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

On 28 Mar, 19:54, deza...@xxxxxxx wrote:

You have to calculate the consquences for up to millions of years.

You certainly do not. We dont for chemical wastes which lasts forever.
You just revisit the issue every century or two

Only an elemental waste can last 'forever', (even then it won't be
forever)!
Assuming the reactors are re-processing the radioactive element
plutonium, the problem will last for longer than human civilisation
has.
Thorium reactors wouldn't have that problem, but I know of no working
example so far.

There is also the issue of safe transport to the storage site.

The volume of spent fuel is so tiny that this risk is insignificant.
They're too big to steal, to tough to damage in a crash, and are
shipped too infrequently to worry about bizzare acts of god.

I used to live quite close to a railway line which shipped stuff up to
Sellafield.
The containers are tested for accidental damage, but it's not popular
with people who have to live nearby.

And how has anyone been hurt by spent fuel?

The nature of the issue is such that you need a very long time to
calculate that.
The argument reminds me of all these programmes on radio and tv
nowadays, that talk about how Chernobyl is now a wild-life refuge.
Come on! Is that what we'll have to put up with in the future?
The timescales of the experiment are simply too short to make any
scientific judgement on the issue.

Sasol is one of the most profitable companies in south africa
with contracts to build large synfuel plants in the US and China.
Above 30 dollars per barrel Synfuel makes absolute economic sense, and
thats why plant orders are being pursued today.

Well, using the Peak-Oil position, you would need to argue for relying
on coal for the next 400 years then.

It stems from a failure to develop an alternative to the traditional
combustion engine. Business as usual.

For most applications there is no alternative! Sure you can have
electric or plug in hybrids for runabouts to work and whatnot, but for
heavy trucks, airplanes, and shipping there is no alternative and
never will be.

Electrified railways for a start-off. Electrified buses in inner
cities.
All off the grid, not inefficient battery power.

Localised deliveries can be done in battery electric vehicles, which
don't really need speed.
That's how *all* milk deliveries were traditionally done in Britain
until the supermarkets started to undercut the local dairies.
You could also get fresh bread, eggs and fruit juice from the milk-man
(widely regarded as the true father of half the kids in the
neighbourhood)
You must have known Al the Fruitman in Brooklyn?

Tesco-online is one of the few succesful home delivery supermarket
operations and the concept can work with electric delivery vehicles,
many of which are coming on to the market now. They claim to be
interested in renewable energy and often sport a wind turbine or too
in the store-front, let 'em put their vast quantities of lucre where
their mouths are. If not, they can be re-badged as the CoOp.

Ships can run on all sorts of power supplies including Gas turbines
and even Stirling engines.

Airplanes, Diggers, Hauling houses across the USA - maybe a different
issue

Coal Lobby? Yeah, maybe in America I suppose.
Coal companies in Europe are pretty much chicken-feed nowadays.

Oh sheesh. In Germany they're quite powerful.

Well if they are going to prevent expansion of renewable energy they
have to be fought.

.

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