Re: "Nuclear energy 'not the solution to global warming"

On 28 Mar, 18:37, deza...@xxxxxxx wrote:
On Mar 28, 10:07 am, xnich...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:





On 28 Mar, 17:48, deza...@xxxxxxx wrote:
This isn't desirable when you can produce all your electricity from
nuclear power, and its simply wasteful of coal resources which are
better applied towards synfuel production. You're hard pressed telling
me why Britain and Ireland deserve to burn coal where Shanghai
doesnt.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

For one thing, all of the British nuclear power stations are on the
coast.
So they've recently been shitting themselves over the question of
whether sea-level rises will actually render them inoperative within
less than a century.
(Allegedly not, but check the latest posting on 'Real Climate' on
that, which states that 1 meter sea-level rises are a *possibility* by
2100)

This is still well outside the projected 40-60 year lifespan of
nuclear plants.

Even in the US, generating all electricity from nuclear power would
require a masssive increases in power stations and re-processing of
nuclear fuel.

Reprocessing isn't required for anything. We have enough uranium
avaliable to last for millenia in the once through cycle alone:

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution

With 10^8 tons of uranium and a 1GW plant requiring some 200 tons per
year, thats enough to last global demand some 1000 years on ore grades
that are currently being mined, and recoverable ore grades of 20ppm
and up would last 20000 1GW reactors some 250000 years.

I know all of your arguments about Pebble Bed reactors, Re-Processing
etc, but arguing for that as a solution simply runs against the grain
of people's experiences with nuclear power so far. I'm all for
investment in fusion research, but the storage and or disposal of
nuclear waste is still an issue that won't go away.

Nuclear waste storage is as easy as sealing it in concrete and
sticking the casks in a lot. This has allways been a solved technical
problem and only been a political issue. Its still far more managable
than the millions of tons of waste from burning coal every year which
churns out several orders of magnitude more radioactive waste from the
fly ash alone directly into the atmosphere.

I've never argued at any time for an anti-coal fundamentalist
position. As I've stated before, a proportion of coal is essential to
an industrialised economy.

Sure. You need it today for steel production and synfuels. Power
production from coal is dirty and wasteful, not to mention completely
unnecissary and subject to fuel price swings.

Coal should be banned from all new power production plants.

The amount of hydrocarbons produced and consumed per year can only be
decided by two things: -

1) A scientific appraisal of what is allowable without triggering
climate changes which will harm humans society and living things on
the planet.
2) An international system of quotas.

This reads like: 'People should be nice to each other.'

Most reasonable people agree with this, it's only vested interests and
stupidity that prevent it being acted on.
Time's running out.- Hide quoted text -

I see your crocodile tears staining your face. One of the vested
interests is the coal lobby.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Nuclear waste disposal over the half-life of transuranics is a lot
more than sticking it in a concrete barrel.
You have to calculate the consquences for up to millions of years.
There is also the issue of safe transport to the storage site.
It's certainly not been solved yet, as the fact that all the waste is
hanging around near nuclear power stations and re-processing
facilities shows.

Synfuels production makes no economic sense and no ecological sense.
It's more like an argument for economic autarchy.
The Fischer-Tropsch proces was pioneered in Nazi Germany in order to
keep the war machine running and taken up again in South Africa under
sanctions.
The Bush Regime are interested in it now because it offers a way out
of dependence on the OPEC countries, as they are interested in bio-
diesel for the same reasons.
It stems from a failure to develop an alternative to the traditional
combustion engine.
Business as usual.

I don't think an international agreement on carbon emissions is just a
utopian "be nice to each" other argument.
Treaties are signed between nations when it comes to wars too.
The "Devils Riding Crop" of global warming is a powerful incentive for
reaching such an agreement, not some attempt to impose taxes by
climatologists and your local weather forecaster.

Coal Lobby? Yeah, maybe in America I suppose.
Coal companies in Europe are pretty much chicken-feed nowadays.
The N.C.B when it existed was meant to be accountable to the
government and voters, like the BBC.
An agreement on coal would impose restrictions on unbridled expansion
and obligations on developing technology to counter the carbon
emissions of the plant.

I'm not arguing for national exceptionalism, just what makes sense
locally within the framework of an agreement.




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