I'm not much of a greenie but I'd agree we use far too much packaging.
Assembling the aforementioned MFI stuff today;
Polythene covered cardboard box, removed polythene, opened box. Another box inside containing fittings, inside that large polythene bag, inside that three smaller poly bags. One contained the handles, each in a poly bag, opened those to find handle screws in yet another poly bag!
The screws didn't scratch the handles though. And the fittings didn't gouge the panels. And all the screws and fittings were there.
You can recycle clean polythene, and all the cardboard (but don't go to t' tip int' van).
R.
When my lad gets a kids meal from McDonalds the toy usually comes in a plastic bag, that contains one or two toy parts in separate plastic bags, plus a tiny instruction sheet in its own plastic bag.
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:32:56 +0100 someone who may be TheOldFellow wrote this:-
Recycling is far less attractive than reduce or reuse. As well as the obvious advantages of the latter two, recycling encourages an attitude that it doesn't matter how much packaging there is, as long as it is put in the right container.
On this, I agree with you.
On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:06:28 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-
I will go and lie down:-)
Indeed, would anyone *disagree*? I certainly don't.
Dave, we have never disagreed on the problems, only on the solutions.
As far as materials go, they are in short supply and nothing can be done about that except the above.
I only disagree on energy: That is not in short supply, nor is its use in any way deleterious to the planet, its only the by products of carbon fuel usage, which IS in short supply, that are.
We cannot reduce energy use dramatically without a massive drop in either population levels or standards of living - which in the end amount to the same thing.
We cannot re use energy either. That goes against the laws of physics, not can we recycle energy, that goes against the laws of thermodynamics.
I pointed you at David Mackays
The truth that no one wants to accept in the Green movement, is that although David never explicitly states it, because he does not want to be the victim of hate mail and the sort of eco extremists of the ALF sort, is that the final answer is stark. Nuclear power or die. There simply is insufficient incident solar energy on the land surface of the UK to produce the energy *and* the food we need with any technology we care to come up with, and the power per unit area in terms of windmills, is too small to reliably produce it either. David shows that with te best efficiency savings, and by covering the entire country with biofuels, solar panels and windmills - and I mean the ENTIRE country, that isn't also covered with massive energy storage projects, or tidal barriers we still cannot make the numbers stack up. Aside from te cost of all this, which David never ghoes into, there is teh obvious and total destrictio of teh ecosystem that would result. No wilderness, no woods (unless biomass farms - single species monocultures' no diversity. No wildlife. Just a landscape studded with solar panels windmills and crops in polytunnels of vast size, with every town resembling a factory, and power wires running criss cross everywhere across the country vainly trying to balance the utterly variable power fro all these sources as the suns goes in, or the wind drops.
WE need more. So what is it to be? coal? oil? gas? nuclear? No one WANTS any of them.
What is the least evil option?
Gas and oil come from places whose politics are deeply nasty, who would just love to use the supply of them as a leverge to inject their nastiness into our society. And they produce a lot of CO@. Coal s politcaly less obnoxious, but its bulky and is the worst carbon emiiter bar none. So why not nuclear?
The short answer is for no real reason at all. The pollution it does produce is small and is far less harmful than the alternatives. Techniques exist also for recycling the waste and reusing it, and reducing it. Ought to be music to your ears, and some reactor designs seem to suggest that long term isotopes could be 'burned' into short term ones as well. it's not a final solution, but then neither is the Universe, allegedly.
You can talk all you like about *qualitative* solutions that, to the non mathematical *seem* to offer a solution, but with respect, you are just a bad in that as the climate change deniers: relying on unscientific and biased wishful thinking.
You cannot cherry pick the science that suits your way of thinking, and what you want to be the case. You have to face up to what it *all* says.
Nuclear power is the lesser of the evils. That's all. 100 x 3.5GW (and thats sustained 24x7 90% uptime gigawatts, which a windmill couldn't ever hope to match) nuclear power stations would have far far less environmental impact, even with the accompanying supergrids, and would meet the *total* energy needs of this country. Not just 10% of the current electrical generation.
Cost? about £1500 a kilowatt, so around £525 billion quid. About £8750 for every man woman and child.
For power stations that would last 50 years or so. The running, decommissioning and lifetime uranium costs are included by the way, before you ask.
So, on a zero interest rate basis, that's an outlay of £175 per person per year to cover ALL the costs you currently incur for oil, petrol gas and so on. At a fixed 10% interest rate its £1050 including capital depreciation.
Now look at the UK's consumption of oil..roughly 2 million barrels a day. Thats 2x10^6 X $100 x 365..or about £36.5 billion a year. So the nuclear power stations would pay for themselves in just 14 years. Just on oil prices. Much less if you include include gas or coal, which would also be replaced.
As a straight per-power-station cost analysis, the break even point of a
50 year station is at a wholesale price of around 2p a unit. At 2.2p a Kwh its paid for itself and a 10% interest on capital, at 3p a Kwh its massively profitable.See what spot electricity prices did yesterday. Never less than £40/MWh which is about £4p a unit. Mostly above 5p a unit.
Except for windpower people, who need to have massive subsidies, or electricity at around 4.5p a unit to *begin* to be profitable, and, if the capacity ever goes much above 10% of the total (because of the massive cost of backup or distribution of power that isn't where its wanted at the time), probably nearer 8-9p a unit to be profitable.
I don't know about you, but I'd certainly rather have my pension fund invested in a nuclear power station than a basket of toxic assets of illiquid debt products based on the vain hope that Mr Jone on welfare, somewhere in deepest Mississippi, can actually ever pay back the $50,000 loan he was sold last year. Or that the house he bought with it is worth more than a couple of cents.
Before disregarding nuclear, ask ourself 'cui bono' ..guess what. Its the wind power lobby, that wants to sell us uneconomic heavily subsidised impossible to modulate intermittent windmills.
This seems to put the issues fairly sanely.
And put nuclear, somewhat regretfully, along with heat pumps, into the box marked 'this actually makes sense'.
On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:23:12 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-
"Hate mail", "eco extremists". This sort of slur is easy to make, but is simply a slur.
I know plenty of people opposed to government plans on electricity generation. Not one of them fits into the mould you claim they fit into. Despite the best attempts of organisations as diverse as the police, many mass media organisations and the nuclear lobby these people are not, "extremists", "nuts" or "the enemy of the people".
The last phrase was used by nuclear promoter Bernard Ingham on "Any Questions?" on Radio 4 a few years ago. Still, this sort of thing does show the desperation the nuclear lobby have to avoid proper debate.
Although it does not mention that quote but is a good way of getting background on Mr Ingham.
One slight problem is that the most popular currently used technology is extraordinarily wasteful of Uranium. *At current rates of use* there's estimated to be only a few decades worth of the stuff available to be mined (Google for 'Peak Uranium'). Switching to nuclear is not a long term option - unless breeder reactors are used. This upsets people who don't like breeder reactors because of nuclear proliferation concerns.
There are possible other choices, such as accelerator-driven thorium reactors, or the perennial favourite of fusion (which has been 'just around the corner' for the past 50 years - Stellarator 1951, ZETA
1954) - but not proven at commercial scale.We are living in interesting times.
Sid
Strange that is the only part you chose to challenge.
I am notsyang and neither I believe is David, that such are represntative, or even a large constituent of the Green movement: However it only takes one lunatic with a knife...
No, the organisations are not: But they attract a few nutters, you can be sure. See the history and hysteria assocuiated with the Animal Rights movement, for a start.
The mere fact that this is the ONLY part of the post you have responded to sadly places you firmly in the camp of a greenie who desperately refuses to engage in proper debate about nuclear power.
Er,. no. There is more than you could possibly imagine: Its merely the current price is so low and there has been so little interest in nuclear power, that no one has actually bothered to find out where it is or how best to extract it. Uranium is not the only source either, Thorium is usable, and most of the high level waste that represents the 'inefficiency' you cite can easily be reprocessed into more fuel.
And fast breededr can in a sense manufacture more than they burn, a well, though there are weapons proliferation issues.
\ Yes, but a world with no people and no civilsation, isn't a world where nuclear proliferatuon is a problem.
Indeed. I dont see fission as the solution for the next 1000 years either, but it may serve to tide us over for the next 100, till we find something better.
On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:01:20 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-
Nice try. However, I'm no-longer foolish enough to fall into the trap of writing a line by line rebuttal of every posting.
Typical weasel.
I made the case for nuclear power: You ignore it completely, and simply attack one line that wasn't even what I said.
Then claim that the nuclear lobby are afraid to enter into open debate.
I rest my case.
I cant make up my mind whether you are sincere, but suffering from cognitive dissonance, or are a cynical person whose livelihood is pinned to windmills.
I am tending to think the latter.
It would be a shock if you could. How would it differ from the line by line posting of quotes you do now? Maybe you could read the quotes, think about them and then only use the ones that make sense for a start. As it is I for one don't think you could do a line by line rebuttal of anything scientific.
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