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On October 10 2018 08:15 Wegandi wrote: By the way, for the guy from Germany against Nuclear. I would advise doing some small amount of research on the new Gen IV reactors. They're completely safe, can re-use old nuclear fuel, and can be low-scaled. Citing the huge bureaucratic red-tape for nuclear as a reason against nuclear is circular logic. Yes, maybe, fifty years ago when there were significant safety concerns it was warranted, but not today with today's technology. China is blowing the world away. Europe thinks going back to middle age technology (wind-generated power) is the answer, but it's not really (not to mention the environmental and land-use issues with wind and solar), and the US thinks black lung technology needs to be subsidized. It's silly really. Come on western civilization, get with the times.
Edit: Get rid of the regulatory red-tape, stop subsidizing specific energy sources, and let the market dictate efficiency. I'm pretty damn confident Nuclear would easily demolish every other energy source.
Germany has deep societal biases against nuclear. It is unclear to me where this bias originates from, but nuclear is super fucking dead in Germany. It is a damn shame, since it is straight up the best form of energy. But oh well.
Poor, poor nuclear. All the "REEEEE" liberals hate it because they think they emit radiation because rich people own nuclear power plants. Republicans hate it because it can't be mined in Kentucky.
Just imagine if people knew that when they went to get an MRI done, it was a nuclear machine! The horror!
Yeah, about that.. As someone who had MRIs done, could you briefly elaborate which part of the magnetic resonance imaging was radioactive or "nuclear"?
There's nothing "nuclear" in the sense that most people associate with nuclear. It is more so that the nuclei of atoms are responding to a magnetic field. When we think "nuclear power", we are talking about the energy generated by fission of atoms, where we are separating atoms into other pieces, which then emit radiation as a result of that process.
For NMR (MRI), it is more so that nuclei are interacting with magnetic fields. If you have one really strong static magnetic field, and then another weak oscillating field, the nuclei do stuff that you can detect.
In short, nuclear energy is harvesting power stored within a nucleus. MRI/NMR is detecting signals generated by doing stuff to nuclei. But in MRI/NMR, you are not actually changing any atoms. That is why NMR/MRI is considered "non-ionizing", which means it doesn't fuck up your shit. Nuclear energy fucks up all your shit.
Other kinds of medical scan can in principle have adverse radiation-related effects I believe, but the processes involved are still not reasonably comparable to nuclear power... which makes Wegandi's argument very weak even if they'd picked the right medical procedure.
yeah, x-ray imaging is downright bad for you, but we do it in small bursts and whatnot. x-rays are ionizing, which mean they have enough energy to ionize atoms in your body. When stuff gets ionized, it gets all goofed up. But its usually fine to just ionize stuff a bit. But in general, you should always seek to have as little x-ray imaging done as possible.
But MRI is non-ionizing, so its entirely different. It's just that it uses nuclei, so "nuclear".
X rays are bad for you.
CT scans are REALLY bad for you.
MRIs are nothing in comparison to either.
And yea, they changed the name because of cold war fears around the word.
On October 10 2018 08:15 Wegandi wrote: By the way, for the guy from Germany against Nuclear. I would advise doing some small amount of research on the new Gen IV reactors. They're completely safe, can re-use old nuclear fuel, and can be low-scaled. Citing the huge bureaucratic red-tape for nuclear as a reason against nuclear is circular logic. Yes, maybe, fifty years ago when there were significant safety concerns it was warranted, but not today with today's technology. China is blowing the world away. Europe thinks going back to middle age technology (wind-generated power) is the answer, but it's not really (not to mention the environmental and land-use issues with wind and solar), and the US thinks black lung technology needs to be subsidized. It's silly really. Come on western civilization, get with the times.
Edit: Get rid of the regulatory red-tape, stop subsidizing specific energy sources, and let the market dictate efficiency. I'm pretty damn confident Nuclear would easily demolish every other energy source.
The problem with nuclear is not that it doesn't emit CO2 or that there is heavy danger for the reactors. Germany doesn't have earthquakes, tornados, I guess the worst natural disasters we are used to are floods, which are kind of OK. The power generation itself is also not the problem, it is what you do with burnt out rods. Germany to this day does not have a storage concept for that (Endlagerstätte). We are densely populated and nobody wants to have a storage facility in their backyard. They tried burying it underground only for the former salt mine to have a water breach. Washing nucelar waste directly into your ground water is nothing you wanna do. Nuclear energy is cheap in production but when you don't even have an idea of where to put the waste you are in deep trouble. We can't give it to other nations ("Hey, wanna buy some radioactive waste, Canada?"). That waste problem is not priced in, how could it be if there is no answer to storing it. And since radioactive materials stay that way for a very long time the cost of burying it very deep and very safe leads to it not being very profitable. Btw, our government got the energy producers around that by telling them "just make energy, we'll worry about the waste". Great deal, huh?
Also, we Germans are security and safety fanatics. Telling the German people "We will put the rods in the ground in extremely safe containers but there is no guarantee that none will break of some other bad stuff happens down there" is just not an acceptable answer to us.
On October 10 2018 08:15 Wegandi wrote: By the way, for the guy from Germany against Nuclear. I would advise doing some small amount of research on the new Gen IV reactors. They're completely safe, can re-use old nuclear fuel, and can be low-scaled. Citing the huge bureaucratic red-tape for nuclear as a reason against nuclear is circular logic. Yes, maybe, fifty years ago when there were significant safety concerns it was warranted, but not today with today's technology. China is blowing the world away. Europe thinks going back to middle age technology (wind-generated power) is the answer, but it's not really (not to mention the environmental and land-use issues with wind and solar), and the US thinks black lung technology needs to be subsidized. It's silly really. Come on western civilization, get with the times.
Edit: Get rid of the regulatory red-tape, stop subsidizing specific energy sources, and let the market dictate efficiency. I'm pretty damn confident Nuclear would easily demolish every other energy source.
Germany has deep societal biases against nuclear. It is unclear to me where this bias originates from, but nuclear is super fucking dead in Germany. It is a damn shame, since it is straight up the best form of energy. But oh well.
Poor, poor nuclear. All the "REEEEE" liberals hate it because they think they emit radiation because rich people own nuclear power plants. Republicans hate it because it can't be mined in Kentucky.
Just imagine if people knew that when they went to get an MRI done, it was a nuclear machine! The horror!
Yeah, about that.. As someone who had MRIs done, could you briefly elaborate which part of the magnetic resonance imaging was radioactive or "nuclear"?
There's nothing "nuclear" in the sense that most people associate with nuclear. It is more so that the nuclei of atoms are responding to a magnetic field. When we think "nuclear power", we are talking about the energy generated by fission of atoms, where we are separating atoms into other pieces, which then emit radiation as a result of that process.
For NMR (MRI), it is more so that nuclei are interacting with magnetic fields. If you have one really strong static magnetic field, and then another weak oscillating field, the nuclei do stuff that you can detect.
In short, nuclear energy is harvesting power stored within a nucleus. MRI/NMR is detecting signals generated by doing stuff to nuclei. But in MRI/NMR, you are not actually changing any atoms. That is why NMR/MRI is considered "non-ionizing", which means it doesn't fuck up your shit. Nuclear energy fucks up all your shit.
Edit: Funny little bit of history: The name MRI only came to exist because everyone was freaked out about getting "nuclear magnetic resonance" imaging done. But if you call it "magnetic resonance imaging", everyone is like "oh nice, magnets are awesome"
That, again, has nothing to do with "nuclear". We're not talking about interacting/observing with atoms/nuclei, we're talking "nuclear" in regards to nuclear power plants. Radioactivity: the shit that's bad for you. Like for example X-Rays, as i think you (or someone else) pointed out. The only radiation in medical appliances, to my knowledge, are X-Rays, and CTs.
It's like me telling you that i drank fuel this morning. Was sugarwater, which is "fuel" and can even be used to power rocket motors, but is highly misrepresenting the argument i'd try to make (whichever it would be).
If a nuclear reactor would work like an MRI, nobody would have a problem, it really isn't that, is it. The main reason why i asked my question in the first place is that Wegandi showed massive disregard and "half knowledge" at best when he tried to address "that german fellah", especially in regards to Gen4. And i'm not even talking about linking the biggest constructor of nuclear reactors as "proof" for safety and claims, i'm talking about the fact that he's suggesting some new fantasy reactor that's completely safe, scale-able, is recycling waste, probably makes the shit ouf your coffee too, ignoring the fact that this doesn't exist. Not even remotely. Gen4 is six different reactor designs, none of which can be described with more than two (at best!) of these attributes.
First, there's no "completely safe", and it's moronic to suggest so. The safest option is the MSR (btw, half a century old concept), which was discussed here ages ago (literally years), and that, depending on design, is possibly sodium cooled and requires an onsite chemical plant. I don't need to explain why handling sodium is probably never a great idea - i just point at Monju in 1995.
Then there's the "can re-use old nuclear fuel" claim by him. Also misleading at best, most likely completely misunderstood and obviously wrong. There are types of reactors that can use waste fuel. Hitachi IFR, already what, 40 years old? They don't "re-use" it, they just basically burn it further (and differently). You still have waste, you still have radioactivity, and you still have all dangers connected with that. If he's pointing at the possibility for MSRs using waste as fuel, that's barely a concept. Nothing exists in the real world, no actual proof exists.
The only correct claim of what Gen4 will be is scale-able. At least some of the designs. It's of course also problematic that most of these designs are not commercially available, and some not even tested (china just pressure tested the steam turbines last month for their VHTR).
It's like arguing that fusion is great and people shouldn't be against it.
Here's what counts. Is nuclear power safe? Can you guarantee it is and stays safe? And what are the repercussions if you lied?
Keep in mind, it's not just about a reactor possibly blowing up. That's one of the least concerns. Is nuclear power safe? No. It's inherently not, that's why we build the biggest bombs that we know of out of the same stuff. It's like arguing that nitroglycerin is completely safe, as long as you don't [....] followed by a long list. Can you guarantee that it's safe (we know it's not) and it stays safe? No, you can't. In fact, germany had incidents with their waste storage facilities already, where water penetrated the facility. Those facilities are old salt mines. Water + Salt + Metal = not that great. Add "densely populated" and "radioactive waste" in there, and there's literally all the reasons as to why germans don't like nuclear power plants.
And the repercussions? Well. Radioactive ground water, for starters. Or, imagine somehow shit getting into the Rhein River - suddenly you now have to deal with france and the netherlands, who's sorting that one out?
You just had a huge scandal in flint. That was "only" lead, imagine what would've happened if that was a radiation leak, or radiated water somehow made it out of a reactor into the water supply.
That's why germans don't want nuclear reactors. It's not the reactor itself, it's everything around it, especially what comes after. We don't have deserts where you can bury the waste and cross your fingers that nothing ever happens to it. Which is what the US does, with no plan or designated location for long term storage.
On October 10 2018 11:59 micronesia wrote: This discussion seems to have transitioned from US Politics to layman's explanations of nuclear power. Can we return to US Politics please.
You know what uranium is, right? It’s this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things. But nobody talks about that.
On October 10 2018 11:59 micronesia wrote: This discussion seems to have transitioned from US Politics to layman's explanations of nuclear power. Can we return to US Politics please.
You know what uranium is, right? It’s this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things. But nobody talks about that.
It took me longer to understand this than I care to admit
Eventually I was like "lol wtf this doesn't even make se-...oh my god"
On October 10 2018 08:21 Plansix wrote: I want to take this article in good faith, because members of the House of Representatives were shot at a baseball game. But this is the type of fear stoking that right out of the conservative playbook. It’s is grievance politics. Rand Paul acts surprised and confused they the political climate has gotten so nasty, while rubber stamping every policy the complainer and chief pushes out. He didn’t even speak out when Trump bombed Syria, something he was very opinionated on when Obama was in office. They act surprised people are pissed when we are throwing children in camps and have 2 year olds attend deportation hearings alone. What did they think would happen when they did all this?
Well in fairness, if you spend the majority of your post explaining why people would be mad enough to shoot at Republican politicians you can't really call it "fear stoking" for a Republican politicians wife to be scared of being shot.
Also, we Germans are security and safety fanatics. Telling the German people "We will put the rods in the ground in extremely safe containers but there is no guarantee that none will break of some other bad stuff happens down there" is just not an acceptable answer to us.
Yeah, it was so much better to send them to France by train. You forgot "hypocrites" in your list.
I love how enemies of nuclear conveniently ignore the fact that coal/gas power plants and mining create more deaths and enviromental damage EVERY YEAR than nuclear power plants during its entire history. You do know that dust created as byproduct of coke production is radioactive and You get more radiation from driving on roads in any country with heavy coal industry (such as Poland) then by working in Nuclear Power Plant? [To get rid of that dust they add it to asphalt]. Lets face it, there is no power source which is totally safe and enviromentaly friendly its just a question of choice. Somehow people think that CERTAINITY of polluting entire world moderately is better than RISK of polluting small area heavily.
On October 10 2018 18:03 Silvanel wrote: I love how enemies of nuclear conveniently ignore the fact that coal/gas power plants and mining create more deaths and enviromental damage EVERY YEAR than nuclear power plants during its entire history. You do know that dust created as byproduct of coke production is radioactive and You get more radiation from driving on roads in any country with heavy coal industry (such as Poland) then by working in Nuclear Power Plant? [To get rid of that dust they add it to asphalt]. Lets face it, there is no power source which is totally safe and enviromentaly friendly its just a question of choice. Somehow people think that CERTAINITY of polluting entire world moderately is better than RISK of polluting small area heavily.
I'm not aware of anybody in this thread who opposes nuclear power but supports coal/gas power... I'm quite sure it's not a well-populated position in any case. The interesting discussion IMO is the comparison between nuclear and renewables.
On October 10 2018 18:35 Furikawari wrote: Renewables simply does not exist... If you use energy it means you took it from somewhere else.
And to think that those so called renewables energy may one day replace everything else is pure fantasy, we will have to cut our needs.
There is a limited amount of oil on earth and it generates over hundred of thousands of years in a very slow geological process. What you use is gone, and once you have used everything, you have to find something else
Meanwhile you can install as many solar panels as you want, it’s not going to reduce the amount of sun tomorrow or in ten years and we are not gonna run out. Same with the wind.
I don’t see what in the “renewable” term is so hard to understand. Unless you want to argue that the sun doesn’t have an infinite amount of energy, because it will run out in 4 billion years but that’s really missing the point.
Also it’s hardly pure fantasy to think that we will get rid of fossil fuel and nuclear fission energy. Just as an example, states are paying billion in research to develop a fusion reactor, which would be renewable since hydrogen is not precisely hard to find.
On October 10 2018 18:03 Silvanel wrote: I love how enemies of nuclear conveniently ignore the fact that coal/gas power plants and mining create more deaths and enviromental damage EVERY YEAR than nuclear power plants during its entire history. You do know that dust created as byproduct of coke production is radioactive and You get more radiation from driving on roads in any country with heavy coal industry (such as Poland) then by working in Nuclear Power Plant? [To get rid of that dust they add it to asphalt]. Lets face it, there is no power source which is totally safe and enviromentaly friendly its just a question of choice. Somehow people think that CERTAINITY of polluting entire world moderately is better than RISK of polluting small area heavily.
I'm not aware of anybody in this thread who opposes nuclear power but supports coal/gas power... I'm quite sure it's not a well-populated position in any case. The interesting discussion IMO is the comparison between nuclear and renewables.
Sure, in principle. But you can only use renewables in a future scenario where they are efficient enough to possibly fill our need for energy. Until then this idealism means we're completely destroying the planet with coal and oil. Right now it is either nuclear or a lot of coal and oil. There is no third option.
On October 10 2018 18:35 Furikawari wrote: Renewables simply does not exist... If you use energy it means you took it from somewhere else.
And to think that those so called renewables energy may one day replace everything else is pure fantasy, we will have to cut our needs.
There is a limited amount of oil on earth and it generates over hundred of thousands of years in a very slow geological process. What you use is gone, and once you have used everything, you have to find something else
Meanwhile you can install as many solar panels as you want, it’s not going to reduce the amount of sun tomorrow or in ten years and we are not gonna run out. Same with the wind.
I don’t see what in the “renewable” term is so hard to understand. Unless you want to argue that the sun doesn’t have an infinite amount of energy, because it will run out in 4 billion years but that’s really missing the point.
Also it’s hardly pure fantasy to think that we will get rid of fossil fuel and nuclear fission energy. Just as an example, states are paying billion in research to develop a fusion reactor, which would be renewable since hydrogen is not precisely hard to find.
Whatever you do there are side effects. Ecologists are just so eager to get rid of fossils energies (rightly so, I won't discuss that point) that they close their eyes on those side effects. Obviously the energy of the sun is not the problem (dont be stupid please), but where and how many panels you have to use to sustain our lifestyle could be. Let's not even talk about impact of wind turbines or tidals...
On October 10 2018 18:35 Furikawari wrote: Renewables simply does not exist... If you use energy it means you took it from somewhere else.
And to think that those so called renewables energy may one day replace everything else is pure fantasy, we will have to cut our needs.
There is a limited amount of oil on earth and it generates over hundred of thousands of years in a very slow geological process. What you use is gone, and once you have used everything, you have to find something else
Meanwhile you can install as many solar panels as you want, it’s not going to reduce the amount of sun tomorrow or in ten years and we are not gonna run out. Same with the wind.
I don’t see what in the “renewable” term is so hard to understand. Unless you want to argue that the sun doesn’t have an infinite amount of energy, because it will run out in 4 billion years but that’s really missing the point.
Also it’s hardly pure fantasy to think that we will get rid of fossil fuel and nuclear fission energy. Just as an example, states are paying billion in research to develop a fusion reactor, which would be renewable since hydrogen is not precisely hard to find.
nah you'll eventually run out of space to install solar panels and wind turbines, that's why they are non-renewable
On October 10 2018 18:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On October 10 2018 18:35 Furikawari wrote: Renewables simply does not exist... If you use energy it means you took it from somewhere else.
And to think that those so called renewables energy may one day replace everything else is pure fantasy, we will have to cut our needs.
There is a limited amount of oil on earth and it generates over hundred of thousands of years in a very slow geological process. What you use is gone, and once you have used everything, you have to find something else
Meanwhile you can install as many solar panels as you want, it’s not going to reduce the amount of sun tomorrow or in ten years and we are not gonna run out. Same with the wind.
I don’t see what in the “renewable” term is so hard to understand. Unless you want to argue that the sun doesn’t have an infinite amount of energy, because it will run out in 4 billion years but that’s really missing the point.
Also it’s hardly pure fantasy to think that we will get rid of fossil fuel and nuclear fission energy. Just as an example, states are paying billion in research to develop a fusion reactor, which would be renewable since hydrogen is not precisely hard to find.
Whatever you do there are side effects. Ecologists are just so eager to get rid of fossils energies (rightly so, I won't discuss that point) that they close their eyes on those side effects. Obviously the energy of the sun is not the problem (dont be stupid please), but where and how many panels you have to use to sustain our lifestyle could be. Let's not even talk about impact of wind turbines or tidals...
Impact of wind turbine. Enlighten me please and don’t talk about killing bats. The alternative is to keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
I’m not being stupid. You say there is no such thing as renewable energy. Again, how is solar not renewable?
On October 10 2018 18:03 Silvanel wrote: I love how enemies of nuclear conveniently ignore the fact that coal/gas power plants and mining create more deaths and enviromental damage EVERY YEAR than nuclear power plants during its entire history. You do know that dust created as byproduct of coke production is radioactive and You get more radiation from driving on roads in any country with heavy coal industry (such as Poland) then by working in Nuclear Power Plant? [To get rid of that dust they add it to asphalt]. Lets face it, there is no power source which is totally safe and enviromentaly friendly its just a question of choice. Somehow people think that CERTAINITY of polluting entire world moderately is better than RISK of polluting small area heavily.
I'm not aware of anybody in this thread who opposes nuclear power but supports coal/gas power... I'm quite sure it's not a well-populated position in any case. The interesting discussion IMO is the comparison between nuclear and renewables.
Like i said all energy sources have some drawbacks. Major problem with renewables is low energy density and lack of stable supply. They simply cannot support heavy industry. They also consume large quantities of rare earth metals and require HUGE amount of energy to prepare production (solar panels for PVC/CVD depesition or silicon refining and windturbines for superalloy production). Hydro changes river beds and environment heavily.
The way i see it most environmentally friendly solution is to have nuclear as major energy source and solar/wind/hydro as supplemental. Get rid of all coal/gas as power source.
On October 10 2018 01:50 On_Slaught wrote: Ivanka is a name being raised by some people, including Coulter, to replace Halley. I actually could see that happening, as inappropriate as it is.
The president on how he thinks his daughter is the most competent person in the world to take over the UN position.
I'd then be accused of nepotism, if you can believe it, right?
I'm not sure if the 'can you believe it' part is just his speaking mannerisms or if he really can't grasp that doing the literal definition of nepotism would get him called out for nepotism. Or maybe it's just another one of those 'it's only bad when people I don't like do it'
On October 10 2018 11:59 micronesia wrote: This discussion seems to have transitioned from US Politics to layman's explanations of nuclear power. Can we return to US Politics please.
You know what uranium is, right? It’s this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things. But nobody talks about that.
I legit thought Kwark had a stroke for a second there before realizing where this is from
EPT
