Forests and Environmental Damage

[Just A Bill]

My biggest problem with the environmental movement as a whole is that it is anti-capitolist at its core. Sure companies pollute and accidents happen, but we never hear about the environmental disasters that come from socialism and communism, which I suspect many of those in the environmental movement prefer. The western world is in far better shape environmentally than the former Soviet Union and other former communist nations.

I seem to remember Mao attempting to kill all the birds in China in an attempt to get more rice for people.

While I don't doubt that many in the environmental movement are not socialists/communists, but a bunch of the leadership is...

[Racetyme]

Exaxtly. No one whines about communists, yet who managed to destroy a nuclear reactor?

[formerly known as hf]

There are no power sources - period - with no long term effect on the environment.

Indeed - but there are some with very little effect.

Wind power: Birds collide with the turbine blades and die. They also have a huge footprint on the landscape relative to power generation.

These are the two arguments anti-wind tubine groups come up with. The bird thing has been heavily disproved. Modern wind trubine design includes measures that make sure birds head away from it. Cars, jets, cats, pollution in cities. These things kill birds at an incredibly higher rate than turbines ever will. As for footprint - yes - they take up a lot of visual space. Which is an understandable concern for locals. Which is why, you'll find, that those 200m tall turbines are designed to be off-shore.

Hydro power: Requires the construction of massive dams, submerging large areas of wilderness. They can cause major changes in the ecosystem both upstream and downstream.

and regularly displace millions of people in poor countries. people who won't even be connected to the electricity produced. No, I don;t like hydro power either.

Solar power (Photovoltic based): Inefficient. This leads to high land use per watt. This means covering large sections of the landscape with solar cells. Also, the chemicals used to produce the solar cells cause pollution, as well as cleaning chemicals used to keep the solar cells at as high efficiency as they can muster.

The problems you lists are because it is in the early stages of development - still - becuase there is not enough investment. Photophoteic cells (the most recent development) have been developed so that houses can use them as roofing material (and they look nothing like traditional solar panels). If everyone put solar panels on their roof - esepcially in sunny California - they'd cut their energy costs dramatically. It'd also take no extra land use. That's a silly argument - solar panels are much more flexible in where they can be installed than power stations.

Geothermal power

is still mostly sci-fi...

Solar power (Solarthermal based):

even more fiction - I'm afraid technology just isn't that great - no one puts money into alternative methods of energy sourcing, as there's no incentive, except concern about pollution - which is a personal judgement

We could substantially help the environment by replacing coal-fired power plants with nuclear power.

Burying waste that will be dangerous for hundreds, thousands, of years, is not what I would define as sustainable

Nuclear power can be built just about darn near anywhere.

I wouldn't want it near me - would you?

I'm not familiar with the term 'one-off yield'.

I was refering to the terminator gene in GM crops again. As for Greenpeace not making things better - the US and EU have a juch greater effect with their very heavy farm subsidies and import restrictions - if you want the poor people to survive through trade - you can't then go and refuse to trade with them and force your own products on them (that aren't wanted or even edible for humans)

And I could go all kinds of places with this - but I'm not going to, because its not an environmental issue.

:( Aww... That is much more my area than environmental issues...

I'd seriously look into how this was being budgeted.

It's because the power plants became much more of a problem. The waste can be dealt with. Decommissionging out of use nuclear plants (and they do have a lifespan) is very expensive - making nuclear energy expensive in the long run - cheap to produce - but the expenses come when plants need to be decommissioned - but that's never taken into account when pricing the nuclear power - if £56bn was incuded in the cost of nuclear power - it would never be viable - but because it's born by the tax payer and not via energy prices - that never shows...

My biggest problem with the environmental movement as a whole is that it is anti-capitolist at its core

You'll find it's mostly alter-capitalist. Very few people except some very nutty left wingers, would ever want to see a communist regime. Communism has been proven not to work - personally, I don't even think it's a great idea on paper.
What you'll find that they are is alter-capitalist and anti neo-liberal. In that they would like to see more restrictions on capital and bug business put in place by governments. This is not communism, certainly not Sovietism.

[Just A Bill]

While I dont' know for a fact, I suspect the "Terminator gene" that makes GM crops steril is put in there for safety, probably at the urging of environmentalists.

Would you rather have a mutant crop that can reproduce and spread to areas other than where it is planted.

I seem to recall that some 3rd world nations won't take GM foods, because several European countries won't import food from places where GM food is grown anywhere near the place because they are worried about accidentally getting some of the GM crops via cross-pollination...

[Savanik]

These are the two arguments anti-wind tubine groups come up with. The bird thing has been heavily disproved. Modern wind trubine design includes measures that make sure birds head away from it. Cars, jets, cats, pollution in cities. These things kill birds at an incredibly higher rate than turbines ever will. As for footprint - yes - they take up a lot of visual space. Which is an understandable concern for locals. Which is why, you'll find, that those 200m tall turbines are designed to be off-shore.

I am a bad person who did not adequately research the knowledge other people put in my brain. Apparently the whole 'wind turbines kill birds' is the sole province of California, who has an endangered species nearby one wind turbine where some of the endangered birds were found dead, and started that whole mess. Why, oh why, did I trust an idea originating in California? It has indeed been found that the number of birds killed by these 'cuisinarts of the sky' is substantially lower than most other sources of avian collision deaths.

They still have some environmental impact - if nothing else, the pollution from manufacturing the components of the plant itself.

The problems you lists [about solar cells] are because it is in the early stages of development - still - becuase there is not enough investment. Photophoteic cells (the most recent development) have been developed so that houses can use them as roofing material (and they look nothing like traditional solar panels). If everyone put solar panels on their roof - esepcially in sunny California - they'd cut their energy costs dramatically.

Ah, yeah, those, I saw those in Discover magazine, I think, the new roofing cells that look just like shingles. I ran through the math about how much those would cost initially, and how soon they're recoup their investment.

A typical installation on a south-facing roof (the best kind) runs between $8000 and $25000 depending on how efficient you want the solar cells. That's just for the materials - I couldn't find a figure on labor rates without actually asking for a quote on a specific roof, so I ignored them.

Here in Missouri, this installation would save you around 5 kWh a day. My house typically uses 72 kWh, what with all the computers we've got running in the place. They work as great space heaters in winter. Energy costs about 5 cents per kWh, almost exactly. This means that it would take about 49 years to pay for itself. The material is only warranteed for 20 years, the lifespan of a typical roof.

Now if you were to do the same thing in the Granola state of California, where energy costs almost 10 cents a kWh, it would pay for itself in about half that time, about 24 years. Still longer than you can reasonably expect your roof to last.

As the technology continues to evolve, I have no doubt that the efficiency will go up, and prices will go down. In the meantime, they're just not quite feasible yet. As far as its not being a 'mature' technology... well, it was developed in 1946, so this is almost 60 years they've been messing around with it. Right now it seems you can only squeeze so much juice out of the sunlight.

Geothermal power

is still mostly sci-fi...

Solar power (Solarthermal based):

even more fiction - I'm afraid technology just isn't that great...

I wouldn't really call them science fiction after they get the first one built and operational. Experimental, I'll grant you, but I think the Geothermal Energy Association would object to calling the many plants their members have built 'fiction'. Ditto on Solarthermal - power plants were constructed on these principles as far back as 1982, and in particular, Stirling Energy Systems plans to make a grid of solarthermal engines in California capable of producing up to 300 kW in capacity and claim they won't need any subsidies to pay for it.

(Stirling Engine Systems also has a number of very nice pictures of their solar dishes, at least one of which I'm now using as my desktop. Check 'em out!)

We could substantially help the environment by replacing coal-fired power plants with nuclear power.

Burying waste that will be dangerous for hundreds, thousands, of years, is not what I would define as sustainable

Nuclear power can be built just about darn near anywhere.

I wouldn't want it near me - would you?

As it happens, I live with eight of them within a 200 mile radius of me. Four power producing, four research - one of which resides at the college I graduated from, the University of Missouri - Rolla. I'd also be perfectly happy living with one just a few miles away because I know how safe today's designs are. However, that's not required - nuclear power is efficient enough you can afford to build them hundreds of miles away from any major population center.

Something else interesting I noted - it could be that the reason UK reactors are so much more expensive to decommission is that most of them are still Magnox or AGR design and use graphite as a reaction moderator. DUDES! Water moderated reactions in PWR or BWR type reactors are much, much safer and cheaper to maintain and decommission.

If the power companies won't pay for the decommissioning of the reactors themselves, then they're not being responsible for the problems they've created, and their executives should face appropriate civil and criminal punishments. IMHO.

As far as the 56bn goes, though - I'm telling you, a small 5 pence per kWh subsidy on the price of nuclear power would've paid for it all, if it had been implemented when nuclear power had first started. Nuclear power wouldn't have been as competitive as other power plants, likely - but it's just part the price you pay for generating this kind of power. Either the users of nuclear power pay for it, or every citizen will. I'm much more for the former than the latter.

I'm feeling rather levitous today. Here's some fun nuclear facts and quotes:

If the US closed all 103 nuclear plants and replaced them with fossil fuel-fired plants, we would have to remove 90 million cars from America's highways just to maintain air quality. - Nuclear Energy Institute

Due to the substantial amounts of granite in their construction, many public buildings including Australia's Parliament House and New York Grand Central Station, would have some difficulty in getting a licence to operate if they were nuclear power stations. - Nuclear Issues Briefing Report 17

"The relation between 'nuclear' and 'bomb' that's been put in some minds makes about as much sense as one between 'electric' and 'chair'." - Investor's Business Daily, Feb 16, 2005

Living your entire lifetime next door to a nuclear plant has a loss-of-life-expectancy (LLE) of 0.04 days, meaning that, on average, a single person in that situation lives 0.04 days less - about an hour. Using a bicycle for transportation has an LLE of 6 days. Having poor social connections has an LLE of 1600 days. And being unmarried carries an LLE of 2000 days. - The Hazards of Nuclear Power, 1995.

If a fully loaded Boeing 767-400 struck a nuclear containment building dead on at 350 miles per hour, the worst it would do is chip the cement exterior a bit. - Nuclear Management Company report

A hurricane releases heat energy at about the same rate as detonating a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes. - National Center for Atmospheric Research

Sav

[Jos Elkink]

[Stan]

If a fully loaded Boeing 767-400 struck a nuclear containment building dead on at 350 miles per hour, the worst it would do is chip the cement exterior a bit. - Nuclear Management Company report
Sav

No way...I don't believe that.

I don't think I would be considered an environmentalist by many people, but this smacks of propaganda as do several other of the facts you mentioned.

My opinion:

Nuclear energy theoretically is a great source of energy. Problem is the plants are designed, built and operated by people. Mistakes will occur and MAJOR damage is the result. I don't have enough faith in human beings to live next door to a nuclear plant. Not because the plant is inherently dangerous, but because the people operating said plant COULD be idiots.

Renewable energy such as that from wind power will continue to make headwind (excuse the pun). The reasons are simple. It is beginning to make sense. It can be a profitable business.

Forget the whole good stewardship of the earth argument for a minute. When I do my personal finances every week I have to determine how much money I have in the bank. From there I can decide how much I'm going to spend. The day the money stops flowing in to my bank account (much like the fact that oil is not flowing into the world's oil reserves) is the day I begin to cut back on my spending and/or I'll begin to look for other sources of income. Otherwise, I'll run out of money.

Same applies to energy. It's a simple accounting problem not an environmental issue. Use it and lose it.

[Racetyme]

Nuclear power is the answer. There has never been an accident with lasting environmental effects, I won't count Chernobyll because of the circumstances surrounding that, and 3 mile island was contained despite a sensor misreading. I personally volunteer, you can put a nuclear power plant in my backyard. They are effectively contained and the waste can be stored absolutely safely. Inanimate objects just don't get up and walk out of 20 feet of concrete, and the security to prevent terrorist activity is foolproof. They produce enough energy to solve the energy crisis that is fast approaching when we decide coal and oil are too dirty, and they produce nothing but nuclear material, which can be safely stored, saving the air and water from pollutants.

[Savanik]

If a fully loaded Boeing 767-400 struck a nuclear containment building dead on at 350 miles per hour, the worst it would do is chip the cement exterior a bit. - Nuclear Management Company report
Sav

No way...I don't believe that.

I don't think I would be considered an environmentalist by many people, but this smacks of propaganda as do several other of the facts you mentioned.

You're welcome to look at the report here. (1) They studied a number of failure modes, including a centerline impact of the entire aircraft, and a direct impact of one of the engines.

They also studied what would happen if the plane were to hit a used fuel transportation container.

[quote=ABS Consulting]The analyses show the container body withstands the impact from the direct engine strike without breaching. The forces on the container are comparable to the forces used in tests containers must undergo before designs are approved by the NRC.[/quote]

Those tests that they mention about are documented in a video which you can view here. (2) It's a lot of fun to watch - you know the engineers on those projects have a lot of fun trying to break things - and it aptly demonstrates just how tough we build the things to protect nuclear fuel and waste. Because it has such a high energy density, there just isn't that much waste relative to how much profit it represents, so we can spend a lot of money protecting it.

Forget the whole good stewardship of the earth argument for a minute. When I do my personal finances every week I have to determine how much money I have in the bank. From there I can decide how much I'm going to spend. The day the money stops flowing in to my bank account (much like the fact that oil is not flowing into the world's oil reserves) is the day I begin to cut back on my spending and/or I'll begin to look for other sources of income. Otherwise, I'll run out of money.

Exactly! We're continually discovering new deposits and making technologies to extract it more efficiently or from places where we couldn't extract it from before.

The price of oil as energy does rise over time, though. It's part of economics. As oil becomes more scarce or more expensive to extract, prices passed along to the consumer will go up and other sources of fuel will look more attractive.

Nuclear energy, even with the regulations, guidelines, subsidies to fund waste treatment and disposal, is still a cheaper source of energy than coal. It's cleaner, it's safer, and will last longer than coal or oil.

There has never been an accident with lasting environmental effects, I won't count Chernobyll because of the circumstances surrounding that, and 3 mile island was contained despite a sensor misreading.

I'll count both of those incidents and still claim that nuclear power is safer than coal or oil, even after you normalize it for deaths per watts of energy generated. As you noted, 3 Mile Island caused zero deaths, because no one was killed in the accident, and no radiation escaped the containment building to reach the public. (Side note - Chernobyll did not have a containment building at all - one of the many design factors in American engineering that protects the public.) But I'll even count injuries from construction as well as operation. Watt for watt, more people have been killed in falls working on wind turbines than have been killed working with nuclear power plants. (3) And that's including Chernobyl.

Inanimate objects just don't get up and walk out of 20 feet of concrete, and the security to prevent terrorist activity is foolproof.

Well, I wouldn't say foolproof - nature is continually designing better fools - but it is very, very good. Besides, in the U.S., we don't have breeder reactors, so the stuff produced in our reactors can't be used for nuclear bombs directly - they could be used to make dirty bombs, but there's so many other ways to make those that don't involve breaking into a nuclear reactor...

Sav

(1) ABS Consulting, "Aircraft Crash Impact Analyses Demonstrate Nuclear Power Plant’s Structural Strength", 2002
(2) Nuclear Energy Institute. "An American Success Story: The Safe Shipment of Used Nuclear Fuel"
(3) OSHA. "WorkPlace Injury, Illness and Fatality Statistics" 2004.

[Racetyme]

Hoorah for Sav!

[Stan]

If a fully loaded Boeing 767-400 struck a nuclear containment building dead on at 350 miles per hour, the worst it would do is chip the cement exterior a bit. - Nuclear Management Company report
Sav

No way...I don't believe that.

I don't think I would be considered an environmentalist by many people, but this smacks of propaganda as do several other of the facts you mentioned.

You're welcome to look at the report here. (1) They studied a number of failure modes, including a centerline impact of the entire aircraft, and a direct impact of one of the engines.

According to said, above report the conclusion is as follows:

Conclusion: The study determined that the structures that house reactor fuel are robust and protect the fuel from impacts of large commercial aircraft.

1. As an engineer I live by the following motto: In God we trust, all others bring data.

2. The conclusion is that the fuel is protected from impact not a breach of the wall. That's why we need to see the actual data not just the conditions of the computer simulation.

Besides, as I've mentioned before people run these things. It doesn't take many idiots to create major problem.

I'm also a realist in the sense that other sources of power will not be widely used until they are financially viable and profitable. I think from a purely political sense pursuing a global use of Nuclear power is a huge waste of time. As a business executive I say stop wasting time. Find a way to make "easier to swallow" alternative energy sources profitable and widely available.

Pursue the use of oil and coal while they exist. Find more reserves and dig them up more efficiently. But, you must remember that they will be gone. Regardless of whether or not we conserve or find more, there is still a finite reserve.

[Savanik]

2. The conclusion is that the fuel is protected from impact not a breach of the wall. That's why we need to see the actual data not just the conditions of the computer simulation.

If you read through the full report, you would see that they evaluated strikes on each building. With the containment building, the 'structure was not breached, although there was some crushing and spalling (chipping of material at the impact point) of the concrete.' With the used fuel storage, 'there was localized crushing and cracking of the concrete wall' but the pool has a stainless steel liner inside that was not breached. And for the used, dry fuel storage, 'the steel canister containing the used fuel assemblies was not breached although there was crushing and cracking of the concrete enclosure at the area of impact.'

I agree that I'd like to see the full data - just how much crushing, cracking, spalling, and such was there - but in the lack of such detailed information, I have to observe that the study was peer reviewed, and I would assume that the study is correct, particularly in light of the conservastism of the report.

1. They used the full, maximum takeoff weight of the plane, when in reality some fuel would be burned enroute to the location.
2. They used the maximum speed at which only highly experienced pilots would be able to execute the strike.
3. They assumed a perfect perpendicular strike, putting the maximum amount of force on the structures.
4. They assumed that the strikes would occur at the weakest point of the structures.

Besides, as I've mentioned before people run these things. It doesn't take many idiots to create major problem.

This is very true. In most any industry, the weakest links are the human ones. However, the people that run nuclear plants in the U.S. are highly trained and very competent at their jobs.

As an example of what happens when you don't have competent people doing their jobs, that's almost exactly what happened at Chernobyl. The director, V.P. Bryukhanov, was trained in coal-fired power plants. His chief engineer, Nikolai Fomin, also came from a conventional power plant.

In the United States, nuclear engineers have to be certified engineers. This requires a degree from an accredited engineering program, 4 years of relevant work experience, and passing a state exam. You also have to get a Professional Engineering license from the National Society of Professional Engineers to do anything particularly important, such as designing the reactors in the first place. I have seen this exam, and it is frighteningly difficult, in which a potential engineer must have a broad range of knowledge covering multiple disciplines, including thermodynamics, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering.

A worse possibility than mere incompetence is willful negligance and fraud. Nuclear reactors make a great deal of money - while they're running. Some management types - particularly those in high positions - feel that the money from the reactor is more important than the safety of the public. Fortunately, the process by which engineers are educated and certified is such that many of them feel exactly the opposite, even if it means throwing away their entire career. They are intelligent enough to see what's going on and moral enough to inform others about problems that less ethical people would ignore or even conceal.

Even with all those factors, nuclear reactors are still, historically and statistically, safer than any other form of power, per watt of energy generated. To me, saying that we should give up a viable, safe, cheap, long-lasting power source because of political pressure... is just unthinkable. All the political opinions in the world can't change the facts, and I think we should be ruled by facts, not other people's opinions.

Sav

[Stan]

I liked the report. Hadn't seen it before. I don't necessarily disagree with Nuclear Energy as a source of energy. I just think it is not a politically viable option in many cases (for many reasons).

Thanks for a well researched and enlightening argument for Nuclear Power. It is rare to find good solid evidence such as this.

[formerly known as hf]

I'm gonna pipe up - just to briefly re-iterate something i said earlier.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about research into nuclear power to get into the details - some of what you have posted Sav, has been convincing, some of it does sound like propaganda however.
Whilst it may be safe, and you have swayed me somewhat there (If only because that plane video was fairly cool...) from experience here in the UK, it is clear that there are many, hidden, costs with nuclear power - which won't reflect in the amazingly cheap energy prices quoted, but which will, most likely, payed for by the tax payers.

Savanik has been talking about being 'ruled by the facts'
Following the 'facts' has brought us all kinds of things that, later, have turned out to be highly dangerous.
'Facts' are not universal, and can be very dynamic. What is 'fact' now may be a deep untruth in later years.

And, as much as you may not like it, most of the world is a democracy - hence, no matter what the 'facts' are - poltical parties have to deal with public opinion - as silly as that opinion may seem. When you talk about the opinion of 'others' - you're talking about the opinion of millions of people. Just because you happen to have 'facts' that show they're wrong - can that really make the opinions of millions unimportant - gut reactions, on such a large scale, do stand for something? Especially when they may have 'facts' that proove the complete opposite...

I'm glad that governments (on occasion) listen, no matter how stupid we are, rather then just do what they like because that's what the 'facts' would have them do...

[Jos Elkink]

Following the 'facts' has brought us all kinds of things that, later, have turned out to be highly dangerous.
'Facts' are not universal, and can be very dynamic. What is 'fact' now may be a deep untruth in later years.

*shivers* The fact that was is considered a fact can later be disproven surely doesn't mean we can just ignore facts and go by mass hysteria instead! What we currently consider facts is probably still the best approximation we have of the real facts that we don't know ... I think the kind of relativism you're proposing here is much, much more dangerous than sticking to facts (and trying to disprove them at the same time).

And, as much as you may not like it, most of the world is a democracy - hence, no matter what the 'facts' are - poltical parties have to deal with public opinion

It's a huge leap from saying that we cannot ignore public opinion to saying that we can just as well ignore facts ... The latter are still more important. The trick is to convince the general populace of the facts ...

I'm glad that governments (on occasion) listen, no matter how stupid we are, rather then just do what they like because that's what the 'facts' would have them do...

See thread on Dutch burkas .......