The Energy Crisis

[GonFreeces31]

I thought about reading this thread but then went back to driving an hour while high to get my taco bell

[wakka9ca]

Which is good. Overpopulation has always been an issue. Starvation = people dying = humans realizing something = possible advancements

You are a retard.

^

But unfortunately, that is the harsh reality.

[fargone]

Im not pretending to have the answers or to argue about whether this or that is viable. I do question rom's response of where would this patch of land be though (for solar cells - no polution) ... it would be on rooftops, on properties, where people choose to put them. It is actually viable in my city to farm electricity by simply putting solar panels on a property and feeding it into the grid (we get paid for that here). It would be inefficient to put them all in one place due to impedence for a start.

Who knows? Maybe solar is silly due to costs, but the fact remains we do have the technology today to provide our needs that way. Its not science fantasy. It might be a financial/infrastructure fantasy though.

There are other means of collecting power, such as hydro-electrity and wind power. Hydro requires the natural resources (my city is mostly powered by hydro-electricity), and same with wind. However, once set up, these are fairly reliable power sources that can supplement and/or replace other sources in some areas.

Again, I say the dollar, while the driving force behind a lot of advances, also remains one of the biggest hindrances to people simply doing what works best locally. Best local practise can build into global solutions... Imagine if someone invested billions into somewhere like Sudan and built a solar plant to feed africa power... its bigger than victoria by a lot and could conceivably feed europe all of its power needs as well.

[LoneKnight]

What's the problem with nuclear power?

It's cheap, it's clean, and even after chernobyl and the fukushima reactors (both of which were extreme cases, one being a very early generation reactor with safety measures turned off, and the other being hit by the largest tsunami/earthquake combo in recent history) it has a lower body count than fossil fuel.

And then there's Thorium reactors which are even more efficient and cheaper, although still in the testing phase.

Honestly, the thing running out of oil will **** up will be plastics, not fuel or energy. We can replace both of those but there's no way to make more DVDs/plastic soda bottles/whatever if we run out of oil. At the moment anyway. Maybe people will look into it.

[wakka9ca]

What's the problem with nuclear power?

The problem with nuclear power:
1) Waste disposal: the waste remains extremely dangerous even after 1000 years due to long half-lives
2) Run-away reaction: Meltdowns are dangerous because you can't even turn it off...

Fusion doesn't have these issues:
1) Fusion waste have half lives of 50-100 years. After a few hundred years they become totally harmless/normal material.
2) Fusion cannot be runaway due to extreme conditions to maintain the plasma

[fargone]

What's the problem with nuclear power?

It's cheap, it's clean, and even after chernobyl and the fukushima reactors (both of which were extreme cases, one being a very early generation reactor with safety measures turned off, and the other being hit by the largest tsunami/earthquake combo in recent history) it has a lower body count than fossil fuel.

Tell that to the people who live near those sites.

Exactly what body count are you refering to for fossil fuels? Does that body count include such things are people who are made ill but not die? Does it include birth defects? Does include the permanent impact radiation has on the local and extended areas?

Japan flooded ocean water into its reactor to help prevent a melt down - what impact has that had on the environment? Im in Australia, and that radiation has reached my waters. Not to mention a large portion of the worlds radiactive materials is mined in Australia, and the long and short term impact on our environment near the mine is not exactly what I would call clean.

Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean its not there.

[LoneKnight]

I'm looking for the chart right now actually... but can't fuind it. It compares all those. Fossil fuels generate somewhere around 100 (I may be grossly off estimate here) times more waste than nuclear energy. Basically, if you replaced all nuclear reactors with fossil fuel not only would oil run out in a few years, we'd all choke to death on the smoke. This is because while nuclear waste is radioactive for a long time there is no actual CO2 emission so we can basically put it in a box and forget about it. Whereas CO2 builds up...

Here's an image on the headcount (Death/TWh) btw:



Not sure if this is before or after Fukushima but I guess if it was before, you can feel free to double those numbers.

...

You know what, just read this: http://128.143.168.25/classes/200R/Projects/Fall_1997/NuclearPower/fossilfuels.htm

Found it while looking for the chart.

[wakka9ca]

We are not looking at comparison between fossil fuels and others, but a comparison between different alternative energy sources. You cannot put the radioactive waste in a box and forget about it. That is not how it works. How about I suggest burying those tonnes of nuclear waste under your home?

Nuclear is potent but honestly it has some technical issues that are hard to engineer out... compared to the other forms of energy. It's like jumping from one evil (fossil fuel) to another evil (nuclear). It doesn't solve the problem on the long run. What are you gonna do with the waste? They will keep accumulating because they will be dangerous for thousands of years.

[LoneKnight]

If you want to actually look at what's sustainable right now (as in what energy form can cover the worlds energy needs), nuclear is pretty much the best one with energy produced to death/pollution ratio. Wind/Water/Geothermic are limited by geography, solar right now is really not worth it in any way (may change once they get the film thin panels working) so there's like, I dunno?

Yeah, I guess you can't "forget about it", but as far as digging the grave under my house? I actually wouldn't care. As long as I get some compensation. Maybe line my floor with lead.

At least I can run away from it, unlike from, say, green house effect, or acid rain, or the smogg.

[wakka9ca]

At least I can run away from it, unlike from, say, green house effect, or acid rain, or the smogg.

Or radioactive materials leaking into the underground water veins...

There is a good reason why people are not totally crazy about nuclear yet... It's a solution, but not a long-term one. Also, nuclear doesn't really move into a more ideal form of energy because it still uses mineral resources (uranium, thorium and other replacements). It's not that uranium is rare but the paradigm is still old fashioned... What people need is to limit energy consumption and find more sustainable forms of energy harvest, not trying more dangerous forms of energy in order to consume more energy. It's like treating the symptoms and not the source of symptoms. What are you gonna do when everything switch to nuclear? How much waste are we gonna get? LOTS. Where are we gonna put them? I don't think we are in a better shoe than fossil fuel. It's like moving from destructive behavior #1 to destructive behavior #2.

I am not against nuclear energy by itself. I'm okay with a few nuclear reactors filling in the gap. I'm against nuclear replacing all of current fossil fuel-based energy. That means you need to build few hundreds new nuclear reactors all across the world. Sorry but it just doesn't look pretty so it's not really "the" solution.

For instance, I'm ok with living in Japan even with all the Fukushima contamination simply because the contamination is so minute it's quite harmless, despite what media scare is. However, a complete nuclear renaissance means that with everything nuclear, the risk is no longer the same... Also, fossil fuel risk is more of a long-term risk, much more critical and devastating than nuclear accidents. However, nuclear energy has "acute" risks and people will never accept it even if the industry want it.