no one seriously imagines terrorists trying to steal the blades off your wind turbines to make WMD. stealing weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, however, is quite imaginable -- security experts lie awake nights worrying about this sort of thing. maybe they could be doing better things with their lives.
and despite all the layers and layers of precautions and defence-in-depth trying to compensate for risk-in-depth -- clever and careful as they are -- it just takes one earthquake to shut the biggest nuke facility in the world down w/o a restart date...
an earthquake in Japan this week rattled the Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant. The plant's operator "said it had found more than 50 problems at the plant caused by Monday's earthquake," The New York Times reported, adding: "While most of the problems were minor, the largest included 100 drums of radioactive waste that had fallen over, causing the lids on some of the drums to open, the company said.... The company said that the earthquake also caused a small fire at the plant, the world's largest by amount of electricity produced, and the leakage of 317 gallons of water containing trace levels of radioactive materials into the nearby Sea of Japan." Meanwhile, accidents at two German nuclear reactors last month prompted German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to call for the early shutdown of all older reactors there, reports Bloomberg News. Concern about the safety of Germany's 17 reactors has grown after a fire at Vattenfall's Kruemmel site June 28 and a network fault at its Brunsbuettel plant on the same day. Der Spiegel online adds: "It took the fire department hours to extinguish the blaze. Even worse, the plant operator's claim that a fire in the transformer had no effect on the reactor itself proved to be a lie. In short, the incident made clear that nuclear energy is by no means the modern, well-organized, high-tech sector portrayed until recently by politicians and industry advocates. Indeed, the frequency of problems occurring at Germany's aging reactors is on the rise. Just as old cars succumb to rust, nuclear power plants built in the 1970s and '80s are undergoing a natural aging process. On Wednesday, the chief executive of Vattenfall Europe AG stepped down. Klaus Rauscher was the second manager to depart this week amid mounting criticism for the utility's handling of a fire at a nuclear plant in northern Germany, reports the AP.
"While most of the problems were minor, the largest included 100 drums of radioactive waste that had fallen over, causing the lids on some of the drums to open, the company said.... The company said that the earthquake also caused a small fire at the plant, the world's largest by amount of electricity produced, and the leakage of 317 gallons of water containing trace levels of radioactive materials into the nearby Sea of Japan."
Meanwhile, accidents at two German nuclear reactors last month prompted German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to call for the early shutdown of all older reactors there, reports Bloomberg News.
Concern about the safety of Germany's 17 reactors has grown after a fire at Vattenfall's Kruemmel site June 28 and a network fault at its Brunsbuettel plant on the same day. Der Spiegel online adds:
"It took the fire department hours to extinguish the blaze. Even worse, the plant operator's claim that a fire in the transformer had no effect on the reactor itself proved to be a lie.
In short, the incident made clear that nuclear energy is by no means the modern, well-organized, high-tech sector portrayed until recently by politicians and industry advocates. Indeed, the frequency of problems occurring at Germany's aging reactors is on the rise. Just as old cars succumb to rust, nuclear power plants built in the 1970s and '80s are undergoing a natural aging process.
On Wednesday, the chief executive of Vattenfall Europe AG stepped down. Klaus Rauscher was the second manager to depart this week amid mounting criticism for the utility's handling of a fire at a nuclear plant in northern Germany, reports the AP.
CSM
I note that early press releases from Japan claimed that only 1 liter of mildly radioactive water had been leaked "harmlessly" into the sea and that the plant would be up and running again very soon. as more and more damaging facts leaked out, the story (like climate change science) has morphed over the last few days into something more serious -- not disastrous, but fairly serious. if you had lived with the US NRC for a few decades, you'd now be asking yourself, "And what haven't they told us yet? What will we find out 40 years from now when the fear of lawsuits has abated and the real documents are finally released?"
I really envy those who enjoy the happy condition of not expecting their government to lie to them... ahhh you lucky French. but this is what I mean by "secrecy" -- and it applies to the incident at Bhopal as well, where proper treatment was impossible because the company refused to share an analysis of the chemical compounds released, claiming intellectual property right to proprietary formulae.
... nuclear enthusiasts [as opposed to the "hold your nose and glow" type who simply think nuclear waste proliferation is an acceptable alternative to using a manual toothbrush or a smaller TV] sometimes remind me of brash young men I occasionally encountered in my younger days, who always wanted to drive at very high speeds. any complaints from the passenger would be dismissed with heartfelt (and often condescending) lectures on the superior intelligence, skills and reflexes of the driver, the superior technology of the car, its custom rollbar, etc; but it always seemed to me to dodge the question: why take the risk in the first place? and particularly, why impose that risk on other road users and the hapless passenger?
I think the real point here is that while a solar/wind enthusiast can go off the grid, build an energy-efficient home, reduce demand, and enjoy the technology of their choice w/o materially harming other people much [modulo the toxicity of pv and battery manufacture which is deeply troubling to me], the nuclear enthusiast cannot build a little nuke plant in the garage to play with. the tech is far too dangerous for amateurs to fool around with, and I think that demonstrates the "con" case as clearly as anything. I can make my own wind gen out of used car parts, canvas, wood, an old oil drum... but I can't build a little nuke for my homestead. and for good reason. the technology is inherently lethal and requires strictest regulation, control, oversight, surveillance, blah blah. for both technical and security reasons it does not scale down well, meaning that it encourages hypercentralisation.
the nuclear enthusiast cannot indulge in their fascinating (I do admit it's fascinating) hobby without projects of Pharaonic scale, endangering fairly large demographics of Other People, and this (like SUV driving and other risk-externalisation paradigms) I think this must be a core trait of a nonconvivial technology.
the risk to other people, furthermore, is almost impossible for those other people to assess and detect for themselves without high technology (dosimeters, whole-body assays, etc). their only recourse is to "trust the experts," and "just trust us" is not something I like to hear from any elite :-) if one of your wind towers is starting to lean dangerously due to foundation subsidence, your neigbour across the property line can see that, assess the degree of lean, hike over and inspect the base of the tower, take some digi snaps, and demand that you fix it. but if your nuke plant may or may not have released cesium (or worse), neighbouring residents can hardly afford the kind of assay needed to determine for sure whether their safety is imperilled or not, whether the leak occurred or not, whether it was greater than reported, etc. they need Experts to tell them, and the available Experts are most likely working at the plant :-)
same is true of all/most highly toxic chemical operations, and there is often not much excuse for them either, i.e. there are less-toxic ways of achieving similar results, but someone has got themselves a cosy market niche doing it the toxic way.
I'll be generous here and admit that the biggest hole that can be made in this argument of mine is ... Public Transit :-) after all, the public relies on a small crew of experts to operate the trains, maintain the trains and tracks, etc. -- you can't build your own personal railway, unless you're extraordinarily wealthy, and the average train rider doesn't understand switching gear, scheduling software, tunnel construction, etc. the relevant diff I think is visibility of results. there is no mistaking a rail crash, or a breakdown or delay. anyone can perceive it, and its effects, in realtime. there isn't the "lethality 30 years delayed" problem which assists greatly in mystification, or the invisibility/insidiousness problem which undermines trust and hinders accountability in both toxic chemical ops and nuke ops. and rail operators look damn silly standing around saying "trust us, nothing really happened" in the middle of a derailment. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
why take the risk in the first place?
"Because it's there!" -----sapere aude
You're actually conceding that the only way to deal with terrorists is either not do anything remotely dangerous or allow secrecy and erosion of civil rights.
There are a lot of technologies that have "dual uses". If there are no swords people will kill each other with plowshares. Also, you can't steal weapons-grade uranium or plutonium from a civilian power reactor, can you? Because you don't need weapons-grade fuel to run a reactor in the first place. So the problem is the military application, and the technology does not necessitate the military application. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
So, the problem is terrorists?
The problem with the nuclear power industry is that it is staffed by a pack of liars. They lie by omission. They lie by commission. They give out little lies that they then cover with other lies that they cover with a big lie that they then, finally, admit were lies. They have lied in the past. They have lied in the present. No doubt they will lie in the future as well.
The nuclear power industry are murders. They killed tens, if not hundreds, of people in the Four Corners area in the 1940-1950s directly from uranium mining and indirectly from the dust cause by uranium mining. They have also killed a whistle blower in the US by putting radioactive material under her driver's seat.
The nuclear power industry are incompetents, e.g., they build nuclear power plants meters away from the San Andreas Fault. And, when this was pointed-out, claimed it was perfectly safe. (A twofer!)
The technical papers and reports - even the science - behind the nuclear power industry are irrelevant to the this discussion. Saying some nuclear power plants and some groups of nuclear power plants are run by truth-telling competents brings us into the Existential which, by definition, precludes Categorical analysis. So general statements regarding the operation of nuclear power plants has no necessary application, or bearing, on the nuclear power plant down the road.
Speaking of which, the nuclear power plant down the road has 4 reactors. The advertising prior to construction was that they wanted to build 4 to keep 3 running while doing repairs, and so forth, on 1. Since the plant came on-line they've kept all 4 running all the time.
This is true in other industries too, of course. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Once you acknowledge the existence of cities and complex systems, you have to accept that economies of scale matter, and some forms of centralised systems are a lot better at making things work. You acknowledge public transit, but electricity is, quite frankly, the same.
Once you're there, you have to look at the least noxious way of providing electricity to cities and to the industries than sustain them. Smart energy use should come first, and renewable energy next, and we all hope that they will be enough, but they won't be for a while.
In the meantime, do we take the massive certain, permanent, recurrent deaths of coal and (to a lesser extent) gas, or the threat of potentially lethal large scale, or otherwise scary nuclear-related deaths? When you consider that Chernobyl was a pretty much worst case scenario, and that it caused much less damage that than the coal industry causes in any random year in any big producing country (go see "mountaintop removal" as an asnwer to "inhabitable land"), and that it happened just the one time, well, the choice should be easy.
And we haven't even mentioned climate change. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
"economy of scale" as I think someone (not me) pointed out on an earlier thread, presupposes that transportation -- raw materials in, product (such as electricity) out -- is free, or at least that its cost is irrelevant. the cost in loss over long transmission lines is irrelevant so long as you have productive capacity in considerable excess of demand; the cost of mining fuel half a world away, or even half a continent away, and hauling it to the centralised facility (not to mention the cost hauling the toxic waste products away again to a "safe" distance) is irrelevant so long as you have a near-infinite supply of cheap liquid fuel for the hauling.
in other words, the Economy of Scale notion is a product of cheap energy, and is itself scaled to the cheapness of energy. if energy and other resources were free/infinite, then we could have one godawful huge power plant on one island someplace that fed the entire planet with electricity galore, and the hell with the losses in 4000 mile transmission lines; but, as with sci-fi Arthropods of Unusual Size, there are physical factors that limit the practical extent of centralisation.
when energy becomes expensive, the radius of "economy of scale" shrinks, because long supply lines and long delivery lines get more and more expensive proportional to the amount of energy generated. if you want to save energy by encouraging less car use and more bike use, then the walmart/costco model of centralising all retail activity for a 400 sq mi region on one megabox store becomes unworkable. that model is only workable when (a) the energy cost of people driving 100 mi round trip to the centralised store is trivial compared to the cost of goods acquired, (b) the energy cost of hauling slave-labour goods half way around the world to stock the shelves is trivial compared to the sales revenues. as soon as energy becomes expensive, the "advantages" of concentrating manufacturing in "sacrifice zones" (both human and ecological) thousands of miles away, and the "advantages" of driving tens of miles for "cheap" goods, turn into losing propositions.
the Economy of Scale radius is not an axiom (bigger/more centralised is always better), it's a function of a wildly varying term (energy availability and cost).
as long as energy supplies are finite and have non-zero costs or downsides, there is always a point at which economy of scale founders on energy costs and diminishing returns; this is why we do not have 50 foot cockroaches.
I dunno why various folks keep accusing me of being "pastoral," when I personally tend no herds of ruminants -- and even do a fair amt of research on urban microfarming and the efficiencies of self-powered multifamily buildings... economy of scale may work very well indeed at the apartment-building or city-block level, or the village level (fairly similar transport radii). smaller radii could apply just as well to self-organisation and robustness w/in urban areas as outside them, as Jacobs argues so convincingly in DLGAC.
and before we jump to the conclusion that centralisation = hightech medical care = happiness, we might wonder how many of the ills presented to high-tech medical specialists are themselves the physical "externalities" [sic] of industrial toxicity concentrated by centralisation. the high-tech pharma nexus in the US, f'rexample, is one of the worst criminal polluters; I am not the only observer to note that it makes a large chunk of cash "curing" the cancers and other syndromes that its effluents are causing. many people worldwide sicken and die because they live in cities (air pollution mostly, but also slum conditions generally) or because the industrial effluents from the activities which enrich the urban elite contaminate soil and water throughout the hinterlands. which somewhat vitiates the claim that we are all so awfully lucky to have access to the high-tech medical facilities that "only cities" can provide... I think Cuba's track record on decentralising health care to the neighbourhood and the village level speaks for itself here -- lower tech preventive and basic medicine decentralised and spread more evenly through the population achieves better results wrt most accepted metrics than isolated concentrations of industrialised med tech.
what economy of scale really translates into is a tradeoff between the cost of supply lines and the value of the output, and a tradeoff between more and less democratic institutions (i.e. more or less centralised control). being as how I am a pessimistic student of human nature and tend to endorse Lord Acton's axiom, I don't think any one person or small team of people should own/hold the Off switch for the daily power needs of millions. I like short supply lines, especially in troubling and uncertain times.
this does not in any way indicate that I object to extending delivery networks for load balancing, energy sharing, etc., as proposed in the recent "renewables for Euroland" study I cited earlier. but if those networks fail, they should fail into a few broken local nodes and many functional local nodes, not into one massive failure area. I wouldn't design a 24x7 computational center to work that way (with all the compute power in one single chassis for a single POF), why would I design a power grid that way? the Beowulf style cluster of peers, or the VO peer-network data mining/reduction architecture, is a far better mimic of highly adaptive and stable biotic webs, and hence imho inherently superior design (even aside from considerations of "social capital" and institutional culture). The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
The scale and subtlety of our country's dependency on oil and natural gas cannot be overstated. Nowhere is this truer than in our medical system. Petrochemicals are used to manufacture analgesics, antihistamines, antibiotics, antibacterials, rectal suppositories, cough syrups, lubricants, creams, ointments, salves, and many gels. Processed plastics made with oil are used in heart valves and other esoteric medical equipment. Petrochemicals are used in radiological dyes and films, intravenous tubing, syringes, and oxygen masks. In all but rare instances, fossil fuels heat and cool buildings and supply electricity. Ambulances and helicopter "life flights" depend on petroleum, as do personnel who travel to and from medical workplaces in motor vehicles. Supplies and equipment are shipped -- often from overseas -- in petroleum-powered carriers. In addition there are the subtle consequences of fossil fuel reliance. A recently retired doctor informs me, "In orthopedics we used to set fractures mostly by feel and knowing the mechanics of how the fractures were created. I doubt that many of the present orthopedists could do a good job if you took away their [energy-powered] fluoroscope or X-ray." [DeA sez: nonconvivial technologies create dependence on industry and on energy- and techno-elites by deskilling workers] [...] The coming scarcity of fossil fuels, on top of inflationary costs in medicine (the prices of oil and natural gas are approximately four times what they were in 1999 and rising) and the expenses of treating Baby Boomers (a cohort twice the size of its predecessor), could overwhelm a medical system already in crisis. We can avoid collapse, however, by reducing medicine's present consumption of energy and creating a health-care system that reflects our actual relationship to resources. Ironically, peak oil can be a catalyst for creating a health-care system that is cost-effective, ecologically sustainable, and congruent with a democratic social ethos. At present we have a tiered health-care system. At the top is a Ferrari model of care that reflects our affluence, fascination with technology, and extravagance. Ferrari care has made possible the treatment of rare life-threatening diseases and expensive procedures like organ transplants, but it has also been used for esoteric and often redundant testing and vanity procedures such as botox injections. At the bottom is a jalopy model serving over 50 million un- and underinsured Americans who very often receive no treatment, defer treatment until their condition cannot be ignored, or face economic ruin when they seek adequate care. If the two tiers persist after peak oil, they will eventually be preserved by force -- armed guards at gated medical facilities -- for the few able to pay, while the rest of Americans are relegated to the jalopy and faced with overt rationing, triage, and curtailment of medical care. Such an outcome would be an overt contravention of democratic values -- most Americans tell pollsters they believe that health care is a human right, not a privilege awarded those with higher income. What then should we do? The best democratic option is to replace both the Ferrari and the jalopy with a Honda. [...] The commonsensical Honda model will emphasize public health -- the prevention of disease and the promotion of health within the population as a whole -- over treatment medicine, which focuses on restoring health to chronically or acutely ill individuals. Typically accomplished through the diffusion of information, low-cost therapies, and the promotion of healthful nutrition and lifestyle, preventive medicine allows people to avoid or postpone disease, and to stay clear of the costliest and most energy-intensive sectors of the medical system -- doctors' offices, pharmacies, and the hospital. In the Honda model, treatment medicine would continue, but its role would be brought into better balance with the vastly more cost-effective and energy-efficient mode of preventive health care.
Petrochemicals are used to manufacture analgesics, antihistamines, antibiotics, antibacterials, rectal suppositories, cough syrups, lubricants, creams, ointments, salves, and many gels. Processed plastics made with oil are used in heart valves and other esoteric medical equipment.
Petrochemicals are used in radiological dyes and films, intravenous tubing, syringes, and oxygen masks. In all but rare instances, fossil fuels heat and cool buildings and supply electricity. Ambulances and helicopter "life flights" depend on petroleum, as do personnel who travel to and from medical workplaces in motor vehicles. Supplies and equipment are shipped -- often from overseas -- in petroleum-powered carriers. In addition there are the subtle consequences of fossil fuel reliance.
A recently retired doctor informs me, "In orthopedics we used to set fractures mostly by feel and knowing the mechanics of how the fractures were created. I doubt that many of the present orthopedists could do a good job if you took away their [energy-powered] fluoroscope or X-ray." [DeA sez: nonconvivial technologies create dependence on industry and on energy- and techno-elites by deskilling workers]
[...] The coming scarcity of fossil fuels, on top of inflationary costs in medicine (the prices of oil and natural gas are approximately four times what they were in 1999 and rising) and the expenses of treating Baby Boomers (a cohort twice the size of its predecessor), could overwhelm a medical system already in crisis.
We can avoid collapse, however, by reducing medicine's present consumption of energy and creating a health-care system that reflects our actual relationship to resources. Ironically, peak oil can be a catalyst for creating a health-care system that is cost-effective, ecologically sustainable, and congruent with a democratic social ethos.
At present we have a tiered health-care system. At the top is a Ferrari model of care that reflects our affluence, fascination with technology, and extravagance. Ferrari care has made possible the treatment of rare life-threatening diseases and expensive procedures like organ transplants, but it has also been used for esoteric and often redundant testing and vanity procedures such as botox injections. At the bottom is a jalopy model serving over 50 million un- and underinsured Americans who very often receive no treatment, defer treatment until their condition cannot be ignored, or face economic ruin when they seek adequate care.
If the two tiers persist after peak oil, they will eventually be preserved by force -- armed guards at gated medical facilities -- for the few able to pay, while the rest of Americans are relegated to the jalopy and faced with overt rationing, triage, and curtailment of medical care. Such an outcome would be an overt contravention of democratic values -- most Americans tell pollsters they believe that health care is a human right, not a privilege awarded those with higher income.
What then should we do? The best democratic option is to replace both the Ferrari and the jalopy with a Honda. [...]
The commonsensical Honda model will emphasize public health -- the prevention of disease and the promotion of health within the population as a whole -- over treatment medicine, which focuses on restoring health to chronically or acutely ill individuals.
Typically accomplished through the diffusion of information, low-cost therapies, and the promotion of healthful nutrition and lifestyle, preventive medicine allows people to avoid or postpone disease, and to stay clear of the costliest and most energy-intensive sectors of the medical system -- doctors' offices, pharmacies, and the hospital. In the Honda model, treatment medicine would continue, but its role would be brought into better balance with the vastly more cost-effective and energy-efficient mode of preventive health care.
note that the commonsense or preventive model of health care would reap far less profit for the med mafia and pharmistocracy than the current "perpetual motion" ponzi scheme of cherrypicking (care denial), iatrogenic pathologies, and price gouging. DeAnander's Law predicts that it is always more profitable, in money terms and for the elite, to do things wrong. but it would be far more energy efficient and far more profitable in terms of life-years saved and quality-of-life to do things right, that is, sensibly and more simply, with less centralisation and lighter tech. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
The impact on road transport will be a lot starker than on petrochmeicals accessibility. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
What is costly is the last mile, where you need to deliver lots of small packages (whether of energy, goods or anything else) to lots of different places. That's energy intensive, but it's easier to do in concentrated areas, where you can get dense networks (with all the redundancy you need).
There is a reason why human activity always migrated towards this, even before there was plentiful oil. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Also, by the way, why it makes sense to segregate residential from agricultural uses. Because it is easier to work a contiguous plot of land than many scattered plotlets. And this is irrespective of whether we're talking about monoculture or permaculture. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
But I might well be wrong on this. We haven't had enough diaries on permaculture in any case (hint, hint). Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Plants grow, ingesting some small amounts of toxins. Animals eat plants, getting far higher concentrations of toxins than the plants have as the toxins are retained in the animal tissue. Humans eat the animals and get even more toxins. Dumping our toxic crap on plants will make us ingest far more toxin the next time we eat meat, and it will get worse for every consecutive year.
Now, if you manage to separate the toxin from the crap in an economic way, you have a prize to collect in Stockholm. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Dumping our toxic crap on plants will make us ingest far more toxin the next time we eat meat
I might also have mixed up biomagnification with bioaccumulation. Let's see what wikipedia says.
Biomagnification, also known as bioamplification, or biological magnification is the increase in concentration of a substance, such as the pesticide DDT, that occurs in a food chain as a consequence of: * Food chain energetics * Low (or nonexistent) rate of excretion/degradation of the substance. It is an important concept in ecology, environmental science, and ecotoxicology: it says that the solution to certain types of pollution is not dilution, because food chains will concentrate the pollutant. Although sometimes used interchangeably with 'bioaccumulation,' an important distinction is drawn between the two. Bioaccumulation occurs within a trophic level, and is the increase in concentration of a substance in an individual's tissues due to uptake from food and sediments in an aquatic milieu. Bioconcentration is defined as occurring when uptake from the water is greater than excretion. (Landrum and Fisher, 1999). Thus bioconcentration and bioaccumulation occur within an organism, and biomagnification occurs across trophic (food chain) levels.
* Food chain energetics * Low (or nonexistent) rate of excretion/degradation of the substance.
It is an important concept in ecology, environmental science, and ecotoxicology: it says that the solution to certain types of pollution is not dilution, because food chains will concentrate the pollutant.
Although sometimes used interchangeably with 'bioaccumulation,' an important distinction is drawn between the two. Bioaccumulation occurs within a trophic level, and is the increase in concentration of a substance in an individual's tissues due to uptake from food and sediments in an aquatic milieu. Bioconcentration is defined as occurring when uptake from the water is greater than excretion. (Landrum and Fisher, 1999). Thus bioconcentration and bioaccumulation occur within an organism, and biomagnification occurs across trophic (food chain) levels.
Bioaccumulation occurs when an organism absorbs a toxic substance at a rate greater than that at which the substance is lost. Thus, the longer the biological half-life of the substance the greater the risk of chronic poisoning, even if environmental levels of the toxin are very low. This is one reason why chronic poisoning is a common aspect of environmental health in the workplace. As people spend so much time, for so many years in these environments, very low levels of toxins can be lethal over time. An example of poisoning in the workplace can be seen from the phrase "as mad as a hatter". The process for stiffening the felt used in making hats involved mercury, which forms organic species such as methylmercury, which is lipid soluble, and tends to accumulate in the brain resulting in mercury poisoning. Other lipid (fat) soluble poisons include tetra-ethyl lead compounds (the lead in leaded petrol), and DDT. These compounds are stored in the body's fat, and when the fatty tissues are used for energy, the compounds are released and cause acute poisoning. Strontium 90, part of the fallout from atomic bombs, is mistaken by the human body for calcium, and is laid down in the bone, where its radiation can cause damage for a long time. Naturally produced toxins can also bioaccumulate. The marine algal blooms known as "red tides" can result in local filter feeding organisms such as mussels and oysters becoming toxic; coral fish can be responsible for the poisoning known as ciguatera when they accumulate a toxin called ciguatoxin from reef algae.
This is one reason why chronic poisoning is a common aspect of environmental health in the workplace. As people spend so much time, for so many years in these environments, very low levels of toxins can be lethal over time.
An example of poisoning in the workplace can be seen from the phrase "as mad as a hatter". The process for stiffening the felt used in making hats involved mercury, which forms organic species such as methylmercury, which is lipid soluble, and tends to accumulate in the brain resulting in mercury poisoning.
Other lipid (fat) soluble poisons include tetra-ethyl lead compounds (the lead in leaded petrol), and DDT. These compounds are stored in the body's fat, and when the fatty tissues are used for energy, the compounds are released and cause acute poisoning.
Strontium 90, part of the fallout from atomic bombs, is mistaken by the human body for calcium, and is laid down in the bone, where its radiation can cause damage for a long time.
Naturally produced toxins can also bioaccumulate. The marine algal blooms known as "red tides" can result in local filter feeding organisms such as mussels and oysters becoming toxic; coral fish can be responsible for the poisoning known as ciguatera when they accumulate a toxin called ciguatoxin from reef algae.
These require complex systems to exist, specialisation, and urban life.
correction: they did require those conditions, but the technology could be rolled out to the world without them now, in fact it seems to be begging to.
what's not to love about 100 dollar computers and wimax?
i suspect we created these urban nexuses to concentrate intelligence, while now info and opinion can fly on their own wings, liberating us in the future from rural>urban refugee problems like we see now.
cities as giant vertical, energy-hogging infrastructures are poor use of land, as we will shortly discover, when the true price of transporting all the raw goods needed to feed the cities is revealed without the subsidy left behind by the dinosaurs to facilitate it.
i hope and believe the distinctions between town and countryside will eventually blur as we find a better demographic balance, and stop concentrating on creaming off the best and brightest to leave the countryside and add to already poorly planned, overcrowded cities.
thanks for mentioning 'smart use', i can't help but feel this is the real way forward, and is finally getting more attention, as when recently it was calculated that just by putting appliances on a power strip could save as much energy as several nuke plants produce.
with all the externalities factored in, nuke power is way more expensive than it's sold as being, and with gas and oil prices rising fast and faster, the costs of building these beasts is only going to get higher.
with that in mind, it seems like a losing race with time, pushing for more nukes.
not to mention a money-hole, when that money could do a lot for solar research to bring prices down.
the insurance companies are the deciding factor here...if they would indemnify plants and potential damage, then i'd trust that.
i'll bet €100 that'll never happen. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
with all the externalities factored in, nuke power is way more expensive than it's sold as being
once you start thinking about the social costs, it goes clear off the map, unless the idea of further orwellian dystopias is your cuppa lipton's.
how is it pro-nuke to debate how much the bloody things cost? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Give us a figure.
And it is not anti-nuke because the anti-nuke position disputes the validity of cost-benefit analysis. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
btw, thanks for that archive link, migeru, clicking on it revealed a bunch of brilliant multilogue i had missed, due to the inconvenient truth that there are only 24 hours in a day/night cycle.
i'd very much like to see a collection of deananders' replies bound into a handbook of rational, enlightened rebuttal to the nukedealers' propositioning.
the replies could be prefaced by interview-style one or two-line questions.
i'd love to see her on 'hardtalk' with stephen sackur too.
lotta meta in this discussion, i guess a reaction to not feeling some feelings...
special props to starvid for consistency and restraint, and not resorting to vitriol.
de's compendia iterate perfectly my gut feelings, and enrich my judgement with wisdom, surgical deconstructions and always fearlessly looking at the big picture.
blogging at its finest ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Well, yes, that's my conclusion as you will have read in this thread and the one you refer to. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
how is it pro-nuke to debate how much the bloody things cost?
It boils down to this: some of us are technocrats. some more eager and some more reluctant. But from a technocratic point of view, the heated debate makes absolutely no sense.
Maybe De and DoDo are recovering technocrats (like DoDo calls himself a recovering interventionist). Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
I'm not sure I am not a technocrat -- not with rail; and I think even building & maintaining a decentralised energy production structure would need elements that can be called technocratic -- say grid planning, balancing (energy storage) network, boosting production and technology export. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Most of the most vociferous opposition to nuclear isn't. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
the simple issue being how to provide as much power as cleanly as possible to as many people, cleaning up our ancestors mistakes, and busting people who pretend to be logical and dispassionate, but are really indulging in intransigence, for the ego-thrilling sake of it.
it's interesting how the tone (polemic, superior) reveals almost always more than the melody ( the wake of the mind's tacks), except in certain poignant occasions, to wrap it in a musical metaphor.
i think of a gorgeous strain, hissing and crackling through a rusty, semi-shorted reciever, and still breaking your heart.
some melodies can do that, beat even shitty tone....exception that proves the rule!
when it comes down to trusting my eyes or my ears, i always trust the latter, it connects more deeply.
can you 'hear' tone in the posts here at ET?
i sure can...life's too short to waste reacting to bristly pedants. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Now, all this anti-military claptrap is rather irritating. Every state has a military, its own or somebody elses, no matter if it has nuclear power or not. Saying that it promotes surveillance and fascism and everything is just silly. The military is what has stood between us and Soviet occupation for the last half century. And that would have meant surveillance and fascism.
And seriously, don't tell me you think France, the UK, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Germany etc have turned into fascist autocracies since we deployed nuclear reactors, especially when compared to non-nuclear nations like Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Austria, Italy etc? Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
European Commission: External Costs: Research results on socio-environmental damages due to electricity and transport (2003) [PDF] Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Also, the "External cost figures for electricity production in the EU for existing technologies" table has a footnote: "sub-total of quantifiable externalities (such as global warming, public health, occupational health, material damage)"
So, on the face of it, the specific risks of nuclear power are not addressed. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
O Colman, now you're being captious :-)
I don't think so. Is it "captious" to object to Gaianne's ex cathedra pronouncements replete with "fascist"? I think Colman was pointing out that unsubstantiated bombast can be applied to whatever one wishes (even icons of this blog...).
Like Migeru, I too want an explanation of why nuclear is supposed to be "naturally" secretive, or police-state or fascist, or wherever else one wishes to ratchet the rhetoric up to.
These are arguments I'd have accepted without further thought thirty years ago. I'm not happy now with the lack of information concerning accidents today - but it seems to me nuclear shares that culture with other industries, in other words, that it's not sui generis a natural characteristic of nuclear power. And, (after having opposed the nuclear roll-out in France in the '70s), I have not noticed France becoming a police state or fascist or even a weensy bit less democratic than before (FWIW !). So these are arguments I'm frankly dubitative about today. And Gaianne's type of rhetoric doesn't further thought and discussion.
just give Sarkozy some time... I'm sure he'll be working on it :-) The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
it seems to me nuclear shares that culture with other industries, in other words, that it's not sui generis a natural characteristic of nuclear power.
Hm, I don't see the logic. Isn't it that it is sui generis for nuclear as well as others? With a gradation due to "stakes as well as odds", e.g. the stakes are higher, both in terms of accident and in terms of financial/livelihood involvement? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
