Today, it is humans who are the asteroid

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I agree with you that that fossil fuels are going to be a part of the mix. It doesn't have to be fracking. There is oil and natural gas without fracking. And there are a lot other things as well.

Fracking is really the only way to produce natural gas in the large cheap quantities that we will need it in if that is what we decide to use to make up the shortfall in what can be produced by renewables and conservation.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

I'm saying that we have only three real options for making up the short

I understand what you are saying. I believe you are wrong.

Where does oil (as traditionally drilled) and natural gas from sources other than fracking fit into your overly simplistic paradigm?

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@oralloy,

(We are cross-posting Wink

)

The key word there is "cheap". I want the price of fossil fuels, and energy in general, to go up. You are pushing a simplistic solution. I don't think one is possible... in truth I advocate for a balanced energy policy which may or may not include some fracking.

I do believe that the cost of energy should go up.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Where does oil (as traditionally drilled) and natural gas from sources other than fracking fit into your overly simplistic paradigm?

As far as natural gas from other sources goes, not enough of it, and not cheap enough.

We can certainly keep buying oil from Saudi Arabia though, especially if we keep letting them get away with murder.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

The phrase "cheap enough" is a subjective opinion (which you give without any numbers).

As I said, I support a balanced energy policy. To ignore the environmental costs of fracking is foolish. To avoid the political/social costs of buying oil from Saudi Arabia is equally foolish. It is a matter of looking at overall energy policy and making sometimes difficult trade-offs.

If we are serious about climate change, the price of energy will go up significantly. I don't think even liberals have accepted this. The main trade off is cheap energy vs. lowering CO2 levels. You can't have both.

I would like to see the gas at $6 a gallon. Does anyone else support this?

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@maxdancona,

Some here will no doubt support a $6.00 per gallon gas price, but the vast majority of the nation won't. I hope all of the Dem candidates campaign on it, but they won't...unless it's a losing fringe player who wants to make a splash.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The main trade off is cheap energy vs. lowering CO2 levels. You can't have both.

You can with nuclear power.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

This is the problem with democracy (and why I don't run for office).

The right thing to do is rarely politically feasible.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

well, sorta,(if we switch to an entire plutonium base). Once- through(single cycle) Uranium has a finite life. Ive read estimates between 100 to 150 yars without a "Pu economy"
As far as pollution, water and air pollution are major RISKS in nukes.
Weve had a pretty goo record for melt-downs, earth quakes, ****-ups and handling several disasters. Seems , in nukes, e get all our problems AT ONCE by some disaster. No longer can we state that nukes are "Risk Free". Thats marketing.

Solar and other renewables will be a major competitor as battery technology gts even more advanced, and the sun gradually increases radiation. AS GW gets chronic as a problem, we will be spendingtime in insulated AC dwelling linkd together like the buildings in Minneapolis o Toledo.

PS, good flick on Flint.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I (sort of) concede the point. Nuclear is more expensive than natural gas (i.e. fracking), but it is fairly inexpensive with no emissions.

I support nuclear power... we need to be honest about the issues nuclear power raises.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This is the problem with democracy (and why I don't run for office).

The right thing to do is rarely politically feasible.

There is a self-organizing principle here: People will select for what they think is in their best interests. At some point, they may find that what satisfied their previous self-interest is now working against it and they will shift.

This could, of course, lead to a "Too late" situation, so it is the responsibility of leaders to impress upon the populace how they might initially be wrong. Obviously that hasn't happened and it's absurd to argue that it's only because the forces of "Climate Denial" have been more potent.

If you want to make people sacrifice here and now to prevent a future problem you can't screw around with data and have your foremost proponents present themselves as obvious hypocrites.

If Climate Change proves to be as devastating as the doomsayers predict, I will blame the voices arguing for necessary changes. They had to expect opposition and they have provided that opposition with all the ammo it needs.

Anyone who believes Climate Change is truly an existential threat to humanity doesn't live in 10,000 sf homes or fly private jets everywhere. When the average Joe sees them doing so he is perfectly reasonable in assuming they are phonies.

There is nothing that the common man hates more than elites telling them do as I say not as I do.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

well, sorta,(if we switch to an entire plutonium base). Once- through(single cycle) Uranium has a finite life. Ive read estimates between 100 to 150 yars without a "Pu economy"

Sodium-cooled reactors will let us switch to not only a plutonium base, but will let us use all of the rest of the actinides as fuel as well. This will not only dramatically expand our fuel supplies, but will also eliminate most of the problems with nuclear waste.

farmerman wrote:

As far as pollution, water and air pollution are major RISKS in nukes.
Weve had a pretty goo record for melt-downs, earth quakes, ****-ups and handling several disasters. Seems , in nukes, e get all our problems AT ONCE by some disaster. No longer can we state that nukes are "Risk Free". Thats marketing.

Prism-style helium-cooled graphite-moderated reactors are pretty close to meltdown proof.

But they are once-through reactors. TRISO pellets are not made for recycling. We'd be stuck with that 150 years once-though cycle, and would have to store the nuclear waste for a very long time.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

mot all of en are biotoxic to a great degree because they are alpha mitters. Course nuk fuel is not xactly safe under all circumstances.

many have short half lives so theres really not that much even on the planet.

As I said, It become a Pu economy for all our point to be ralized.

Ive nothing againt nuks as a "brige fuel" but e can do waaay better. Its like "clean coal" it doesnt xist an rquires xtreme safety protocols.

Soma my guys helped at Miiami Ohio, Paducah, and Y-12 cleanups and it seemed that the waste stream issues were as big a problem when we ultimately learned about long term toxicity from seemingly sub pico curie levels and the genetic damage incurred everything radioactive is mutagenic. SO, we better learn how to cure cancer. Ive alredy gone through several operations on bladder and kidney cancer that were clearly related to radiomtric dating and heavily health monitored field surveying for carnotite an monazite deposits. Fortunately I whuppd the cancers but lost half of one kidney and bout 20% of the other. Alpha are probably of most concern of all the particles and energy emitted ,.

The "fan club" for Th reactors has been sold us to believe that Th cannot be weaponized, but yes it can and quite easily.

1 Reply

As far back as the 50s, I was reading up on the downsides of nuclear power. Never was a fan after that. In the late 40s, some prognosticators were telling us that with nuclear plants electricity would be so cheap to produce we would get it practically free. Even a kid as dumb as me felt a bit skeptical.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

mot all of en are biotoxic to a great degree because they are alpha mitters.

Not once they've been consumed as fuel in a reactor. Then they are just fission fragments that will be less dangerous than natural uranium after a few hundred years.

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@oralloy,

Pu is an alpha emitter and Im really not sure wht you men by other nuclides. Eqch one they choose has to maintain a basis for heat generation an that means benefiiciation to attain nar critiality. Im dead against thorium(232) because it can be weaponized and although
the other Th's arent Basic (K) Alpha 1 or 2 emitters , theyve got really short short half lives. Lotsa work needed there sir

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@farmerman,

The other actinides would be neptunium, americium, and curium.

Weaponization of thorium should be just as easy to guard against as weaponization of plutonium.

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@oralloy,

Im not aware that any of those you mentioned even had uses beyond smoke detectors, dectectors in Spectrographs or thermo chem batteries for spacecraft.
Since the sources of most of most of them ( like a few grams per year from bombarding Plutonium), is national labs or nuke plants, Im not sure they have a huge future in the power industry. You do know the amount of fissionable fuel we use in a decade?? im thinking thats why breeders can count on Pu being made in greater amounts??

I sure as hell dont wanna get a contract to search a pile of "Belgian Raffinate" to hunt for americium or curium?? I think Id lose my shirt.

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@oralloy,

lets hope your idea is correct about Th in a weapon. I think weve said enough about this entire subject .

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im not aware that any of those you mentioned even had uses beyond smoke detectors, dectectors in Spectrographs or thermo chem batteries for spacecraft.

They give off energy when they split just like any other heavy atom does.

farmerman wrote:

Since the sources of most of most of them ( like a few grams per year from bombarding Plutonium), is national labs or nuke plants, Im not sure they have a huge future in the power industry.

You'd rather spend tons of money securely storing them as waste for millions of years instead of consuming them to produce energy?

1 Reply

Today, it is humans who are the asteroid

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