Is that COP OUT 20?

[untermensche]

What do you think there is to discuss?

Our choices have been forced upon us and are beyond our control.

You keep harping about how we are forced to choose between nuclear and coal, and it never seems to dawn on you that this is a choice we have been given, not a choice that exists because it was the only possibility.

So what? It is the choice we have. There are no other viable choices today. If the store has ice cream only in chocolate or vanilla, you can't have strawberry no matter how much you scream and cry.

Maybe there will be strawberry next week. maybe not. But if you don't want to go hungry today, you have a choice; and the choice is between chocolate ice-cream that has melted and gone rancid, or vanilla ice-cream that your kid sister said is made from boogers.

Nobody wants the chocolate; but lots of gullible people would rather starve than question their unqualified kid sister's highly dubious claims.

So again, what is there to discuss?

Beyond the forces that have put us in this circumstance and the forces preventing rational movement from here.

 

[Axulus]

So what? It is the choice we have. There are no other viable choices today. If the store has ice cream only in chocolate or vanilla, you can't have strawberry no matter how much you scream and cry.

Maybe there will be strawberry next week. maybe not. But if you don't want to go hungry today, you have a choice; and the choice is between chocolate ice-cream that has melted and gone rancid, or vanilla ice-cream that your kid sister said is made from boogers.

Nobody wants the chocolate; but lots of gullible people would rather starve than question their unqualified kid sister's highly dubious claims.

So again, what is there to discuss?

Beyond the forces that have put us in this circumstance and the forces preventing rational movement from here.

Then you agree we should go full nuclear until we discover your magical solution?

"The evil market and US have held back research, if not for that it'd be all unicorns and rainbows" is not an argument against going full nuclear even if we grant you this dubious premise. It is an argument to research more but still go nuclear in the meantime until a better option is discovered.

 

[arkirk]

Nuclear or Coal...Bilby's country is deeply invested in and corrupted by the coal mining industry and in fact the uranium mining industry. It may not be bilby's fault what he believes because his position is like the Australian position in COP 21. They don't want to cut down on any of their mining activities. They want to sell their coal to countries like India that are still building coal fired plants. In short, they want to mine and export coal and uranium and if not one, more of the other. Abe of Japan just returned to Japan from deal making in India for nuclear plants which they would build and the Australians would fuel. Imagine that...not enough sense to quit while they are way behind and go fuck up another country with their polluting industry. Again, it is Bilby's homeland and public schools pretty much tout government policies and propaganda. I believe national leaders and extractive industries propagandize the people in the countries where they operate and that might be what we are seeing in his insistence that nuclear power is safe. Maybe some of this stuff is paying Australia's bills. It is not very popular at the COP 21 conference with pacific island nations that are flooding as sea level rises. Mining on massive scales is no way to treat the environment. Tailings from uranium mining pollute water and air in areas where indigenous people live and have lived relying on those water resources. Australia has an abominable environmental and human rights record regarding its indigenous people and part of the reason for that bad record has been displacing these peoples for mineral extraction. I do understand the reason a patriotic queen loving Australian would proffer at least the nuclear/coal dichotomy as all that is possible...how convenient for the uranium miners. How inconvenient for the indigenous people and the Indians of the future when their Japanese built nuke plants suffer accidents. In the mean time coal is flowing out the area at an increasing rate and into the atmosphere as well. Australia is nothing but trouble when it comes to extractive industries. Either the oil or coal idea seems to fit a predatory capitalist economic model. We tend to forget that this model has no respect for human life, treating some human lives as unskilled and unworthy of life. This is the moral problem of this age and COP 21 highlights it and makes it easier to see.

What I see in this is a great injustice to the vast majority of mankind through the medium of propaganda....pretty much like it has been for a very long time. The U.S. is not the only country selling unsustainable energy technology. What I have seen here did not surprise me. I think our current disagreements on these matters is unpleasant and dreadful and ultimately it will affect the direction of the future of mankind. It really isn't wise to cling to old hackneyed beliefs. It is an area where either you change or the world will change without you and not be too friendly with those who resist needed change.

The pledges at COP 21 fall far short of anything that would facilitate amelioration of Climate Change in the manner the COP 21 was supposed to do.

 

[Axulus]

Nuclear or Coal...Bilby's country is deeply invested in and corrupted by the coal mining industry and in fact the uranium mining industry. It may not be bilby's fault what he believes because his position is like the Australian position in COP 21. They don't want to cut down on any of their mining activities. They want to sell their coal to countries like India that are still building coal fired plants. In short, they want to mine and export coal and uranium and if not one, more of the other. Abe of Japan just returned to Japan from deal making in India for nuclear plants which they would build and the Australians would fuel. Imagine that...not enough sense to quit while they are way behind and go fuck up another country with their polluting industry. Again, it is Bilby's homeland and public schools pretty much tout government policies and propaganda. I believe national leaders and extractive industries propagandize the people in the countries where they operate and that might be what we are seeing in his insistence that nuclear power is safe. Maybe some of this stuff is paying Australia's bills. It is not very popular at the COP 21 conference with pacific island nations that are flooding as sea level rises. Mining on massive scales is no way to treat the environment. Tailings from uranium mining pollute water and air in areas where indigenous people live and have lived relying on those water resources. Australia has an abominable environmental rand human rights record regarding its indigenous people and part of the reason for that bad record has been displacing these peoples for mineral extraction. I do understand the reason a patriotic queen loving Australian would proffer at least the nuclear/coal dichotomy as all that is possible...how convenient for the uranium miners. How inconvenient for the indigenous people and the Indians of the future when their Japanese built nuke plants suffer accidents. In the mean time coal is flowing out the area at an increasing rate and into the atmosphere as well. Australia is nothing but trouble when it comes to extractive industries. The either oil or coal idea seems to fit a predatory capitalist economic model. We tend to forget that this model has no respect for human life, treating some human lives as unskilled and unworthy of life. This is the moral problem of this age and COP 21 highlights it and makes it easier to see.

What I see in this is a great injustice to the vast majority of mankind through the medium of propagands....pretty much like it has been for a very long time. The U.S. is not the only country selling unsustainable energy technology. What I have seen here did not surprise me. I think our current disagreements on these matters is unpleasant and dreadful and ultimately it will affect the direction of the future of mankind. It really isn't wise to cling to old hackneyed beliefs. It is an area where either you change or the world will change without you and not be too friendly with those who resist needed change.

The pledges at COP 21 fall far short of anything that would facilitate amelioration of Climate Change in the manner the COP 21 was supposed to do.

Nuclear or coal (or natural gas) for now until a better option is discovered (if it is discovered). Bilby's support for nuclear does not preclude the possibility of better options in the future.

The simple fact of the matter is that coal and other fossil based fuel becomes the most cost effective option to generate massive amounts of power on demand when the nuclear option is removed. This is why your argument to remove the nuclear option plays right into the hands of the coal industry. They couldn't have asked for a better advocate than you.

 

[Axulus]

Here is the ranked list of power sources:

1. Mythical and as of yet undiscovered power source that generates no waste products and no carbon emissions (or beats nuclear in this regard) and is available on demand.
2. Nuclear, generates no carbon emissions and generates manageable waste products, which is also available on demand but a little bit more expensive than coal.
3. Fossil fuel sources, generate lots of carbon emissions and more waste products than nuclear, but is cheap and available on demand.

Arguing that some mythical and as of yet undiscovered power source may exist is not an argument to ditch nuclear. This is all the anti-nuclear zealots have got, and it is completely illogical. Until such mythical power source is actually discovered and not simply a figment of imagination, arguing against nuclear and putting up barriers to allowing it to exist just means that nations will simply move on down the list to worse options _until such a point that your mythical energy source becomes a reality_. When that happens, then we can reevaluate whether nuclear is still the best option.

It doesn't matter that you think the evil capitalists or the evil US or the evil 1% have squashed research on this mythical and as of yet undiscovered power source. That is not an argument in favor of abandoning nuclear. At best, it is an argument in favor of more research but transitioning to nuclear in the meantime until the research actually bears fruit.

 

[arkirk]

So what? It is the choice we have. There are no other viable choices today. If the store has ice cream only in chocolate or vanilla, you can't have strawberry no matter how much you scream and cry.

Maybe there will be strawberry next week. maybe not. But if you don't want to go hungry today, you have a choice; and the choice is between chocolate ice-cream that has melted and gone rancid, or vanilla ice-cream that your kid sister said is made from boogers.

Nobody wants the chocolate; but lots of gullible people would rather starve than question their unqualified kid sister's highly dubious claims.

So again, what is there to discuss?

Beyond the forces that have put us in this circumstance and the forces preventing rational movement from here.

You DON'T NEED EITHER OF THOSE ICE CREAMS AND YOU COULD FORGO BOTH THE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA TILL YOU GOT THE STRAWBERRY YOU WANTED. You are just foisting homeland product on the rest of the world when it really NEEDS something better. We need better education on the state of our world and also need to forgo wasteful things like unnecessary war, unnecessary shipping of thing that can be produced locally and we need to learn how to not waste energy. These steps are not simple and our current economic models do not favor healthy human life so we really need to hustle and get this done and quit harping on the idea we only have limited solutions. Your argument is actually quite nonsensical. There really is not point in driving this car into a brick wall full speed ahead. What we need to do is to adapt the renewables as much as we can to our needs and adapt (reduce) our demands to a level we can sustain.

 

[bilby]

So again, what is there to discuss?

Beyond the forces that have put us in this circumstance and the forces preventing rational movement from here.

You DON'T NEED EITHER OF THOSE ICE CREAMS AND YOU COULD FORGO BOTH THE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA TILL YOU GOT THE STRAWBERRY YOU WANTED. You are just foisting homeland product on the rest of the world when it really NEEDS something better. We need better education on the state of our world and also need to forgo wasteful things like unnecessary war, unnecessary shipping of thing that can be produced locally and we need to learn how to not waste energy. These steps are not simple and our current economic models do not favor healthy human life so we really need to hustle and get this done and quit harping on the idea we only have limited solutions. Your argument is actually quite nonsensical. There really is not point in driving this car into a brick wall full speed ahead. What we need to do is to adapt the renewables as much as we can to our needs and adapt (reduce) our demands to a level we can sustain.

And yet, here you are on the electric Internet.

It seems you only want everyone else to forego ice cream today - but you are allowed a taste, as long as you convince yourself that you had a little less than the next guy; and you nurture this hypocritical position by inventing fantasies about how evil or how corrupted those who disagree with you must be.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I came to Australia as an adult, so whatever might be taught in Australian schools, it most certainly did not influence me in any way.

And I am on record several times in this thread as being strongly opposed to the use of coal - so your suggestion that I support the Australian government's position on that issue is not just wrong, it is downright dishonest.

If the only way you can keep a toe-hold in the discussion is to engage in blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy, then perhaps it is time to review your position.

As I have said before, YOU AND I AGREE ON WHAT OUTCOME WE WANT FOR THE PLANET.

Your continuing woefully inaccurate guesses as to my motives seem predicated on the insistence that this CANNOT be true; but that's a cognitive failure on your part, originating from the false premise that if someone disagrees with you about MEANS, they must also disagree about ENDS.

Not everyone who disagrees with you wants to see the Earth polluted and rendered uninhabitable - that you cannot grasp the possibility that you might be WRONG in your belief that this would result, were we to commit the sin of supporting nuclear power, simply indicates just how pathetically unimaginative you are.

Stop fantasising about how I 'must surely' think; stop swallowing the anti-nuclear propaganda without question, and ASK.

I don't expect you to take my word on the topic of nuclear safety (although I do think it is crazy that you don't try to understand the topic); but I can assure you that I am the world's leading authority on what I think, and where I learned things - so if you want to talk about that, you will look a whole lot less foolish if you ASK rather than SPECULATE.

I am not my country. I didn't vote for the party currently in government. I no more share their opinions than you share the opinions of Donald Trump.

 

[fromderinside]

... Unless you disingenuously include deaths in the nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons industries, the total deaths for the entire end-to-end process of making electricity out of uranium in the history of the technology are fewer than the deaths in Paris due to the November 13 terrorist attacks.

And by the way, the vast majority of the miners in your study were mining uranium for the military. So if you want to discuss goalpost shifting, perhaps you might take a glance in a mirror. This is a discussion about generating power without carbon emissions.

That said, let's assume for the sake of argument that I am wildly mistaken. Let's assume that the nuclear power industry kills a ten times that many people; and not just over sixty years, but every year.

Let's imagine a vast conspiracy, whereby only one six-hundredth of the true toll of deaths and injuries are known. Even in that crazy scenario, it would still save thousands of lives per annum if all coal power plants were replaced by nuclear plants. ...

.

Look there were and are deaths every year associated with TMI and it was just leak of container gases. The reactor 'problem in Detroitg killed 7 directly with uncalculated numbers of deaths resulting from leakage there. The numbers killed by radiation from Hanford haven't been calculated. Yet the Columbia is three to six degrees warmer where effluent from that place enter the river where 100s of billions have been spent to clean the place up over the past 40 years.

Where there are studies the numbers range from a conservative 6000 to a more realistic 270,0000 for Chernobyl http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2370256/chernobyl_how_many_died.html. As for deaths from radiation due to testing at the  Nevada Test Site just the number of admitted cancers thyroid cancers caused exceeds 10,000. There there are leukemia incidents documented and others.

Here is a graphic of exposure

One estimate of the number of deaths caused by nuclear testing ranges from 20 to 60 million persons (may be high) http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/nuclear-atmospheric-bomb-testing-1945.html

I'm sure there weren't 10,000 or 270,000 or up to 60,000,000 killed in Paris. Nuclear is 'clean' and dangerous. IMHO way too dangerous to be placing bets on for future energy source.

 

[untermensche]

So again, what is there to discuss?

Beyond the forces that have put us in this circumstance and the forces preventing rational movement from here.

Then you agree we should go full nuclear until we discover your magical solution?

"The evil market and US have held back research, if not for that it'd be all unicorns and rainbows" is not an argument against going full nuclear even if we grant you this dubious premise. It is an argument to research more but still go nuclear in the meantime until a better option is discovered.

What we should be doing is figuring out ways to lower energy consumption and massively funding research and development.

And the evil market stands in the way of both. And war mongering stands in the way of both.

People are getting rich off our current course, over a cliff, and these people have inordinate political influence.

We need to give up our dreams of world domination and control of oil resources and follow what the Germans are doing.

 

[lpetrich]

It seems to me that according to right-wing political correctness, nuclear energy is the only legitimate alternative to fossil fuels. So it must hurt the right wing to see wind and solar doing so well. As they get more and more competitive with fossil fuels, they will likely fight very hard to avoid accepting what a market failure their success is.

 

[arkirk]

You DON'T NEED EITHER OF THOSE ICE CREAMS AND YOU COULD FORGO BOTH THE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA TILL YOU GOT THE STRAWBERRY YOU WANTED. You are just foisting homeland product on the rest of the world when it really NEEDS something better. We need better education on the state of our world and also need to forgo wasteful things like unnecessary war, unnecessary shipping of thing that can be produced locally and we need to learn how to not waste energy. These steps are not simple and our current economic models do not favor healthy human life so we really need to hustle and get this done and quit harping on the idea we only have limited solutions. Your argument is actually quite nonsensical. There really is not point in driving this car into a brick wall full speed ahead. What we need to do is to adapt the renewables as much as we can to our needs and adapt (reduce) our demands to a level we can sustain.

And yet, here you are on the electric Internet.

It seems you only want everyone else to forego ice cream today - but you are allowed a taste, as long as you convince yourself that you had a little less than the next guy; and you nurture this hypocritical position by inventing fantasies about how evil or how corrupted those who disagree with you must be.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I came to Australia as an adult, so whatever might be taught in Australian schools, it most certainly did not influence me in any way.

And I am on record several times in this thread as being strongly opposed to the use of coal - so your suggestion that I support the Australian government's position on that issue is not just wrong, it is downright dishonest.

If the only way you can keep a toe-hold in the discussion is to engage in blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy, then perhaps it is time to review your position.

As I have said before, YOU AND I AGREE ON WHAT OUTCOME WE WANT FOR THE PLANET.

Your continuing woefully inaccurate guesses as to my motives seem predicated on the insistence that this CANNOT be true; but that's a cognitive failure on your part, originating from the false premise that if someone disagrees with you about MEANS, they must also disagree about ENDS.

Not everyone who disagrees with you wants to see the Earth polluted and rendered uninhabitable - that you cannot grasp the possibility that you might be WRONG in your belief that this would result, were we to commit the sin of supporting nuclear power, simply indicates just how pathetically unimaginative you are.

Stop fantasising about how I 'must surely' think; stop swallowing the anti-nuclear propaganda without question, and ASK.

I don't expect you to take my word on the topic of nuclear safety (although I do think it is crazy that you don't try to understand the topic); but I can assure you that I am the world's leading authority on what I think, and where I learned things - so if you want to talk about that, you will look a whole lot less foolish if you ASK rather than SPECULATE.

I am not my country. I didn't vote for the party currently in government. I no more share their opinions than you share the opinions of Donald Trump.

I am really not guessing your motives at all. I am just saying your posts reflect the coal and nuclear industry's positions which can only be skewed in their favor and your criticism is always on the same basis...that alternative energy is too little and we will all retain bigger demands than it can meet. I believe THAT is an inaccurate proposition that you make over and over. You offer nothing new and refuse to consider that all the technologies necessary for a cleaner more environmental future in regard to our energy usage are moving ahead at breakneck speed. Battery storage and energy retrieval from these devices is improving a lot. LED lighting is moving ahead rapidly. Many of the things we would need for a better future are already on their way. It is up to you to add your willingness to cooperate with the effort and not act like a spoiled child. Things that have continuous power requirements should be eliminated as much as possible. Where such continuous power is required, there are non polluting methods of obtaining it, but it is and will always be at a premium because it is merely something you have come to expect. Maybe you need to quit bellyaching so much and get with the carbon cleanup program. The nuclear cleanup program is well underway. There really is no reason to interrupt it and introduce new nuclear dangers to the world. These plants are being shut down and decommissioned and new ones are not popping up everywhere. I am sure there are some that still have a number of years in them and their owners will milk every last kwh out of them they can, but there is no really good reason to expand a toxic generating industry. There is no good reason to run any more Aboriginal people off their land in service of uranium, or coal. These plants can serve us and that service should be in rapid transformation of our energy system. We need to try to limit the destruction of continuing and increasingly rapid climate change. That means not building more coal or other fossil plants and reorganizing our energy demands to meet a new future, which might be frightening to you but is nonetheless necessary for long term human survival on this planet. There might be a few good years left in my life and I am not arguing to protect myself so much as those who have a lot longer to live here. Without making the appropriate adjustments, we will be an extremely troubled and threatened species doomed to have to admit WE DID IT TO OURSELVES. The nuclear proposition has been an expensive nightmare and its future can only promise us more bad dreams. With greater and greater weather conditions rising out of our current climate change regime, these nukes will be harder and harder to keep enclosed...and they also really have a bad side product...nuclear weapons...of which we still have more than enough to end society on this earth. The handwriting is on the wall for nukes. Wake up. Fukushima wasn't quite enough to impress you how terrible and threatening these things can be. Try to understand that we are constantly generating the need for secure sacrifice zones to store the wastes these plants generate.

 

[bilby]

And yet, here you are on the electric Internet.

It seems you only want everyone else to forego ice cream today - but you are allowed a taste, as long as you convince yourself that you had a little less than the next guy; and you nurture this hypocritical position by inventing fantasies about how evil or how corrupted those who disagree with you must be.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I came to Australia as an adult, so whatever might be taught in Australian schools, it most certainly did not influence me in any way.

And I am on record several times in this thread as being strongly opposed to the use of coal - so your suggestion that I support the Australian government's position on that issue is not just wrong, it is downright dishonest.

If the only way you can keep a toe-hold in the discussion is to engage in blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy, then perhaps it is time to review your position.

As I have said before, YOU AND I AGREE ON WHAT OUTCOME WE WANT FOR THE PLANET.

Your continuing woefully inaccurate guesses as to my motives seem predicated on the insistence that this CANNOT be true; but that's a cognitive failure on your part, originating from the false premise that if someone disagrees with you about MEANS, they must also disagree about ENDS.

Not everyone who disagrees with you wants to see the Earth polluted and rendered uninhabitable - that you cannot grasp the possibility that you might be WRONG in your belief that this would result, were we to commit the sin of supporting nuclear power, simply indicates just how pathetically unimaginative you are.

Stop fantasising about how I 'must surely' think; stop swallowing the anti-nuclear propaganda without question, and ASK.

I don't expect you to take my word on the topic of nuclear safety (although I do think it is crazy that you don't try to understand the topic); but I can assure you that I am the world's leading authority on what I think, and where I learned things - so if you want to talk about that, you will look a whole lot less foolish if you ASK rather than SPECULATE.

I am not my country. I didn't vote for the party currently in government. I no more share their opinions than you share the opinions of Donald Trump.

I am really not guessing your motives at all. I am just saying your posts reflect the coal and nuclear industry's positions

So you are saying that my repeated insistence that we MUST replace coal as soon as possible reflects the coal industry's position?

You appear to have completely lost touch with reality.

which can only be skewed in their favor and your criticism is always on the same basis...that alternative energy is too little and we will all retain bigger demands than it can meet.

Alternative energy cannot meet our current demands; and nor could it meet a reduced demand that was consistent with supporting the current world population. Obviously if mass deaths are on the table, we could make renewables work for the survivors - but other than blind optimism, there seems to be nothing at all to back your bald assertion that renewables can do whatever humanity needs them to do, and at a price we can afford.

I believe THAT is an inaccurate proposition that you make over and over.

I don't care what you or anyone else BELIEVES. Beliefs are two a penny, and utterly useless. I care about what can be shown to be true - and you have utterly failed to show that my position is inaccurate - or even that you have read my posts sufficiently closely to grasp what it IS, if you think it in any way reflects the coal industry's position.

You offer nothing new and refuse to consider that all the technologies necessary for a cleaner more environmental future in regard to our energy usage are moving ahead at breakneck speed.

Why is it my job to offer something NEW? My entire argument is that we ALREADY HAVE A SOLUTION and just need to implement it.

Battery storage and energy retrieval from these devices is improving a lot.

Indeed it is; and I look forward to the day when we can get all our power from wind or solar. But that's not going to be for a long time - and we CANNOT afford to burn coal while we wait.

LED lighting is moving ahead rapidly.

The proportion of the world's electricity that goes to lighting is minuscule. Particularly in the OECD. A first world home uses about a kW of power; Incandescent lights used to contribute about 5% of that demand, and replacing them with CFLs or LEDs can cut that to about 1% - a saving of 4%. Not to be sneezed at, but it isn't going to save the world.

Many of the things we would need for a better future are already on their way.

What, are you Nostradamus now? We don't know for sure what is on the way; nor do we know how far off it is. We cannot afford to burn coal until we find out.

It is up to you to add your willingness to cooperate with the effort and not act like a spoiled child.

Right back at you.

Things that have continuous power requirements should be eliminated as much as possible.

Sure. But not as much is possible as you seem to think.

Where such continuous power is required, there are non polluting methods of obtaining it,

Yes - nuclear power.

but it is and will always be at a premium because it is merely something you have come to expect.

Because it saves LIVES. Refrigeration is not a luxury. Lighting is not a luxury either - and it isn't viable to wait until the sun is shining to turn on the lights. You are living in a fantasy land.

Maybe you need to quit bellyaching so much and get with the carbon cleanup program.

Again, this should be directed at your mirror - I am asking you to do EXACTLY THAT.

The nuclear cleanup program is well underway.

Sorry, what 'nuclear cleanup program'? Is this another of your fantasies?

There really is no reason to interrupt it and introduce new nuclear dangers to the world.

Interrupt WHAT? You seem to think I know what you are talking about here - but I don't. I suspect you are struggling to distinguish your fantasies from reality.

These plants are being shut down and decommissioned and new ones are not popping up everywhere.

Old nuclear plants are being decommissioned, yes - That's to be expected, as the first ones built reach the end of their design lifespan. And new ones are being built - but not enough, and not as quickly as they need to be to save us from a climate change catastrophe.

I am sure there are some that still have a number of years in them and their owners will milk every last kwh out of them they can, but there is no really good reason to expand a toxic generating industry.

Shutting down nuclear power plants IS expanding a toxic generating industry - coal power.

There is no good reason to run any more Aboriginal people off their land in service of uranium, or coal.

No, there isn't; and there never was. We can get plenty of uranium without running anyone off their land.

These plants can serve us and that service should be in rapid transformation of our energy system. We need to try to limit the destruction of continuing and increasingly rapid climate change.

YES. And nuclear power is by FAR the best way to do that.

That means not building more coal or other fossil plants and reorganizing our energy demands to meet a new future, which might be frightening to you but is nonetheless necessary for long term human survival on this planet.

On the contrary, it is EXACTLY what I am arguing we MUST do. You should perhaps try READING my posts before you respond to them.

There might be a few good years left in my life and I am not arguing to protect myself so much as those who have a lot longer to live here.

That's big of you. If only other people cared just like you do. Oh, wait - they DO. Perhaps you can drop the sanctimonios bullshit for long enough to grasp something I have said repeatedly already in this thread - OUR MOTIVES ARE THE SAME. I AGREE WITH YOU ON THE GOAL. I disagree about how to get to that goal.

Without making the appropriate adjustments, we will be an extremely troubled and threatened species doomed to have to admit WE DID IT TO OURSELVES.

Yes. Yes we will.

The nuclear proposition has been an expensive nightmare and its future can only promise us more bad dreams.

Except insofar as it has caused less harm than ANY OTHER METHOD OF MAKING ELECTRICITY EVER. Apart from being the best ever by any reasonable measure, yes, it has been awful

With greater and greater weather conditions rising out of our current climate change regime, these nukes will be harder and harder to keep enclosed

Nope. No commercial nuclear plant has ever suffered a loss of containment due to weather.

...and they also really have a bad side product...nuclear weapons...of which we still have more than enough to end society on this earth.

And gasoline is used to fuel tanks, so we shouldn't have refineries. If we eliminated nuclear power tomorrow, the world's militaries would still make nuclear weapons.

The handwriting is on the wall for nukes. Wake up. Fukushima wasn't quite enough to impress you how terrible and threatening these things can be.

What, demonstrating that a large plant can be hit by a fucking HUGE earthquake and tsunami, can suffer damage well beyond its design parameters, and STILL nobody dies is meant to make me feel threatened? Try doing that with any other large industrial plant. Fukushima demonstrates just how much punishment these plants can take without causing fatalities.

Try to understand that we are constantly generating the need for secure sacrifice zones to store the wastes these plants generate.

Try to understand that your imagination is not a source of factual information.

 

[bilby]

... Unless you disingenuously include deaths in the nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons industries, the total deaths for the entire end-to-end process of making electricity out of uranium in the history of the technology are fewer than the deaths in Paris due to the November 13 terrorist attacks.

And by the way, the vast majority of the miners in your study were mining uranium for the military. So if you want to discuss goalpost shifting, perhaps you might take a glance in a mirror. This is a discussion about generating power without carbon emissions.

That said, let's assume for the sake of argument that I am wildly mistaken. Let's assume that the nuclear power industry kills a ten times that many people; and not just over sixty years, but every year.

Let's imagine a vast conspiracy, whereby only one six-hundredth of the true toll of deaths and injuries are known. Even in that crazy scenario, it would still save thousands of lives per annum if all coal power plants were replaced by nuclear plants. ...

.

Look there were and are deaths every year associated with TMI and it was just leak of container gases.

Citation needed.

The reactor 'problem in Detroitg killed 7 directly with uncalculated numbers of deaths resulting from leakage there.

Citation needed.

The numbers killed by radiation from Hanford haven't been calculated. Yet the Columbia is three to six degrees warmer where effluent from that place enter the river where 100s of billions have been spent to clean the place up over the past 40 years.

That's the Hanford that is where the US makes nuclear WEAPONS, right? Perhaps you didn't read the post to which you are responding?

Where there are studies the numbers range from a conservative 6000 to a more realistic 270,0000 for Chernobyl http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2370256/chernobyl_how_many_died.html.

'More realistic' and 'totally made up figure pulled from someone's arse in the Greenpeace offices' are not quite the same thing. But what the hell - let's assume your nutso super-inflated figures are right; Nuclear is STILL FAR SAFER than coal based on those numbers.

As for deaths from radiation due to testing at the  Nevada Test Site just the number of admitted cancers thyroid cancers caused exceeds 10,000. There there are leukemia incidents documented and others.

I'm sorry, but if you are not going to read my posts, you really shouldn't reply to them. I have highlighted above the bit you obviously missed.

Here is a graphic of exposure

One estimate of the number of deaths caused by nuclear testing ranges from 20 to 60 million persons (may be high) http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/nuclear-atmospheric-bomb-testing-1945.html

I'm sure there weren't 10,000 or 270,000 or up to 60,000,000 killed in Paris. Nuclear is 'clean' and dangerous. IMHO way too dangerous to be placing bets on for future energy source.

Yup, nuclear bombs are really dangerous. It's a good thing nobody was suggesting otherwise.

 

[arkirk]

I am really not guessing your motives at all. I am just saying your posts reflect the coal and nuclear industry's positions

So you are saying that my repeated insistence that we MUST replace coal as soon as possible reflects the coal industry's position?

You appear to have completely lost touch with reality.

which can only be skewed in their favor and your criticism is always on the same basis...that alternative energy is too little and we will all retain bigger demands than it can meet.

Alternative energy cannot meet our current demands; and nor could it meet a reduced demand that was consistent with supporting the current world population. Obviously if mass deaths are on the table, we could make renewables work for the survivors - but other than blind optimism, there seems to be nothing at all to back your bald assertion that renewables can do whatever humanity needs them to do, and at a price we can afford.

I believe THAT is an inaccurate proposition that you make over and over.

I don't care what you or anyone else BELIEVES. Beliefs are two a penny, and utterly useless. I care about what can be shown to be true - and you have utterly failed to show that my position is inaccurate - or even that you have read my posts sufficiently closely to grasp what it IS, if you think it in any way reflects the coal industry's position.

You offer nothing new and refuse to consider that all the technologies necessary for a cleaner more environmental future in regard to our energy usage are moving ahead at breakneck speed.

Why is it my job to offer something NEW? My entire argument is that we ALREADY HAVE A SOLUTION and just need to implement it.

Battery storage and energy retrieval from these devices is improving a lot.

Indeed it is; and I look forward to the day when we can get all our power from wind or solar. But that's not going to be for a long time - and we CANNOT afford to burn coal while we wait.

LED lighting is moving ahead rapidly.

The proportion of the world's electricity that goes to lighting is minuscule. Particularly in the OECD. A first world home uses about a kW of power; Incandescent lights used to contribute about 5% of that demand, and replacing them with CFLs or LEDs can cut that to about 1% - a saving of 4%. Not to be sneezed at, but it isn't going to save the world.

Many of the things we would need for a better future are already on their way.

What, are you Nostradamus now? We don't know for sure what is on the way; nor do we know how far off it is. We cannot afford to burn coal until we find out.

It is up to you to add your willingness to cooperate with the effort and not act like a spoiled child.

Right back at you.

Things that have continuous power requirements should be eliminated as much as possible.

Sure. But not as much is possible as you seem to think.

Where such continuous power is required, there are non polluting methods of obtaining it,

Yes - nuclear power.

but it is and will always be at a premium because it is merely something you have come to expect.

Because it saves LIVES. Refrigeration is not a luxury. Lighting is not a luxury either - and it isn't viable to wait until the sun is shining to turn on the lights. You are living in a fantasy land.

Maybe you need to quit bellyaching so much and get with the carbon cleanup program.

Again, this should be directed at your mirror - I am asking you to do EXACTLY THAT.

The nuclear cleanup program is well underway.

Sorry, what 'nuclear cleanup program'? Is this another of your fantasies?

There really is no reason to interrupt it and introduce new nuclear dangers to the world.

Interrupt WHAT? You seem to think I know what you are talking about here - but I don't. I suspect you are struggling to distinguish your fantasies from reality.

These plants are being shut down and decommissioned and new ones are not popping up everywhere.

Old nuclear plants are being decommissioned, yes - That's to be expected, as the first ones built reach the end of their design lifespan. And new ones are being built - but not enough, and not as quickly as they need to be to save us from a climate change catastrophe.

I am sure there are some that still have a number of years in them and their owners will milk every last kwh out of them they can, but there is no really good reason to expand a toxic generating industry.

Shutting down nuclear power plants IS expanding a toxic generating industry - coal power.

There is no good reason to run any more Aboriginal people off their land in service of uranium, or coal.

No, there isn't; and there never was. We can get plenty of uranium without running anyone off their land.

These plants can serve us and that service should be in rapid transformation of our energy system. We need to try to limit the destruction of continuing and increasingly rapid climate change.

YES. And nuclear power is by FAR the best way to do that.

That means not building more coal or other fossil plants and reorganizing our energy demands to meet a new future, which might be frightening to you but is nonetheless necessary for long term human survival on this planet.

On the contrary, it is EXACTLY what I am arguing we MUST do. You should perhaps try READING my posts before you respond to them.

There might be a few good years left in my life and I am not arguing to protect myself so much as those who have a lot longer to live here.

That's big of you. If only other people cared just like you do. Oh, wait - they DO. Perhaps you can drop the sanctimonios bullshit for long enough to grasp something I have said repeatedly already in this thread - OUR MOTIVES ARE THE SAME. I AGREE WITH YOU ON THE GOAL. I disagree about how to get to that goal.

Without making the appropriate adjustments, we will be an extremely troubled and threatened species doomed to have to admit WE DID IT TO OURSELVES.

Yes. Yes we will.

The nuclear proposition has been an expensive nightmare and its future can only promise us more bad dreams.

Except insofar as it has caused less harm than ANY OTHER METHOD OF MAKING ELECTRICITY EVER. Apart from being the best ever by any reasonable measure, yes, it has been awful

With greater and greater weather conditions rising out of our current climate change regime, these nukes will be harder and harder to keep enclosed

Nope. No commercial nuclear plant has ever suffered a loss of containment due to weather.

...and they also really have a bad side product...nuclear weapons...of which we still have more than enough to end society on this earth.

And gasoline is used to fuel tanks, so we shouldn't have refineries. If we eliminated nuclear power tomorrow, the world's militaries would still make nuclear weapons.

The handwriting is on the wall for nukes. Wake up. Fukushima wasn't quite enough to impress you how terrible and threatening these things can be.

What, demonstrating that a large plant can be hit by a fucking HUGE earthquake and tsunami, can suffer damage well beyond its design parameters, and STILL nobody dies is meant to make me feel threatened? Try doing that with any other large industrial plant. Fukushima demonstrates just how much punishment these plants can take without causing fatalities.

Try to understand that we are constantly generating the need for secure sacrifice zones to store the wastes these plants generate.

Try to understand that your imagination is not a source of factual information.

You didn't read my piece very well and chose instead to dissect it into bite-sized bits out of context. I guess you may not be all that innocent, though I still suspect you are. You are sort of like the smoker that has been warned and ignores the warning. Nuke kill people...lots of people. I post data and you just say that came from Greenpeace, which it could have but it didn't. It was a government source and from a government that really didn't want to admit it on Chernobyl...

Low level radiation from waste and dispersed sources has as one its characteristics that it is asymptomatic until it presents as a tumor and that can take three to twenty years. Radioacitve strontium incorporates itself in bone tissue, replacing calcium, becoming a radiation source built into the body. You may smart talk me till the cows come home. The data on cancer deaths happens over time. Even the Japanese government acknowledges that that Fukushima will increase the cancer rate. Quit being a shill for the Australian uranium mining interests. There are a lot of big earthquakes in Japan if you had not noticed as it is extremely seismically active.

Current demand appears mostly being consumed by rich people. Your "factual information" comes from the nuclear industry PR people. Fukushima has two totally compromised containments and one partially compromised one. There is a 30 km exclusion zone around it. The groundwater is polluted and it has dumped a lot of radiation into the sea. I would say it did not take a licking and keep on ticking anything but geiger counters. Use your head, man and quit being so caustic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Where can I buy a tidal generator?

We don't have one because assholes think we don't need to massively expend resources to develop renewable clean alternatives.

Some are so pathetic they even tell us the inefficient market will help. What a joke they are.

And some think we should be wasting resources killing Muslims half a world a way and making the world a less safe place.

If a tidal generator isn't available it can't be used as source of power.

Research, yes--but that does nothing about the current situation being nuke vs coal.

(And ignores the fact that there isn't enough energy available.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So again, what is there to discuss?

Beyond the forces that have put us in this circumstance and the forces preventing rational movement from here.

You DON'T NEED EITHER OF THOSE ICE CREAMS AND YOU COULD FORGO BOTH THE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA TILL YOU GOT THE STRAWBERRY YOU WANTED. You are just foisting homeland product on the rest of the world when it really NEEDS something better. We need better education on the state of our world and also need to forgo wasteful things like unnecessary war, unnecessary shipping of thing that can be produced locally and we need to learn how to not waste energy. These steps are not simple and our current economic models do not favor healthy human life so we really need to hustle and get this done and quit harping on the idea we only have limited solutions. Your argument is actually quite nonsensical. There really is not point in driving this car into a brick wall full speed ahead. What we need to do is to adapt the renewables as much as we can to our needs and adapt (reduce) our demands to a level we can sustain.

Prove it--go without power until that renewable source shows up. (Ignore the fact that you won't live two weeks this way.)

 

[bilby]

So you are saying that my repeated insistence that we MUST replace coal as soon as possible reflects the coal industry's position?

You appear to have completely lost touch with reality.

which can only be skewed in their favor and your criticism is always on the same basis...that alternative energy is too little and we will all retain bigger demands than it can meet.

Alternative energy cannot meet our current demands; and nor could it meet a reduced demand that was consistent with supporting the current world population. Obviously if mass deaths are on the table, we could make renewables work for the survivors - but other than blind optimism, there seems to be nothing at all to back your bald assertion that renewables can do whatever humanity needs them to do, and at a price we can afford.

I believe THAT is an inaccurate proposition that you make over and over.

I don't care what you or anyone else BELIEVES. Beliefs are two a penny, and utterly useless. I care about what can be shown to be true - and you have utterly failed to show that my position is inaccurate - or even that you have read my posts sufficiently closely to grasp what it IS, if you think it in any way reflects the coal industry's position.

You offer nothing new and refuse to consider that all the technologies necessary for a cleaner more environmental future in regard to our energy usage are moving ahead at breakneck speed.

Why is it my job to offer something NEW? My entire argument is that we ALREADY HAVE A SOLUTION and just need to implement it.

Battery storage and energy retrieval from these devices is improving a lot.

Indeed it is; and I look forward to the day when we can get all our power from wind or solar. But that's not going to be for a long time - and we CANNOT afford to burn coal while we wait.

LED lighting is moving ahead rapidly.

The proportion of the world's electricity that goes to lighting is minuscule. Particularly in the OECD. A first world home uses about a kW of power; Incandescent lights used to contribute about 5% of that demand, and replacing them with CFLs or LEDs can cut that to about 1% - a saving of 4%. Not to be sneezed at, but it isn't going to save the world.

Many of the things we would need for a better future are already on their way.

What, are you Nostradamus now? We don't know for sure what is on the way; nor do we know how far off it is. We cannot afford to burn coal until we find out.

It is up to you to add your willingness to cooperate with the effort and not act like a spoiled child.

Right back at you.

Things that have continuous power requirements should be eliminated as much as possible.

Sure. But not as much is possible as you seem to think.

Where such continuous power is required, there are non polluting methods of obtaining it,

Yes - nuclear power.

but it is and will always be at a premium because it is merely something you have come to expect.

Because it saves LIVES. Refrigeration is not a luxury. Lighting is not a luxury either - and it isn't viable to wait until the sun is shining to turn on the lights. You are living in a fantasy land.

Maybe you need to quit bellyaching so much and get with the carbon cleanup program.

Again, this should be directed at your mirror - I am asking you to do EXACTLY THAT.

The nuclear cleanup program is well underway.

Sorry, what 'nuclear cleanup program'? Is this another of your fantasies?

There really is no reason to interrupt it and introduce new nuclear dangers to the world.

Interrupt WHAT? You seem to think I know what you are talking about here - but I don't. I suspect you are struggling to distinguish your fantasies from reality.

These plants are being shut down and decommissioned and new ones are not popping up everywhere.

Old nuclear plants are being decommissioned, yes - That's to be expected, as the first ones built reach the end of their design lifespan. And new ones are being built - but not enough, and not as quickly as they need to be to save us from a climate change catastrophe.

I am sure there are some that still have a number of years in them and their owners will milk every last kwh out of them they can, but there is no really good reason to expand a toxic generating industry.

Shutting down nuclear power plants IS expanding a toxic generating industry - coal power.

There is no good reason to run any more Aboriginal people off their land in service of uranium, or coal.

No, there isn't; and there never was. We can get plenty of uranium without running anyone off their land.

These plants can serve us and that service should be in rapid transformation of our energy system. We need to try to limit the destruction of continuing and increasingly rapid climate change.

YES. And nuclear power is by FAR the best way to do that.

That means not building more coal or other fossil plants and reorganizing our energy demands to meet a new future, which might be frightening to you but is nonetheless necessary for long term human survival on this planet.

On the contrary, it is EXACTLY what I am arguing we MUST do. You should perhaps try READING my posts before you respond to them.

There might be a few good years left in my life and I am not arguing to protect myself so much as those who have a lot longer to live here.

That's big of you. If only other people cared just like you do. Oh, wait - they DO. Perhaps you can drop the sanctimonios bullshit for long enough to grasp something I have said repeatedly already in this thread - OUR MOTIVES ARE THE SAME. I AGREE WITH YOU ON THE GOAL. I disagree about how to get to that goal.

Without making the appropriate adjustments, we will be an extremely troubled and threatened species doomed to have to admit WE DID IT TO OURSELVES.

Yes. Yes we will.

The nuclear proposition has been an expensive nightmare and its future can only promise us more bad dreams.

Except insofar as it has caused less harm than ANY OTHER METHOD OF MAKING ELECTRICITY EVER. Apart from being the best ever by any reasonable measure, yes, it has been awful

With greater and greater weather conditions rising out of our current climate change regime, these nukes will be harder and harder to keep enclosed

Nope. No commercial nuclear plant has ever suffered a loss of containment due to weather.

...and they also really have a bad side product...nuclear weapons...of which we still have more than enough to end society on this earth.

And gasoline is used to fuel tanks, so we shouldn't have refineries. If we eliminated nuclear power tomorrow, the world's militaries would still make nuclear weapons.

The handwriting is on the wall for nukes. Wake up. Fukushima wasn't quite enough to impress you how terrible and threatening these things can be.

What, demonstrating that a large plant can be hit by a fucking HUGE earthquake and tsunami, can suffer damage well beyond its design parameters, and STILL nobody dies is meant to make me feel threatened? Try doing that with any other large industrial plant. Fukushima demonstrates just how much punishment these plants can take without causing fatalities.

Try to understand that we are constantly generating the need for secure sacrifice zones to store the wastes these plants generate.

Try to understand that your imagination is not a source of factual information.

You didn't read my piece very well and chose instead to dissect it into bite-sized bits out of context.

I replied to what you said. If you make long rambling posts with lots of disconnected points, I will address each in turn, in an attempt to avoid confusion. No context is lost; All of the words you wrote are still there, in the same order - but interspersed with my comments on them. If you would make just one point at a time, then I wouldn't have to do this. But you don't, so I do.

I guess you may not be all that innocent, though I still suspect you are.

What you suspect, guess or believe is of no interest. What you KNOW is all that matters - and if you know something, you should be able to provide evidence backing that knowledge.

You are sort of like the smoker that has been warned and ignores the warning.

More like an atheist who has been warned by an Imam not to eat pork, but chooses a bacon sandwich anyway, on the grounds that the warning is based on irrational beliefs.

Nuke kill people...lots of people.

For a given value of 'lots'. Nuclear power kills FAR fewer people than ANY OTHER method of generating power. I prefer the power source that kills few people over the power that kills tens of thousands of times more. You prefer to bitch about those few deaths, and completely ignore the many. That's irrational.

I post data and you just say that came from Greenpeace, which it could have but it didn't. It was a government source and from a government that really didn't want to admit it on Chernobyl...

It's irrelevant; As I said before, EVEN if we accept those numbers for the sake of argument, nuclear power is STILL safer than the alternative.

Low level radiation from waste and dispersed sources has as one its characteristics that it is asymptomatic until it presents as a tumor and that can take three to twenty years. Radioacitve strontium incorporates itself in bone tissue, replacing calcium, becoming a radiation source built into the body. You may smart talk me till the cows come home. The data on cancer deaths happens over time. Even the Japanese government acknowledges that that Fukushima will increase the cancer rate.

But not at a level that is detectable above the usual level - so basically this is a non-issue. As I said before, even the most hyperbolic claims of death rates are insufficient to lift the risk of nuclear power to the level known to occur due to coal power. The science says you are wrong, but EVEN IF YOU WERE RIGHT, your claims would be insufficient to support your case.

Quit being a shill for the Australian uranium mining interests.

I never started, so I can't quit. I will however note that calling one's opponent a 'shill' is a well known admission in Internet debates that you have no reason or logic to back your position at all.

There are a lot of big earthquakes in Japan if you had not noticed as it is extremely seismically active.

Sure. And there are lots of nuclear power plants there too - but only one earthquake in the last thousand years has been this bad; and only one nuclear plant suffered a loss of containment incident as a result - and that was not due to the earthquake itself, or even to the direct effects of the tsunami that followed. The problem at Fukushima Daiichi was not repeated at the next-door Fukushima Daini plant - because Daini (as the name implies - Daiichi means 'number one' and Daini 'number two') is a newer design. The obsolete Daiichi plant shouldn't have still been in operation at all - it should have been replaced with a safer, newer, plant before 2011. But it wasn't, because people like you opposed the building of the replacement facility.

Fukushima demonstrates the sheer robustness of nuclear power plants - even the older generation designs; and it demonstrates the folly of protesting against the building of new plants.

Current demand appears mostly being consumed by rich people.

Like you and me, yes.

Your "factual information" comes from the nuclear industry PR people.

No, it doesn't. It comes from Physics and Engineering. If you want to know my sources, you can always ask; When you make claims like this about things you cannot possibly know, you just look foolish and dishonest.

Fukushima has two totally compromised containments and one partially compromised one. There is a 30 km exclusion zone around it. The groundwater is polluted and it has dumped a lot of radiation into the sea. I would say it did not take a licking and keep on ticking anything but geiger counters. Use your head, man and quit being so caustic.

Sure, it was a terrible incident. But nobody died. And even if we believe the most inflated and hyperbolic estimates of future deaths, fewer people will ever die as a result of Fukushima than die every week from coal power. So perhaps you should take your own advice, use your head, and stop being so caustic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Where there are studies the numbers range from a conservative 6000 to a more realistic 270,0000 for Chernobyl http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2370256/chernobyl_how_many_died.html. As for deaths from radiation due to testing at the  Nevada Test Site just the number of admitted cancers thyroid cancers caused exceeds 10,000. There there are leukemia incidents documented and others.

Lets try a source that knows where the decimal point goes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates a total collective dose of 600,000 person-Sieverts over 50 years from Chernobyl fallout. [6] Applying the LNT risk estimate of 0.10 fatal cancers per Sievert gives an estimate of 60,000 deaths.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It seems to me that according to right-wing political correctness, nuclear energy is the only legitimate alternative to fossil fuels. So it must hurt the right wing to see wind and solar doing so well. As they get more and more competitive with fossil fuels, they will likely fight very hard to avoid accepting what a market failure their success is.

I don't know about what the right-wingers are thinking but at present it's the only practical alternative.

Wind and solar are too intermittent to take over. They can reduce oil and gas use, that's it.

 

[Axulus]

It seems to me that according to right-wing political correctness, nuclear energy is the only legitimate alternative to fossil fuels. So it must hurt the right wing to see wind and solar doing so well. As they get more and more competitive with fossil fuels, they will likely fight very hard to avoid accepting what a market failure their success is.

No one is saying that we can't have solar and wind along with the nuke plants in those areas where solar and wind are economically viable. The nuke plants will complement those technologies nicely in those areas where they are economically viable.