Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.

[HappySkeptic]

Biker brings up some good points, but I think the risks are overblown. Radioactivity is all around us. At low levels, and provided it isn't getting ingested and incorporated into our bodies, it isn't a big deal. I loved the mini-series Chernobyl, but the risk estimates mentioned in the movie were ridiculous - not saying I'd want to be part of the early cleanup - those people got screwed.

But yeah, I agree that containment is going to be buried and forgotten, and some will leak. The question is - how bad will that leak be to the environment? I think the answer is - not too much.

And yes, it is usually the most cost-effective to store spent fuel onsite at a reactor, and it isn't a big deal. It is in large pools that people can walk past.

[Spongebob]

@Peebo-Thuhlu You make a really good point that I didn't pick up on. His rant transverses so many cultural positions. How can anyone possibly defend coal and oil producers as the "good guys" when we know so damn much about how they've treated the land and people where they dig up their black gold? There have been equally atrocious behavior in nuclear mining (hell all mining) and it sickens me. We have to face the fact that the civilized/technological world is an addict and energy is it's drug of choice. Everyone's hands are dirty. I'm with the group that acknowledges this and seeks to do better.

[onlinebiker]

You just don' t fucking get it.

The shit stored there will be highly radioactive LONG after the reactor is decommissioned - like 10,000 years and Entergy (the current owners - it was sold in 2007) isbankrupt and non- exustance.....


The storage facility MIGHT last 50 years after it is abandoned - but probably not even that. Radiation does weird shit to materials - think rust on steroids....The containment facility the shit is in simply not designed or intended for long term storage.... It also continues to accumulate.

NIMBYISM does play into building long term storage - but it is minor. Ever heard of imminent domain? If we want to put a nuclear disposal site under your house the government can do it. Not a problem.


What IS a problem is moving the shit.

How are you going to do that - and make it 99.99999% safe? How much firepower are you going to provide to prevent terrorists from stealing it - or just blowing it up to form a monster dirty bomb?

Ever hear of traffic accidents? Give it time - and it WILL happen. I waited for years to see a semi load of fireworks go off - and we got one a fejw years back on I-94. Pretty spectacular.

They' re nervous enough about that with the shit sitting where it is.

I'm not making light of your points, OLB, they are all valid, but you seem misinformed, or just ignorant.

I don't know what you think is so difficult to comprehend.  There are numerous design plans to make it safe for long term storage.  Current fission technologies can even recycle some of that material into a more stable form.  The plans to store it are in locations where no one will be going.  Of course this precludes the disruption of the locations by things like meteor strikes or massive earthquakes or volcanoes.  Of course those things have a way of destroying life on a massive scale anyway.  But yes, of course long term considerations are included.

There have been several plans to store the material under mountains and such but the states have fought it hard.  Perhaps the feds could force a state to take it but maybe they are not willing to accept the political fallout; I don't really know.  I also don't know why you are ranting about this but seem so uninformed.  I remember reading about all of this stuff when I was a teenager, 40 year ago!  I subscribed to several scientific journals and this wasn't news even then.

I'm also not ignoring your argument about moving the waste, but you are being very selective here.  We move nuclear material around all the time; how do you think it gets to the plants???  We move all sorts of dangerous stuff by plane, train, automobile and ship all the freakin time.  Where's your outrage about that?  By volume or mass, the danger of petroleum spills/explosions is far greater than nuclear because we move/handle so damn much of it.  And we lose control of it a lot, but it rarely makes the news unless it's big enough to fill the Gulf of Mexico.  If it were possible, I'd say we shouldn't use any form of energy that causes long lasting problems and that would include fossil fuels and nuclear fission.  But we live in reality and our current global civilization demands energy.  At present we can only supply a small amount of that energy through safe, renewable sources.  My position on this is both rational and reasonable.  We are and should be maximizing safe forms of energy while filling the needs with what we have while better technologies are being developed.  Nuclear fission is objectively safer than fossil fuels.  Pretty much every hippie but you now understands that.  And don't even get me started on environmentalism.  Society currently does so many things foolishly that could be done cleaner, more efficiently and better, but political will and ignorance prevents it.

If you are truly concerned about things like dirty bombs then I suggest you don't allow yourself to even think about all the other counties that have nuclear plants and weapons, especially the really crappy ones like Russia and India.  Anyone willing and interested in doing this would find it far easier to steal material from those countries.

Bullshit.

If it was cheap, easy and safe to store the waste long term THEY WOULD ALREADY BE DOING IT.


They are not. 

The energy companies will just leave it for your grandkids to clean up.

You think the' re going to spend THEIR money doing it?

Jesus are you gullible.

[Fake Messiah]

What I was talking about were the new nuclear reactors that not only don't pollute but actually reverse radioactive pollution by using nuclear waste and eating it until it disappears.





Now, Spongebob did say that many private companies are trying to develop some of that, and I am aware of that when I said that there should be an urgent International Manhattan-like project to develop these things soon as possible because governments have more money so they can develop it faster. Especially if we are talking about nuclear fusion. Now there is ITER which is international cooperation, but it is still slow and could go faster if it was taken more seriously.

[onlinebiker]

New tech? Great!

Got it working now ?

No?


Any dayyyy


Don' t worry....


Signed 

The guys feeding the old reactor...

[The Architect Of Fate]

You just don' t fucking get it.

The shit stored there will be highly radioactive LONG after the reactor is decommissioned - like 10,000 years and Entergy (the current owners - it was sold in 2007) isbankrupt and non- exustance.....


The storage facility MIGHT last 50 years after it is abandoned - but probably not even that. Radiation does weird shit to materials - think rust on steroids....The containment facility the shit is in simply not designed or intended for long term storage.... It also continues to accumulate.

NIMBYISM does play into building long term storage - but it is minor. Ever heard of imminent domain? If we want to put a nuclear disposal site under your house the government can do it. Not a problem.


What IS a problem is moving the shit.

How are you going to do that - and make it 99.99999% safe? How much firepower are you going to provide to prevent terrorists from stealing it - or just blowing it up to form a monster dirty bomb?

Ever hear of traffic accidents? Give it time - and it WILL happen. I waited for years to see a semi load of fireworks go off - and we got one a fejw years back on I-94. Pretty spectacular.

They' re nervous enough about that with the shit sitting where it is.

I'm not making light of your points, OLB, they are all valid, but you seem misinformed, or just ignorant.

I don't know what you think is so difficult to comprehend.  There are numerous design plans to make it safe for long term storage.  Current fission technologies can even recycle some of that material into a more stable form.  The plans to store it are in locations where no one will be going.  Of course this precludes the disruption of the locations by things like meteor strikes or massive earthquakes or volcanoes.  Of course those things have a way of destroying life on a massive scale anyway.  But yes, of course long term considerations are included.

There have been several plans to store the material under mountains and such but the states have fought it hard.  Perhaps the feds could force a state to take it but maybe they are not willing to accept the political fallout; I don't really know.  I also don't know why you are ranting about this but seem so uninformed.  I remember reading about all of this stuff when I was a teenager, 40 year ago!  I subscribed to several scientific journals and this wasn't news even then.

I'm also not ignoring your argument about moving the waste, but you are being very selective here.  We move nuclear material around all the time; how do you think it gets to the plants???  We move all sorts of dangerous stuff by plane, train, automobile and ship all the freakin time.  Where's your outrage about that?  By volume or mass, the danger of petroleum spills/explosions is far greater than nuclear because we move/handle so damn much of it.  And we lose control of it a lot, but it rarely makes the news unless it's big enough to fill the Gulf of Mexico.  If it were possible, I'd say we shouldn't use any form of energy that causes long lasting problems and that would include fossil fuels and nuclear fission.  But we live in reality and our current global civilization demands energy.  At present we can only supply a small amount of that energy through safe, renewable sources.  My position on this is both rational and reasonable.  We are and should be maximizing safe forms of energy while filling the needs with what we have while better technologies are being developed.  Nuclear fission is objectively safer than fossil fuels.  Pretty much every hippie but you now understands that.  And don't even get me started on environmentalism.  Society currently does so many things foolishly that could be done cleaner, more efficiently and better, but political will and ignorance prevents it.

If you are truly concerned about things like dirty bombs then I suggest you don't allow yourself to even think about all the other counties that have nuclear plants and weapons, especially the really crappy ones like Russia and India.  Anyone willing and interested in doing this would find it far easier to steal material from those countries.

His counter is essentially is if no one is doing it now it can't be done 


Yeah there are a few kinks in his logic 

---

What I was talking about were the new nuclear reactors that not only don't pollute but actually reverse radioactive pollution by using nuclear waste and eating it until it disappears.





Now, Spongebob did say that many private companies are trying to develop some of that, and I am aware of that when I said that there should be an urgent International Manhattan-like project to develop these things soon as possible because governments have more money so they can develop it faster. Especially if we are talking about nuclear fusion. Now there is ITER which is international cooperation, but it is still slow and could go faster if it was taken more seriously.

No no, it has to be ready now or we shouldn't even bother and stick with the thing that clearly isn't working 

Said no innovator ever

[Spongebob]

New tech? Great!

Got it working now ?

No?


Any dayyyy


Don' t worry....


Signed 

The guys feeding the old reactor...

Yeah, I guess we shoulda just stuck with whale oil, shouldn't we...

[Rev. Rye]

He accuses the pro-nuclear energy side of wanting their cheap juice now and screw the coming generation, and yet, when it comes to power solutions that might actually be sustainable in the long run, if there isn’t a way of properly containing the waste that’s totally ready right now, that means it’s not possible and you shouldn’t even try.

And if there’s any drawbacks to any current plans to try and contain their waste so it doesn’t pollute the planet, that means it shouldn’t be done, even though practically all the fossil fuel-powered plants (and probably most other types) don’t even bother to try and contain their waste and just dispose if it wherever they can (often in water sources or the air), but that doesn’t bother him somehow.

[Spongebob]

What I was talking about were the new nuclear reactors that not only don't pollute but actually reverse radioactive pollution by using nuclear waste and eating it until it disappears.

Now, Spongebob did say that many private companies are trying to develop some of that, and I am aware of that when I said that there should be an urgent International Manhattan-like project to develop these things soon as possible because governments have more money so they can develop it faster. Especially if we are talking about nuclear fusion. Now there is ITER which is international cooperation, but it is still slow and could go faster if it was taken more seriously.

This technology (thorium or breeder-reactors) exists today and a few research scale models have been built but I'm not sure if anyone is working on a commercial scale plant.  There are some obstacles but my understanding is that the technology is there.  For those who arrogantly say "where is it now?" the answer is commonly in the hands of politicians who are owned by, guess who, big oil companies.  Oil and coal companies have dominated the power landscape for decades and they know how to influence politicians.  On the bright side, many of the big energy companies have now invested in renewable sources to hedge their bet so they win either way.

[onlinebiker]

New tech? Great!

Got it working now ?

No?


Any dayyyy


Don' t worry....


Signed 

The guys feeding the old reactor...

Yeah, I guess we shoulda just stuck with whale oil, shouldn't we...

So your answer is stupid comebacks?

....

I' m sure THAT will make your descendant proud.....


...

How about REDUCE DEMAND?


Best - surest - and practical way?


Reduce population. 

...

Anf yes - I HAVE done my part - as did my SO.

I had a vasectomy and she a tubal ligation over 30 years ago....

And no kids.


See -I did something about a percieved problem.


What did YOU do?