Zephram Cochrane goes to jail

nccmark

"Power to the people"

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/06/30/james-cromwell-sentenced-to-jail-for-7-days-over-ny-plant-protest.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/06/30/babe-actor-james-cromwell-sentenced-jail-ny-plant-protest/103322522/

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echatty

Yeah, it has nothing to do with STO.

starkaos

I never understood why Environmentalists protest nuclear energy since it is the only reliable "green" energy available. Wind and Solar are too unreliable to support our energy demands. Germany has proved that when their carbon dioxide output increased after switching to solar and wind since they needed to use coal to support their country with unreliable solar and wind. In order for solar and wind to have any chance of being reliable, highly efficient batteries are necessary.

artan42

Because it's not green. The objection is not that we don't need it but that the negatives outweigh the positives.

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artan42

patrickngo wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

Because it's not green. The objection is not that we don't need it but that the negatives outweigh the positives.

barring fifty year old plants situated on fault lines or in radically geologically unstable regions (Japan) I'll have to disagree here.

Radioactive pollution from Coal fired plants is a hell of a lot more frequent, and because it's low level, goes on a lot longer, enviromentalists won't let us build new hydroelectric dams (which really ARE green in terms of pollution outptu, and stone axe reliable), geothermal is unreliable, it turns out, and requires building your power plant on geologically unstable ground (needs to be near a magma vein) as well as costly to build (ever drilled a well?)

Gen III and IV plants are safe, and Thorium/Sodium is meltdown proof and doesn't produce nuclear weapons cores, closed-cycle power generation recycles old cores and reduces the need to enrich fuel dug up out of the ground by a significant margin, the waste is largely solid, meaning it's containable, and reprocessible if you're not married to burying it in a hole to keep the uranium mines open.

Tchernobyl was 1950s era construction with 1940's era technology running a 1980s level load, Fukushima was 1960s build with 1940s tech, Three Mile Island's 'big disaster' irradiated ONE ROOM. It was a bigger disaster in terms of media coverage, than it was environmentally, and nuclear subs have been operating safely (also nuclear ships) for decades without incident.

Nuclear has high energy density and high energy output that is controllable, modern reactors (gen III and IV) are built with PASSIVE safeties (Fukushima, TMI, Hanford and Tchernobyl were reliant on ACTIVE safeties, which bieng complicated, can and will fail through simply requiring lots and lots of expensive maintenance) meaning that conditions that create meltdown situations shut the reaction down instead on those generations of reactor-rendering it inert, and thus, harmless.

Nuclear is still potentially teh safest, and least environmentally damaging option if you want, say, your telephones, internet, hot water heater and such to keep working reliably without smog or damming up another river.

of course, that assumes you're not building another Hanford-generation structure on a fault line.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm stating their position, not misrepresenting it.

My own opinion of nuclear power is my own.​​

angrytarg

starkaos wrote: »

I never understood why Environmentalists protest nuclear energy since it is the only reliable "green" energy available. Wind and Solar are too unreliable to support our energy demands. Germany has proved that when their carbon dioxide output increased after switching to solar and wind since they needed to use coal to support their country with unreliable solar and wind. In order for solar and wind to have any chance of being reliable, highly efficient batteries are necessary.

That's not entirely true. While "green" energy is influenced by natural fluctuation the reason for Germany's coal plants to produce more energy are one of domestic policy, not efficiency. Depending on the state you are looking at in many places coal and nuclear plants remain at full capacity even when renewable energy is at peak efficiency instead of lowering their output. In order to not waste that energy many providers will switch off their wind turbines even if there is enough wind. Despite that, emissions in the energy sector are relatively low in 2016 despite a minimal increase to 2015. The major problem is politics - on the one claw, possibly inspired by the USA, our social-democratic vice chancellor (in his function as then minister of energy) promised regions dependant on coal to secure jobs and increase production instead of helping the transition from coal to green energy. On the other our ministry of traffic is hell-bent on supporting Diesel motors instead of e-mobility leading to a constant rise in traffic emissions. There's enough green energy to counterweigh periodic fluctuations in sun and wind hours, you just have to invest properly and not take two steps back every time it's a election year. Coal is also still heavily subsidized for the same reason - it's use is economically iresponsible for decades but is kept on life support again and again instead of investing in retraining and exploring renewable concepts in the affected regions - and invest in research into efficient batteries as you mentioned.​​

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smokebailey

starkaos wrote: »

I never understood why Environmentalists protest nuclear energy since it is the only reliable "green" energy available. Wind and Solar are too unreliable to support our energy demands. Germany has proved that when their carbon dioxide output increased after switching to solar and wind since they needed to use coal to support their country with unreliable solar and wind. In order for solar and wind to have any chance of being reliable, highly efficient batteries are necessary.

A nuclear generator, is, for all intents an 1800's steam boiler....with a radioactive source heating water, which the steam moves the turbines....and it you got tons of toxic, radioactive materials that are going to still be here for millennia. Anyone that thinks nuclear is an advanced, and safe solution to the energy thing needs to get their heads examined.

And I think there is a much more superior method.....what Tesla was going to give us. Think about it...if Tesla was wrong, WHY did JP Morgan pull the plug on all of it, and why did that other prat, Thomas Edison (who was a ruthless businessman first, and a scientist second) did how part against Tesla? Because we would have been free from the energy paradigm that's been artificially maintained for the past century. And the fact the government raided his home pretty much immediately after his death makes me feel he was really on to something that could help us...and those in power never want to see the little folks do well.

smokebailey

angrytarg wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

I never understood why Environmentalists protest nuclear energy since it is the only reliable "green" energy available. Wind and Solar are too unreliable to support our energy demands. Germany has proved that when their carbon dioxide output increased after switching to solar and wind since they needed to use coal to support their country with unreliable solar and wind. In order for solar and wind to have any chance of being reliable, highly efficient batteries are necessary.

That's not entirely true. While "green" energy is influenced by natural fluctuation the reason for Germany's coal plants to produce more energy are one of domestic policy, not efficiency. Depending on the state you are looking at in many places coal and nuclear plants remain at full capacity even when renewable energy is at peak efficiency instead of lowering their output. In order to not waste that energy many providers will switch off their wind turbines even if there is enough wind. Despite that, emissions in the energy sector are relatively low in 2016 despite a minimal increase to 2015. The major problem is politics - on the one claw, possibly inspired by the USA, our social-democratic vice chancellor (in his function as then minister of energy) promised regions dependant on coal to secure jobs and increase production instead of helping the transition from coal to green energy. On the other our ministry of traffic is hell-bent on supporting Diesel motors instead of e-mobility leading to a constant rise in traffic emissions. There's enough green energy to counterweigh periodic fluctuations in sun and wind hours, you just have to invest properly and not take two steps back every time it's a election year. Coal is also still heavily subsidized for the same reason - it's use is economically iresponsible for decades but is kept on life support again and again instead of investing in retraining and exploring renewable concepts in the affected regions - and invest in research into efficient batteries as you mentioned.​​

And the gimps that are in power want more money and to rule over us like slaves as long as possible.

Those in power don't care about any of us.

artan42

smokebailey wrote: »

And I think there is a much more superior method.....what Tesla was going to give us. Think about it...if Tesla was wrong, WHY did JP Morgan pull the plug on all of it, and why did that other prat, Thomas Edison (who was a ruthless businessman first, and a scientist second) did how part against Tesla? Because we would have been free from the energy paradigm that's been artificially maintained for the past century. And the fact the government raided his home pretty much immediately after his death makes me feel he was really on to something that could help us...and those in power never want to see the little folks do well.

Don't be daft. Pointless conspiracy theories don't help anybody. There is no Illuminati dedicated to keeping the secret of free electricity down. First, it's impossible, second, there are millions of scientists in the world, any number of them could replicate this violation of the laws of thermodynamics if it were possible and there's not a damn thing any government on Earth could do to stop them.

Tesla was a genius but he was no Newton and he's not a god. Sometimes his ideas were flat out bollocks.

There are NO global conspiracies of any kind because as soon as you involve more than 10 people you effectively exponentially increase the chances of a leak. Especially when some of those people are scientists, who (by and large) seek truth and how things work, not political or financial agenda.​​

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smokebailey

artan42 wrote: »

smokebailey wrote: »

And I think there is a much more superior method.....what Tesla was going to give us. Think about it...if Tesla was wrong, WHY did JP Morgan pull the plug on all of it, and why did that other prat, Thomas Edison (who was a ruthless businessman first, and a scientist second) did how part against Tesla? Because we would have been free from the energy paradigm that's been artificially maintained for the past century. And the fact the government raided his home pretty much immediately after his death makes me feel he was really on to something that could help us...and those in power never want to see the little folks do well.

Don't be daft. Pointless conspiracy theories don't help anybody. There is no Illuminati dedicated to keeping the secret of free electricity down. First, it's impossible, second, there are millions of scientists in the world, any number of them could replicate this violation of the laws of thermodynamics if it were possible and there's not a damn thing any government on Earth could do to stop them.

Tesla was a genius but he was no Newton and he's not a god. Sometimes his ideas were flat out bollocks.

There are NO global conspiracies of any kind because as soon as you involve more than 10 people you effectively exponentially increase the chances of a leak. Especially when some of those people are scientists, who (by and large) seek truth and how things work, not political or financial agenda.​​

sure...whatever ya say, dude, whatever ya say.

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artan42

smokebailey wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

smokebailey wrote: »

And I think there is a much more superior method.....what Tesla was going to give us. Think about it...if Tesla was wrong, WHY did JP Morgan pull the plug on all of it, and why did that other prat, Thomas Edison (who was a ruthless businessman first, and a scientist second) did how part against Tesla? Because we would have been free from the energy paradigm that's been artificially maintained for the past century. And the fact the government raided his home pretty much immediately after his death makes me feel he was really on to something that could help us...and those in power never want to see the little folks do well.

Don't be daft. Pointless conspiracy theories don't help anybody. There is no Illuminati dedicated to keeping the secret of free electricity down. First, it's impossible, second, there are millions of scientists in the world, any number of them could replicate this violation of the laws of thermodynamics if it were possible and there's not a damn thing any government on Earth could do to stop them.

Tesla was a genius but he was no Newton and he's not a god. Sometimes his ideas were flat out bollocks.

There are NO global conspiracies of any kind because as soon as you involve more than 10 people you effectively exponentially increase the chances of a leak. Especially when some of those people are scientists, who (by and large) seek truth and how things work, not political or financial agenda.​​

sure...whatever ya say, dude, whatever ya say.

Wow. How do I rebuke that argument!? Nice you hold opinions you can't even defend.

smokebailey

artan42 wrote: »

smokebailey wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

smokebailey wrote: »

And I think there is a much more superior method.....what Tesla was going to give us. Think about it...if Tesla was wrong, WHY did JP Morgan pull the plug on all of it, and why did that other prat, Thomas Edison (who was a ruthless businessman first, and a scientist second) did how part against Tesla? Because we would have been free from the energy paradigm that's been artificially maintained for the past century. And the fact the government raided his home pretty much immediately after his death makes me feel he was really on to something that could help us...and those in power never want to see the little folks do well.

Don't be daft. Pointless conspiracy theories don't help anybody. There is no Illuminati dedicated to keeping the secret of free electricity down. First, it's impossible, second, there are millions of scientists in the world, any number of them could replicate this violation of the laws of thermodynamics if it were possible and there's not a damn thing any government on Earth could do to stop them.

Tesla was a genius but he was no Newton and he's not a god. Sometimes his ideas were flat out bollocks.

There are NO global conspiracies of any kind because as soon as you involve more than 10 people you effectively exponentially increase the chances of a leak. Especially when some of those people are scientists, who (by and large) seek truth and how things work, not political or financial agenda.​​

sure...whatever ya say, dude, whatever ya say.

Wow. How do I rebuke that argument!? Nice you hold opinions you can't even defend.

oh, I could give pages of replies....but what are the odds you'd bother reading, or care what's in it.

afterall.....I'd just be posting 'silly conspiracies'.

I'll let ya know when I lose my spine and replace it with whool.....don't worry, I'll make you PROUD. ~curtsy~

smokebailey

patrickngo wrote: »

smokebailey wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

smokebailey wrote: »

And I think there is a much more superior method.....what Tesla was going to give us. Think about it...if Tesla was wrong, WHY did JP Morgan pull the plug on all of it, and why did that other prat, Thomas Edison (who was a ruthless businessman first, and a scientist second) did how part against Tesla? Because we would have been free from the energy paradigm that's been artificially maintained for the past century. And the fact the government raided his home pretty much immediately after his death makes me feel he was really on to something that could help us...and those in power never want to see the little folks do well.

Don't be daft. Pointless conspiracy theories don't help anybody. There is no Illuminati dedicated to keeping the secret of free electricity down. First, it's impossible, second, there are millions of scientists in the world, any number of them could replicate this violation of the laws of thermodynamics if it were possible and there's not a damn thing any government on Earth could do to stop them.

Tesla was a genius but he was no Newton and he's not a god. Sometimes his ideas were flat out bollocks.

There are NO global conspiracies of any kind because as soon as you involve more than 10 people you effectively exponentially increase the chances of a leak. Especially when some of those people are scientists, who (by and large) seek truth and how things work, not political or financial agenda.​​

sure...whatever ya say, dude, whatever ya say.

Just remember Mel, in a competition between Malicious Conspiracy as an explanation, and rampant incompetence, it's generally rampant incompetence that wins out as the most likely explanation-that, and the larger and more secretive an organization is, the more likely it is to be riddled with rampant incompetence, competing internal agendas, and intramural sabotage. This is why big conspiracies tend not to last long, while long-running conspiracies tend not be able to do much. (though dipping into the hog pit of the Conspiracy Theory community is quite entertaining.)

Compartmentalization, sir.

folks only given enough info to do the jobs for their masters....the dogs of the military use that as their bible.
hell, the gulf of tonkin was a conspiracy.....a decade ago, documents were declassified stating it was all a lie.

Plus if you think the troubles of the world is merely done by incompetent clowns who don't know what they are doing....sad...for that's what some wanna believe to make themselves feel better.

Like George Carlin, question everything, and don't believe a damned thing those in charge say, yo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cg6Ku3rRnY

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jorantomalak

crashdragon wrote: »

I swear, those environmental nutcases won't be happy until we are all living in caves that won't displace or harm a rare and endangered species of mold while using solar powered camp fires with zero carbon emissions.

dont forget the methane crash?! we will be living in caves with solar powere camp fires and corks in our behinds walking around making this face


Because we wont be allowed to f-art anymoree because the methane pollutes the air , and ontop of that we wont be able to have steak or ANY meat or vegtables we will have only speacially prepared roots to gnaw on and only if it isnt from a endangerd bush O.O

angrytarg

patrickngo wrote: »

do you know what the REAL problem with batteries is? Even rechargeables wear out, and hae to be disposed of-a process that is not exactly 'clean' from the start, while the processes to recycle them? is pretty **** dirty if you're being honest.

Wind farms are maintenance intensive, requiring constant upkeep, they cover a large area, so th at upkeep is done by motor vehicle, the structures themselves require some exceedingly filthy processes to make the components (You should look into what it takes to make the advanced composite plastics, and what flows out the effluent of the places where they're being made.)

AND it's weather-dependent and thus, unreliable. Hydroelectric Dams are reliable, by comparision a lot cleaner to build, and will get you a protest almost as aggressive (and litigation just about as aggressive) as building a new Nuke plant.

TANSTAAFL applies here, just as it does in physics or economics-there ain't no such thing as free lunch, or in this case, free energy, you get to pick:

Efficient
clean
reliable

you can have two, 'kay? but not three. If you want cleaner there's more options than trying to claim you can run a modern industrial society on hope and unicorn farts, but if you're willing to settle for Clean{er} rather than pretending you can get cheap, efficient, reliable energy for free, Hydro>Nuke>Fossil>windmills>Solar. (Terrain allowing.)

if your terrain doesn't support Hydro, then it's Nuke>Fossil Fuels>Windmills>Solar.

It's a matter of energy density, distribution, cost to maintain, and load flexibility to prevent things like the Emergency room having a brownout or having to shut down your society after dark.

You have some points, but others are highly polemic. I think to clarify first things first, nobody really thinks in absolutes. One side can't accuse the other of failing because no absolutes (100& clean, 100% efficient, 100% reliable) are reached. However the process of changing the way energy is produced is one taken step-by-step and technology needs to be improved as we go.

I agree that a modern nuclear plant is a lot safer than one build 50 years ago. However it doesn't eliminate the persisting risk and the problem of radioactive waste. Batteries and wind turbines of the latest generation do require Neodymium and other rare earths (just as every type of microprocessor we use) which is mined under terrible circumstances and produces radioactive waste as well. That is a real problem and safer means of mining these minerals or, ideally, alternatives to using them need to be had, both of which is a constant focus of scientific research.

The spatial requirements of wind parks are in comparison a minor concern, though. Maintenance done by motor vehicle is neglible in the grand scheme of things and is also dependant on the type of vehicle, the region and the technology of windmills used. For example, in Germany at least most windmills are remotely maintained and require less and less on-site maintenance - at the cost of using the aforementioned resources. However there are concepts that could solve a lot of problems like BATs for example (mobile, airborne turbines) have the potential to reduce negative impacts on a lot of factors.

To prevent brownouts and the like you need a mix of energy sources. There's never just one. Wind, solar, biomass and hydro can function in conjunction with decentralised production and storage. It's not impossible to use cleaner and safer energies, it just requires a lot of effort in the long run. Fossil fuels definitely lose in nearly every category - coal alone is a economical and ecological desaster and produces nuclear waste via smoke filters in addition to relying on a finite supply of resources and even if everything between mining the resource and burning it would be magically improved the basic concept of burning fossil fuels is not and can never be "clean", not even "cleaner". Renewables while not independent on finite resources during production can last way longer while the process of maintenance can use more and more recycled materials and maybe at some point get rid of these materials. Nuclear might be clean of immediate emissions, but the waste isn't even "cleaner" in comparison to anything, plus the risk persists. As there is no "100% clean" energy, there is no "100% safe energy" - it's just that the risk of a burning wind turbine is not comparable to that of a leak of radioactive coolant.

I'm not trying to advocate anything here as I know we are not on the same page. But both sides have to stop to look at the other in absolute terms. "Going green" or whatever catchy phrase they use these days is only achieved through advancement, not going backwards. And it's a lengthy process that could however progress a lot better if it wasn't held back by idelogical conflict. Right now both means of producing energy coexist but one is phased out more and more.​​

starkaos

patrickngo wrote: »

the fact t hat people are **** is the one firm guarantor that a global cabal ruling the earth isn't going to achieve their ends.

That is assuming that the people running the global cabal are human. If the global cabal is run by lizard people, then it is more likely to succeed.

markhawkman

starkaos wrote: »

patrickngo wrote: »

the fact t hat people are **** is the one firm guarantor that a global cabal ruling the earth isn't going to achieve their ends.

That is assuming that the people running the global cabal are human. If the global cabal is run by lizard people, then it is more likely to succeed.

Why would lizard people be any different? (This was one of the coolest things about V, the aliens are literally lizard people, but are just as conniving and scheming as humans.)

Anyways, What I know about Tesla's research suggests most of it was big ideas he was trying to figure out how to make working prototypes of. His broadcast power idea WAS tested! And yeah.... giant microwave. It killed every bird in a 1/4 mile. It worked, but the disadvantages were too severe to be practical, unless you were to find a transmission frequency that is NOT absorbed by water or bio-matter. Actually, being absorbed by rocks and dirt is a bad thing too, just less bad.... Truthfully, the REAL problem with broadcast power is inefficiency. power lines aren't perfect, but they don't have the limitation of sending half to power into space.... Oh and before I forget, microwave radiation causes electrical surges in most things made of metal... that's actually the principle behind how it transmits power. The receiver channels this electrical surge into doing useful work. But... modern wireless communications wouldn't work since this also tends to cause a mix of radiowaves and microwaves in assorted frequencies to be emitted by well, everything made out of metal that is hit by the energy broadcast.

The safest form of nuclear power I know of is a breeder reactor. It doesn't have a core to melt down, and it doesn't need specific isotopes to generate power. The fuel is processed into lumps that are sealed inside graphite balls. then you put the balls in a tank of water. But the nuclear regulatory commission doesn't like it for the same reason they don't want to let people recycle "spent" uranium.... It might have extractable quantities of plutonium...

As for "green" power... I think the closest anyone has ever come to a power source with negligible long term environmental impact.... was wood fired boilers. The smoke is pollution, but a weak form of pollution, and the wood can come from managed forests. the problem is scale, you need HUGE forests for it to be sustainable.

Every form of power plant has some sort of critical flaw. In the end what gets used is what produces the best results, not what meets fanciful standards of quality.

starkaos

markhawkman wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

patrickngo wrote: »

the fact t hat people are **** is the one firm guarantor that a global cabal ruling the earth isn't going to achieve their ends.

That is assuming that the people running the global cabal are human. If the global cabal is run by lizard people, then it is more likely to succeed.

Why would lizard people be any different? (This was one of the coolest things about V, the aliens are literally lizard people, but are just as conniving and scheming as humans.)

Aliens are less likely to have the same flaws as humans. Especially, if they are able to unite together as a species long enough to create an interstellar ship. Also, it is easier to work together against a common enemy.

...the wood can come from managed forests. the problem is scale, you need HUGE forests for it to be sustainable.

Which is the same problem with Solar and Wind Farms. Need a huge amount of land for them to be effective which conflicts with lands used for food production and residential areas. Solar power can work by putting them in deserts or on the roofs of homes. but wind will always be competing against food production and space to live, work, and play.

starswordc

markhawkman wrote: »

starkaos wrote: »

patrickngo wrote: »

the fact t hat people are **** is the one firm guarantor that a global cabal ruling the earth isn't going to achieve their ends.

That is assuming that the people running the global cabal are human. If the global cabal is run by lizard people, then it is more likely to succeed.

Why would lizard people be any different? (This was one of the coolest things about V, the aliens are literally lizard people, but are just as conniving and scheming as humans.)

Anyways, What I know about Tesla's research suggests most of it was big ideas he was trying to figure out how to make working prototypes of. His broadcast power idea WAS tested! And yeah.... giant microwave. It killed every bird in a 1/4 mile. It worked, but the disadvantages were too severe to be practical, unless you were to find a transmission frequency that is NOT absorbed by water or bio-matter. Actually, being absorbed by rocks and dirt is a bad thing too, just less bad.... Truthfully, the REAL problem with broadcast power is inefficiency. power lines aren't perfect, but they don't have the limitation of sending half to power into space.... Oh and before I forget, microwave radiation causes electrical surges in most things made of metal... that's actually the principle behind how it transmits power. The receiver channels this electrical surge into doing useful work. But... modern wireless communications wouldn't work since this also tends to cause a mix of radiowaves and microwaves in assorted frequencies to be emitted by well, everything made out of metal that is hit by the energy broadcast.

You can easily prove this right now without leaving your house, by the way. Try microwaving a paper clip on a ceramic plate you can afford to sacrifice on the altar of SCIENCE!

markhawkman wrote: »

The safest form of nuclear power I know of is a breeder reactor. It doesn't have a core to melt down, and it doesn't need specific isotopes to generate power. The fuel is processed into lumps that are sealed inside graphite balls. then you put the balls in a tank of water. But the nuclear regulatory commission doesn't like it for the same reason they don't want to let people recycle "spent" uranium.... It might have extractable quantities of plutonium...

One other issue with the regulations, they were all built around the water-cooled uranium model thanks to military reactors, though not in the way smokebailey thinks. This was back in the early Cold War when the US was exporting nuclear energy technology to Europe and Japan. The Navy had proven at-sea reactor designs that used water cooling because, really, properly managed reactors with unchanging requirements don't just spontaneously melt down, and water is plentiful in the ocean. So, Admiral Hyman Rickover, the head of Naval Reactors, had them adapt those for civilian use to save on R&D. And then all the nuclear scares started and folks clamped down on building new reactors of any kind, so they were stuck with all that '50s and '60s technology.

My house gets most of its power from Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in Wake County (I can see the cooling towers on my commute), and Duke Energy keeps applying to build a second reactor on the site (it's designed for up to four) but keeps getting turned down and this in one of the safest places for it: central NC is hundreds of miles inland and well away from any major fault lines, and we don't have man-made earthquakes yet either because somehow we've managed to keep the General Assembly from legalizing fracking.

markhawkman wrote: »

Every form of power plant has some sort of critical flaw. In the end what gets used is what produces the best results, not what meets fanciful standards of quality.

In fact, I spelled them all out in an earlier thread.

• Fossil fuels are cheap, plentiful, and energy-dense, but pollute badly all along the supply chain but especially at the consumption end, and not just from greenhouse gases.
• Biomass fuels (e.g. burning wood) is less efficient than fossil fuels and leads to further deforestation almost inevitably. Besides ecological damage, that means there's less trees to absorb the CO2 you're pumping out. We're seeing this right now: there are biomass plants in Europe that were designed to be burning scrap wood (broken shipping pallets and construction waste and the like), but the demand has gotten so high they've turned to logging.
• Hydroelectric is location-dependent for construction and, depending on the location, badly disrupts fish migration routes, especially salmon. We're now learning that a lot of those old dams in the Pacific Northwest, coupled with overfishing, are putting many salmon runs in danger of extinction, which has effects on the environment far beyond just the rivers (the salmon are a keystone species of much of the ecosystem out that way).
• Nuclear is energy-dense, you eventually have to deal with the waste afterwards, no matter what kind of reactor you use. Incidentally, one of my favorites (besides thorium-fueled and liquid sodium-cooled) is a concept version Bill Gates designed where the reactor chamber is prefilled, then welded shut after construction and you simply bury it in place when the reactor is decommissioned, which removes the problem of finding somewhere to transport it to.
• Wind is location-dependent. The best places to build it in the US are on the coasts and on the Great Plains, but in the former case you have NIMBYs (seriously, TRIBBLE those guys) and in the latter case there's no people there: our electrical grid is also based mostly on '50s technology and would need serious upgrades.
• Solar doesn't work at night and is less useful in the winter and at extreme latitudes, and requires a lot of surface area. Last summer I was working on a 3/4 square mile solar field about an hour south of Asheville. Seems huge from the ground: you could walk it but you needed a golf cart to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. You know what the theoretical peak output on that thing was? 92 megawatts. Coincidentally that's the same output as the ancient coal-fired plant whose smokestacks we could see from the site. Now, I'm sure the output will continue to improve with technology, but that's dependent on research money. Government grants are drying up all over (my aunt can attest: she was a microbiologist but now works in a craft brewery because her old research job got cut) and private dollars only get you so far.
  
  What we should be doing with solar is pairing it with existing and new construction everywhere, roofing strip malls with panels and building them on frames overtop of parking lots (I was told of a Merck factory that was did the latter). That way whatever habitat loss might happen, already did happen, and space isn't wasted. They're also testing power-generating road surfaces in France (at a cost of about 5 million euros a kilometer).
• Hydrogen is plentiful in the form of water and burning it doesn't pollute, but it takes more energy to crack water with electrolysis than you get back by burning hydrogen and oxygen. Can't do anything about that, it's immutable laws of physics (same reason a perpetual motion machine is impossible).
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfZ12UGiisM
• As for non-technobabble sci-fi power generation methods, just for the record, fusion has been "fifty years away" for over sixty years, and we don't have the technology yet to produce antimatter more than a few particles at a time at the cost of millions of dollars.

And no matter what you do, it's an unfortunate but true fact that there just isn't enough money in self-interested private hands to get it started: to solve the problem you're going to need substantial government investment at all stages, and unless you want deficits rising even further out into space that means higher taxes somewhere, so get used to the idea. Back when we were building all these nuclear plants and such things as the interstate highway system? Top personal income tax bracket was 70-92%.

angrytarg

markhawkman wrote: »

(...)
As for "green" power... I think the closest anyone has ever come to a power source with negligible long term environmental impact.... was wood fired boilers. The smoke is pollution, but a weak form of pollution, and the wood can come from managed forests. the problem is scale, you need HUGE forests for it to be sustainable.
(...)

In theory, burning wood is CO2 neutral, meaning the burning emits the amount of carbon it fixated during growth. The problem as you pinted out is that you'd have to use huge areas of forest for that sole purpose which means you lose all long-term benefits that forests provide otherwise. Firewood can not be a solution on a large scale, even small towns quickly overuse adjacent forests when too many households rely on firewood, it happens all over Germany in the winter months - many people switched to firewood because CO2-neutrality and so on, but if a town of even a few ten thousand people starts to use firewood to heat through the winter you get a huge problem.​​

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starkaos

I just thought of an extremely outrageous idea for green power technology, Hell. Hell is always extremely hot so all our energy can be provided by steam turbines. It is already a dump so there is no need to worry about the ecological ramifications for something going wrong. The only problem is creating a portal between Earth and Hell.

angrytarg

starkaos wrote: »

I just thought of an extremely outrageous idea for green power technology, Hell. Hell is always extremely hot so all our energy can be provided by steam turbines. It is already a dump so there is no need to worry about the ecological ramifications for something going wrong. The only problem is creating a portal between Earth and Hell.

That won't work. Hell froze over the moment we got a end-game Connie ​​

brian334

The problem with old style breeder reactors, and why they are the kind of reactors governments buy, is that they were designed, built, and intended to create and maintain a supply of powerful radioactives with short half lives for use in making bombs.

Period.

There is no other reason such monstrosities are built. They are intrinsicly unsafe because they attempt to contain intensely raidioactive materials under high pressure steam, and their byproduct is even more intensely radioactive materials.

There is another kind of reactor, and it is actually the first type ever built, in which the fuel is never under pressure, cannot explode or vent off as radioactive waste, and over time becomes less and less radioactive producing no highly toxic byproducts. But it could not be used to generate plutonium for bombs, so after 10,000 hours of operation it was turned off and its pile, (back then the radioactive core was a pile of bricks,) was repurposed as fuel for breeder reactors.

If someone wants to get rid of nuclear waste, the low pressure salt reactor is not only the best way to not generate any more, but it is actually a very good way to get rid of what we have now. Nuclear waste can be fed into the fuel supply of thorium reactors where its short half life will see it broken down over time while generating electricity.

Solid fuel pellets used in high pressure reactors are about 3% efficient, meaning that 97% of their potential energy is ejected as waste product. Molten salt reactors can continue to recycle the same fuel until it is no longer radioactive. Because it is a mechanical process it is not 100% efficient, but it comes closer than almost any other energy process we know.

And its spent fuel is about as radioactive as farm dirt.

Reliable
Cheap
Safe
Can't be used to make bombs
Can be used to recycle toxic nuclear waste

I know why governments don't build them, but why do environmentalists oppose them?