Re: Depressing


"Bipolar Bear" <nowaynohow@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"clay" <a_design@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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vinny wrote:
"ah" <splifingate@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Black Dragon wrote:
jon_banquer wrote:

What is "SO SAD" is that high petrol prices are no longer seen as a
major problem that must be dealt with by most American's.
Never underestimate the ingenuity and drive of the American people to
perfect and make economically feasible other forms energy as an
alternative to oil.
Never underestimate the recalcitrant unwillingness of the U.S.
government
to
adopt new paradigms.

See the thread I started on The Pickens Plan.
I'm not particularly interested in anybodies "plan" since there is
usually a self serving agenda behind such things. What I'm interested
in
is refining existing technology and innovation to create more.
Sadly, it seems as if nuclear energy (e.g., "fission") is our only
option,
at
this time.

The current failures wrt the LHC don't foster a great deal of
confidence
in
the containment tech necessary for fusion.

Once storage technology moots the CBR, then we can move-on to solar
and
wind.

The American Indians when making a big decision would have council,
and
they would talk about how this would effect 7 generations from now.
Nucleur is leaving something for the 7th generation they proberbly
wont
want.

Besides, nucleur is lame. It sounds all high tech and all, but all
they
really are is steam engines. Heating up water to make steam and turn
turbines? It's as silly as every house having a 55 gallon drum in their
house they keep at 170 degrees 24/7 365 days a year for their whole
life.
There's no energy crisis, because if their was we wouldn't do such
dumb
***. There's too much energy, that's the real problem.


Oh PLEASE! I am frankly stunned at how Jackson Brown and the other Nuke
panickers convinced Two generations how bad Nuclear was.

Here are a couple of basic facts. 1. You can shield radiation with a
stupid piece of PAPER! The problem is the paper breaks down faster than
the radiation lasts. Simple. Encase the spent fuel in concrete, but you
have to wait till it cools enough, otherwise the concrete cracks. It
takes what 15-20 years for the fuel to cool enough, so leave them in
cooling ponds. they can be above ground swimming pools for that matter.
2.We had the tech 20 years ago to re-process spent fuel, and re-use it
again. (Fuel rods only use a small percentage of the energy in them,
before they are pulled out) Re-processing was banned by guess who, even
though he was a nuclear engineer (Jimmy Carter) due to public panic
pressure. We still cannot re-process spent fuel. 3. There has never be a
single death in the U.S. from nuclear radioactive release. There has
never been a U.S. meltdown. 3 Mile Island, the safety systems worked as
designed, although there were some mechanical and human failures. The
amount of radiation released into the atmosphere, and public exposure
measured per person was about he same as a chest x-ray. Chernobyl
meltdown was caused by unqualified engineers performing electrical
overcapacity tests WITH the safety systems disabled. (Otherwise they
could not have done the unauthorized tests)

4. The amount of coal is that is needed to produce 1,000,000 Kilowatts
(1 days worth for a million or so people) of power is 12 TONS. The
amount of nuclear fuel to produce the same amount of
energy.............1 Kilo. Serious

Energy density: Nuclear fusion (the Sun) is 683 Million MegaJoules per
Kilogram, Nuclear fission (Nuclear power plants) is almost ten times
less 88 million MJ/kg. Gasoline is way down at 46 MJ/kg by mass.
By volume, Nuclear is 1.5 Trillion MJ per liter, by comparison gasoline
is only 34 MJ/liter, (diesel is 37Mj/liter). Natural gas is only
10MJ/liter which is what we are currently building new power plants for.
Which is totally stupid from a cost standpoint. We are only doing that
because it is so plentiful (sort of). so is Hydrogen at around
10MJ/liter. France is 97% Nuclear, a lot of which they sell to Germany.
Ironic huh....Considering what tree huggers France and German college
kids are. I doubt they even know where their power comes from. From a
total Green standpoint ( materials, byproducts, emmissions, etc..)
Nuclear is the very lowest impact, next is probably Hydro.

Most power plants are steam engines. Steam power is relatively efficient
at around 35%. Wind power is around 40%. Hydroelectric is a whopping 95%
efficient. Solar is barely 15%. don't get me started on solar. Hydrogen
is almost as stupid as solar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf36.html


Clay,

Nice post thx good to see others looking at this ***.

I'll add that according to a recent wiki check appears corn alcohol in the
US currently appears to be at a ratio 1.3, and that sugar cane crops grown
near the tropics is probably the best bet where it comes to most
efficently
utilizing carbon taken from the atmosphere as fuel.

Only slightly boring IMO :

http://whyfiles.org/253ethanol/index.php?g=2.txt


Tesla's great idea was to line up hydro electric power plants down the
rivers of the world, and transmit the power to all wireless. Something like
1925?
He knew back then hydro is the way to go 100%. Getting the power
distributed was the real issue. He half figured it out by inventing ac
current generators. We need another tesla.


And solar isn't that bad. But it depends how you define solar.
Solar panels making electricity are not very efficient, but the panels on
your roof heating up water in florida is extrmely efficient. Both is solar
power.
The solar tower they are building in Europe uses the heat from the sun to
heat up a base, making the air rise in the tower thru a fan, or a turbine. I
hear thats extremely efficient.


.

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