We must stop the construction of this nuclear plant.

[NNadir]

Some very serious predictions with respect to this nuclear station have been announced by nuclear opponents

First let's touch on costs:

1. CAPITAL COSTS are the most important single element in fixing electricity prices. The utility's original estimate of Waterford 3's cost was $288 million (3), but a recent Times-Picayune article (4) placed the finished cost at overone (sic) billion dollars. Final construction costs are expected to exceed $1.2 billion. Will a fourfold increasej in construction costs and the added interest payments on this borrowed money make for cheap electricity?

2.THE OPERATING EFFICIENCY of light water reactors has fallen far short of predictions. A recent survey (5) showed the "average capacity factor" (electrical generation as a percentage of design capacity) for 48 U.S. commercial nuclear power plants fell 57.5% in 1976. Of the four major manufacturers of LWR's,Combustion Engineering had the worst record of efficiency - 49% of planned capacity. Combustion Engineering is building the Waterford reactor. If Waterford 3's reactor can manage no better than half speed, then this "cheap" electricity is going to cost twice as much as planned.

3.THE COST OF NUCLEAR FUEL has increased 400% since LP&P planned this plant. When the application for Waterford 3 was submitted to the Atomic Energy Commission in 1970, the U3O8 "yellow cake" fuel cost $8 a pound (6). The price of uranium yellow cake toaday is $42 a pound-over five times the original estimate.

And then let's note the alternatives:

Fluidized-bed boilers are avaliable which could burn America's abundant coal more cleanly than a nomal coal-fueled power station with the best modern scrubbers (20).

Both coal and nuclear power are transitional technologies to stretch energy supplies until more benign sources can be found. The most promising of these "future" energy sources is the limitless power of the sun. Solar energy will inevitably become our greatest source of heat. Geothermal energy is also avaliable, both as heat beneath the earth's crust and as temperatuer differences in large, warm bodies of water (Gulf of Mexico). Wind energy has already powered pumps and produced electricity in this country for scores of years. Orgainc (sic) conservation is yet another potent source of energy. Agricultural, forestry, and urban wastes are easily convertible to methanol and other liquid and gaseous fuels. Brazil has begun a crash program to replace scarce and expensive gasoline with alcohol produced by simple fermentation. A new energy source with exciting potential is the recently reported discovery of significant quanities of natual gas (90% methane) dissolved in salty water beneath the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Scientists estimate enough energy from this source to supply U.S. needs for 1,250 years at present comsumption rates (21).

The utility company would have us believe that all these are esoteric, "futuristic technologies that will take years and years to develop. If we turn our national will (and research dollars) to the task, we can develop these power resources in the next three or four years - before the Waterford 3 nuclear power station will even be completed...

Wow! Look at that!!!! We have 1,250 years of natural gas beneath the Gulf of Mexico, and vast geothermal capacity there too!!!!!! Agricultural wastes are easily converted to methanol!!!! And they're all available in 3 to 4 years!!!!! Who knew?

Since this report dates from 1977, of course, we all know that the Waterford Nuclear Power Plant has been a vast economic and ecological disaster, and has been displaced by wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and a little touch of that 1,250 year supply of natural gas, and oh yeah, fluidized bed coal combustion which is clean.

http://www.saveourwetlands.org/waterfordfacts.htm

OK, well, the nuclear power plant at Waterford does operate a little better than at 57.5%: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/waterford.html

And well, now that you mention it, the price of electricity in Lousiana is below the national average:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/e_profiles_sum.html

And the price of uranium has not stabilized at $42/pound:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/umar/umar.html

And of course, the demand for electricity in Louisiana has grown by 28% since 1990, never mind 1977: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/sept05la.xls

But other than that, everything in this report has been exactly as predicted. All of Louisana's energy needs are met by solar, geothermal, fluidized bed coal, and of course, that 1,250 year's worth of gas under the Gulf of Mexico.

Global climate change? Never heard of it!

[benburch]

1. We need nuclear plants. PERIOD.

But we need dozens of SMALL (50 MW) gas-cooled nuclear plants that can be passively cooled during equipment failure. And we need to supplement those with wind farms and solar thermal plants.

[DRoseDARs]

2. And store the radioactive waste where? QUESTION MARK?

Don't be so quick to prostrate yourself before the altar of Nuclear Power.

[benburch]

3. Done right there is very little waste!

Much less than the waste from coal-fired plants, actually. (And coal cinders are actually quite radioactive.)

You REPROCESS the spent fuel into more fuel. And short half-life waste you use to power electrothermal generators, nuclear voltaic generators, or sterling-cycle engines until it cools below the theshold of usefulness. And what you need to entomb you vitrify into glass first, eliminating any chance it will leach out, and then put it in a stable salt dome or similar place. Yucca Mountain, even, is not a bad repository.

Small gas cycle plants are safe when the cooling loop is shut down, and will have a MUCH longer operational lifetime than a PWR or BWR plant, and they can be re-fueled without a months-long shutdown. They are less efficient in terms of total energy produced per unit of nuclear fuel, but that is a small component of the cost of such a plant, and can be safely ignored.

[struggle4progress]

7. Coal cinders are about as radioactive as Brazil nuts in pCi/g

Reprocessing wastes don't compare so favorably to Brazil nuts:

The disposal of high-level radioactive waste

.. HLW, whether spent nuclear fuel or vitrified reprocessing waste, generates such intense levels of both radioactivity and heat that heavy shielding and cooling is required during its handling and temporary storage. The wastes are therefore best stored in specially engineered cooling pools or vaults for several decades prior to disposal. While stored, both the temperature and radioactivity of the wastes gradually decrease, simplifying their handling and disposal considerably.

Storage cannot be relied upon in the long-term to provide the necessary permanent isolation of the wastes from man's environment, and future generations should not have to bear the burden of managing wastes produced today. Seen from this perspective, while disposal of HLWis not an urgent technical priority, it is nevertheless an urgent public policy issue. These political aspects have led to the need for the nuclear industry in recent years to demonstrate the feasibility and safety of HLW disposal and, in some countries, laws have been implemented that require operational HLW disposal capability in the next 15-50 years. In particular, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States plan to begin disposing of HLW in the early 2000s, France by about 2010, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland by about 2020, and the United Kingdom somewhat later. All HLW produced so far is currently being stored; no permanent disposal has yet occurred ..

http://www.nea.fr/html/brief/brief-03.html


Waste volumes tend to increase with reprocessing: by 1998, about 12000 tonnes of fuel processed at The Hague from France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium produced about 196000 cubic meters of waste, about 18000 cubic meters of which was classified high level; cf http://www.wise-paris.org/index.html?/english/ournews/year_1998/ournews0000981000b.html&/english/frame/menu.html&/english/frame/band.html

Since a cubic meter of water is about a metric ton, and the fuel is considerably denser than water, these figures indicate a substantial volume increment associated with reprocessing.

[benburch]

17. Those hot wastes would generate electricity.

They would be actively used for all of those decades. A Stirling Cycle engine can run on as small a heat difference as a coffee cup and the surrounding air, and require almost no maintenance. Of course, once they are cool, you entomb them. Understand also that future generations have to manage all of the wastes we are producing NOW by burning fossil fuels, and that is considerably more in volume than the nuclear waste for an equivalent amount of power!

[struggle4progress]

19. Interesting. But if these engines are as wondrous as enthusiasts claim ..

.. then one can run them on thermal gradients in solar-heated house walls, or on the differential temperatures at different depths in lakes or seas, &c&c without the rather extensive mining, milling, extraction, enrichment, fabrication &c&c of actinides for a nuclear facility. Small gradients, of the type you say suffice, exist in abundance and could easily be artificially maintained for extended periods by using appropriate reflectors to capture sunlight, for instance.

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Correct...

http://www.stirlingenergy.com

I'll admit the idea of nuclear material as a heat source is a new one on me, but I can't see a problem with it. I'd work at night as well, of course :)

[struggle4progress]

21. If the engine's a good idea, you can simply dump solar heat into a ..

.. insulated reservoir (such as a hot water tank) by day, and draw down by night when ambient air is cooler, so you get a better gradient.

But if everybody's searching for novel uses of nuclear energy, I'd point out that an enterprising youngster might get a publishable paper by using nuclear waste to run one of these:

[Dead_Parrot]

22. LOL

I'm off the the patent office. Back in 20 mins... :)

I'm fairly sure you could indeed cobble a solar hot water/stirling generator together that way, and maybe keep a few lights on overnight. It would be an interesting project, certainly - and you could probably build a lot of it of junk, which would be a bonus. :)

I might see if I can put any figures behind it (in the morning!).

[benburch]

30. Nice mockery...

...but that is a steam turbine, and requires boiling water. Nuclear waste isn't THAT hot.

Yes, we need wind power and solar thermal plants. Neither is a complete solution. Neither works well everywhere, and in some places neither one is suitable. We need several hundred small nuclear power stations to fill in the gaps from a general and aggressive deployment of wind, solar, tidal, and hydro power systems.

And let me say that wind, solar, tidal, and hydro systems are all ecologically costly in their own ways!

Wind power deployed in large quantities actually will change weather patterns. And it is harmful to migratory and soaring birds.

Solar thermal systems cover a large area that could usually be cropland or rangeland, and change the Earth's albedo, adding to global warming.

Tidal systems are harmful to fish that migrate from inshore to offshore waters, and to marine mammals and reptiles.

Hydro systems are harmful to fish, like salmon that must migrate to spawn, and they change the climate downwind and damage water quality downstream. They also prevent natural flooding and sedimentation and so damage the ecology of both the river and the estuary.

I don't consider solar electric systems here because they are too expensive to compete as yet, but they would have similar deficits compared with solar thermal, plus they require toxic chemicals to produce and are a disposal risk when they are worn out.

[struggle4progress]

53. No, waste temperatures can be well above the boiling point of water

Cladding of spent fuel from once-through cycles in the US can reach 350C. Reprocesing removes hot daughter products; vitrified waste logs from European reprocessing wastes can also reach several hundred degrees C.

[benburch]

26. In fact NASA has worked on this technology.

It is an alternative to the RTGs now in use on deep space probes. RTGs are thermopiles, and the problem with them is that the bimetal junction in the thermopile begins to break down long before the isotope heat source cools to the point of uselessness. That is the reason that Pioneer 10 sank below the magic 8 watt mark that could keep it alive; It's Plutonium isotope heat source is still quite warm.

[Dead_Parrot]

45. Interesting...

It would never occur to me to something that "mechanical" on a spacecraft - It's not like you can whack it with a hammer if it gets stuck. But it seems they've tested one for 50,000 hours (~5½ years) without a problem.

Looks like I've got some reading to do :(

[NNadir]

23. Any idea of what the cube root of 196,000 is?

I note that zeor coal apologists of your type, dating back to 1997, can even begin to approach with coal waste. You have no clue about what to do about it, don't care about it, even though it is actually killing people.

On the other hand, you're obsessed with so called "nuclear waste" although you cannot produce even one person injured by it's storage.

Then you cruise around self-referential websites providing up with misleading data to make an even more absurd case. You say that the reprocessed fuel from six countries, two of which produce almost all of their power by nuclear means is 196000 cubic meters!!!!!! Gasp!!!!!! The horror!!!!!

If you take the cube root of this number, 196,000 you see that a cube containing all of this waste is a cube less than 60 meters on a side, the size of a moderate warehouse.

I note that this is the waste associated with decades of operations in six countries, while a single coal fired power plant in any country produces millions of tons of wastes in a single year.

Of course, I know that you think coal waste is harmless, because well, its coal, but some of us think carbon dioxide is dangerous. We do comparisons. What percentage of the world's carbon dioxide waste from your coal friends could be contained in a warehouse 56 meters on a side. How long before a repository 60 meters on a side would be filled with coal wastes? What about coal ash, which you now declare harmless? How about the sulfur oxides? The nitrogen oxides?

Out with it coal boy...

Where is your risk free energy? I assume that, referring to the original post here, you're one of those guys who says Louisiana can run on the 1,250 years worth of natural gas the scientific wizards in the anti-nuclear movement announced in 1977. How's the processing going? I also heard that for the cost of the Waterford nuclear station, you folks could produce all the energy for Louisiana from methanol generated from agricultural wastes? How's that going?

Plus ca change...

[struggle4progress]

55. Accusations + cube root = what?

:boring:

[NNadir]

61. No accusations whatsoever. I'm asking if you can contain coal waste

in a cube 56 meters on a side, coal boy.

You can't do it, and you'll avoid the question because you have no solution for global climate change, other than to ignore it.

[struggle4progress]

78. I did not respond further as the comparison you suggest is meaningless:

(0) The figures were mentioned to point out that reprocessing does not decrease waste volumes but actually increases them, so that reprocessing is not a solution to waste disposal issues, as is clear from my earlier post; it is not clear to me exactly how you obtain your interpretation of my remarks

(1) The high-level wastes, which I mentioned, could not be fit in a 56 meter cube, due to packaging issues associated with containment, heat control, and other issues.

(2) The same high-level wastes represent only a small fraction of the total wastes associated with the nuclear activities of the countries in question, since it includes none of the mining or milling or enrichment or fabrication wastes, nor any of the anticipated decommissioning wastes, and since only a small fraction of the spent fuel has been recycled to date.


Putting words into my mouths and misrepresenting my position on various matters, of course, contributes nothing productive to any discussion. In #23 above, you say, for example, "I know that you think coal waste is harmless" -- but of course I have never made such a claim anywhere. Similarly, you assert "What about coal ash, which you now declare harmless?" -- although, again, you cannot point to any such declaration by me -- since I have never made such a declaration. Or again, you assert "you're one of those guys who says Louisiana can run on the 1,250 years worth of natural gas" -- another misrepresentation of my views, based on nothing that I have ever said.

Since I've explicitly disavowed such views before, including in various prior posts responding to your usual barrage of accusations in other threads, the possibility that you have accidently misunderstood my views seems increasingly remote. Go ahead: prove me wrong by finding a single link from my time at DU where I claimed coal was harmless or said that global warming didn't matter or indicated that sulfur and nitrogen oxides from combustion plants were of no significance. You can't do it because I've never said or claimed any of these things you try to put in my mouth.

Unfortunately this behavior sometimes seems to be your standard operating procedure: it endows a number of your posts with a certain (uh, fictional? hallucinatory? adolescent? je ne sais quoi!) quality. I don't consider it productive.

[oneold1-4u]

12. Information highway without directions.

All should be aware that Oregon shut down Hanford because it never did the job! Now it has been blown up and as yet there is no place for the waste to go and the government isn't saying anything! It is still going to take over 10 years to return the land back to natural if ever. OH! and also, just removal is costing more than the original millions to build the white elephant!



THIMK

[NNadir]

4. Let's play chicken: I'll tell you where to keep so called nuclear waste...

...if you'll tell me where you keep all of the fossil fuel waste.

Deal?

[benburch]

5. Like the hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2?

And the coal cinders?

And the Sulphur Dioxide?

And the unburnt hydrocarbons?

I'd love to have a place as small as yucca mountain that could hold all of that, because it is destroying the planet.

[NNadir]

24. Well actually I was thinking of billions of tons of CO2.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls

[BeFree]

6. Yer right....

...we do need to stop these vast nuke plants from being built.

I am considering becoming totally independent from the grid so I am looking at power sources. I'd like to have a nuke plant. Not only would that sucker hum right along, but I could make weapons from the by-products. Then just let my neighbor piss me off.

But the nuke plant is way too expensive, and the government won't let me have one. My rights to a nuke plant are being denied, and I figure you are just the person to go to bat for me to get my rights for my own nuke plant.

So, hop to it. In the meantime I see there is this nifty solar operation that is like 1/5 the cost of the nuke plant, so, if you don't get the government off my back, and the price of nukes down, I may have no choice but to go solar.

And I so wanted to get my own weapon grade material plant going... never know when ol' Joe (the neighbor) is gonna piss me off.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. You can do solar at 1/5 the cost of nuclear?

Wow, I've been after solar panels at 12½ cents per Wp for ages. Do you deliver?

[BeFree]

9. Hey, you too

Get me my nuke plant! You guys are salesmaen for nukes, it seems... time to put up, eh? If some big shot can have their own nuke plant, I should too, right? What's taken yall so long? What the heck is the problem? Let's go, move it! No more excuses, I want results. Get off DU and get to work!

[benburch]

10. Actually, a small CANDU type reactor is close to personal sized

There is or was an apartment complex in Canada heated by one. It had two buttons on it; "On" and "Off".

[BeFree]

11. Yes!

Get me one. That's what I am talking about. I want one with three buttons tho.. off, on, and standby. Alrighteee then. How much? Please, please keep me from having to go solar.

[benburch]

13. Well, that unit heated like 1000 dwelling units.

Get 1000 of your friends to start a commune, and we can talk. I'll try to find the details about this, but while the reactor was expensive, it was not out of range of a steam plant of that size. And of course the fuel cost was trivial. It burned unenriched uranium pellets.

[BeFree]

14. Durn....

...you had my hopes up. Looks like you have to be really big to do nukes. Well, unless someone, anyone, can deliver the nukes for a reasonable cost, it will have to be a solar future.

[Dead_Parrot]

15. Ben - some light reading for you...

http://www.uic.com.au/nip60.htm

I stumbled across it a while back and we kicked the ideas around for a post or two: Assorted mini nukes in development, down to a few MW - a lot of them sealed, portable units.

[benburch]

16. Thanks! nt

[hunter]

18. There's some pretty designs there.

Better than coal.

[NNadir]

31. Go solar?

You are worried you may have to "go solar?"

I assumed from your position here that you have been solar for about 20 years. You're not? What? More someday stuff?

You challenge the pronuclear people to produce nuclear power plants, claiming that none are being built, obviously demonstrating once again about exactly how ill informed you are about the subject of nuclear energy. People are building nuclear power plants. In fact, although you'd never know it from listening to the "solar will save us" crowd, the new nuclear power added just last year in Japan easily exceeds the total world new solar PV that came on line.

Right now 27 nuclear reactors are under construction representing 21 gigawatts of power capacity.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.htm

At typical operating capacity, about 90-95%, this represents about a half an exajoule of additional energy added to nuclear's production, already at about 30 primary exajoules.

But as I am ridiculing the 1970's era anti-nuclear crowd and their unfulfilled promises, I hear from you - in the 21st century -that solar energy is affordable. And next I hear that you think that I and my colleagues are trying to "keep you from going solar. If you are not solar already, you are demonstrating a little bit of hypocrisy, no? I mean its thirty years after guys like you started with exactly the same platitudes you offer us now.

What gives, Bub?

Somehow there is a subset of solar advocates, as the original 1977 link shows, think that solar energy is an alternative to nuclear power, demonstrating that they know very little about how power grids work. Nuclear power advocates never place themselves in the position of opposing solar power. This is because nuclear power advocates are educated. They understand the basic problem.

I don't think I have ever heard a nuclear power advocate here advocating replacing solar capacity with nuclear power. Not one of us has called for a solar moratorium. On the contrary, most of us who post here have global climate change as an overriding concern. We don't hate solar power; we simply insist on realism about the subject.

If people who advocate solar power on the grounds that it is easy to obtain, and they don't already have solar installations, they are - how shall we say this - full of shit.

[benburch]

32. Just so!

I am a 100% advocate of solar WHERE IT CAN WORK. Which is in deserts, high mountain plateaus, and remote sites far from the grid.

And I do NOT advocate photovoltaic systems for anything other than the last of those. And do you know how many gallons of sulfuric acid and how many pounds of toxic lead acetate a single off-grid home requires to bridge cloudy days and night-time power needs? It would be a disaster for the environment if everybody decided to build a solar off-grid home!

Solar-thermal steam plants where energy is stored in a steam cistern or as molten sodium to bridge over cloudy times and nighttime can work in large installations, and can be cost competitive with modern nuclear systems, but they must be in sites where there are a very high percentage of cloud-free days, and the closer to the equator, the better. Much of the USA is unsuitable for such plants.

Wind is more reliable, but must also be deployed in sites where there are constant winds above a certain speed, and must also be bridged when the wind is slack, or, paradoxically, when the wind blows too hard as you have to feather the turbine under high wind conditions.

Nuclear is the ONLY option for the long term future. I hope we can some day have FUSION, but that has been ten years in the future every year since I was a child. Nuclear power can be deployed NOW, and modern designs are nothing like the nuclear power stations you are thinking of.

[NNadir]

35. What designs am I thinking of?

[benburch]

36. Oh... Sorry... was addresssing the person you were responding to. nt

[NNadir]

39. Just kidding you, Ben. However, I note that BWR's and PWR's

have been very successful inventions.

Humanity would be many billions of tons of carbon dioxide further down the road to doom had these reactors not been built.

But your point that only a very small subset of possible nuclear reactors have been explored is well taken. There are many types that can meet niches far beyond what people understand.

In some sense the PWR itself has been reinvented, given the number of types of fuel that are being explored. Burn-ups have grown quite a bit since 1977 when this document was first written. I note that in 1977, I could have written that document. I've evolved as much as fuel cycles have evolved.

[BeFree]

33. I have some solar, yes

Now I want to go totally off grid. Got that? Totally off grid.

So, seeing as how that is what I want, because of you, I am considering using a nuke to fulfill my desire. Can you get me a nuke system, or not? It's that simple. Can you or can't you help me get my own personal nuke? If not, why not?

Lets not forget, it needs to be cost competitive with solar.

[NNadir]

34. Your gameboy doesn't count.

You have some solar?

Describe the technical details.

This should be a riot.

For the record, 50% of my electricity comes from nuclear energy. I'm arguing for having much more.

I am not so confused however as to insist that I make my own power, grow my own food, spin my own cloth, et cetera.

By the way, do you make your own solar cells?

You're argument is at the level that is hardly surprising.

[BeFree]

38. Can't deliver, eh?

Not even a try? What, can't get your hands on a nuke, eh? Why not? If nukes are so safe and cost effective why can't I buy one?

All my solar equipment is off the shelf, and were I to replace it today, would cost me less than when I purchased it 10 years ago, even after inflation. It's all working just fine, thank you very much.

I know, you know, heck, we all know, you have to be a big, bigshot, to have your own nuke plant, so yes, I was playing with you.

Still, it's an interesting point, don't you think?

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[benburch]

41. And what will he do with the sulfuric acid and toxic lead acetate...

...when he replaces his batteries?

[NNadir]

46. He doesn't know and he doesn't care.

In this world the only thing that matters is the word nuclear.

This a matter of rhetoric, not science, and certainly not a matter of a genuine concern for the environment.

Apparently there are a set of people who do not recognize that the world's silicon is mostly available as the dioxide and that the free energy of formation of quartz is better than -850 kJ/mol. Then they will completely blow off the matter of driving the trucks around the world to deliver that crap by the megaton, after it's isolated, purified, manufactured and marketed. These are people who will wax romantic for days on the subject of the toxicity of a few hundred metric tons of uranium hexafluoride and never consider for a moment what 10 million tons of hydrofluoric acid, of 50 million tons of sulfur hexafluoride might actually mean.

Fuck them. They're too stupid for words. They're useless in this emergency, worse than useless actually, as they are arguing for complacency.

[Ready4Change]

54. Trade it in for the core refund.

THen the batteries are recycled the materials. Hell of a lot cheaper than mining new lead and brewing up new acid. A lot of deep cycle batteries are designed so the plastic cases themselves can be cleaned up and re-used.

Don't believe me? What did you do last time you replaced a cars battery? Same deal, same reason.

Now, go recycle your nuclear plant.

[benburch]

57. Lead-acid battery recycling is a "greenwash".

Not recycled in any harmless way!

The Myth of Automobile Battery Recycling

US Exports of Lead Acid Batteries Poisoning Brazil

Lead Astray Again: The Ongoing Illegal Trade of U.S. Scrap Lead Acid Batteries to Brazil

A Dirty Dilemma -The Hazardous Waste Trade

[BeFree]

44. Once again

Not worthy of a reply.

[benburch]

47. You had better rethink that.

What are you going to do with the lead contaminated sulfuric acid and the lead acetate from the HUGE bank of batteries your off-grid home will require?

Have you ever seriously looked at how much in the way of battery capacity you will require?

I am betting that it is FAR more than you believe.

And are you going to own all 12 volt appliances?

And do you know what they will cost compared to 120 volt appliances?

If you want to claim that personal solar installations are in ANY way better for the planet than a modern deployment of small, safe nuclear reactors, you have to tell me how you will deal with the waste material. And you have to justify the immense energy cost in building your solar cells and batteries as opposed to the amount they will produce over their lifetimes.

And bear in mind that deep discharge lead-acid battery banks have lifetimes on the order of 1000 cycles. That is three years. You will need to renew you batteries each and every three years.

[BeFree]

48. Batteries are recycled

Have you ever been to a battery recycling business? Used to be they were awful, but the EPA cracked down on them and they do a damn fine job of keeping the pollution to an absolute minimum. It's much more technology minded these days.

Yes, I have looked closely at the battery part. Do you know what an inverter is? Check it out. Used to be a 1,000 watt inverter was $1g, now you can get one for $100.

I use recycled materials as much as possible in any thing I do, and the electrical stuff, while quite difficult to do so, is likewise acquired. One nice thing about off the grid is no wires all over the landscape. Wires require copper, insulation, poles, tree clearing, etc. and the waste heat from those wires adds up.

The other nice thing about a limited solar application is that it forces you to be as conservative as you can stand. The grid has no conservation built in, it encourages waste. So, more hand tools will be used, and less electricity over all will be used when compared to grid use.

When I have a peak load, a generator is used. Kept in good repair that sucker will out last me. And eventually will be run on part ethanol.

Know this: my progress is not for everyone, and I wouldn't force it down the throat of anyone, but if I can make it work, my weight upon the world's resources will shrink even further. And there is a certain satisfaction in that, know what I mean?

[benburch]

49. You think you can run a generator on pure ethanol?

It better not get cold there.

And have you looked at the byproducts of "recycled" batteries? The good news is that this material does not end up in US landfills. The bad news is that they are shipped overseas (add transport fuel costs to your environmental footprint) and often badly stored at lead smelters which follow lax environmental standards. The acid is neutralized with soda ash, and the whole mess goes into the smelter. The casing of the battery is thus incinerated, and the smelter emits a plume of lead compounds that pollute the environment, and leaking batteries pollute the local groundwater.

No, lead-acid battery recycling is a classic greenwash. You are shipping your substantial toxic waste to the third world where people who clearly don't matter to you can die from it. Does that make you feel good???

I think greenpeace did a report on this greenwash a while back.

So, if you want to live off grid, and do so in an environmentally sound manner, you better prepare to do so 1870 style, without electricity.

And yes, of course I know what an inverter is. An inverter is a device that wastes 30% of the energy you put into it to give you 120v AC for your power hog appliances.

[BeFree]

50. So, you are gonna quit...

...using electricity? 'Cause that is the solution. And your gonna quit driving? When you do, then you will have every right to preach to me. Until then......

[benburch]

51. No, I am going to build a real infrastructure of power plants.

Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, tidal, and hydrocarbon turbine load-levellers, and enact legislation outlawing the incandescent light bulb except in certain applications where LED, EL and florescent lighting cannot be used, and limiting the amount of street lighting cities are allowed to install, and requiring that it be an efficient sort that does not shine directly up into the sky.

I plan to produce hydrogen-based vehicle fuel with the electricity produced by this grid, and power fuel efficient tiny cars and commuter busses.

I plan to electrify the nation's railroads completely.

In other words I plan to keep the lights on and our civilization intact.

And I don't mean to send toxic wastes to foreign lands where "little brown people" get poisoned as you clearly intend to do.

[BeFree]

52. Yeah right

Your vote isn't even counted correctly.

[benburch]

56. And you still don't care about what happens...

...to the third-world people who have to live in the pollution from your off-grid home.

[NNadir]

60. As always, the solar "do nothing" squad substitutes faux outrage...

...for their inability to respond to the fact that their contentions are nonsense.

WWW.EXTERNE.INFO

And once again I will throw another question they are unable to answer and will dodge. I have produced a thirty year old claim that reproduces almost exactly the crap about the magnificent solar future being spouted today. So after 30 years, where is the first exajoule of solar energy (out of the 440 exhales the world now demands)?

You won't answer. You'll act indignant but it's a dodge. But here's the fact, Kid: You're speaking for inaction. You want us all to die from fossil fuels while you wait for your magic solar bullshit world. Every time you chant "solar will save us," and convince stupid people that this is true, you are lengthening the time fossil fuels will be spouted into the air.

You are full of shit, and you're hurting the cause, the increasingly small chance, of stabilizing the planet. You are, in fact, a bad guy.

[BeFree]

62. OK

Its all my fault. Fine, blame me, if it makes you feel better. All the global warming is my fault. There, now you can leave the rest of the posters alone. Ok?

It is all BeFree's fault people. Now you can all get in your cars, run all your appliances, and otherwise contribute to the end of the world without concern, for we have the culprit!

[Dead_Parrot]

63. Well, NNadir's going a bit overboard...

But then, on his off-days he's got all the patience of a grenade with the pin out (sorry NNadir!).

It's not your fault. But the persistence of the rabidly anti-nuclear groups (like Greenpeace, of which I was an active member until about 10 years ago) ensure that people who care and go out looking for information will find what they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear. I'm guessing that includes you.

Most of the guys at Greenpeace haven't actually cottoned on the to the desperate state of the environment. The same goes for individuals like Helen "take two windfarms and call me in the morning" Caldicott or Amory "why don't you live in a million dollar solar house" Lovins. A lot of other global groups like FOE or WWF still oppose nuclear power, albeit not actively: I suspect they can see their membership evaporating should they change tack.

But please believe me, we really are in deep, deep shit. We've got terrestrial clathrates evaporating now, and the the oceanic ones will be following shortly: the 20 year timescale for sporadic renewables is not going to do it. Grid storage is not going to available on the TWh scale in time. Hydro is not available in enough places. "Clean" coal is a fiction by the coal companies. Sequestration is also a fiction.

All of these technologies can contribute to slowing our CO₂ release: But they can't do the job on their own, no matter how efficient we become (and we need do do that as well!)

To be brutally honest, without nuclear power our biosphere will collapse. Hell, it might be too late already, but I'm going to go down fighting.

I have to.

I have a baby daughter.

[NNadir]

64. On my "on" days, I have all the patience of a grenade.

I'm sorry but this blather is toxic. It is dangerous. And it needs to be confronted for what it is.

I'm not leaving anyone alone on this crap. We must stop looking at this crisis through the prism of fantasy.

As far as I am concerned, it is very much BeFree's fault, since he is fully ready to recite the anti-nuclear rosary at the drop of a hat.

[Dead_Parrot]

66. yes, but don't shoot the messenger

We didn't educate BF, someone else did. he's just repeating what he was taught - it's GP et al we should be fighting against, not the poor drones.

[NNadir]

73. A chicken and egg argument?

All I know of BF is what he thinks, at least to the extent that what he says can be thought of as "thinking." For all I know he could be running Greenpeace. Greenpeace is not some nebulous nefarious being existing for nefarious purposes to promote bourgeois fantasies about solar cells. It's an organization comprised of a large number of individuals, all of whom share the property of not thinking clearly. I'm not out to get the nebulous organization. I'm out to get those who make it work.

Look, he's probably a kid, I know. I also know I'm obnoxious often. But I'm angry. I'm really pissed off. If this isn't a situation where somebody has to be angry, I don't know what is. Living through the Bush years, which started with a blowjob and an argument about perjury, my impression is that the little lies matter inasmuch as they power big lies. The little lies grow and end up massive. Nobody wanted to challenge Ralph Nader in 1977 when he announced without any data whatsoever that "plutonium is the most dangerous substance known." People who knew otherwise wanted to be polite and nobody got angry about it. They just muttered under their breath and let it stand. It became an urban myth. It was repeated, many times in the New York Times. Look where we are because no one stood up to that little lie.

In the end neither NNadir or BeFree matter. What matters is that the issues be clear. That's the point of this thread. This shit has been going on far too long. If BeFree's role is to repeat this rote shit yet again, that's his part. I'm doing what I should have done years ago, and reacting strongly to it. That's my part.

[Dead_Parrot]

75. Yeah, it's whack-a-mole time

BF is very typical of the GP way of thinking. But he shows signs of intelligence, which is why I'd rather have him on the planet's side than the coal-boys' side. And hell, if we can break the circle-jerk maybe some more people will find something more useful to do.

There is, as far as I know, no environmental version of chemotherapy we can use against the myths perpetrated by greenpeace: We have to pick the buggers off, one by one. This doesn't mean shouting them down so that they run off to solarcirclejerk.org and post there, it means explaining the facts to the poor bastards until they get it. Not all of them will, but DU is a big enough place that we'll grab quite a few of them - and each one we grab could be someone who'd otherwise be handing out pamphlets on 'The Horrors of Chernobyl' or some other pointless drivel.

You're right to get angry about it. I do, every time I think about my daughter's future. It's so fucking frustrating to hear people running scared of the one technology we have that can carry the bulk of our power production, and leaving us burning fucking coal, just because they don't understand it...

...but that's no reason to give up. NNadir and BeFree do matter, if they're determined enough: Both of them have votes and voices, if they want to use them. I can thing of 3 pissed-off guys in Washington, who run a website that gets mentioned in the press from the UK to NZ, for just that reason.

[BeFree]

65. A bit?

Hell, you as much claimed I was at fault because I wanted to go off grid, so don't hand me that "Nadir is a bit".

You nuke nazis are alienating all reasonable people.

[Dead_Parrot]

67. No...

I said going off-grid will not solve anything, and I stand by that even though I intend to do it myself.

And please refrain from calling me a nazi. I'm not.

[NNadir]

68. I would not characterize your avoidance of a question as "reasonable."

The fact is that you cannot answer the question of how your present claim of a solar nirvana is different from that offered thirty years ago in opposition to the Waterford nuclear power station that has now operated in Louisiana for over 20 years.

You cannot produce an exajoule, but you can whine about "Nuke Nazi's" alienating you.

Here would be the elements of a reasonable approach, something that is alien to you: It would avoid personality issues (used as dodges) and it would avoid faux "mea culpas" and it would respond with data and facts. Everybody who knows the history of science knows that Issac Newton was an unpleasant person. Still his laws of gravitation and optics (and other subjects) received wide acclaim. Why do you suppose this is?

I'll answer for you since I can answer a question: Newton's laws, in spite of his personality, conformed to the data and facts.

But you have no data and facts so, as predicted, we hear still more dodges.

Here are the facts:

1) Thirty years ago, a new nuclear station was being constructed in Waterford, Louisiana.

2) Opponents of the plant argued that the station should not be finished for reasons including: (a) It was too expensive and would drive Louisiana electricity rates through the roof. b) Solar energy would inevitably be cheaper than nuclear power and would be readily available. (c) There was enough natural gas under the Gulf of Mexico to meet US energy demands for 1,250 years (d) Natural gas and clean coal were cleaner and safer than nuclear power. (d) The plant would operate at less than 60% of rated capacity.

3) The nuclear station at Waterford was built anyway.

4) The nuclear plant at Waterford has now operated for more than 20 years, and the predictions of the opponents can be compared with the reality.

5) People on this website, including BeFree, but not limited to him (or her), continue to make claims identical to 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d as well as other equally absurd claims that can be found in the document with which this thread began.

6) Predictions 2a, 2b 2c, 2d have all been shown by experience to have been invalid.

These are the facts. Now, with the lives of my children and billions of other persons on the planet on the line, I ask a simple question, that the people described in fact #5 explain why, in the face of all the facts listed, they are qualitatively or quantitively different by the same claims made by their colleagues thirty years ago?

The response to this question has been uniformly evasive. In fact, this type of whining and crying is not limited to BeFree. Every other single nuclear opponent on this website does exactly the same. They avoid the question. They complain about NNadir's obnoxious personality. They change the subject. But they do not address the question. This is because their claims are unreasonable, unsupportable, and yes - in the face of a global climate catastrophe - noxious.

I note with my signature vitriol that the claim made thirty years ago by the nuclear opponents that natural gas or coal could be clean was less contemptible in 1977 than it is today. The reason is that in 1977, unlike now, the nature of global climate change was not broadly understood. At the time it was an esoteric postulate that was largely the province of certain scientists with a background in physics and physical chemistry in general, and the physical chemistry of the atmosphere in particular. This contrasts with 2006, when the consequences of global climate change are widely understood, and are general public knowledge, so much so that they have been the subject of popular fiction films as well as documentaries. I also note that the opponents in of nuclear energy in 1977 - which by the way included me - were talking about a relatively new technology that had not been experimentally tested. Today we have tens of thousands of reactor years of experience with nuclear power and the consequences and risks of its long term use are clearly understood. Not one of the predictions I endorsed in 1977 have proved to have merit. The full consequences of the interminable use of fossil fuels were also untested in 1977. Now we know what the consequences are and will be. We are experiencing them.

I am disgusted and appalled that this conversation is even taking place in these times. Reasonable people look at the situation and collect data. From the data and not from mysterious gut feelings and/or "feel good marketing," reasonable people act with the tools available. I note that the fall back option of nuclear opponents inevitably involves the continued use of fossil fuels. I have recognized this for some time, and have drawn it out repeatedly to my satisfaction. The use of fossil fuels is unreasonable and unacceptable.

This is an emergency. It is a dire crisis of unimaginable proportions. It involves the life of every single human being now living, not just my children, or DeadParrot's baby daughter. Given these facts, there are, in my opinion - over the top or not - indeed good guys and bad guys. I can tell who is who. Anybody who doesn't like it can go fuck themselves.

[benburch]

72. In fairness, solar has been producing several exajoules for centuries.

In the form of crops.

And growing vast fields of the most efficient oil producing plant known, hemp, would provide almost all the fuel oil we would need for mobile equipment into the foreseeable future, especially once we electrify all the railroads so that locomotives will no longer need oil.

And also provide fiber for making paper and fiberboard.

And the by-products can be used as animal feed.

And this needs to be a part of our techno-green energy strategy.

(Ethanol is another greenwash, BTW.)

[benburch]

69. I just want you to think about the consequences.

Going off grid you will actually INCREASE your environmental footprint unless you do it the way we old hippies did it and dispense with electricity and hot showers (unless the sun would warm the black painted cistern up hill from the shower.)

Sorry, had enough of that in the 70s.

We can keep the lights on AND save the planet.

[benburch]

70. Oh yes...

...and if you have never managed an Earth Toilet, let me recommend the experience as one you will never forget.

[benburch]

37. What are you going to do with all of the acid and lead waste from your...

...huge bank of batteries? And how are you going to provide distilled water? Do you have ANY clue as to the amount of maintenance an off-grid solar home requires? And what will you do about heating and cooling? You'd need an amazingly large system to electrically heat and cool an off-grid home unless it is one of those micro-houses. Do you intend to burn wood?

[Dead_Parrot]

42. Going off-grid...

Is not going to solve any of the worlds problems. Yes, you'll be able to sit in your renewable ivory tower and issue Amory-Lovins like proclamations, but the rest of humanity will face the same problems. 99.9% of the population can not afford the sort of infrastructure you have in mind: So whilst it's perfectly fair to say that nuclear power is not a solution for your house, you are in a very small minority.

I would also gently inquire how "totally" off-grid you are planning on going: If you're putting a couple of PV panels on your roof but still want to buy your food from the local shop, be connected to the local water and sewerage (and telecoms), have your garbage collected, spend weekends/nights out on the town, travel to work by anything other than foot or bicycle (or horse) - or use any of these services while you're at work - you are still very much on the grid, using primary power that has to generated somewhere.

In fairness, I also want to get myself off-grid (for everything except communications), so I'm not berating you for the principle. But I have no illusions that it's going to save the planet: I just don't want my family caught up in a climate-induced Malthusian crash. If we're going to avoid that, we as a species need to get off fossil fuels - and while renewables have a role to play, they are not going to solve the problem in the little time we have left.

[Ready4Change]

58. A very sound point.

And one for which the pro-nuclear viewpoint has no counter. There is no nuclear option for powering a single off grid dwelling. None.

However, what I find interesting is the stance taken by nuclear and solar proponents. Very black/white.

I see both options as having merit, and a place for use, a niche for implementation.

Some can live off grid, reducing power demand on various more robust power sources like nuclear, coal or gas, thus decreasing their fuel burn and increasing the time we have to develop long term alternatives.

It's not like we an't do both. Frankly, in my opinion, we MUST do both. Otherwise, at some point in the future, we'll be out of natural gas, coal and radioactives, and no longer have the power to build an alternative infrastructure.

We will have argued ourselves into a well deserved oblivion.

[Dead_Parrot]

59. You know, you're actually starting to make sense...

Nobody - except BeFree, and possibly yourself in your opening comment - has ever suggested that there should be a nuclear option for a single house. But then, hopefully nobody with all their marbles is suggesting the 35,000,000 residents of Tokyo switch to off-grid solar, either...

How much sense it makes to go off-grid depends on how you do it and where you are. If you live in the middle of the Australian outback, off-grid is not only your only option, it's environmentally friendly(ish) so long as it doesn't involve running a diesel generator 24x7. In a Manhattan apartment, on the other hand, you'd have to be insane to even try it: Most of us are somewhere in the middle, and need to consider things in a little more detail, case by case.

It is a fact that most people live in communities: and anything over a few dozen people will find economies of scale in getting a few bigger plants rather than lots of smaller ones, which is why modern wind turbines are rated in MW, not kW. And at a certain point, these economies of scale include nuclear power.

[Ready4Change]

76. Thanks. I'm reading up on battery recycling problems, too.

I hadn't heard of the problems. The links above have given me a starting point.

From what I've read thus far it sounds like the problems are in how the batteries are being recycled (ie: in a very poor, toxic manner). I've not read anything saying it's impossible to do it more responsibly, just indications that the current manner, ie: in the cheap by exporting them to developing countries and letting THEM deal with it, isn't working well.

Also, the most recent of the articles linked above is from 2002. Anything more recent? Any improvements?

Mental food to chew on.

[Dead_Parrot]

77. Nothing springs to mind...

Under tha Basle convention, it's still fine to ship waste to third-world countries so long as it's labled "recycling". The conditions at the site aren't an issue...

IIRC, there was a plan to open a big battery recycling centre in Scotland, which is probably better run - you're down to google though, that's about all I can remember. :)

[benburch]

71. Actually, there is one.

You make a radio-isotope generator out of hot nuclear waste (see above) and it churns out energy for 5 years or so until it gets too cool. Then the whole device goes back to the manufacturer where the waste is extracted, the device is refurbished and recharged and goes back out. There are some nuclear-voltaic strategies that would get more energy out of waste for longer, but those are experimental. I would make the off-grid unit a thermopile.

You'd install the device in a concrete sump, and put a chain-link fence around it to keep people a safe distance away from any gamma-ray "shine". But it would be designed so robustly that you could literally drop it from an airplane and not bust open the waste cell.

[Kolesar]

25. Denmark solved their electricity problems through demand-side mgmt

In the 1970s, they realized that their oil-fired electricity generation had a tragical future if they did not change. They implemented urban planning to reduce transportation costs. They designed housing to have low heat loss and they designed housing to have common walls as a means of efficiency. Their housing uses about 20% of the energy of housing in Ohio--two locations with similar climates. Pretty impressive

Because of their low demand, they can plan on alternative generation being a major proportion of electricity generation.

America should implement demand-side management. We could then be planning for which coal-fired generation plants we will be taking off line and dismantling. We don't have to build new plants of any technology.

("Solved" should rightly be in quotes in the subject line)

[BeFree]

27. Another durn tree-hugger, eh?

Bringing up points of those commie countries is anti-American and Godless too boot!

America made nukes what they are today, and if those commies don't start buying them, we will crush them. Nukes are apple pie and God, all rolled into one. God wants us to consume more, more, more, so those commies are against God.

The very idea that my right to an equal contribution to the global GHG bank is being denied is an affront to my constitutional. I like my constitutional to be aback, don't you?

God is a big shot, so, by all reason, all big shots are God like. And the big shots all say: More Nukes! More energy use! More GHG!

Finland and other small piddling commie like countries are trying to destroy our way of life. If you like what they do, move there!

eerFeB

[hunter]

28. Denmark found itself sitting on a lot of natural gas.

So it wasn't a lot of trouble for them to get rid of oil-fired generation.

I agree we could solve a lot of problems on the demand side.

[benburch]

29. Of course we could.

But not enough to save us.

[Dead_Parrot]

43. Denmark also...

...import electricity from Norway's huge hydro resources when the wind drops. Denmark are doing quite well, but it's only a solution for Denmark.

Although I'm not going to argue about thier efficiency compared to the US!

[4dsc]

74. Note on methane hydrates...

what are methane hydrate?? Here's one man's opinion..

Richard Heinberg explained why last year on Jim Puplava's Financial Sense News Hour:

methane hydrates, for listeners who don’t know what that is, what we’re talking about, it’s basically frozen natural gas, frozen into water crystals, mostly under the sea beds and to a certain extent in frozen tundras in Alaska or the Yukon, or Siberia, places like that. There’s a lot of hydrocarbon molecules frozen in methane hydrates—there’s so much in fact that if all of that if all of that stuff were to thaw out and enter the atmosphere we could be facing a greenhouse effect that could be hundreds of times worse than what we are actually looking at, so methane hydrates are actually nothing to mess with in that sense, because if we destabilize large amounts of frozen methane and that enters the atmosphere—we’re literally cooked. So the question is can we safely and economically extract methane from these deposits, and that’s a question that nobody has a good answer for right now. Japan, which has virtually no indigenous energy resources to exploit, is of course very interested in mining methane hydrates because they have some deposits that are in their territorial ocean waters, but so far their research is not conclusive. It’s a question first of all as to whether the process will be economical, and even if it is economical can it be done safely, because, as I said earlier, if we make a mistake, if we begin to destabilize these deposits, we only get one chance, and if it goes wrong, that’s essentially the end of planet earth as a host to higher life forms. So there’s methane hydrates.


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