Actually comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima on a basis of a doomsday scenario is pretty weird. Chernobyl was an old style reactor that had people do something with it that was never meant to be done. Mistake was learned and you don't really see anyone messing around with stuff like this anymore.

For good reason and internation oversight is also stricter.

And once more - Considering what hit Fukushima you can only consider it to be an amazing piece of equipment. On top of that the majority of European reactors are in geostable positions. You don;t really risk a tsunami|Earthquake|Typhoon|Other connecting issues. And again the impact of both disasters on the environment is not very high. Essentially people were forced to move out of the area, but beyond that the environment is healthy.

Compare that to virtually any oil spill and the sheer astounding devastation it causes. Or compare it to the absolutely massive environmental impacts damns bring. Hell those have destroyed more communities and environmental niches than every single radition accident in history.

Or maybe you want to use the use of irradiated material outright? Makes sense right, considering the most accidents are caused by medical equipment as opposed to nuclear power. And probably more people have died due to mishandling those.

I admit I've never heard of the issues plaguing french nuclear reactors. But most renewable energy sources are plagued even more. Solar power tends to provide very little during winters, wind has issues on a lot of days, water is in even more danger from floods than anything else (though damn are usually built to help control floods).

Honestly no power soruce has no environmental impact. Some have different impacts. Some have normal pollution (traditional means), some have long lasting irraditated waste, that is relatively easy to store, others take large swathes of lands (solar) more created noise pollution problems (wind) and others completely reshape the ecosystem and environments - water.

We don't care about failure count, we care about failure density & severity. Outside of Japan, the Fukushima reactor won't produce any meaningful radioactive effects. Honestly, there's as much reason to worry about the floating debris that's completely unrelated to the reactor, as there is to worry about the reactor's leakage. The air-dispersal is complete, and the ocean dispersal is going to be so dispersed that it won't matter. The only radioactive effects that anyone will have genuine reason to worry about are purely local ones.

No, that's not a plant failure. An engineering failure? Sure, but a plant failure would require non-safe operation within the plant. I've gotten the impression that you're somehow involved in aviation engineering, but I'm not impressed with your critical thinking skills, this water complaint is quibbling over nonsense.


What are you expecting from nuclear, perfection? Doesn't exist. All you can do is get close enough that flaws don't matter. Right now, the best non-greenhouse reliable energy source is nuclear.

Wind isn't usable everywhere with current equipment (and might not be with upcoming equipment) and isn't stable anyways. Solar only covers the high-load portion of the day, and thus is restricted to a supplemental role (though it is very good there). Hydroelectric is highly geographical in distribution, and traditional forms pose alternative environmental challenges. Biogas & similar are supplemental, due to an inherently greater demand than supply. All other production-ready bio-fuels are low-quality. Geothermal has reliable disaster problems (injection geothermal turns out to reliably produce earthquakes, though fortunately they've been minor so far), and thus extra-strong NIMBY issues.

Out of all the "green" energy sources, nuclear is the only one which is:
1) capable of producing reliable output with current equipment,
2) capable of being built anywhere with current equipment,
3) capable of producing required output magnitudes with current equipment.

The only current replacements for nuclear power here on Earth are conventional fuel-based CO2 emitters. Nothing else has the combination of total output, reliable (a.k.a. 24-hour reliability) output, and variety of building sites. There's CO2 emitters & there's nuclear, everything else is still in R&D.


Personally, I'm holding out for the Polywell, but you really need to improve your anti-nuclear arguments.

Are you implying that I think Obama was right? I don't. I don't necessarily agree with the Mercedes version either though, IIRC a Frenchman made a car-like vehicle a century before Mercedes, though I could be wrong about that and it would probably depend on what your definition was.

My point was that your point was irrelevant to the actual discussion.

ALL OF THEM! Our banhammers will blot out the sun!

Then we will troll in the shade.

None. The radioactive waste we have today will only increase because at one point even re-used "fuel" will need to go in stockpile. Further more, there's all those spent naval propulsion reactors from countries like France, Great Britain, Russia, and the USA lying around. However low-waste those may be considered.



Plenty of space in some countries, yes. Not so much in for instance crowded Europe or beehive Asia. At least not in those countries operating nuclear reactors. But of course, if its outside your own borders, no problem.

Our solar energy provided enough to save the french´s sorry little nuclear asses this winter. Aren´t you reading the links i provide?




It is highly relevant. Because if they were just some inefficient old plants everybody would belittle our decision. But we abandoned Top-Notch Technology most others could not even afford/develope TODAY.




Jaja. I don´t care anymore about that well-known yadayada. Sorry.

Because: As i stated before, we Germans are ACTUALLY DEMONSTRATING that renewables not only WORK, but even AMORTIZE. And this is only the beginning.
I´m relaxed, because of this i don´t have to argue anymore.

You´re very welcome to enjoy the show. All of you.

Yes so successful it requires the highest levels of government subsidy for any industry the world has ever seen:-

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-1 ... e-war.html

and regulations preventing the development of other sources of energy and things like this:-

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/p ... 05620.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/0 ... CI20120404

Wild variations in output an unstable supply and the most expensive energy in the world, that's quite an achivement alright.

Yeah, i´ve read this rubbish, and had a good laugh.


I repeat: Relax. You´re very welcome to enjoy the show.

You seem to forget Germany is one of the most expensive countries in the world too.

An important point that I think has been lost in the shuffle. I can only speak definitively for myself but I suspect that the rest of the pro-nuke people agree.

I'm not against renewables. I don't think Germany is wrong to drop nukes. I think they are hasty, I think they are doing it for the wrong reasons (fear and overreaction Fukushima), but I don't think it's BAD. In fact I applaud the success with renewables and hope that they can indeed meet their needs from their renewable investments.

The key point that I have is not that renewables are BAD, nor that nukes are the only good choice. The first one is laughable and the second isn't really correct. The key point is that renewables are not enough. The only reliable renewables that I'm aware of are hydro and geothermal, both of which have their own significant issues. The point is that there must be something to back up the renewables, and the best choice for that is nuclear, particularly with new designs that eliminate most of the flaws of the old designs and future designs that will clear up the remainder of the flaws and reverse the isseus with the older designs.

No, it´s not that. It´s our industry. Fuckupshima was their opportunity to kick off BIG business in that new direction. And of course to cash in subsidies for big-scale projects like off-shore windparks, new powerlines and research.

But i´m fine with that, some of those projects had to be done anyway, and the funny thing is that the biggest chunk of progress will come from the small scale/private sector. Even despite the fact that they cut all small-scale private subsidies - it doesn´t matter anymore, solar panels and wind-generators became so efficient that they amortize anyway.

And of course i hate nukes, because in their todays form they´re crap.
That´s what i say as an engineer.
Furthermore it´s a mad industry, and it´s one ugly manifestation of the military-industrial complex.



No. Today it is not necessary to think about that, because there´s still plenty of diversification (and at least here in Germany an incredibly huge cold reserve, a relict from the cold war), and tomorrow there will be huge international powergrids and energy-storage in industrial scales.


No.

But:
Let´s say something new comes up; maybe a new technology that requires sh*tloads of energy on the spot, more than the grid can serve, and oil or coal isn´t the weapon of choice - then i as an engineer would opt for LFTRs today.

Why?
First of all: Thorium decay chain. (Only) 360 years, and nearly everything harmful is gone. Gone - not half-life. No "Endlager" necessary. No comparison to those 300.000+ years for plutonium.

Second: Not less important: No fuel rod industry, because it´s online-processing. No fuel rods - no waste - no incompetence - no castor-transports - no SFPs - less mistakes. Makes it less complex and much safer overall.

Third: No pressure. They only need a small amount of technical pressure to prevent moisture sneaking in.

And fourth: They´re hot. In the sense of the carnot cycle. Which means efficency. Today´s nuclear immersion heaters run at only 270°, which means 33% efficiency, a pretty standard LFTR would make 580°, and there are plans for 800°. The latter would mean at least 70% efficiency.

And a thousand other technical details.

But more PWRs or BWRs? Or more RBMKs? Hell, no, thanks.


(Edit: Sadly LFTRs have no chance. Because they´re not dual use, and they would be a smart solution - and we all know that politicians never choose those.)

Well the same thing will happen with fuel.


Also werent there studie about liquid thorium that could be used as radioactive fuel? or is that still science-fiction fantasy?

See above. Not liqiud thorium, but rather LFTR.



SF? No. They already made it work long time ago.

Unless i am mistaken those thorium reactors with no chance are already being built. Theyre just keeping mumm on them being radioactive.

Also as far as Germany goes, a lot of people I know believe that in five or so years once the panic goes down, they'll restart the renewal talks.

Forget that panic-thing. We Germans ain´t no whiny sissies, that´s wishful thinking by the international right-wing yellowpress.
For the people, it´s rationality, for the industry it is happy anticipation for big business. And the latter is the cause why there won´t be a rollback.

There are 2 things which drive nuclear power.
First, running the plants is surprisingly cheap, cheaper than coal, gas, or oil plants.
This leads to excellent profit margins and that means the guy who builds it gets lots of money from it over it's long lifespan.

Secondly, it is not only large but it can supply huge quantities of electricity in a small self contained 'block'

Both these things make the real rich guys see it as a money spinner, because they can easily afford the setup costs, particually when they set it up so the government pays for half (they just offer to pay for half and ask for funding for the rest, one of the easiest ways to make your money go further, and of course boosts your profitability).

And i've read about the LFTR, and honestly I am not convinced.
It is a technology that works yes, but I fear scalability will be far less in reality than in theory, leading to problems if they actually do go for that 800oC
Anything that relies upon convection is less scalable than something that uses forced flow.
And relying on forced flow means when the pump breaks down, either stuff gets bad or you have to send someone in to fix it.

Finally: Governments like Nuclear for the same reasons the rich do, small footprint, massive output and minor public outcry after they run well for 30 odd years.

However they are an elected body of representatives, and seek favour from the public, the moment they hear a whiff of a problem they immediately take a defensive stance 'NO MORE NUCLEAR!' when they hear of some kind of nuclear mishap for instance.

On a side note, I wanted to mention that no person i've ever spoken to who installed renewable energy actually had complaints about the systems or how well they actually work... Maybe there is something going for it after all?
Or maybe only greenies actually install them .

As a general rule of thumb, you can divide the folks who install them into two camps:
1) Those who will also be drawing from the grid, and thus won't notice when their alternative system's production drops, and
2) Those who aren't drawing from the grid, and thus are fully aware that they're getting much more than they otherwise would.

As a result, you won't see a lot of whining. Whining basically depends on someone both not having realistic expectations, AND not being on a system that spoils them (or on running into a con artist who's sly enough that they don't realize that they've been cheated...).

As for me, if I actually owned a house (especially one with a lawn sloping to the south) then I would certainly add a solar water pre-heater system... but I would also stay on the grid .

On the whiny sissy bit... I lived with a Prussian princess in undergrad and there was this one time where the chain attached to the toilet plunger came undone... and he was all effeminate and panicky about getting his hands dirty to fix it. I always had to do the man things. That and he would never stop about his aristocratic heritage.... sad thing is he's trying to immigrate to the States I believe he's busy frolicking as we speak...

Just saying that there exists a subset of the Germanic populace which Trantor's overlooking

Well, there´s no nobility anymore over here. By law. Abolished 1919.
Who knows what weirdo that was. Glad he´s leaving Germany.

Reminds me of the crank New Yorker with a frog hat claiming Jewish roots and announcing for the whole youth hostel in West-Jerusalem he's going to do "Aliyah" (becoming a Israeli citizen).

I can see nuclear standards going up, or a replacement found.

If they with a more "green" aproch to power, I wonder how they would get past those limitations?

Windmill power requires areas that get lots of wind, and to have these things dot the landscape.

Solar panels work best in sunny areas, such as deserts, but the process of producing them is no more green then any other industry.

Food production I can see go a few ways.

1. They make it so it's hanging such or attached to walls (this is done in labs, and they sell something like this so people can grow peppers and tomatoes without needing lots of space). Put the nutritiants needed for the plants into their water, and recycle as much of the water as you can.

2. More vegetable/plant base. In order for the current population of Earth to go through meat like America does, it would need to have about 4 or 5 earths just for producing, housing, and feeding said animals. I doubt that most of the planets colonized would be suitable for such.

I'm not saying we'll get rid of meat, but we'll find something else, maybe more artificially produced in a lab.

Others would be some of the alternatives. Wheat's versatility allows it to be tweaked so it can taste and feel like chicken, and with the right flavoring can be used as well (currently begin used to give vegans and vegetarians something other then tofu to eat).

That or we find a replacement for the cow and start breeding that en mass.

3. Food might be more diversified. As it is, we only use a handful of each kind of food (carrot, tomato, cabbage, lettuce and so force for example) and mediate the rest to relics found in organic food stores, or maybe in someone's backyard. However, this leaves the food industry wide open for something to hit them like the Potato Famine hit Ireland back in the 1800s (think it's in that century). Add all the other crap that gets put into food or shoved in our faces, it makes you wonder why much of the first world hasn't keeled over from clogged arteries and diabetes (no offence to anyone going through this, it sucks for me too).

But what they produce is alot more green then say what a coal/oil/fission/gas power plant produces, taking waste into account.

geo: that's just it, except the detail that fourth generation fission plants have a much smaller environmental footprint compared to just about anything we got today, and as mentioned the production of solar panels is not exactly 'clean', or even close to be honest, better than coal or oil sure but still not clean.

my idea right now is huge arcology, fourth gen nuke plant in the basement and use waste heat to warm the building up, classic combined cycle just bypassing power production and just use the waste heat straight off the bat.

but yes, long life solar panels are good supplemental power generation to lighten the load on the power grid(and automatic load balance since peak power usage is usually during the day), but it can't cover even half of the total load or even a quarter in an urban setting.

another detail that could probably help a lot would be huge capacitors doing exactly what they usually do in electronics, clean up the electricity so you loose the squiggles on the power lines and create buffers so a little power outage will not crash everything, might even manage a couple of minutes but that is being optimistic, unless you do a VERY distributed system, hmm... ridiculous distributed system(backup power unit in each home) with two way load balancing could work nicely, would be interesting to see a study on it.

I'm not of the opinion that "nuclear waste" and "much smaller environmental footprint" are synonym.