Former anti-nuke protester: Increase nuclear power use to save the world
posted at 7:12 pm on December 7, 2007 by Bryan
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I like this story, mostly because it proves that people can change their minds as the facts warrant. It goes without saying that I prefer it when people change their minds in ways that bring them to align with my thinking. Don’t we all. The former protester, Gwynneth Cravens, has looked into environmental issues as they relate to nuclear vs other power sources and has come to interesting conclusions.
Wired News talked with Cravens on the phone from her home in New York.
Wired News: You don’t argue that nuclear power is entirely safe, but that it’s vastly better than coal and fossil fuels. Do we have to choose between them?
Gwyneth Cravens: I used to think we surely could do better. We could have more wind farms and solar. But I then learned about base-load energy, and that there are three forms of it: fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear. In the United States, we’re maxed out on hydro. That leaves fossil fuels and nuclear power, and most of the fossil fuel burned is coal.
In the U.S., 24,000 people a year die from coal pollution. Hundreds of thousands more people suffer from lung and heart disease directly attributable to coal pollution.
WN: That’s opposed to a minuscule number of people who have been directly harmed by nuclear power?
Cravens: It’s zero in the United States. Of course there is the occasional industrial accident amongst the workers. But over the lifetime cycle of nuclear power, if you go cradle-to-grave with uranium, the total carbon emissions are about those of wind power.
WN: You have an interesting statistic comparing the waste levels produced by individuals over a lifetime.
Cravens: A family in four in France, where they reprocess nuclear fuel, would produce only enough waste to fit in a coffee cup over a whole lifetime. A lifetime of getting all your electricity from coal-fired plants would make a single person’s share of solid waste (in the United States) 68 tons, which would require six 12-ton railroad cars to haul away. Your share of CO2 would be 77 tons.
WN: What about clean coal plants, and carbon-sequestration technologies? Aren’t they a practical alternative?
Cravens: At this point, no. There’s one prototype in Colorado that the government is trying to sponsor. From a practical point of view, I think nuclear plants could be up and running and replacing fossil-fuel plants sooner than we get clean coal.
As the joke goes, more Americans have died in Ted Kennedy’s car than from nuclear accidents. Read the rest of the article. It’s interesting stuff.
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She was wrong when she was protesting nuclear power and just as wrong now that she supports it. Something that only a liberal can actually manage to pull off.
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 7:20 PM
What’s wrong with nuclear power, other than it being very expensive?
Buy Danish on December 7, 2007 at 7:26 PM
You’re against nuclear power, dorian?
I think we should build more nuke plants. Newt had a good speech on this earlier this year that made some excellent points.
I also think we should turn the hotsprings (yellowstone, etal) into power plants. Yeah, they are nice to look at, but probably a lot better to get energy from.
lorien1973 on December 7, 2007 at 7:26 PM
Over the life of the plant, nuclear power is like 3cents more/kilowatt hour or something. The difference is next to insignificant.
lorien1973 on December 7, 2007 at 7:27 PM
Meanwhile, rubber band power technology is quietly appropriated by the Saudis and shelved. Nobody knows, so nobody cares.
Sheesh.
thejackal on December 7, 2007 at 7:27 PM
Solves two problems, helps with the foreign oil and gas, and appeases the loons. What could be wrong about that. I have always said, if you really think the world has a fever, nuclear or live in caves, we only get two choices.
On a technology slant, why shouldn’t the USA be the world’s leader in nuclear power?
tarpon on December 7, 2007 at 7:28 PM
carter made it impossible didnt he? didnt he sign a law saying you cannot reprocess nuclear fuel (like france currently does) to reuse fuel rods, cuz the biproduct is weapons grade material.
lorien1973 on December 7, 2007 at 7:29 PM
If the French like nuclear power I see no reason that liberals have to bithc and moan
Defector01 on December 7, 2007 at 7:31 PM
Bryan, tell me you made that name up.
peski on December 7, 2007 at 7:31 PM
Oddly enough, no, I didn’t. It does sound like a name from an Onion story, though.
Bryan on December 7, 2007 at 7:32 PM
Bwahahaha! Ok sorry I couldn’t hold it in.
df4jc on December 7, 2007 at 7:34 PM
So what is the solution to the waste storage problem? I am kind of in favor of it, but it seems like there is such a long term problem to nuclear power. Any ideas?
redshirt on December 7, 2007 at 7:35 PM
I think Jane Fonda just had a cow [fart]
Kini on December 7, 2007 at 7:35 PM
What does that mean?
Agrippa2k on December 7, 2007 at 7:35 PM
You left out the big ending:
calbear on December 7, 2007 at 7:37 PM
Ok, I’m going to tell you my idea, but promise not to laugh. Every time I propose this, people laugh at me. I’m serious. It could work. Ok, ready?
Shoot it into the sun.
I’m serious. Ok look, I know there’s a little risk at the “blast off” stage, what with the occasional rocket falling back to Earth, but we can solve that. All you need is enough juice to reach escape velocity and get it aimed in the right direction. Eventually the sun’s gravity will suck it in, and poof, no more nuclear waste.
peski on December 7, 2007 at 7:43 PM
Now all we need is the PETA founder to do the same. And bin Laden and Khameini (spelling).
If they really do not want nukes, then why does Iran need uranium when they have all that oil to use as energy?
El Guapo on December 7, 2007 at 7:45 PM
If someone says we only have ten years worth of terrestrial uranium for nuclear plants, they are either lying or ignorant. “Enrichment” of uranium increases its power generation potential tenfold.
Nuclear power is very cost effective and beneficial when you take into account the effect switching our current fossil fuelled power generators to nuclear would have in terms of lessening CO2 worldwide. I’ve seen strictly-enforced Kyoto “carbon offset” costs in the industrialized as high as $35 per ton (we currently pay $2 per ton)–the amount of CO2 generated by nuclear power plants is negligible.
Building the nuclear power generation infrastructure for electric everything (cars, planes, trains, trucks, tractors, etc.) is an effective means to create a carbon-neutral world.
ScottMcC on December 7, 2007 at 7:46 PM
OK, I have had that same idea. Yeah the blast off is a problem. If it were to blow up that might be a bit of an environmental problem. I have also wondered about drilling down real deep and injecting the waste into the magma beneath the crust. Would it dilute with all the heat and pressure?
I have no idea, just thinking ot loud.
redshirt on December 7, 2007 at 7:48 PM
That’s a pretty good article, and a very surprising one.
I’d add that the waste issue really is 99% political, since “spent fuel” from a reactor is not waste, but a valuable resource. We can’t use it because Jimmy Carter, (in addition to his problems with rabbits and cats) had a delusion that if we stopped reprocessing nuclear fuel, then the rest of the world would also stop, or even never start a nuclear program. (How’s that workin’ for ya, Jimmah?) With a good reprocessing program the waste issue becomes a non-issue.
The anti-nuke people today are either grossly ignorant technophobes or just plain anti-energy, hoping to return the western world to the standard of living of four centuries ago.
Rodent on December 7, 2007 at 7:49 PM
I agree and I’ve proposed that also with gratuitous chuckles from friends and family. The argument always fell back on “what goes up, must come down”, but what better way to dispose of a nuclear hazard/waste but to sent it to the great incinerator in the sky.
Of course the lefty argument would be humans destroying the solar system.
Kini on December 7, 2007 at 7:51 PM
It’s too bad she didn’t have this epiphany 30 years ago. Building nuclear plants to meet growth in energy demand won’t be that much more expensive than building new coal plants, but replacing the coal plants we already have with nuclear would put a nice spike in everybody’s power bill. Too late to do anything now, in other words, without making electricity a luxury.
RightOFLeft on December 7, 2007 at 7:53 PM
You should see this movie cause it would arm the leftist with something worst than global warming.
It’s a good idea though.
Kini on December 7, 2007 at 7:55 PM
Does anyone think she would be in favor of drilling off-shore and in Amwar?
I mean, we’re not going to get off that crack pipe called oil, so let’s drill for oil.
Kini on December 7, 2007 at 7:57 PM
As re the chances of a blast-off problem shooting nuke waste into the sun, I propose we man the rocket with Ron Paul as a safety feature. Future rockets may be be manned (and womanned) by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Rosie.
Frankly, chucking all our problems into the sun could really catch on!
thejackal on December 7, 2007 at 7:58 PM
Does she have a blimp? Because I don’t believe what anyone says anymore unless they have a blimp.
Vinnie on December 7, 2007 at 7:59 PM
Dude, this is a serious topic. Why would we risk smothering the sun with rosie?
redshirt on December 7, 2007 at 8:00 PM
There are some toxic wastes that even God can’t get rid of.
Kini on December 7, 2007 at 8:03 PM
Better late to the obvious than never I suppose.
I, too, have proposed shooting our garbage (nuclear, landfill, etc) to the sun…or towards Saturn…who cares. Apparently it takes a rocket scientist to implement this idea.
SouthernGent on December 7, 2007 at 8:04 PM
It’s cheaper, and probably safer, to send it to Yucca mountain by truck than the Sun by rocket. Death Valley is an attractive option, IMO. No chance of contaminating anyone’s water table, no chance of anyone living there ever. It may as well be the sun.
RightOFLeft on December 7, 2007 at 8:05 PM
And yet another factless, arrogant rant, from someone not qualified to discuss most anything.
KMC1 on December 7, 2007 at 8:08 PM
Escape velocity is only enough to get it unstuck from the Earth. Thats 7 miles/sec. It has to get up to 18 mi/sec (to counter the orbital velocity of the Earth around the Sun) to actually fall into the sun. Any less than that and it is now in an asteroid whose orbit just so happens to intersect with the Earth’s orbit. Since energy is ~velocity squared, that’s roughly 8 times the energy. The only way to get it to the Sun would be with a nuclear cannon.
pedestrian on December 7, 2007 at 8:09 PM
Pesky details….
KMC1 on December 7, 2007 at 8:15 PM
Shoot it to the sun.
What better way to recycle.
As the Late Great Carl Sagan once said, “We are all Star Stuff”.
Granted that was said before there was an American Idol and Billions and Billions of bad TV programming hours.
Kini on December 7, 2007 at 8:27 PM
Throw it into a volcano. It would melt and dilute. bye bye
Franklin Hill on December 7, 2007 at 8:27 PM
I used to be a health physics technician at San Onfre, so I’m not exactly anti-nuclear power, I just have certain reservations. There are certain technological problems that haven’t been addressed that need to be addressed before we build any more nuclear power plants.
The chief among them is waste. Reprocessing spend fuel is a short term solution but doesn’t solve the problem.
Another is reactor coolant safety, a properly implemented pebble bed reactor would take care of that issue, but political issue make this a problem.
The third and most severe is the enviro-wacko’s who protest any proposed new reactor with extremely aggressive litigation that results in it being nearly impossible to build new nuclear power facilities, and staggeringly high additional costs to the facility.
Dealing with the waste is a very serious problem that for some god forsaken reason most intelligent people cannot seem to grasp the significances of, especially with reprocessing.
The predominate waste product from reprocessing is plutonium 239, which has a half life of 100,000 years. Plutonium 239 is incredibly deadly, now try to imagine how you are going to protect people 500 or 1000 years from today from it. While you are thinking about that remember the Rosetta Stone, and how long it took for us to translate it.
How do you write a warning for someone in the future when you have no idea what language they will speak or what level of technology they will posses? Euphemistic ideas that they will understand our languages or have our technology or more advanced technology are absurd.
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 8:34 PM
.
Not so much of a problem, soon if it’s not already possible.
There are other ways to reach ’space’ than just a huge rocket.
And when we launch a vehicle like this (from the link) from a 747 or similar, it can take a payload worth sending.
It’s doable.
.
What say you, NASA guy?
shooter on December 7, 2007 at 8:34 PM
Unacceptable, the first time one of those rockets explodes on take off you kill potentially millions of people, the risk factor is way to high.
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 8:37 PM
Wrong answer from our resident antisemitic racist troll, as a former health physics technician I am perhaps the most qualified person on this blog to discuss this issue.
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 8:39 PM
Great. They made it 63 miles up. Only 93,000,000 more to go.
pedestrian on December 7, 2007 at 8:42 PM
.
That is the hardest part, leaving earths gravitational pull.
The rest is coasting. It’s not like we care how long it takes.
shooter on December 7, 2007 at 9:07 PM
Wow. Thanks for that entirely boring, obvious post.
Glad to hear you (in your mind) are qualified to dictate our nuclear energy policies since of course… none of us know the first thing about science or you know.. “hard” subjects like math, or anything. Gees. How IS the weather up in your tower, anyway?
However, in regards to yet another of your claims of racism and anti-semitism I thought I should give you fair warning It could cost you.
And also the fact that I have repeatedly asked you to provide some form of evidence (again, in your mind – I’m detecting a theme) of my supposed bigotry – which you conveniently disregard each time. Anti-Semite?
KMC1 on December 7, 2007 at 9:26 PM
Yes, it’s coasting in low Earth orbit. Even if you got it out of orbit around the Earth, it would still be in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. That’s 18 mi/sec of energy you have to counteract in order to “fall” into the Sun.
If you don’t make it into the Sun, it will eventually collide with Earth. Not fall back down, but flat out collide. The reason there are so few asteroids inside the orbit of Mars is that they eventually get swept up by one of the planets. You could save some energy by aiming for Venus, but if you miss?
pedestrian on December 7, 2007 at 9:39 PM
Dorian’s right. The problem is the waste product. Once we come up with a way to chemically neutralize Pu239, the world changes.
Nuke is good dependable power. Its turds are a pain to deal with, though.
HerrMorgenholz on December 7, 2007 at 9:49 PM
A couple of points.
I wouldn’t consider Pu(239) a waste product if it’s reprocessed since it can be used as fuel. As a matter of fact, San Onofre, being a PWR and classified as a converter reactor actually derived a significant portion of it’s power output from plutonium. A little more than 10% at end of cycle. Waste from nuclear reactors can be reprocessed and some fissile material could be recovered. Would it be economically feasible, I don’t know. The navy used to operate a reprocessing facility in Idaho but I think that was shut down a while ago.
Electricity from nuclear isn’t necessarily more expensive than other sources. The one exception is, of course, hydro. Since the 80’s changes in the industry have made it more and more competitive with the dirt burners. If a company’s nukes aren’t competitive with their own coal plants then they are a monetary black hole. Most nukes actually produce electricity for less money than coal.
Above ground storage has more or less ended the problem of long term storage. As Dorian points out certainly not for the thousands of years that the waste will be dangerous but the casks will sit unattended without any danger for hundreds of years. This link
will give you an idea of what they look like. AS far as where to put them. Doesn’t really matter right now most utilities who are building them pour a pad on site and sit them there where they will remain for the foreseeable future.
Blasting the stuff into orbit. I wouldn’t want it flying over my head, same reason it was a bad idea to have a nuclear airplane. Could we do it? Sure. Would we want to, not me, maybe some of you would be Ok with it but from my perspective the tippy top of a giant roman candle is no place to stick an incredibly toxic substance that will be dangerous for thousands of years.
Rosetta stone? Found by the French in 1799 deciphered by the French in 1822. What’s that 23 years. Probably should have used a different example.
Oldnuke on December 7, 2007 at 10:00 PM
Bah. Nuclear waste, … uh, schmookular waste. If it was going to kill us all, it would have already done so. I lived off of nuke power in Japan and had a relatively low electric bill. The answer to “how do we generate power without pollution?” has been with us for decades – just nobody wants to acknowledge it.
fiatboomer on December 7, 2007 at 10:06 PM
Don’t worry. The Israeli’s are working on it.
Darnell Clayton on December 7, 2007 at 10:17 PM
I used to think nuke power was the answer. However, over the past few years I have done some contract work at a local coal fired plant. After having seen how poorly maintained the facility is, nuke scares me.
boomer on December 7, 2007 at 10:19 PM
Best defense is a good offense right, so go on the offense and threaten those who expose you for what you are. The simple truth is that your comments have already proven what you are, and no amount of threats or intimidation will change that.
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 10:25 PM
Actually it a perfect example, considering how deadly nuclear waste is. How many people would have died as a result of radiation poisoning if the Rosetta stone had been a radioactive toxic site warning?
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 10:31 PM
Did anybody ever ask Gwynneth Cravens if she
watched the movie, The China Syndrome,because
that movie must of made a lot of enviromentalists.
canopfor on December 7, 2007 at 11:20 PM
It did, and for all the wrong reasons. I was working at San Onfre when the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station when through it’s partial meltdown and the China Syndrome was released the same year (1979). Man oh man did those two incident pack a wallop to the nuclear industry. The enviro-wacko’s went just plain nuts, they for all intents and purposes killed the nuclear power industry in America.
doriangrey on December 7, 2007 at 11:37 PM
Hey,Doriangrey,I’m stunned,no Pearl Harbour Day threads!
canopfor on December 7, 2007 at 11:59 PM
It did…
doriangrey on December 7,2007 at 11:37PM.
Doriangrey:Ya,I thought so.
canopfor on December 8, 2007 at 12:03 AM
I’ve worked both coal and nuclear. There’s no comparison. Nuclear is a different environment altogether.
I understand your point…but I can play this game and my guess is zero. What’s your guess? I’ve nothing to back up my guess just like you can have nothing to back up yours since the rosetta stone apparently wasn’t a death trap. How many Romans could have been saved if someone had only told them that lead water pipes were a bad idea?
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 12:25 AM
BTW, bio fuels are leading to the extinction of orangutanges
- The Cat
MirCat on December 8, 2007 at 12:41 AM
But what do we do with the nuclear waste?
Wow, I can’t believe this thread went this long with this many people and nobody, either in a good or bad way, has mentioned Yucca Mountain.
Don’t know about anyone else, but placing it several miles below ground and sealing it in sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
This idea, like any other, however, can be ‘what if’d’ to death by a continual stream of ‘well, we just want to be cautious’ types…
Of course, not that ‘what if’ing’ things to death has actually been a problem, cause, hey, what if that CO2 really is making the earth hotter? And what if the snail darter is the key to future survival? And, what if….
Kinda fits in with ‘what if there was a gunman on the grassy knoll’ and ‘what if it really was a cruise missile that hit the Pentagon?’
Hmmm. Sometimes I wonder ‘what if it was actually painful to be ignorant, arrogant, and stupid?’
That’s easy. Lots of people saying “owie”
Wind Rider on December 8, 2007 at 12:48 AM
The slight difference here is that lead is a naturally occurring substance, while the quantities of plutonium involved in nuclear waste are not. Whereas what happened to the Romans was no ones fault, what very probably will happen to future generations because of our technology will be our fault.
It is our responsibility to ensure that the waste from our technology does not kill innocent people generations from now. No one could have foreseen the dangers to the Romans from using lead, that is not true of the waste products of nuclear energy. If we are going to embrace this technology we must take responsibility for the consequences of our actions.
I am not suggesting that we abandon nuclear energy, it think it is the answer to our energy needs. But we must do so in a responsible manner that does not leave portions of our world a deadly poisonous wasteland for future generation to stumble upon in ignorance.
What that means is better reprocessing techniques, and much more aggressive use of reprocessing technology and safer reactor processes. It also means cleaning up current storage facilities and much stricter security controls over access to reprocessed fuels.
To that I would also add a commitment to other advanced reactor technologies such as fully contained pebble bed reactors and fusion reactors. Perhaps even nano scale dielectric nuclear conversion technologies.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 1:05 AM
Actually Yucca Mountain and the other facilities around the world like it bother me quite a bit. Every time I think about them I envision some intrepid archaeologist or explorer a thousand years from now mistaking them for the equivalent of King Tut’s tomb and opening them without having the slightest idea of what is in them and killing thousands of people as a result.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 1:09 AM
Just a guess here, but did you leave the industry shortly after TMI?
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 1:17 AM
A year later, what makes you ask?
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 1:23 AM
Dude, I want that!
That sounds good until realizing you’d actually create radioactive magma for the next several thousand years bubbling along the Earth’s tectonic plates and potentially hundreds of geological events where spewing out radioactive lava commonly occurs.
It’s like the old “let’s drop a nuke into the hurricane’s eye to stop it before it reaches the mainland” idea every nine year-old boy has the first time he sees the RADAR image of a tropical storm. Yeah, sounds good at first, but…
ScottMcC on December 8, 2007 at 1:27 AM
Just curious, that paragraph above indicates, to me, a lack of knowledge of events and trends in the industry post TMI. New reactor technologies and upgraded safety systems. The new nukes will be a lot different from the ones you’re familiar with.
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 1:31 AM
Military yes I am sure, civilian, not so much. I do really like the Pebble bed concept though. Reactors 2 and 3 which we were still building in 1980 were the most advanced nuclear reactors anywhere on earth at the time, I’m not sure when they went online early 1990’s I think, and considering just how long it takes to design a nuclear reactor and how few new reactor designs had been made since then I suspect I am a little out of the loop but not a great deal.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 2:03 AM
Let’s take one basic design and build nuke plants with that one template. It would save a bunch of money and we’d have all the energy that we needed. We’d just need to keep the Muslim terrorists out of the nuke plants.
Mojave Mark on December 8, 2007 at 2:08 AM
so much to say, so many things to say it about.
its not practical to convert coal fired power plants to nuke as the coal fired turbines run at temperatures about three times what a reactor can. however you could install a natural gas fired superheater to boost pressure and temperature.
a lot of “waste” is dumb things like contaminated water, coveralls, crescent wrenches, ….. its pretty low level but practically impossible to recycle and is pretty much bury it deep stuff. as i under stand there is a lot of it though. the radioactive “WASTE” is not that hard to recycle and i believe that the french developed a process to make it into “glass” hocky pucks several years ago.
i find it vastly interesting that you feel that archeologists in the future would not be conversent with techniques of neutralizing radioactive remanents. possibly they went to “public schools”.
i also have reason to believe that military reactors installed in the last five years might not be that hard to decommission. as in cut the inlet and outlet lines with a torch, cap them off, then bury the entire containment vessle. they do not expect to have to refuel them in their working life.
my experience is miniscule with “A” side, considerable with “B” side.
C
pk on December 8, 2007 at 3:07 AM
You are making several rather absurd assumptions.
1) You assume that it will ever be possible to neutralize radioactive remnants.
2) You assume that future archaeologists will have a technological level equal to or greater than our current level.
3) You assume that future archaeologists will even speak or be able to read our languages.
The earth is 4 billion years old, we have a written documented record for the last 5000 years. Humans have been around in one form or another for close to 200,000 years.
The earth goes through a catastrophic ice age every 20,000 or so years. Were earth to under go another ice age similar to the last major ice age while we are at our current level of technology there wouldn’t be any trace left of our civilization. What wasn’t ground to a fine power by the ice sheets would be buried deep under ground.
The only things that would be left would be places like Yucca Mountain, that means that any humans that survived would spend tens of thousands of years living like the Neanderthals. They would have to start all over from scratch building an entire technology base using different power sources and scientific principals.
The bases of our technology most likely would not be available to them resulting in our technology being unrecognizable to them. Furthermore the loss of our record keeping methodologies would result in their having completely different languages with little or nothing in common with ours.
They would not recognize our symbols or icons and would have no understanding of what they mean. Now throw into this mix the potential of a made made catastrophic event such as a world wide nuclear war and it could be 50 or 60 thousand years before our highly toxic waste products are stumbled upon by a civilization little more advanced than what we had during our early industrial age.
Now you have a recipe for untold death and destruction that our descendants probably would have no way of understanding until it was way to late for potentially millions of people.
The improper use of lead was one of the most significant contributors to the downfall of the Roman Empire, imagine our descendants stumbling upon hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive metals and not knowing about radiation.
They would have no reason not to use it and depending on the toxicity of the metal it could be decades to centuries before the lethal affects of the radiation begun to show up. If we are going to use nuclear power these are things we have to take into consideration.
Because all indications are that we will be storing for extremely long periods of time hundreds of thousands to millions of tons of radioactive materials. And by extremely long periods of time I mean hundreds of thousands to millions of years. Some of the Plutonium isotopes have half life’s in the millions of years. Plutonium 240 for example has a half life of 88 million years.
We cannot just shuffle stuff like this off on unsuspecting future generations and there really is no conceivable way that we can expect future generations to remain at our level of technology over extended periods of time that great.
The single longest lasting civilization in our history was the Egyptian civilization which thrived for 2500 years, every civilization since then has progressively had a shorter life span. Our current civilization is only something on the order of 500 years old. To expect our to last forever isn’t just absurd, it’s down right insane.
There will eventually be another major ice age and those one to two mile thick sheets of ice aren’t going to leave a hell of a lot of our civilization behind anywhere that they come in contact with it.
There isn’t going to be any oil for the next civilization to use because we are using it all now, probably the same with coal. They are going to go through one hell of a dark age and when they come out of it they aren’t going to know diddle squat about us for probably thousands of years if ever. But our radioactive waste will still be there and it will still be lethal.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 4:28 AM
word!
jummy on December 8, 2007 at 7:56 AM
The best you can do is make responsible plans within the bounds of this civilization continuing to exist. Anything more is an arrogant thought experiment.
Notions that we should blast nuclear waste into space are not realistic. Too much risk for no benefit. We have no more then 100 years before we figure out Fusion which solves these problems. It is stupid to take risks which could facilite the end of civilization between then and now.
Resolute on December 8, 2007 at 9:47 AM
The problem is your twisted logic. In reality you are exhibiting at least some of the behavior of a true troll, in that you refuse to acknowledge when you are wrong, and keep changing the questions to suit.
And just a last point here, is that in reality, people like you who throw around claims of RACISM and ANTI-SEMITISM are much more of a threat to our way of life, than any threat from Islam or anyone else. And you know what? I think you know that, which really makes you a despicable person in my opinion.
KMC1 on December 8, 2007 at 10:27 AM
What a load of bull. There are WAY too many errant assumptions within this massive diatribe to even waste time on it.
I will just say that in addition to being an arrogant totalitarian, you are suffering from MASSIVE Chicken Little Syndrome.
KMC1 on December 8, 2007 at 10:32 AM
About time one of those “no nukes” airheads did some research.
For the rest of them, I’d suggest going back to acting on stages, using acostic guitars, and living without a/c. And jets. And powerboats. And… (suggestions welcomed)…
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 10:48 AM
Wrong
Wrong
LOL.
Bah. I don’t have time for this nitwit.
There’s a whole bunch of intentionally incorrent “information” in that diatribe. I need to go get some work done now.
KMC1 on December 8, 2007 at 10:51 AM
Xenon-135 has a half-life of only 16 million years. Hold your breath a while… its a gas.
Now, humour aside, let’s think a bit. We are currently in a REAL world war against some real idiots who want to drag our civilisation back a thousnd years. They have most of the oil, we have a lot of coal. Each fuel source is limited. Thus the term “fossil fuel.” To get more of this stuff, wait a few million years.
A great failure of this generation was to embrace the “no nukes” propaganda put out by non-scientists, i.e., Hollywierd and rock musicians, back a couple or three decades. Yes, there are problems with waste disposal. No, they are not insurmountable. And, there can be technological advances in fusion research.
I see a pattern in your post, in that you believe our form of life, humanity, would be incapable of adapting to adverse conditions. In my travels and experiences, I have ceased to be amazed with the ingenuity of people confronted with problems. I fail to recall when determination and logic did not overcome an “insurmountable” prolem.
Exit question: “Will the magnitude of the logarythmic energy decrement have any effect upon the probability of a neutron undergoing resonance absorbtion in a given moderator?” *
*(Just as a clue that I may know something of the technology to which you are so adverse.)
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 11:17 AM
As far as the first sentence, that is what the French did years ago. And their success rate is impressive.
As far as the second sentence, well……
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 11:24 AM
LMAO on that one. I thought this was going to be a serious thread.
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 11:38 AM
Heh! Half life of Xe(135) is really 9.2 hours, but as far as breath holding goes might as well be sixteen mil.
You’ve hit on a great point here. All fossil fuels will run out if we keep dipping into the bucket. It not if it’s when. We either have to find something to replace them or our civilization stops. Oil and coal are used for so much more than gasoline and production of electricity. If you can read this then oil was used in the production of whatever you’re reading it on. Oil and coal affect every facet of our lives and they are finite resources.
Exit answer: Squiggle is Ok, but don’t you mean absorption in the fuel. A good moderator has a very low absorption coefficient. I could be wrong it’s been a long time since I took reactor physics, hell I couldn’t even define SUR or period right now without referring to my notes. In any case I prefer the Carol Doda curve. I just like looking at it. But it’s all Ok so long as your Keff remains less than 1 +Beff. Brings back nightmares involving a slide rule.
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 11:39 AM
THe Israelis assasinated a man who was working on a cannon that could shoot a prjectile into space. He made the unfortunate mistake to sell the idea to Saddam.
Something to think about.
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 11:44 AM
That’s what we’ve been doing as well. GE and Westinghouse both have standardized plant designs that have been developed post TMI. GE has a BWR and Circle W a PWR. Both have a lot fewer moving parts and passive safety systems. I think the first GE plant with the new design went on line in Japan a while ago but I don’t know about it’s operating record. Contracts have been let for several plants here in the States and the long lead items Rx vessels and such have been ordered.
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Chemical reactions are a result of interactions between atoms’ electron fields. Nuclear reactions occur within the atom itself. Much more energy required there.
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 11:49 AM
I’m no fan of BWR tech. No need to make a turbine hot.
PWR is the way to go. Minimize the contamination.
(S3G, S5W)
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 11:53 AM
Figured. I wasn’t a fan of BWR’s either till I visited one and did a little research. Still prefer PWRs but BWRs definitely have some advantages. No boric acid, big plus. Economically they’re about the same. The operators that I know from BWRs love ‘em. Personally I prefer Westinghouse PWRs, huge heat sink conducive to natural circ and very forgiving.
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 12:01 PM
Yep, been there, done that… nevermind the T-shirt. I have the scars.
Remember “Alpha-T”?
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 12:03 PM
Been out of that part of power generation for some time now. Doing mainly combined-cycle, co-gens, and occasional base load stuff. But I still support the idea of energy independence. I wish more of us did.
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Something familiar about it but can’t quite place it. Delta T/Tavg I remember.
Did you read the entire article that the previous protester wrote? I don’t think she actually did any real research and she’s only on the nuclear bandwagon now because it’s becoming PC. Just my impression and she may have changed her mind but I doubt it.
Oldnuke on December 8, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Didn’t read the entire article. I’m sitting in Thailand, just finished watching a soccer match with some UK buddies of mine, and doing the internet. I’m semi-retired, on another extended vacation between jobs.
I do wonder how the libs sleep at night. If they think our government curtails their freedoms, wait until they have to live under sharia. You’ll never see more radical anti-islamics.
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 12:16 PM
Time to logoff… the match is over, now for some serious drinking…
I did enjoy the reminiscing, we’ll peruse old memories again, mate. Enjoy the day.
Texas Nick 77 on December 8, 2007 at 12:20 PM
ROTFLMAO…I’m not adverse at all, I just am coming at it from a health physics perspective. I want to see it done in a safe long term sustainable manner. Lets do it, but lets do it in a way that doesn’t leave hughe toxic wastelands behind for millions of years as a result. What I do not subscribe to is the ok so there are serious problems, but we can fix them in the future with technology that doesn’t yet exist mentality.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 12:54 PM
Careful there buddy! “Anti-Semites” have been outed on HA based on WAAAAAY less “evidence” before – and I’m sure it will happen again. Don’t let it happen to you……
KMC1 on December 8, 2007 at 1:28 PM
No one is really concerned about the safety of the reactor itself these days, those problems have been solved. The problem is hold to hold the waste. In one sense, it’s not that big a deal because it’s not a matter of if we have waste, but rather how much there will be. But still, moving the entire world’s energy system from oil based to nuke based will cause a huge increase in the amount of waste generated. One of the key problems is how to manage the degradation of the containment materials over time. That is part chemical (moisture, diffusion, cracking etc), part nuclear, and part a mixture because the radiation will change the chemical composition of the containment. If there was a containment technology that actually prevented diffusion over 10K’s of years, it would be a nuclear question, but there isn’t, so its a chemical question for now.
Even if that issue is solved, there is still security. Breeder technology can greatly increase the amount of energy generated and greatly reduce the waste, but it exposes large amount dangerously enriched material to possible theft, which would result in genocide or massive extortion. Perhaps there will be some way of reprocessing where the intermediate materials are highly containable.
As far as I can tell, the French are just ignoring the problem. They are just piling up waste in areas that present the dangers that doriangrey is talking about. While I don’t agree that civilization will end, I think it is reasonable to suppose that even in a few hundred years they won’t be able to read the detailed designs of at least some of our waste sites and thus could be faced with at least one site leaking extremely dangerous material which they won’t know how to fix.
pedestrian on December 8, 2007 at 1:41 PM
You outed yourself, you and no one but you with your obvious and indisputable Anti-Semitic remarks. Claiming that your remarks were anything but Anti-Semitic is just plain dishonesty, the only question is whether you realize how dishonest you are being.
Personally I suspect that you are fully aware of your Anti-Semitic beliefs and you are just trying to deceive others into believing that you are not. Sorry but it’s not working.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 2:14 PM
For those suggesting shooting nuclear waste into the sun, I’ve got the perfect solution: a nuclear rocket!
c6gunner on December 8, 2007 at 2:59 PM
Interesting rocket. Pumping out massive amounts of superheated hydrogen during liftoff. What could possibly go wrong?
I didn’t read the whole thing, but he seems to think that the fact that hydogren exhausts that rocket at a speed of 30 km/s means nuclear waste will also. It won’t, and that’s why he is using hydrogen as a propellant.
pedestrian on December 8, 2007 at 3:34 PM
Not to mention the simple fact that a nuclear rocket isn’t something that you want to fire off in the atmosphere.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 3:36 PM
Baseless lies.
KMC1 on December 8, 2007 at 4:02 PM
So you claim, the evidence recorded in your posts says otherwise. You can threaten me with lawsuits and claim I am lying all you want, but you cant change the recorded evidence.
doriangrey on December 8, 2007 at 4:18 PM
True, using a gas which remains explosive after ejection from the craft might not be the best idea. You could take precautions to safeguard against accidents, and limit the amount of damage when an accident does occur, but it’d still be a bit risky. I had the same thought when I first read that article, but I linked to it anyway since the general concept is sound. You could replace the hydrogen with liquid nitrogen instead, and get an increase in safety in return for a decrease in performance.
Obviously, however, the article is meant to discuss basic concepts, not provide exact numbers for the entire project. You don’t need a velocity of 30km/s to launch nuclear waste from earth orbit into the sun. Even if the exhaust velocity alone was insufficient (which it shouldn’t be, but worst case scenario…), the cargo capacity of a nuclear lifter would be high enough that you could easily include a smaller rocket as part of it’s payload for the sole purpose of propelling the waste toward the sun. The extra cost would be negligible.
c6gunner on December 8, 2007 at 5:23 PM
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