OT - What's going on in France

[goonster]

Originally Posted by froze

in Spain's case nearly bankrupt that country.

No. What nearly bankrupted Spain was a classic housing bubble with a charming, specifically Iberian characteristic: all those airports.

Originally Posted by froze

I seriously doubt the US can meet its needs using just natural renewable sources, maybe up to 25% but that will be it.

It's crazy, I know, but maybe the needs side of the equation should be part of the conversation, and not just assumed to be fixed and inviolable . . .

[froze]

Originally Posted by goonster

No. What nearly bankrupted Spain was a classic housing bubble with a charming, specifically Iberian characteristic: all those airports.



It's crazy, I know, but maybe the needs side of the equation should be part of the conversation, and not just assumed to be fixed and inviolable . . .

But the demands of a nation that has the population of the US (and include China), and with a population who likes their gadgets and wants more electric cars and other battery powered mobile units that will increase the demand on our electrical grid I doubt seriously with today's technology we can do more then maybe 25% with renewables. Obviously 25% is a guess it could be as much as 30% on mostly sunny days across much of the US, but during the winter months it could drop to 15%. So something has to fill that gap, and at this time nuke energy is the only thing going.

As far as the uranium waste there is a way now to use that called a Transatomic molten salt reactor that can generate electricity from once spent fuel rods; a commercial reactor of this is suppose to go on line in 2030; it's already been proven to work so all that uranium waste we put into underground vaults can be brought up and used in these reactors.

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by goonster

...It's crazy, I know, but maybe the needs side of the equation should be part of the conversation, . . .

What do you mean?

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by froze

Actually renewable wind, solar, and hydro makes the cost of energy far higher than nuke power, the reason it doesn't seem like those renewables aren't so expensive is because the cost to construct the systems is heavily subsidized by the government, which in Spain's case nearly bankrupt that country. I seriously doubt the US can meet its needs using just natural renewable sources, maybe up to 25% but that will be it. And don't forget that the Tree Huggers wants the US to build solar panels and wind mills, but when we do build them the Tree Huggers complain that the windmills were killing birds so either production is halted or the windmills turned off; the Tree Huggers liked the idea of solar panels, so we built those and they cried about how they were upsetting the habitats of varies creatures so those were stopped. Here in America it's damn if we don't and damn if we do.

It's very possible to 'recycle' nuclear waste..the technology has been around for a long time. The 'political' will isn't there tho..the public has a skewed and incorrect view of nuclear power.

Nuclear waste is recyclable. Once reactor fuel (uranium or thorium) is used in a reactor, it can be treated and put into another reactor as fuel. In fact, typical reactors only extract a few percent of the energy in their fuel. You could power the entire US electricity grid off of the energy in nuclear waste for almost 100 years (details). If you recycle the waste, the final waste that is left over decays to harmlessness within a few hundred years, rather than a million years as with standard (unrecycled) nuclear waste. This page explains how this interesting process is possible.

Chernobyl and 3 mile Island happened 1986 and 1979...30 plus years ago..Fukishima was a crappy design placed in a crappy place. There have been hundreds or thousand times more deaths from coal than all the nuke accidents but the 'public' remains emotional and ignorant. Solar, natural gas, coal and wind will NOT be enough for a electric grid where everything is powered by electricity.

https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html

[redir]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

I guess that in France people are more aware of this and in the US there is a lot of money from the likes of the Koch brothers that works hard to convince people that they are better off when rich people and corporations pay no taxes and most people get no services or to at least distract them from what is going on.

In fact it was Enlightenment thought that crept into the common households of France in the mid 1700's that ultimately led to their bloody revolution. So they have a bit of experience with this kind of thing. I'm just waiting for the so called 'economically anxious' Americans to wake up because when they do...

[redir]

Originally Posted by Ozz

What do you mean?

Oh God! We have one of those in my neighborhood.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

As much as the don would like to, punishing one company is illegal.

GM makes an SUV in China for sale in the US. I remember reading that GM asked for exemption from the 10% tariffs. I don't know where that stands, but the Donald could just say no.

[Davist]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

It's very possible to 'recycle' nuclear waste..the technology has been around for a long time. The 'political' will isn't there tho..the public has a skewed and incorrect view of nuclear power.


Chernobyl and 3 mile Island happened 1986 and 1979...30 plus years ago..Fukishima was a crappy design placed in a crappy place. There have been hundreds or thousand times more deaths from coal than all the nuke accidents but the 'public' remains emotional and ignorant. Solar, natural gas, coal and wind will NOT be enough for a electric grid where everything is powered by electricity.

https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html

VERY very true, the nuclear question is about will more than anything. Even Fukishima is 2 generations behind current designs (and not that great a design, as per OP). In US our nuclear engineers are rare, and nonexistent (well other than USN) under 60+ years old. This could have been solved by continuing to build generation... rather than stopping everything in the 70s (literally every type of power plant..)

[93KgBike]

We could use the planet's EM field as an induction generator. But that does not solve the toxicity of batteries and capacitors.

The true scale of climate change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked UN study seen by the Guardian.

It calculates that annual emissions from the world's merchant fleet have already reached 1.12bn tonnes of CO2, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas.

Tariff Man may inadvertently have a statistically significant effect in reducing CO2 emissions.

[cmbicycles]

Originally Posted by redir

... We have one of those in my neighborhood.

We have tour companies that drive people around to all those similarly view-able from space houses around Richmond... Tacky Light Tour season is here.

[Davist]

Originally Posted by cmbicycles

We have tour companies that drive people around to all those similarly view-able from space houses around Richmond... Tacky Light Tour season is here.

THEORETICALLY, with the "planned obsolescence" (ie 1 year life span or so) of the light strings, and the proliferation of LEDs this may be a case where the average Clark Griswold is at 7-15% (incandescent vs LED) of previous use in just 2 years.. but, um, yeah...

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by Davist

VERY very true, the nuclear question is about will more than anything. Even Fukishima is 2 generations behind current designs (and not that great a design, as per OP). In US our nuclear engineers are rare, and nonexistent (well other than USN) under 60+ years old. This could have been solved by continuing to build generation... rather than stopping everything in the 70s (literally every type of power plant..)

The reason for the Fukushima accident was not because the reactors were old, etc. It was because of a flawed safety analysis that determined that a tsunami would never reach the emergency generators / cooling pumps. All light water reactors, to my knowledge, have a fatal vulnerability in that they depend upon cooling water to keep the core cool (even on shutdown reactors and spent fuel in cooling ponds) to prevent a meltdown.

These new liquid metal reactors (they aren't really new) being touted as being safe, are not either because liquid metal (Na, K, NaK) is highly corrosive and react violently with water (i.e. fire and explosion).

[Davist]

understood on flawed design, similar to the Titanic, in my view, just pointing out that technology has gotten significantly better since it was built. And yes, site selection is critically important in any construction project (I'm in data centers)

[rain dogs]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Another perspective on Germany https://www.google.com/amp/s/foreign...hypocrite/amp/

In 2017, 40.3% of Germany's electricity was generated from coal!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

That article is somewhat interesting but hardly without a biased agenda. It makes assumptions that aren't supported by data and can't even get the data correct - with a cited correction at the bottom of the percentage, and then it's still incorrect when you go to the link they link.

Anyway. The bigger question is.... and? Are you saying that you believe Germany's policy is a failure? If so, why? Because they are encountering adversity in their efforts or simply based on numbers?

It sounds to me that you seem to sight the numbers, so clarify to me how we're measuring then, because Germany is getting 36-38% (from what I read and the later is what is linked in that article from coal).... is that failure?

The US 63% comes from fossil fuels. In Germany it's 45% https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

In the US only 17% comes from renewables. In Germany it's 40%.

C02 emissions per capita in Germany are not at their recent historical lowest (8.819 in 2009) they are higher at 8.889 in 2014 (the last data)

In the US they are at 16,491 (186% higher)

You seem to be interested in the matter, and highly critical of Germany and have voiced it many times. We're yet to hear your opinion of the US policy, data and numbers

So, what is your opinion there? How successful is the US if it's true, from what I read, that you believe Germany is failing?

[572cv]

Just to note that in my observation, the French are far more interested and engaged in global issues than we are. They pay attention, read, discuss and do research. It’s a cultural thing! There are numerous tv shows of talking heads dissecting an issue. And they don’t mind a good argument, but rather find it entertaining and enlightening. They are paying more attention to what is going on in this country (USA) than many of us do.

So, les gilets jaunes may not have started out as an organized group, but I’d not assume that they did not individually have a sense of their own history, of the impact of what they were doing, at least in France and in the region. They also know why the goal of reducing greenhouse gases is a good one. They do not agree that the average working joseph should bear the brunt of the tax, given how stressed many are economically.

I hope that out of this action may come a different way to approach this. Humanity as a whole has to grapple with this, but we are a fractious and tribal bunch. BTW, try to help reduce demand for products which are diminishing Indonesian forests. Huge impact there, by many accounts.