The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[bilby]

While company X might have a design, it does not mean company Y does. Westinghouse is bankrupt, and it is hard to see who else can build lots of plants in the US. Nukes are not something simply you can bang out a design quickly. It is hard to see how any new plants can be designed, and checked for stupids errors quickly.

I worked for decades in a field involved with refinery design, We built models of proposed plants to catch the stupid errors that occurred. Catching a few good ones that cost a few hundred dollars to catch and saved a few million in the field paid for the model, Some as big as a basket ball court.

The Westinghouse failure where expensive prefabbed parts did not fit together because somebody screwed up basic dimensions is the sort of thing that should not happen. But did. So it is not like there has been a well engineered design with all the bugs worked out ready to go. And one hopes the basic engineering team did not make the same sort of errors the construction design team made.

Such issues occur in every industry. They are less common in safety conscious industries like aviation and nuclear power; But they always happen. In such industries, there are good systems in place to catch them before they cause accidents. Literally EVERY other way of making electricity has the same problem, but on a bigger scale than in the nuclear industry - just as every other part of the transport sector has a bigger problem than commercial aviation.

At this point the only safe and realistic way is to start again. From scratch.

You must be out of your fucking mind. When it comes to 'safe', the current way of doing things (Gen III and III+) has NEVER failed. It's hard to see how you could get a better result than that, no matter what you do; And you certainly can't get better than that by starting from scratch. Even the old Gen I and II designs have a safety record that should be the envy of every industry on the planet.

And maybe they should go back to the old ways. Build a model first. The company I worked for for 35 years long ago did do nuclear plants. Stupid errors got caught quickly.

No company is going to spend billions on a plant until they are assured that this time, it won't be an expensive screw up. No matter who is supposed to design it and then build it. A lot of expensive CAD systems didn't do the job with Westinghouse.

As long as by 'no company' you mean 'no company other than the ones (including Westinghouse) who are currently building nuclear plants around the world.

You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts; Nuclear power is perfectly financially viable despite operating in a badly skewed marketplace where its competitors get massive subsidies and are allowed to ignore even more massive externalities. Sixty years of intensive lobbying to make the conditions even less equitable are finally starting to bear fruit for the anti-nuke nutters - But that doesn't tell us jack shit about the actual financial viability of the technology.

 

[steve_bank]

While company X might have a design, it does not mean company Y does. Westinghouse is bankrupt, and it is hard to see who else can build lots of plants in the US. Nukes are not something simply you can bang out a design quickly. It is hard to see how any new plants can be designed, and checked for stupids errors quickly.

I worked for decades in a field involved with refinery design, We built models of proposed plants to catch the stupid errors that occurred. Catching a few good ones that cost a few hundred dollars to catch and saved a few million in the field paid for the model, Some as big as a basket ball court.

The Westinghouse failure where expensive prefabbed parts did not fit together because somebody screwed up basic dimensions is the sort of thing that should not happen. But did. So it is not like there has been a well engineered design with all the bugs worked out ready to go. And one hopes the basic engineering team did not make the same sort of errors the construction design team made.

At this point the only safe and realistic way is to start again. From scratch. And maybe they should go back to the old ways. Build a model first. The company I worked for for 35 years long ago did do nuclear plants. Stupid errors got caught quickly.

No company is going to spend billions on a plant until they are assured that this time, it won't be an expensive screw up. No matter who is supposed to design it and then build it. A lot of expensive CAD systems didn't do the job with Westinghouse.

Was poor engineering the problem for Westinghouse> Solid modeling there days does a thorough fit check and tolerancing on mated assemblies. Correct drawings are generated from the solid model. Solid models go directly to CAM. Problems do occur but rarely major.

Sounds like poor management and coordination in engineering and between engineering and manufacturing an age old problem. Sounds like they never made the transition to modern best practices.

Back around 1980 at a company I worked at a mechanical engineer designed a system enclosure that had an inaccessible blind nut. CAD CAM does not entirely eliminate these kinds of errors, but reduces the iterations. The tool is only as good as the designer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Someone who has no problem with Natural Gas pushing Nuclear aside is not an environmentalist.

Unless the definition of 'environmentalist' is 'person who thinks they are helping the environment while actively working to damage it'.

Most so-called environmentalists are actually opposed to anything big. Nuke plants are big.

Nuke plants are minuscule compared to Solar and Wind farms.

Most anti-nuclear activists call themselves 'environmentalists', but are actually somewhere on the scale between NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

They are too busy paving their road with good intentions to notice where it leads.

But "proper" solar and wind are small scale, ideally at the point of use.

 

[bilby]

Nuke plants are minuscule compared to Solar and Wind farms.

Most anti-nuclear activists call themselves 'environmentalists', but are actually somewhere on the scale between NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

They are too busy paving their road with good intentions to notice where it leads.

But "proper" solar and wind are small scale, ideally at the point of use.

Yeah, right.

 

[steve_bank]

Nuke plants are minuscule compared to Solar and Wind farms.

Most anti-nuclear activists call themselves 'environmentalists', but are actually somewhere on the scale between NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

They are too busy paving their road with good intentions to notice where it leads.

But "proper" solar and wind are small scale, ideally at the point of use.

Not true Loren. There is a solar plant in North Africa that will be or is sending power to Europe through cables in the Mediteranean. It is not solar voltaic, it is a solar furnace. I posted a link showing the growth of renewable energy in the USA. India has a program putting solar panels in small villiages and teaching people maintenance. Argentina leases solar systems for farms off the grid.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

While company X might have a design, it does not mean company Y does. Westinghouse is bankrupt, and it is hard to see who else can build lots of plants in the US. Nukes are not something simply you can bang out a design quickly. It is hard to see how any new plants can be designed, and checked for stupids errors quickly.

I worked for decades in a field involved with refinery design, We built models of proposed plants to catch the stupid errors that occurred. Catching a few good ones that cost a few hundred dollars to catch and saved a few million in the field paid for the model, Some as big as a basket ball court.

The Westinghouse failure where expensive prefabbed parts did not fit together because somebody screwed up basic dimensions is the sort of thing that should not happen. But did. So it is not like there has been a well engineered design with all the bugs worked out ready to go. And one hopes the basic engineering team did not make the same sort of errors the construction design team made.

At this point the only safe and realistic way is to start again. From scratch. And maybe they should go back to the old ways. Build a model first. The company I worked for for 35 years long ago did do nuclear plants. Stupid errors got caught quickly.

No company is going to spend billions on a plant until they are assured that this time, it won't be an expensive screw up. No matter who is supposed to design it and then build it. A lot of expensive CAD systems didn't do the job with Westinghouse.

Was poor engineering the problem for Westinghouse> Solid modeling there days does a thorough fit check and tolerancing on mated assemblies. Correct drawings are generated from the solid model. Solid models go directly to CAM. Problems do occur but rarely major.

Sounds like poor management and coordination in engineering and between engineering and manufacturing an age old problem. Sounds like they never made the transition to modern best practices.

Back around 1980 at a company I worked at a mechanical engineer designed a system enclosure that had an inaccessible blind nut. CAD CAM does not entirely eliminate these kinds of errors, but reduces the iterations. The tool is only as good as the designer.

In the case of Westinghouse, it happened. Pieces designed to fit together, didn't. Yeah, it is obvious that somehow, somebody didn't get it right. Sometimes, design team A makes changes design team B didn't get or understand. And there was inadequate QA. CAD/CAM cannot help one here. I have seen it many a time. Usually minor but not always. Team A for good reason redesigns a pipe rack, but team B doesn't get the latest changes so all their piping no longer fits. Nothing like a project gone sour and nobody quite knows why. Management has to make sure all teams are on the same page. When management fails that, bad things happen.

When I am trying to build a model and something just is obviously wrong, it cost them some cheap plastic and time to find out what went wrong. Saves a lot of money if you don't have a quarter million dollars of pipe that doesn't work, in the field.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nuke plants are minuscule compared to Solar and Wind farms.

Most anti-nuclear activists call themselves 'environmentalists', but are actually somewhere on the scale between NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

They are too busy paving their road with good intentions to notice where it leads.

But "proper" solar and wind are small scale, ideally at the point of use.

Yeah, right.

Nuke plants are minuscule compared to Solar and Wind farms.

Most anti-nuclear activists call themselves 'environmentalists', but are actually somewhere on the scale between NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

They are too busy paving their road with good intentions to notice where it leads.

But "proper" solar and wind are small scale, ideally at the point of use.

Not true Loren. There is a solar plant in North Africa that will be or is sending power to Europe through cables in the Mediteranean. It is not solar voltaic, it is a solar furnace. I posted a link showing the growth of renewable energy in the USA. India has a program putting solar panels in small villiages and teaching people maintenance. Argentina leases solar systems for farms off the grid.

Apparently both of you failed to note the quotes around "proper".

I'm not saying real solar is small scale. I'm saying the "green" idea of solar is.

 

[lpetrich]

Australia On Track To Eclipse Solar Records In 2018 After 1.3 Gigawatt 2017 | CleanTechnica

The Australian renewable energy story is really a tale of two cities — a Federal Government seemingly preternaturally opposed to anything that might threaten its coal interests, against huge State-level and commercial interest in renewable energy sources, primarily of the solar PV variety. As the Australian PV Institute (APVI) explains, Australia can currently boast the highest per-capita number of solar PV installations in the world, with 20% of households home to one of the 1.8 million solar PV systems — of which 160,000 were added in 2017 alone.

Impressive.

Home Energy Storage System Installations Hit Record High In US | CleanTechnica

US home energy storage systems installations hit a record high in the first quarter of 2018. 36 megawatt-hours of grid-connected home energy storage systems were installed during this period, which was the same amount for the first three quarters of the year. Nearly three quarters of the Q1 installations were in California and Hawaii.

So storage is starting to catch up there also.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/hanford-workers-nuclear-radiation

Here’s What Happened When The Government Lost Control Of The Biggest Nuclear Cleanup In The US

“This is 2018. We shouldn't still be contaminating people with plutonium,” said a worker at the Hanford site in eastern Washington.
...
But this was Hanford’s third contamination event of 2017. The last time, in June, his results were negative, but 31 of his coworkers weren’t as lucky. So every time a strong wind swept through the site, he’d worry about tiny particles that might be lodged in his lungs, or bouncing around the truck he drove home to his wife and kids. After these repeated scares, he and others — including two senators — contend that CH2M Hill and its overseer, the Department of Energy, have failed to protect workers from this dire threat and could be putting the public at risk.
....
Since the Cold War ended and tear-down efforts began, the federal government has spent more than $100 billion cleaning up dozens of former nuclear sites around the country. The effort has made hundreds and possibly thousands of workers sick. And it’s not close to over: The Department of Energy estimates it will take at least 50 more years, and cost another $107 billion, to make Hanford safe.
------

Ermmmmm......

 

[lpetrich]

Clean Energy Revolution Is Market Driven | CleanTechnica at least in the US.

A Solar Power & Energy Storage Revolution Is Upon Us | CleanTechnica -- because solar panels and batteries for homes are getting cheap enough to compete with utility-supplied electricity.

 

[bilby]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/hanford-workers-nuclear-radiation

Here’s What Happened When The Government Lost Control Of The Biggest Nuclear Cleanup In The US

“This is 2018. We shouldn't still be contaminating people with plutonium,” said a worker at the Hanford site in eastern Washington.
...
But this was Hanford’s third contamination event of 2017. The last time, in June, his results were negative, but 31 of his coworkers weren’t as lucky. So every time a strong wind swept through the site, he’d worry about tiny particles that might be lodged in his lungs, or bouncing around the truck he drove home to his wife and kids. After these repeated scares, he and others — including two senators — contend that CH2M Hill and its overseer, the Department of Energy, have failed to protect workers from this dire threat and could be putting the public at risk.
....
Since the Cold War ended and tear-down efforts began, the federal government has spent more than $100 billion cleaning up dozens of former nuclear sites around the country. The effort has made hundreds and possibly thousands of workers sick. And it’s not close to over: The Department of Energy estimates it will take at least 50 more years, and cost another $107 billion, to make Hanford safe.
------

Ermmmmm......

BOMBS are not POWER PLANTS

Seriously. If you said you thought motor racing was fun, but every time you tried to discuss it, some nutter jumped into the discussion with post after post about the horrific effects of gasoline powered flame-throwers, with the claim that therefore all gasoline related activities were evil and unconscionable, you would get pretty fed up with it.

Your post has exactly the same relationship to a discussion of power generation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The stupid shit done by the military during the cold war, in their rush to develop horrific weapons, is awful; And a hugely expensive cleanup will be needed.

That fact is as good (and as relevant) an argument against growing bananas, as it is against nuclear power plants.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Who said it had anything to do with nuclear power plants?

Now for something about Uranium, not Plutonium.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18852/uranium-mines-and-mills-reca-act

[h=5]Features » February 15, 2016[/h] [h=1]Uranium Mine and Mill Workers are Dying, and Nobody Will Take Responsibility[/h] In the Southwest, poisoned uranium workers are still seeking justice

---

This has been going on for years here.

 

[bilby]

Who said it had anything to do with nuclear power plants?

This thread is about Renewable Energy.

Nuclear power is just about on-topic, as it arguably counts as renewable, and even if not it forms an important part of the wider landscape into which renewable energy must fit.

Discussion of the cleanup of military facilities that have nothing to do with energy generation is wildly off topic - if you want to talk about such facilities, or about the uranium mines that supplied them, please feel free to start a new thread.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

OK then.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rise-of-wind-power-in-texas/

...
Wind generation accounted for nearly 23 percent of power generation for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the first quarter of 2017, the Lone Star State grid operator said this week.
...

ERCOT’s installed wind capacity has nearly doubled since 2010, leaping from 9,400 megawatts seven years ago to 18,589 MW today. In 2015, wind surpassed nuclear to become the grid operator’s third-largest power source.
And ERCOT’s installed capacity could surpass 28,000 MW by next year if all the projects with interconnection agreements with the grid operator are built.
....
He pointed to a study by the Brattle Group, which predicted coal would fall from 34 percent of Texas power generation in 2013 to 6 percent in 2035.
....

We here in Texas are whipping it on 'em as far as renewables go. Goodbye coal!

 

[steve_bank]

I don't know why bilby is always shouting. He seems to ignore that globally and in the USA the consensus is alternative energy first. Except for Trump and the EPA head. TheEPA is reducing ground water contamination oversight for coal stations waste ponds.

There is a table of yearly growth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States


Renewable energy contribution to the United States total primary energy consumption in 2016 by source. Renewable energy was 12.2% of the total energy, or 10.22 Q BTU[1]

Biofuel (22.4%)
Other biomass (24.4%)
Hydro (24.4%)
Wind (20.8%)
Solar (5.8%)
Geothermal (2.2%)
Renewable electricity sources share in 2016. Total renewable electricity generation was 609.44 TWh[2]

Biomass (10%)
Hydro (44%)
Wind (37%)
Solar (6%)
Geothermal (3%)

The Shepherds Flat Wind Farm is an 845 megawatt (MW) wind farm in the state of Oregon

Solar arrays at the 550 MW Desert Sunlight Solar Farm
Part of a series on
Renewable energy
Biofuel Biomass Biogas Geothermal Hydropower Solar energy Tidal power Wave power Wind power
Topics by country 100% renewable energy Marketing and policy trends
vte
Renewable energy accounted for 12.2 % of total primary energy consumption[3] and 14.94 % of the domestically produced electricity in the United States in 2016.[2] Hydroelectric power is currently the largest producer of renewable electricity in the country, generating around 6.5% of the nation's total electricity in 2016 as well as 45.71% of the total renewable electricity generation.[2] The United States is the fourth largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world after China, Canada and Brazil. The Grand Coulee Dam is the 5th largest hydroelectric power station in the world.

The next largest share of renewable power was provided by wind power at 5.55% of total power production, amounting to 226.5 terawatt-hours during 2016.[2] By January 2017, the United States nameplate generating capacity for wind power was 82,183 megawatts (MW).[4] Texas remained firmly established as the leader in wind power deployment, followed by Iowa and Oklahoma as of year end 2016.[5]

Solar power provides a growing share of electricity in the country, with over 50 GW of installed capacity generating about 1.3% of the country's total electricity supply in 2017, up from 0.9% the previous year. As of 2016, more than 260,000 people worked in the solar industry and 43 states deployed net metering, where energy utilities bought back excess power generated by solar arrays.[6][7] Large photovoltaic power plants in the United States include Solar Star (579 MW), near Rosamond, California, the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, a 550 MW solar power plant in Riverside County, California[8] and the Topaz Solar Farm, a 550 MW photovoltaic power plant, in San Luis Obispo County, California.[9] Since the United States pioneered solar thermal power technology in the 1980s with Solar One, several more such power stations have been built. The largest of these solar thermal power stations are the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility (392 MW), southwest of Las Vegas, and the SEGS group of plants in the Mojave Desert, with a total generating capacity of 354 MW.[10]

Other renewable energy sources include geothermal, with The Geysers in Northern California the largest geothermal complex in the world.

The development of renewable energy and energy efficiency marked "a new era of energy exploration" in the United States, according to the former President Barack Obama.[11] In a joint address to the Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama called for doubling renewable energy within the following three years.[12] Renewable energy reached a major milestone in the first quarter of 2011, when it contributed 11.7 % of total national energy production (2.245 quadrillion BTU of energy), surpassing energy production from nuclear power (2.125 quadrillion BTU)[13] for the first time since 1997.[14] In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama restated his commitment to renewable energy and mentioned the long-standing Interior Department commitment to permit 10,000 MW of renewable energy projects on public land in 2012.[15]

By state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations

 

[steve_bank]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/hanford-workers-nuclear-radiation

Here’s What Happened When The Government Lost Control Of The Biggest Nuclear Cleanup In The US

“This is 2018. We shouldn't still be contaminating people with plutonium,” said a worker at the Hanford site in eastern Washington.
...
But this was Hanford’s third contamination event of 2017. The last time, in June, his results were negative, but 31 of his coworkers weren’t as lucky. So every time a strong wind swept through the site, he’d worry about tiny particles that might be lodged in his lungs, or bouncing around the truck he drove home to his wife and kids. After these repeated scares, he and others — including two senators — contend that CH2M Hill and its overseer, the Department of Energy, have failed to protect workers from this dire threat and could be putting the public at risk.
....
Since the Cold War ended and tear-down efforts began, the federal government has spent more than $100 billion cleaning up dozens of former nuclear sites around the country. The effort has made hundreds and possibly thousands of workers sick. And it’s not close to over: The Department of Energy estimates it will take at least 50 more years, and cost another $107 billion, to make Hanford safe.
------

Ermmmmm......

In Wa Hanford cleanup is big business for contractors. It is not just nuclear. In the 90s I lived in North Idaho called the Silver Valley for its silver mines. The area is a superfund site. People told me as kids they learned not to swim in streams because of caustic contamination. In the town of Kellogg the entire top soil layer was removed and put in a berm next to the highway. Contamination from a smelter. The Bunker Hill Mine. I was there when they blew up the smokestack. It is like that all over the area.

Lake Coeur d'Alene is beautiful and perfectly clear, locked up in the mud is contamination. Point being overall nuclear contamination nationally may not have the worse effect on health.



https://www.newsweek.com/2016/06/24/bunker-hill-superfund-silver-valley-lead-poisoning-469222.html

 

[fromderinside]

Back in the day we used to travel from Kennewick (Hanford bedroom community) to to day's childhood home in Willow Creek Montana (Huntley's Big Sky and source of Missouri river). On the way are Anaconda and Butte two dead towns caused by pollution associated with mining. Butte used to be called the city at the richest mountain in the world until it became a open cesspool. Slag piles still fill the Butte valley with silver, iron, copper, lead, etc etc etc, residue. Between the two Hanford and Butte exists cleanups totalling 20 billion to date, not to mention Wallace or Coeur d'alene Idaho which are also suffering from mining trauma.

My uncle was going to allow extraction of bauxite from his property in the 70s until it was pencilled out as not really a good investment by the chemical company.

Sure there are many cleanups causing many deaths in US. Love canal comes to mind. Still the magnitude of Hanford dwarfs almost all these mining venues including the coal disasters in Appalachia and the associated nuclear disaster at Oak Ridge Tennessee.

Point here is relative harm and cost. Nuclear dwarfs mining and it's just a twentieth century technology. We could go and look at Chili and Australia and Indonesia and China and Russia and we'd still come out with a calculus where nuclear damage far exceeds all mining damage costs. Not only are the near term costs higher the threat exists for many thousands of years. The problem is not, as bilby suggests that the waste will reach ground. It's that the damage will reach water tables like chemicals are now doing around the world destroying our main source of fresh water needed for life.

Sure temperature is a problem, acidification is a problem, declining oxygen supply is a problem, and overuse of land is a problem,.

We're just shit holes out to kill off everyting else but among those things most dangerous are still radiation waste. Little glass balls of contained radioactivity are nice but so were microtubules which are now seen as a danger to sea life along with saran wrap.

Unforeseen consequences are our boogy man and that's why I fear the nuclear one.

Just think, right now getting rid of computer parts with rare earths is becoming a big concern. Just wait until our demand begins to drive us to extreme extraction methods for getting these rate earths or geographical distribution leads to wars for control of them.

First they took our water and we had to move then they took our air and we had to go underground then ....

 

[bilby]

Back in the day we used to travel from Kennewick (Hanford bedroom community) to to day's childhood home in Willow Creek Montana (Huntley's Big Sky and source of Missouri river). On the way are Anaconda and Butte two dead towns caused by pollution associated with mining. Butte used to be called the city at the richest mountain in the world until it became a open cesspool. Slag piles still fill the Butte valley with silver, iron, copper, lead, etc etc etc, residue. Between the two Hanford and Butte exists cleanups totalling 20 billion to date, not to mention Wallace or Coeur d'alene Idaho which are also suffering from mining trauma.

My uncle was going to allow extraction of bauxite from his property in the 70s until it was pencilled out as not really a good investment by the chemical company.

Sure there are many cleanups causing many deaths in US. Love canal comes to mind. Still the magnitude of Hanford dwarfs almost all these

Oh for fuck's sake; Not only is this untrue, but it is also (as pointed out above) of exactly zero relevance to power generation.

mining venues including the coal disasters in Appalachia and the associated nuclear disaster at Oak Ridge Tennessee.

Point here is relative harm and cost. Nuclear dwarfs mining and it's just a twentieth century technology.

Citation needed.

We could go and look at Chili and Australia and Indonesia and China and Russia and we'd still come out with a calculus where nuclear damage far exceeds all mining damage costs.

I bet you wouldn't - and I bet your claim here is sourced trans-rectally. You have no idea what the actual costs are, nor have you even looked to see what they might be - This is pure assumption on your part, based on your level of fear.

Not only are the near term costs higher the threat exists for many thousands of years.

Nuclear pollution is one of the few forms of pollution that lasts for thousands of years if not cleaned up. By contrast, most non-nuclear contamination lasts FOREVER - so if you have to have one, better it should be nuclear, particularly as the rate at which it gets safer is fastest for the most dangerous components, rendering the 'thousands of years' claim more than a touch hyperbolic. But as long as you only look at half of the equation, you can spin that fact to make nuclear sound really scary - and that's all that matters, right?

The problem is not, as bilby suggests that the waste will reach ground. It's that the damage will reach water tables like chemicals are now doing around the world destroying our main source of fresh water needed for life.

Actually, as bilby points out using actual evidence from real nuclear materials in real geological structures, such as at Oklo, NEITHER is a problem. But franky, you don't care - you BELIEVE and that's enough for you.

Sure temperature is a problem, acidification is a problem, declining oxygen supply is a problem, and overuse of land is a problem,.

We're just shit holes out to kill off everyting else but among those things most dangerous are still radiation waste.

Citation needed.

Little glass balls of contained radioactivity are nice but so were microtubules which are now seen as a danger to sea life along with saran wrap.

Yup; Everything artificial is terrifying

Unforeseen consequences are our boogy man and that's why I fear the nuclear one.

Well, at least you admit that the driving emotion here is fear. Fear is the mind killer.

Just think, right now getting rid of computer parts with rare earths is becoming a big concern. Just wait until our demand begins to drive us to extreme extraction methods for getting these rate earths or geographical distribution leads to wars for control of them.

First they took our water and we had to move then they took our air and we had to go underground then ....

Being terrified and badly misinformed is understandable; But it's not a good basis for policy.

 

[fromderinside]

Yeah. I was lazy. you deserve citations.

As for your final assertion, look at what we have leading the US right now. So I'll agree on it as desirable. I'll leave it to you to figure out a way to get 'er done. I understand your prime minister is a piece of work as well. Just watched an Aussie nuclear physicist present a two parter on U92. Rationally it's a dice role given human nature.

 

[steve_bank]

The nuclear contamination problems stem from nuclear weapons originating in WWII. Hanford, Oak Ridge, Rocky Flats which by the way is down the road fromm Coors in Colorado.

Compared to deaths and health related problems due to industrial contamination nuclear power is in the noise. There were a few gas releases in the past and Three Mile Island.

I am not making a case for nuclear first. The French pioneered galssification, the encasing of waste in glass. Stable and no threat to water supplies.

Coal is the major or one of the worse environmental polluters. From mining to solid waste at power stations and air pollution. Compared to coal nuclear is squeaky clean.

I made pit stops at Anaconda when driving.

Coal is cheap powering heavy industry like steel and aluminum. Believe it or not large scale corporate server farms consume a lot of energy. Server farms located in cities can suck up energy driving up rates. Some have moved to rural areas and made deals with utilities. Perhaps a new power heavy industry. Alternative will not keep up with demand growth. Each and every charger for a wireless device, computer, and gadget adds up to significant energy numbers. Computers started causing problems in the 80s.

Back in the 80s people talked about a hydrogen economy, ignoring that it takes energy to create hydrogen. Same with electric cars. Pollution is reflected at the power station.

The demand will keep fossil fuels going for a long time. The only near term solution is putting as much wind and solar power at the local level as is possible.