The environment

[nik0tine]

I see your point. However, one problem is that it is pretty expensive to build a nuclear power plant, and I doubt that it would be immediately profitable. This prevents it from happening. Another thing, is where are we going to put the nuclear power plants? More would obviously need to be built. Nobody wants to live by a nuclear power plant. If they were put even remotely close to a neighborhood, those homes would lose a large amount of thier value. If the plants were too far away from society, the amount of energy that would be able to come from tehse would be decreased.

[The Redneck]

True--but these are the same problems that we have with coal-fired power plants, after all.

[Cloud No.9]

sorry but why resort to nuclear power? america has thosuand of miles of coast for wave and tidal power, enough rivers for hydro-electric, plenty of sun for solar, enough wind for wind power? why not use them? well because it would mean the demand for oil would drop and so then woukd prices and some very very rich people might lose a bit of money. boo hoo. don'y lose any jobs, plenty of stuff to be build with envirmentally friendly power, and it needs to be manned. it comes down to a very small gorup of people owning most of america and not caring how many people die for their swiss bank account.

[ShunNakamura]

Personally I hope Fusion power is developed soon.. It looked like NIF was doing well back 3 or 4 years ago(saw it in the National Geographic and then did alot of research) but aparently it didn't acheive what it hoped, cause I haven't heard much from it there.

Fusion would be nice. The cons if I remember correctly mainly dealt with the increadible initial cost of such a plant. Supposidly clean, and NIF was expected to produce one heck of alot of energy. So really cost and the fact taht we haven't figured it all out yet is what is wrong with Fusion.

That and I remember reading somewhere that if we figure out Cold Fusion it would be possible for people to make Nuclear weapons at home... which sounds a bit extreme to me.. but meh.


Anyways, I don't car for Nuclear Fision power alot.. seems it causes several drawbacks.. though I guess it is better then coal/oil. But I am a fan of Nuclear Fusion.. we just gotta work the kinks out.


As for the capitalistic comments, true it works that way... but will it work fast enough on its own? the government could try and spur it a bit. Perhaps by somehow rewarding the first one to develop a pratical fusion plant or some such.

[Sasquatch]

sorry but why resort to nuclear power? america has thosuand of miles of coast for wave and tidal power, enough rivers for hydro-electric, plenty of sun for solar, enough wind for wind power?

Why not? Because they're expensive as hell to set up. Wind and solar power are unreliable at best, expensive to set up and run, and not very efficient. As for damming up our rivers, you've got to think a bit, it's not like sticking a mill paddle out the side of a barn over the river. Nuclear power is cheap compared to most other types, usually very safe, very efficient, and extremely clean. Why not resort to nuclear power?

[Cloud No.9]

wind power is perfectly efficient, 40% of scotlands power is soon to come from it. and we are hardly the richest nation either so the cost can't be that dramatic can it for the worlds (second) richest nation (depends how you count it). Nuclear power is still as expensive to set up anyway. brazil did a great job of building the worlds biggest dam and getting 60% of not only it's own but one of it's neighbours power as well. no mean feat at best. what's wrong with the hoover dam? did that before, alright very difficult to do. but a whole lot easier than getting the polar ice caps to refreeze and to stop New York being underwater.

this even shouldn't be about cost, this is about saving the planet and millions of lives. of course greedy american doesn't care about that. nope better to have big bank accounts than to save a few africans eh?

nuclear fusion would not enable people to be able to create nuclear weapons at home. the electricity they get would be the same it is now, not some new fangled radiation electricity. the technology would be there but then again how many terrorists have built nuclear reprocessing plants these days?

nuclear power shouldn't be resorted to, yes it is clean if it is maintianed properly but there is hardly a power station which would fit that category of "always been well maintained" it's not particularly cheap either. energy costs have infact risen than the supposed fall nuclear power was supposed to cause, at the very start people were talking about energy so effiecent it would be free. it never will be, don't believe the claims. it's hardly clean either. waste that lasts for longer than the earth will is hardly clean now is it? yeah we can store it deep enough for it not to be a problem for now. but what about in fifty years? would you be so happy with your house being on top of a site with radiation powerful enough to kill you in a matter of hours and it's half life was a few million years? i wouldn't be best pleased.

but you know in a few years it's all gonna be a good chuckle there ill be living off my wind power electricity (alright the coast is a bit closer now cos "some people" refuse to obey kyoto) and watching on my wind powered tv i'll see the american stock market crash, the price of oil soar, it's land flooded and a energy shortages. at that point i'll sit back and smile and sweetly say "i told you so".

ps can this topic be widened to car and SUV users who also pollute the atmosphere in even greater amounts?

[ShunNakamura]

Nuclear power isn't all that bad. Fission I am not a fan of.

On the other hand Nuclear Fusion power does not give off the same waste as fission. Fusion works the same way our sun does. And can, if we ever work all the kinks out, produce a major amount of energy. NIF: "the laser system is very powerful, equal to 1,000 times the electric generating power of the United States" Wowzers.. that is alot of power don't you think? no waste, self-sustaining once started, and no chance of meltdown.. as well as being stable. Sounds to me like Fusion will be the way to go.

As for the fusion... supposedly once we figure all this out people will be able to apply the concepts to make nuclear weapons at home, out house-hold materials... I ain't too sure about that.. but I have read an article in a science magazine about it 2 years ago.. the guy who wrote it was an Anti-Fusionist... so perhaps it has some BS in it.

[Cloud No.9]

actually nuclear weapons already use nuclear fusion, that's what the hydrogen bomb was all about. the big problem is not creating nuclear fusion we've been doing that since we made the hydrogen bomb the great problem is controlling it in a way that doesn't destroy cities but can be used for power.

it's not self sustaining as it will always require fuel i.e. hydrogen. and there is still a chance of meltdown. if the taurus method was used then if one of the magnets was to fail the plasma would then break out of the circle and destroy the reactor and depending on the severity of the failure could either cause the hydrogen to explode (a very big bang) or would create and uncontrolled nuclear reaction similar to a hydrogen bomb. the dangers are all still there.

ShunNakamura. you're quote regarding a laser system i don't quite understand. i know for a while lasers where tried to create the reaction and control the plasma to limited effect is that to which you are refering to? if so this wouldn't be powered by the reaction itself. otherwise i've not heard of a power generating system that uses lasers as lasers normaly require something to power it. it's the old energy in-energy out thing.

[ShunNakamura]

Cloud I mentioned NIF earlier. I will have to look up my old research paper, due to the fact that NIF has changed a bit since 2000(or was it 2001?).

NIF at that point was trying to find a affordable way to produce Fusion. All this plant needed was the "Laser system" and of course Hydrogen, but I believe at the time they were trying to make the process entirely round about. Something to the effect of producing Trtium and then breaking the tritium back down into it's components... so I guess it was technically a form of Fusion and Fission combined. As for a malfuntion- I remember the National Geographic said(I think it was them.. I guess I could go through their archives and look... wait.. I don't order it anymore so I don't think I can do that) that in the event of a malfuntion the plant would simply die... no explosion, no waste leakage, nothing of that sort... just shut down.

Basically how it originally sounded(NIF is much more then just energy research at the moment) NIF would produce enough power to power all of the US, with ONE power plant. NIF once started would save enough of its own energy to keep its power up thus ensuring it wouldn't shut down, ever.

However it looks like it's initial experiments have failed, they didn't produce as much power as they thought they would(still produced a lot though) thus cost effeciency is still really low, nor did they even succed in the continous factor.

And yes all NIF really is is a large laser facility that re-enacts the power producing effects that our sun does.

[The Redneck]

but you know in a few years it's all gonna be a good chuckle there ill be living off my wind power electricity (alright the coast is a bit closer now cos "some people" refuse to obey kyoto) and watching on my wind powered tv i'll see the american stock market crash, the price of oil soar, it's land flooded and a energy shortages. at that point i'll sit back and smile and sweetly say "i told you so".

First: Pleeeeaaase... People have been telling us we wouldn't last another five years ever since 1776. You ain't the first, and you won't be the last.

Second: Kyoto's only goal was to transfer American money to third-world despots, and its only effect on pollution would be to transfer American pollution to third-world countries--many of which don't have the controls nor the ability to enforce them that we have, thus making the problem even worse. Just another reason we need to get rid of the UN.

Wind and Solar power, first and foremost, require wind and sunlight to run. That limits the amount of places they can be placed, and in addition they take up huge amounts of land--that's land that used to belong to various ecosystems. Wind power is noisy as hell, so good luck trying to get anyone to live near it (which means it'll be placed further from populated areas, which again makes trouble with various ecosystems) and the windmills serve as very large and expensive veg-o-matics for lots and lots of birds, as we've discovered in California. Both of them are not only very expensive to set up, but very expensive to maintain as well.

Hydro-electric power is great stuff, but there are only so many places it can be set up--the vast majority of which are dammed already, because us greedy capitalists realize that since it's so easy to get it's real cheap--and it too requires a lot of dredging, building, road-building, etc., that ain't so hot for the environment.

If some way to make them actually work is worked out, than great--but in the meantime, we're not about to put ourselves on a starvation diet to satisfy the hysteria of environmental Chicken Littles who've been proven wrong already time after time.

[Cloud No.9]

kyoto's only goal was to stop greenhouse gases. you know that lovely stuff your car pumps out and your power station pumps out that causes rises in global temperature. yeah that stuff. do you know whta 5 degree rise in temperature would do to this planet? as soon as we hit 5 degrees there is no going back because it will become a climbing cycle. it's frankly a toss up between saving few tax payers bucks and the oil tycoon losing that $50 million bonus or a few million deaths. why is that such a huge choice to make? you hate to see your own people killed by muslims but killing a africans is not a dot on your conscience.

it's not something which is gonna starve tha fattest nation on earth. my country is managing it. overcame all that little hassle over it might make a few people who like thier view more than the planet. we are doing it, without the money of the richest nation on earth. and i see noone starving here. and america has plenty land thank you very much to do whatever the hell it wants with.

what is wrong with the richest and most powerful nation on the planet doing something for the earth for once?

[The Redneck]

Have you actually looked at Kyoto? The only thing it does for the manufacture of greenhouse gasses is moves them from the first world to the third. Same polution--probably more--at the expense of the US.

So please spare me about how we want to murder Africans. It's BS.

[Cloud No.9]

it does two things in fact. it promises to reduce c02 levels to 1990 levels. that's right a reduction not a move. it allows developing countries to continue with the industrial revolution which the western world had over a hundred years ago while cutting back on the co2 levels of the countries that can afford it. would you rather cripple african development?

what is wrong with expense to the us all of a sudden? you will not bloody starve. you're the fattest nation on earth with horrific food wastage anyway. this is going to cripple noone but inaction is going to cripple far more than a few coasts.

your absolute contempt for any action taken to spare live is beyond sickening.

[The Redneck]

it promises to reduce c02 levels to 1990 levels. that's right a reduction not a move.

Reduction in first-world countries......

it allows developing countries to continue with the industrial revolution

Increase in third-world countries.

In other words....

The only thing it does for the manufacture of greenhouse gasses is moves them from the first world to the third. Same polution--probably more--at the expense of the US.

Funny how that works, ain't it?

The only thing it does for the manufacture of greenhouse gasses is moves them from the first world to the third. Same polution--probably more--at the expense of the US.

Don't we spend enough worrying about real threats?

you will not bloody starve. you're the fattest nation on earth with horrific food wastage anyway

Would that "wastage" be our sending food to a sizable percentage of the nations in the world? I suppose if we let you folks cripple us, we'll won't be able to feed those people, so you can claim we're killing people to make a buck, instead of... oops.

Your absolute contempt for any action taken to spare live is beyond sickening.

No, my contempt is for people who will take any poorly-thought-out excuse to harm the US no matter the cost. People like you, in other words.

[sephiroth JR]

were all gonna die so why not go out guns blazin ps-dont argue with me coz its late and im not thinkin so either Acknowledge me or ignore me your choice ...night all