Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "Like ants using Raid"

Oh, absolutely!

My point here is just that in addition to the obvious other issues (such as being, at the very core of the thing, anti-life) nuclear power has been heavily subsidized. 150 billion is what the article I read said.

Point being, was that the best way to spend 150 billion of public money on energy? How about the next 150 billion? I think it's at least debatable that it is not.

I don't doubt it takes something to make em that could be dangerous. Ever see an oil well being drilled, it takes fossil fuel energy and isn't exactly clean either.

I'm not saying that solar is good or bad. I will say that I have no issue with putting a big bank of them out side the house. And contrary to that article, it won't affect any of our wildlife. I frankly think saying panels in place will affect wildlife is about the stupidest thing I've read on solar panels.

And anything by the Washington Post, I'd have to seriously question as to reality of truth of the matter.

Just my take.

Jeff

JeffObama's post PERFECTLY illustrates the NIMBY-mentality that's crippled any energy project development (nuclear, petroleum, coal, gas, wind, solar, all of them) here in the U.S.

Here's an example:

I worked on a wind generation project in Vermont (of all places).

This one, in fact: http://www.projectnoproject.com/2010/12/glebe-mountain-wind-energy-project-vt/

The project was literally perfect. The mountain geography was exactly as it needed to be, the wind speeds and consistency were text-book, there was NO environmental quality problem (no birds, bats, bees, bears, whatever impacted).

The end result? Well, the mountain couldn't be moved, and all the folks that had moved into the area threw a fit and tied the project up in court over aesthetics.

Yep, they killed the project because it would "spoil their scenic views". Nothing more; nothing less.

Take a look at what the NIMBY mindset is doing to wind projects (remember they are the DARLINGS of the left) in Vermont....

http://www.projectnoproject.com/category/states/vermont/

Those projects would have produced over 150MW of electricity in the state annually.

All the while, the left in Vermont is trying to get Vermont Yankee shutdown. VY is a 540MW facility that produces over 70% of the electricity in the state, and provides about 35% of the state's electricity needs. Of course, there are no replacements for the VY power, and any new generation facilities face at least the level of opposition that the wind facilities do.

Energy, especially electricity, is required. A certain level is already in demand, and increases are coming. That power will HAVE to be generated from something, somewhere.

The questions are, simply, by what, and where.

Eventually, someone's NIMBY has to give.

Our new sources of energy will come from satellites converting solar power to lasers, to earth, to electricity. We'll cook our rainbow stew with it.

We are deluding ourselves if we think that solar is a viable option. It costs over 100 times that of oil/gas fired power plants. So its a viable replacement if you live in a fantasy land ignoring economic realities.

Lots of people want to shut down everything that produces electricity for one reason or another. Coal too dirty, Oil pollutes, Nukes are scary, Hydro too ugly, Wind think of the animals and the view, solar takes too much space an cost too much, Nat Gas is viewed the same as oil.

Ask the idiots where they will get there electricity from when everything is shut down and they will tell you the electrical outlet in their house.

Lots of this schit is evil I will give them that, but necessary none the less.

I thought that gravity would lower the rods into a substance (graphite?) that would absorb the radiation and stop the nuclear reaction quickly.

None of it is evil.

I guess we will have to disagree on that....

When an oil rig blows up in the middle of the gulf, people die and it spews millions of gallons of oil into the water, is that evil.... yes IMO but necessary......

When wars are fought over land for no other reason that oil, and thousands of people die as a result, is that evil..... Yes IMO but necessary......

When a Nuke plant releases radiation during a meltdown, puts fear into thousands of people and all but guarantees the slow and painful death of the people trying to prevent the situation from getting any worse. Is that evil..... Yes IMO but necessary.....

I guess if you look at it differently you can make the case that it is people who make these thinks evil and that by themselves they cannot be, but until you can take the human factor out the two are one in the same.

Maybe a better statement would have been lots of this schit "can" be evil.....

Getting back to Japan, it seems unacceptable radiation levels have now been detected out side the exclusion 12m zone and the UN is calling for the zone to be doubled...

Radiation levels in the sea off the coast from the plant have hit in excess of 4500 times the legal limit, the highest levels since the accident occurred..

This is not over by a long way and the situation is far from stable...

Not sure if it was gravity that lowers the fuel rods, but...

From what I read the rods were lowered and the plants shut down. The problem is that that there is still radioactive decay of particles that produces heat. That heat has to go someplace so they need the cooling.

If not cooled the cladding around the cooling rods has a melting point of about 2300f and the fuel itself about 3Kf. If the heat from the residual decay is not removed, then it very possible that the rods might melt (can't remember how many watts is still be produced even when shut down). They then flow out and into the remaining water in the bottom of the vessel.

The problem is that the water also acts as a neutron moderator. It slows down the neutrons so that they will hit the fissile material and make more nuetrons and so on...

So if the rods melt and then land in the water a reaction starts up again. Real hot now and still no cooling.

Anyway that's what I know from a layman's POV. Some here know a lot more about these things than me...

Steve, that's about how I understand it too.

Since they are finding radiation levels climbing 300 yards offshore, and now it's in the groundwater 50 feet under the plant, it sure seems like there's a breech in one or more reactor vessals, or whatever it is they call them.

When I came up with the "ants using Raid" analogy it had real resonance for me; it's easy to imagine a buncha ants trying like heck to make use of this substance that's like instant death to them... and easy to predict the results, too, over the long haul.

Currently one of the big issues in Japan is that they can't even get near the problem; it's simply unapproachable by a human being. Ants and Raid. That's insane.

This isn't a technology that we have a handle on, not really. And it drives me a bit crazy that the SAME scientists who promised us 40 years ago to trust them, they knew best, everything was going to be fine, which has turned out to be untrue big time (with the waste factored in, especially) are the same bastids we are supposed to trust now. Well, I don't.

All the whiners that don't want nuclear energy are just that whiners. It is as safe ass you make it. Don't take shortcuts like storing spent fuel rods in the pond out back, because you were going to get around to it.

I live on top of a uranium deposit, am I worried about nuclear energy? Not a bit.

You should be more worried about radon gas in your basement.

What worries me are the liberal idiots in this country.

You probably saw the story- looks like entombment might be the "solution". Bet THAT was never pitched to the locals.....

Look at it like this.... we get 20% of our electricity from it, at a publicly subsidized cost of 150 billion (which is to say, 150 thousand million).

Spend that same 150 large <g> on increasing efficiency and you & I both know, there was 20% to be had. Upgrading the transmission grid. Make better houses.

Instead, we have ticking time bombs, festering pools of waste we really have no clue how to deal with, and so on.

What's done is done, but I'm arguing against spending another kajillion dollars on subsidizing this technology.

Ya Jeff, I think someone mentioned earlier "its worse than you know" and "start ordering large amounts of concrete"

Dont fall off your chair when you hear about 4 cooling pumps being buried underground.

"Instead, we have ticking time bombs, festering pools of waste..."

Falling back on hysterical, non-technical phrasing is usually a pretty good indicator that you picked an indefensible argument.

Dealing with a few thousand tons of radioactive waste is preferable to dealing with a few billion tons of coal emissions. All there is to it. If that costs another 2 cents a kwh I'm more than happy to pay it.

Aspade,

I'll concede the phrasing was non-tech but it's accurate. Every reactor in the world is a potential time bomb and they all generate waste, usually put in pools, which we have no rational way of dealing with.

And my overall argument here is quite defensible. Try me!

Nuclear power plants are very similar to deficit spending, when the costs of waste "disposal" (in quotes, cause it ain't) and decommissioning are considered. A reactor has HUGE back-loaded expenses and they are borne by future generations. Factor in those costs and the power they make is not cost-effective.

At least, so say articles I've read. I'm no expert on this (are you?); just a concerned citizen making noise about what I see as a blatant waste of public money, in addition to being, well, like ants using Raid.

The only way to make this world safer is to do away with electricity.

Of course thats not going to happen. And right now we are focused on ONE incident thats going wrong. Not on the fact that there are how many other plants that DON"T have anything wrong....

On the topic of solar being unfeasible cost wise... I have but a single question.... costs here run about 20,000 or so to put enough up to power a house almost all the time. There are rebates to cut that in half but lets just say there were no rebates...
Electricity will be like gas, will not do anything but go up in price over the years.
Figuring one can easily have a 300 plus dollar a month electrical bill... assuming it all stays the same we are talking appx 6 years to break even. I think most solar cells last a hair longer..... batteries I"m not sure... but bottom line there, you could technically save more, if not, spend the same amount as electricity, but without the use of production of power via other methods...

Bring the Raid on for me anyway. We need it, unless we intend to move back to no power, ride horses etc....which actually, other than no AC in this miserably azzed hot state I live in, wouldn't be a big issue personally.

Call the waaaahmbulance for Jeff.

Or, for another perspective:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/[bleep]/