http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1006425–if-you-think-it-s-hot-now-just-wait-50-years?bn=1

…a problem which we have known about for thirty years now.

And how’s the response been so far? Not good:

http://www.livescience.com/11220-2010-record-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

Anti-global-warming = pro-nuke.
That’s where I’m coming from.
Comparative risk analysis.

Your post conflates an immense number of different problems all into “fast breeder reactor”.

That’s because a fast-breeder reactor was supposed to be the magical bullet for the “nuclear recycling” program, which never really worked out in the end. Some people are also still confused that “nuclear recycling” is possible, and that France is doing it when they aren’t. I needed to get that straight.

However, they have had sodium cooled fast-breeder reactors, and they have worked.

So, which one? I’m talking about commercial-grade reactors that can generate electricity, of course.

In either case this means we should probably be looking much more seriously at Aqueous Homogeneous Reactors (AHR) and Molten Salt Reactors (MSR).

Which are just as complex as fast-breeder reactors, cost a shit ton to develop and research and won’t be used until “Gen IV” reactors are deployed, which like the fast-breeder reactors, won’t likely be deployed until 2050 at the earliest.

Fast breeders were never intended to make electricity, they were intended to make nuclear bombs, and they filled their purpose brilliantly.

Fantastic, but we need to make electricity, not bombs.

Referring to the anti nuclear movement as reasonable is probably what is ridiculous.

I think I need to figure out on level ground the risk assessment of closing nuclear plants. We’ve heard the horror stories of what ifs, but really its what about what can expected. We know the health disasters of fossil fuels but the environmental realities are also there.

Before I thought it was reasonable to assume that each nuclear plant closed and a fossil fuel plant kept/built meant at least more than one extinction, when considering the number of species at risk from climate change.

The number of projected extinctions proposed was recently reduced in some research I am reading so I will get back on a better number for that. Its still rather dismal.

And Regardless the real historically proven consequences of fossil fuels outweigh the risks of Nuclear Power by a incredible margin. Whether you want to accept it or not.

Think that is your interpretation. He doesn’t appear to make judgement calls on whether it is safe or not

Uh.. maybe it’s YOU that needs to take a closer look at his book, not me. When I said, “Inherently safe nuclear power” I was actually quoting HIM. That’s even how he titled that section. Sheesh…

You’re the only one who mentions dire, it seems to be added as a side comment, rather

I guess the irony was lost on you that he made no mention of the dangers of earthquakes for nuclear energy but brought it up for geothermal energy when it’s basically not caused any damage in 35 years and really isn’t much of an issue.

I think your desperate desire to be “right” outweighs your better judgement. So no matter what I point out, you’ll just avoid the main point and keep trying to bob, weave, dodge and shift goal posts around.

It’s sad, really. Will you at least concede my first point above? He most certainly does appear to make a judgement call on nuclear power! Read the fricken’ title, man. My God.. how desperate are you?

Do you really think it surprising that the government would want a scientist who had researched and written a book that was received well by groups ranging from power companies to friends of the earth as their chief scientific advisor. I find it peculiar that in your eyes it makes him obviously tainted and biased.

Actually what really makes him tainted and biased is his bias I mentioned already. I find it peculiar that you couldn’t see how a bias towards the company line doesn’t help someone to move up to an organization that itself is biased towards the company line.

I’m afraid you missed what was in front of you, which having read your responsed to my other points doesn’t surprise me.

Oh I see now, it’s where you say it’s “reasonable” to post that FUD link from the nuclear industry posing as a blog by saying this:

different sources will include different deaths, however as the link was in general agreement with other figures I’ve seen & time was short I thought it reasonable to post.

Sorry, I think posting FUD is never reasonable. I guess that’s where we agree to disagree. The best you can come up with is a book that brings up the dangers of earthquakes from geothermal but omits that risk for nuclear power.

You still don’t get the irony in that in light of what happened, do you? Amazing.

You’re also yet to dismiss his environmental and achievable outcomes for various energy source mixes

And you’ve yet to make a point in that regard that tells me I’m wrong about sustainable energy. It’s your book reference, dude. And I already showed you where he shows bias by leaving out data. I’m not going to pick out every single instance throughout the book, sweetheart. I picked the topic at hand and already found issues there that you feebly try to refute despite what is right there before you in black and white.

Besides, that would be fruitless for you anyway… Like I said already, your desperate desire to be “right” outweighs your better judgement. So no matter what I point out, you’ll just avoid the main point and keep trying to bob, weave, dodge and shift goal posts around anyway. That’s your track record.

Regardless, I’ve yet to see a compelling reason that nuclear power is in any form worse than coal, and handwaving ‘LETS GET GREEN POWER WORKING NOW NOW NOW’ just shows you have done absolutely no work or research into the actual issues that green power researchers and supporters are trying to solve. I’m entirely in favor of green energy (all the way, 100%, excited as hell about it), but I’m also aware that saying the choice is between nuclear and green is a fallacy, as much as saying the choice is between nuclear and cold fusion.

Probably by experts over 100. ;) Thirty years ago was the time we could afford more wiggle room in our decisions. Thats past. Its mitigating this disaster now and reducing losses.

There is no time for fear and conspiracy in making reasonable energy decisions.

Please read this digest http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/ or the linked book(pdf.)

For the UK to become largely renewable energy based would require remodelling the landscape into a concrete structure based nightmare.

Fine, but

Fine, but… you move the goal posts once again. It just never stops.

And once again… all you guys focus on is everything that could possibly (no matter how unlikely) could go wrong with the sustainable energy sources I’ve mentioned and keep espousing the greatness of nuclear energy and every single time I show the extent of your FUD, you either ignore it or move the goal posts again and again and keep focusing like a laser on any possible negative you can dig up whether it’s based on relevant facts or not, it doesn’t matter.

You very obviously are biased and every obviously rely on biased sources to back up your bias. It’s not science, dude. It’s biased bullshit.

Tell me this… is there ANY sustainable energy you think is safer than nuclear energy? Oh, that’s right, but none of it is viable because the energy companies told you so…

Give it up, dude.

The governing coalition was formerly staunchly pro-nuclear even annulling the previously enacted phase out of nuclear power in Germany 6 months prior to their about-face.

The policy reversal came after a combination of the Japanese earthquake and a string of important electoral defeats for the governing coalition.

The plan expects Germany to abandon nuclear energy, decrease CO2 output by 40%, and lower energy costs all by 2022. It gives no specifics about how to actually do any of this.

There are not really any specific technical analyses of the feasibility of the plan because the plan is so far lacking any technical specifications. As a result, if you choose to believe that the current German government will actually act to materially deliver on the spirit of its promises, more power to you. To me, on the other hand, it seems startlingly close to a situation in which the Republican party suddenly comes out with a plan for strong financial regulations.

Links regarding deaths per energy source – point was to show that people often have incorrect beliefs as to current safety of existing energy sources. Nuclear being quite safe, hydroelectric/coal pretty unsafe and the rest trending between. I’ll leave it up to the reader to disprove if they care.

Actually no – its not. If you read the science and reports. All the studies, its not that ambiguous. Nuclear is safer and much more environmentally friendly.

Actually, yes is IS ludicrous to call Nuclear Energy “Clean Energy”. It’s far from it.

You’re full of semantic bullshit and if YOU read what the scientists have to say… they say it’s NOT worth it:

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/nuclear-power-global-warming-0087.html

Once again… nukes are not safe and it’s idiotic to choose that route when we can put our efforts into sustainable energy sources that ACTUALLY ARE far safer and much more environmentally friendly.

Your FUD is showing. You read the “science and reports” that the energy companies WANT you to read and leave everything else OUT (i.e. the dangers of nuclear energy). That’s not basing your opinions on FACTS, that’s basing your opinions on corporatist drivel.

Sustainable energy is the only route to.. sustainability. What is wrong with you people?

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100513/dq100513c-eng.htm

…and a number which we can all dance to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsoa1wHJT2E

And Regardless the real historically proven consequences of fossil fuels outweigh the risks of Nuclear Power by a incredible margin. Whether you want to accept it or not.

Nice false dichotomy there… too bad, your drivel doesn’t work on me.

You completely leave out sustainable energy. You are towing the bullshit corporatist energy company line that the ONLY choice is fossil fuels or nukes. Whether you want to accept it or not.

Nice try. Play again.

Some quotes on fast-breeder reactors:

http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/newreactors/fastbreeder21710.pdf

Frank von Hippel, Ph.D., co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, said:

“The breeder reactor dream is not dead but it has receded far into the future. In the 1970s, breeder advocates were predicting that the world would have thousands of breeder reactors operating by now. Today, they are predicting commercialization by approximately 2050. In the meantime, the world has to deal with the legacy of the dream; approximately 250 tons of separated weapon-usable plutonium and ongoing — although, in most cases struggling — reprocessing programs in France, India, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom.”

Mycle Schneider, Paris, international consultant on energy and nuclear policy, said:

“France built with Superphénix, the only commercial-size plutonium fueled breeder reactor in nuclear history. After an endless series of very costly technical, legal and safety problems it was shut down in 1998 with one of the worst operating records in nuclear history.”

Thomas B. Cochran, nuclear physicist and senior scientist in the Nuclear Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said:

“Fast reactor development programs failed in the: 1) United States; 2) France; 3) United Kingdom; 4) Germany; 5) Japan; 6) Italy; 7) Soviet Union/Russia 8) U.S. Navy and 9) the Soviet Navy. The program in India is showing no signs of success and the program in China is only at a very early stage of development. Despite the fact that fast breeder development began in 1944, now some 65 year later, of the 438 operational nuclear power reactors worldwide, only one of these, the BN-600 in Russia, is a commercial-size fast reactor and it hardly qualifies as a successful breeder. The Soviet Union/Russia never closed the fuel cycle and has yet to fuel BN-600 with plutonium.”

Actually, using renewables for a large part of our energy generation is not possible because they don’t feasibly create enough power. (Feasibility may change by country :) Please read this digest http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/ or the linked book(pdf.) For the UK to become largely renewable energy based would require remodelling the landscape into a concrete structure based nightmare.

Right.. sustainable energy would be a nightmare. This all coming from the guy within your link who just so happens to be the chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change which is heavily lobbied by (and often cows to) the nuclear power industry.

More FUD, please! Not enough bullshit in this thread already. Please.. tell us more about how sustainable energy will be a bloody nightmare for us all. You know, it’ll kill every man, woman, child and bird on this planet.

Sustainable energy is death!

I think one of the biggest problems facing us when it comes to renewable energy isn’t just building it or improving it, it’s dealing with the inherent problems of energy storage being incredibly inefficient. Are there solutions being worked on? Sure!

There are many solutions that are ready now. We only need to invest more in them and DO THEM.

Maybe if you performed some work or research into the actual issues that green power researchers and supporters have solved you’d know about compressed air tanks and flywheel energy storage among many other solutions/options.

And best of all, the whole tinfoil hat crowd doesn’t have a ton of room to stand on when you consider that the tech to make energy storage more efficient couldn’t be blocked by ‘big oil’ because it’s so useful to so many other practices, such as computing.

Comparing laptop batteries to sequestering electrical energy for an entire cities only shows how little you’ve bothered to actually research this issue.

And you are also lacking in research if you don’t think the energy companies have FAR MORE lobbying power than the computer industry. Annual lobbying on computers is around the 100 million mark ALL combined. Energy companies (including mining for coal, etc.) are at about half a billion dollars.

handwaving ‘LETS GET GREEN POWER WORKING NOW NOW NOW’ just shows you have done absolutely no work or research into the actual issues that green power researchers and supporters are trying to solve.

Haha…. Speak for yourself. Speak for yourself.

The dangers of emotion based decisions (like most of those pushing for the elimination of nukes without a clearly viable replacement) are that they very often end up worse that the existing status-quo. The period called “the terror” & the hundreds of thousands of deaths that ensued throughout Europe following the french revolution were a perfect example.

The problem that people who have functional brains have with idiots who label fukashima a planetary disaster is that you have to ignore facts in order to believe the lie.

Earthquake + tidal wave: Over 13 thousand dead. A coastline devastated & uninhabitable over hundreds of kilometers.
Fukashima: Zero dead. A 20 km evacuation zone.

Somehow anti-nukes turn these facts into the Disaster is Fukashima with the earthquake+tidal wave being footnotes.

Where are the calls for evacuating all coastal areas & fault zones? *crickets*

What is truly disgusting is that people are calling for major changes while completely ignoring all the consequences. Quick! A fire alarm went off, everybody jump out the windows! We’ll look to see if the alarm was really a problem & what happens to people above the ground floor later. Oh, there will be deaths? Those industry shills should have been living on the ground floor like us.

To astrodude: Nuke power production in the west has been provably cleaner than all other base-load candidates. There are technologies that would use the spent fuel as combustible and eliminate all the long lived isotopes. Why are anti-nukes all against the development of these technologies? Because it would take away from one of your talking points?

To the proponents of geo-thermal being an acceptable nuke replacement. Can you guarantee that this will not render an already unstable area even more dangerous? Why did the Germans ban further experimentation after experiencing quakes? Are future deaths from quakes/tsunamis somehow purer/more acceptable than the zero deaths from nukes in Japan so far? Why?

To anon #39: Right now the germans are just exiting the windows & everyone is just fine. Once the bodies start hitting the ground however…

To Cowicide #41: Why are all unsolved problems to developing green power mere excuses while problems in western nuke plants that have yet to produce a fatality a mortal sin? Personal bias?

To Cowicide #41: Corporatists are all inbred products of unwed mothers? I suppose it makes you feel morally superior to think so but do you have proof?

To Cowicide #43: Do something for everyone else. Get off your behind & turn off your computer. Calling incontrovertible facts “corporatist talking points” does not change their status.

To Cowicide #57: All bow before cowicide who has defeated reality through his mighty willpower… Get out of Moms basement much?

To Ugle Canuck #58: Check your timeline. Gorbachev was Premier & the Cold war was pretty much over. I remember being surprised that Gorby with all his talk of perestroika still tried to hide the unhidable.

Note for Xeni/mods: Cowicide has a foul mouth in #22, #23, #42. Will you disemvowel his posts to render them less objectionable or once again are all posts that agree with you acceptable while those that do not get sanctioned?

Or they can use the magical perpetual motion machine that everybody seems to assume will allow them to keep using their internet & air conditioner.

Although different sources will use different sources for deaths, it is quite interesting to look at deaths per twh for different energy sources. http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

Um… Pedant? You know what’s really interesting about the link you give there from those supposed “think tank” statistics that try to prove how great and safe nuclear energy is and how shitty sustainable energy is?

That link, nextbigfuture.com, is run by people like Alvin Wang who happens to currently be the Business Improvement Manager at Edison International who runs nuclear power plants.

I guess they just forgot to mention that part of his resumé on that glorious bullshit site there.

Once again… can’t you guys at least research your way out of a wet paper bag and find some sources that aren’t straight from the nuclear power industry?

Man, either there’s a ton of shills for the nuclear power industry in here or just a bunch of people inept at research…

fuck’s sake, people. I AM GOING TO CHECK YOUR LINKS… Keep it up and keep embarrassing yourselves, it’s up to you.

Man, either there’s a ton of shills for the nuclear power industry in here or just a bunch of people inept at research…

Well there’s certainly one guy who’s working for the oil industry.

Nuclear is quit horrifying the more you learn about it.

I’ve always been curious about that, especially considering their history with it.

The period called “the terror” & the hundreds of thousands of deaths that ensued throughout Europe following the french revolution were a perfect example.

Nice red herring.

The problem that people who have functional brains have with idiots who label fukashima a planetary disaster is that you have to ignore facts in order to believe the lie.

“Planetary disaster”? Another red herring! Fantastic. I haven’t heard too much along the lines of “planetary disaster”, but I think most with functional brains (as you say) do believe it to be a disaster for the country of Japan. But, maybe you think we’re idiots for thinking such things, I don’t know.

Somehow anti-nukes turn these facts into the Disaster is Fukashima with the earthquake+tidal wave being footnotes.

Oh, I’m sorry… is this the earthquake-tidal wave article we’ve all stumbled into and just started spouting off about nukes out of the blue? Our mistake. I could have sworn this article has something to do with massive anti-nuclear protests planned for June 11th, but I guess I was mistaken.

All kidding aside, I hope to god you aren’t talking about the Japanese protesters in Japan. If that’s the case, you really are an insensitive creep insinuating they consider the death and destruction directly from the tidal waves a “footnote” just because they don’t agree with you on the safety of nuclear energy.

Why are all unsolved problems to developing green power mere excuses while problems in western nuke plants that have yet to produce a fatality a mortal sin? Personal bias?

Actually, I’ve shown facts to back up my assertions against the onslaught of vapid excuses to only have the goal posts moved afterwards and get thrown hyperbole, half-truths, half-baked assertions, red herrings and bullshit stats proven to be from the nuclear power lobby.

What’s your problem with facts? Personal bias?

Do something for everyone else. Get off your behind & turn off your computer. Calling incontrovertible facts “corporatist talking points” does not change their status.

Dude, calling corporatist talking points “incontrovertible facts” does not change their status.

All bow before cowicide who has defeated reality through his mighty willpower… Get out of Moms basement much?

Hey look, more hyperbole! Fantastic. If you bother to read my posts I’m pretty heavy on facts. I notice you’re pretty heavy on hyperbole. I guess your trying to make up for a lack of something, aren’t cha?

Note for Xeni/mods: Cowicide has a foul mouth in #22, #23, #42. Will you disembowel his posts to render them less objectionable or once again are all posts that agree with you acceptable while those that do not get sanctioned?

CowTip: Leave moderation up to moderators. Maybe focus more on challenging my facts than attacking me with hyperbole instead?