Just FWIW, there is currently only ONE nuclear unit under construction in the United States, and its been under construction for over 30 years (although really they took a 10 year break and started construction back up in 2008).
Just FWIW, there is currently only ONE nuclear unit under construction in the United States, and its been under construction for over 30 years (although really they took a 10 year break and started construction back up in 2008).
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: Eeezee
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: Eeezee
Originally posted by: JS80
Originally posted by: marincounty
Somehow, in spite of the CA liberal democratic retards, California has a GDP of $1.7 trillion,
if California were an independent nation, it would be the 10th largest in the world.
I can't imagine that we would have this kind of prosperity if we had greedy, selfish and incompetent Republicans running things.
Yea obviously it's the liberally ideology that produced the $1.7 trillion GDP :roll:
even still the joke's on you, CA government, even in a $1.7 trillion economy, manages to head into bankruptcy.
If CA wasn't forced to give billions to the federal government that eventually become handouts to primarily Republican states like Mississippi and Alabama, they wouldn't be having a budget problem. Remember: CA is one of the few states that actually gives money to the federal government rather than receiving it.
Most of the red states are not bankrupt today because they rely on billions in federal funding. Imagine that: the liberal CA state is the one GIVING to the red states rather than receiving.
Oh now you're complaining about wealth redistribution :roll:
Oh gee here's an idea, Cut CA state taxes from 9.3% to 0%, that way they can equalize this "inequity" you speak of.
But it's funny how "rich" people pay for free shit for "poor" people just like how "rich" states pay for "poor" states.
So you do not deny that red states are stealing money from a blue state in the form of the wealth redistribution that you so despise? You don't see a problem with saying "Haha CA is broke" when it's mostly red states that are leeching tax dollars from CA?
You'd rather create a strawman argument than actually deal with the issues I presented. The leftist CA budget would be in a much better place if not for the federal government taking money from CA and giving it to a bunch of red states that can't fend for themselves.
lol you're the one that created strawman by arguing state income redistribution.
You're wrong. If those billions would be left in the CA budget instead of being sent to other states, CA would not be in a budget crisis. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
One under construction, several that have been approved for choosing a site (which is considerably further than most applications have gotten in the last 20 years). Construction hasn't begun, but we should see their completion within a decade.
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
- 9,002
- 115
- 106
Green technology == $$? Yes, but this is more than twofold. First, it is expensive in terms of direct expenditure in the short run. However, many of these technologies' sources are much more secure and stable than, say, the market for fossil fuels or nuclear material. In the long run, switching to other sources, especially the renewable kind will save us a lot of $$ and headache in addition to the environmental benefits.
So, what should we do? Heavily invest in wind and solar infrastructure for starters. Solar towers and windmills can really go far in certain areas of the country. Although not renewable, I do support a massive ramp-up of nuclear generated power at the expense of oil. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with the specifics of geothermal for widespread use.
Nuclear material is a finite resource, so either we eventually switch to breeder reactors or go home. Nuclear Fusion research should be a national priority due to its potential for clean, reliable nature, and massive power capacity.
Coal supply is much more stable here in the states than oil or ng (in terms of price, availability, etc.) so it is a good medium-term solution, but it needs to be more heavily regulated in terms of emissions (and storage of coal ash..as recently demonstrated in the Tenessee Valley). I think carbon dioxide should be exempted here as long as the particulates, ozone-producing, and NOx emissions are controlled. Long-term, coal should go by the wayside as not only is the pollution a problem, but fossil fuels will likely be far more useful to humanity in the future for products as opposed to energy. Seriously, a shit-ton of products are made from coal/oil byproducts. Seems a waste to just burn it...
Hydro is pretty much maxed out, but there are some new technologies out that allows generation from smaller streams to augment local supplies. (The BBC recently had an article on an old hydro dam which was brought back into service through using a variation of Archimedes' screws to generate power...without the damage to local wildlife and massive flow requirements that traditional turbines provide.) There is also tidal or wave energy, but that seems pretty far off for wide-scale use outside of a few niche areas.
California is in its own special world...and needs to build some f*ing desalination plants if they are really concerned about ecosystems.
So, what should we do? Heavily invest in wind and solar infrastructure for starters. Solar towers and windmills can really go far in certain areas of the country. Although not renewable, I do support a massive ramp-up of nuclear generated power at the expense of oil. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with the specifics of geothermal for widespread use.
Nuclear material is a finite resource, so either we eventually switch to breeder reactors or go home. Nuclear Fusion research should be a national priority due to its potential for clean, reliable nature, and massive power capacity.
Coal supply is much more stable here in the states than oil or ng (in terms of price, availability, etc.) so it is a good medium-term solution, but it needs to be more heavily regulated in terms of emissions (and storage of coal ash..as recently demonstrated in the Tenessee Valley). I think carbon dioxide should be exempted here as long as the particulates, ozone-producing, and NOx emissions are controlled. Long-term, coal should go by the wayside as not only is the pollution a problem, but fossil fuels will likely be far more useful to humanity in the future for products as opposed to energy. Seriously, a shit-ton of products are made from coal/oil byproducts. Seems a waste to just burn it...
Hydro is pretty much maxed out, but there are some new technologies out that allows generation from smaller streams to augment local supplies. (The BBC recently had an article on an old hydro dam which was brought back into service through using a variation of Archimedes' screws to generate power...without the damage to local wildlife and massive flow requirements that traditional turbines provide.) There is also tidal or wave energy, but that seems pretty far off for wide-scale use outside of a few niche areas.
California is in its own special world...and needs to build some f*ing desalination plants if they are really concerned about ecosystems.
CA people pay higher income taxes because they make more money, and then this money is sent to other states. Most red states receive more than they put in. This is the Feds "taking" money from CA and giving it to other states.
yeah, maybe. But I sure wouldn't bet my life on it. Although ironically I did bet my career on it, so I am kinda heavily invested
...Modern lefties know that nuclear power is not really clean, somewhat reliable, and absolutely too expensive.
The only reason polls may indicate some majority favors building nuclear plants-is because of the massive lobbying efforts by the industry, and the oil price bubble.
Do a new poll, and tell people the relative costs of production, and you will find a large majority against building new nuclear plants.
nuclear plants have by far the lowest PRODUCTION costs of any source besides hydro. Perhaps you meant to say capital costs? But anyways, while you hear alot about a nuclear plant costing billions what you have to understand is that the power they produce in a year is worth eight hundred million dollars. Even if you spend 8 billion, but you make that money back in 10 years, and you gotta remember these plants run for 60 years.
Not to mention the fact that the environmental lobby is likely larger than the nuclear lobby even though the green industry is far smaller. Everyone acts like the oil, coal, nuclear, etc.. lobbies are the devil, but then the wind, solar, etc lobbies and the Virgin Mary. These peolpe stand to PROFIT by having you believe their whole green movement crap.
Dude, the UC schools RAPE ok? The ENTIRE UC system rapes whereas you can only pick like one or two state schools from other states that even compare. Ex: Texas, Michigan, Washington are great engineering schools, but Cal, fUCLA, SD are just as good. Look at US News before you talk. The CSU system is not a joke. SJSU, Cal Poly are excellent engineering schools, and can rank up there for programs w/o PhDs.
Hm, you make an interesting point about the lobbyists. Hadn't thought of that.
I thought the Tritium wouldn't be a problem because we'd be electrolyzing so much water for hydrogen powered cars + fresh water. That will solve the Deuterium needs for sure, at least.
edit: and as the other guy posted above, we have Lithium too for Tritium production. I thought the supply of lithium was a problem; but we have enough Lithium for "thousands of years" of energy production (Tritium). Lithium is also littered all over the asteroid belt. So the real problems appear to be materials able to withstand bombardment from neutrons with 14MeVs worth of energy, and these "reliability issues" you speak of.
I usually throw the "research fusion while we're using fission" to quiet those who absolutely want nothing to do with fissile products. While it would be a great thing to have, I would be perfectly happy with fission breeder reactors for (ever (we have anywhere from 10,000 to a practically infinite supply of U238)).
And yet the investment return is still $3 for every $1 invested into the UC system specifically.
I'm at a UC school now for graduate school, but I gut my undergrad elsewhere and have visited many other campuses around the country. A 1:1 retard-intelligence ratio is a lot better than you think. At most schools it's more like 1:5 or worse. Anyway, I'm not sure what your point was
Tritium, having a half-life of only a few weeks, is definitely the fuel constraint for the type of reactor being attempted at ITER.
Using lithium at a fission plant compromises your promise of infinite clean energy from fusion. Worse yet, you'll always have to have several fission plants operating in order to keep one fusion plant running. The maximum rate of tritium production at these places is slow, considerably slower than the rate of consumption at a fusion plant. There are a few other methods of production (deuterium-deterium collisions) but most of them cost more energy than you'd get back. I'm not sure what you were talking about with electrolysis; deuterium water is rare, so you can get some deuterium from mass electrolysis efforts if you're making hydrogen cells anyway, but tritium water is pretty much nonexistent to my knowledge.
We can always hope that there will be some breakthrough in tritium production, but that's the kind of thing that got the electric car killed in the 70s; producers kept hoping for better battery technology that never came, and that gave car companies an excuse for the last 40 years to not bother investing in the technology anymore. It's sad that so many important scientific projects are often left underfunded by investors who lack vision, but I guess that's part of being human.
In any case, I believe fusion power will work eventually, but it will never work on its own. I see no problem with running numerous fission plants at the same time, so long as we get rid of every last coal power plant.
K1052
Elite Member
- Aug 21, 2003
- 52,041
- 44,981
- 136
Tritium has a half life of 12.32 years and is generally produced in small quantities due to the generally limited usefulness outside of the nuclear weapons program and the inherent inefficiency in stockpiling it considering it's relatively short half life.
Yeah 12 years I was going to say...I thought you knew what you were talking about.
Deuterium water is 1/6000 Hydrogen atoms. Hardly rare when you're desalinating water for the whole world and for car fuel.
It seems fission is all we need, forever basically-- fusion doesn't have that many up-sides.
BeauJangles
Lifer
- Aug 26, 2001
- 13,941
- 1
- 0
OP -- have you ever been to Germany? It's a wonderful country, but it has its host of problems. The Reichstag is an amazing building, but it's FREEZING in the winter. Like damn cold. Your example of the Hauptbanhof is a good example of some of the beautiful buildings being built in Germany, but it's been YEARS delayed due to crappy construction, bloated construction costs, etc, etc.
You also have to understand that Germany has focused on things like infrastructure and green technology as a way of combating unemployment, especially in the Eastern part of the state. Since 1991, Germany has pumped nearly 100 billion dollars into the East German economy and a lot of this has manifested itself as green technology and new, cutting-edge technology. It seems to me like people here get up in arms when Obama starts talking about job creation, but then salivate over other country's job creation programs?
You also have to understand that Germany has focused on things like infrastructure and green technology as a way of combating unemployment, especially in the Eastern part of the state. Since 1991, Germany has pumped nearly 100 billion dollars into the East German economy and a lot of this has manifested itself as green technology and new, cutting-edge technology. It seems to me like people here get up in arms when Obama starts talking about job creation, but then salivate over other country's job creation programs?
Woofmeister
Golden Member
- Jul 18, 2004
- 1,385
- 1
- 76
On a side note, it's comparisons like this that make it impossible to consider Tom Friedman a serious journalist. New York's Penn Station is notorious as one of the most disgusting train stations in the country (and I use it every day). Naturally Berlin's central train station will look great by comparison. Of course Friedman could have walked up over to 42nd Street and Park and used New York's Grand Central Station as the U.S. comparator, but that would have undermined his central thesis.
again, just FWIW, fusion reactions produce considerably LESS energy than fission reactions. The D+T fusion is like 20MeV whereas the U235 fission is 235MeV. The correct statement is that fusion reactions produce more energy per nucleon as the reactants are much smaller.
Berlin Hbf (central station) is brand new because they needed something to connect the East + West Berlin together.
There is really no comparison. If you look at train stations in other parts of Germany they aren't all THAT impressive. I thought the DC union station looked really nice.
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