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hobbesmaster posted:There are absolutely no catastrophic failure modes for 300 foot tall 50,000 lb air foils generating 1-10MVA. That was not what I said at all. Compared to catastrophic failure modes for coal and nuclear? You're dealing with energy densities and power loads that are larger by orders of magnitude. hobbesmaster posted:And I guess I'll be out of a job tomorrow since corrosion apparently no longer exists and there's no need for NDT equipment anymore. Yes, there is a large industry based around corrosion and maintaining engines, electrical and other industrial processes. That's why its more practical to install wind/solar systems and expect them to be maintained to standard. There is already a robust and developed labour pool c.f. nuclear plant operators/engineers. Pander posted:I'd also argue in favor of small modular reactors for this reason. A scram at a 1000 MWe nuclear plant is a tremendous issue, and a dual-unit scram can require a lot of energy importation to make up the difference. They're unpredictable (one occurred years ago at a plant my dad worked at due to seagulls pooping on a transformer enough to cause a loss of off-site power) and due to the physics of nuclear plants there's about a half-hour grace period to get it resolved and restart the plant or else it has to shut down for quite a while longer due to "poisons" in the fuel rods. Exactly, nuclear is very fickle. That's the crux of my argument. Nuclear isn't a good solution in many situations. Many countries are not in the position to fund and develop a nuclear industry, and most of these countries have renewable resources. In countries with underdeveloped energy grids, it would make even less sense. quote:In regions like these, where there isn't necessarily an abundance of renewable capacity, wouldn't nuclear provide a reasonable bulk energy generation answer? Certainly. They could also try partnering with neighbouring countries if they have an abundance of renewable resources, but I also understand the political difficulties in accomplishing this. QuarkJets posted:You're right, a nuclear plant shutting down does have greater consequences than a single wind turbine collapsing. But isn't that just an argument to build more of both for redundancy? I don't see how it's an argument for foregoing nuclear altogether. If the redundancy couldn't be accomplished by other renewable projects... sure. My intent is to try and come up with a way to mitigate social and political issues surrounding nuclear. There is significant inertia around moving away from fossil fuels. You also need to support and demonstrate that renewables can make a big dent in power generation. If it becomes increasingly obvious that you can't go 100% renewable, you will have far less inertia and scepticism with the public if you've demonstrated any progress. Its easier to explain why nuclear is needed in a zero carbon world, when you are already in the process of transitioning away from fossil fuels. When you are looking at things on paper, its easy to dismiss the idea of completely replacing fossil fuels; it's a big task. Windmills and Solar panels do not appear capable of a killing blow (or even a fatal wound), and nuclear appears far too costly and sounds even scarier then coal. Once the ball is rolling, and you commit to funding renewables, the results will begin to stack. 10, 20, 30 percent, as cost and time overruns become more quantified and manageable, you also build an economic and logistical case for deploying a new generation of nuclear facilities. In other words zero-carbon and renewables is the wedge that will eventually convince people that nuclear is an important energy source.
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Jun 19, 2014 06:24
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Tokamak posted:That was not what I said at all. Of catastrophic nuclear failures in the past 70 years, only one killed anyone outside the reactor site itself.
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Jun 19, 2014 06:28
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Nintendo Kid posted:Of catastrophic nuclear failures in the past 70 years, only one killed anyone outside the reactor site itself. Good... now try to convince the public that this sterling safety record will hold when you deploy nuclear across the world; where even bumfuck nowhere has a 20MW portable reactor in their backyard. I'm sure the Japanese public are very supportive of nuclear power ever since they managed to avoid any long term damage and loss of life after the 2011 tsunami. Surely this has spurned nations to support nuclear power and we are well on the way to live in a happy post fossil-fuel world...
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Jun 19, 2014 07:07
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Tokamak posted:Good... now try to convince the public that this sterling safety record will hold when you deploy nuclear across the world; where even bumfuck nowhere has a 20MW portable reactor in their backyard. Nuclear is already deployed across the world. Japan quickly halted anti nuclear actions after fukushima when they noticed the home islands became near impossible to sustain if they were to have to import a ton more fuel aka stop using nuclear.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:13
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Nintendo Kid posted:Nuclear is already deployed across the world. But they're still not at all supportive of nuclear. I don't think I can find a single person who thinks nuclear should even exist here in Japan. They don't tend to throw green energy soundbites around but the public are still scared. Hell, most people think the manga with the nosebleed was a real account from what I gather.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:16
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NeilPerry posted:But they're still not at all supportive of nuclear. I don't think I can find a single person who thinks nuclear should even exist here in Japan. They don't tend to throw green energy soundbites around but the public are still scared. Hell, most people think the manga with the nosebleed was a real account from what I gather. The public can be scared all they want, they remember what happened when they tried to run without.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:23
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Tokamak posted:If the redundancy couldn't be accomplished by other renewable projects... sure. Well then, I have good and bad news. This work has already been done multiple times, sources cited throughout the thread, and that redundancy can not be accomplished by other renewable projects. In fact, you wouldn't even come close. This is why nuclear proponents in this thread act as though the choice is "nuclear or fossil fuels". That really is the choice. Solar, wind, geothermal, etc are all great sources of energy, but even taken together they cannot meet the energy needs of the United States. Maybe if we had a tenth of the population and we mostly lived in sunnier areas, then it'd be hugely feasible. quote:My intent is to try and come up with a way to mitigate social and political issues surrounding nuclear. There is significant inertia around moving away from fossil fuels. You also need to support and demonstrate that renewables can make a big dent in power generation. If it becomes increasingly obvious that you can't go 100% renewable, you will have far less inertia and scepticism with the public if you've demonstrated any progress. I think that we're on the same page here for the most part, but the ball has been rolling on renewables for decades now. How fast does the ball need to be moving before we start to consider new nuclear power plants? How many years should we continue to still burn fossil fuels while we wait for other renewable sources of energy to pick up even more momentum? Let Iceland be fueled entirely on Geothermal. Let sun-soaked states like Arizona bask in the power provided by a solar panel on every roof. But if we want to eliminate our fossil fuel consumption, then we're going to need nuclear power to do it (and renewables, too!)
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Jun 19, 2014 08:05
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NeilPerry posted:But they're still not at all supportive of nuclear. I don't think I can find a single person who thinks nuclear should even exist here in Japan. They don't tend to throw green energy soundbites around but the public are still scared. Hell, most people think the manga with the nosebleed was a real account from what I gather. That's the crux of nuclear's problem. Nuclear has a public perception of being dangerous, but if you step back and compare it to fossil fuels then it's still way safer. Even if you had a Fukushima-level nuclear disaster every year, you'd still be causing fewer deaths and fewer illnesses simply because you're no longer dumping so much coal ash into the air and water. I'm not even counting the billions of lives (and species) that would be lost if our continued reliance on fossil fuels results in a runaway greenhouse effect
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Jun 19, 2014 08:10
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Coal mining alone kills thousands of people every year. And then there are all of the lovely things that come with burning it. Please tell me about the horrible dangers of nuclear power.
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Jun 19, 2014 08:25
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Deteriorata posted:The main reason nuclear gets discussed so much is that it's complicated and interesting, with a wealth of possible technologies to compare. For technology geeks, that's fun to talk about. Well I would say it's discussed and promoted because it is a tested and true solution to the problems we face. It's actually really not that complicated, the tech is over half a century old even if we are just talking about commercial power (otherwise going on a century). They teach the basic mechanics in introductory courses and a group of graduate students could probably design a working reactor. What's funny is nuclear is disparaged for being 'high tech futuristic mumbo jumbo' by "environmentalists" who are furiously masturbating over some pie in the sky theoretical technology that will end up being either 1) a complete sham 2) unworkable 3) too expensive even if it does 4) more dangerous ...... and so on. QuarkJets posted:That's the crux of nuclear's problem. Nuclear has a public perception of being dangerous, but if you step back and compare it to fossil fuels then it's still way safer. Even if you had a Fukushima-level nuclear disaster every year, you'd still be causing fewer deaths and fewer illnesses simply because you're no longer dumping so much coal ash into the air and water. I'm not even counting the billions of lives (and species) that would be lost if our continued reliance on fossil fuels results in a runaway greenhouse effect Not disagreeing, but to clarify: there is absolutely no evidence that anyone will suffer a shorter lifespan because of Fukishima. Tasmantor posted:Oh good you get it. I said that the social and political problems can be over come but the nuke or nothing attitude in this thread is counter productive. There seams to be the idea that I am anti nuke, I am not. What I am is over how single minded this thread is. When talking about the need to get off coal discussion should highlight possible options and then evaluate them. So if people come in and say Look at how incredibly loving stupid you are.
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Jun 19, 2014 09:27
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oh gee I just read about how good wind generation is doing in South Australia why can't we do that in X?"
Yes wind can be quite good in it's place and certainly better than another coal plant. Sadly it isn't always blowing and this leaves gaps in power supply which need to be filled by some other source.
No wind is poo poo and for idiot babies only 
NUCLEAR can save us.
support them! Then people would eventually see that a nuclear base with renewables in the mix is a drat good choice. You are your own worst enemies.
I'm just going to enjoy that posting stopped this thread from being nigh on worthless. Also I'm pretty sure fearing the atom beast is a common ailment here down under, so not some german peculiarity.
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Tokamak posted:You can't set it and then forget it, like you can for solar or wind; That's pretty important. Likewise, the workforce to maintain and operate a fossil fuel plant is more developed and accessible, especially in developing nations. You can't build a shitload of nuclear plants overnight and have appropriately educated people to staff them. Yet. Many designs are in the works that would do exactly what you are talking about- bury and forget. But I'll never understand why these threads end up being comparisons of wind/solar and baseline power. They are simply different things. If you were to make a pie chart of energy production, you wouldn't even be able to see the slices for alternative green technologies.
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Jun 19, 2014 09:42
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enbot posted:Yet. Many designs are in the works that would do exactly what you are talking about- bury and forget. But I'll never understand why these threads end up being comparisons of wind/solar and baseline power. They are simply different things. If you were to make a pie chart of energy production, you wouldn't even be able to see the slices for alternative green technologies. Pretty much:  Note that even if we still ran everything on coal and switched all of our cars to electric it would still probably result in a net decrease in carbon emissions.
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Jun 19, 2014 13:47
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NeilPerry posted:But they're still not at all supportive of nuclear. I don't think I can find a single person who thinks nuclear should even exist here in Japan. They don't tend to throw green energy soundbites around but the public are still scared. Hell, most people think the manga with the nosebleed was a real account from what I gather. Ask them what they thought of daily forecasts for the day's power capacity and public transit without AC.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:41
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When I see public fear of nuclear power plant radiation that cannot be accurately articulated, I think of this: http://thespiritscience.net/2014/06/17/ninth-grade-girls-show-plants-wont-grow-near-wi-fi-routers/ There's a huge headwind to change public perception to adopt nuclear power because public perception far more easily adapts to concise extremism than to reasoned debate. Thanks to an article like that, I'm willing to be a reasonably large swath of the public will now demand more safety features in wifi devices as a knee-jerk reaction and Foxnews/CNN will run "WIFI, DEADLY??" stories. It's kind of a shining example for why we can't have nice things.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:58
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I get tired of hearing about all these highschool geniuses making these discoveries at science fairs. This one, the microwaved water on plant growth one, the one about skimming the plastic off the surface of the ocean. Run it by a real scientist (who's willing to hurt the kid's feelings a bit by saying they're wrong, instead of just saying, "that's interesting, why don't we repeat it in a lab and see if it holds up? ") before running articles about it. It's so misleading to pretend they might be on to something.
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Jun 19, 2014 18:29
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Adenoid Dan posted:I get tired of hearing about all these highschool geniuses making these discoveries at science fairs. This one, the microwaved water on plant growth one, the one about skimming the plastic off the surface of the ocean. Run it by a real scientist (who's willing to hurt the kid's feelings a bit by saying they're wrong, instead of just saying, "that's interesting, why don't we repeat it in a lab and see if it holds up? ") before running articles about it. It's so misleading to pretend they might be on to something. News Media isn't there to inform, it's there to get viewers or clicks. Single mom finds secret to perpetual motion. University drop out finds easy way to stop global warming. Find out what a local science fair winner discovered that big physics doesn't want you to know about. But basically every bit of science reporting is always one of two stories. Some ridiculous amazing new finding that's going to change everything for the better soon, or some ridiculous amazing new finding that proves scientists can't be trusted and everything is dangerous and evil. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 19:04
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http://www.france24.com/en/20140618-france-government-green-energy-bill-unveiled-segolene-royal-environment/quote:France’s government has unveiled a much-touted bill to reduce the country's dependency on nuclear energy and fossil fuels over the next four decades.  More uranium for us, I guess.
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Jun 20, 2014 01:29
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Have these people never heard of Jevon's Paradox? Are they unaware that Germany's transition away from nuclear and fossil fuels and onto renewables has just resulted in more coal usage? Do they even care? edit: v I should specify that by "they", I mean the elected officials who, presumably, have gone over every detail of this plan and would be able to see its flaws. It's good to hear that they're exactly like folks who regularly post on Facebook about how fallout from Fukushima is going to kill everyone on this side of the Pacific, any day now. 
Hedera Helix fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 01:44
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Hedera Helix posted:Have these people never heard of Jevon's Paradox? Are they unaware that Germany's transition away from nuclear and fossil fuels and onto renewables has just resulted in more coal usage? They don't. I've spoken to people like this and it's an almost religious belief that nuclear is evil and ANYTHING is better. The general answer is "we just need to use less electricity" to make up for the difference when you get rid of the nuclear plants. They know coal is bad, they know pretty much all the replacements for nuclear are worse, but they don't give a poo poo. Their crusade is anti-nuclear, what happens beyond shutting down nuke plants is some meaningless externality someone else should deal with. Basically tear down all nuke plants, coal plants, gas, anything that isn't wind or solar, and even then only built them where people can't see them. Then just re-jigger society to deal with this new level and reliability of electricity.
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Jun 20, 2014 02:13
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enbot posted:Well I would say it's discussed and promoted because it is a tested and true solution to the problems we face. It's actually really not that complicated, the tech is over half a century old even if we are just talking about commercial power (otherwise going on a century). enbot posted:Many designs are in the works that would do exactly what you are talking about- bury and forget. Hmm... So nuclear has tried and true designs for large scale, baseload power. If the population and grid infrastructure can't support GW generators... you're back to pie-in-the-sky tech. So what's that, around 30 out of 190 countries; there's a good reason why Africa and half of South America is a nuclear black spot. QuarkJets posted:I think that we're on the same page here for the most part, but the ball has been rolling on renewables for decades now. How fast does the ball need to be moving before we start to consider new nuclear power plants? How many years should we continue to still burn fossil fuels while we wait for other renewable sources of energy to pick up even more momentum? See above. It's a ways off for nuclear to offer a diverse range of designs that can service any market smaller then ~1 GW, which also limits the sites that these plants can be built (cooling water source, solid rock foundations, infrastructure to support heavy machinery). There's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov which is interesting, but doesn't reflect where the industry is going. Besides... its still a few years away from being operational. Take a look at http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide/ and tell me what you think nuclear's prospects are for dealing with climate change? It's mostly developing nations who are greatly expanding energy consumption. It's being deployed to slow the rate of carbon emissions, it's not being used to replace old coal plants. quote:This is why nuclear proponents in this thread act as though the choice is "nuclear or fossil fuels". That really is the choice. Solar, wind, geothermal, etc are all great sources of energy, but even taken together they cannot meet the energy needs of the United States. Maybe if we had a tenth of the population and we mostly lived in sunnier areas, then it'd be hugely feasible. If western governments are deciding not to pursue nuclear, the only other choice are renewables. Why spend you time convincing the public of the nuclear alternative, when they don't want to listen. When you see what is on the table for proposed plants in America, you find that nuclear has a few new reactors on existing sites. Renewable proposals have a comparable nameplate capacity, deployed over many different sites. It seems like it would be more sensible to encourage the further deployment of renewables, if the intention is to transition away from fossil fuels.
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Jun 20, 2014 05:17
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Tokamak posted:Hmm... Or coal, when they realize they can't generate enough power on renewables alone (as in Germany).
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Jun 20, 2014 05:19
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Tokamak posted:If western governments are deciding not to pursue nuclear, the only other choice are renewables. Why spend you time convincing the public of the nuclear alternative, when they don't want to listen. When you see what is on the table for proposed plants in America, you find that nuclear has a few new reactors on existing sites. Renewable proposals have a comparable nameplate capacity, deployed over many different sites. It seems like it would be more sensible to encourage the further deployment of renewables, if the intention is to transition away from fossil fuels.
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Jun 20, 2014 05:34
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computer parts posted:Or coal, when they realize they can't generate enough power on renewables alone (as in Germany). After they've decided to prematurely shut down 17 nuclear plants... Even if Germany gave utilities the option to replace them with 'modern' nuclear plants, you'd still see mostly coal plants. It's the quickest and most cost effective way to get power up and running; so yes you get dumb poo poo solutions when people make irrational decisions about nuclear. Its stupid and I don't think any reasonable environmentalist if given the choice, would support shutting down nuclear plants if it meant replacing them with coal. This was not based about the merits of nuclear vs. renewables, but on the fear surrounding nuclear safety. There was already a plan to phase out nuclear, but it was very flexible and accommodating pre-2011. You see all these new coal plants popping up around 2016-18 to meet the hard deadline of 2022.
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Jun 20, 2014 05:51
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Tokamak posted:After they've decided to prematurely shut down 17 nuclear plants... Even if Germany gave utilities the option to replace them with 'modern' nuclear plants, you'd still see mostly coal plants. It's the quickest and most cost effective way to get power up and running; so yes you get dumb poo poo solutions when people make irrational decisions about nuclear. Who are "responsible" environmentalists? During their AMA, the UCS absolutely said they'd prefer coal over nuclear because it's 'better known'. That's the level of the hurdle against irrational counter-reaction that nuclear power faces.
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Jun 20, 2014 06:15
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Tokamak posted:Hmm... So? We can still be building > 1 GW nuclear plants, which would allow us to replace most power plant produced carbon emissions. Small communities barely have any impact at all compared to the energy required to power our major cities. That's not an effective counterargument against nuclear power at all quote:If western governments are deciding not to pursue nuclear, the only other choice are renewables. Why spend you time convincing the public of the nuclear alternative, when they don't want to listen. When you see what is on the table for proposed plants in America, you find that nuclear has a few new reactors on existing sites. Renewable proposals have a comparable nameplate capacity, deployed over many different sites. It seems like it would be more sensible to encourage the further deployment of renewables, if the intention is to transition away from fossil fuels. Because, as has been shown over and over again in the thread, renewables aren't enough. Also, public perception can be changed. In my own experience, nuclear power has gained significant traction among many scientists and engineers, which is a pretty big shift from 30 years ago.
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Jun 20, 2014 06:26
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Pander posted:Who are "responsible" environmentalists? During their AMA, the UCS absolutely said they'd prefer coal over nuclear because it's 'better known'.  There is nothing more to be said here.
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Jun 20, 2014 07:59
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Thanks to those keeping the thread on track. I've obviously been offline for a while, good to see this still going. This is a bit of topic, but since it was mentioned: Adenoid Dan posted:I get tired of hearing about all these highschool geniuses making these discoveries at science fairs. This one, the microwaved water on plant growth one, the one about skimming the plastic off the surface of the ocean. Run it by a real scientist (who's willing to hurt the kid's feelings a bit by saying they're wrong, instead of just saying, "that's interesting, why don't we repeat it in a lab and see if it holds up? ") before running articles about it. It's so misleading to pretend they might be on to something. Would you care to elaborate on this bit? I assume you're talking about this: http://www.theoceancleanup.com/ I've downloaded parts of the feasibility report and briefly skimmed through, and it seems pretty legit so far. I haven't had the time to go through it properly, and was looking forward to giving it a good critical analysis, but is there anything you think it gets wrong to begin with? (as opposed to, say, this one http://thecleanoceansproject.com/, which is insultingly light on details). And to bring it back to the topic, we can turn all the plastic back into oil and use it for fuel I guess.
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Jul 1, 2014 12:33
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The problem is that the plastic is not mostly large pieces, it's mm to cm sized fragments, and wave action mixes it deep into the water column if it's not calm. It's also not particularly concentrated, it's spread out over vast areas. Removing pieces that small would be very costly, monetarily and environmentally, since it would remove or kill (plankton is fragile) so much of the life in those areas, which don't have a lot of life to begin with. The setup would also have to survive harsh weather for years without being prohibitively expensive. http://deepseanews.com/2013/12/how-do-you-figure-out-how-much-plastic-is-in-the-ocean/ http://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic-with-a-floating-ocean-cleanup-array
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Jul 1, 2014 14:22
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Would it still be worth it if it just went after the "low hanging fruit" of the denser chunkier areas of plastic?
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Jul 1, 2014 21:44
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Are such locations well known? The ocean strikes me as a big place. Not being snarky, I really don't know how well a handle we have on ocean plastic beyond macroscopic analysis.
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Jul 1, 2014 21:46
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Baronjutter posted:Would it still be worth it if it just went after the "low hanging fruit" of the denser chunkier areas of plastic? Those basically barely exist.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:08
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Pander posted:Are such locations well known? The ocean strikes me as a big place. Yes, there are 5 gyres where floating debris gets trapped (although large amounts escape and wash up on shore), but they are still quite large, and the density of the garbage is pretty low.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:25
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Adenoid Dan posted:Yes, there are 5 gyres where floating debris gets trapped (although large amounts escape and wash up on shore), but they are still quite large, and the density of the garbage is pretty low.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:27
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Trying to skim plastic from the oceans is evidently unfeasible, but what about plastic-eating microbes? Would it simply replace the problem of ocean plastic with nasty blooms?
America Inc. fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 23:19
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Negative Entropy posted:Trying to skim plastic from the oceans is evidently unfeasible, but what about plastic-eating microbes? Would it simply replace the problem of ocean plastic with nasty blooms? Unless we're looking to do terraforming on the scale seen only in scifi novels it'd be a literal drop in the ocean.
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Jul 1, 2014 23:29
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Negative Entropy posted:Trying to skim plastic from the oceans is evidently unfeasible, but what about plastic-eating microbes? Would it simply replace the problem of ocean plastic with nasty blooms? If they only ate certain hydrocarbon chains they'd probably just starve. If they ate other stuff, or evolved to eat other stuff, yikes.
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Jul 2, 2014 00:11
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Adenoid Dan posted:The problem is that the plastic is not mostly large pieces, it's mm to cm sized fragments, and wave action mixes it deep into the water column if it's not calm. It's also not particularly concentrated, it's spread out over vast areas. Removing pieces that small would be very costly, monetarily and environmentally, since it would remove or kill (plankton is fragile) so much of the life in those areas, which don't have a lot of life to begin with. The setup would also have to survive harsh weather for years without being prohibitively expensive. OK so we are talking about slightly different things then. Your first link doesn't explain much other than "collecting the data is hard, and cleaning it will obviously be harder (and nets pick up sea life)" And in your second link, it says "Editor’s Note: This piece was written in response to a story published in 2013. As of 2014, Boyan Slat has conducted a feasibility study for the Ocean Cleanup Array and published a 530-page report that addresses criticism – check it out here." I'm not saying it'll definitely work, just that I think they've put more effort into it than you think. The feasibility report is over 500 pages. They've done the modelling - on where the plastic is (vertically distributed from surface), how big it is, and how efficiently the floating arms will catch it by passively letting the winds and currents do the work. Seriously, have a proper look: http://www.theoceancleanup.com/. After all that, maybe it still doesn't stack up, I'm not an oceanographer. But it's more than just a high school science fair that hasn't been run by a real scientist, as you originally posted. That second link you posted does raise a serious problem that environmentalists, including people I work with, wrestle with all the time. By working on the "clean up" part of the problem, it's like we're tacitly endorsing the systems that produce the problem in the first place. Don't worry, keep on producing, we'll just clean it up afterwards! In my mind, we need to do both, and one can actually help the other. By getting people out to clean up the mess (like https://www.take3.org.au, responsible runners, or 4 pieces in the US), they see the scale of the problem, and are more likely to look for solutions and avoid disposable plastic packaging. At the end of the day, it is a huge problem, which may well be intractable. But thinking about it can be a fun exercise, it may even work, and of all the pie-in-the-sky plans, Slat's project seems to be the most likely so far. BUT YES WE NEED TO FIX THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM AND CLEAN UP EFFORTS SHOULD NOT TAKE AWAY FORM THAT.
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Jul 2, 2014 03:55
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As a former Naval Oceanographer, I can say with confidence that the ocean is really goddamn big, and while you can mop up some poo poo in the eddys, the eddys are still goddamn big. Thought exercises are nice, but it's kinda like thinking you could replace all roads with iridium or solar panels. Cool! But prolly not gonna happen. (note: I didn't really do anything in the blue waters, I was a brown water guy. I just wanted to actually cite my former occupation because it sniffed something close to relevance)
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Jul 2, 2014 04:16
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So like how come simple poo poo like plastic micro-beads which we now know are super bad for the ocean but are still in every toothpaste are still a thing? Is capital so loving resistant to not outright killing the planet?
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Jul 2, 2014 04:28
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Those microbeads are how raw plastic is shipped so while removing it from tooth paste and cosmetics would help, it's not going to hle containers of the stuff falling into the ocean as has happened in Hong Kong.
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Jul 2, 2014 04:34
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