Greenpeace founder support nuclear energy

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢
Can these ratios be increased?

Possibly, but those are already pretty efficient. Getting much above 80% efficiency is difficult for any generator.

You lose a significant fraction of the energy each time you convert using any technology. That's why we run transmission lines straight into people's houses instead of running off of batteries...

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Careful. California is the country's leading producer of nuclear power.

Not unless you've almost tripled your capacity in the last couple of years. Otherwise, California is still 8th according to the DoE.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Dauphin


I think the issue I would focus on, were I a campaigner against nuclear, would be that a large area of land is now uninhabitable. Were such a thing to have happened in, say, one of the denser Western European countries you'd have serious problems both social and economic.

You know at 3 Mile?

Which is a much worse set up than any nuke plant in western Europe...

The people on watch saw warnings, ignored them, when they didn't go away, they went over with a wrench and tried to force the reactor to not take care of itself..

And it was still a pretty minimal problem..

In the USSR on the other hand, they did things like do an open air nuke and have their soldiers practice fighting in the fallout.. I don't think that they have/had near the safety of the US 30 years ago, and even less of the safety of western europe now (the US hasn't built a new Nuke plant for 30 years.. we would be a lot safer and better off (the new ones are more efficient also) if we built new ones (and decommisioned the old ones)).

Jon Miller

[Odin]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
The Independent is on the '100,000' deaths claim from Chernobyl today, though the last paragraph is interesting :

Establishing how serious Chernobyl was has been made harder by the fact that the 18-mile exclusion zone around the reactor in modern-day Ukraine has become a vibrant unplanned nature reserve, prompting some to say that the accident does not seem to have been as bad as first thought.

Oh the irony!

[Dauphin]

Its not a nature reserve I would want to live in.

[Dinner]

But the little critters like it.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Jon Miller

In the USSR on the other hand, they did things like do an open air nuke and have their soldiers practice fighting in the fallout

That is hilarious!

[RGBVideo]

IIRC, there's a black & white propaganda film (filmed during a military exercise) where cavalry units with rifles are riding in the fallout zone after a nuke test. They had extremely modern equipment to protect them: gas masks and long-sleeved, heavy clothes -- for both the men and the horses. Not sure whether it was Chinese or Soviet, though. And no idea where any of us could find it, I remember seeing it from the TV a long time ago.

In the USSR on the other hand, they did things like do an open air nuke and have their soldiers practice fighting in the fallout.. I don't think that they have/had near the safety of the US 30 years ago, and even less of the safety of western europe now (the US hasn't built a new Nuke plant for 30 years.. we would be a lot safer and better off (the new ones are more efficient also) if we built new ones (and decommisioned the old ones)).

In Sweden and Finland, nuclear plants are shunned on because they're so "dangerous". So, in order to stay within the maximum fossil fuel emission limits of the Kyoto protocol, we've now started to import cheap power from Russia -- from Chernobyl-styled graphite-based nuclear reactors like the ones in Sosnovyi Bor, which were supposed to be closed in the 90s according to their original production plans (made in the 1950s). Oh, and they're right next to the Finnish border. Protecting the environment

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


You know at 3 Mile?

Which is a much worse set up than any nuke plant in western Europe...

The people on watch saw warnings, ignored them, when they didn't go away, they went over with a wrench and tried to force the reactor to not take care of itself..

And it was still a pretty minimal problem..

In the USSR on the other hand, they did things like do an open air nuke and have their soldiers practice fighting in the fallout.. I don't think that they have/had near the safety of the US 30 years ago, and even less of the safety of western europe now (the US hasn't built a new Nuke plant for 30 years.. we would be a lot safer and better off (the new ones are more efficient also) if we built new ones (and decommisioned the old ones)).

Jon Miller

What are you talking about? We've built dozens of Nuclear plants in the past 30 years.







Just they've all been on Naval Warships

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Its not a nature reserve I would want to live in.

Not many would want you living in a nature preserve either. It sort of defeats the point.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢
The typical conversion rate is about 15%, and the highest rate that's been achieved so far is 30%.

If photovoltaic cells can achieve an efficieny of ~30% at a reasonable cost that's a practical replacement for conventional generators. Esp. that they can be used in a decentralised fashion.

[notyoueither]

Slightly off topic, but you should hear people bouncing off the walls over here over the price of gas.

It's just tipped over $1 per litre (about $0.85 US).

People are howling like they've been shot.

I called an open line show and suggested that high gas prices might be a good thing if they encouraged greater fuel economy and mass transit. The host freaked out and said 'there never will be mass transit here'. Other callers said worse.

[KrazyHorse]

Errr...I rode your light rail, so what the **** are they on about?

[KrazyHorse]

Anybody in Alberta who complains about high fuel prices should be hung, drawn and quartered.

****ing ingrates.

[notyoueither]

What?