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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 3, 2009 at 6:28 am
You cannot do that. Windmills need to be placed at places where winds are relatively consistent, and not too strong. Otherwise you have too many breakdowns.
I was involved with the implementation of the windmill park for General Electric in Bergen op Zoom, and worked in Geertruidenberg in a coal power plant. Even the most efficient windmill parks only deliver power 20% of the time. If the wind blows to hard, the blades will be set in fan mode so the wind just blows by it. Too little, and the mills don't produce optimally with irregular power spikes and sags that need to be capped before transferring the power to the grid. You cannot convert the power grid on a power source that only delivers at random intervals, you need a power supply on demand. Hydroelectric plants like in Iceland are much better, steady current, steady power, no carbon emissions. But we do not all live in Iceland or Switzerland.
As for nuclear waste, even though the environmentalists won't listen to this, with regards to waste and storage and carbon footprints, modern (not the Sellafield kind) nuclear power plants are the most environmentally friendly method of generating power on demand.
An average size Nuclear reactor will produce about 1 cubic meter of waste a year. A standard Nuclear power plant is using 6 to 10 reactors. Compare that to a coal burning boiler, where 16 truck loads of carcinogenic fly-ash is being moved a day. Never mind the heavy metal, hot water being returned to the rivers or canals, and the amount of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide being pumped into the air.
Best regards,
Leo van Miert
Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall --Torque is how far you take the wall with you
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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 3, 2009 at 6:58 am
(October 3, 2009 at 6:28 am)leo-rcc Wrote: Bergen op Zoom I love that place name 
(October 3, 2009 at 6:28 am)leo-rcc Wrote: As for nuclear waste, even though the environmentalists won't listen to this, with regards to waste and storage and carbon footprints, modern (not the Sellafield kind) nuclear power plants are the most environmentally friendly method of generating power on demand.
I can't understand how environmentalists are anti environmental. It is just nonsensical.
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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 3, 2009 at 7:15 am
Environmentalists get themselves worked up over tiny things that have nothing to do with anything in the modern world. They use the mistakes of the past as reasoning for not using nuclear power today, even though we have refined the process down to near perfection.
Fundamentalists of any nature are always hypocritical. Die-hard conservatives are always being anti-conservative in some aspect, die hard anti-racists are always being racist in some aspect. People are hypocritical, and environmentalists are no different.
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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 3, 2009 at 8:53 am
(October 3, 2009 at 6:58 am)fr0d0 Wrote: (October 3, 2009 at 6:28 am)leo-rcc Wrote: Bergen op Zoom I love that place name
Glad you are so easily amused. 
(October 3, 2009 at 6:58 am)fr0d0 Wrote: (October 3, 2009 at 6:28 am)leo-rcc Wrote: As for nuclear waste, even though the environmentalists won't listen to this, with regards to waste and storage and carbon footprints, modern (not the Sellafield kind) nuclear power plants are the most environmentally friendly method of generating power on demand.
I can't understand how environmentalists are anti environmental. It is just nonsensical.
Environmentalists hear "nuclear", and interpret that as "Hiroshima". And of course Chernobyl was a public relations nightmare, but the fact is that the reactor of Chernobyl was a type of reactor no western country would use or even be allowed to build. RBMK reactors produce more energy as they get hotter and that combined with turning the Emergence Core Cooling System (ECCS) off, the amount of energy surged to a core meltdown and steam explosion. Western plants produce less energy as the core heats up, because if the coolant contains steam bubbles, fewer neutrons are slowed down. Faster neutrons are less likely to split uranium atoms, so the reactor produces less power.
When I mentioned some months back that I hated PETA and Greenpeace, I meant it. They are so blinded by their preconceptions on what is right or wrong that they will perform actions that are endangering human lives. I was at the power plant in Geertruidenberg when our cooling system went critical and pressure started to rise so high that pipes and valves could blow and people could get burned, wounded, or even killed. As it turns out Greenpeace activists sealed off the exhaust of the cooling system. Even in an emergency stop it takes days for a boiler the size of a 14 floor high building (110 meters high) to cool down, that is when your cooling system is working. Idiots like that don't think these things trough, and are a danger to others.
Best regards,
Leo van Miert
Horsepower is how hard you hit the wall --Torque is how far you take the wall with you
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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 3, 2009 at 3:04 pm
It'd also be incorrect to judge a whole group because of the actions of some extremist nut jobs.. I'm sure you'd agree. Reading through the FOE forums yesterday I thought they seemed quite balanced.
Adrian Wrote:Fundamentalists of any nature are always hypocritical. Die-hard conservatives are always being anti-conservative in some aspect, die hard anti-racists are always being racist in some aspect. People are hypocritical, and environmentalists are no different.
And the same with Christians and the stances of atheism.
OK as no one else has done it let me link an opposing mythbuster about Nuclear Power: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/...icle/4259/
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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 3, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Lets put it this way Fr0d0, one of the founders of Greenpeace left the organisation because they got it in their minds to campaign for a worldwide ban of Chlorine. I am sure they all mean well, but they really don't think things trough. And as for not all of them being nutjobs, not one of them condemned the actions of the nutters either.
Best regards,
Leo van Miert
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RE: Nuclear Iran?
October 4, 2009 at 12:02 am
When I mentioned some months back that I hated PETA and Greenpeace, I meant it
@ Leo
Thank you so much for that post.
I feel a little less of a freak--I once upset some people by commenting that were I skipper of one of those Japanese whaling ships I'd have done my best to run over those Greenpeace fucks.Or better still,blow them out of the water for piracy.
Am I anti whaling? Only if it's unsustainable,not on moral grounds. (whales seem to hold a crucial place in the food chain, so are probably important)
TANGENT: I have no idea if this is true,and hesitate to mention it due the source. ( a bloke I know who is a complete-paranoid-whackjob-conspiracy-theorist)
It's HIS claim that Greenpeace was founded by the Rockefellers as a tool of misdirection. If it's not true, it's only because they didn't think of it.
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