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I'm not sure what you mean by "technically," ungulateman. As far as I was aware most geothermal plants are actually expected to exhaust groundwater reserves and generally have projected lifespans of only 30 years. Large plants can literally pump so much water out of aquifers that they lose pressure and cease to provide energy. Not something I would describe as "technically renewable," although some geothermal plants today might "theoretically" be renewable, engineers have gotten a lot better about conserving that water. Interestingly geothermal plants produce many of the same ill effects you hear fracking opposition activists complain about like earthquakes, ground subsidence, and even ground water pollution. I don't know if anyone has ever actually had their well poisoned by leaky pipes at a neighboring geothermal plant, but considering all the nasty stuff likely to dissolve in water a few thousand feet underground it's something worth considering!
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May 17, 2012 05:32
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Yeah, aquifer-based geothermal isn't something that can work. The much better trick is to pump seawater down there and use it instead, but that's heavily location-dependent and means you need more machinery to pump stuff with. We aren't going to run out of heat from the center of the Earth anytime soon, so that's what I meant by it being renewable. Solar is in the same boat as a "technically not renewable but there's so drat much of it humans can't use it up within a reasonable timeframe" source of energy.
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May 17, 2012 05:37
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yeah I hear that. I mostly just want this thread to talk about something other than nuclear, if only for a moment.
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May 17, 2012 05:48
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Office Thug posted:
I think this point would be more effective if it could be made quantitatively. People obviously want 100% renewable energy sources, but most would prefer nuclear over coal if they absolutely had to choose. It would be interesting to know the actual cost of switching entirely to renewable sources. I'm only a layman so the best reference I have for the associated costs is from here: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c28/page_216.shtml To get a rough sense of the relative costs it seems going all renewable with equal contributions from solar, onshore and offshore wind would only be 1.5 times more expensive than entirely nuclear production. I've assumed that production from the various sources can be scaled up arbitrarily which obviously isn't true. While renewables don't seem to cost too much more than nuclear, I haven't included upgrading the electrical transmission infrastructure or building sufficient storage capacity for production lulls. I have no idea how to even calculate these costs and would be interested in better estimates. As always any non-fossil fuel energy plan is only feasible with massive energy conservation efforts in the West, as at some point the electrical grid will have to start supplying energy for people's cars.
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May 17, 2012 05:56
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ungulateman posted:Yeah, aquifer-based geothermal isn't something that can work. The much better trick is to pump seawater down there and use it instead, but that's heavily location-dependent and means you need more machinery to pump stuff with. The best thing about this sort of thing is, with a bit of cleverness you can also do something about fresh water too. Pump saline water, hyrdro that poo poo, then scoop non-saline steam, win a double prize.
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May 17, 2012 13:13
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Nocturtle posted:http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c28/page_216.shtml You should avoid using advertised Capacity figures because those don't account for anything like downtime or low-production times, which is precisely what makes renewables less attractive in reality then they might appear. The best way to calculate the cost of energy is to divide the total cost by the average power output, or better yet, average power actually delivered. From that link, I've calculated that for every person: Nuclear - 62.5 euros per kwh/d/p Onshore wind - 107.1 euros per kwh/d/p Offshore wind - 185.7 euros per kwh/d/p Photovoltaics - 1600 euros per kwh/d/p Concentrating solar - 356.25 euros per kwh/d/p I don't know if intermittent storage is included in these costs or not. Typically things like open-cycle gas plants or diesel generators are used to provide energy whenever renewables go into down-time, because those are far less expensive than all of our large-scale storage options right now. The moral of the story is that building for a specific capacity does not equivocate building for a specific amount of electrical production. You need to factor in things like capacity factor, transmission line losses, and added costs from intermittent storage. The storage required for wind alone is higher per kwh/d/p stored than what nuclear produces by itself (I'd have numbers to post for you but adobe reader hasn't been working here for some reason). Generally, the cost of storage will rise depending on the amount of capacity that needs to be stored for downtime and how cost-efficient the storage is. ungulateman posted:Geothermal is technically renewable and could happily power the Earth if we could access it as well. Hydro and geothermal are the best options we have in the short term, solar and wind are nice supplementary options, eventually we'll figure out fusion, and by the time those run out we should be making GBS threads nanobots all over the Orion arm, not reliant on the Earth for our needs. Geothermal is in large part heat produced from radioactive decay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal  I haven't really looked into geothermal too much, but it sounds like the biggest show stopper to its full use is that drilling the boreholes for it is quite expensive. It probably also releases a lot of noxious gases and radioactive decay products like Radon depending on where you dig, which isn't so much a danger as it is an extra hassle to deal with (unless you don't mind the ever-present smell of rotten eggs), and that might cost some money too. Office Thug fucked around with this message at 16:16 on May 17, 2012 |
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May 17, 2012 15:57
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Office Thug posted:I don't know if intermittent storage is included in these costs or not. Typically things like open-cycle gas plants or diesel generators are used to provide energy whenever renewables go into down-time, because those are far less expensive than all of our large-scale storage options right now. The moral of the story is that building for a specific capacity does not equivocate building for a specific amount of electrical production. You need to factor in things like capacity factor, transmission line losses, and added costs from intermittent storage. The storage required for wind alone is higher per kwh/d/p stored than what nuclear produces by itself (I'd have numbers to post for you but adobe reader hasn't been working here for some reason). Generally, the cost of storage will rise depending on the amount of capacity that needs to be stored for downtime and how cost-efficient the storage is. The cost of intermittent storage was not included in the rough estimates I provided, and certainly I'd like better numbers. To get a rough sense of the cost of storage I looked up the "Dinorwig" power station, which was referenced in the link I provided as a possible large scale non-fossil fuel intermittent power source. The facility was built for roughly the current day equivalent of ~4 billion British pounds, and provides ~9.1 GWh of energy storage. From this I roughly estimate the cost of non-fossil fuel based storage as 44 pounds / kWh. For an entirely renewable based electrical system where each person consumes ~100 kWh/d (this is including the energy used for car fuel), one day of total disruption in production requires intermittent storage that would cost ~4400 pounds per person to build. I did a simple calculation where I calculated the cost to supply 100 kWh/d/p of baseline power in an all-renewable system (with non-fossil fuel based storage) vs an all nuclear power system. I used the numbers from the link I provided as the reference for costs, I believe they are "one time" cost equivalents for building the system and expected operating costs. 100 kWh/d/p renewable baseline power: 33 kWh/d/p onshore wind = 3536 pounds per person 33 kWh/d/p offshore wind = 6129 pounds per person 33 kWh/d/p solar panels in deserts = 11756 pounds per person 100 kWh/p intermittent/emergency energy storage = 4400 pounds per person Total = ~25800 pounds per person 100 kWh/d/p nuclear baseline power = 6300 pounds per person So an all renewable baseline power system will cost roughly 4 times as much as an all nuclear system, no matter the actual baseline power requirement. I don't really believe my numbers and would love is someone could provide better estimates. Also its pretty clear that 100 kWh/d/p is unaffordable no matter which power source is used, and incredible conservation efforts are needed. One problem with nuclear is that the fuel mining is energy intensive, and currently produces a large amount of carbon-dioxide. This book http://www.springer.com/environment/book/978-1-4020-5548-5 claims that a nuclear power plant effectively creates 1/3 the carbon-dioxide as compared to a similar amount of power generated by coal power stations. While this is definitely an improvement over coal, it won't allow the completely elimination of carbon emissions.
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May 18, 2012 00:24
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Nocturtle posted:One problem with nuclear is that the fuel mining is energy intensive, and currently produces a large amount of carbon-dioxide. This book http://www.springer.com/environment/book/978-1-4020-5548-5 claims that a nuclear power plant effectively creates 1/3 the carbon-dioxide as compared to a similar amount of power generated by coal power stations.  That is...extremely difficult to believe, at first blush.Actually, looking in the book, a lot of these claims appear fairly incredible. At the beginning of the nuclear power chapter, the author claims there is too little uranium at a sufficient grade to sustain a nuclear era for more than a few years, which contrasts markedly with NEA projections. It also says this about safety: quote:Especially significant is the fact that just one accident could have devastating global consequences for a very long time, i.e., seriously affecting billions of people over thousands of years until radioactivity had been taken out of natural circulation And this: quote:Finally, no reactor or system design, or fail-safe provisions, can protect against the fundamental flaw that cannot be removed from nuclear energy, i.e., the fact that humans operate the plants and are always capable of making mistakes, including overriding the fail-safe mechanisms or not following set procedure. This is what happened at Chernobyl. The specific claim about carbon dioxide is referenced as being from Fleming, D.: 2006, ‘Why nuclear power cannot be a major power source for the future’, Economy Connection, Jan. 20 But searching for that title only finds the book itself, and I can't seem to determine what (if anything) "Economy Connection" is. edit: Okay, the economy connection is the Lean Economy Connection, which is a five-person peak oil foundation...thing. Strudel Man fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 00:57
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Strudel Man posted:
I agree, I should have qualified that this was only one estimate and I wasn't able to find this Fleming(2006) reference either. Clearly some carbon has to be emitted in current uranium extraction processes (or thorium even) and should be accounted for when trying to choose the best technology to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. This Nature article might have more realistic estimates http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html : "According to Sovacool's analysis, nuclear power, at 66 gCO2e/kWh emissions is well below scrubbed coal-fired plants, which emit 960 gCO2e/kWh, and natural gas-fired plants, at 443 gCO2e/kWh. However, nuclear emits twice as much carbon as solar photovoltaic, at 32 gCO2e/kWh, and six times as much as onshore wind farms, at 10 gCO2e/kWh. " Here's the link to Sovacool's study http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508001997 and the most relevant passage in the abstract: "the range of emissions for nuclear energy over the lifetime of a plant, reported from qualified studies examined, is from 1.4 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh (g CO2e/kWh) to 288 g CO2e/kWh, the mean value is 66 g CO2e/kWh." Nocturtle fucked around with this message at 01:18 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 01:12
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Nocturtle posted:"the range of emissions for nuclear energy over the lifetime of a plant, reported from qualified studies examined, is from 1.4 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh (g CO2e/kWh) to 288 g CO2e/kWh, the mean value is 66 g CO2e/kWh." I wonder how much these figures would be affected by greater electrification of industry and vehicles.
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May 18, 2012 01:21
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Nocturtle posted:I agree, I should have qualified that this was only one estimate and I wasn't able to find this Fleming(2006) reference either. Clearly some carbon has to be emitted in current uranium extraction processes (or thorium even) and should be accounted for when trying to choose the best technology to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. This Nature article might have more realistic estimates http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html The emissions make sense for nuclear right now. The issue with nuclear is that we're using uranium-235 as the fuel, which is 0.7% of all natural uranium, so you need a lot of mined ore/rock to produce enough of it by mass. If we ever decide to go full-nuclear, the best way to reduce emissions from mining operations would be to switch to more common isotopes such as Uranium-238 (142 times more abundant in nature) or thorium-232 (~500 times more abundant), which would require over 2 magnitudes less mining to produce the same amount of fuel by mass/energy. There's also a lot of room for improvement in terms of fuel-efficiency in reactors which could lead to less fuel needed there too, with current reactors hovering between 0.5 and 1.2% total efficiency (10 to 24% when only considering Uranium-235 mass consumption). Of course, the same could be said for solar in terms of cost-effectiveness and the elimination of rare-earth elements in their production with organic semiconductors and dyes. The question is which method of energy production stands to make the most gains in the end. Office Thug fucked around with this message at 19:31 on May 19, 2012 |
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May 19, 2012 19:28
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ungulateman posted:Geothermal is technically renewable and could happily power the Earth if we could access it as well. Hydro and geothermal are the best options we have in the short term, solar and wind are nice supplementary options, eventually we'll figure out fusion, and by the time those run out we should be making GBS threads nanobots all over the Orion arm, not reliant on the Earth for our needs. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Only a very few places are suitable for geothermal, and there is some evidence that it can cause earthquakes. Also, as far as hydro goes, it is far from clean-- in fact hydroelectric dams are responsible for immense amounts of CO2 being released due to all the organic material in the lake behind the dam rotting away. Also more to the point just about everywhere that would be good to put a hydroelectric dam already has one.
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May 20, 2012 03:44
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Office Thug posted:The emissions make sense for nuclear right now. The issue with nuclear is that we're using uranium-235 as the fuel, which is 0.7% of all natural uranium, so you need a lot of mined ore/rock to produce enough of it by mass. If we ever decide to go full-nuclear, the best way to reduce emissions from mining operations would be to switch to more common isotopes such as Uranium-238 (142 times more abundant in nature) or thorium-232 (~500 times more abundant), which would require over 2 magnitudes less mining to produce the same amount of fuel by mass/energy. There's also a lot of room for improvement in terms of fuel-efficiency in reactors which could lead to less fuel needed there too, with current reactors hovering between 0.5 and 1.2% total efficiency (10 to 24% when only considering Uranium-235 mass consumption). And a somewhat major difference is that solar cells are a bit more decentralized than the operation and management of a nuclear power plant. The latter is only possible with a society with a centralized grid and other cool stuff (which I support, to be sure). It's important to also look at the situations where one or the other is better suited, such as places with no grid already in place and places with lower levels of cooperation when it comes to the necessary infrastructure for nuclear power. That and nuclear power to my understanding isn't exactly one for supply control, it is either running or not running.
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May 20, 2012 04:41
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There are a number of companies developing very small self-contained nuclear reactors specifically for rural communities.
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May 20, 2012 09:25
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093 So this is a bit disheartening. And by that I mean "we're doomed, aren't we?" This is several thousand tons of ancient methane being pumped into the atmosphere due to arctic melting. Yaaaay!  Ive always wondered what Venus feels like.
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May 21, 2012 08:41
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I saw that report this morning. It's why global warming isn't going to conveniently stop as soon as we stop emitting. We should still reduce (and eventually stop) so that we don't end up making it worse, but we're still pretty hosed regardless. 
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May 21, 2012 08:47
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WMain00 posted:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093 We're not going to go venus. We've had warming like this before, although in the very distant past and implicitely that means that this runaway thing must be limited to some extent. This might be promising too. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804 Around 10,000,000 pounds seems pretty cheap to me. The question is would it work?. The idea of having to put the climate on life support is chilling.
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May 21, 2012 08:50
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duck monster posted:The idea of having to put the climate on life support is chilling. Really, not being willing to engineer the climate is like not letting doctors give your children antibiotics. You can pray all you want for them to get better, but science has a solution and turning it down because "it's unnatural!" is incredibly poor justification. We've passed the tipping point. Using 'life support' to keep the planet running until we get a long-term fix in place is the best-case scenario now. We have the problem of oil companies and other pollutors going "oh we have a way of stopping global warming CONTINUE PRODUCING", but blaming the science for causing that? It's like saying a man having triple bypass surgery going off and eating junk food is somehow the surgeon's fault.
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May 21, 2012 09:04
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Being iffy about climate engineering has less to do with "it's unnatural" and more to do with "we're going to flood a complex system with some chemical and we can't be sure what's going to happen". I mean, I am all for it if the alternative is global environmental collapse (though I guess you could consider us in the process of one already), but messing with the climate is a pretty tall order and we shouldn't do it unless there really is no other option.
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May 21, 2012 15:47
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V. Illych L. posted:Being iffy about climate engineering has less to do with "it's unnatural" and more to do with "we're going to flood a complex system with some chemical and we can't be sure what's going to happen". Take it from an Australian, we're the graveyard of bioengineering. We have our victories, but we are still surrounded by our failures. Not saying it isn't worth trying, but we can't defeat the cane toad, and engineering the climate is a task of greater magnitude.
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May 21, 2012 16:11
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Are there any climate engineering projects further ahead than theoretical proposals and small-scale testing? I have a hard time imagining the government of any large country accepting the overt hypocrisy in simultaneously not taking drastic action on their industrial sector while also providing funding and support for controversial environmental projects that will by definition affect both their trading partners and enemies. Which is to say, I don't see any evidence at all that anybody in power is going to take this seriously until a city gets wiped out or something.
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May 21, 2012 16:12
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I dare to guess that any large-scale "climate engineering" will end in disaster. We have way too little experience in the field, and all large scale engineering projects of any kind so far have had dramatic environmental consequences that nobody knew about. Re-foresting is a better approach. That, and the drastic cut in energy use that will come anyway due to resource depletion and economic decline.
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May 21, 2012 16:48
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Tentakulon posted:I dare to guess that any large-scale "climate engineering" will end in disaster. We have way too little experience in the field, and all large scale engineering projects of any kind so far have had dramatic environmental consequences that nobody knew about. Counterpoint: We are currently undergoing large-scale "climate engineering."
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May 21, 2012 17:03
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ungulateman posted:Geothermal is technically renewable and could happily power the Earth if we could access it as well. Hydro and geothermal are the best options we have in the short term, solar and wind are nice supplementary options, eventually we'll figure out fusion, and by the time those run out we should be making GBS threads nanobots all over the Orion arm, not reliant on the Earth for our needs. Actually HDR Geothermal Plants make the prospect of using geothermal in more places a lot more feasible. Very cool technology. Though it's only being piloted in a few locations, it works perfectly well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_geothermal_system
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May 21, 2012 17:13
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Deuce posted:Counterpoint: We are currently undergoing large-scale "climate engineering." Yeah, but instead of just stopping our current engineering, the plan is to heap more engineering on top of it and betting the farm on the results. All the engineering schemes I've read of seem very "Ehh..." and speculative as hell. If this is the way we're going to keep meeting existential threats, then we can expect one of these hurdles (or perhaps this hurdle) to catch us right in the groin eventually. I mean, it's not like there is much else in the way of options, especially the moment the petro lobby starts running ads explaining stratospheric SO2 as a sure-thing. People who are not oil companies should be demanding better.
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May 21, 2012 17:15
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agarjogger posted:Yeah, but instead of just stopping our current engineering, the plan is to heap more engineering on top of it and betting the farm on the results. All the engineering schemes I've read of seem very "Ehh..." and speculative as hell. If this is the way we're going to keep meeting existential threats, then we can expect one of these hurdles (or perhaps this hurdle) to catch us right in the groin eventually. I mean, it's not like there is much else in the way of options, especially the moment the petro lobby starts running ads explaining stratospheric SO2 as a sure-thing. People who are not oil companies should be demanding better. The solar lens idea seems like the least threatening. Something that could be easily reversed and as an added bonus involves SPACE.
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May 21, 2012 17:19
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Actually HDR Geothermal Plants make the prospect of using geothermal in more places a lot more feasible. Very cool technology. Though it's only being piloted in a few locations, it works perfectly well. Wow that sounds super cool. You even get the raw thermal energy from the hot water which I presume could be used in industrial or municipal heating projects. What's the recharge time on a well? the article says they cool beyond commercial use in about 20 years, presumably they eventually warm up again as heat is transferred back from the mantle. And why on earth isn't this at the forefront of the renewables push? It's incredibly cheap, the energy is widespread and the potential is measured in ZETTAjoules! It sounds too good to be true.
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May 21, 2012 17:44
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So..uh, isn't that methane leak kind of a huge loving deal? I just caught up on this thread but why wasn't that more heavily publicized? People just want to continue ignoring it for their own mental wellbeing?
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May 21, 2012 17:45
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Holy Calamity! posted:So..uh, isn't that methane leak kind of a huge loving deal? I just caught up on this thread but why wasn't that more heavily publicized? People just want to continue ignoring it for their own mental wellbeing? We don't know exactly what effects it will have, that uncertainty plays into the inertia, so deer in headlights time.
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May 21, 2012 17:48
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Fatkraken posted:Wow that sounds super cool. You even get the raw thermal energy from the hot water which I presume could be used in industrial or municipal heating projects. I'm not an expert in the field so I have no idea how long it takes to reheat a well. They are only in the pilot phase right now but I can only hope they catch on when they go into real production.
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May 21, 2012 17:49
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Holy Calamity! posted:So..uh, isn't that methane leak kind of a huge loving deal? I just caught up on this thread but why wasn't that more heavily publicized? People just want to continue ignoring it for their own mental wellbeing? 
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May 21, 2012 17:49
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I'm all for trying not to commit to any more geo-engineering projects until we better understand how our global climate works. I really am. But the problem is we may very well be approaching the tipping point where we're going to start suffering from serious positive feedback and no amount of social, environmental, or political restructuring is going to stop that from happening. Remember that the effects of CO2 have a lag time on the climate. We wont feel the effects of what we're pumping into the atmosphere now until 20, 30, 40 years down the road. It's nice and noble-minded to say that we need to better understand our climate and not gently caress around with it because we've already done enough. That's the responsible and reasonable approach. But may be beyond that point now, and every delay or worry about what we might screw up only pushes us towards the tipping point. And even then that's not a reason not to discuss geo-engineering. The effects of climate change are going to start hitting some places before they hit others. Any substantial geo-engineering project needs to have a global commitment and be agreed upon by the global community, otherwise desperate, individual countries with a decent amount of GDP might start throwing whatever they can into the air, land, or sea to stop climate change, regardless of the potential risks or consequences.
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May 22, 2012 02:18
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The cloud whitening idea seems like its something that could be put to a swift stop if it started to backfire (Ie led to local temperature rises rather than reductions). Frankly if we've already triggered the run-away, perhaps its something we need to roll the dice on. They are talking a couple hundred thousand pounds per tower, and they suggest 100 towers could do it. Thats very cheap, and if it doesn't work , well, thats a bummer, but if it actually has the opposite effect, it seems like we just turn the things off and learn a lesson from the whole exercise. duck monster fucked around with this message at 02:29 on May 22, 2012 |
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May 22, 2012 02:27
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Tentakulon posted:Re-foresting is a better approach. That, and the drastic cut in energy use that will come anyway due to resource depletion and economic decline. These are the only ideas I'm 100% sold on as a feasible solutions, but also the usual pair of ideas that never get discussed in the media beyond feel-good measures. No company or network paying for a PSA is ever going to approve a message that explicitly says, "If you really want to conserve resources, buy less of our pointless poo poo."
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May 22, 2012 04:07
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TheFuglyStik posted:These are the only ideas I'm 100% sold on as a feasible solutions, but also the usual pair of ideas that never get discussed in the media beyond feel-good measures. No company or network paying for a PSA is ever going to approve a message that explicitly says, "If you really want to conserve resources, buy less of our pointless poo poo." Pretty much, the closest you'll get is saying their product is recyclable, more efficient, or some such. It always cracks me up when an ad for a 4wd talks about fuel efficiency.
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May 22, 2012 04:39
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Maluco Marinero posted:Pretty much, the closest you'll get is saying their product is recyclable, more efficient, or some such. It always cracks me up when an ad for a 4wd talks about fuel efficiency. This isn't addressed at you, so much as other people in the thread. Why don't we discuss this point? We can talk about the utter bullshit claims of clean coal, sources of nuclear energy that are decades away, or renewable resources that we still strip beyond replenishment levels, but just put these things in a context of what our planet can actually sustain with our current population levels. If we really are concerned about human welfare beyond consumerism, why aren't we looking beyond human wants for energy and media, and looking at human needs for food, water, and land that we can all live on? It's not a rhetorical question, but a question of resources for basic human needs. If we don't want billions to die from resource shortages, given that some miraculous technology like fusion may not save us, what the gently caress do we do with the seven billion on this planet without wrecking it in the long-term?
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May 22, 2012 09:01
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Saying nuclear energy specifically is decades away is disingenuous. Any power plant project is going to take some time to build.
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May 22, 2012 12:37
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-Troika- posted:Saying nuclear energy specifically is decades away is disingenuous. Any power plant project is going to take some time to build. I think what he was referring to was fusion, which is nuclear, but is generally referred to as fusion because nuclear is the term already used to address fission and to start referring to both as an unqualified "nuclear" results in confusion.
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May 22, 2012 12:41
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The Entire Universe posted:I think what he was referring to was fusion, which is nuclear, but is generally referred to as fusion because nuclear is the term already used to address fission and to start referring to both as an unqualified "nuclear" results in confusion. There are multiple forms of fission too, with wildly different costs and efficiencies (and waste profiles). For whatever reason* the forms that are widely in use at the moment are objectively some of the worst ways of actually using nuclear fuels. Piloting and ramping up production in efficient nuclear would probably take quite a while, not least because of the excessive amount of bureaucratic red tape and political hoops you have to jump through to do anything new with atoms. *blowing people up
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May 22, 2012 13:02
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Fatkraken posted:*blowing people up Well, the uranium-238 cycle was developed to a ridiculous extent in order to breed mountains of plutonium-239 for weapons, yet there are almost no utility-class uranium-238 reactors in existence today. The exact same thing would have happened if thorium had turned out to be really good at producing excesses of safe-to-handle uranium-233. We'd just have tonnes of weapons with uranium-233 instead, and still no reactor that uses thorium to produce electricity. That's kind of a misconception about nuclear and proliferation. Utility class technologies are at complete odds with weapons technologies in terms of isotopic requirements, what the reactors actually produce, and what you can accomplish cost-effectively. For instance, anything involving uranium-235 utility reactors after enrichment is utterly meaningless in terms of proliferation because everything is simply too impure and dirty to be processed and used in weapons at anything resembling sane costs. The closest ties between nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons is uranium enrichment since you can technically enrich uranium-235 all the way up to 90%+, which is weapons-useable, with the same centrifuge technology you use to enrich 5-6% U-235 for reactors. Even then, building a fleet of weapons as big as what the US has purely out of uranium-235 alone would cost magnitudes more than paying off the national public debt since Uranium-235 is basically the platinum of naturally-occurring nuclear isotopes. And no matter how you slice it, getting to the use of either thorium or uranium-238 would have first necessitated getting uranium-235 enrichment to work. You need a pure enough fissile "kindle" to get enough neutrons to start a breeder cycle. And although uranium-235 was used to start breeding Pu-239, the cycle could self-perpetuate through the use of bred Pu-239 to breed even more of itself afterwards, so enrichment was only ever required at the very beginning. Continued use of enrichment was entirely an industry consideration in what nuclear technology to adopt for utility power generation. The industry wanted to keep building its same lovely reactors forever because switching to different reactor production would have cost them some investment. Most of all they really liked the idea of enriched fuel since only countries with the technology could produce and sell it, plus enrichment holds considerable proliferation concerns so its widespread use would be limited. The path that would make companies the most money was clearly to stick with uranium-235, and that's what they're still doing today.
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May 22, 2012 15:45
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