Post 9xFhAGAdjNWruqlYEC by keith@social.coop
(DIR) More posts by keith@social.coop
(DIR) Post #9xFaxp5tyWOojwEiDQ by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T17:21:18Z
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How many people can the Earth support? (1/3)Carrying capacity is a matter of the pro-rata biospheric burden. With enough energy, freshwater may be obtained chiefly from reclamation & desalting, food from "urban vertical farming" rather than field culture, mineral raw materials from a combination of intensive recycling & upgrading of dilute sources such as seawater & fossil brines ― thus sharply reducing the effective footprint of the individual enjoying a "first world standard of living".
(DIR) Post #9xFazJJZ6NzekxKvHk by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T17:21:34Z
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(2/3) This "hard path" high-energy, high-technology, high-standard-of-living approach is scarcely acceptable to most who proclaim their concern for the environment. It may, however, be the most feasible way to avoid catastrophe in a world which already has as many people as ours ― if indeed it can be implemented. The basic question is, can the requisite energy be supplied? At a guess, this might be, for each of 15 billions, 3× the current US average consumption.
(DIR) Post #9xFb2WO2xKowATxoOm by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T17:22:08Z
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(3/3) A technically adequate means of supplying energy on this scale, for tens of thousands if not in fact millions of years (far beyond any timescale where our present ideas of sustainability have meaning) has been in practical use now for three generations. It is broadly anathematized by environmentalists ― as was brought out explicitly in the debates of the 1970s ― precisely because it potentially could make the "hard path" sustainable.http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html#atomicpowertothepeople
(DIR) Post #9xFgqkno8Jtn7vmkHw by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T18:27:16Z
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@publius Could work if you are using thorium, which is probably safer than uranium.Also: brand new designs are needed to guarantee automated, failsafe operation. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time before we get the next Chernobyl or Fukushima.Finally, common sense apply: reducing energy consumption, and developing truly renewable energy (solar and others) simply make sense (don't put all your eggs in the same basket, etc.)
(DIR) Post #9xFhAGAdjNWruqlYEC by keith@social.coop
2020-07-19T18:30:45Z
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@publius "precisely because it potentially could make the "hard path" sustainable". No, because its claims to be clean are false. It just outsources pollution - to people who live near uranium mines, and to people who live in the future.
(DIR) Post #9xFr9DRVO3m0hunNnk by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T20:22:39Z
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@keith Please, have a look at some of the very detailed studies which have been done on the external costs of energy sources.http://www.externe.info/externe_d7/http://www.ier.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/projektwebsites/newext/The evidence is that the human & environmental costs of nuclear, even over the longest timeframe, are shockingly low, due in large part to the small amounts of material required, & the loss of toxicity over time.Also, we have quite explicit statements from, for instance, founders of "Friends of the Earth".
(DIR) Post #9xFrKGMYrzpkwwkbhI by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T20:24:38Z
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@ParadeGrotesque What happened at Chernobyl was a unique event : it literally could not have occurred in a power reactor of any other design (and the remaining units of that design have been modified to make it impossible), because the normal process of design involves computations to establish that under no conditions can reactivity insertion cause a major power excursion.
(DIR) Post #9xFrdzJfxTD7s9o4Ui by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T20:28:12Z
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@ParadeGrotesque As for Fukushima, although the hydrogen explosions in the reactor buildings were spectacular, the plain fact is that the public was at no time in danger. The Japanese government evacuated a whole lot of people, which caused a great deal of harm, when nothing more than a short-term shelter-in-place order was justified even for the area right around the plant.http://www.bristol.ac.uk/policybristol/news/2017/nuclearevacuation-.htmlAlso they suddenly lowered exposure limits by a factor of 10 from the ICRP recommendations.
(DIR) Post #9xFuDDcowyIKIIgkue by keith@social.coop
2020-07-19T20:56:57Z
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@publius okay, some environmentalists (FoE) object on those terms but it's not the only objection. As for your 'shockingly low human and environmental costs' - that's cherry picking. There is certainly no consensus on the matter. A report from CEPN is not the authoritative end of the matter. There are detailed studies supporting both sides of the debate. Please don't try to pass the matter off as 'experts vs luddites'.
(DIR) Post #9xFurqCKxMr7VcffrE by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:04:19Z
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@keith Yes, detailed studies. And the anti-nuclear ones have some interesting details. A very high rate of retraction is one. Methodology which consists in "we made it up" is another (Storm-Smith for a great example). A third is a small handful of scholars publishing on a very wide range of topics, often well outside their nominal areas of concentration.Nuclear energy, as Seaborg (who should know) said, is unique among industrial activities for its safety focus, even from the beginnings.
(DIR) Post #9xFv0WR9nSNepNk6eO by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:05:53Z
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@keith So far as waste disposal is concerned, Canadian experiments in the 1950s & 1960s showed conclusively that vitrification was adequate. They deliberately made defective glass blocks & buried them in the water table at Chalk River (whereas real disposal involves encapsulation in metal, followed by burial in clay or salt, far from water). The leaching of fission products was so small that, at the migration speed of ground water, the stuff would have disappeared before it got anywhere.
(DIR) Post #9xFvAMjKk1N5cOwEfg by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:07:40Z
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@keith There is little evidence that uranium mining is any more dangerous than other metal mining. The Port Hope radium miners, who worked long before modern occupational safety, showed no elevated cause of death other than knife wounds.Furthermore, breeder reactors reduce the need for nuclear fuel by 99%. The uranium already mined would supply the whole world energy need for generations, & as additional is needed, it can be obtained from the sea. (Thorium is a by-product of rare earths.)
(DIR) Post #9xFvSYqQRHHYP2vpKa by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:10:57Z
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@ParadeGrotesque The estimate of global, for-all-time-to-come deaths from Chernobyl keeps falling, largely because the (closely studied) liquidators keep not showing the expected excess cancer deaths ― only road accidents & cirrhosis of the liver. A reasonable figure by current knowledge is 700, which is a bad industrial accident to be sure, but not the worst. The best estimate for annual air-pollution deaths is 7 000 000. That is TEN THOUSAND Chernobyls a year.
(DIR) Post #9xFvc3Fwjr4lKTOVkG by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:12:41Z
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@keith Anyway, people protesting against nuclear waste have very little to say about the waste from fossil fuels, which is dumped directly into the biosphere. All the spent nuclear fuel (about 95% reusable) accumulated in the world to date could be hidden under the fly-ash pile at any one of a number of coal stations, without noticeably changing its visual appearance.Not to mention the incredible mounting-up of waste from solar & wind projects, some of which is quite hazardous.
(DIR) Post #9xFvluh1QomNfNlGHA by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:14:27Z
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@publius Hmmm... I believe we have had this debate before! 🤓 I am not opposed to nuclear energy "per se", but I also believe a combination of efficiencies and solar energy should be enough to power us, no nuke needed.As I believe Albert Einstein said: "Nuclear Energy is the most dangerous and inefficient way to boil water"...
(DIR) Post #9xFw3oYD0TGvpUAte4 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:17:39Z
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@ParadeGrotesque No figures I have seen give me any hope for "efficiency & solar". If we want to avoid global conflict, we need to reduce international tensions. Levelling out the whole world at the EU average energy consumption (half of the French or German level) would still require doubling world output at least. And nowhere are solar collectors manufactured with solar energy. Their net lifetime energy output is low enough that massive support from some other fuel is needed.
(DIR) Post #9xFwP071DUHJlfYjh2 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:21:31Z
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@ParadeGrotesque The quantity of solar energy is immense, but its distribution is exceedingly inconvenient, which is why the resource & land costs of harvesting it are so large. Back in the 1870s, the French government sponsored a very serious effort to substitute solar energy for fossil fuels. At the time, far more coal was required to produce a kilowatt-hour of shaft power than now, so the situation was far more favorable for substitutes. The conclusion was that it was not feasible.
(DIR) Post #9xFwdFlzmoieOSWQee by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:24:06Z
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@ParadeGrotesque I should cite this statement. It is drawn directly from a book in my possession, which I have quoted more extensively elsewhere (link below). The source contains citations of its own, of course.https://man-and-atom.tumblr.com/post/188696123000/after-seeing-the-amazing-solar-machines-of-pifre
(DIR) Post #9xFwyOTubWE9U18zyq by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2020-07-19T21:27:55Z
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@keith What I have read, in brief translated excerpts, from "Le Réfus du Réel" by Maurice Tubiana, is very interesting on this point. Unfortunately I am no Francophone. The work of Professor Bernard Cohen in the USA, & of Sir Fred Hoyle in Britain, is thus far more accessible to me.
(DIR) Post #9xFxKaEDbtGkHoNtYW by keith@social.coop
2020-07-19T21:31:54Z
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@publius "people protesting against nuclear waste have very little to say about the waste from fossil fuels" oh really? that's pure bs. And come back to me on safety when a decade has passed since the last major incident. All I'm saying is the debate is more complicated than you're making out. Please stop with the 'anti nuclear brigade is making it all up / neglecting the evidence / don't care about fossil fuels / are just luddites' nonsense.