Methane Hydrates - Interview with Natalia Shakhova

[Thomas II]

Please watch and discuss...

 

[Thomas II]

 

[bilby]

If the rest of the world had followed the lead of the French, we could have slashed the amount of coal burned worldwide a few decades ago, and we wouldn't be in this mess.

But organisations like Greenpeace and (apparently named without a sense of irony) Friends of the Earth, even now continue to oppose the single most effective technology we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

They oppose it on safety grounds - despite the fact that it has been demonstrated to be the safest electricity generation technology ever developed.

Fuckwits.

There are not enough Captain Picard memes in existence on the entire internet to express the sheer level of face-palm here.

 

[fromderinside]

Watched a C-SPAN bit last night on early American nuclear bombs, their production and the social climate at the end of WWII. That reminded me of my dad taking the risk of freeing up fuel rods in reactors at Hanford WN in the mid fifties. Seems someone hadn't calculated long term effects of heat on pellet rod tubes in the period right after 1945. No. Nuclear may not be dangerous. It is humans with nuclear power in human social systems that is dangerous.

Geez. Experiments within reactors? How stupid and politically reasonable is that?

BTW methane hydrates would occur naturally without human contributions should another Asian tectonic plasma event start, or, if the earth tilt shifted a few degrees because of our planet's unstable rotational factors.

Can we gin up any more Woo woo because of man's stupidity to scare us into hating others more?

Whoopsteedo the difference.

 

[bilby]

Watched a C-SPAN bit last night on early American nuclear bombs, their production and the social climate at the end of WWII. That reminded me of my dad taking the risk of freeing up fuel rods in reactors at Hanford WN in the mid fifties. Seems someone hadn't calculated long term effects of heat on pellet rod tubes in the period right after 1945. No. Nuclear may not be dangerous. It is humans with nuclear power in human social systems that is dangerous.

Observed reality disagrees with you.

'Dangerous' is not an absolute; FIRE is dangerous. Perhaps we should prohibit its use?

Nuclear power is, like ALL sources of energy, potentially dangerous. Commercial generation of electricity using nuclear fission is observably the safest way to generate electricity yet devised. It is several orders of magnitude safer than burning coal, even before we consider the effects of carbon dioxide emissions from coal. Sixty years, three major incidents, only one resulting in fatalities. Other industries cannot even begin to compare with a safety record like that. It makes modern commercial aviation look positively slapdash and careless with human life.

Geez. Experiments within reactors? How stupid and politically reasonable is that?

Experiments are how we achieve knowledge. Well designed experiments are not particularly dangerous; Stupid people doing poorly designed experiments is dangerous in ALL industries. This is NOT an argument against the nuclear power industry - it is (just barely) an argument against ALL technology. A poor argument, indeed, but that's what it is.

BTW methane hydrates would occur naturally without human contributions should another Asian tectonic plasma event start, or, if the earth tilt shifted a few degrees because of our planet's unstable rotational factors.

Can we gin up any more Woo woo because of man's stupidity to scare us into hating others more?

Whoopsteedo the difference.

Forest fires can start naturally due to lightning strikes. That's NOT a mitigating excuse for an arsonist.

Can you gin up any more irrelevances, or do you have a useful contribution to make to the discussion?

 

[repoman]

Our position is like Prince Prospero in "The Masque of the Red Death".


if the United States had all of the CO2 it produced and resultant heat trapped over its lands and share of ocean, it would be a lot closer to Venus.

Can't externalize everything.

 

[fromderinside]

Can you gin up any more irrelevances, or do you have a useful contribution to make to the discussion?

Sure can. So stand by.

In the meantime my son, not an idiot, caused entire west coast to go on alert because he included aluminum foil with sample in a physics experiment at Irvine some years back. What's important is no one in authority on the west coast acknowledged the event even though it qualified as a radiation event without knowing whether it was just an student accident and there is no record the event ever happened. That's stupid for you.

TMI controls were poorly designed, personnel there poorly trained and responded inappropriately to the event.

That Russian general who conducted the experiment didn't follow protocol. It is rumored he did it for political reasons.

Our nuclear arsenal in missile silos are maintained by personnel improperly trained using 1980s (eight inch floppies) technology that is no longer available resulting in one floppy per group of three missiles (see Sixty Minutes report on the issue).

My father had to go up into reactors three times 1955, 57, 58, with laborer's tools to knock rods free at Hanford and none of the incidents were reported. I'm sure there were other times given the C-SPAN talk of conditions between 1945 and 1950. BTW was the Detroit incident in 1967 among the three incidents you cite?

Yeah, nuclear energy is safe as can be. Just checkout what's going on at  Hanford Site some 70 years after operations were set up there./snarksnark


As for Methane related atmospheric risks those will take place without man caused warming processes through wobble events, tectonic processes, and a variety of other natural (your example fire) events and processes.

I'm more inclined to have my hair catch fire over man induced nuclear problems than I am for man contributing responsibility for permafrost methane related releases.

Remember we're on the cusp of electing that idiot Donald J Trump president of the US. If you're saying "naw that can't happen" all you have to do is remember GB just voted to BREXIT.

Fear is man's real problem.

 

[bilby]

Can you gin up any more irrelevances, or do you have a useful contribution to make to the discussion?

Sure can. So stand by.

In the meantime my son, not an idiot, caused entire west coast to go on alert because he included aluminum foil with sample in a physics experiment at Irvine some years back. What's important is no one in authority on the west coast acknowledged the event even though it qualified as a radiation event without knowing whether it was just an student accident and there is no record the event ever happened. That's stupid for you.

But not anything to do with a commercial nuclear power plant in normal operation. So stupid, yes, but relevant, no.

TMI controls were poorly designed, personnel there poorly trained and responded inappropriately to the event.

True. And yet NOBODY died. A similar chain of failures in a chemical plant would not have been resolved without fatalities - just ask the people of Bhopal (those who survived).

That Russian general who conducted the experiment didn't follow protocol. It is rumored he did it for political reasons.

If I have to guess which general you are talking about, then I have no chance - Russian generals often fail to follow protocol. Whatever he did for political reasons will have to wait for you to clarify what the fuck you are talking about before I am able to comment. I am sure you know what you are referring to here, but nobody else does.

Our nuclear arsenal in missile silos are maintained by personnel improperly trained using 1980s (eight inch floppies) technology that is no longer available resulting in one floppy per group of three missiles (see Sixty Minutes report on the issue).

Machine guns operate using burning powder. Coal power stations operate using burning powder. Therefore the casualties at the Somme were due to coal power plants.

Alternatively, weapons and commercial power generation are separate entities, and nuclear weapons are completely irrelevant to any discussion about generating electricity from nuclear fission.

I am going with the latter, because I am not a moron; Morons who wish to oppose nuclear power for ideological reasons of course like to conflate the two, but that's pure bullshit propaganda, and smart people shouldn't fall for it.

My father had to go up into reactors three times 1955, 57, 58, with laborer's tools to knock rods free at Hanford and none of the incidents were reported.

Again, armaments factories are NOT power plants; What happens in military installations, no matter how stupid or dangerous, says fuck all about commercial power plants. You need to stop conflating the two, it is dishonest.

I'm sure there were other times given the C-SPAN talk of conditions between 1945 and 1950. BTW was the Detroit incident in 1967 among the three incidents you cite?

No, because it wasn't designated by INES as a major incident. Also, it was in an experimental reactor, rather than a productive one. But if you want to include it, please feel free; the total number of fatalities in the 60 year history of commercial nuclear power generation remains unchanged, and remains lower per unit of power generated than any other technology. Four incidents, one of which caused fatalities is STILL an enviable record. As would be 100 incidents, 1 fatal; no other power generation method could boast such a record, nor could any other large scale industrial endeavour.

Nuclear power is not perfectly safe. NOTHING is perfectly safe. But Nuclear power is safer than ANY other generation method, so IF nuclear power isn't safe enough, THEN electricity isn't safe enough. EITHER you should lobby for an end to electricity generation of ANY kind, OR you are engaged in special pleading when you oppose nuclear power on safety grounds.

I understand that you have been told all your life how dangerous nuclear power is. But that is not actually true. Lots of people firmly believe things that are untrue - That Jesus rose from the dead; That vaccines cause autism; That the world is flat; That the moon landings were faked; that 9/11 was an inside job; That nuclear power is dangerous; That climate change is not caused by human activity; That JFK was assassinated by the illuminati; That Queen Elizabeth is a seven foot lizard in a human costume. You can take their word for it, or you can find out for yourself.

Yeah, nuclear energy is safe as can be. Just checkout what's going on at  Hanford Site some 70 years after operations were set up there./snarksnark

And coal power is safe as can be. Just check out the Menin Gate.

What happens at Hanford has fuck all to do with commercial nuclear power generation. Hanford is a military site.

As for Methane related atmospheric risks those will take place without man caused warming processes through wobble events, tectonic processes, and a variety of other natural (your example fire) events and processes.

Forest fires can start naturally due to lightning strikes. That's NOT a mitigating excuse for an arsonist.

I'm more inclined to have my hair catch fire over man induced nuclear problems than I am for man contributing responsibility for permafrost methane related releases.

But you don't give a shit about tens of thousands of deaths per annum in the coal power industry, just as long as the nuclear industry's comparatively tiny number of fatalities have your attention. This is pure special pleading.

Remember we're on the cusp of electing that idiot Donald J Trump president of the US. If you're saying "naw that can't happen" all you have to do is remember GB just voted to BREXIT.

Fear is man's real problem.

Indeed it is; which leads me to wonder why you are wallowing in irrational fear on this subject, and opposing the safest power generating technology in history, instead of getting smart, and opposing the most deadly forms of power generation, in favour of the safest.

You appear to understand that fear is the problem, but to be incapable of recognizing that your own fear is irrational.

 

[Thomas II]

The facial expression of Natalia Shakhova after minute 8:00 is that of a person who KNOWS that the worst thing can (will) happen...It's not about IF, but WHEN...

 

[Thomas II]

http://ameg.me/

SUBJECT: Arctic meltdown: a catastrophic threat to our survival
AMEG calls for rapid refreezing of the Arctic to halt runaway melting
WHO: John Nissen, Chair AMEG, supported by Professor Peter Wadhams, Cambridge University, co-founder of AMEG and world-renowned expert on Arctic sea ice, with Paul Beckwith, AMEG blogger.

SUMMARY:
There is strong evidence of advanced acceleration in:
• Arctic warming and sea ice decline in a vicious cycle
• Substantial ice loss in Greenland with potential massive loss due to unstable glaciers
• Disruption of jet stream behavior, with abrupt climate change leading to crop failures, rising food prices and conflict in the Northern Hemisphere
• Rapid emissions of methane from the Arctic seabed, permafrost and tundra.
The tipping point for the Arctic sea ice has already passed.

Our conclusions are:

• The meltdown is accelerating and could become unstoppable as early as Sept 2015
• Immediate action must be taken to refreeze the Arctic to halt runaway melting
• Greenhouse gas emissions reduction, however drastic, cannot solve this problem
• Calculations show that powerful interventions are needed to cool the Arctic
• Any delay escalates the risk of failure
• Arctic meltdown is a catastrophic threat for civilization.

How can they refreeze the Arctic?

 

[fromderinside]

http://ameg.me/

SUBJECT: Arctic meltdown: a catastrophic threat to our survival
AMEG calls for rapid refreezing of the Arctic to halt runaway melting
WHO: John Nissen, Chair AMEG, supported by Professor Peter Wadhams, Cambridge University, co-founder of AMEG and world-renowned expert on Arctic sea ice, with Paul Beckwith, AMEG blogger.


How can they refreeze the Arctic?

Let me try a bilby here.

Exemplar:

Machine guns operate using burning powder. Coal power stations operate using burning powder. Therefore the casualties at the Somme were due to coal power plants.

The Chunnel team is expert in making very large things. For arctic cooling the building of very large things, fans, to redirect winds is required for cooling. Therefore the Chunnel team will produce very large fans thereby saving the arctic.

 

[KeepTalking]

Let me try a bilby here.

Exemplar:

Machine guns operate using burning powder. Coal power stations operate using burning powder. Therefore the casualties at the Somme were due to coal power plants.

The Chunnel team is expert in making very large things. For arctic cooling the building of very large things, fans, to redirect winds is required for cooling. Therefore the Chunnel team will produce very large fans thereby saving the arctic.

Fail. The "Exemplar" argument you used from bilby was a parody of your argument, so what you are really presenting is an example derived from your own facile argumentation.

 

[bilby]

Let me try a bilby here.

Exemplar:

The Chunnel team is expert in making very large things. For arctic cooling the building of very large things, fans, to redirect winds is required for cooling. Therefore the Chunnel team will produce very large fans thereby saving the arctic.

Fail. The "Exemplar" argument you used from bilby was a parody of your argument, so what you are really presenting is an example derived from your own facile argumentation.

^That.

 

[fromderinside]

Let me try a bilby here.

Exemplar:

The Chunnel team is expert in making very large things. For arctic the building of very large things, fans, to redirect winds is required for cooling. Therefore the Chunnel team will produce very large fans thereby saving the arctic.

Fail. The "Exemplar" argument you used from bilby was a parody of your argument, so what you are really presenting is an example derived from your own facile argumentation.

Really?

FDI: Our nuclear arsenal in missile silos are maintained by personnel improperly trained using 1980s (eight inch floppies) technology that is no longer available resulting in one floppy per group of three missiles (see Sixty Minutes report on the issue)

bilby:Machine guns operate using burning powder. Coal power stations operate using burning powder. Therefore the casualties at the Somme were due to coal power plants.

the question was nuclear power plants not nuclear missiles so I get that point.

What I don't get is the equivalence between heavy CO₂ producing coal powder with gun powder? Now if guns used coal powder I might give the total point. The other part is consistent; shooting/military with power/industrial or commercial.

They don't so I won't.

IOW my parody accurately reflects his parody whilst his parody does't reflect my initial construction.

So bilby's paroday remains a bilby.

 

[bilby]

Fail. The "Exemplar" argument you used from bilby was a parody of your argument, so what you are really presenting is an example derived from your own facile argumentation.

Really?

FDI: Our nuclear arsenal in missile silos are maintained by personnel improperly trained using 1980s (eight inch floppies) technology that is no longer available resulting in one floppy per group of three missiles (see Sixty Minutes report on the issue)

bilby:Machine guns operate using burning powder. Coal power stations operate using burning powder. Therefore the casualties at the Somme were due to coal power plants.

the question was nuclear power plants not nuclear missiles so I get that point.

What I don't get is the equivalence between heavy CO₂ producing coal powder with gun powder? Now if guns used coal powder I might give the total point. The other part is consistent; shooting/military with power/industrial or commercial.

They don't so I won't.

IOW my parody accurately reflects his parody whilst his parody does't reflect my initial construction.

So bilby's paroday remains a bilby.

The highly enriched uranium (or plutonium) used in weapons is as dissimilar to reactor fuel as coal powder is to gunpowder (albeit not modern smokeless gunpowder); indeed, it is technically easier and less expensive to make gunpowder from coal dust than it is to make weapons grade materials from a reactor fuel assembly.

But don't let the fact that you are wrong about the trivial part of my analogy distract you from focusing on ignoring the important part.

Weapons have nothing to do with power generation. The only reasons to conflate the two are dishonesty or incompetence.

 

[J842P]

Fail. The "Exemplar" argument you used from bilby was a parody of your argument, so what you are really presenting is an example derived from your own facile argumentation.

^That.

^that^2

 

[DBT]

Even if we dramatically cut CO₂ emissions right now, the process we set in motion would continue for many decades, probably centuries. We are in for the ride.

 

[Thomas II]

Is refreezing the Arctic the only solution? Is anything being done at the moment? Or are we in the middle of the "perfect storm" and we're, basically, "fucked"?

 

[J842P]

Is refreezing the Arctic the only solution? Is anything being done at the moment? Or are we in the middle of the "perfect storm" and we're, basically, "fucked"?

Basically, we are fucked.

 

[fromderinside]

But don't let the fact that you are wrong about the trivial part of my analogy distract you from focusing on ignoring the important part.

Weapons have nothing to do with power generation. The only reasons to conflate the two are dishonesty or incompetence.

When you get a bone you concentrate on it without exception. I conceded the power/weapons point. Your current post suggests you missed that.

Thanks for playing.