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big scary monsters posted:(thermal pollution is the phrase to look up). Moreso if you're discharging into a river or lake. Of course, that's as true of any other thermal power plant using steam as it is of nuclear - coal, geothermal, even solar.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:22
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big scary monsters posted:That's not quite true, warm water being dispersed into the ocean can have an pretty significant adverse effect on local marine life (thermal pollution is the phrase to look up). Moreso if you're discharging into a river or lake. Of course, that's as true of any other thermal power plant using steam as it is of nuclear - coal, geothermal, even solar. Ugh, fine, I concede that specific point. How far from the plant does the effect carry in the ocean? I know the situation's different in lakes and rivers due to the scales involved.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:22
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France have a bunch of laws about not allowing cooling water into rivers on very hot days to alleviate the problem. They have had to temporarily suspend the rules the other week during the heat wave. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-asn-nuclear-regulator-adapts-hot-water-discharge-rules-light-heatwave-2022-08-08/
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Aug 9, 2022 15:28
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Just to be clear, I said that we should totally still build nuclear power, because yeah, it will be useful when it finally does come online. But since that will be after things will have really turned to poo poo, it's not the answer to our problems. It probably would have been, 20/30 years ago.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:29
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endlessmonotony posted:Ugh, fine, I concede that specific point. How far from the plant does the effect carry in the ocean? I doubt anyone knows in general. It's going to depend a lot on local coastal topography / bathymetry, local currents, other thermal and chemical discharges in the area, and ecosystem makeup. I'd imagine you'd have to do an impact study on each site and the effects probably range from "negligible" to "Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone". e: Thermal pollution isn't the main cause of the latter, of course. ee: I'm also not trying to make an argument against building thermal plants. There literally is no such thing as green energy, any type of production has some adverse environmental impact. It's really a matter of trying to choose the least harmful options, which will obviously vary from place to place. As Guava says, you can mitigate the harms if there is political will to do so. And you could in theory reduce overall energy consumption... big scary monsters fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Aug 9, 2022 |
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Aug 9, 2022 15:30
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Rustybear posted:nuclear is great but i think what irritates me about this discussion is it's so maximalist, proponents always represent nuclear power as the question, the answer and everything in between. there are lots of places where we can use nuclear power but there are lots of other places where it makes more sense to leverage other sources. it's about both having some redundancy if one source has an unforeseen issue and also what fits the local context; not just sort by tonnes of concrete poured and then optimise on that France is in a complete state because a sizable portion of their plants are off for maintenance. Meanwhile Germany who focussed on solar/wind is going back to burning loving lignite. We cannot replace fossil fuels with renewables quick enough without significantly more nuclear. By all means having other sources is good as well but right now we're focussing on what should be our backup energy sources over an actual replacement because solar/wind won't lower energy or fuel prices like nuclear would. This conversation would have been all well and good 30 years ago when we still had time to replace everything with wind and solar but we no longer have the luxury of that time - the only options are either to massively reduce energy demand, which at this point is clearly not happening, or start building a lot of plants that can generate a lot of energy as fast as possible, which can include geothermal stuff, but absolutely will have to include nuclear. Either that or we completely miss any kind of reasonable carbon reduction and catastrophic climate change results.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:35
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It's, uh It's gonna be the latter.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:37
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Grey Hunter posted:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633
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Aug 9, 2022 15:45
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The funniest thing about this is that if they succeed the people of Didcot will absolutely try to burn them for witchcraft. I live in Didcot. people who think Didcot is a bad place to live has never lived in a bad place to live. I'm from Stoke on Trent. I know a bad place to live. Didcot is just painfully generic. It was the most normal british town last(?) year.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:47
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I have also lived in Didcot and depending on which side you're on, everyone is either weird insular middle class lib dem or weird insular working class tory.
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Aug 9, 2022 15:50
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Barry Foster posted:It's, uh London was literally on fire the other day and you still have a sizable amount of British people who scoff at climate change. 
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Aug 9, 2022 15:51
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Mega Comrade posted:London was literally on fire the other day and you still have a sizable amount of British people who scoff at climate change. A lot of people don't know what it is. From people who think summers will just be a bit sunnier, to people who think it's just about the sea level vaguely rising over the next few hundred years, to people who think that it is something in the future and not in the past. That's before you get into the whole culture war around it due to it being seen as a lefty cause, for many people that means they have to default to scoffing at it because examining it would mean examining everything else. Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Aug 9, 2022 |
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Aug 9, 2022 15:57
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Have to say I've been feeling pretty down on the future lately. I work in ocean sciences and adjacent to environmental sciences more generally, where there is not a lot to feel optimistic about. Lots of measuring the harm, little feeling that anyone is listening and planning to do anything much about it. Politics more broadly is a pretty depressing place too, although the big collective actions in the UK at the moment are heartening. I'm just back from holiday and everything is noticeably more expensive in the shops. I have a big project that I can't seem to get back into. I'm in an OK place in general: my finances are alright, my landlord isn't the worst, good relationship, good doggo. Usually I don't worry too much about the looming end of everything - I'm more on the "you have to keep trying anyway" than the "might as well give up" side of things. But I've been feeling pretty poo poo the last few days and you nice folk will understand that so here is my e/n post. Even when the news is depressing it's nice to read this thread of good, broadly like-minded people also shitposting and yelling into the void. When other people post something like this I usually tell them it's OK to stop paying attention to the news and reading stuff that will upset them for a bit, so I guess I should probably try that.
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Aug 9, 2022 16:03
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e: double post
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Aug 9, 2022 16:03
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big scary monsters posted:I doubt anyone knows in general. It's going to depend a lot on local coastal topography / bathymetry, local currents, other thermal and chemical discharges in the area, and ecosystem makeup. I'd imagine you'd have to do an impact study on each site and the effects probably range from "negligible" to "Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone". I was trying to choose my words to eliminate as many of the edge cases as I could. I know the real situation is closer to "it's not perfect, it merely results in less pollution than most sources of loving solar when done right (manufacturing and maintenance included), but doing it right takes a lot of careful planning we need to do now and we could finish the planning phase in a few months if we committed, but that involves nobody trying to cut corners and good loving luck with that". We could probably take care of all of our energy needs for thousands of years before nuclear waste becomes the problem fossil fuel waste is, but I aimed at making a clear point. Manufacturing solar panels is dirty and energy intensive, wind kills birds and makes noise and requires batteries to store spare capacity, concentrated solar needs deserts with a reliable water source, geothermal can destroy the ground near it if you're careless, hydro dams can and do fail in very lethal ways, we're far away from fusion that's efficient enough to produce power with less waste than fission, lithium is destructive to extract and in short supply and prone to catching fire, sodium results in large immobile power storage units... no free lunch, as far as energy goes. But fossil fuels aren't just bad from the co2 perspective, they're also bad compared to nuclear given what it takes to extract them and what's left behind. As scary as nuclear waste has been made to be, fossil fuel waste is so much worse people just don't get the scales involved and have real problems comprehending just how much waste they produce.
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Aug 9, 2022 16:09
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Yeah your broad points are quite right and tbh I was picking an unnecessary fight out of pedantry. Sorry about that.
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Aug 9, 2022 16:11
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How much concrete do we need if we need to put a big dome on the top of the plant when it melts down?
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Aug 9, 2022 16:11
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Scientastic posted:I don’t know where you live, but if it’s anywhere near London, I’m sure I can dig up his details and send them to you… Edinburgh, sadly. So like a fake London this month due to the festival! Thanks tho and to all the others who replied, really useful and helpful!
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Aug 9, 2022 16:24
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I often go walking, be it along canals, footpaths or just the pavements, and was wondering on the rules behind pruning vegetation that is encroaching/limiting access to the footpath. Sometimes stiles or paths can be overgrown and a challenge to get through. I thought that the landowner (be that the farmer or council) had a duty to maintain the access. What am I allowed to do as a user? Is it OK to take a pair of secateurs and prune as I hike?
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Aug 9, 2022 16:35
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Gonzo McFee posted:How much concrete do we need if we need to put a big dome on the top of the plant when it melts down? It's pretty much impossible at this point for modern nuclear reactors to melt down. Like, that's not even an exaggeration, I mean literally impossible. It's been a long time since chernobyl and asking that is like bringing up leaded fuel when cars no longer use it - you're raising a problem that has already been solved.
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Aug 9, 2022 16:35
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Thank god Corbyn didn't get the chance to take us back to the 70s. https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1557018063647694854
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Aug 9, 2022 16:36
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Sad Panda posted:I often go walking, be it along canals, footpaths or just the pavements, and was wondering on the rules behind pruning vegetation that is encroaching/limiting access to the footpath. Sometimes stiles or paths can be overgrown and a challenge to get through. I thought that the landowner (be that the farmer or council) had a duty to maintain the access. What am I allowed to do as a user? Is it OK to take a pair of secateurs and prune as I hike?
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Aug 9, 2022 16:40
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Mega Comrade posted:People always snub their nose at the idea of de-population being a means of solving climate change, but hear me out. I would just limit a cull to all members of the ERG, Tory party members who had positions of power and their families (including kids and grandparents). Also the destruction of schools like Eton and any academics who enabled their development. Am i not a benevolent god?  edit: i'm a fat man sitting in front of a computer, i know my reality doesn't include being a temporary but extremely vindictive dictator. Just Another Lurker fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Aug 9, 2022 |
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Aug 9, 2022 16:46
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Gonzo McFee posted:How much concrete do we need if we need to put a big dome on the top of the plant when it melts down? They build concrete/steel containment vessels around all plants by standard, have done for decades. Some are even dome shaped. The US ones are rated to survive impact from a passenger jet. Even Chernobyl had a partial one (not a full one to cut costs), they just didn't contain the top of the reactor, which lifted up due to the explosion. Gort fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Aug 9, 2022 |
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Aug 9, 2022 17:13
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Gort posted:The US ones are rated to survive impact from a passenger jet.
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Aug 9, 2022 17:18
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lol yeah yeah Starmer mode is the greatest https://twitter.com/waitingonbiden/status/1556626279373295616
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Aug 9, 2022 17:28
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mystic cryspyx predicts that liz's direct help to struggling households will come in the form of a leaflet to every household encouraging those resident to be more entrepreneurial
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Aug 9, 2022 17:46
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I see Angela Rayner has farted out another pathetic & dishonest plea that Scotland must stay in the union to save England from itself. Even ignoring that since 1959 if every seat in Scotland went Labour that'd have changed the largest party a whole twice in 17 elections, while Scotland is trying to save the English from themselves, who is saving the Scottish & Welsh from the English?
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Aug 9, 2022 18:17
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catte tax: Google "cat" (without the quote marks). Press the orange circle with the paw in it on the wiki link (works with touchscreen or mouse click, and on laptop or phone). 
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Aug 9, 2022 18:36
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big scary monsters posted:good doggo. Doggo tax please
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Aug 9, 2022 18:56
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Just Another Lurker posted:There's not enough lithium in the world to do that and as Jedit says you're wasting power in the process. Yeah I know. Thing is, storage is definitely a factor in a switch to renewables - because of the intermittent generation you either need storage, or you need shitloads of base generation capacity which can be spun up rapidly to compensate when it's not windy or sunny. There are new battery technologies being developed all the time. Sodium batteries are one thing that's being worked on. They seem to have the potential to do as well as (or better than in some situations) lithium in terms of energy density, battery longevity (charge cycles) etc. Also the total global reserves of lithium seem to be about 14m tons, whereas the US currently has 23 BILLION tons of sodium reserves. Yeah, all storage is gonna lose power, but if the alternative is "generating less of our power from renewables" then it's still the best option. If people (in the West at least) are going to be having electric vehicles anyway, may as well use them as storage for local power generation. Also the round-trip efficiency of storage with lithium batteries seems to be about 80% which is around the same as grid-scale solutions like pumped hydro. Again, still better than relying on gas etc. for base loads. I'm not one of those people who believe that technology will solve everything, but in this instance it seems like part of a good solution.
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Aug 9, 2022 19:09
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crispix posted:mystic cryspyx predicts that liz's direct help to struggling households will come in the form of a leaflet to every household encouraging those resident to be more entrepreneurial "You can burn this leaflet for warmth!!"
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Aug 9, 2022 19:10
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Disproportionation posted:It's pretty much impossible at this point for modern nuclear reactors to melt down. Like, that's not even an exaggeration, I mean literally impossible. It's been a long time since chernobyl and asking that is like bringing up leaded fuel when cars no longer use it - you're raising a problem that has already been solved. Does making it impossible to melt down cost a small fraction more than just making it very unlikely it'll melt down?
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Aug 9, 2022 19:22
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Gonzo McFee posted:Does making it impossible to melt down cost a small fraction more than just making it very unlikely it'll melt down? No, the old kinds of reactor just don't get made anymore. I think we all can appreciate your line of questioning but it's easy to just look into any of this yourself, even a little
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Aug 9, 2022 19:24
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Failed Imagineer posted:No, the old kinds of reactor just don't get made anymore. I think we all can appreciate your line of questioning but it's easy to just look into any of this yourself, even a little I will not
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Aug 9, 2022 19:26
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WhatEvil posted:Yeah I know. Thing is, storage is definitely a factor in a switch to renewables - because of the intermittent generation you either need storage, or you need shitloads of base generation capacity which can be spun up rapidly to compensate when it's not windy or sunny. Problem: It's not a solution at all. With sodium you get large immobile power units. You need lithium for electric cars. Electric cars are a dead end, replacing internal combustion engines would take a lot more resources than we have. Counting on any promises of future technological breakthroughs to solve this leads you to using fusion to power carbon capture plants to solve global warming.
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Aug 9, 2022 19:27
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His Divine Shadow posted:Energy experts have said we have basically one hail mary and that's Olkiluoto 3 coming online this december. Sad Panda posted:I often go walking, be it along canals, footpaths or just the pavements, and was wondering on the rules behind pruning vegetation that is encroaching/limiting access to the footpath. Sometimes stiles or paths can be overgrown and a challenge to get through. I thought that the landowner (be that the farmer or council) had a duty to maintain the access. What am I allowed to do as a user? Is it OK to take a pair of secateurs and prune as I hike? I definitely snap stuff off as I hike, when I'm out in the countryside. It pisses me off that there's not more enforcement in urban environments because when someone's rhododendron is slumping 18 inches across a 3 foot 6 pavement it makes it impassable for prams and wheelchairs.
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Aug 9, 2022 19:29
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There are so many more useful applications of battery technology and the resources to make them than using it to power cars jesus wept.
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Aug 9, 2022 19:32
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If you want to get on the "tech will save us" train you can say fusion is just around the corner Meanwhile the aliens excavating our dead world will marvel at the fact that we let ourselves die to create value for shareholders
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Aug 9, 2022 19:33
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Endjinneer posted:I can't lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathies. It's actually producing power right now though, 473 megawatts at the moment. Part of the testing phase which started on monday. It's gonna keep ramping up to 1600MW through to october, hope everything pans out, I really do...
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