the 'Industrial Physicist' Magazine (a good rag!) covers these topics routinely
the consensus (as i read it) of their writers is that fission power offers the best set of trade offs currently, esp. if breeders are considered since the amount of waste is much lower from breeders
one point that was made in the favor of nukes is that the geographical 'footprint' is much smaller than alternatives
solar arrays and windmills have horribly huge and unsightly footprints
they had some data about the acreage needed to produce any reasonable amount of power that was staggering
i recently read that somewhere in the northeast there are big NIMBY fights over having to look at a wind farm that is being built (near Providence maybe?)
In the pursuit of never ending insanity here on the LEFT coast:
(are you sitting down?)
they are seriously looking at draining the Hetch Hetchy reservoir to restore the valley to it's original condition
the hydro generator provides some of the cleanest 'free' power that there is and the dam provides some of the best quality of water available anywhere and it was all paid off long ago
Dennis Saputelli
_______________________________________________________________________ Integrated Controls, Inc. Tel: 415-647-0480 EXT 107 2851 21st Street Fax: 415-647-3003 San Francisco, CA 94110 www.integratedcontrolsinc.com
Bagotronix Tech Support wrote:
I think the logical consequence of a majority not wanting to have
something
in their backyard is to change the technology and use something else. Why do we need stuff that nobody wants in their backyard?
Umm...because we need stuff? Everything that people need and want is an affront to someone. Do you need radio, television, cellphones, and electric power? If the answer is yes to any of those, a powerline and/or antenna tower is going into someone's backyard. Do you need food? If so, then a food processing facility is going into someone's backyard.
I can't think of any technology for power generation that doesn't have some history of rejection by greenies or NIMBYs:
Nuclear: radioactive wastes, uranium mining pollution, possible meltdown Coal: greenhouse gases (GG), airborne mercury Nat gas: GG, pipeline ruptures Oil: GG, oil spill hazards, contributes to trade deficit Solar: toxic wastes from solar cell manufacturing, unsightly Wind: hazards to birds, unsightly Wave: hazards to aquatic life, modification of ocean currents Hydro: hazards to freshwater fish, modification of river currents
Groundwater contamination is probably a much bigger problem than spreading directly to the surface. And claiming that this is a desert (now) doesn't help much with a project that's supposed to be designed for 10,000 years.
Groundwater systems are finite in their expanse. In Florida, we have two aquifers: the North Florida Acquifer, and the South Florida aquifer. In the NF area (where I live), the water table is high. I can dig a hole in my back yard, and ten minutes later it will be mostly filled with water. That is also why very few homes have basements in North Florida - you could never keep them dry! The groundwater is very good, low hard minerals and no sulfur, and no water shortage around here. But South Florida water table is not so good. Their water is hard with mineral and sulfur. It stinks, literally. And there's not as much of it. So, there is proof (dare I call it "scientific proof"? no, I won't, it's anecdotal evidence) that groundwater systems can remain isolated from each other.
I didn't say that people shouldn't be able to protest. Just that many
such
protests are simply cases of NIMBY. If someone tried to build a Chernobyl-type reactor near my town, you can bet I would be doing NIMBY protesting. But a safe reactor design, I would not oppose. No inconsistency here...
Well, sounds as if when you consider something unsafe (by your personal standards), you think you would do "justified NIMBY", but when others consider something unsafe (by their personal standards), they do "simple NIMBY". Not really inconsistent, just... how do I say that... maybe egocentric?
Yes, it must be egocentric to rely on one's more complete science education to justify one's position on a scientific matter. Why, that must be the real reason I got my engineering degree, so I could justify my ego.
The worst thing about public ignorance of science is that they don't even know enough to know what they don't know. Example: I was at a friend's house, and their little boy ran into the kitchen and turned on the (fluorescent) lights. The father gently reprimanded the boy for wasting electricity, saying "You now owe me 40 cents, mister". I later asked the father what that was all about, and he said an electric company employee told him that although fluorescent lights use less energy when on, they take a lot of energy to turn on. When I asked how much energy, the father said "40 cents worth". I told him in as diplomatic terms as I could muster that the electric company employee was dead wrong. His response was "He is from the electric company, they are experts on these things." Then I asked him to find his latest electric bill, which he did. We calculated that he pays 10 cents per KWh. So I proposed an experiment: we stood by the electric meter, and had his wife turn the kitchen lights on while we watched the meter. I told him that if the meter reading jumps by 4 when she turns on the lights, the electric company employee would be correct. If not, then I am correct. We did the experiment, and I was correct. Even after that, they still found it difficult to accept the results of the experiment. Then I realized that this is how most people operate - they will accept as gospel anything said from anyone they perceive as authoritative, even in the face of contrary evidence. And the part of "not knowing what they don't know" is that my friend and his wife didn't realize that I had much more science education than the electric company employee did.
Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerhard Fiedler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Bagotronix Tech Support" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Open Topic Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 7:49 AM Subject: Re: [OT] ongoing environmental thread *was* lead free
On 12/13/04 20:30:21, you wrote:
Now good science tells us that we don't have any experience with containment of any materials with current technologies that is more
than a
few decades. Science also tells us that it is extremely risky (the risk
to
err) to simply extrapolate our short-term experience up to a few
centuries
or more. There is no scientific data about containment facilities that
need
to work a few millenniums. This are not only technical questions...
it's
not even guaranteed that any of the current countries will still exist
at
that time to perform the required maintenance.
Maintenance? Since when does a deep hole in the ground require
maintenance?
The plan there, as with all similar planned facilities, in case you don't know, includes to "contain" the material in some sort of container. These containers are made of materials we have quite limited long-time
experience
with. Most of these need some sort of maintenance to prevent corrosion damage, and for all we know so far, they /will/ corrode without maintenance. This is what engineering data tells us. So no, the hole won't require maintenance, but the contents will. If it were just for a hole
with
nothing in it, there probably wouldn't be any protests.
Once it's full, build mini-pyramids over the site, with warnings carved
into
the surfaces. The Eqyptian pyramids have lasted for thousands of years.
Yes they did last, but we don't have much of a clue about what much of the stuff there means. Besides, I doubt that any current government would
spend
the effort to create anything that lasting. Their time horizon is
something
between 4 and 12 years or so, mostly. I consider it rather ingenuous to think that any governmental agency or private enterprise would seriously plan for more than 50 years -- and even more ingenuous to think that they would /act/ in advance. So the claim that all of a sudden they should be able to design and run a 10k years facility responsibly is pretty wild
IMO.
the event that somehow the radioactive stuff does come back to the
surface,
the area will become known in folklore as the "forbidden lands" or
something
mysterious like that.
Groundwater contamination is probably a much bigger problem than spreading directly to the surface. And claiming that this is a desert (now) doesn't help much with a project that's supposed to be designed for 10,000 years.
I didn't say that people shouldn't be able to protest. Just that many
such
protests are simply cases of NIMBY. If someone tried to build a Chernobyl-type reactor near my town, you can bet I would be doing NIMBY protesting. But a safe reactor design, I would not oppose. No inconsistency here...
Well, sounds as if when you consider something unsafe (by your personal standards), you think you would do "justified NIMBY", but when others consider something unsafe (by their personal standards), they do "simple NIMBY". Not really inconsistent, just... how do I say that... maybe egocentric?
I think the logical consequence of a majority not wanting to have
something
in their backyard is to change the technology and use something else. Why do we need stuff that nobody wants in their backyard?
IMO the single biggest damage to the public understanding of science
has
probably be done by the "scientists" who use the term "scientifically proven". There is no such thing as "scientifically proven". If we all could at least agree on that, we probably would be a big step further in the proper use of science.
I don't think I've ever heard a scientist use that phrase.
I haven't heard scientists use that phrase either, but I did hear "scientists" use it :)
I have heard marketers, advertising people, politicians, and public relations people
use
the phrase. Maybe these are the people you should be blaming?
I've even heard engineers use it (or similar phrases), mostly when they
are
convinced that they have just the "right", "objective" balance of risks
and
others with a different balance are just simple naysayers.
Gerhard
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