OT: Fracking banned in NY State

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by 93legendti

You sure did:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/goo...nitiative-rec/

And:

"Starting in 2007, Google committed significant resources to tackle the world�s climate and energy problems. A few of these efforts proved very successful: Google deployed some of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world, purchased large amounts of renewable energy, and offset what remained of its carbon footprint.

Google�s boldest energy move was an effort known as RE<C, which aimed to develop renewable energy sources that would generate electricity more cheaply than coal-fired power plants do. The company announced that Google would help promising technologies mature by investing in start-ups and conducting its own internal R&D. Its aspirational goal: to produce a gigawatt of renewable power more cheaply than a coal-fired plant could, and to achieve this in years, not decades.

Unfortunately, not every Google moon shot leaves Earth orbit. In 2011, the company decided that RE<C was not on track to meet its target and shut down the initiative. The two of us, who worked as engineers on the internal RE<C projects, were then forced to reexamine our assumptions."

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/rene...climate-change

Doesn't work.

How many places in America have sunshine 24/7 and extensive wind 24/7???

How many people won't visit Europe because of fear of nuke power plant leaks???

Even if it did work, wind and solar kill bats, insects, birds and animals the environment depends upon at alarming rates. They produce toxic sludge. Much like the toxic energy saving light bulbs that need haz mat removal when they break..."green" is a cruel joke.

Nuke power is safer, more efficient and cleaner... Ask Russia they just cornered the market on uranium...Again, this is all about something else. Ask the US Navy about nuke power.

Three mile island was almost 40 years ago. We have car crashes, plane crashes, boats that sink, buildings that collapse and catch on fire. We have not abandoned any of those.

"Funny thing about technology is that it is rapidly evolving. The $500 phone you use today has more computing power then the million dollar computer of not that long ago."


But, I guess a non-factual, ideological "discussion" is preferred. So I ask again, where's my free lunch?

Well said but people are stupid. Let's change all fossil fuel cars to diesel. Clean diesel....better mileage, not more polluting....but 'noisy', 'diesel dust'....people are such lemmings.

21st century nukes, with the ability to recycle some of the spent fuel is

-clean
-safe
-more risk free than a natural gas plant exploding. As those in Oakland.

[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Well said but people are stupid. Let's change all fossil fuel cars to diesel. Clean diesel....better mileage, not more polluting....but 'noisy', 'diesel dust'....people are such lemmings.

21st century nukes, with the ability to recycle some of the spent fuel is

-clean
-safe
-more risk free than a natural gas plant exploding. As those in Oakland.

...but with greater consequences.

[Rueda Tropical]

Originally Posted by 93legendti

But, I guess a non-factual, ideological "discussion" is preferred. So I ask again, where's my free lunch?

There is no such thing as a free lunch. The cell phone, computer and all those electronics, networking and telecom have an environmental cost to manufacture as do all industrial products including solar panels. It's hilarious to hear fossil fuel advocates bemoan the environmental costs of solar. But in the end it's got nothing to do with the environment. The cheaper, more efficient technology will win out. And the costs include operating a plant safely and disposing of waste safely. Fukushima wasn't 40 years ago. How much do you think that added to the cost of Nuclear in Japan?

The dropping cost of solar is factual, the impact that nanotechnology will have on storage batteries is beginning to become a factor. A Google project failed? So what. At the birth of every new industry there are more failures then successes. It happened with autos, computers, the beginnings of modern banking, etc.

[Likes2ridefar]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Well said but people are stupid. Let's change all fossil fuel cars to diesel. Clean diesel....better mileage, not more polluting....but 'noisy', 'diesel dust'....people are such lemmings.

21st century nukes, with the ability to recycle some of the spent fuel is

-clean
-safe
-more risk free than a natural gas plant exploding. As those in Oakland.

It's ignoring a huge amount of facts to state it's clean and safe. One easy target: Imagine if the entire world was using it for energy and then consider the amount of spent fuel as a byproduct? Where does all this radioactive spent fuel go? Where is it 100% safe that it will not, as I earlier suggested, destroy the world?

natural disasters are impossible to predict and no structure can be designed to hold something for 10,000 years.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by OtayBW

...but with greater consequences.

And those are??????

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

It's ignoring a huge amount of facts to state it's clean and safe. One easy target: Imagine if the entire world was using it for energy and then consider the amount of spent fuel as a byproduct? Where does all this radioactive spent fuel go? Where is it 100% safe that it will not, as I earlier suggested, destroy the world?

natural disasters are impossible to predict and no structure can be designed to hold something for 10,000 years.

Until economical fusion is a reality, energy(electricity) production will be a mix. It is unrealistic to view solar and wind as the source that has the least amount of bad, intended, consequences. It is a mistake to disregard nuclear power because of what happened 30 years ago or a nuke in a unsafe place.

[Anarchist]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

And those are??????

Before going further down this road, go back and read your previous post.

You ain't going to get any traction on this point, because what you said in that post is a fact.

[Dead Man]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

It's ignoring a huge amount of facts to state it's clean and safe. One easy target: Imagine if the entire world was using it for energy and then consider the amount of spent fuel as a byproduct? Where does all this radioactive spent fuel go? Where is it 100% safe that it will not, as I earlier suggested, destroy the world?

natural disasters are impossible to predict and no structure can be designed to hold something for 10,000 years.

Breeder reactors make more fuel out of spent fuel. In theory, fissile fuel could be bred all the way into non-fissile, non-radioactive fuel. The stuff coming out of the final core would be inert. We're a ways off from that still, but the science to do it well exists now. If we really invested ourselves, we could make very clean, very safe nuclear energy right now (even cleaner and after than the tens of thousands of safe reactor hours we have under our belts already).

And I think we need to, because nuclear energy is, in fact, the future. There's just plain no getting around it. Otherwise we're probably looking at some kind of multi-billion human death event in the next century or so.. just too many souls, too much destructive technology, not enough resources.

[Likes2ridefar]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Until economical fusion is a reality, energy(electricity) production will be a mix. It is unrealistic to view solar and wind as the source that has the least amount of bad, intended, consequences. It is a mistake to disregard nuclear power because of what happened 30 years ago or a nuke in a unsafe place.

im not even referring to the past with my previous post. where does all the waste go? deep in a mountain? a nice present for future generations!

[fuzzalow]

There is no one correct and proper solution for energy source or policy for an economy the size of the United States. If you are not looking at solar, wind, water, hydrocarbon and nuclear as an integrated mix to solve the problem then IMO that's just special interests talking at preservation of their single silo business viability and their profits.

I am in favor of expanding the contribution of nuclear as a source for electricity generation. And even taking this position is fraught with caveats and what looks like hypocrisy in the safety of how and where a nuclear-powered generation plant should be built.

Nuclear cannot be built anywhere near highly populated areas which then sounds like "I like Nuke - but NIMBY". And this is exactly as it sounds. I believe the technology is safe. But the consequence as far as half-life ruination of land in the event of an uncontained mishap means that it can never be built near populated areas. There is too much value at stake to lives, property and in geographical areas for their contribution to activity vital to the national economy, national interests and national security. In these geographic regions, no degree of risk is acceptable.

For example the Northeast Corridor should never be considered as a potential site for nuclear, Indian Point NY notwithstanding - just as it is correct for fracking to be banned by states inside the NE Corridor. Build a nuclear power generation plant in desolate, remote areas like the Bakken Formation. As electric power is already sold, distributed and rebalanced across the national grid I'd guess the ability to distribute the electric power is solvable despite the remote location of any newly constructed nuclear site. Risk and containment can and must be controlled but the complexity of making this understood and digestible to the general public acceptance will be a near impossibility which ensures that nuclear will never happen as a renewable energy source to the U.S.

I do not fear technology. Carbon emissions and global warming is a much greater existential threat than any element of nuclear power generation. The general public has as much an irrational comfort with greenhouse gas emissions as they have an equally irrational fear of nuclear energy sources. An ignorance partially created and still exploited by hydrocarbon special interests. But they are in it for the money. What's in it for you?

[goonster]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

It is a mistake to disregard nuclear power because of what happened 30 years ago or a nuke in a unsafe place.

Please hear me on this.

The USN's record is admirable. The more you know about the processes and risks involved, the more impressive it is. However, there are some key reasons why their M.O. does not translate or scale to civilian energy.

Long-term storage/disposal is just one issue. The USDoE can bury all the reactors it wants in Hanford, but Yucca Mountain had to be abandoned because Nevada's electoral votes were in high demand. Every day we don't have a final depository, risks are incurred. Very real risks of material fatigue, mishandling, neglect and things we have not anticipated.

And those risks have to be priced correctly. All of them, not just storage, but also operation and maintenance.

And we are very bad at pricing risk. Doubly so for big events that happen infrequently.

I agree that nuclear should remain part of the mix, and that we should find ways to run it better, but we need to be clear-eyed about the downsides, and when you say those things it sounds like complacency.

(edit: to counter charges of NIMBY-ism or scaremongering, I should add that I live in the plume zone of a nuclear generating station.)

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

im not even referring to the past with my previous post. where does all the waste go? deep in a mountain? a nice present for future generations!

Post 218...recycle sir.

[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

And those are??????

Really? For starters, 200,000 people evacuated from Cherobyl 30 years ago; ~500,000 people evacuated from Fukashima just 2 years ago; countless other near misses. In spite of hindsight, better technology still does not trump contingency. We still don't have a waste containment and repository strategy. And then there is security risk.

Look, I'm not trying to play Chicken Little here or throw the baby out with the bathwater. All I'm saying - in response to your comment - is that IMO, the consequences of nuclear disaster could well be more grave than an LNC plant explosion. I think it's a fair point.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by goonster

Please hear me on this.

The USN's record is admirable. The more you know about the processes and risks involved, the more impressive it is. However, there are some key reasons why their M.O. does not translate or scale to civilian energy.

Long-term storage/disposal is just one issue. The USDoE can bury all the reactors it wants in Hanford, but Yucca Mountain had to be abandoned because Nevada's electoral votes were in high demand. Every day we don't have a final depository, risks are incurred. Very real risks of material fatigue, mishandling, neglect and things we have not anticipated.

And those risks have to be priced correctly. All of them, not just storage, but also operation and maintenance.

And we are very bad at pricing risk. Doubly so for big events that happen infrequently.

I agree that nuclear should remain part of the mix, and that we should find ways to run it better, but we need to be clear-eyed about the downsides, and when you say those things it sounds like complacency.

(edit: to counter charges of NIMBY-ism or scaremongering, I should add that I live in the plume zone of a nuclear generating station.)

I agree but as mentioned before, the politics of nuclear power enter into the mix all too often, w/o the 'politics' of the other sources of energy being mentioned. ALL have downsides..but to ignore one because of politics, mention it and not get elected, is dum.

[Likes2ridefar]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Post 218...recycle sir.

Unfortunately that's not an option yet.