McCain calls for 45 new Nuclear Reactors

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: CyberDuck

Originally posted by: marincounty

Maybe because we are overspending on defense spending, and have been for forty years?

The 2005 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined [7] and is over eight times larger than the official military budget of China. (Note that this comparison is done in nominal value US dollars and thus is not adjusted for purchasing power parity.) The United States and its close allies are responsible for about two-thirds of the world's military spending (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for the majority).


Military discretionary spending accounts for more than half of the U.S. federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. federal government budget that is not appropriated for mandatory spending.[8]

In 2003, the United States spent about 47% of the world's total military spending of US$910.6 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Text

And the extremely strange thing is that this apparantly is not much debated in the U.S.

Yep. Mega-billions seem to be ok - but bring up a few million $ pork project and there will indignation for days, maybe weeks.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Jesus Christ, I'm surrounded by pin heads. You know nothing. The associations that come into you airy head have no grounding in experience or reality. You're like a monkey grinding an organ. Your self proclaimed pronouncements don't mean shit. Drop the naive arrogant pretense and do some reading. You're a puddle a mile wide and an inch deep.

Mmm yes, that's right. Let it all out.


Oddly enough, his post is less random than anything you come up with. He's far more grounded in the real world than you are. I'm beginning to think that even Santa Claus is more grounded in reality.

Originally posted by: marincounty
Suppose a big breakthrough in solar cell technology made nuclear plants obsolete.

Would you abandon your job in nuclear energy and find something else to do, or would continue pushing the obsolete technology?

That issue could be addressed when it becomes a concern.
We'd also need a breakthrough in battery technology, since most people like to have electricity when it's cloudy or dark.


I'm not in the nuclear industry, nor can I really speak for anyone working in it, but if the demand for nuclear plants goes away with the advent of some new technology, the jobs will go away on their own.

 

[Moonbeam]

"Oddly enough, his post is less random than anything you come up with. He's far more grounded in the real world than you are. I'm beginning to think that even Santa Claus is more grounded in reality."

Judging by the quality of the posts you've make here, I can easily imagine you to be one of the few people who could actually look up to him. Your posts, in fact have been of such a pathetic quality that I've completely ignored them, and I note with some amusement that this seems to keeps you coming back with more and more. The answer to a fool is silence, buy experience tells us, in the long run anything else will in the long run have the same effect. Please, can we have some more of your drivel?

 

[KurskKnyaz]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Moonbeam's argument isn't that nuclear can't be (relatively) safely stored of, just that opinions on nuclear don't seem to make long-term storage a realistic solution. Senator Harry Reid is a big opponent of Yucca Mountain and has vowed to ensure that it doesn't come to fruition. As Senate majority leader, he now has the power to greatly influence the future of the project. There is a very real possibility that Yucca Mountain will be scrapped, meaning that the four decades of research and nine billion dollars thrown at the project all would have been in vain. And thanks to the not-in-my-backyard mentality and general fear/ignorance about nuclear, it is likely other sites at other locations would meet the same fate. Or instead, we could spend the money on projects such as CSP, which may not be quite as efficient/cost effective, but are clean, safe, and don't produce radioactive waste. 🙂

First of all, its hard to tell what Moonbeams argument is since he's going all over the place.

Second, I have nothing against solar power; it's great. However it is NOT an ALTERNATIVE to nuclear and never will be. Sure, it can reduce energy costs but it will not solve our energy problem.

CSP is not as cost effective, it is about just as clean as nuclear, insignificantly safer (as nuclear is very safe), but yes produces no waste.

The one thing that is correct is that politics will set nuclear back. This is unfortunate.

When presented the choice to build a solar plant or a nuke plant in the desert, the nuke plant is the reasonable choice ...until politics come into play.

 

[KurskKnyaz]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: QuantumPion

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: QuantumPion

Obama's response sounds to me like a calcualted political statement designed to sound good but have no real meaning, leaving him free to change his position at any time. Just like Hillary's "I don't think illegals should be able to get drivers licenses...but illegals do need them because they are going to be on our roads anyway". In other words, he's taking both sides of the issue so that both his supporters and the middle-of-the-roaders will hear what they want to hear.

I want a president whose mind takes a flexible approach with most issues. That's a big part of thinking critically and responsibly. Besides, it sure as hell beats a candidate who makes a bunch of rock solid promises involving "guaranteed" outcomes that only turn out to be considered lies after they become president. Despite how much McCain may be campaigning to promise this and that, the truth is that he is just as free to change his position at any time if he becomes president just as much as Obama is able to. Or worse...he will realize after becoming pres that some of his promises are no longer a good idea but chooses to go through with them anyways because he doesn't want to be called a liar and reduce his chances of becoming re-elected.

I want a president that is going to do say what he does, and do what he says. Flexibility is fine, but ambiguity is just political garbage.

How many elections have you won? You sound like a pin head engineer.

What?!

yo' mama's a rocket scientist.

 

[KurskKnyaz]

Originally posted by: marincounty
Suppose a big breakthrough in solar cell technology made nuclear plants obsolete.

Would you abandon your job in nuclear energy and find something else to do, or would continue pushing the obsolete technology?

Won't happen.

Chemical reactions derive their energy from breaking chemical bonds and/or ionization.

Nuclear power derives its energy by converting matter into energy, that's (DELTA)E=mc^2.

Not happening.

 

[KurskKnyaz]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: marincounty

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: marincounty
Suppose a big breakthrough in solar cell technology made nuclear plants obsolete.

Would you abandon your job in nuclear energy and find something else to do, or would continue pushing the obsolete technology?

Nuclear power generators are used on submarines.

I'm interested to hear of your theory about deploying solar panels on submarines.

🙂

Fern

The cold war is over. Time to scrap most of our nuclear fleet. Time to quit wasting money on new submarines and aircraft carriers.

If only we could... But face it, we are humans and humans are an inherently warlike species. I don't think it can be bred out.

There is a distinct possibility that subs are the main stabilizing factor in the world now. Nobody (well, almost) really knows where they are.

And, I think the cold war is just chillin'. There's just too much money to be made from wars.

Early Humans Were Prey, Not Predators, Experts Say

Prehistoric people were cooperators, not fighters.

That's the new theory proposed in two recent books and at a talk last month during an annual scientific meeting.

The theory is part of a movement to debunk a long-running scientific bias that early humans were warlike.

"It developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive, and a natural killer," said Robert W. Sussman, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

"In fact, when you really examine the fossil and living nonhuman primate evidence, that is just not the case."

Agustin Fuentes, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, agrees with Sussman.

"Humanity evolved much more by helping each other rather than by fighting with each other," he said. "We shaped the environment and changed how other organisms interacted with it."

Fuentes and other researchers believe that early humans were a prey species hunted by bear-size hyenas, saber-toothed cats, and many other large carnivores.

Early humans survived while other primate species died out because our ancestors cooperated to alter their surroundings, the researchers say.

This cooperation deflected the risk of predation onto other nearby prey species, which became more vulnerable because early humans weren't as easy to catch.

The researchers presented their theories in February at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

Rewriting Assumptions

Sussman is the co-author of a 2005 book, Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution.

In the book, Sussman and Donna L. Hart, a University of Missouri-St. Louis anthropologist, first argued that early humans evolved not as hunters but as prey.

The book title harks back to a 1966 symposium, "Man the Hunter," held at the University of Chicago and a 1968 book with the same title.

Both the symposium and the 1968 book represented what was then cutting edge research into the planet's living hunter-gatherer societies. Many anthropologists would study these cultures' traditional lifestyles to gain insight into early human behaviors.

Some of the most celebrated research in support of the view of humans as warriors had come from Napoleon Chagnon, an anthropologist now retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Chagnon studied warfare and other attributes of the Yanomami, or Yanomamo, tribes of the Amazon Basin. His 1968 book on the tribe sold a million copies and became required reading in many anthropology classrooms.

This year Douglas Fry, a researcher affiliated with both Åbo Akademi University in Finland and the University of Arizona in Tucson, published a book called The Human Potential for Peace, which refutes some of Chagnon's key findings.

Fry writes that early studies defining humans by their capacity for killing are flawed. There's just as much evidence, he says, that humans had an established track record in peaceful conflict resolution.

Specifically, Fry's new book pokes holes in Chagnon's assertion that Yanomami men who were efficient warriors had more children.

Fry says a reanalysis of the data reveals that Chagnon failed to control for age differences. Fry concludes that it was actually older tribal members, not necessarily the best warriors, who had achieved greater success at reproduction.

And that, Fry says, can be expected in any culture, regardless of a propensity for violence.

What Do the Fossils Say?

Instead of studying living traditional cultures, as Chagnon did, Washington University's Sussman decided to base his research for Man the Hunted on a hard look at the fossil record.

"I have always, since my early days in anthropology, thought the hunting hypothesis was based on little actual evidence from the fossils," Sussman said.

Sussman found that our ancestors from three or four million years ago, Australopithecus afarensis, had small teeth, lacked tools, and were about three feet (one meter) tall.

Lacking size or weapons, this early human species most likely used brains, agility, and social skills to escape from predators, the anthropologist says.

At that time, he says, A. afarensis suffered the same predation rates as many other primate species?about 6 percent.

But about two million years ago there was a shift in the record. Somehow predation rates on other species suddenly went up while rates on human ancestors declined.

Another group of primates with humanlike attributes, the genus Paranthropus, went extinct by about one million years ago?the same time our predecessor, Homo erectus, was expanding across Africa and Eurasia.

All the Angles

Several other researchers presented in St. Louis their work exploring various genetic, hormonal, and psychiatric explanations for early humans' success.

James K. Rilling directs the Laboratory for Darwinian Neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta. His brain-imaging studies have revealed a potential connection between the act of cooperating and the brain's reward centers.

If prehistoric humans got instant gratification from cooperating, he says, that may have aided group survival.

And Charles Snowdon, a psychologist and zoologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, pointed out that expectant monkey fathers gain weight and take on hormonal changes along with their pregnant partners.

The study offers evidence that these primates evolved to be good fathers, an important attribute for protecting young from predators.

Snowdon's endocrine studies have also shown that the likelihood that male primates will dally with new females decreases when the male already has a mate?and still more when the pair is raising offspring.

It's possible a similar system of mate fidelity aided the group cohesion needed to minimize predation in early humans, he said.

The University of Arizona's Fry says the notion that early humans relied on cooperation changes more than the widespread image of a club-toting early human in a warlike stance.

He believes it has implications for today's human interactions.

"Many of us Westerners share a view of human nature that humans are naturally warlike," Fry said. "This view helps perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Changing our perspective to match the anthropological record, he said, "opens new possibilities in today's world.

You just took "ridiculous" to a whole new level. You've really outdone yourself.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Judging by the quality of the posts you've make here, I can easily imagine you to be one of the few people who could actually look up to him. Your posts, in fact have been of such a pathetic quality that I've completely ignored them, and I note with some amusement that this seems to keeps you coming back with more and more. The answer to a fool is silence, buy experience tells us, in the long run anything else will in the long run have the same effect. Please, can we have some more of your drivel?

Or I can simply take your advice, and give you the silence you deserve. 🙂

 

[BrownTown]

I don't even know why people like to argue with Moonbeam, its just like talking to a brick wall, nothing you say is gonna get through, so you might as well stop talking. It does sorta suck that he always trolls alot of the good threads and makes it so we can't ever have a reasonable discussion without his absurd interjections, but its best just to leave the trolls alone instead of feeding them (this post not withstanding).

As for an observation from someone looking down on this thread, it is a grand example of the Churchill quote that, "the greatest argument against democracy is to talk to the average man and then realize that half the people out there are even dumber than him". I'm not trying to say anyone here is of inferior intelligence, but it is quite clear that there are vastly different levels of knowledge and understanding and it is kind of sad the fervor that can be seen here (and even more so in the real world) by people with so little understanding of reality. The fact of the matter is that there really are only 2 economical sources of base load power in the world we live in, they are coal and nuclear. Wind is decently close, but only in some areas and is not reliable enough to even be a base load source of power. Everything else is FAR more expensive. With natural gas at $13/million btu it doesnt take a genius to realize that even a combined cycle plant with 7000btu/kwh dispatches at $91/mwh, and simple cycle is closer to $150/mwh. Meanwhile solar is at something more like $400/mwh. Nuclear is $10-$20, coal is $20-$40. Even if you look at the all in costs nuclear is still cheaper then even the fuel cost for combined cycle natural gas (not to mention the $800/kw capital costs). Sure people like to look at nuclear's high capital cost (new contracts would seem to have it at $4000/kwh), but you have to consider both capital and fuel costs, and with the rising prices of coal and natural gas nuclear really is the best option for cheap and reliable base load energy production.

Now I know that not everyone really like nuclear, but the way you have to understand it is that you can decide between nuclear and solar or other "green power", the only real decision is nuclear vs coal and imo nuclear wins. At the very least if you want to argue for solar or other green power then at least include in your decision nuclear verse solar at THREE TO TEN TIMES THE DELIVERED COST COST OF POWER (yes that sorta pulled out my ass, but you get the idea, the price will be WAAY high, whether its $200/MWH or $500/MWH, nobody really knows since solar has never been deployed on that scale before).

 

[marincounty]

Originally posted by: KurskKnyaz

Originally posted by: marincounty
Suppose a big breakthrough in solar cell technology made nuclear plants obsolete.

Would you abandon your job in nuclear energy and find something else to do, or would continue pushing the obsolete technology?

Won't happen.

Chemical reactions derive their energy from breaking chemical bonds and/or ionization.

Nuclear power derives its energy by converting matter into energy, that's (DELTA)E=mc^2.

Not happening.

Actually, Wind power is already as cheap as Nuclear. Why take the chance of a catastrophic accident and nasty wastes when much cleaner alternatives are just as cheap?
Not to mention, when was the last time a nuclear plant came in on budget?

Text
In 2006, Business Week magazine stated, "...,the [US] industry is aiming to build new plants for $1,500 to $2,000 per kilowatt of capacity,...". However, they also added, "Trouble is, the cheapest plants built recently, all outside the U.S., have cost more than $2,000 per kilowatt."[11] 2007 estimates have considerable uncertainty in overnight cost, and vary widely from $2,950/kWe to a Moody's Investors Service conservative estimate of between $5,000 and $6,000/kWe.[12]

In June 2008, Moody's estimated the cost of installing new nuclear capacity in the US to potentially exceed $7,000/kWe. In comparison, Moody's estimated wind and solar to cost $2,000 and $3,000/kWe. However, these estimates did not take into account the capacity factor for power generation which stands at 25-35% for wind, 25% for solar and 90% for nuclear. [13] [14] [15] The capacity factor means that three to four times as many wind or solar plants need to be built to achieve any given nameplate capacity rating that a single nuclear plant could achieve.

Provisional contracts for two AP1000 power stations at the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station have estimated costs of approximately $4.9 billion per power station, which is in line with an overnight cost of about $4,400/kWe. The operators are filing an application to increase customers bills by $1.2 billion (2.5%) during the construction period to partially finance capital costs.[16]

 

[KurskKnyaz]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
I don't even know why people like to argue with Moonbeam, its just like talking to a brick wall, nothing you say is gonna get through, so you might as well stop talking. It does sorta suck that he always trolls alot of the good threads and makes it so we can't ever have a reasonable discussion without his absurd interjections, but its best just to leave the trolls alone instead of feeding them (this post not withstanding).

You're a heartless Nuclear Engineer who's willing to starve trolls and upset their innocent troll soccer moms.

...anyway this thread is done. I'm going to let a moon beam of those burritos I just ate out of my ass now.

 

[KurskKnyaz]

Originally posted by: marincounty

Actually, Wind power is already as cheap as Nuclear. Why take the chance of a catastrophic accident and nasty wastes when much cleaner alternatives are just as cheap?
Not to mention, when was the last time a nuclear plant came in on budget?

Like I said with solar power, not everyone in the country has the area and conditions for wind and not everyone can rely on weather for power.


This is right out of the article you posted:


The capacity factor means that three to four times as many wind or solar plants need to be built to achieve any given nameplate capacity rating that a single nuclear plant could achieve.

 

[marincounty]

Originally posted by: KurskKnyaz

Originally posted by: marincounty

Actually, Wind power is already as cheap as Nuclear. Why take the chance of a catastrophic accident and nasty wastes when much cleaner alternatives are just as cheap?
Not to mention, when was the last time a nuclear plant came in on budget?

Like I said with solar power, not everyone in the country has the area and conditions for wind and not everyone can rely on weather for power.


This is right out of the article you posted:


The capacity factor means that three to four times as many wind or solar plants need to be built to achieve any given nameplate capacity rating that a single nuclear plant could achieve.

This is also out of the article I posted: Moody's estimated the cost of installing new nuclear capacity in the US to potentially exceed $7,000/kWe. Moody's estimated wind and solar to cost $2,000 and $3,000/kWe. $2000 x 3 = $6,000/kWe.

$6,000<$7,000

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: marincounty

Originally posted by: KurskKnyaz

Originally posted by: marincounty

Actually, Wind power is already as cheap as Nuclear. Why take the chance of a catastrophic accident and nasty wastes when much cleaner alternatives are just as cheap?
Not to mention, when was the last time a nuclear plant came in on budget?

Like I said with solar power, not everyone in the country has the area and conditions for wind and not everyone can rely on weather for power.


This is right out of the article you posted:


The capacity factor means that three to four times as many wind or solar plants need to be built to achieve any given nameplate capacity rating that a single nuclear plant could achieve.

This is also out of the article I posted: Moody's estimated the cost of installing new nuclear capacity in the US to potentially exceed $7,000/kWe. Moody's estimated wind and solar to cost $2,000 and $3,000/kWe. $2000 x 3 = $6,000/kWe.

$6,000<$7,000

Well I hate to let facts get in the way of these sorts of calculations, but I would be VERY interested to see someone post an example of a solar plant with a turn key price less than $3000/kw. Hell, I would even be impressed if they could make $5,000/kw

 

[KurskKnyaz]

The key word is "installing". In the long run nuclear will generate a lot more power and once again not everyone can install wind.

 

[BansheeX]

Not to mention wind takes up a lot of space for the power it generates, kills birds, and causes deaths to repairmen climbing up and down those godforsaken things. It will be an integral part to the arsenal, like solar, but it's no all-round awesome like modern nuclear.

Don't worry, though, the old-time "environmentalists" will keep bitching and blocking and inciting even more resource wars. Somehow economic collapse and world wars are just more appealing to them. Ultimately, I believe they want humans to annihilate themselves so that rabbits can munch their grass in peace until the sun eventually dies.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: BansheeX
Not to mention wind takes up a lot of space for the power it generates, kills birds, and causes deaths to repairmen climbing up and down those godforsaken things. It will be an integral part to the arsenal, like solar, but it's no all-round awesome like modern nuclear.

Don't worry, though, the old-time "environmentalists" will keep bitching and blocking and inciting even more resource wars. Somehow economic collapse and world wars are just more appealing to them. Ultimately, I believe they want humans to annihilate themselves so that rabbits can munch their grass in peace until the sun eventually dies.

Someone's got to be paying you to spout this dribble. You just can't be this unhappy of a human.

 

[BansheeX]

Huh? It's not my position to increase oil dependency the last thirty years while blocking nuclear, it's theirs. All the shit you see today with resource wars, global food prices, even global warming if we give them that, is PARTIALLY a result of their insane fearmongering towards nuclear power. We should be 80% nuclear by now. Instead, we've been caught with our pants down, staring at an inflationary depression or a war with Iran and no immediate fix. We don't have the savings for investment, and it will take years for this stuff to start getting built again. Why do people have to wait until their children are knee deep in this shit for them to actually do research and support the right policies? That's all I'm trying to say. Why now? Why only take seriously the nuclear argument now? McCain isn't breaking any new ground here, people have been trying to move away from imported fossil fuels for years.

 

[BrownTown]

Just FWIW concerning oil and nuclear, they are not really all that related. Nuclear is only used for electricity, and Oil is not used for electricity anywhere in this country. Nuclear and oil and in completely different parts of the energy sector and neither one really has any possibility to effect the other unless we get electric cars, or maybe if oil prices are cut to 1/5 what they are today (because thats how much more expensive it is than coal and nuclear).

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: KurskKnyaz

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: marincounty

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: marincounty
Suppose a big breakthrough in solar cell technology made nuclear plants obsolete.

Would you abandon your job in nuclear energy and find something else to do, or would continue pushing the obsolete technology?

Nuclear power generators are used on submarines.

I'm interested to hear of your theory about deploying solar panels on submarines.

🙂

Fern

The cold war is over. Time to scrap most of our nuclear fleet. Time to quit wasting money on new submarines and aircraft carriers.

If only we could... But face it, we are humans and humans are an inherently warlike species. I don't think it can be bred out.

There is a distinct possibility that subs are the main stabilizing factor in the world now. Nobody (well, almost) really knows where they are.

And, I think the cold war is just chillin'. There's just too much money to be made from wars.

Early Humans Were Prey, Not Predators, Experts Say

Prehistoric people were cooperators, not fighters.

That's the new theory proposed in two recent books and at a talk last month during an annual scientific meeting.

The theory is part of a movement to debunk a long-running scientific bias that early humans were warlike.

"It developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive, and a natural killer," said Robert W. Sussman, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

"In fact, when you really examine the fossil and living nonhuman primate evidence, that is just not the case."

Agustin Fuentes, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, agrees with Sussman.

"Humanity evolved much more by helping each other rather than by fighting with each other," he said. "We shaped the environment and changed how other organisms interacted with it."

Fuentes and other researchers believe that early humans were a prey species hunted by bear-size hyenas, saber-toothed cats, and many other large carnivores.

Early humans survived while other primate species died out because our ancestors cooperated to alter their surroundings, the researchers say.

This cooperation deflected the risk of predation onto other nearby prey species, which became more vulnerable because early humans weren't as easy to catch.

The researchers presented their theories in February at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

Rewriting Assumptions

Sussman is the co-author of a 2005 book, Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution.

In the book, Sussman and Donna L. Hart, a University of Missouri-St. Louis anthropologist, first argued that early humans evolved not as hunters but as prey.

The book title harks back to a 1966 symposium, "Man the Hunter," held at the University of Chicago and a 1968 book with the same title.

Both the symposium and the 1968 book represented what was then cutting edge research into the planet's living hunter-gatherer societies. Many anthropologists would study these cultures' traditional lifestyles to gain insight into early human behaviors.

Some of the most celebrated research in support of the view of humans as warriors had come from Napoleon Chagnon, an anthropologist now retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Chagnon studied warfare and other attributes of the Yanomami, or Yanomamo, tribes of the Amazon Basin. His 1968 book on the tribe sold a million copies and became required reading in many anthropology classrooms.

This year Douglas Fry, a researcher affiliated with both Åbo Akademi University in Finland and the University of Arizona in Tucson, published a book called The Human Potential for Peace, which refutes some of Chagnon's key findings.

Fry writes that early studies defining humans by their capacity for killing are flawed. There's just as much evidence, he says, that humans had an established track record in peaceful conflict resolution.

Specifically, Fry's new book pokes holes in Chagnon's assertion that Yanomami men who were efficient warriors had more children.

Fry says a reanalysis of the data reveals that Chagnon failed to control for age differences. Fry concludes that it was actually older tribal members, not necessarily the best warriors, who had achieved greater success at reproduction.

And that, Fry says, can be expected in any culture, regardless of a propensity for violence.

What Do the Fossils Say?

Instead of studying living traditional cultures, as Chagnon did, Washington University's Sussman decided to base his research for Man the Hunted on a hard look at the fossil record.

"I have always, since my early days in anthropology, thought the hunting hypothesis was based on little actual evidence from the fossils," Sussman said.

Sussman found that our ancestors from three or four million years ago, Australopithecus afarensis, had small teeth, lacked tools, and were about three feet (one meter) tall.

Lacking size or weapons, this early human species most likely used brains, agility, and social skills to escape from predators, the anthropologist says.

At that time, he says, A. afarensis suffered the same predation rates as many other primate species?about 6 percent.

But about two million years ago there was a shift in the record. Somehow predation rates on other species suddenly went up while rates on human ancestors declined.

Another group of primates with humanlike attributes, the genus Paranthropus, went extinct by about one million years ago?the same time our predecessor, Homo erectus, was expanding across Africa and Eurasia.

All the Angles

Several other researchers presented in St. Louis their work exploring various genetic, hormonal, and psychiatric explanations for early humans' success.

James K. Rilling directs the Laboratory for Darwinian Neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta. His brain-imaging studies have revealed a potential connection between the act of cooperating and the brain's reward centers.

If prehistoric humans got instant gratification from cooperating, he says, that may have aided group survival.

And Charles Snowdon, a psychologist and zoologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, pointed out that expectant monkey fathers gain weight and take on hormonal changes along with their pregnant partners.

The study offers evidence that these primates evolved to be good fathers, an important attribute for protecting young from predators.

Snowdon's endocrine studies have also shown that the likelihood that male primates will dally with new females decreases when the male already has a mate?and still more when the pair is raising offspring.

It's possible a similar system of mate fidelity aided the group cohesion needed to minimize predation in early humans, he said.

The University of Arizona's Fry says the notion that early humans relied on cooperation changes more than the widespread image of a club-toting early human in a warlike stance.

He believes it has implications for today's human interactions.

"Many of us Westerners share a view of human nature that humans are naturally warlike," Fry said. "This view helps perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Changing our perspective to match the anthropological record, he said, "opens new possibilities in today's world.

You just took "ridiculous" to a whole new level. You've really outdone yourself.

You should know that your saying I'm ridiculous is ridiculousness itself. Any moron can call somebody a name. You can't argue or make any case.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Judging by the quality of the posts you've make here, I can easily imagine you to be one of the few people who could actually look up to him. Your posts, in fact have been of such a pathetic quality that I've completely ignored them, and I note with some amusement that this seems to keeps you coming back with more and more. The answer to a fool is silence, buy experience tells us, in the long run anything else will in the long run have the same effect. Please, can we have some more of your drivel?

Or I can simply take your advice, and give you the silence you deserve. 🙂

Good

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
I don't even know why people like to argue with Moonbeam, its just like talking to a brick wall, nothing you say is gonna get through, so you might as well stop talking. It does sorta suck that he always trolls alot of the good threads and makes it so we can't ever have a reasonable discussion without his absurd interjections, but its best just to leave the trolls alone instead of feeding them (this post not withstanding).

As for an observation from someone looking down on this thread, it is a grand example of the Churchill quote that, "the greatest argument against democracy is to talk to the average man and then realize that half the people out there are even dumber than him". I'm not trying to say anyone here is of inferior intelligence, but it is quite clear that there are vastly different levels of knowledge and understanding and it is kind of sad the fervor that can be seen here (and even more so in the real world) by people with so little understanding of reality. The fact of the matter is that there really are only 2 economical sources of base load power in the world we live in, they are coal and nuclear. Wind is decently close, but only in some areas and is not reliable enough to even be a base load source of power. Everything else is FAR more expensive. With natural gas at $13/million btu it doesnt take a genius to realize that even a combined cycle plant with 7000btu/kwh dispatches at $91/mwh, and simple cycle is closer to $150/mwh. Meanwhile solar is at something more like $400/mwh. Nuclear is $10-$20, coal is $20-$40. Even if you look at the all in costs nuclear is still cheaper then even the fuel cost for combined cycle natural gas (not to mention the $800/kw capital costs). Sure people like to look at nuclear's high capital cost (new contracts would seem to have it at $4000/kwh), but you have to consider both capital and fuel costs, and with the rising prices of coal and natural gas nuclear really is the best option for cheap and reliable base load energy production.

Now I know that not everyone really like nuclear, but the way you have to understand it is that you can decide between nuclear and solar or other "green power", the only real decision is nuclear vs coal and imo nuclear wins. At the very least if you want to argue for solar or other green power then at least include in your decision nuclear verse solar at THREE TO TEN TIMES THE DELIVERED COST COST OF POWER (yes that sorta pulled out my ass, but you get the idea, the price will be WAAY high, whether its $200/MWH or $500/MWH, nobody really knows since solar has never been deployed on that scale before).

First you make the same absurd pronouncements that I'm a troll or this and that but don't make any case. Of course there's no point arguing with a block head like you because you're mind is already all screwed up. I have verified this fact to be factually my opinion. 😉

Good thing you weren't saying anybody here isn't intelligent while of course in your not so disguised arrogance that's exactly what you were saying, and while all the time actually referring to yourself. I say this with all the confidence of an Olympian God who looks down on your feeble words in pity.

Choice based on cost:

Cost of Wind vs Cost of Nuclear to Replace Coal
One of our commenters, David Bradish, has asked how wind is more cost effective than nuclear to replace coal. The short answer is: It is cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, and it is a lower risk to investors, which means that the cost of financing for wind is lower on private capital markets.

To make this case I use figures from two sources: "The Projected Costs of Generating Electricity" produced by the International Energy Agency/Nuclear Energy Agency, and "The Future of Nuclear Power" produced by MIT.

First, and most important, the cost of capital. Unlike in previous decades, much of the regulatory risk shield for utilities has been taken down by deregulation. Now new power plant projects must compete for capital on private capital markets, i.e., investors. Investors attach a cost to the money invested in terms of a return on capital. This is often expressed as a "discount rate" in financial calculations. Higher risk projects are expected to have a higher return, and thus the cost of the capital is assessed at a higher discount rate.

David had quoted a figure of $21-$31/MWh for the levelized cost of electricity from nuclear power, citing the "Projected Cost" study mentioned earlier. This does not show the whole picture, however. If you look at the cost of nuclear power in the US cited in the study, there are actually two figures. One is $30.1/MWh at a 5% discount rate. The other is $46.5/MWh at a 10% discount rate. This range shows the effect of the cost of capital on the overall cost of electricity.

The MIT study uses a cost model that includes the cost of capital, taxes and inflation. It projects cost using two capacity factors, 75% and 85%. This study cites a figure of $67/MWh as the most optimistic (40 year period, 85% capacity factor) and $79/MWh (25 year period, 75% capacity factor). It justifies the capacity factor by saying that the 90% CF cited by David has only recently been achieved by US plants, and represents a peak. 75%-85% is more in line with actual plants over their operating lifetime.

The MIT study does not include wind power in the analysis. However, the "Projected Costs" study cites the levelized cost of wind generated power as $31.1/MWh at the 5% discount rate and $47.8/MWh at the 10% discount rate.

This shows us the cost of wind generated electricity and the cost of nuclear generated electricity are roughly equivalent at the two discount rates. However, the question is, given an equal, unsubsidized playing field, where nuclear and wind were going head-to-head in private capital markets, how would investors be likely to assess the risks of the two technologies? What return on investment would they expect. In other words, what would be the discount rates associated with wind and nuclear? Would they be the same?

The MIT study says the following: "In deregulated markets, nuclear power is not now cost competitive with coal and natural gas." In order to become competitive, the nuclear power industry must deal with four critical areas: 1) Cost (including operational cost and construction time); 2) Safety (including the overall nuclear fuel cycle; 3) Waste (demonstrating workability of long term geologic disposal; 4) Proliferation (current safeguards inadequate).

The "Projected Costs" study qualitatively evaluates the regulatory risk of nuclear to be "High", whereas wind is "Medium". The operating costs of nuclear are "Medium" where wind is "Very Low". Fuel costs of nuclear are "Low", where wind is, of course, "Nil."

Given all these factors, I argue that in equal, unsubsidized competition in private capital markets, the cost of capital for wind would be closer to the 5% discount rate ($31.1/MWh) whereas the cost of capital for nuclear would be closer to, or exceed the 10% discount rate ($46.5/MWh-$79/MWh).

The other three areas involved in calculating levelized cost are construction cost ("Overnight cost") Operations and Maintenance cost (O&M) and Fuel cost. In the "Projected Costs" study, overnight cost for nuclear is $1894/kW vs $1024/kW for onshore wind. O&M cost for nuclear is $63/kW vs $27/kW for wind. Fuel cost for nuclear is $4.60/MWh vs 0 for wind. It is not clear from the study if this fuel cost is subsidized or actual.

Other costs, so-called "externalities", are associated with nuclear, but not with wind. These are environmental costs not borne by the nuclear power providers, but are transferred, usually to the government. These include the cost of mitigating the effects of open pit uranium mining on groundwater, the effects of improper disposal of toxic wastes associated with uranium refining and enriching, and the environmental effects on recycling warm water used for cooling reactors back into the environment.

In summary, then, nuclear plants are more costly to build, take longer to build, cost more to operate and maintain than wind installations. Nuclear power plants are more costly to finance. In fact, there are currently no new nuclear power plants being planned in the US, in spite of so-called "incentives" built into the 2005 EPACT. I argue that nuclear power is completely unnecessary and uneconomical, given the alternatives of aggressive energy efficiency and large-scale wind.

Posted by JD Erickson on March 02, 2006 | Permalink

 

[marincounty]

Originally posted by: BansheeX
Huh? It's not my position to increase oil dependency the last thirty years while blocking nuclear, it's theirs. All the shit you see today with resource wars, global food prices, even global warming if we give them that, is PARTIALLY a result of their insane fearmongering towards nuclear power. We should be 80% nuclear by now. Instead, we've been caught with our pants down, staring at an inflationary depression or a war with Iran and no immediate fix. We don't have the savings for investment, and it will take years for this stuff to start getting built again. Why do people have to wait until their children are knee deep in this shit for them to actually do research and support the right policies? That's all I'm trying to say. Why now? Why only take seriously the nuclear argument now? McCain isn't breaking any new ground here, people have been trying to move away from imported fossil fuels for years.

Maybe it's because you fools keep electing oilmen as president?
We don't have the savings for investment? Maybe because they gave away all of the money to the rich with tax cuts, and spent even more on a false war that has instigated an oil crisis.

And maybe no one trusts the nuclear power industry at all, with their lousy track record?

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

In summary, then, nuclear plants are more costly to build, take longer to build, cost more to operate and maintain than wind installations. Nuclear power plants are more costly to finance. In fact, there are currently no new nuclear power plants being planned in the US, in spite of so-called "incentives" built into the 2005 EPACT. I argue that nuclear power is completely unnecessary and uneconomical, given the alternatives of aggressive energy efficiency and large-scale wind.

Without taking issue with the rest of that article, which I'll leave to BrownTown, the above is out of date.

NRG Energy, the TVA, and Duke Energy have filed license applications for two reactors each. Other utilities are expected to file applications to add units to existing plants in the next year or two.

 

[BrownTown]

Well first off I want to say that arguing by simply posting a bunch of articles that are other peoples work really doesn't show a good understanding of the problems at hand. That being said, I have read the above article linked by MoonBeam before and it does make some good points, however it can also be misleading. First off, the price quote is only the cost of the actual generation assets themselves, and not rest of the transmission system required to support them. The fact is that since wind assets are located over wide stretches of land they require more transmission lines which have additional costs. Wind is also not a reliable source of energy, and would require natural gas plants to back it up in case the wind isn't blowing. However, even with that, wind and nuclear are at least relatively close, but only in the BEST spots for wind. And everywhere else in the country the cost goes up considerably. So what might cost $60/MWH in texas would cost $120/MWH here in the southeast where we have no wind potential. Wind represents an economical source of power in LIMITED areas and LIMITED percentages of the generation mix (where its variability will not negatively effect grid reliability). Nobody is saying we shouldn't build wind, but it is not a source of reliable base load generation and therefore does not even compete with coal or nuclear in this regard.