"We conclude that the notion that electric cars will reduce emissions is a fiction."

[thebigarniedog]

We struggle to read "Beowulf". That's English that is only 1000 years old.

Imagine trying to create "do not open" instructions for Yucca Mountain that can be read in 1,000 years, let alone the ludicrous 1,000,000 year timeline.

The alternative of leaving it scattered around the Country is less promising .......... Hmm, one secure storage site, deep within a mountain, versus hundreds. Sounds like an easy call to make ...... so why can't our leaders ---- forgot, we have a bunch of weak knee politicians ....

Beowulf, the English and the Americans ...... Two Countries separated by a common language .....

 

[UFO]

The alternative of leaving it scattered around the Country is less promising .......... Hmm, one secure storage site, deep within a mountain, versus hundreds. Sounds like an easy call to make ...... so why can't our leaders ---- forgot, we have a bunch of weak knee politicians ....

Yucca Mountain will allow the stuff to leak into the water table....salt domes are far more safe. Nevada site was chosen on political criteria and not on a scientific basis.

 

[Ski in NC]

The isotopes in the depleted fuel decay constantly over time. After 50 years go by, the radioactivity is a tiny fraction of when first out of the pot. In a thousand years you could probably sleep next to it.

There are risks in life. People get killed by malaria, smoking, drowning, etc, etc by the millions each year.

If someone wants to dig down 1000 feet into a salt dome or a mountain and get killed by radiation, then I'm not sure we should cripple an industry to prevent that. A rock would probably fall down the hole, hit him on the head and kill him that way first.

 

[BadMonKey]

Yucca Mountain meets many criteria such as lack of local population and very low precipitation, but geologically it is not very stable.

Perfect if your not in the route to get the stuff to the mountain.

I believe someone else mentioned that if they don't understand how to deal with the waste then i will vote no on nuclear energy. Does not really matter as the grid is where the inefficiency is and building new power plants is not necessary connection the existing ones is! There is no shortage of power plants in the US and the newer DC lines are far more efficient then most the existing AC lines. Your regional power authority wont tell you that as they cant control their rates if they connect to surrounding grids.

Unless you will let them put a plant in your backyard and the waste how could you ever vote yes? Its not even really needed at this time as they are putting the cart before the horse.

 

[BadMonKey]

The article says "The researchers calculated that of the energy burned in a power station, only a quarter reaches an electric car after leakages and losses along the supply chain are considered, giving the vehicle an energy efficiency score of 24%. ...A modern diesel engine, by contrast, achieves 45% efficiency."

Is that right? Are our TDIs 45% efficient?

Aside from that... nationally, in the U.S., only about 52% of our electricity comes from coal. It might be different in Britain. The future is electric drive. Fossil fuels... go away. What is the "efficiency" of a wind farm?

You cant even really calculate these numbers, its just a bunch of numbers someone put together to favor their point.

How much energy went into extracting and refining diesel? How much energy was lost in the process? The political costs for obtaining the source of that fuel? The list for both could go on and on and on......

Is it cost effective? At the end of the day this is all that matters in this world!

 

[Joe_Meehan]

For the half life of the storage material perhaps, but Yucca mountain is as good as it gets though .....

Sad to say, that is about it.

 

[MrMopar]

Not exactly perfect. What happens in 100 years when the containers start braking down (they really don't know how long it will take)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

Even in the worst case scenarios as have occurred in nature, waste from fission reactions that were exposed to the water table have been held in place with natural geographic features.

The current plan that the US has needs to be refined quite a bit, but it is easily safe. If we're not going to reprocess the waste, it needs to be store somewhere that we can retrieve it if we want to, but somewhere far out of the way in real-estate that future humans will find to be of no interest. Somewhere with no usable mineral deposits, and somewhere inhospitable to easy living.

Serious plan: the US needs to reprocess spent fuel to recover plutonium and uranium for further use in reactors, and the waste needs to be sealed in drums made from materials that don't corrode (titanium). These drums are then sealed inside a layer of bentonite clay, and are placed at the bottom of deep boreholes that are drilled into subduction zones in the earth. The natural movement of plate tectonics will draw the waste deep into the core of the earth, never again to be seen by humans.

 

[ikendu]

These drums are then sealed inside a layer of bentonite clay, and are placed at the bottom of deep boreholes that are drilled into subduction zones in the earth. The natural movement of plate tectonics will draw the waste deep into the core of the earth, never again to be seen by humans.

Bore holes in subduction zones sounds like a good idea that may not be so easy to implement.

 

[Joe_Meehan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor Serious plan: the US needs to reprocess spent fuel to recover plutonium and uranium for further use in reactors, and the waste needs to be sealed in drums made from materials that don't corrode (titanium). These drums are then sealed inside a layer of bentonite clay, and are placed at the bottom of deep boreholes that are drilled into subduction zones in the earth. The natural movement of plate tectonics will draw the waste deep into the core of the earth, never again to be seen by humans.

The problem is, the industry is not doing it, not every putting real effort into developing the technology to do it.

I can not support nuclear power unless it is priced to pay for all the immediate cost and full life cycle cost, including handling safe permanent decommissioning of the plants and disposal of the wast products. To date we have not fully decommissions any plant. They get shut down some work done, but they have a full time crew watching it and keeping it under repair, which in time will be come more expensive. No power is being generated so we are making nothing more than money pits with the possibility of more serious problems.

No new plants until they have totally cleaned up all plants not currently on line.

 

[Lug_Nut]

And yet we have no problem in supporting a policy of fossil fuel power that does not address the full life cycle costs (political issues related to extraction, as well as post use sequestration of the waste CO2).
There are no easy answers to any of our consumption problems we have created. But pushing the problems off for a generation or two so that we can slack-off today is NOT a moral response.

 

[MrMopar]

The problem is, the industry is not doing it, not every putting real effort into developing the technology to do it.

It is not the industry's responsibility to deal with the waste - the waste belongs to the US government.

The US Department of Energy took over planning for waste disposal at the request of the energy generating companies. Every power bill that you pay (if you get power from any nuclear, and maybe even if you don't) you pay a tiny little tax to the US government, and in exchange for that tax paid the waste then belongs to the US government for proper disposal.

Blame the US government about the waste disposal, not the energy companies.

 

[aja8888]

It is not the industry's responsibility to deal with the waste - the waste belongs to the US government.

The US Department of Energy took over planning for waste disposal at the request of the energy generating companies. Every power bill that you pay (if you get power from any nuclear, and maybe even if you don't) you pay a tiny little tax to the US government, and in exchange for that tax paid the waste then belongs to the US government for proper disposal.

Blame the US government about the waste disposal, not the energy companies.

The above is very true. We are paying for that service. If it's not being done, what the heck is the government doing with the (our) money?

 

[UFO]

It is not the industry's responsibility to deal with the waste - the waste belongs to the US government.

The US Department of Energy took over planning for waste disposal at the request of the energy generating companies. Every power bill that you pay (if you get power from any nuclear, and maybe even if you don't) you pay a tiny little tax to the US government, and in exchange for that tax paid the waste then belongs to the US government for proper disposal.

Blame the US government about the waste disposal, not the energy companies.

You can't separate the two. The industry lobbies the government to make the rules that benefits the industry. So industry makes the money on the energy and the taxpayer cleans up the mess. It's "messed" up and needs fixing before the energy becomes viable, let alone feasible.

 

[aja8888]

What is France doing with their nuclear waste from the over 20 plants they have online?

 

[TurbinePower]

What is France doing with their nuclear waste from the over 20 plants they have online?

If I remember correctly... some of it's coming to us. The rest they're doing the same things we are, sitting on it.

They were doing a lot of experimentation with breeder reactors that would produce the fuel needed by the next reactor down the line, which made the fuel for the next one, and so on and so forth.

Dunno where the progress on that is, though.

 

[MrMopar]

What is France doing with their nuclear waste from the over 20 plants they have online?

Re-processing the fuel to make the waste volume about 4% of what the total spent fuel volume is. Then, they're storing that temporarily until permanent disposal is developed. And, yes, temporarily can be several decades or a century in the time-frame of nuclear energy.

 

[nicklockard]

Also, we have virtually no shade trees too!

Well, there's your problem, obviously.

Well placed shade trees would cut down on your electric cooling bills SUBSTANTIALLY. No, HUGELY.

Hello?

 

[MrMopar]

You can't separate the two. The industry lobbies the government to make the rules that benefits the industry. So industry makes the money on the energy and the taxpayer cleans up the mess. It's "messed" up and needs fixing before the energy becomes viable, let alone feasible.

Yes, you can separate the two, and that is what has been appropriately done.

The power industry is (mostly) private generating companies. They have pointed out that they might go bankrupt, or otherwise go out of business in the future, and that would leave orphaned waste products. That, and they've pointed out that no matter what private waste disposal they design and attempt, there will be enviro-whackos who will complain and file lawsuits to stop it, and they'll be stuck holding the bag.

The proper response was for the government to assume responsibility of the waste. Do this, and the government can do the long range planning that the private companies cannot do. The government has far larger resources to do the job right, and at last resort they can tell the enviro-whackos to shut the frak up via exempting the government from their lawsuits.

 

[UFO]

^ I disagree. No amount of mis-characterization can change the facts.

 

[TurbinePower]

No amount of mis-characterization can change the facts.

You do have this right. What qualifies as mis-characterization depends wholly on your perspective, however.

 

[UFO]

You do have this right. What qualifies as mis-characterization depends wholly on your perspective, however.

MrMopar has quite a bit right, and is a good model for moving forward. It just happens to not be a present reality.

 

[aja8888]

Well, there's your problem, obviously.

Well placed shade trees would cut down on your electric cooling bills SUBSTANTIALLY. No, HUGELY.

Hello?

Looks like I'll have to run out and get some 40' shade trees and plant them around the house. They better like real hot weather, though. And sometimes months without rain, too. Thanks for the idea Nick!

Now, if we only had some hills..........

 

[MrMopar]

MrMopar has quite a bit right, and is a good model for moving forward. It just happens to not be a present reality.

And the only reason it's not a present reality is that we had 25+ years of waste disposal preparation swept aside by the winds of some political change. Next election, things will switch right back and maybe we can not throw away our billions of dollars of development that were trashed simply because some Senate Majority Leader (who's going to be tossed on his tuchus this Nov) whined about stuff being put in his backyard.

 

[nicklockard]

Looks like I'll have to run out and get some 40' shade trees and plant them around the house. They better like real hot weather, though. And sometimes months without rain, too. Thanks for the idea Nick!
Now, if we only had some hills..........

Tony, come on. You complained about something which you have a lot of control over. Ever heard of buying potted immature trees? Ever heard of underground watering? You could have planted some juvenile trees when you moved there? I'm sure there are plenty of heat tolerant trees you could transplant into your soil type and feed a trickle of water directly to the root ball (and/or use a yard cistern to capture rainwater to help offset watering costs). It just seem like you could do something about that pretty easily...even if it won't benefit you, it should raise the value of your home for whenever/if you decide to sell. I'm sure that would be a nice selling point. Who doesn't like lower cooling bills? Talk to your city's horticulturist. They're thrilled to field these questions and full of good info.

I mean no disrespect. I just think it does little good to complain about something you have a large degree of control over Best luck.

 

[RiceEater]

France fuel is recycled so the amount of waste is much smaller than ours. The US chose to not recycle and politically define reclaimable fuel as "waste."

Our current practice really shows how safe the waste is. The waste sits in "swimming" pools for a while but then it decays and pretty soon it sits in open air. This is what is happening right now at almost every nuclear power plant in the US. The radiation is measured and recorded constantly. The waste is very very small and the radiation is so small that it is plainly obvious that whatever is technically available at Yucca Mountain is vast overkill. I've used a lot of nuclear equipment and we had to restrict the workers to a few seconds of exposure while I sit in my office waiting for a phone call. Years later we would put this very same equipment in uncontrolled areas for new untrained unqualified workers to clean with no protective measures necessary. Like the only person who was awake in his high school chemistry class says, it decays away. In 35 to 40 years you can't find the radioactive fission products with handheld devices. You got to get a small represenative sample, heavily shield it and count it with very sensitive sophisticated instrumentation. Only after a long count can you say that it is or is not radioactive; and then if it is, how low less than background radiation it is. The ash from a much smaller coal plant is a huge mountain held by small earthern dams. What is the half life of that ash; how long is that ash dangerous? What happens if a small storm wipes out the small earthen dam?

"Waste" is a political problem in the US because all the monkeys have drank the Kool-aid. These high school drop outs prefer the Greenpeace propaganda to facts and truth. Take a hazardous waste like trichloro ethane; its has an infinite half life, much much longer than any radioactive waste. There are all kinds of facilities that take hazardous waste that is dangerous forever and guard it forever.

 

[MrMopar]

France is building the Super Phoenix where fuel is reclaimed so the amount of waste is much smaller than ours.

Building? They built it, ran it shoddily with flaws in construction and operation, and closed the plan in 1998.

 

[aja8888]

Tony, come on. You complained about something which you have a lot of control over. Ever heard of buying potted immature trees? Ever heard of underground watering? You could have planted some juvenile trees when you moved there? I'm sure there are plenty of heat tolerant trees you could transplant into your soil type and feed a trickle of water directly to the root ball (and/or use a yard cistern to capture rainwater to help offset watering costs). It just seem like you could do something about that pretty easily...even if it won't benefit you, it should raise the value of your home for whenever/if you decide to sell. I'm sure that would be a nice selling point. Who doesn't like lower cooling bills? Talk to your city's horticulturist. They're thrilled to field these questions and full of good info.

I mean no disrespect. I just think it does little good to complain about something you have a large degree of control over Best luck.

We have trees, they are just not big enough (yet). We had hurricane IKE here 18 months ago and literally 100's of THOUSANDS of trees were wiped out. I know how to heat and cool my house (what's left of it after 1/2 the roof blew off). We have a new roof. So do 2 million people here in greater Houston.

Our electricity rates are out of control due to deregulation. The power companies did not have hurricane insurance (imagine that) and it was about three weeks before most power was restored in this area. So, the dogs are charging us for the cost of restoring power!

I'm just glad I don't have the heating bills the folks up north are experiencing now that "global warming" has set in this winter.

Stay warm...

What is this thread about, anyway?

Tony

 

[ikendu]

I'm just glad I don't have the heating bills the folks up north are experiencing now that "global warming" has set in this winter.

Everything Is in Place in Vancouver, Except Snow
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/sports/olympics/10olysnow.html
"The Olympic plans at Cypress [Mountain] were undercut by the warmest January on record..."

El Niño and global warming: What's the connection?
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/quarterly/winter97/connection.html

It turns out that weather, can be very complicated to understand. Record cold and snow in the U.S. coupled with the warmest January on record in Vancouver, Canada. Remember the news this summer with the record heat in Seattle (normally very mild... so mild that almost no one has air conditioning).

Seattle braces for record heat
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/29/seattle-braces-for-record-heat/
"We're really not prepared for it," Mass said. "Most homes don't have air conditioning and a lot of stores don't..."

A cold spell or record snow on its own must be understood beyond the locally frigid conditions. Life is often not as simple as we might like it to be.

 

[compu_85]

The topic here has wandered far enough. Thanks for keeping things civil.