Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Colonol Dekker on April 15, 2010, 02:21:27 am
-
Nice to wake up to. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8621407.stm) volcanic ash cloud about to hit the UK grounding all domestic aircraft. Two years before Aztec apocalypse day.
Oh well i'm off to loot and try to score with hot chicks before everyone else gets the same idea.
Edit- fixed bad phone typo.
-
Isn't that the Mayans? And isn't that December 21st?
-
Nitpick all you want. Grounding all domestic flights in the UK hasn't happened since 911 on such short notice. This is bad.
-
Well unless that arc is heading to another planet it wouldn't do anything but get loaded down with ash and sink.
-
Well unless that arc is heading to another planet it wouldn't do anything but get loaded down with ash and sink.
I think he's making a 2012 reference ;p
-
I'm not getting on the ark; I'll probably end up spending the next four million years stuck in a mountainside.
-
Edit- fixed bad phone typo.
Hehe I know what you typo'd :p :D
-
*Looks out of window* Wow, nice to see no aircraft in the sky... not that i'd be able to see any anyway with this much cloud (Or is it ash? :P)
-
True (student) pilots don't care for weather warnings!
Unless it's a crosswind.
-
The real main problem this causes isn't cancelled holidays, it's the lives it threatens indirectly:
Volcanic ash grounds East Midlands air ambulance
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8622596.stm
-
Calm down. It's a bunch of ash, it'll settle down.
Or the volcano will blow and it'll take longer to settle down.
Or it's a super volcano and we're all doomed.
Either way, stop panicking. You're English.
-
Stiff upper lip old boy
-
Calm down. It's a bunch of ash, it'll settle down.
Or the volcano will blow and it'll take longer to settle down.
Or it's a super volcano and we're all doomed.
Either way, stop panicking. You're English.
omg omg omg, theres Ash! We're all going to die!!!!!!!!!!!! *looks at sky* nope, still cloudy...
-
Calm down. It's a bunch of ash, it'll settle down.
Or the volcano will blow and it'll take longer to settle down.
Or it's a super volcano and we're all doomed.
Either way, stop panicking. You're English.
omg omg omg, theres Ash! We're all going to die!!!!!!!!!!!! *looks at sky* nope, still cloudy...
not even got much of that in Derbyshire
-
London's been mustard all day. Crystal, absolutely mint.
Kept looking north, not a jot.
-
I am meant to fly from Dublin to Berlin next week
It better be clear by then!!
Or my beer drinking, country ruining session shall be ruined!
I can hear the Brits shouting already to the people of Iceland "We said we wanted CASH not ASH!!!!" :D
-
I already heard that one today :p
Need more jokes.
-
what's with the (seemingly) increased volcanic/seismic activity lately? Weird...
-
Must be Dawn French disco dancing after disasterous divorce.
-
They just showed the jetstream on CNN. Instead of going it's normal route it's doing a big turn down over GB then back out over the pond and turning over Spain and France into the Med so it may disrupt air travel in most of the countries along the Med as well in the coming days.
-
what's with the (seemingly) increased volcanic/seismic activity lately? Weird...
Yeah I was wondering about that too.
-
Well, apparently it was going to reach Russian airspace by midnight tonight.(gmt)
Also just heard this-
The reason so much dust and crap has appeared from Iceland?
Kerry Catona sneezed.
-
Well least you're probably not going to look like the Gears of War 3 trailer (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ashes-to-gears-of-war/64419)...
maybe :P
-
omg omg omg, theres Ash!
*snip* Derbyshire
Derbyshire, I choose you! :p
-
Calm down. It's a bunch of ash, it'll settle down.
Or the volcano will blow and it'll take longer to settle down.
Or it's a super volcano and we're all doomed.
Either way, stop panicking. You're English.
omg omg omg, theres Ash! We're all going to die!!!!!!!!!!!! *looks at sky* nope, still cloudy...
not even got much of that in Derbyshire
but i AM in derbyshire! near the town of Belper to narrow it down :P
-
It's my understanding that most of the glacier on the mountainside has melted causing flooding on it's way to the ocean. I'm pointing this out because nothing we've got could melt that much ice in that short a period time and it's a reminder of just how small we really are.
-
It's my understanding that most of the glacier on the mountainside has melted causing flooding on it's way to the ocean. I'm pointing this out because nothing we've got could melt that much ice in that short a period time and it's a reminder of just how small we really are.
If you believe the global warming data (which I imagine you don't), what we've got could instead melt much more ice in a much longer span of time.
-
It's my understanding that most of the glacier on the mountainside has melted causing flooding on it's way to the ocean. I'm pointing this out because nothing we've got could melt that much ice in that short a period time and it's a reminder of just how small we really are.
Volcanic eruptions like this are a one off thing that, with some exceptions dont happen too often. The amount of CO2 being released by human industry is considerably more than the volcanic eruptions in a particular year, that's been conclusively proven. Thing is about GW, it doesn't go in a bang, it gradually creeps.
-
The thing about GW that makes me doubt it's veracity as being a manmade change is that back in the 80's, it wasn't carbon(which is quietly being forgotten as being a key building block of life on Earth and essential to the continuance of thus), it was CFC's. When the CFC's didn't pan out "they", the proponents of man made global warming, disappeared from the general public eye for nigh on to two decades and a few years ago they crawled back out of whatever dank hole they climbed into and latched onto carbon emissions as they're new champion "cause", all the while they're loading the deck of their "data" by placing the sensors they used to collect that "data" in places that are abnormally warm year-round like jet washes at int'l airports and basically places where the pavement and geology cause the heat from the sun to collect and not dissipate into the environment and power the world's air conditioner, the water cycle. Meanwhile they conveniently didn't place sensors in places where the temperature remained the same or went down like locations far from "civilization" like farms and national parks. Therefore the "data" is suspect and the supposition that is based on it is also flawed.
You guys are always really eager to rag on me and mine about religion, but GW is as much a religion based on faith in(the minds of sceptics) a dubious idea.
-
Actually a few people have identified carbon emissions as the primary cause of global warming as far back as the '50s.
And you're telling me that we can pump all this stuff into the atmosphere and not have adverse effects?
-
Calm down. It's a bunch of ash, it'll settle down.
Or the volcano will blow and it'll take longer to settle down.
Or it's a super volcano and we're all doomed.
Either way, stop panicking. You're English.
omg omg omg, theres Ash! We're all going to die!!!!!!!!!!!! *looks at sky* nope, still cloudy...
not even got much of that in Derbyshire
but i AM in derbyshire! near the town of Belper to narrow it down :P
chesterfield mate
-
Why the heck don't you guys have a HLP UK meet up?
On topic, does anyone know how Iceland is doing?
-
Why the heck don't you guys have a HLP UK meet up?
On topic, does anyone know how Iceland is doing?
It's drowning.
http://www.ptinews.com/news/611869_800-evacuated-due-to-flood-risk-near-Iceland-volcano
-
The thing about GW that makes me doubt it's veracity as being a manmade change is that back in the 80's, it wasn't carbon(which is quietly being forgotten as being a key building block of life on Earth and essential to the continuance of thus), it was CFC's. When the CFC's didn't pan out "they", the proponents of man made global warming, disappeared from the general public eye for nigh on to two decades and a few years ago they crawled back out of whatever dank hole they climbed into and latched onto carbon emissions as they're new champion "cause", all the while they're loading the deck of their "data" by placing the sensors they used to collect that "data" in places that are abnormally warm year-round like jet washes at int'l airports and basically places where the pavement and geology cause the heat from the sun to collect and not dissipate into the environment and power the world's air conditioner, the water cycle. Meanwhile they conveniently didn't place sensors in places where the temperature remained the same or went down like locations far from "civilization" like farms and national parks. Therefore the "data" is suspect and the supposition that is based on it is also flawed.
You guys are always really eager to rag on me and mine about religion, but GW is as much a religion based on faith in(the minds of sceptics) a dubious idea.
CFC's wasn't about Global Warming either, that was more to do with the hole in the ozone layer, allowing more radiation in from the sun.
-
From Liberator:
The thing about GW that makes me doubt it's veracity as being a manmade change is that back in the 80's, it wasn't carbon(which is quietly being forgotten as being a key building block of life on Earth and essential to the continuance of thus), it was CFC's.
First off, the major concern with CFC’s was their detrimental effect on the Ozone layer. This is immediately obvious when looking at the ozone hole over Antarctica, which is a very well-studied phenomenon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion)
And yes, CFC’s do affect global warming, but the central concern is CO2. There is also methane and water vapor and several other trace gases that do the same.
As for “carbon being a key building block of life on Earth and essential to the continuance of thus”, are you seriously trying to use that logic to say that more CO2 is always better? *Of course* CO2 is necessary. It would be ridiculous to state otherwise. The problem is we are upsetting the natural equilibrium by adding so much CO2 to the atmosphere in such a short time. This is *not* natural.
From Liberator:
You guys are always really eager to rag on me and mine about religion, but GW is as much a religion based on faith in(the minds of sceptics) a dubious idea.
No, from what I’ve seen, most of our “ragging” on you is because you make false claims against science without giving any reasonable support for them whatsoever. It’s as if you think all the scientists who study these subjects for a living are wrong, and yet you don’t even have a sound grasp of said subjects.
The rest of your post is filled with such patent nonsense and unfounded conspiracy theory that I’m not going to waste my time responding to it.
-
The thing about GW that makes me doubt it's veracity as being a manmade change is that back in the 80's, it wasn't carbon(which is quietly being forgotten as being a key building block of life on Earth and essential to the continuance of thus)
This is a very stupid thing to say.
First off, no one is forgetting this. Take an organic chemistry class and you'll rapidly be sick of carbon, that's how important it is.
Water is a key building block of life and essential to the continuance of thus. Is more of it better? Would putting extra water into your body make you better? How about putting more water into the world, would that make everything better too?
Think Before You Post.
-
Righto.
Wall of text alert.
TL;DR - there are neglibible disadvantages from preparing for the adverse effects of fast climate change and significant benefits from developing energy production to replace fossil fuels - namely, fusion power. Ergo, there's no reason not to develope fusion power as fast as possible, and prepare for the worst case scenarios as well as possible.
----
On to business.
Now, there's this thing called carbon cycle. In the beginning of the Earth's history (according to all histories except YEC guys), pretty much all of the carbon was freely distributed in the atmosphere. This is the pretty much fixed amount of carbon - apart from volcanic emissions which have added some of it to the cycle - and it took some time for algae to produce free oxygen into atmosphere so that relative amount of carbon in the atmosphere reduced and majority of it become bound to the cells - dead and alive - of organisms.
During the long long geological history, large parts of that carbon has remained bound in the dead cells of organisms and become fossil fuels as we know them. So that's a chunk of carbon that has been off from the cycle for quite a sizeable amount of time, and it's not exactly an irrelevant part of it either.
Now if all that carbon were to be burned and released into atmosphere as CO2, I don't know the exact percentage of it in atmosphere and I'm unwilling to make uneducated guesses.
What I do know is that there are very little arguments for this NOT affecting the climate and thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere.
The largest single threat of this is runaway greenhouse effect which would mean that Earth-that-was could no longer sustain our numbers, or much of anything else either as the oceans would vaporize, dissolve into oxygen and hydrogen, and the hydrogen would be blown away by solar wind. That's the absolute worst case scenario.
One could argue that hey, since that block of carbon was in the atmosphere to begin with and Earth didn't turn out as another Venus, we'll be fine. However there are two flaws in this reasoning:
1. Surplus of carbon from volcanic activity during billions of years
2. Increase of Sun's radiation output.
So this possible (though hopefully unlikely) threat can't just be swept away. I don't want to make badly argumented guesses as to how possible it would be, but it can't really be disproven either so it has to remain in the list of possible outcomes of continued carbon release.
The other outcomes, even if the climate warming doesn't get into positive feedback loop akin to Venus, are not that favourable either. Change itself is a natural part of the climate and it's pretty well documented and historically accepted that there have been much warmer and colder times than present during our planet's history.
What is the problem is the very, very rapid increase of amount of carbon in active cycle caused by widespread usage of fossilized hydrocarbons which is, actually, unprecedented in the history of Earth - until now, the carbon buried in the crust of Earth has pretty much stayed there for very long time, if not virtually forever.
This means a comparatively rapid change in composition of Earth's atmosphere is occurring. At the moment, the amount carbon dioxide isn't anything unforeseen in the history of Earth (there have been times with higher CO2 concentrations) but I think the speed of the change is.
This means that it is also possible that the speed of climate change will be unforeseen as well. It is true that we lack the data to confirm or falsify this possibility with very good certainty, but let's endeavour the results of this possibility.
On general level: Rapid climate change leaves no time to adapt to it, for either humans or other species and biosystems on the planet. This will lead to widespread extinction that will be especially hard on specialized species and long-lived species which are slow to reach fertility and have long generations (thus having longer evolutionary response time to changes).
From humanity's perspective, a rapid climate change can cause correspondingly rapid changes in weather patterns and the dreaded sea level. The problems associated with rise in sea level are obvious - there are a lot of people and infrastructure stuck on the current coastlines. Flooding of these areas would lead to large relocations and economical problems as ports would have to be re-built on new locations, large cities and their industry would be submerged, problems from this alone would be huge.
The change of weather patterns would potentially be even larger hazard. If the distributions of precipitation were to remarkably change, it would leave to even more relocations as previously fertile areas might not be fit for cultivation any more. Desertification of places like India's or China's large wheat and rice fields would be disastrous - two billion people would be on the move searching for better place to grow their food in from those areas alone. Of course, the most obvious area they might look at is Siberia. One doesn't need to be a genius to predict problems from this sort of thing, were it to happen.
So, if a fast climate change were to happen, it would be a sociological, political, economical, humanitarian disaster of unforeseen proportions and there's no denying that. There is an "if" associated to the climate change itself and its speed, but the results of it actually happening should be largely obvious.
From ecological point of view, as said, it would disrupt practically all ecosystems on Earth, eradicate almost all specialized species, put a heavy toll on biodiversity globally and generally make the nature a few notches less interesting and vivacious, for at least a couple hundred thousand or million years. Of course in long term, large scale extinction events open road for new evolutionary steps, but from our perspective this would be irrelevant - losses of nature would be losses for us.
There is hardly any way a fast change in climate could be beneficial for either humans or ecosystems in general. Speed is the problem here.
So these are the main problems associated with the possibility of a fast climate change.
No let's take a look at what we can attempt to prevent the worst from happening.
We can:
-reduce consumption of fossil fuels and other limited resources
-limit population growth
These are partially interconnected. No one wants to drop their standard of living, so either we start being more efficient or there will have to be less of us.
From the perspective of atmospheric composition, limiting the usage of fossil fuels would be the most important thing. However, the energy requirements probably can't be reduced, so research into alternative energy production must be accelerated.
And by this I mean fusion research because that's the only energy source that can offer sustainable production of sufficient energy volume to meet our demands without being unpractical or unrealistic regarding other resources (such as windmills which can't be used as baseline power due to their reliance from weather, or solar power which takes an obscene amount of area to produce enough energy to make a difference).
In fact, I can not fathom why fusion research isn't getting tons of funding from governments, since anyone with a grain of brain in their head should realize these things after thinking them through, but I dunno, maybe exploding other people to bits is considered more productive (although at the moment humanity reproduces faster than they can be offed, so despite valiant efforts it isn't even working for reducing the population).
These are the main things that can and should be done on high level to prepare for and possibly slow down the climate change. On personal level you can try and reduce residential and personal transportation energy consumption by being a bit more frugal and using public transportation or a vehicle with good fuel economy, but you can't really affect the energy consumption of heavy industry, heavy transportation and commercial sector; changes must occur on these sectors as well.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/USenergy2004.jpg)
So, there's pretty much the biggest things that can be done to counter (not necessarily prevent or stop) rapid climate change.
Losses from doing these things should the sceptics be correct and climate change not occurring (in our life time):
-some amount of discomfort if you try and consume less
-funds for fusion research away from other public projects
Gains from doing these things should the sceptics be correct:
-we get the fricking fusion power. Shouldn't that be sort of number one target of energy engineering anyway?
-as a result we could limit usage of fossil fuels even if it weren't necessary for the sake of climate stability - this would reduce the amount of particle emissions (which cause a lot of deaths alone) and preserve the stores of fossil fuels for possible future needs.
Gains from doing these things (if climate change is real and as fast as feared):
-working fusion power (long live space race, long live molvania!)
-slowing down or halting rapid climate change, and in general better preparedness for it should it happen
OR, we cold just sit on the pile of coal and let the mother****er burn, infusing the atmosphere with more carbon, hoping that the climate won't change to an unfavourable direction as a result of our actions or lack thereof.
Potential losses from this, should the climate change actually happen fast:
-poor preparedness
-general mayhem (aforementioned possible threats)
-practically irrevocable loss of lots of hydrocarbons that might become useful at some point in the future
-loss of all life on Earth (extreme worst case scenario)
Potential benefits from doing this in case the sceptics are right and the climate isn't going anywhere (in our lifetime):
-compared to present? none, really, unless you count the increased information about the climate and our planet as a benefit.
So all in all, regardless of whether or not the climate change is happening or how fast or not, the benefits from trying to counteract it would be significant in the long run, whereas if we do nothing, we may go on for some time, but it is a mathematical reality that on a finite sized planet there can not be infinite amount of resources, which means at some point we'll run out of fossil fuels anyway - or rather, gathering them will consume more energy than they provide.
At that point it will be necessary to transition to other energy sources anyway, so why not prepare for it as soon as possible...
Curiously, I have never heard or seen any argument why preparing for a rapid climate change as well as possible would be a bad thing. Or in other words how research for reducing fossil fuel usage would be a bad thing.
-
-funds for fusion research away from other public projects
Gains from doing these things should the sceptics be correct:
-we get the fricking fusion power. Shouldn't that be sort of number one target of energy engineering anyway?
Fusion isn't going to be here for another few decades. Until then we still have its younger brother, fission, which also produces no CO2 on its own and is quite efficient, certainly more so than any of the other alternatives (wind, solar, etc) will ever be.
-
Fusion isn't going to be here for another few decades.
I would say that depends entirely on how much effort is put onto it's developement.
At its current pace, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment - it's at lest 15-25 years to the future. But if it suddenly gained a boost in perceived importance, it could very well start driving the research on materials, high-temperature engineering, plasma handling and superconductors instead of being dependant on the discoveries made on these branches of research...
Until then we still have its younger brother, fission, which also produces no CO2 on its own and is quite efficient, certainly more so than any of the other alternatives (wind, solar, etc) will ever be.
Yes. Even though fission is not a viable long-term replacement to fossil fuels, it's better than other currently available alternatives.
That's why at the moment it would be better to build fission power plants instead of coal combustion power plants, and when fusion power starts being a viable option, replace rest of the fossil fuel combustion power plants with fusion ones, and then shut down fission reactors and start running their generators with fusion reactors...
-
Perhaps we ought to get a thread split for the climate/energy discussion?
Herra, there's only one subject of your post that I have any disagreement on, and that's about the immediate usefullness of solar energy vs. fusion power. The reasion being that, currently, it takes a huge amount of energy not just to start a fusion reaction, but also to manufacture the equipment involved. Right now I think the (total) energy input is many orders of magnitude greater than the useful energy output. That said, I do not disagree that fusion power is a subject that should be getting a great deal more research, because it is theoretically the most clean and powerful means of energy production. Plus, it's a great investment from a scientific/technological perspective, too.
With solar energy, however, even though it requires a great deal of land space to make a considerable difference, I'd argue that any difference we can make is very beneficial in cutting down our use of coal and various other hydrocarbon fuel sources. In short, we already have something that works, is rather simple in concept, and has no detrimental effect on the environment... so why not invest in more solar?
-
Yes. Even though fission is not a viable long-term replacement to fossil fuels, it's better than other currently available alternatives.
I guess that depends on how you define long term. There's plenty of uranium everywhere, not just in currently known deposits but it literally is in everything, especially seawater (http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/01/207-uranium-from-seawater-part-1.html), and if that isn't enough there's still plenty of it on the moon. If we ever come close to running out there's its even more plentiful cousin, thorium. Adding to that we still have waste reprocessing that massively increases the amount of fuel available and potentialy fast breeder reactors to extend that fuel even more. Fuel supply wont be a problem for quite a while. The only problem is scare mongering and lies and lies from environmental groups. Given the state of modern, generation 3+ reactors (like the AP1000), I find the idea of cutting outselves off from this immensely energy rich fuel source because of fear to be quite absurd.
All that being said fusion in the distant future is a better choice because it packs even more power and hopefully will give us a chance to finally get out of using boiled water as a means to generate electricity (pulling electricity directly from the plasma), but it will take a long time for it to reach the maturity and miniaturization fission has.
In short, we already have something that works, is rather simple in concept, and has no detrimental effect on the environment... so why not invest in more solar?
Solar certainly has its place, but in my view it is too fundementally inconsistent and inefficient to be depended upon as a source of baseline power. There was an article a couple of years ago in the LA Times, IIRC, about environmental groups filing lawsuits to block the development of solar farms in the california desert. This was the closest I could find (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126144129302900923.html) that sheds some light on the issue.
-
The problem with fission is that it is not renewable like fossile fuels there is only a limited amount of fissiable material on the planet. Also all stages of the process result in hazardous levels of radioactive waste that has to be processed and stored often for many decades while radiation levels fall to a 'safe' point which is a nightmare all of its own. I know fussin is likely to irradiate the reactor but i belive the predicted danger period is a fraction of that from most stages of the fission process.
-
not renewable like fossile fuels
ERMMM...
Although strictly speaking in billions of years of non-use fossil fuels may have been replenished, it's not really 'renewable' in human terms, nor in the energy business terms...
-
not renewable like fossile fuels
ERMMM...
Although strictly speaking in billions of years of non-use fossil fuels may have been replenished, it's not really 'renewable' in human terms, nor in the energy business terms...
What he was trying to say was that 'like fossil fuels, they are not renewable'.
-
Ah, yes...
A comma would have been very helpful :<
-
sorry was on my phone, but yes i meant to say that like fossil fuels nuclear fission is non renewable
-
Herra, I feel like I'm going to be linking that post of yours in a number of places in the future. :yes: That's an angle I've felt has been underrepresented in discussions about carbon-reduction proposals, one that might actually make a bit of headway against the head-in-sand crowd. We're going to run out of easily-accessible fossil fuels at some point, most likely before this century is out...so wouldn't trying to wean ourselves off them be immensely beneficial whether or not global warming is a serious problem?
-
Wow no Air Ops over Europe, suppose it's lucky this isn't 1944.
-
Well IIRC, flight ops were grounded for several days during 1944/1945 for bad weather anyway. :P
-
The problem with fission is that it is not renewable like fossile fuels there is only a limited amount of fissiable material on the planet. Also all stages of the process result in hazardous levels of radioactive waste that has to be processed and stored often for many decades while radiation levels fall to a 'safe' point which is a nightmare all of its own. I know fussin is likely to irradiate the reactor but i belive the predicted danger period is a fraction of that from most stages of the fission process.
Like I said, that fissionable material is so plentiful it can last for centuries, especially with breeder reactors.
Also storage and processing of nuclear waste isn't nearly as big of a problem as it is made out to be, the technology is perfectly safe and a nuclear reactor doesn't actually generate that much waste. It's just a political problem. I've heard there are some new reactor designs being proposed that will be able to actually consume the waste, so in the future this will be even more of a non-issue than it already is.
-
Wow no Air Ops over Europe, suppose it's lucky this isn't 1944.
All of the flights out of Al Udeid here to Rammstein are off for another week too.
-
Nuclear = good
Pushing for Fusion = good
Solar in it's place(which is not where it is now being hailed by the greenies as the end all destination) = good
Making me buy a car that costs 4000 to 5000 more dollars than it's non-hybrid equivalent with a giant battery that can crush me in a wreck and wears out and has to be replaced at a cost of thousands of dollars AND is hazardous to the environment all by itself and then having the temerity to tell me I'm a bad person if I don't do this = bad
Let me be clear, there's nothing inherently bad about what the greenies want in the end, clear air, water and land, which is fine. I'm just sick and tired of being the spawn of the devil for not bending over backwards and kissing they're nethers as they try to kill the economy that makes they're little putt putt cars available in the first place by placing ridiculously overblown regulations on industry, which in turn makes everything more expensive.
We are not a post-singularity society, we do not have infinite, free energy for every man, woman, and child or the ability to shape raw matter into any form we need or desire. An economy must be free enough to generate innovation and entrepreneurship, but all I see right now is a bunch of people who want to chain it down like a rabid animal because a few people behaved unscrupulously.
-
Nuclear = good
:D
-
Like I said, that fissionable material is so plentiful it can last for centuries, especially with breeder reactors.
Also storage and processing of nuclear waste isn't nearly as big of a problem as it is made out to be, the technology is perfectly safe and a nuclear reactor doesn't actually generate that much waste. It's just a political problem. I've heard there are some new reactor designs being proposed that will be able to actually consume the waste, so in the future this will be even more of a non-issue than it already is.
I think there's also the problem of people associating everything nuclear with nasty nuclear weapons as well, what with the Cold War and everything. Maybe. :nervous: I'm not quite sure, but I'm sure that there's still some of that around.
-
Like I said, that fissionable material is so plentiful it can last for centuries, especially with breeder reactors.
Also storage and processing of nuclear waste isn't nearly as big of a problem as it is made out to be, the technology is perfectly safe and a nuclear reactor doesn't actually generate that much waste. It's just a political problem. I've heard there are some new reactor designs being proposed that will be able to actually consume the waste, so in the future this will be even more of a non-issue than it already is.
I think there's also the problem of people associating everything nuclear with nasty nuclear weapons as well, what with the Cold War and everything. Maybe. :nervous: I'm not quite sure, but I'm sure that there's still some of that around.
amongst some of the more closed minded and less educated areas of the global that is a problem but i think the bigger problem is with the political "old guard" in most countries being around for Chernobyl going critical meaning most people associate nuclear power the disaster being ignorant or uncaring of the distinction between fission and fusion
-
To be fair, an increase in nuclear power usage also means an increase in the availability of nuclear materials to peoples and organizations who want to make statements as loudly as possible or just plain wanna kill as many of their enemies as possible. You can scoff at this if you want, but if you think Iran wants to build nuclear reactors exclusively for power generation, I question the location of your head and offer a bottle of shampoo to wash the sand out.
-
I heard that the last time that volcano erupted, it erupted for two years, and it could also cause other volcanoes in the surrounding area to erupt...
-
The ash cloud will cause a new ice age and we will rue for the days when we could casually burn such precious commodities as coal or oil... :p
-
Combine the two, and burn........... coil :p
-
as they try to kill the economy that makes they're little putt putt cars available in the first place by placing ridiculously overblown regulations on industry, which in turn makes everything more expensive.
We are not a post-singularity society, we do not have infinite, free energy for every man, woman, and child or the ability to shape raw matter into any form we need or desire. An economy must be free enough to generate innovation and entrepreneurship, but all I see right now is a bunch of people who want to chain it down like a rabid animal because a few people behaved unscrupulously.
The IRONY, I can't take it cap'n THE IRONY!