Comments on: Green godfather delivers shocking and heretical message for the future

By: Cllr Mark Wright

Cllr Mark Wright — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:34:02 +0000

Chris, the technology breakthroughs that are required for storage of wind/solar energy (most likely in subterranean, cooled-liquid H2) are as nothing compared to the breakthroughs required to make the limited global Uranium/Thorium reserves stretch to powering the whole globe at western levels of power usage.

SteveL, the subtext of the US National Ignition Facility is the production of ultra-powerful lasers and micro-thermo-nuclear explosive devices. Hmmm. I wonder what those to could also be used for? No thanks! You wont get me going near that nonsense for the same reason as you wont get me supporting fast-breeder reactors that hand useful plutonium reserves to every country that runs one.

If the choice of futures is one with global warming vs one with every nutty dictatorship armed to the teeth with nukes, micro-thermo-nukes and devastating battlefield lasers then I’ll take my risks with the former, thanks. It’s a matter of risk analysis really. History suggests to me that humans are better able to cope with climate changes than they are with the possession of devastating weapons.

By: SteveL

SteveL — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:43:51 +0000

Pure Uranium can only be mined efficiently for a limited time; it takes more energy to extract from the sea than you gain. Thorium-cycle fission would last longer, but there is the small problem that India hasn’t got it to work yet. That leaves MOX Uranium+Plutonium fuel and even fast-breeder processes, both of which have fairly messy recycling processes.

Then there’s fusion. It would be really, really good if we could get this to work, but you have to look at 50 years of work on the Tokamak design, and you have to say “is this the right approach”. The EU projects like ITER think so, but things like the US National Ignition Facility looks more pragmatic to me.

Returning to wind+solar, it’s rare that you get both off at the same time, especially if your solar is actually in the sahara desert and the wind out past Lundy.

-Steve

(not a physicist, but I have worked in High Energy experiments)

By: Chris Hutt

Chris Hutt — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:11:18 +0000

There’s a rather glaring problem with wind and solar power. You get nothing when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun doeasn’t shine. There aren’t as yet any practical means for the large scale storage of electrical energy so you need other power generation to cover those periods when wind and solar don’t deliver.

That means a duplication of generating and distribution capacity which is very inefficient and expensive. If the alternative generating capacity is nuclear then you might as well not bother with the wind and solar in the first place. And if the alternative generation is fossil fuelled then you still have significant carbon dioxide output.

By: G.R.L. Cowan

G.R.L. Cowan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:14:40 +0000

The 4500 million tonnes of uranium in the ocean have an interesting implication: all the known high-grade uranium deposits on land could be mined out, and all their uranium thoroughly mixed into the sea, and the amount in the sea — 3.2 milligrams per cubic metre — would not detectably change.

Moreover, the cost to the people buying it and dumping it would be less than governments make in a year on fossil fuels. A few million affluent civil servants could shut down the world’s nuclear power industry within a year or two, within the time it takes on-site fuel loads to be used up — *if* they believed what ‘w00dburner’ says he believes.

And they would have a financial motive to do it, because each dollar they would spend in this way would return to them several times over as natural gas royalties and taxes.

By: Earl_E

Earl_E — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:47:21 +0000

A billion cars have been built. Why not 5 million wind turbines?
100 square miles of solar collectors in desert space seems easy. What am I missing here?

By: w00dburner

w00dburner — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:15:47 +0000

I believe there’s only 40 yrs worth of uranium for nuclear power, It’s neither renewable nor sustainable and there is no safe method of waste management nor is there any method of decomissioning that doesn’t run into many billions and leave a legacy of concrete wastelands. The only real beneficiaries are the companies that cream off the profits. As usual.

By: Tim Beadle

Tim Beadle — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:01:49 +0000

Support for GM and Nuclear? Possibly controversial.

The idea that denser living arrangements (i.e. cities) are better? Spot on. Suburban and countryside living, when most employment is in urban settings, is *deeply* eco-hostile.

By: Chris Hutt

Chris Hutt — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:50:24 +0000

I was in the audience on Monday but was not ‘shocked’ by anything he said, although I may have been in the minority in that respect. I found his analysis pragmatic and sensible. All options have risks and costs, but as far as we can see, if we look objectively at the available evidence, those associated with nuclear power or GM crops are much lower than the alternatives.