See: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009......er_N.htm

All in the interests of using only "renewable energy". Once again the Law of Unintended Consequencs" rears its ugly head. Be careful what you wish for,...it might come true.

("I'll call your nuclear power plant and raise you ten forests of renewable energy.")

Won't the same anti nuke greenies now want to raise hell about the slaughter of innocent trees and decimation of homes to the Lilly lipped pink bellied snizzle beetle?

Actually, a lot of environmentalists have begun supporting nuclear power in the last decade or so.

Sure, too bad they murdered nuc energy in the 70's when there was an actual industry. Too little too late earth haters.

You mean a lot of "environmentalists" have begun supporting nuclear power in the last decade or so.

Nuclear is cr*p and unsustainable, MS even your wayward dad should know that by now.

I'm heartened to hear that. Common sense starting to prevail. There may be hope yet.

Couple that with the following news story and public urination may no longer be a crime and, instead, become hearlded as a patriotic and/or environmental duty: http://www.theage.com.au/drive/motor-new......wiy.html ("Waste not, want not", I always say.)

Man! You just can't make this stuff up.





Ha-ha. I see that there are still a few holdouts. (Must not have gotten the word. May even have moved here from Europe where nuclear power has been shown to be safe, plentiful and,...the norm.)

No matter, the holdouts will reluctantly come on board after wood, coal and oil are depleted and/or banned and it is further demonstrated that solar and wind are too inefficient and expensive to take care of all the energy requirements of the planet.

Its amazing how fast someone will turn to (and accept) a perceived unpopular heat source after freezing their a** off for a month or two and/or not being able to have any of the normal creature comforts that require electricity to operate and which make life enjoyable. (Especially when campfires are not permitted because of the "Global Warming" scares.)

This day had to eventually come. Looks like it'll be sooner rather than later.

If my man Landmark is against it then it must be good for the country!

Now here's a hare-raising experience: http://www.thelocal.se/22610.html

Hmmm,... maybe, just maybe we should start buring all cadavers. A good(?) fuel source and we can free up a lot of land used for cemetaries. Nah! It'll never work out--there are a lot more trees than cadavers. And besides, like money, cadavers don't grow on trees.

Egyptian mummies were so numerous in the 19th century that the US imported boatloads of them to be burned as fuel for the steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution.

And your evidence is....

Here's a good place to start.

Indeed it is a good place to start. The critiques don't quite add up to "crap" or "unsustainable", though. That doesn't mean that nuclear should be accepted uncritically, though.

The tradeoffs are much more complex, I'm afraid. Every energy source has its drawbacks, I'm afraid. Coal is plentiful and dirty; wood is low-energy and expensive to regrow. Oil and gas are very efficient, but are finite in quantity and are somewhat dirty. Nuclear has a low carbon footprint, but has a low probability risk of spectacular proportions, and has the problem of disposing spent fuel.

I don't see a simple and obvious course of action.

John

Mass genocide, I think that is the end goal of the environmental movement.

Burning trees releases a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. It also releases fine ash, and can contribute to smog (which is why in CA, you should not burn wood on "Spare-the-air Days".)

Conversely, nuclear power is very clean... but spent fuel rods remain dangerous for centuries. The biggest problem is how to safely store them so they don't contaminate the surrounding environment. There's also a lot of energy being spent by sociologists on the best way to design a radiological hazard sign that can be understood by people regardless of cultural background- so that 500 years from now, after the human race rebuilds from the nuclear winter, people don't dig up a mountain and decide to hand out to their children the neat, glowing rods they discover left behind by their ancestors.

It seems inconceivable to me that the spent fuel rods cannot be safely and permanently stored. As it is, the European countries are storing them above-ground on a temporary(?) basis. Surely all the great scientific minds can come up with a safe way that reasonable people can agree upon. You are never going to satisfy the rabid extreme "environmentalists" on this issue and, at such point, their input will become irrelevnat and they will eventually be shoved aside and ignored.

I would think that something like encapsulating the spent fuel rods into a cube of glass (with the spent fuel rods being encapsulated with a 5' perimeter of glass) that is also then encapulated into a lead cube and that is then encased into concrete a thick concrete sarcophagus and then buried more than a mile underground and then having the shaft sealed--all that should suffice to minimize risks associated with the spent fuel rod material leaking out or being stolen, etc.

When push comes to shove, humanity will know what to do and will do it. It is not going to return to "Stone Age living conditions just to satisfy irrational and hysterical fears. Besides, with such a projected large population, the pollutions caused by wood burning will become just as deadly in their own right as the other environmental concerns that are presently being feared.

Just, IMHO, your mileage may vary.

I used to work at a Nuclear Power Plant. The technology is safe and clean. As far as the spent fuel goes, all the waste generated in this country combined wouldn't even fill a Best Buy store. Filling up mountains? Give me a break. It is handled safely and stored without any danger to anyone. Hippies just use it as an excuse to shut down a great source of power. They associate nuclear power with nuclear weapons because they are totally ignorant.

Since I know a lot about the power industry it gets me going when people (I'm not saying anyone here is doing it) spouts off when they know almost nothing. Read an article on the internet and they are experts!

An aside, a tree gives off carbon dioxide during combustion or when it dies and rots. It's gives off the same amount of carbon, so how is burning it in a wood stove or a power plant "hurting the environment" anymore then it just falling over? And since when is carbon dioxide a pollutant? We all exhale carbon dioxide and plants depend on it? Just to head off anyone saying combustion gives off smoke, modern bag houses and scrubbers eliminate almost all pollutants. What you see coming out of the top of a stack is not smoke. Notice you don't see it on a warm day only when it's cold? It's like seeing your breath on a cold day.

And how come when people don't like something they never spend their time solving problems to make it better, they just scream and stomp their feet saying we're all going to die and try to stop the people who actually do things? Does anyone think that someone working in a power plant says to themselves, "Ha ha ha, I'm killing everyone around here including my own family and children" or could it be possible that people that work in the industry care about other people and themselves just like everyone else does and do everything they can to keep the air clean and the water safe? Of course we do, to say otherwise is insulting. If people are so set against power plants and think they are going to destroy the earth, then they should stop using electricity. It would be hypocritical to say the local plant is killing people and then log on to the internet, wouldn't it?

I better stop, I'm getting myself all worked up, sorry, although I'm right.

Who's plant? My dad did most of the GE ones here in the US and in Japan, Spain, Taiwan, and some other places.

BTU = Bunny Thermal Unit?

Now THAT's funny. Way to go, balducci. Shows great creativity.

Just don't mention this (interesting articles, worth a look):

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/arti......tourists

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/711752

http://www.thestar.com/fplarge/photo/711699

Now I'm not anti-nuclear power by any means.

But even if the technology is 'safe', stuff happens. Accidents. Human error. Programming errors. Failsafe settings that turn out to be just about the worst possible settings when a particular type of unforeseen event occurs.

In this day and age, we also have to consider consequences arising out of a terrorist action.

So let's be honest and admit that there are non-trivial risks associated with nuclear power.