Why Not (nuclear power)

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...in-every-home/


Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?



--
AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net

http://www.novac.com

On Feb 10, 3:17*pm, AM wrote:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...a-nuclear-reac...

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?

Could it be because nuclear was sold as being too cheap to meter, and
it
turned out to be the most expensive fuel of all? You can ass-rape
most
people once, some twice, but even the biggest sucker will start to
feel
their ass hurt after repeated failed promises...

P.S. Just had a thought: I guess that's why Chris.B is so against the
USA - he and his Danish buddies are getting totally ass-raped day and
night on energy costs! We need to send him some cheap gas now!!!

On Feb 10, 10:17 am, AM wrote:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...a-nuclear-reac...

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?


If we run out of stuff to burn, I say go for it. Better than cutting
down all the trees.

wrote in message
...
On Feb 10, 10:17 am, AM wrote:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...a-nuclear-reac...

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?


If we run out of stuff to burn, I say go for it. Better than cutting
down all the trees.
Absolutely. And don't be put of by the scare stories about the deadly and
long-lasting byproducts.
The human race won't last long enough for it to be a problem.

AM wrote:

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...in-every-home/

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?


The issue is cost. Cost as measured against a broad spectrum of social-cultural
"investments". There is a broad
social platform erected around oil with internationmal implications, banking implications,
class implications, population implications, who rules, who doesnt rule, etc
etc etc. Under the current global scheme which even the
Chinese have bought into, it would be difficult to suddenly
switch over a non-petroleum based global economy. Its
not just dollars and cents.

The above scenario leaves room for a few small countries to go nuclear, eg France, Iran
trying, Germany, ....

On the physics side there is the trade off between cost vs
output. Coal and petroleum are essentially free! (if you
irgnore social and global warming costs). Fission reactors
are not as free in the same sense. Fusion reactors might be more free, which remains to be
seen?

And, there is a lot more to the story ...


--
AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net

http://www.novac.com

On Feb 10, 7:17*am, AM wrote:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...a-nuclear-reac...

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?

--
AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net

http://www.novac.com

There's nothing wrong with using thorium.

~ BG

On Feb 10, 11:16*am, jeffinputnam wrote:
On 2/10/2010 10:17 AM, AM wrote:

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...a-nuclear-reac...

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?

Probably because the waste lays around for years? Though I guess we
could shoot it all off into the sun or something.

J

Then use thorium.

~ BG

L.A.T. wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Feb 10, 10:17 am, AM wrote:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/mi...a-nuclear-reac...

Why not pursue this approach, or one similar ?

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?

If we run out of stuff to burn, I say go for it. Better than cutting
down all the trees.
Absolutely. And don't be put of by the scare stories about the deadly and
long-lasting byproducts.
The human race won't last long enough for it to be a problem.




Less people have died working at, or because of nuclear power plants
than other forms of power generation.

Compare that to coal, or hydro power, and nuclear is far safer.



--
AM

http://sctuser.home.comcast.net

http://www.novac.com

On Feb 10, 8:17*am, AM wrote:

If we are seeking clean energy, why are so many against nuclear power ?

Many of the people who are concerned about the environment aren't
simply reacting logically to a problem with implications for human
survival. Instead, they have an emotional attachment to such things as
the beauty of the wilderness.

Of course, a nuclear power plant poses less of a threat to wildlife
than a coal-fired power plant, just as it poses less of a threat to
humans.

But if we're talking about people thinking with their emotions, then
many things change. Even cavemen built fires to warm themselves, but
nuclear power is high-tech. As well, the secret of the atom was
unlocked during World War II, in research done for military purposes.

So while burning coal is dirty and ugly, nuclear power causes a
visceral revulsion on the part of some environmentalists for other
reasons.

Also, if nuclear power does remove limits on energy supply because it
has less obvious environmental consequences than fossil fuels, it
isn't even irrational for environmentalists to conclude that the
result will be an increase in the human population. It's a basic
ecological principle that when environmental constraints are removed,
the population of a species increases until it bumps into those
constraints again. Man, as part of nature, also follows its laws -
while people can plan ahead in ways that other creatures cannot, one
needs active law enforcement to prevent mob violence, and, in general,
without compulsion, one can't expect universal cooperation where that
is needed - otherwise, there wouldn't be taxes.

So many environmentalists feel that humanity would behave badly with
access to unlimited energy - what we gain in less stuff coming out of
smokestacks, we would lose in a larger population converting ever more
land to agricultural use. As it is, farming is putting intense
pressure on the world's few remaining areas of wilderness.

They dream of a world in which a few hundred million humans live at a
comfortable standard of living - with modern medicine and
microcomputers and some other modern conveniences - but without heavy
industry, and with the vast majority of people living off the land as
farmers.

In fact, trying to move the United States linearly in that direction
would result, in short order, in its conquest by China or some other
country or group of countries that might be interested. Heavy industry
is what a country's ability to make war rests on. Presumably they feel
they can just wish away the intentions of other countries - or the
desire of the billions living in the world's poorer countries to have
children of their own individual families as part of whatever world
there is in the future.

Some ecologists are so extreme that they dare to refer to natural
disasters that would kill many people as a good thing, as though the
Earth really mattered except insofar as it can serve humans, who alone
have rights and feelings, who alone we have a moral obligation to care
about. The left wing, containing some people who still think the
former Soviet Union was the guiding light to a humane future, has also
been indulgent towards environmentalism, for obvious reasons.

Environmentalism favors humanity being happy. But it is less sanguine
about a humanity that is strong and free. No wonder that it is deeply
mistrusted, and now that there really is a genuine environmental
threat of global scale, given its track record of exaggerating the
ramifications of past issues, it is also seen as having cried "Wolf!"
too often.

So those who have no prejudice against nuclear power... are more
likely to be hesitant about accepting the evidence in favor of global
warming. The people who put science ahead of politics are, sadly, few
and far between.

John Savard