Post #137,759
1/26/04 4:22:16 AM
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Re: Should we redevelop nuclear power? NO
The +/- technically is just too damned involved for a quick "answer", in any case. This is silly, but WTF -
Chernobyl was a study in the lethal effects of party Authoritarianism (akin to US *actual* response to whistleblowers - which is so similar in attitude). The Wigner (?) storage effect re peculiarities with graphite at low power, etc. OUGHT to have been well drilled into all participants - to name just the main idiocy of that night. This was orders of magnitude more insanely-stupid than that gratuitous whack-em test of the Mars Rover part!
Ignoring the techno of operations, my concern '04 is about ATTENTION SPAN and the loss of a pool of workers both informed enough and dedicated.. a lot: to handle the responsibilities, be capable of both measured and instantaneous responses, and in no doubt about which mode is possible, in any given minute.
Then when you throw in Murican Bizness as host, the physics bone-ignorance of most-all bizness types, especially 'decision'makers.. and obv current reliance upon recent-grad MBA Yuppie minds, for "cost savings": my instinct is to dismiss this idea for a lengthy period.
How lengthy? As long as it takes for Murican society to mature about fouling own nest, for US to outgrow a 'need' for windfall-profits in every undertaking and .. aforementioned recovering of that lost attention span. Nukes test all these attributes as no other device does. I don't think we possess now the talent or the will to do this, as other than a huge gamble. I don't doubt that there are ignoramuses quite willing for all of us to take that gamble.. for a bit of personal-wealth improvemment of the usual few - 100% divorced from any responsibility after next Quarter.
As for breeders, forget that. We may never possess enough abilities to counteract the inescapable dangers: Sodium metal is a strange beast - and if it ever came uncaged... Read, "We Almost Lost Detroit" for an entertaining intermix of some of the techno and an approximation of the story. (But it's been a long time.. I've lost some sources for a nonhysterical accounting - or a more recent one with lots of hindsight.)
Oh.. And this is the LAST fucking issue EVER to be placed on some stupid 'referendum' by our huge pool of FOX-informed citizens.
My 3 kopeks,
A.
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Post #137,766
1/26/04 7:49:09 AM
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Biggest reason for a resounding No Way in Hell!
You nailed it with the Bizness point. The Corps running them are going to be from the same pool that gave us Enron.
With the possibility of stooges like the current group of neocon influenced Energy company puppets ever being in power, it would seem the height of stupidity.
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Post #137,768
1/26/04 7:58:17 AM
1/26/04 7:59:10 AM
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Re: Biggest reason for a resounding No Way in Hell!
In other words - let's fucking quit, burn all the oil, then retreat into the security of caves with our charcoal crayons.
There are new "passive safety" smaller reactor designs that are idiot-proof - they can be massed produced. One type features a permanently sealed, modular cask as a source of heat. There is nothing forcing us to accept early reactor designs, and nothing forcing us to build only active control reactors with light-water coolant.
When people are willing to quit because they can't control their own creations, it's the beginning of the end for civilization.
-drl
Edited by deSitter
Jan. 26, 2004, 07:59:10 AM EST
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Post #137,771
1/26/04 8:17:59 AM
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Strange
I wasn't aware I had quit. "Clean, safe and effecient" Nuclear or "nasty, polluting and evil" oil seems to be somewhat of a limited choice. I'd rather hope we will eventually get a mix of conservation and alternative sources. Your faith in the Energy companys not fucking this up is somehow... alarming.
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Post #137,773
1/26/04 8:31:38 AM
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There are really no alternatives
Solar and wind power are pipe dreams, limited by chance and any foreseeable technology, as well as physical limitations on amount of power available. The best possibility, beaming microwaves down from synchronous orbits, is too far in the future to be of any use for the next century. But, by one of those fortunate "accidents", we have an effectively unlimited energy source that we are too chicken to use. And this does not concern you? Here is a direct solution to two of our most fundamental problems - environmental damage from fossil fuels and ensuring sustainable energy production - that only require the will to implement them, and we are too afraid of boogey men to do it. This is cause for optimism?
Whoever is managing the reactors right now, is doing a fair job. France gets 3/4s of its electricity from reactors and has never had a significant problem.
No, I don't trust "bizness" to handle this. Energy is a societal concern as much as sewage is, and should be treated that way.
-drl
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Post #137,797
1/26/04 10:55:52 AM
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There will be foxhole conversions...
...when the cost of oil skyrockets.
I have a blue sign on my door. It says "If this sign is red, you're moving too fast."
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Post #137,805
1/26/04 11:21:50 AM
8/21/07 12:41:20 PM
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You're not looking
Solar and wind power are pipe dreams, limited by chance and any foreseeable technology, as well as physical limitations on amount of power available.
Bull.
If you design for it, you can design a modern house that collects all the energy (and water if you like) it needs from the environment and only raise the cost of the house about $20k. By way of illustration let me point out that my uncle's passive solar home in Parker will reach 90 degrees inside on a subzero sunny day - he leaves the front door open all day in winter, and convection effects in summer keep the place a cool breezy mid 70's on the hottest day.
Of course, you'll have to force the rapists - er property developers to build this way. They won't do it on their own because they compete on price and it raises the cost a bit (not much - but enough). If you want this stuff to become adopted, it has to start with government regulation and incentives.
[link|http://www.eere.energy.gov/erec/factsheets/passive_solar.html|http://www.eere.ener...assive_solar.html]
[link|http://www.sbicouncil.org/home/index.html|http://www.sbicounci...g/home/index.html]
[link|http://www.thenaturalhome.com/passivesolar.html|http://www.thenatura...passivesolar.html]
[link|http://www.homepower.com/|http://www.homepower.com/]
"I believe that many of the systems we build today in Java would be better built in Smalltalk and Gemstone."
-- Martin Fowler, JAOO 2003
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Post #137,957
1/26/04 5:35:17 PM
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Re: There are really no alternatives - in haste
Gotta run..
MUCH of the confusion about alternative energy ideas is embodied in yor ref. to "small nuke package" (with its huge hidden overhead all along the route of fabrication). This is akin to the blindspot of say, "buying that new car":
The solvents, energy, toxic waste created yet not amortized. Yes, the building/selling creates a few jobs but YES: the overhead is best seen by comparing (minutely) the hidden costs to all of that New Var vs maintaining an existing one, extending its lif so that payback comes to cancel out the First Cost in depletion and sewage. Yada Yada - this is both CPA-level accountancy and plain fucking PHYSICS, damn it.
Amory Lovins - one who HAS this imagination [AND the NUMBERS], but is rarely heeded by the movers/shakers/PHBs/Neocon jellofolk.
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Post #137,800
1/26/04 11:05:44 AM
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Remember this, you can never put too much water in a nuclear
reactor. Said by the last person who knew what they were doing before they retired and let someone else take over the job. :)
Huh what did he mean? I should not put too much water into it, or it does not matter how much water I can put into it?
Just don't put a "Homer Simpson" type in charge of safety at the Nuclear Power Plant. ;)
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #137,855
1/26/04 2:48:22 PM
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Little comparison
Ashton says:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh.. And this is the LAST fucking issue EVER to be placed on some stupid 'referendum' by our huge pool of FOX-informed citizens.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
[link|http://www.denbeste.nu/|Somebody else] puts the following words into the mouth of "generic" Left:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The voters are idiots and can't be trusted with important policy decisions, because there's no telling what they'll decide.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Find a difference?
--
Select [link|http://www.glumbert.com/pictures/Default.asp?index=30|here].
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Post #137,952
1/26/04 5:28:29 PM
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Point >|< missed
It's not about, the "will of a culture" (fucked or not) - it's about the WORDING of these "ballot inititives" and - particularly re the arcane physics inescapably involved: this is NOT a topic for a mass-spinning Popularity Contest, stage-managed by the greed merchants we create so effectively. (It may be our only manufactured 'Product' in '04, from what I can see: spin; we do it to the exclusion of thinking.)
ie Yes: this is a decision for panels of real, credentialled Experts: not one of whom shall (should) be allowed to 'bet money'/invest-in: the results of deliberations. Perpetually. If we had a mgm. of Sanity left, that is.
'Next-Quarter" has *NO* place in such a contemplation IMhO. Yet in Murica: we know Nothong Else, from Neconman in DC to the guy who pours his used motor oil into the storm drain: STILL...
Are we ready for self-government yet?
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