Minority probabaly do it because of that. Like most everything else in life.
Where it is successful, generally it is free to the person doing the recycling. Taxes may be involved, but it is the actual out-of-pocket (or more precisely the lack thereof) that is the main constraining veriable where it makes any kind of real impact.
This comment is really special coming from a guy that in another part of this thread posted a link to an article that used OPEC, officials in India, and the secretary of state of MA as credible sources pinning the high price of oil on speculators. LOL
This comment is really special coming from a guy that in another part of this thread posted a link to an article that used OPEC, officials in India, and the secretary of state of MA as credible sources pinning the high price of oil on speculators. LOL
++++++++++++++++++++++I'm absolutely positive that everyone in that article was more qualified than you are to comment on the subject in question.
That's sort of my point, if you provide free electricity from those nukes for charging EVs / PIHs *everywhere* so you can drive your PIH 10 miles to the store and plug it in in the parking space while you shop, replacing much of the electricity used on the trip there, then the range issues would be less of a problem and more people would be able to effectively use EVs or PIHs.
Battery technology continues to improve, but just not fast enough. If batteries improved at the rate that hard drives do, we'd all be driving electric SUVs with 500+ mile range, great performance and 10 minute recharges.
It's hard to beat the hydrocarbons for energy density, but if there were hydrogen fueling stations at even 1/4 of the density of current gas stations it would be pretty viable for general use. I recall seeing a piece on TV about a relatively compact and efficient hydrogen production unit that combined with cheap power from the nukes (and eventually RE when it catches up) would make hydrogen a viable replacement for a large percentage of vehicles. Commercial vehicles are particularly good for a hydrogen alternative since they travel pretty well defined routes making it easy to insure they stay within range of a fueling station. City busses and UPS trucks commonly use CNG currently and do just fine.
Certainly it is the only technology that is a viable replacement for all our coal and NG electric generation currently. It can eliminate a huge amount of emissions now and provide a few decades breathing room to improve and deploy RE technologies to eventually replace it.
When was the last super fund site created (not designated)? That is old news and has little to do with current practices. Rather like the anti ANWR drilling loon insist drilling would destroy ANWR while the reality is that a few small sites along the perimeter using current directional drilling technology could tap ANWR with essentially no impact. Same with the anti logging loons where the old clear cut mess went away long ago and we now have selective helicopter logging with no logging roads at all.
Nuke is certainly the short term solution. Hopefully in the few decades of breathing room nukes would provide storage technology would improve enough to solve the problem of the intermittent nature of most RE sources.
Nuclear energy is "green" energy, but it is not renewable. We should certainly be using nuclear *now* to eliminate all the environmental damage from the current coal/NG/oil energy sources, but we should still be working towards all renewable sources for the future.
If not a lie, certainly a leading omission of "the rest of the story". Pu is generated by neutron capture. As noted before, the real difference between a breeder reactor and an "ordinary" reactor is that the breeder includes material specifically for this capture and by that inclusion the overall fuel cycle ends up w/ more _total_ fissile material than was in the initial fuel loading -- hence the term breeder--it "bred" fuel. In a non-breeder, that extra material isn't there, so overall more fissile material is consumed than generated (or in some cases the "breeding ratio" might approach unity).
The initial commercial LWR fuel cycles in the US were designed with the thought we would have reprocessing facilities available to make use of what fissile Pu was produced, but under Carter the NRC was told to not consider the licensing application of GE for their proposed reprocessing plant, thus leaving us in the present mess of an "open" instead of "closed" fuel cycle and the problem of spent fuel storage. This decision was based on his (Carter's) apparent inability to distinguish intellectually between commercial and weapons-grade material and his overly optimistic hope that by setting the example in the US of not recycling would somehow be influential in other nations' decisions as to whether they would or would not reprocess fuel on their own. As is clear, it didn't do anything at all to discourage others and did quite a lot of harm to our own ability to efficiently use our own resources. We seem to do a lot of that sort of thing (draw weapon, shoot self in foot, that is).
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I did my work in an older Usenet posting, which can be turned up by Google by pasting this (split into 2 lines by my Unix shell account newsreader):
In my posting there, I do cite the Wiki article on coal, and also:
and
So, if half of our electricity comes from coal, replacing a 60 watt incandescent with a 15 watt CFL reduces mercury pollution by 7 mg on average. Average CFLs have about 3-4 mg of mercury.
- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)
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I suspect you're not interpreting what they _really_ said quite right although I don't have a clue as to what or to whom specifically you're referring (other than the general gist of the report (that is now also not necessarily looking to be all that intelligent from what I hear more recently) I've not read much detail.)
Anyway, the basics of rudimentary technology for separation isn't that difficult, either -- it's the details of the efficiency of how to do it in large quantities with "only" hundreds or low-thousands of centrifuges as opposed to 10's of thousands in order to obtain sufficient weapons-grade material in a relatively short time.
Similar story w/ weapons manufacture -- to utilize limited amounts of material efficiently is a pretty good trick -- if one had lots of material, a crude weapon is indeed relatively straightforward.
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In , JoeSpareBedroom wrote in part:
I dopn't live or work in Manhattan, so I don't know anyone there, but I have been there a few times during rush hour, and I have seen those trains. They do fill up.
- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)
Why?
In no other area of commerce is there a clamoring by a user to pay MORE for their purchase, particularly a vital commodity. Why oil? The only explanation is that those advocating higher oil prices are socialists that have decided that oil is bad.
For central station large-scale electrical generation, there's no reason in the world to consider anything _BUT_ nuclear for as far forward as one cares to project. _IF_ fusion ever turns out to be practical for large application(*), one can progress from fission to fusion, but the there is no practical limit on fission reactors for fuel since one can always close the fuel cycle and recycle roughly 90% of conventional fuel and w/ the incorporation of some breeding, one could (at higher cost) even divorce from fresh sources of U if absolutely required although that would entail a higher cost since U is quite plentiful and therefore relatively inexpensive.
(*) My personal opinion from 30+ yrs as NucE in power generation area in watching the fusion folks is it is a technology that will remain "20 years in the future" for the next 50-100 years at least. Perhaps there will be the fundamental materials breakthrough to solve the containment problems in a practical manner, but so far, nothing anybody has conceived or tried seems, imo at least, to have a chance of ever making for a cost-effective way to build commercial generating stations.
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The point is that in some cities, mass transportation isn't foisted on people. They choose to use it because the physical realities of trying to drive into those cities make it insane to consider using a car on a daily basis. People who use the word "foisted" must be possessed by some sort of childish cowboy independence mentality. If the light rail idea had become a reality here in my county, nobody would've been forced to use it.
I'm not clear about how the word "socialist" fits your comment. Using your own words, tell me what a socialist is. No dictionary definitions, please.
You can stop wondering. You can probably even relax a bit.
There is a nuke operating perhaps 25 miles from where I am typing. It's along the Missouri river. Security there is ridiculously tight. Also, my son-in-law is an engineer at a nuke perhaps 40 miles east of his home. The (generic) stories he tells about security are impressive.
Besides, any terrorist strike on a U.S. nuclear-powered, electricity generating station will not be a ground-based assault. It will come from the air - and will be a dismal failure as core containment here is extremely OVER built. FWIW: There was NO containment structure at Chernobyl.
Pete C. wrote: ...
Au contraire, me boy... :)
One can design/build a reactor w/ a breeding ratio > unity even today. Carter, unfortunately, canceled the large-scale demonstration project at Oak Ridge along w/ the (previously mentioned more fully in another response) marvelously short-sighted decision to ban reprocessing/recycling of commercial fuel in the US.
The latter of those two decisions is still, unfortunately, in effect so the only practical alternative available is the current "standard design" advanced LWR's of the W and GE design. Unfortunately, also, the long hiatus forced the other US vendors (CE and B&W) plus virtually all of the manufacturing capability to close. :(
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If these features are present everywhere, I'll be happy. Actually, though, security is pretty tight at the Ginna plant east of here (Rochester). Fishing boats occasionally drift too close to the security zone, and it raises holy hell. The containment structure is another issue - I have no idea what it's like.
My other concern is whether it would be possible for a bunch of idiots to plan another joke like the Shoreham plant (Long Island). It eventually died an appropriate death because the evacuation plan was also conceived by idiots who never bothered to look at a map of Long Island.
We're making progress. At least you admit that he HAS a dick.
If HE is ever legally silenced, I expect that YOU will have been squelched well before him. Silencing opposing speech is a dangerous thing. Every - and I mean EVERY - time it has been tried, a big war promptly ensues.
I'm not as convinced of that as you.
Our parents (and grandparents) "let the genie out of the bottle" in 1945. By some miracle, it hasn't been used since. That is an incredible accomplishment that I fully support and hope will continue forever.
However, if we are ever "nuked" (dirty or explosive), I believe we should explosively nuke the offending nation in reply.
Your honesty and civility in usenet is refreshing.
Now THAT is a scary thought, indeed. God forbid such a person ascend to high, influential office.
CJT wrote: ...
The first statement is certainly patently false as a blanket generality, others note many that have paid large damages, even to the point of driving them into bankruptcy.
I'll only add that many (and I'd venture "most" but it would take too much time to confirm the statistics) of the Superfund sites are from locations that go back in some cases as much as 100 years earlier to initial site usage for industrial use when both attitudes and knowledge were grossly different than today. At the time, those were standard and common practices and virtually all were within compliance of applicable law and regulations _OF_THE_TIME. That is significant.
That there should be efforts to mitigate former sites is good, but to caste current individuals as scapegoats for stuff done before they were even born is not productive.
That said, yes, there are some who aren't doing all they might, but that too is a fairly widespread trait in human history. Overall, if one compares progress in the US to the developing nations and places such as E Europe or the former Soviet Union, we look pretty darn good.
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