biofuel hoax

[mneary]

If everyone had sufficient surface area to generate their own energy needs, it would be a good start.

Tragically, this is at odds with another goal, which is to live an efficient distance from work.

 

[upand_at_them]

It may also be at odds with how many people are on this planet.

 

[Thunderchild]

nuclear is a no no, sorry but human error if the only supposed cause of problem will never be eliminated and you can't have errors with nuclear.

the waste generated will stay reactive for some thousands of years and even when it has "lost it" wher will have it gone ? into our own environments, forgetting the watse problem is easy for people that forget that we just ship it to a third world country and forget it. if there was to be a nuclear explosion what is 10 ft of concrete going to do apart from more damage when scattered for miles by an explosion - what is left of it, at the moment nuclear looks manageable because we forget the long lasting consequences the risks and the fact that we are not 100 % nuclear yet, and when we are what do we do with all that waste and added accident risk,

i don't think there is a one soluition but we must find a proper combination of solutions, no we can't go 100 % solar, wind, tidal or any other way, the problem is we want to find a one solution and there isn't one,

the solutions are

1: save and economise what we do have make sure we are power efficient
2: implement where appropriate a number of alternative energy forms

biofuels won't be a total solution but could be a part of it,

the article is more than biased it is a total unreasoned rant against something without much space for debate

 

[Hero999]

I hate the way some environmentalists complain about: fossil fuels, neuclear power and even renewables like wind and hydroelectric; we got to get our energy from somewhere!

Now I don't think we should sacrifice our economic development for carbon emissions or any of that bull but fossel fuels won't be around for ever so we need to look for alternatives. Neuclear isn't a bad idea providing the waste is managed correctly and burried in geologically stable areas but it still isn't renewable so we need to continiue to develop solar wind and hydroelectric. I can see the argument against neuclear power but as technology improves it's becomming less of an issue.

 

[philba]

yeah, I agree with you. The knee-jerk environmental community would have us living in the dark ages if they got their way. The nulear problems can be solved. The French have proven that it's not impossible though the Russians are the counter example.

I think there will have to be a patchwork quilt of solutions - conservation coupled with nuclear, wind, solar, clean coal (co2 sequestration), biofuel, ... until fusion power becomes a reality. I'm not holding my breath, though.

 

[Thunderchild]

sorry but nuclear is nuclear you won't change what it is by advancing the tech and when industrialized countries have it how do you prevent crackpots like iran having it, the recent incident with the kidnapping and mistreatment of british soldiers just goes to show that we have another hitler on our hands and we all know that they will do anything to get their own way so what next we will have a nuclear war on our hands, getting rid of the waste will always be a problem and I don't think that we will ever have nuclear fusion because well look at the sun that is nuclear fusion but how can we control something like that we don't even have a material that can withstand the heat it makes, like I said we need to develop a number of alternative resources according to the area we need the power in not to mention learning to save power rather than be lazy

 

[Hero999]

sorry but nuclear is nuclear you won't change what it is by advancing the tech and when industrialized countries have it how do you prevent crackpots like iran having it, the recent incident with the kidnapping and mistreatment of british soldiers just goes to show that we have another hitler on our hands and we all know that they will do anything to get their own way so what next we will have a nuclear war on our hands

That's got nothing to do with the argument against nuclear power, even if nuclear power is banned, people will still continiue to develop nuclear weapons.

we will ever have nuclear fusion because well look at the sun that is nuclear fusion but how can we control something like that we don't even have a material that can withstand the heat it makes

Never say never, ask the same question about powered flight over 200 years ago and you would have got a similar answer.

I said we need to develop a number of alternative resources according to the area we need the power in not to mention learning to save power rather than be lazy

That makes sense providing it doesn't stifle economic or technological development.

 

[Thunderchild]

well having a current nuclear technology makes it easier to find people to work on weapons it leaves doors open for sensitive materials and equipment to be stolen, I mean i don't think iran started from scratch on learning nuclear,

I forget the suns temperature but well its not a joke I know progress is made but finding a material that will withand the temperatures is not an easy task,

why should multiple solutions stiffle economic development there is feild for many do develop multiple solutions what more stimulus for development do you want than that ?

 

[HarveyH42]

Why isn't there other nuclear power schemes, other than the reactor type (heat water/steam generator). I would think there would a more direct and efficient means of using radioactive materials. Isn't there some way to catch those charge particles being eternally thrown off, and making use of them. Maybe there is, but it would kind of put a dent in the weapons grade conversion, military probably would like to keep a production going, even though no sane government would actually use a nuke. How do you profit, if eventually anybody could have a nearly eternal supply of power? Wonder just how much mis-information we are being fed.

 

[Thunderchild]

yep if the material throws that much off theree must be another way of collecting it i think it is because nuclear weapons made nuclear power not the reverse we had a nuclear bomb before a nuclear power station we learnt first like always how to use it for destruction: such is the human race

 

[HarveyH42]

But isn't the waste from nuclear power what they use in nuclear bombs? The plants sort perform a dual function. Kind of why not so stable countries catch a lot of heat over developing nuclear power plants. If it were just an issue of poorly constructed and maintained plants, I'm sure the world would gladly step in and help build and train these people. Power plants would certainly improve a country's economic status, as they could start some industrial venture, produce something other than terrorists.

 

[philba]

Actually, there are a reasonable set of protocols for monitoring. If the developing country adheres to the protocols, there is no problem with them developing nuclear energy. The current spat with Iran is an example where they don't agree with the protocols.

 

[philba]

yep if the material throws that much off theree must be another way of collecting it i think it is because nuclear weapons made nuclear power not the reverse we had a nuclear bomb before a nuclear power station we learnt first like always how to use it for destruction: such is the human race

I agree that nuclear power is hard for the average person to completely separate from the weapons.

To be fair, nukes were used to end a war, not start one. A war that the nuking nation did not start and which would have lasted significantly longer with out them. Also a lot more people on both sides would have died in a conventional end of the war than actually died in the 2 nuclear attacks. People have conveniently forgotten that.

A lot more fear was generated by the MAD doctrine of the cold war superpowers. Nothing creates fear like the ability to destroy every living person on the planet 100 times over. Going to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crises didn't help much either. And the thought of a terrorist group gaining access to a nuke is a real nightmare scenario.

 

[Thunderchild]

as far as i know a nuclear bomb is a nuclear reaction out of control whereas in the reactor is it controlled. It's not exactly a thing to take lightly and as most people crave political power it is a dangerous energy source a nuclear bomb is no more than a reactor out of control and without contamination the concentration of that type of energy is what makes it so powerful just a few hundred Kg of material carries terrible power that unleashed in a split second is a bomb theres really no difference hence the security issues of nuclear power plants let them out of control and you have a bomb on your hands.

sure the attacks on hiroshima and nagasaki scared the sh!t out of the japs but well there was more to it than that although determined enough due to their size I think they could have been neutralized other ways, those bombings were also experimwents the americans didn't actually know the extent of the damage that would be caused and they specificly choose a town that had had no previous bombings so as to see the effect of just the nuke well that just goes to prove they had no idea what they were dealing with previous bombings or not it's obvious the damage done when a whole town is reduced to ashes in seconds of course the government wasted no time in sueing a scientist that wanted to leave the project working on the hydrogen nuke bomb (fusion versus previous fission) because of moral objections

 

[j.p.bill]

To address concerns about using the old reactor rods as a source of material for bombs - that is not the case. Unless designed as a "breeder" reactor, a nuke has the uranium in the fuel rods enriched by a few percent. As we all know, the U235 is only .7% of uranium in nature (normally U238). The fission results in uranuim atoms splitting into lighter atoms. The excess binding energy comes off as the source for the thermal output that makes steam. Those fuel rods are useless as a source for making a bomb.

A breeder subjects the uranium to faster neutrons and actually transmutes the U238 into Pu240. A kindergartener could reliably tell the difference between the different reactors.

Anyway, the French have a design using pelletized fuel and helium as the working fluid. Helium can't pick up radioactivity (doesn't transmute into an isotope) and the reactor goes dead if the cooling stops. Sounds pretty carbon-neutral to me. To hell with coal.

 

[philba]

I just saw this article on the deaths from air pollution in china. I presume that a significant percentage of this is from coal. **broken link removed**

 

[philba]

...
sure the attacks on hiroshima and nagasaki scared the sh!t out of the japs but well there was more to it than that although determined enough due to their size I think they could have been neutralized other ways, those bombings were also experimwents the americans didn't actually know the extent of the damage that would be caused and they specificly choose a town that had had no previous bombings so as to see the effect of just the nuke well that just goes to prove they had no idea what they were dealing with previous bombings or not it's obvious the damage done when a whole town is reduced to ashes in seconds of course the government wasted no time in sueing a scientist that wanted to leave the project working on the hydrogen nuke bomb (fusion versus previous fission) because of moral objections

It was an all out war. To say that they "experiemented" on the Japanese (please don't use the term Jap, it's considered offensive) is stretching what they did. yes, they chose the two cities because they were basically undamaged but I believe it was as much to let the Japanese know just how destructive the bombs were. The military pretty much knew how powerful the bombs were. Nuking Tokyo wouldn't have shown very much as it had been pretty well flattened any way. There was a lot of discussion by the inner circle about a demonstration by nuking Mt Fuji. However, they really only had 2 bombs (one Uranium and one Plutonium). If the Japanese leaders failed to surrender after the demo, the allies would have been stuck with only one. History showed that it took 2 cities destroyed to get them to surrender. I suppose we can argue what-ifs but it ended the war.

 

[Thunderchild]

well whatever but I think here and today we can agree that nuclear weapons are a no no if we were to have a nuclear war the world would no longer exist after a week or less and having it all over the place as power plants can be very dangerous the next thing we know every power station is going to be a terrorist target now with having to employ a second army to protect our power plants that will be very costly energy, not to mention that if power plants are targeted we will be in bother that certainly will freeze countries

 

[HarveyH42]

And so many people think Bush's war on terror is a huge mistake... Doing nothing seems like a much bigger one.

 

[upand_at_them]

I think most people realize that the "war on terror" isn't even that, since he's not going after the people actually involved in the 9/11 acts and wanted to circumvent the weapons inspections and he actually let 9/11 happen by ignoring key intelligence. It's more of a war on our economy and foreign relations.