PressCoverage

Unbelievable how deep in denial you are. Too self-absorbed to ever admit you're wrong. What don't you understand about the statements "They stopped mining uranium in 1969," and "France ran out of uranium" and "the supply is running out."... ? Over and over and over again... But to you, it's just political blockage.

Whatever you do, please don't suggest I don't understand the difference between reserves and production. If I can "prove" there are "reserves" on Mars, that doesn't mean I can get to it. Ironic that it's YOU who can't differentiate between recoverable reserves and reserves.

How so? This should be good.

Wolfpack

I don't think my statement means what you think it does.
First of all, I would be interested in hearing where you are getting your information. Put another way, you quoted a documentary but where did they get their statistic? Because I find it rather hard to believe that 80% - 85% of children born in all of Belarus are born unhealthy due to the effects of Chernobyl.

My information, however, comes from a group you've probably never heard of: The International Atomic Energy Agency. Now I am not saying I would want to pick up and move my family there, but to say the region is uninhabitable for thousands of years just is not accurate. A quick google check shows the half life of the 2 radioactive isotopes listed below is roughly 30 years each.

Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions

10. Is it safe to visit the area now?

One may certainly visit the Chernobyl area, including even the exclusion zone, which is a 30 kilometre radius surrounding the plant, all of whose reactors are now closed. Although some of the radioactive isotopes released into the atmosphere still linger (such as Strontium-90 and Caesium-137), they are at tolerable exposure levels for limited periods of time. Some residents of the exclusion zone have returned to their homes at their own free will, and they live in areas with higher than normal environmental radiation levels. However, these levels are not fatal. Exposure to low but unusual levels of radiation over a period of time is less dangerous than exposure to a huge amount at once, and studies have been unable to link any direct increase in cancer risks to chronic low-level exposure.

PatsFanInVa

This is not hard.

Nuclear plants are the most significant non-carbon-burning energy generation scheme we have.

It is wrong that you cannot power cars with them. We need go-juice, which at the moment is gasoline. Gasoline go bye-bye. We have other go-juice, electricity. Now we have to make electricty. Nukes do that.

They also make stupefyingly toxic byproducts.

Now, wouldn't it be cool if somebody noticed, say, in the 1970s, that the gasoline would one day go bye-bye, and pushed for an expansion into renewables?

But hold on! In 1980 we started our plunge back to the 19th century in the form of insistence on markets handling everything. Well, markets don't like renewables. They're new. They cannot compete... not without a push. A real push, not a couple hundred bucks off your taxes if you put solar panels on your roof.

Whoops we ignored it for 30 years! Oh no, now it's 2009! Now we can count the small amount of power generated from renewables, and crow that it's impossible to get there!

Wrong and incorrect. It will take a tremendous effort to get there, and it will take a steady, decades-long application of policy to do it.

Depend on oil and the juice runs out. Depend on nukes and you create a legacy you have to watch over for thousands of years -- orders of magnitude beyond the actual time the U.S. has even existed. It's irresponsible to pretend that we can say for a certainty we will meet this challenge. It is a lot less feasible than the ramping-up of hydro, wind, solar, and tidal.

We have a conveniently located enormous thermonuclear reactor steadily burning 93 million miles away (a good place for such reactions to take place, for my money.) Eventually, these sources must be our answer.

Now, the part that makes me want to puke:

Right now, I am fully supportive of the poison-dependent and fundamentally unsafe nukes.

The difficulty is, of course, that if we wean ourselves from fossil fuels and replace our oil dependency with a nuke dependency, we'll greatly expand the amount of crap we have to watch over. That's also an obvious concommitant of becoming enamored of the nuclear "magic bullet" now.

But insisting on technologies that are not yet widely enough available to replace an ancient technology (fossil fuel burning vehicles and plants), and insist we make a gigantic changeover immediately, make zero sense.

We have to think in a way we Americans are bad at thinking in: we have to examine this on a long time-scale, commit to a plan, and stick to it. I have little hope this will happen. But the only way forward lies on that path: phase out fossil fuels in favor of nuclear and renewables, with a mandate to expand renewables aggressively by a tremendous amount for a long time--the energy equivalent of the interstate highways project.

We're at point A, a world dominated by fossil fuels. Next comes point B, the acceptance of nuclear as a stopgap, and with the understanding that its use is a necessary evil, not a panacea -- along with a tremendous effort to segue to renewable sources of energy. Point C lies decades away, the powering of the country using renewables only.

So lefties, don't be luddites. Righties, don't be dinosaurs (you'll never decay fast enough to be useful, and besides, even if you did the carbon footprint is too big.)

Fossil fuels -> nuclear/renewables -> renewables.

I doubt we'll do this. It's too bad.

PFnV

sdaniels7114

So a runaway chain reaction uncooled by the water designed to do the job would just fizzle out? Seems to me just turning up the reaction and denying the water by closing a valve or just blowing up the supply pipes would be fairly simple.

__________________
Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob everyone.

patsfan13

Again the vast bulk of uranium is IN THE OCEANS what part of this are you so unable to understand since it contradicts your precious peak everything dreams???

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

patsfan13

Read the article in post 1, Renewables DO NOT HAVE THER ENERGY DENSITY TO SUPPORT OUR CURRENT ENERGY CONSUMPTION. This is a matter of physics and no amount of political will or wishing will change the immutable laws of physics.


The people who are now worried about MMGW are in MANY cases the same people who wee opposed to nuclear energy in the 80's

__________________
"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

PressCoverage

I knew it wouldn't be long before you got back to being yourself. Again, if it were abundant, nations wouldn't have a serious supply problem for the stuff. They can't get to or afford the alleged reserves, period. It's a $300/KgU cost to pry it from the ocean bed, or about 3x as expensive. And it's low grade uranium.

The European Commission said in 2001 that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. When added to military and secondary sources, the resources could be stretched to 72 years. Yet this rate of usage assumes that nuclear power continues to provide only a fraction of the world’s energy supply. If electric capacity were increased six-fold, then the 72-year supply would last just 12 years.

As for your final bit of smarm...

There is nothing "precious" about peak, in any form. Don't be a d*** by pretending that I'm rooting for it. Yours is the same tired ploy that attempts to suggest we're "with the terrorists." Grow up.

I also notice you didn't follow up on your claim that I've contradicted the solutions list in regards to nuclear. Typical.

PressCoverage

Well, why don't you flesh it out instead of being vague and uppidy? I friggin agreed with you that terrorists could not compromise a plant. What on God's Earth is your point?

I linked you to the well-respected, Academy Award winning documentary. Do the work if you want a full dissertation on how they got their information. I don't need to spoon feed you each time you parrot "prove it... prove it more!... prove it again!"

Impact of the Disaster - Chernobyl Children's Project International

* 100% increase in the incidence of cancer and leukemia
* 250% increase in congenital birth deformities
* 1,000% increase in suicide in the contaminated zones
* 2,400% increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer
* “Chernobyl AIDS” is the term doctors are using to describe illnesses associated with the damage done to the immune system by the effects of the radioactive material “strontium”. It is also a contributory factor to the increase in the number of cancer cases as a result of damage to the body’s immune system.

Their mortality rates already outstrip their birth rates. According to the UN, seven million people are affected, half of whom are children. In Belarus alone, 90 per cent of children are deemed to be victims of Chernobyl. A general increase in morbidity from non-oncology conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory conditions now emerging, are adding to the general decline in health of the people living in the affected countries.

Regardless, you seem to be splitting hairs in attempting to downplay the horrors of Chernobyl just because it hasn't become a 100% fallout wasteland. Typical of con men who don't know suffering, and often try and paint a "not so bad" picture. "I find it hard to believe" is a common mantra from pro-industrialists and free market capitalists who've never endured hardship.

But, whatever. You think nuclear expansion is worth the risk of accidents and cost, I do not. And so there we are.

That's rather obnoxious, don't you think, new guy? Do a forum search and see how many times I've referenced the IAEA. You should probably think first before bloviating additional guesswork.

Wolfpack

In an American reactor, yes.
I guess it would be simple to do but it wouldn't result in any sort of meltdown or nuclear explosion.

Don't get me wrong. I suppose if some terror group knew exactly where to go and what to do then they could arrange for the thing to explode - but it would be a conventional explosion, not a nuclear one. And yes, radiation could be released, so I am not saying there isn't any danger whatsoever. But it would be more 3 Mile Island than Chernobyl.

Wolfpack

I guess since we agree there is no need for me to expand, but I do feel the need to clarify. I never said terrorists couldn't compromise a nuke plant, I said that if they did take over a plant then they wouldn't be able to do any serious damage to the surrounding area.
And how many members of the Academy have their PhD's in nuclear physics?
You're the one who used it as a source so you are the one who is required to "do the work".
Respect is a 2-way street, so when you start showing some you may then expect to receive some. In the meantime, I will stand with the IAEA and not the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Besides, we're arguing apples and oranges here. Not once did I say that the people living in the area at the time were unaffected. People that were there when it happened were in for a world of hurt (primarily) from the Iodine which, as mentioned in the link I gave you, has a half life of 8 days (a short half life is bad news if you happen to be in the area). All I have said is that the Chernobyl area is not a wasteland lasting thousands and thousands of years.

People that were there when it happened are going to be affected in massive numbers. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. They and their children and their children's children. This will last generations. There will be thyroid cancer, there will be birth defects. However, as per the IAEA, the area itself is now a place where it would be relatively safe for a healthy adult to visit and/or live in. Wildlife is already retuning. It is not an uninhabitable, barren wasteland for thousands and thousands of years.