A heavier topic: So nuclear power is good?

[Ekaros]

Basicly nuclear powerplants are nice, and they use some heavy stuff so "heavier" topic.

Still, there might be some issues if you buy from french...
Like here in Finland, the new powerplat is 3-4 years late and costed 50% over budget...

Then there is change of it all going wrong(not realy, unless you desing it to go to hell or just do stuff you realy shouldn't do...), but then you end up with "nice" site preserving part of history.

Anyway, it's still best source of energy if you care about CO2, if not I would go with coal. Hmm, fusion would be very nice, one day...

[quadibloc]

Given the amount of space that solar and wind energy take up, and the fact that their energy is not necessarily available when it is needed, I think that nuclear power is very important at this time.

We can use nuclear energy to cut our fossil fuel consumption significantly, and there is an apparent need to do so to prevent harmful consequences from global warming.

[keyboardlover]

Has anyone seen the movie Moon about harvesting Helium-3 on the Moon for energy? Interesting concept and apparently NASA has researched it.

[Rajagra]

I watched Moon the other day, it's pretty good. Nice to know that post-it notes will used for mission-critical note taking tasks for some time to come.

I think that wind energy would be a great idea, once they make it cost-effective and reliable. What I don't understand is why they make massive wind farms instead of making one monster size turbine.

Sure, it wouldn't be practical to have a huge propeller-type blade. But a cross-flow fan lends itself to scalability nicely. And they are supposed to be quieter and more efficient, I believe.

But then I don't believe current wind farms have anything to do with real energy efficiency, it's all politics. So they build them using the simplest, cheapest type of design (still hideously expensive, mind you) and fill your view with them as an unmissable flag of political greenness.

[quadibloc]

Sure, it wouldn't be practical to have a huge propeller-type blade.

Even a cross-flow fan is subject to the square-cube law, although you could indeed scale it up in one dimension without increasing the mass per square foot of wind capture area.

[MissileMike]

Count me in as being pro-nuclear power.  There is plenty of uranium to last a few thousand years, even factoring in demand acceleration.

EDIT: According to wikipedia, it's only "at least a century"

[wellington1869]

i just read up a bit on another looming problem with hybrid cars. Rare earth minerals. China has a nearly 100% monopoly on them right now. They are essential ingredients in components/batteries of hybrids. Also essential part of manufacturing of tech in general.

The chinese are not shy about restricting that supply, selectively, based on their ever-expansionist imperial domination plans for asia and the world. They just threatened to cut off japan's supply of them, in other words, japan's economic lifeline, over that fishing boat incident. Japan meekly gave in and folded as a result. Exports of rare earth minerals were in fact halted from china to japan, AFAIK are still cut off. Holding all of japan hostage over chinese territorial claims.

But of course china flexes its economic muscle in support of the ruling party and their domination all the time. American workers also finance the yuan, since the CPC refuses to let it rise. And they own most of our debt, holding our economy hostage too.

In short:  buy oil and support terrorists; buy hybrids and support chinese communists. Both of whom are anti-democracy, and both of whom would like nothing better than to see america and western europe utterly destroyed. And both of whom link together all the time for that end (china's support of pakistan, encircling of india (the only functioning democracy on mainland asia), china's support of iran, etc).

My friend who recently relocated to china was looking for a computer the other day and I suggested a lenovo. He was shocked. He actually gaped at me and sputtered, there is no way i'm going to support china and that regime.

Makes me sad to think i may have to give up lenovo's (he wound up buying an HP, yea its probably made in china too, but atleast its an american company), and i had never thought of boycotting chinese companies before, but maybe that makes some sense given the regime. Hell, if we're talking about making economic changes so we dont support the saudi's and theocracies, why not this too?

[ricercar]

{china} own{s} most of our debt, holding our economy hostage too.

To the punks we put in Washington, China's debt ownership is as frightening an issue as the rare earth metals issue. We got pwned.

example citation

[Rajagra]

We got pwned?

This demands an instant response...


Candygram for China! Candygram for China!

[wellington1869]

more on rare earth elements, hybrid cars, and chinese clout.

A Japanese trader in the minerals said Tuesday that customs agents were still not allowing shipments of rare earths to Japan. Traders here say that it would be extremely difficult to find other sources of the minerals if shipments continue to be held up. China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, which can sell for hundreds of dollars a pound.
...
Rare earths are used to make a range of products: glass, batteries, compact fluorescent bulbs and computer display screens. Demand has risen in the last decade for their use in clean energy technology, like generators for large wind turbines and lightweight electric motors for cars.
They have been crucial as Japanese automakers vie to keep the lead in fuel-efficient vehicles, turning to the minerals for the powerful electric motors that help propel gasoline-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius, or Nissan’s all-electric car, the Leaf.

[quadibloc]

i just read up a bit on another looming problem with hybrid cars. Rare earth minerals. China has a nearly 100% monopoly on them right now. They are essential ingredients in components/batteries of hybrids. Also essential part of manufacturing of tech in general.

Since they could be mined and produced in many other places, including the U.S., though, it's great that they decided to do this, and wake up the world now, instead of at a later time when it could have dealt a serious blow to U.S. strategic capabilities.

The U.S. can just ban imports of foreign cars made with Chinese rare earths to force the foreign carmakers to buy U.S. rare earths. China might holler to the WTO, but now the U.S. can validly claim military necessity.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

In short:  buy oil and support terrorists; buy hybrids and support chinese communists. Both of whom are anti-democracy, and both of whom would like nothing better than to see america and western europe utterly destroyed.

The Chinese and the Arab top brass are much too heavily invested in the West to want to see it go to hell. For the rest, you're probably right.

Back to the topic a bit: there are strong points in favor of Nuclear. Especially if you consider newer (like, 1960s and later) technology and a comprehensive nuclear strategy. IIRC breeder reactors can give us very close to clean energy for the next 1000 years by reusing much of what is now stored as dangerous waste (giving less and cleaner waste in return). Pebblebed reactors are pretty much impossible to melt down (they're inherently limited and shut down when the process isn't kept stable), and pebblebed reactors are far from the only possible, stable reactor types. We can do a LOT better than your standard 60s design fission reactor. I still don't know why in the US breeder reactors are banned but at the same time there's no place to put all the waste.

The main objection to nuclear right now is plain cost. It's more expensive than coal (which, by the way, also generates a lot of radioactive waste, but that just goes in the air instead of being stored) and gas, one because reactors are pretty expensive to build, and two, because the red tape involved for anything nuclear is astounding. I expect both objections to go away in the next decade or two because coal and gas are just not going to stay this cheap. That would also make other "clean" energy sources more competitive, but I suspect we're going to have to start taking nuclear much more seriously than we've done up till now (excepting the French and a few other countries).

[Ekaros]

The main objection to nuclear right now is plain cost. It's more expensive than coal (which, by the way, also generates a lot of radioactive waste, but that just goes in the air instead of being stored) and gas, one because reactors are pretty expensive to build, and two, because the red tape involved for anything nuclear is astounding. I expect both objections to go away in the next decade or two because coal and gas are just not going to stay this cheap. That would also make other "clean" energy sources more competitive, but I suspect we're going to have to start taking nuclear much more seriously than we've done up till now (excepting the French and a few other countries).

Yep, it's either fossil-fuels or nuclear, if cheap power is wanted. Also nuclear energys efficiency would be easily increased if waste heat would be allowed to be sold instead of wasting it around. Atleast in colder parts of world... Red tape is bit much in case of building new plants. Like here first goverment, must provide a permit. And then it might take quite a long time to reach satisfactory quality for new plants, might be some issues here with local authorities. On otherhand I prefer for quality in this case, like on some others too...

Hmm, just noticed. I post quite a lot here...
EDIT: Maybe not compared to some guys...

[tamasrepus]

Uranium fuel-cycle nuclear power is dead. My thoughts:

• Public opinion in the USA is dead set against nuclear power (of any sort) since the '70s (Three Mile Island); the world since the '80s (Chernobyl)
• Uranium enrichment consumes, itself, a huge amount of power, externalized because renewable sources (like hydroelectric) are used in enrichment processes (in the USA, anyway. I imagine Iran uses its petroleum reserves—not exactly CO₂ neutral. Have I mentioned how hard it is to believe Iran's nuclear program is peaceful?)
• The fuel cycle is incomplete. No one knows what to do with spent fuel rods and other high-level nuclear waste. Fuel reprocessing has been seen as a savior and ultimate endpoint, but the countries that have allowed it (UK, France) have proven it's completely uneconomical and difficult to make safe
• The Uranium fuel cycle carries a proliferation risk, as the process produces Plutonium, which can be used to construct nuclear weapons. It is unfair and unreasonable for nuclear powers to claim nuclear power for themselves and withhold the technology from other countries
• Most of the engineers involved in building nuclear reactors for its first 30 years are now retired. It's a lost art that will time-consuming and expensive to start again
• Uranium fuel cycle reactors are too complicated, too much for any one person to understand, inherently making them unsafe. While this has mostly been managed (it's amazing that TMI and Chernobyl are basically it, given the complication), it's unwise to keep relying on what is essentially luck

Moving on to Uranium to alternative nuclear fuels… there's Thorium. A short list of advantages:

• Thorium doesn't require enrichment. It's CO₂-neutral for everybody (sans energy for mining)
• Thorium is more abundant than Uranium. There are probably some 1000 years worth of Thorium accessible today
• It's more proliferation proof. It doesn't directly create Plutonium, so it's a technology that's safe to export to other countries. Immediately coming out of the reactor, it's extremely radioactive, making it difficult to work with.
• Most Thorium reactor designs operate at a higher temperature, so they are more efficient.
• Because it's more radioactive, Thorium doesn't create the dangerous, long-lived radioactive elements that the Uranium fuel cycle does. Its products are relatively short-lived, and Thorium nuclear waste decays to safe levels of radioactivity, i.e. as safe as coal ash (which, really, is actually quite radioactive but not regulated as nuclear waste), in 500 years
• Accepted Thorium nuclear reactor designs are self-regulating—if they get too hot, the physics prevents from turning into runaway reactions and forces them to cool down. The self-regulation makes them less complex and less prone to human, mechanical, and computer error—i.e. significantly safer

…all this is known with relatively little research spent on the Thorium fuel cycle. More money needs to be spent on research and engineering to find the remaining positives and negatives.

So… why didn't we use Thorium in the first place, and why aren't we using it now? For the former reason, it was the cold war—there was a strong motivation to create as much Plutonium as possible so the US and USSR could build nuclear devices to point at each other. Mostly, the public opinion against all things nuclear, a mixture of which is founded and unfounded (mostly the latter).

More reading:

• Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke
  
• Cleaner Nuclear Power?
  
• Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium
  

[quadibloc]

Thorium doesn't require enrichment.

I think that Thorium breeder reactors are a good idea, but I'm afraid this is one claim that can't be made in their favor.

Thorium isn't fissionable by itself. You can use it to make Welsbach mantles for lanterns to make them shine brighter. And it's very weakly radioactive. It's like depleted uranium - it is not a nuclear fuel directly.

To make Thorium-232 a nuclear fuel, you have to do the same thing to it as you have to do to Uranium-238. Expose it to neutrons in a nuclear reactor.

When you do that, Thorium-232 becomes Thorium-233, an unstable isotope with a very short half life... just as Uranium-238 becomes Uranium-239, an unstable isotope with a very short half life.

The Th-233 decays by emitting an electron (beta decay) to become Uranium-233, which is a fissionable material that can be used as fuel in a reactor, just like U-239 decays by emitting an electron to become Plutonium-239 - also fissionable, and a fuel for reactors.

[tamasrepus]

I think that Thorium breeder reactors are a good idea, but I'm afraid this is one claim that can't be made in their favor.

You may have missed the point I was trying to make—you don't need the huge amounts of energy required to enrich Uranium to prepare Thorium fuel. Uranium enrichment is an externality many nuclear power proponents ignore. Thorium is more "carbon neutral" than Uranium when this is taken into account.

I purposely left out the technical details, yes. You need another neutron source, be it Plutonium, Uranium, or if you want to consider the more avant-garde designs, a particle accelerator.

[quadibloc]

Well, the third article you gave a link to had said that a ton of Uranium gave a lot less energy than a ton of Thorium. But that's only if you use enrichment to get the U-235, and use only that - and throw the U-238 away.

You need to enrich uranium to get started in the reactor business. Otherwise you don't have neutrons to turn U-238 into fissionable Plutonium - or Th-232 into fissionable Thorium.

Basically, depleted uranium is the same as Thorium - so the arguments being cited in favor of Thorium are all also arguments in favor of breeder reactors. U-238 is more common than U-235 and it doesn't need to be produced through enrichment.

It is true that Thorium is more common than U-238, but more like three times more common instead of a thousand times more common - until you start using exotic technologies to get it out of rocks like granite. Which is close to trying to get gold out of seawater. "Burning the rocks" is what this was once called, as a far-future source of energy before people started hoping for fusion.

I think that the Thorium breeder is a good idea, but exaggerating its benefits, especially in a way that can be considered dishonest - basically treating uranium as though only the U-235 can be used - won't help get the case for it accepted.

[wellington1869]

more rare earth trouble.
neodymium is used in US smart bombs.
Guess who controls the  market. And is squeezing us.
Now its really a national security issue.

From Businessweek: Pentagon Losing Control of Bombs to China’s Monopoly

Military officials are only now conducting an inventory of where and how U.S. suppliers use the obscure but essential substances -- including those that silence the whoosh of Boeing Co. helicopter blades, direct Raytheon Co. missiles and target guns in General Dynamics Corp. tanks.

Warning Signs

“The Pentagon has been incredibly negligent,” said Peter Leitner, who was a senior strategic trade adviser at the Defense Department from 1986 to 2007. “There are plenty of early warning signs that China will use its leverage over these materials as a weapon.”

they do see this as their version of "oil" and doing for china what oil did for middle east power.

Deng’s Quotation

In the lobby of Bai’s company, a unit of state-owned Baotou Iron & Steel Group Co., a now-famous 1992 quotation by Deng is emblazoned in pink marble. It reads: “The Middle East has oil, and China has rare earths.”

[Lanx]

america, so full of hypocrites.
hate nukes, yet it was b/c of massive scaling of nukes that we basically bankrupted the rooskies, thats balls!
hate wars, but love our soldiers
yet ppl hate nuke plants near them.
but are ok w/ soldiers (or navy boys) riding around on nuke powerplants or riding underwater in nuke powerplants.

Heck i've seen those specials about the cruise line, i think they would benefit by puttin a nuke reactor in those cruise ships.

[ricercar]

Nuclear power is good. Nuclear waste is bad.

[keyboardlover]

Nuclear power is good. Nuclear waste is bad.

Damn right. Just ask the Italians.

[Ekaros]

Nuclear power is good. Nuclear waste is bad.

Fossilic power is good. CO2 and sulphur is bad

[wellington1869]

eating is good. pooping is bad.

[platon]

eating is good. pooping is bad.

I kinda like pooping. I get the time to read something and i feel relieved when done.

[Rajagra]

Nothing is more satisfying than a good dump.
Now I know EXACTLY what you are thinking right now, but you are wrong. I stand by my assertion.

[wellington1869]

but thats pure sin coming out your bottom.

Peter: I'm looking for some toilet training books.
 Salesman: We have the popular 'everybody poops", or the less popular 'nobody poops but you'.
 Peter: Well, you see, we're catholic...
 Salesman: Ah, then you'll want 'you're a naughty, naughty boy, and that's concentrated evil coming out the back of you'.
 

[keyboardlover]

Speaking as a Catholic, we do NOT believe that!

[wellington1869]

The Chinese and the Arab top brass are much too heavily invested in the West to want to see it go to hell. For the rest, you're probably right.

"[As for the United States] for a relatively long time it will be necesary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance.. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time."  
--Lieutenant General Mi Zhenyu, Vice Commandant, Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, qouted in The Coming Conflict With China, by Richard Bernstein & Ross Munro

if not destroyed, then at least reduced to a client state like north korea or tibet or burma.  I certainly doubt that the one-party system in china is expecting to coexist "as equals" in the long term with the democracies.

[Rajagra]

Looks like they played us at our own game. Why bother going to war when you can play mergers and acquisitions with countries instead of companies?

[wellington1869]

Looks like they played us at our own game. Why bother going to war when you can play mergers and acquisitions with countries instead of companies?

who would have thought that commies would be better at capitalism than capitalists...

but yea they're out to 'get us' alright, i have no doubt about that, in the long run.  That includes western europe I'm sure.

[keyboardlover]

who would have thought that commies would be better at capitalism than capitalists...

but yea they're out to 'get us' alright, i have no doubt about that, in the long run.  That includes western europe I'm sure.

Lol - and you laugh at 'conspiracy theorists'. You are one yourself if you think China is powerful enough to do that. No way in hell that could ever happen. The EU and North America are stronger and their economies are more sustainable in the long run than China's. And don't forget that investment is a 2 way street - they're just as invested in us as we are in them.

[wellington1869]

Lol - and you laugh at 'conspiracy theorists'. You are one yourself if you think China is powerful enough to do that. No way in hell that could ever happen. The EU and North America are stronger and their economies are more sustainable in the long run than China's.

I guess I do, so does the pentagon for what its worth.

While the U.S. has been tied up in Iraq, China is modernizing its military and its air defenses are now nearly impenetrable to all but the newest of American fighters, the senior U.S. military official in Japan said.
...
In May, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said drastic action was needed.

"I'm concerned for the future," he said.

I certainly believe there is an islamist "conspiracy" to restore the caliphate. Especially given that the islamists have declared this loud and proud themselves and have acted on it in spectacular fashion time and again.

On the other hand I think the moon landing was real. Go figure.

Oh yea, because these known facts are not the same as conspiracy theories.

[keyboardlover]

I guess I do, so does the pentagon for what its worth.

All that source says is that their military is modernized - not much surprise there. It doesn't say anything about ability or want to overthrow the West.

Besides, we're their allies. I would think they're go after old foes first.

[wellington1869]

um, since when are we allies? You do know that china is the number 1 backer of pakistan, dont you? And north korea? And iran?

You do know that the US is allied with japan and by our treaty with japan we're committed to defend japan as china flexes its muscle with them? As our secretary of state pointed out in the aftermath of the fishing boat incident?

you do know we're committed to defend taiwan and that china desperately wants to reclaim taiwan?

you do know that we back south korea and china backs north korea? ANd they dont quite get along?

dude seriously, i'm not saying this to just be obnoxious (tho heck, its fun to be obnoxious with a self-proclaimed troll but seriously read a freaking newspaper now and then...

as for china's ambitions... um, you do know that burma and north korea are client states, and that china curently has territorial disputes with mongolia, russia, india, vietnam, japan, tibet, taiwan, and a few other countries? Most of which it has already gone to war for?  That they're building out bases in the indian ocean and in the south china sea? That they're building out bases in africa and building strong military relationships with client dictatorial regimes in southeast asia and africa and the middle east and elsewhere?

you do know that they supply and fund a variety of maoist 'insurgencies' across all these areas, particularly in south and se asia and have a history of doing the same in latin america and africa?

read...a...newspaper...  The CPC's strategies are hardly limited to currency manipulation alone...

not least of all, you do know, dont you, that mao's (and marxist) ideology in general proclaims the final goal of communism to be world domination and the defeat of "bourgeoise democracy" and capitalism, dont you?  

no, i think you dont bro, i think you dont...

[keyboardlover]

um, since when are we allies? You do know that china is the number 1 backer of pakistan, dont you? And north korea? And iran?

We're economic allies. They depend on us.

You do know that the US is allied with japan and by our treaty with japan we're committed to defend japan as china flexes its muscle with them? As our secretary of state pointed out in the aftermath of the fishing boat incident?

Yes, I know that.

you do know we're committed to defend taiwan and that china desperately wants to reclaim taiwan?

That I didn't know. Is that true?

you do know that we back south korea and china backs north korea? ANd they dont quite get along?

Yes, but we're still economic allies.

dude seriously, i'm not saying this to just be obnoxious (tho heck, its fun to be obnoxious with a self-proclaimed troll but seriously read a freaking newspaper now and then...

For the record, you're trollier than me. I almost get the feeling you read newspapers too much...I mean think about the freakin situation logically.

as for china's ambitions... um, you do know that burma and north korea are client states, and that china curently has territorial disputes with mongolia, russia, india, vietnam, japan, tibet, taiwan, and a few other countries? Most of which it has already gone to war for?  That they're building out bases in the indian ocean and in the south china sea? That they're building out bases in africa and building strong military relationships with client dictatorial regimes in southeast asia and africa and the middle east and elsewhere?

What does that have to do with anything?

you do know that they supply and fund a variety of maoist 'insurgencies' across all these areas, particularly in south and se asia?

read...a...newspaper...  The CPC's strategies are hardly limited to currency manipulation alone...

Maybe I'm thick, or need to read more of the newspapers you read. But I just don't see reasonable evidence to point towards an imminent takeover of the Western hemisphere.

[wellington1869]

i think people are under the mistaken impression that the cold war ended...
the soviets collapsed, but china did not, the cold war continues and so do our "proxy" struggles with the communist bloc. All thats changed is in order to survive the CPC decided to embrace capitalist finance tools as one more weapon for its own survival.  The "deal" they made with the chinese people: modern consumer gadgets and a higher standard of living - in exchange for keeping their mouth shut when it comes to freedoms, democracy, free press, independent judiciary, open internet or information flows, multi-party elections, or any kind of dissent, critique, or debate.

All thats changed is we now face a two-front war with the newly financially empowered commie regime and with a variety of islamist regimes with no end in sight.  As Petraeus said in woodward's new book, our kids and our kids' kids will inherit these messes.

[Ekaros]

Still, we have time until they got their our consumers and such to support their own markets. China won't do anything drastic that would let to war or stoping the trade, atleast not just jet. It's kinda different from soviet block, in point it's openly in trade with west.

[Senor_Cartmenez]

If I may go back to topic

Nuclear power is unfortunately not a long term solution but a long term plan for long term disaster. How we **** up our environment (in which the following generations have to live in), we can not comprehend and only make guesses. The only reason why there is no complete support towards the long-term disappearing of this method of energy production is because humans are masters of avoidance. "Out of sight, out of mind" applies here perfectly. At the moment we don't really see any ill effects or drawbacks to nuclear power. They are all just theory. Wait another 20-50 years and we will see what y'all say about it then when effects become evident.

Nuclear energy is good. Nuclear waste is bad.

True that. But there can't be nuclear energy without nuclear waste and that stuff is not only bad, it's really ****ed up. So Nuclear energy is ****ed up.

I actually work for a company that plans and develops wind farms. There are definite drawbacks to that technology but it is waaaaaay better than any other solution we have.

Someone said wind energy is not cost efficient.

Duuuh, that's because it's in its infancy. Nuclear Power was not cost efficient when the first plants were build, either.
Wind farms usually start earning major cash after ~12-14 years. But then they are real good money machines. Go ahead and try to buy shares of a windfarm that is around 11 or 12 years old from someone. They are either moronic or won't part with them, unless you offer them a ****load of money.

Also someone asked why they don't build just one huge turbine.
Try to think gravity here.

Also you have to think technology. Actually the advances in wind turbine technology have been quite significant recently. A lot of companies now go ahead and "re-power" wind farms, which means they replace the old turbines by new ones. The result is that they need another 3-5 years to ammortize themselves but after that the profits sky-rocket even higher.


Off-Shore windfarms are very risky by the way and should not be compared to regular wind farms on land. If off-shore wind farms work, that will be great. However I personally think (and manny specialists agree) that it is impossible to determine what costs for repairs/maintenance will have to be borne by a wind farm operator on the high sea. I will follow those off shore wind farms very curiously. But to this day I don't believe that after 20 years those things will be of any use any more.

Oh and another thing: That energy gained through wind farms is not available when it's needed is outdated information (although I don't know about the US, you guys are often lagging behind technologically when it comes to things like this). Nowadays wind-farms are producing a) so reliably and b) so efficiently and c) in such great numbers, that the energy is usually available around the clock. Furthermore the japanese are one of those nations that have heavily invested in the development of batteries, while we said "nah, we cool with our regular ones, we don't believe you can get any more out of that".
By now a very interesting business model of an investor I know is that he has a network of batteries connected to the wind farm and the batteries can hold the energy produced by the entire park for ~7hrs and release it into the power grid within that time frame at around 80% efficiency (meaning ~80% of the power originally stored can be fed into the power grid within that 7 hr timeframe).

Pretty much all the stuff that speaks against wind energy and is fed to y'all by "the man" comes from the infancy of this technology and are or are becoming outdated. Pretty lame arguments against this technology imho anyway, considering that the infancy of the nuclear power technology has resulted in stuff like Chernobyl.

Nuclear Power was good while it lasted. now that we are a bit smarter, we should act smarter as well. At the moment we can't live without it. In the future we damn well should learn to live without it.

[keyboardlover]

All thats changed is we now face a two-front war with the newly financially empowered commie regime and with a variety of islamist regimes with no end in sight.  As Petraeus said in woodward's new book, our kids and our kids' kids will inherit these messes.

Let's not forget that China has fewer constraints on Capitalism than we do, which puts them much closer to the risk of crisis than us. I predict a crisis will hit them worse than ours in the near future.

But everything we're discussing is merely conjecture anyway

[wellington1869]

Let's not forget that China has fewer constraints on Capitalism than we do, which puts them much closer to the risk of crisis than us. I predict a crisis will hit them worse than ours in the near future.

i hope you're right

[keyboardlover]

Plus the majority of their economy is based on foreign trade. The beauty of capitalism is the ability to take your business elsewhere if you're not a happy customer (I've yet to see the same level of customer satisfaction in our country reflected in other countries, especially in Europe). Let's say we didn't like China's military situation and we all of a sudden moved our business to South Korea, Singapore or Malaysia. That would hit them so hard I would almost guarantee a crisis.

[ricercar]

Nothing is more satisfying than a good dump.
Now I know EXACTLY what you are thinking right now, but you are wrong. I stand by my assertion.

A genie lamp was found by three men, 20, 40, and 80 years old. She offered one wish to each. The 20-year old wished for the perfect woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life. The 40-year old wished for a perfect career to last to the end of his life. The 80-year old wished to have perfect bowel movements for the rest of his life.

[wellington1869]

Dennis Rodman finds abottle on beach and picks it up. Suddenly a female genie appears.
"Master, I may grant you one wish," she says with a smile.

"Don't you know who I am, *****? I don't need no woman to give me nothin", yells Dennis.

The genie pleads with him, "But Master! I must grant you one wish or go back to the bottle forever."

Dennis thinks it over, grumbles about the inconvenience of it all, but relents. "Okay. I wanna wake up in the mornin' with three women in my bed. So just do it! Now leave me alone!"

"So be it," says the genie, who's a little annoyed by this time.

And the very next morning, Dennis awakens to find three women in his bed; Lorena Bobbitt, Tonya Harding and Hillary Clinton. His penis is gone. His leg is broken. And he has no health insurance.

[Konrad]

I think that wind energy would be a great idea, once they make it cost-effective and reliable. What I don't understand is why they make massive wind farms instead of making one monster size turbine.

Just adding my own wind-chimes here ... putting the already-discussed engineering constraints aside, the One Big Fan simply isn't as efficient at energy capture because it actually has a greater impact at slowing the wind down. Sounds ridiculous, maybe, but it apparently could be a real problem. An analogy might be made with hydroelectric power: do you use a large number of little turbines placed all along the mountain river, or do you just use one big turbine instead? It might seem counterintuitive, but there's a fixed quantity of energy in the system; each turbine (big or small, top, bottom, middle, doesn't matter) will slow the rate of water flow. Try to take too much energy and the water won't flow at all. (Interestingly, the generators will actually try to spin faster/slower in symmetry with the electrical draw being made by the power grid. Hydro companies apparently partially compensate on-site by frequently changing water flows. Or they just fire up other power plants. Or re-route through different power exchanges.)
 
(People also ***** and whine about wind towers killing birds, creating subsonic "black noise", being victims to lightning strokes, etc. Maybe they should just read more. Or less.)
 

i just read up a bit on another looming problem ... Rare earth minerals. China has a nearly 100% monopoly on them right now. They are essential ...

lol ... Correct: China currently monopolizes world production of rare earths. Correct: rare earths are critical materials used in many technologies.
 
But rare earths are in fact not all that rare at all. Quite the opposite, they're everywhere and most are actually quite common. The problem is that they all share nearly identical chemical properties; they tend to be randomly intermixed, fairly easy to separate from their (high-yield) ores, just nearly impossible (that is, damned expensive) to isolate from each other. Magnets containing a bunch of (unseparated) rare earths cost maybe $5. Disposable lighter flints containing rare earths cost pennies. Refined Lutetium (for example) costs about $170/g. And a few years ago (before Chinese pwnage) it cost about $750/g. They say that next year it'll cost less than $20/g.
 
I don't know how the Chinese accomplish this. It's easy to believe that they exploit their lands and peoples. It's easy to believe that China - when driven hard - doesn't have to observe all the costly inconveniences and regulations which affect mining companies in the rest of the world. ... minimizing (or disposal, or cleanup) of pollution, environmental restoration, relocating people, dealing with unions and labour laws, or those pesky international patents and royalties for useful processes and technologies. Then again, maybe they operate the same way Westerners do, just somehow better. (But suffer no illusion: mining/mineral companies are the nastiest bunch of corpulent greedy crooks in the world after the white house, hollywood, and the mafia.)
 
Suffer no illusion that the rest of the world has nearly limitless resources of rare earths. Just at bad prices. China enjoys a precarious advantage ... they can (and must!) continue to supply processed rare earths at affordable prices or they lose their market. Somewhat like all those OPEC Arabs sitting on their valuable oil wells. They understand that it's not a monopolistic market, but a monopsonistic one.
 
Incidentally, China happens to be one of richest countries in terms of natural radioactives. Right after Russia and India. But still ahead of Australia, Europe, and all of North America combined.

[wellington1869]

so you're saying we shouldnt just strap rickshaws to homeless people?

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[quadibloc]

Nothing is more satisfying than a good dump.

I don't know. Trying to read hexadecimal and disassemble it by hand can be a lot of bother. Avoiding the need for a core dump is more satisfying.

[Konrad]

That would be a waste of a natural resource!
 
You could put homeless people to work in the [strike]salt[/strike] uranium mines (a nice warm place for them to stay).

[Rajagra]

That energy gained through wind farms is not available when it's needed is outdated information

The winter before last (2008/9) the UK's wind farms ground to a halt for two weeks, when their output was most needed.

Of course, you can guess the environmentalists response - wait for it - they blamed global warming for the UKs declining wind!!!!!! Bwahahahaha. You couldn't make it up.

[quadibloc]

You could put homeless people to work in the [strike]salt[/strike] uranium mines (a nice warm place for them to stay).

Of course, that's a joke, but this reminds me: isn't it better to have a few well-paid volunteers in the uranium mines than to have to poison the economy so as to force lots and lots of people to work in coal mines?

So if one's concern is to avoid having people working as miners in harsh conditions, surely shutting down coal-fired power plants should be a high priority. (Of course, much coal is strip-mined these days, which avoids the problem.)

[Ekaros]

The winter before last (2008/9) the UK's wind farms ground to a halt for two weeks, when their output was most needed.

Of course, you can guess the environmentalists response - wait for it - they blamed global warming for the UKs declining wind!!!!!! Bwahahahaha. You couldn't make it up.

Wind-power can be reliable in some parts of world but not all, which is a issue. Nuclear can work just about everywhere, atleast if you have solid ground...

Realy, you don't need even that, off-shore floating plants would work too...