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Cyrille:
An already running power plant?

we have not figured out a safe way to decomission and store yet, so how will that factor (externality!?) not be part of the footprint, especially with the huge amounts of time these byproducts need to be watched over, cooled etc.

either you imagine some new technowizard way of creating energy that's going to take the place of carbon based fuels, (pony optional), or we're going to be hauling diminishing supplies of water by mulecart to keep these demons placated for centuries.

our descendants are really going to appreciate that.

i can't believe anyone can follow this line of logic, that nukes represent even a greener alternative to coal. at least a coal plant stays dead when you kill it. there's such a vastly unquantifiable future set of energy unknowns yawning ahead regarding safe disposal, that any proposition that wiggles around that as unquantifiable therefor irrelevant to the discussion is blithely whistling past the graveyard, imo.

a graveyard replete with near-eternal flesh-eating zombies at that...

propaganda is using lies of omission or commission to push an agenda which if truthfully presented would be abhorrent to most reasoning individuals, so i'd say this is a fine example...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Fri Jun 10th, 2011 at 11:37:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"either you imagine some new technowizard way of creating energy that's going to take the place of carbon based fuels"

Which is yours by the way? You claim that it is OBVIOUS that nuclear must be stopped. OK. What's your alternative, though? It would be interesting to hear.

You see, Monbiot is right in that, for some reason, nuclear must pass entirely different tests. We must invest in PV because maybe someday it will work enough (although we'd have to revisit quantum mechanics for it to reach our dreams, there seems to be a ceiling to it), but surely not invest in R&D for nuclear plants that could use today's waste, that would be bad.
We must talk about the environmental damage of nuclear but never of the damage of any alternative to it.

I'd love to get rid of nuclear. But I don't like unqualified fantasies. So, rather than say "stop nuclear", elaborate. Then we can discuss if we like the alternatives.

"i can't believe anyone can follow this line of logic, that nukes represent even a greener alternative to coal."

Really? In the short run? When the most pressing problem is climate change?
Not to mention the many, many deaths associated with coal. You don't even say that you disagree. You say you can't believe it. Wow.

Nuclear is not a long term solution. It is not a solution in very many countries at all. Maybe it is not even part of the short term solution anywhere, although I don't think that's quite the case.

Coal should be a strict no no.

By natural inclination, I'd be siding with people who'd like to get rid of nuclear (but also with people who'd like to get rid of a lot of other things, and maybe we can't get rid of all of them). However, many people on Eurotrib are quick to scream obfuscation, lies, propaganda ... about everything someone we don't agree with writes, yet in a heartbeat pass over convenient omissions by people we like.

I don't think this strengthens the argument.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sun Jun 12th, 2011 at 05:24:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"either you imagine some new technowizard way of creating energy that's going to take the place of carbon based fuels"
Which is yours by the way?

You have to read more attentively:

we're going to be hauling diminishing supplies of water by mulecart to keep these demons placated for centuries.

our descendants are really going to appreciate that.

:P

Economics is politics by other means
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 12th, 2011 at 05:39:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I did read that. And I thought it was not particularly appropriate.

It is far more likely that we will manage to use nuclear waste in a next generation nuclear plant than to have an unlimited supply of fossil fuels (and of climate) to keep doing what we are doing with them right now.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sun Jun 12th, 2011 at 02:02:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In other words, we need something to take the place of carbon based fuels. That's a given, so where does this "either" come from?

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sun Jun 12th, 2011 at 02:03:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
i don't see many here screaming, though i admit to feeling like that munsch painting sometimes.

i wish i had a clear answer to your cogent questions, Cyrille. the best i can come up with is negawatts, i.e. the screaming on the pronuke side that we'll never be able to generate a tenth of the energy we use now, as if it were axiomatic we must, i believe to be delusional.
first of all they don't know that for sure, as we have barely begun to try supplanting it, and secondly so what?

i think we use and waste criminal amounts of energy, and i don't think that we will all be huddling in caves without nukes, but i can't prove it, or do more than cite kunstler or some other semi-authority as agreeing with me. no-one is an authority on the future though, too many variables. i do see many advantages to living using way less energy though, and i feel it to be 99% inevitable, unless some unforeseen breakthrough occurs.

i guess we can wait and see, while remaining in polite disagreement, but thanks for your reply, you frame your opinions well, and i know the vast majority of people agree with you, still, notwithstanding fukushima.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Jun 15th, 2011 at 01:27:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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