Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on March 01, 2021, 08:49:00 AM
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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/25/bill-gates-nuclear-power-will-absolutely-be-politically-acceptable.html
Interesting comments from Mr. Gates on the benefits of nuclear energy as we fight climate change.
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Well... he's not wrong about it being a good idea. If we accept that burning massive amounts of carbon containing substances from within the earth is a bad thing, nuclear energy is key.
I'm not convinced it will be politically palatable though. There is a lot of entrenched interest in the status quo, and those interests will fight hard to keep the energy market as it is now.
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Even a blind pig will find an acorn once in a while.
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I'm not convinced it will be politically palatable though. There is a lot of entrenched interest in the status quo, and those interests will fight hard to keep the energy market as it is now.
Even if it became politically viable (and I am a big fan of nuclear), what does it take right now - like 25 years to go through the regulatory process to bring a new plant on line? Even if politics shifted, it would probably be 20 years of political battles, court battles and lawsuits to kill the current regulations.
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^^^And we still need to come with a permanent waste repository.
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I've always been a supporter myself.
With evil Bill Gates being in favor of it also I may have to reconsider ...... [tinfoil] :laugh:
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^^^And we still need to come with a permanent waste repository.
Just need to get rid of Jimmy Carter's law that prohibits recycling of nuclear waste. Dixie Lee Ray had the best idea about getting rid of nuclear waste. encase it in lead, encase that in very thick glass, put that in a rocket and drive it a mile into the bottomlands of the deep ocean.
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I've always been a supporter myself.
With evil Bill Gates being in favor of it also I may have to reconsider ...... [tinfoil] :laugh:
He has now turned on the microchips in the vaccine to increase support!
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Of especial note regarding the need to increase nuclear power is more demand on the grid for electric vehicles and other uses. I have been reading how some cities are now mandating that new commercial and residential construction after a certain date not use natural gas for heating. Solar and wind turbines are great as a supplement, but absent some breakthrough in cheap battery storage, we will need other primary sources.
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Of especial note regarding the need to increase nuclear power is more demand on the grid for electric vehicles and other uses. I have been reading how some cities are now mandating that new commercial and residential construction after a certain date not use natural gas for heating. Solar and wind turbines are great as a supplement, but absent some breakthrough in cheap battery storage, we will need other primary sources.
The US has been one of the leaders in reducing carbon emissions. We did it using this stuff called natural gas which is cleaner burning than coal. Nuclear is nice, but it sure looks like it will take years just to untangle the bureaucratic mess before we can even try to build a new one. Natural gas can help now. Compressed natural gas can work as a vehicle fuel if needed also.
Natural gas isn't all that bad when used for residential construction. It certainly would help reduce the electricity demand in those homes at least part of the year. I guess fossil fuels are evil though.
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^^^And we still need to come with a permanent waste repository.
We send the rest of our trash to China for disposal, I'm not sure why this should be any different.
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Just need to get rid of Jimmy Carter's law that prohibits recycling of nuclear waste. Dixie Lee Ray had the best idea about getting rid of nuclear waste. encase it in lead, encase that in very thick glass, put that in a rocket and drive it a mile into the bottomlands of the deep ocean.
If you are going to put it in a rocket, why not go ahead and put it on the moon or launch it into the sun?
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If you are going to put it in a rocket, why not go ahead and put it on the moon or launch it into the sun?
It's just wasteful, and would be prohibitively expensive of course. (Sending things into the sun is actually harder than sending things into the outer solar system...)
Besides, once-used nuclear fuel is still like 95% potent, which is why reprocessing is so important.
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Dixie Lee Ray was Governor of Washington, a professor in Washington state with a PhD in biology, was quite in touch with marine biology. She was in charge of the AEC for a time. The reason she recommended the ocean is because of the extremely vast amounts of water in the oceans VS the rather small % of nuclear waste. + the fact that the glass encasement would not degenerate for eons and if any nuclear waste were to escape, would have zilch of any effect after being disbursed by the vast amount of oceanic water...to say nothing it would be maybe a half mile or so in the mud at the bottom of the abyss.
She wrote a book that discusses this along with a number of other things debunking a number of Green Weenie myths. Trashing the Planet
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It's just wasteful, and would be prohibitively expensive of course. (Sending things into the sun is actually harder than sending things into the outer solar system...)
Besides, once-used nuclear fuel is still like 95% potent, which is why reprocessing is so important.
There really isn't that much of it. I can't remember how much money they were proposing to spend making the permanent storage location, but it didn't sound cheap.
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Dixie Lee Rae was Governor of Washington, a professor in Washington state with a PhD in biology, was quite in touch with marine biology. She was in charge of the AEC for a time. The reason she recommended the ocean is because of the extremely vast amounts of water in the oceans VS the rather small % of nuclear waste. + the fact that the glass encasement would not degenerate for eons and if any nuclear waste were to escape, would have zilch of any effect after being disbursed by the vast amount of oceanic water...to say nothing it would be maybe a half mile or so in the mud at the bottom of the abyss.
She wrote a book that discusses this along with a number of other things debunking a number of Green Weenie myths. Trashing the Planet
The solution to pollution is dilution.
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How do you know the pandemic is over? Bill Gates switches to talking ad nauseum about climate change.
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Does anyone else wonder if Bill Gates might have lost his mind?
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[popcorn]
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Reprocessing is one solution to the nukular “waste” “problem”. Traveling wave reactors and other designs that can consume it is another. The fact we aren’t totally energy independent (to the point of energy being effectively free) is a political issue, not a science or engineering problem.
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The solution to pollution is dilution.
(I've been saying that since about 2005 or so.)
Doesn't France just dump their encapsulated used fuel in the ocean?
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The solution to pollution is dilution.
(I've been saying that since about 2005 or so.)
Doesn't France just dump their encapsulated used fuel in the ocean?
Best place would be a subducting tectonic rift in an oceanic trench.
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Best place would be a subducting tectonic rift in an oceanic trench.
David Brin used that hook in his uplift series of novels.