OFF: Nuclear drive, er, reactor

[John Rennie]

If it weren't for the problem of waste management (and the fact that
nuclear reactors are sometimes run by drunk Russians (and drunk
Americans: remember 3 Mile Island :-)) then nuclear power would be a
good solution to global warming. The heat generated isn't the big
problem, the problem is CO2 keeping in solar radiation. The heat
generated by us humans is insignificant compared to the heat from the
Sun and from the Earth itself.

However see http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.0627v1. Generating all our energy
from nuclear will not be as easy as you might think.

JR

-----Original Message-----
From: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List [mailto:BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET] On Behalf Of M Holmes
Sent: 10 August 2009 12:30
To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
Subject: Re: OFF: UK's premier green awareness festival under threat from police and local council.

Arjan Hulsebos writes:

> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:25:32 +0100, Jonathan Jarrett wrote
> > On Wed, 5 Aug 2009, M Holmes wrote:
> >
> > > Such as solar power satellites or nuclear power (fusion preferably, but
> > > fission will hold the dam in the meantime). The problem is that the
> > > greens themselves are part of the political resistance to this. Green
> > > beliefs have become in large part a religious cult rather than a serious
> > > search for solutions to the problems facing us.
> > 
> >  	I think parts of the movement always were like this, and people 
> > have been pointing this out since the 1960s but now that green is 
> > more mainstream the basic contradictions are beginning to be 
> > addressed, as with any ideology that attracts a following. Again,
> >  however, as to the necessity of solutions like nuclear power, I 
> > agree with you, though my money's on solar-catalysed fuel cells.

> Nuclear power isn't green.

Well, it doesn't produce lots of CO2, and that's supposedly at the root
of the emergency.

> Stepping over the issue of nuclear waste for a
> moment, nuclear power adds energy to the earth's system, thereby increasing
> its temperature.

Pish posh. There's *zero* evidence that the thermal load of our energy
use is at all significant in this.

> Solar (and derivatives, such as wind and tidal) power is the
> only source that is energy-neutral over short periods of time (say, weeks).

Mebbe in a millenium or sixty we'll need to watch the thermal budget of
how we create energy, but not right now. The problem is increased solar
heat, not the heat we're actually producing.
 
> Biofuels might also fall into that catagory, but that depends on how it's
> processed, and what the waste products are.
> 
> Just a few words on nuclear waste, fission also produces tons of nuclear
> waste. Not directly, but through the bombardment of metals (mainly iron) with
> high-energy neutrons.  

Tons? That's such a trivial amount that wwe could encase it in glass and
leave it lying around until we figure out a use for it; how to deal with
it; or just loft it into space and lose it forever.

My bet is that at some point we'll have a use for it all and it'll be a
pain to dig up all the stuff we buried.

FoFP


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