"Nuclear Energy Belongs in the Technology Museum", Does it?

[Tylanner]

"The end of the fossil energy age approaches. Its ecological limits draw near as material resources are exhausted. The advocates of nuclear energy see a new day dawning."

LINK

Over the years, we(USA) have seemed to "throttle back" our grand conversion to Nuclear Energy.

Should we pursue that avenue once again?

What's a bigger risk? Global Warming or possible Radiation Contamination?

Is this a repost?


Hmmmmmm.

 

[Forsythe]

Originally posted by: Tylanner
"The end of the fossil energy age approaches. Its ecological limits draw near as material resources are exhausted. The advocates of nuclear energy see a new day dawning."

LINK

Over the years, we(USA) have seemed to "throttle back" our grand conversion to Nuclear Energy.

Should we pursue that avenue once again?

What's a bigger risk? Global Warming or possible Radiation Contamination?

Is this a repost?


Hmmmmmm.

Ifcourse, but preferably as fusion, they need to put more money in the reasearch though.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Fusion is 50 years away and always will be.

I think most peoples have a bad impression of nuclear (not just the US, but worldwide) after Chernobyl. That disaster practically killed the nuclear industry.

 

[Stunt]

Nuclear like it or not is the key to our sustainability. All who don't support it are idiots and uninformed.

Fusion is better...but till then fission will do

a little wind and solar would be nice too...but just a grain of salt for the output we desire.

 

[Martin]

Every country's priorities should be such:
-hydroelectric
-nuclear
-wind

of course, solar and fusion research should continue to be generously funded.

 

[magomago]

yeah but you have hydro electric everywhere, that'll do wonders for fishing ieven the cleanest methods of pollution have their dirty sides~

 

[miketheidiot]

Hydroelectric is almost completely developed. Nearly all good spots are taken.

Nuclear power is also only a temporary fix. Something must be found that is renewable, easily harvestable, and we must scale ourselves to it. Wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric are relatively unlimited (although it may be impossible to maintain eventually). Theoretically if the world population were to drop to 500 million - 1 billion their would be enough excess crop recourses to use alcohol and/or biodiesel in signifigant quanities. Assuming we are to move toward such an eventuality, nuclear would make a great stepping stone. In the long run its no good though.

 

[0marTheZealot]

^
The only way to a sustainable future (at least in the foreseeable) is population control. There is no way the world can support 6-7 billion people with our current resources. Fusion may lift that ceiling, but we won't have fusion for a long time (ITER is saying commerically viable fusion in 50 years).

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
^
The only way to a sustainable future (at least in the foreseeable) is population control. There is no way the world can support 6-7 billion people with our current resources. Fusion may lift that ceiling, but we won't have fusion for a long time (ITER is saying commerically viable fusion in 50 years).

Actually it's not 6-7billion that are the polluters and consumers. The first world is. For every one kid you have, you are have added the same amount of consumption as a person in asia having 15 kids.

Working on making our energy sources cleaner is far more important than population control. 80% of the people on the planet are not putting a dent in consuming the planets goods and resources.

Unless you are proposing population control in the 1st world, your quest to reduce consumption through population control will be severly ineffective.

 

[piasabird]

Nuclear like it or not is the key to our sustainability. All who don't support it are idiots and uninformed.

What about the waste products produced by these nuclear power producing facilities. Once Nuclear waste is produced, what do you do with it? How long will the waste be around and where will we store it? Do you want the waste product to go by your town on a train?

Seems like solar power is more viable.

Why not a power plant that runs off the motion created by waves?

Wind Power?

Fuel Cells?

Hydrogen?

Methane from land fills?

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: Tylanner
"The end of the fossil energy age approaches. Its ecological limits draw near as material resources are exhausted. The advocates of nuclear energy see a new day dawning."

LINK

Over the years, we(USA) have seemed to "throttle back" our grand conversion to Nuclear Energy.

Should we pursue that avenue once again?

What's a bigger risk? Global Warming or possible Radiation Contamination?

Is this a repost?


Hmmmmmm.

NIMBY

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Nuclear like it or not is the key to our sustainability. All who don't support it are idiots and uninformed.

What about the waste products produced by these nuclear power producing facilities. Once Nuclear waste is produced, what do you do with it? How long will the waste be around and where will we store it? Do you want the waste product to go by your town on a train?

Seems like solar power is more viable.

Why not a power plant that runs off the motion created by waves?

Wind Power?

Fuel Cells?

Hydrogen?

Methane from land fills?

I agree that nuclear waste is a problem...but the about of waste that is pumped into the atmosphere due to coal and oil plants (makes up ~80% of power generation) is far worse imo. Spent rods take up far less space than the garbage we produce does. Spent rods take up little space, most can be put in pools on the nuclear facility's site.

Solar power will never have anywhere near the output we need. It will help and i think it is a good side tech, especially for people's homes. But industry needs far more. Try producing steel with solar panels...hahah...right.

Those technologies are years away from being viable...especially hydrogen as it is created by the electrolysis of water. (more energy in than you get out)

Honestly nuclear is the only way to go...fusion would be better...but fision is the cleanest by far in this day in age.

"In America the entire nuclear power industry generates approximately 2,000 tons of solid waste per year. In comparison, coal fired power produces 100,000,000 tons of ash and sludge annually, and this ash is laced with poisons such as mercury and nitric oxide. Industry generates 36,000,000 tons of hazardous waste, and the kind they make will be with us forever, not decaying away.

Text

 

[imported_Condor]

Be OK with me. I live in Alabama. It's generally warm enough down here with only a small heater or wood stove. NYC, however, who cares?

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
^
The only way to a sustainable future (at least in the foreseeable) is population control. There is no way the world can support 6-7 billion people with our current resources. Fusion may lift that ceiling, but we won't have fusion for a long time (ITER is saying commerically viable fusion in 50 years).

The Anglo races seem to be doing a good job of population control. How do you convince the rest?

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Stunt

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
^
The only way to a sustainable future (at least in the foreseeable) is population control. There is no way the world can support 6-7 billion people with our current resources. Fusion may lift that ceiling, but we won't have fusion for a long time (ITER is saying commerically viable fusion in 50 years).

Actually it's not 6-7billion that are the polluters and consumers. The first world is. For every one kid you have, you are have added the same amount of consumption as a person in asia having 15 kids.

Working on making our energy sources cleaner is far more important than population control. 80% of the people on the planet are not putting a dent in consuming the planets goods and resources.

Unless you are proposing population control in the 1st world, your quest to reduce consumption through population control will be severly ineffective.

You better open your eyes. This is changing. As we have yielded our technology to China, they are becoming one of the largest competitors for energy. Imagine, they have cars and heat now. By the way, the substitute fuels they were using were really bad polluters and were denuding their forests.

While I was in Ukraine, they were using public transit, but as soon as people could afford cars, they were unloading from the busses. That may stop now!

 

[mooncancook]

Nuclear energy is great as long as the nuclear power plant is far away from where i live, if you know what i mean.

i like solar energy, i learn from physics class that the amount of energy provider by the sun everyday is enormous... if we have a better way of converting them to electricity more efficiently then we wouldn't have to worry about energy. I'd say more funding for solar energy. wouldn't it be nice if there's solar panels in every building in the city and the entire city acts like a giant solar power plant.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Stunt

Originally posted by: piasabird
Nuclear like it or not is the key to our sustainability. All who don't support it are idiots and uninformed.

What about the waste products produced by these nuclear power producing facilities. Once Nuclear waste is produced, what do you do with it? How long will the waste be around and where will we store it? Do you want the waste product to go by your town on a train?

I agree that nuclear waste is a problem...but the about of waste that is pumped into the atmosphere due to coal and oil plants (makes up ~80% of power generation) is far worse imo. Spent rods take up far less space than the garbage we produce does. Spent rods take up little space, most can be put in pools on the nuclear facility's site.

Coal plants put more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear plants do, because while the amount of uranium contained in coal is tiny, the amount of waste generated by burning coal is so much greater than the waste from fission power, that it adds up to a greater amount.

As for nuclear waste, reprocess it. There are two major components of the waste:

1. Heavy elements, with half-lives > 70,000 years.
2. Light elements, with half lives < 90 years

99% of the radioactivity comes from the light elements. Due to their differing chemical properties, it's not difficult to separate the two components. The light elements can be vitrified and stored for a few hundred years until they decay down to background levels of radiation. The heavy elements are useful fuel for breeder reactors, so we should reuse them to generate more power.

Cold war politics and the expense and difficulty of the technologies involved have prevented breeder reactors from being used widely, but there's another alternative if their use is inpractical--we could build a particle accelerator and subcritical reactor to transmute the heavy elements into less radioactive substances. We know how to do it, and it's a cheap solution compared to breeder reactors.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
^
The only way to a sustainable future (at least in the foreseeable) is population control. There is no way the world can support 6-7 billion people with our current resources. Fusion may lift that ceiling, but we won't have fusion for a long time (ITER is saying commerically viable fusion in 50 years).

The Anglo races seem to be doing a good job of population control. How do you convince the rest?

We need to reproduce the same social and economic conditions that led to the demographic shift in the first world: more education and opportunities to work for women, resulting in a later age of marriage, combined with a health/social system that lets most children survive to adulthood and reducing parents' perceptions that their only hope for surviving old age is having lots of children.

 

[bsobel]

wouldn't it be nice if there's solar panels in every building in the city and the entire city acts like a giant solar power plant.

Sounds great doesn't it? Unfortunately, it currently takes more power to build a solar cell than that cell will return during it's usefull lifetime. Chicken and the egg....

Bill

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: Stunt

Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
^
The only way to a sustainable future (at least in the foreseeable) is population control. There is no way the world can support 6-7 billion people with our current resources. Fusion may lift that ceiling, but we won't have fusion for a long time (ITER is saying commerically viable fusion in 50 years).

Actually it's not 6-7billion that are the polluters and consumers. The first world is. For every one kid you have, you are have added the same amount of consumption as a person in asia having 15 kids.

Working on making our energy sources cleaner is far more important than population control. 80% of the people on the planet are not putting a dent in consuming the planets goods and resources.

Unless you are proposing population control in the 1st world, your quest to reduce consumption through population control will be severly ineffective.

You better open your eyes. This is changing. As we have yielded our technology to China, they are becoming one of the largest competitors for energy. Imagine, they have cars and heat now. By the way, the substitute fuels they were using were really bad polluters and were denuding their forests.

While I was in Ukraine, they were using public transit, but as soon as people could afford cars, they were unloading from the busses. That may stop now!

My eyes are wide open. You think the world can sustain itself at this rate even without taking into account the third world?...the answer is no. We despirately need clean energy and all our resources for lowering consumption should be put there and not on population control.

Once new tech is derived, the third world could adopt the technology as well, just as they have taken on nuclear. ie. Ukraine, Iran, EU, Asia.

China is on the cutting edge of energy generation at the moment. If you read about some of their developments and research, you'd be impressed. They are definately on the way to becoming the world's next superpower. Lowering its dependance on oil, holding reserves, not extracting is a brilliant plan imo.

Population control is hard to do, although it seems that with living standards and retirement plans etc, come lower birth rates...so as the third world becomes more developed, the birth rate will subside.

Again this does not take away from the point of this discussion...nuclear is definately a route we need in our lives, including a couple of others.

If you do not understand this...you need to open your eyes

 

[gutharius]

Originally posted by: Tylanner
"The end of the fossil energy age approaches. Its ecological limits draw near as material resources are exhausted. The advocates of nuclear energy see a new day dawning."

LINK

Over the years, we(USA) have seemed to "throttle back" our grand conversion to Nuclear Energy.

Should we pursue that avenue once again?

What's a bigger risk? Global Warming or possible Radiation Contamination?

Is this a repost?


Hmmmmmm.

And besides Nuclear is not a renewable resource as it depends on mined fuel, i.e. uranium.

 

[Klixxer]

Originally posted by: Martin
Every country's priorities should be such:
-hydroelectric
-nuclear
-wind

of course, solar and fusion research should continue to be generously funded.

Hydroelectric without disturbing the original natural habitats and paths is exremely hard.

Nuclear without fusion is asking for trouble, we need developments, especially on this side, more security and further development and research.

Wind, what is the purpose, a small nuclear reactor could heat more than having the entire costs of Canada covered with them.

Unless the generators reach a 1000x higher energy production there is no need for it, sped the money on nuclear research.

IMO of course, i could be wrong, it happened once before, a long, long time ago.

 

[OrganizedChaos]

offshore wind turbines are the future. GE currently produces 1.5MW to 3.0MW turbines with a minimum 30 year expected lifespan. each turbine is self regulating and is pretty much plug and play into the grid. with these windfarms in diffrent locations around the world it adds up quick. keep in mind were talking peak power here so we would ne alot of them to make it work and they would have to be spread out to keep local weather from killing the grid

 

[Klixxer]

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos
offshore wind turbines are the future. GE currently produces 1.5MW to 3.0MW turbines with a minimum 30 year expected lifespan. each turbine is self regulating and is pretty much plug and play into the grid. with these windfarms in diffrent locations around the world it adds up quick. keep in mind were talking peak power here so we would ne alot of them to make it work and they would have to be spread out to keep local weather from killing the grid

Stupidest thing i have heard in a long time, 1.5million of the most efficieant turbines would not equal a medium sized new nuclear power plant using the latest tch.

 

[K1052]

Fusion is the only realistic option for the long term.

That is, barring some huge unforseen breakthrough in solar energy conversion.