear topic since the 2000s is being debated even by environmentalists which would've been unheard of in the 1980s. Anyhow, please share views as again, the nuclear/atomic energy topic whether you like it or not is not going away.
     
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  2. Windigo

    Windigo Banned

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    The fundamental resources are always time and money. You would produce more power cheaper if you put the same money that goes into wind or solar into top of the line conventional generation. For every MW of wind and solar on the system there has to be an equal MW of inefficient fast reacting spin ready to pick up the slack on a moments notice. What the greenies don't get is that this poor allocation of resources ultimately results in more CO2 being emitted not less.
     
  3. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    That's right. When you don't have enough energy from wind & solar as both intermittent, you have to use other energy sources & if you don't use nuclear, then you have to use coal, natural gas, etc. Austria in 1978 canceled their nuclear projects with their anti-nuclear law & they have dirty air from the coal & natural gas plants built. After Italy closed their nuclear powerplants in 1990, they've used more coal, natural gas. France gets most of their energy from nuclear. China & India have built many coal plants, but both are also building newer nuclear powerplants & China is also building more hydro-electric dams.

    Patrick Moore formerly of Greenpeace is now pro-nuclear & he has been condemned by Greenpeace & others as eco-Judas & Darth Vader because he changed his view from anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear. Other pro-nuclear environmentalists are Gwyneth Cravens, Stephen Tindale of Climate Answers in the U.K. Even the Huffington Post has debates on nuclear power which they don't do for most topics. Nuclear/atomic power is no longer a Democrat/Republican topic as people from both parties support nuclear power. Polls have found that Fukushima did not change most people's views on nuclear power as nations continue to build. Natural gas in the U.S. will continue to dominate in the near future, but nuclear will expand in the U.S. For smaller towns, we need to build more small nuclear reactors & perfect Thorium as Thorium once perfected will be better than Uranium.
     
  4. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    U.S. solar and wind industries expand, despite bankruptcies...
    :w00t:
    U.S. solar and wind industries expand
    `4 Mar.`12 - Despite last year's bankruptcies of several solar manufacturers, including government-backed Solyndra, the U.S. solar and wind industries continue to expand in the face of obstacles this year.
     
  5. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    As a rule assets sold in bankruptcies bring about 12 cents on the dollar.

    After a couple of bankruptcy sales, wind and solar stuff should be bringing about 2 cents on the original cost dollar.

    Even wind & solar can probably make money on equipment sold for 2% of its original cost.
     
  6. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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  7. Jiggs Casey

    Jiggs Casey New Member

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    Great. So where is the uranium going to come from for a world that currently only meets about 60% of demand?

    There's a reason nuclear hasn't expanded very much in decades. And it has nothing to do with the dangers it poses (though it should).

    And I know: The default "thorium" response is tempting, .... but it still has made glacial progress despite decades of testing. I'll believe in thorium when the industry gets serious about thorium. For now, using Occam's Razor, the claims seem far too good to be true.
     
  8. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Source, please, uranium is still very cheap.

    Not just thorium, breeder reactors could increase the extracted energy from uranium by 1-2 orders of magnitude.
     
  9. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    All nuclear reactors have a breeding ratio – that is how much usable fissile fuel is produced as a function of how much is destroyed. For most conventional thermal reactors the ration runs 45 to 60%.

    Reactors make fissile fuel by transmutation of shielding material. U-238 (“depleted uranium”) is the most common neutron shielding material. That makes sense. It’s the densest material known. It is also thermally refractory (it doesn’t melt at normal reactor temperatures). It stops neutron flux cold and doesn’t melt. The U-238 absorbs the fast-moving neutron and becomes Pu-239 which is fissile and very energetic. If the Pu-239 absorbs another neutron it becomes non-fissile Pu-240. Even more absorption makes non-fissile Pu-242.

    Most nuclear reactors can be refueled/reshielded in a matter of a few days. During the cold War, it was found that the optimum time for a refueling cycle is about six weeks. Any more and the shielding becomes poisoned with Pu-240.

    The thorium cycle works much the same. A regular uranium nuclear pile is operated and generates a neutron flux as well as heat. But the shielding is thorium-232 instead of uranium-238. The thorium is nearly as dense as U-238 and absorbs neutrons, transmuting into fissile U-233. Once you have collected and enriched enough U-233 it can be “burned” in a modified reactor. The Canadian CANDO reactor will run on 100% U-233.

    Uranium is actually fairly ubiquitous but the ores tend to be of low concentration. Concentrated thorium is far more common. The century-old tailings piles at Cripple Creek, Colorado have very good thorium concentrations.

    Uranium is often sought in the Third World because of worker-safety issues. There are viable uranium mines in Utah but Cold War era worker deaths have made them uneconomic. In order to work those mines, you’d have tohave it completely automated. Much simple to go to Africa, pay off the local honcho and let the poor bloody wogs work the mines. By recycling fuel rods through fast breeder reactors yuou reduce the need to mine more of either element.
     
  10. Jiggs Casey

    Jiggs Casey New Member

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    Supply-demand gap

    Current global uranium production meets only 58 per cent of demand, with the shortfall made up largely from rapidly shrinking stockpiles. The shortfall is expected to run at 51 million pounds a year on average from next year[when?] to 2020.[95] During the last 15 years, the shortfall between production and requirements was made up by excess commercial inventories, uranium released from military use and other secondary sources. These are now in decline, and the shortfall will increasingly need to be made up by primary production.[96]​
     
  11. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    There is an awful lot of fissile material sitting around in "spent" fuel rod assemblies.
     
  12. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    All energy sources have dangers. Nuclear/atomic power is not so dangerous as some think it is & the press tends to sensationalizes such as Fukushima. With Chernobyl, PBS did a show which found that wildlife & plants are growing there with little to no problems. Wolves, foxes, birds, moose, bisons, etc. have been done well in health condions. Almost all the nuclear waste is contained while coal & natural gas waste ends up in the lungs. Here's an article on the dangers of solar panels.

    China villagers protest solar plant pollution - China - Zimbio
    BEIJING ( Reuters ) - Protesters have camped outside an east China-based solar panel manufacturer accusing it of dumping toxic waste into a river, China's official ...
    www.zimbio.com/China/articles/8g5TdBJDquQ/China... - Cached
     
  13. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    This does not mean that there is not enough Uranium. There surely is, and there is a VERY large price buffer present. It just means that demand was covered from uranium stockpiles instead of mining. So no shortage of Uranium can be inferred from your source.


    There are two reasons.

    1. cheap fossil fuels

    2. anti-nuclear sentiment present among people
     
  14. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    Polls have found that Fukushima in 2011 did not have the same impact on people's views of nuclear/atomic power as Chernobyl did in 1986. Movies such as 1979 China Syndrome are mainly entertainment. There is no proof that Karen Silkwood was murdered. People are more educated about nuclear/atomic energy which is why support for nuclear/atomic power has gone up incl. among some environmentalists. Wildlife Habitat Council is a group which has environmentalists working with the nuclear industry & others to help the environment & animals jointly.

    For some environmentalists being against nuclear is a part of the religion of being an environmentalist which has been surpassed by global warming. Stephen Tindale formerly of Greenpeace U.K. used to be anti-nuclear for many years & in 2001 he took part in an anti-nuclear protest where he scrawled evil. Stephen Tindale has said that when he was anti-nuclear, he did so mainly because of the view that if you wanted to be an environmentalist, you had to be anti-nuclear. Stephen Tindale has since changed his view to now supporting nuclear/atomic energy & has formed the group Climate Answers. I praise Stephen Tindale for admitting his earlier view was wrong & changing it to support nuclear energy. :smile:

    Other environmentalists who support nuclear energy are the late actor environmentalist Paul Newman who defended the Indian Point Nuclear Powerplant in New York. An accusation anti-nuclear groups sometimes make is to say that if you support nuclear, you must be a shill or you must use the nuclear industry-. While Patrick Moore former Greenpeace founder & now 'eco-Judas' works for the nuclear industry with the group Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, there's nothing wrong with that. Also there are many people who support nuclear/atomic energy & who don't work for the nuclear industry. The American Lung Assoc. supports nuclear/atomic energy & they don't work for the nuclear/atomic industry.
     
  15. Jiggs Casey

    Jiggs Casey New Member

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    So, you ask for a link. One is presented that says why. And then you dispute it without presenting your own link. Cool.

    Where is the uranium? Source your claim. Hopefully, you're not resting your argument on the deconstruction of missiles, and the like.

    and 3, not enough uranium.

    Well, at least you admit fossil fuels drive modern civilization by loosely agreeing they've been vastly underpriced for decades.
     
  16. PeakProphet

    PeakProphet Active Member

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    M. King Hubbert estimated the uranium energy value of the Gassaway member of the Chattanooga shale as enough to replace the energy value of all crude oil used on this planet, in one year, in a SINGLE SQUARE MILE.

    This particular shale covers 25,000 square miles or so.

    Hubbert in 1956 referred to it as a "trifling" amount.

    Stick with oil hysteria Jiggsy, your silly ideas don't work at all when such resource estimates can only lead to the word abundance. Look it up.
     
  17. PeakProphet

    PeakProphet Active Member

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    Childs play. Why don't I use a famous peak oiler for it?

    http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution

    2X10^10 tons of uranium in black shales enough to fill in those pipsqueak supply gaps you seem so concerned over Jiggsy? And from a peak oiler to boot!
     
  18. Jiggs Casey

    Jiggs Casey New Member

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    It's hardly surprising you'd not have any idea of the differences in ore grade, considering you have ZERO clue the differences in oil viscosity.

    You're clearly learning as you go along, working backwards from your conclusions, scrambling to "teh Googles" and spewing whatever you think you can find from blogs.

    Yeah, ummm... under 100 ppm is very low grade for a uranium mine. If the grade were 5-10x better, you might have something. Or at least get people to look at it seriously for an In Situ Leach (ISL) operation. Unfortunately, Chattanooga Shale is estimated to contain an average grade of 54 ppm. I crushed your argument on this already on USMB, and you bailed from the thread. Yet here you are back at it, with a new audience to try and fool.

    Here's more evidence that underlines my point: If Tenn. were at all a significant play for uranium ore all these decades later, it would have been developed in ever-greater quantities already. It's not. Do you think they prefer to just leave it in the ground and buy from Australia and China instead? lol...

    So in addition to oil, we can add nuclear to your realm of subject matter for which you obviously have no idea what you're ever talking about.
     
  19. beenthere

    beenthere Well-Known Member

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    Considering the price to build and mantaine a Nuke fire plant, I'll go with coal. We now have scrubbers that makes them viable. And so far as "GREEN" goes, that's a bad joke.
     
  20. beenthere

    beenthere Well-Known Member

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    This is viable because it was in my state. The cost of the thing and the price they charged for power was outrageous;

    The only nuclear power plant in Oregon shut down twenty years early, after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant in 1992. It cost $450 million to build the plant, and it is expected to cost the same amount, at least, to make it go away. In 2001, the 1,000-ton 1,130-megawatt reactor was encased in concrete foam, and coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit, and covered with six inches of gravel, making it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole. The plant went on line in 1976, and was said to have been built on an Indian burial ground. When it shut down 16 years later, it was the largest commercial reactor to be decommissioned. The 500-foot-tall cooling tower was imploded in May 2006. The spent fuel rods, however, are still stored on site, as they are at all the other 108 or so commercial reactors in the country. Almost 800 rods are in a pool, next to the Columbia River, awaiting the possible opening of the Yucca Mountain radioactive storage facility in Nevada.

    Location: 50 miles E of Astoria, 5 miles S of Longview, WA




    The coal fire Centralia Power Plant has ran far longer, and at a much ceaper cost and without the problems;

    "The existing coal-fired plant consists of two generating units with a total capacity of 1,340MW"

    Now, go fight the math
     
  21. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    Coal kills more people worldwide esp. in mining accidnts. We need to save fossil fuels for other uses. While coal has gotten cleaner, the fact is that coal gives out way more radiation & not every nation is using the cleaner coal such as China & India. The American Lung Association supports nuclear/atomic energy esp. as it's better for the lungs for asthmatics.

    Nuclear/atomic energy is not perfect, but it's not evil as groups like Greenpeace make it out to be. Also our energy demands are rising. We use more energy today now with the Internet & solar/wind is not going to provide energy 24/7. We need to expand nuclear/atomic energy & we need to put more focus on smaller reactors which can be put underground which don't pose much risk in worst case accident. Nuclear/atomic energy has advanced greatly since Chernobyl-they already use less Uranium which lasts longer & more energy. Thorium needs to be perfect. Physicist Kirk F. Sorensen is working to perfect the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor.
     
  22. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    It must be said that U.S. polls by Harris on nuclear energy vary on who supports vs. who opposes. They've found that people who live in the South are more likely to support nuclear energy whereas those who live on the East are less likely. It's hard to know the reliability of the polls. The nuclear industry is looking to put small reactors in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) project. The media tends to sensationalize things such as Fukushima, Chernobyl, etc. People with college education are more likely to support nuclear/atomic power vs. those w/o college education.
     
  23. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    It must be said that people like me who support nuclear/atomic power also support geothermal, hydro-electric dams, etc. Some companies such as Constellation who has done work with nuclear also does work building windmills. Engineering companies who work in nuclear/atomic industry-some have also done work building hydro-electric dams, etc. What we believe is that nuclear/atomic energy must be used along with others & it's wrong to say nuclear is evil. If a place can get 100% of it's energy from hydroelectric dams as some places in Canada do, then those places uses hydro-electric & the need for nuclear is not there. If a place can get 100% of it's energy from geothermal as Iceland does, then again, the need for nuclear/atomic energy is not there. But what we're against is having prohibitions against nuclear/atomic energy. We must use atomic/nuclear energy as well. Please know that those of us who support nuclear energy also support hydro-electric dams, geothermal, etc. If people have thoughts, then please share.
     
  24. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    Something to add which is that when Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy with President Bruno Comby was formed in 1996, it got hostility from environmentalists who oppose nuclear energy. In 1999, environmentalists who support nuclear energy were attacked in Paris France from those who oppose it. In 2004, the EFN website was hacked. :bonk: EFN got hostility but esp. since the mid 2000s, more environmentalists are debating nuclear energy. Though the National Audubon Society has not promoted nuclear, they have published letters in Audubon Magazine by those (my guess Audubon members) who support nuclear/atomic energy & have critiqued the National Audubon Society for giving windmills too much credit. With the Green Party in the U.K., there is Mark Lynas who supports nuclear/atomic power & he used to be anti-nuclear. Stephen Tindale of Climate Answers was mentioned earlier as an environmentalist who supports nuclear/atomic energy. It must be repeated that those of us who support nuclear/atomic energy incl. environmentalists who support nuclear/atomic energy are not going away & again, like it or not, the nuclear/atomic topic is not going away.
     
  25. snowisfun

    snowisfun Banned

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    Repeat, China, India, U.K., Russia, Poland , Czech Republic etc. are nations which are expanding nuclear power. Whether people agree or differ, the nuclear topic is not going away. Nigeria is the next African nation which is expected to get nuclear/atomic energy after South Africa. Russia now has nuclear icebreakers.
     

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