Nuclear Power Plants

[Teatownclown]

Fuckushima just had their third explosion....is 19 miles far enough distance to keep the population away. I think we're getting close to seeing a society that benefits from no guns.

Where are Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas when you need them?

[Hoss]

Be surprised if he makes it past this weekend...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Hemp is the miracle biomass that the numbers would indicate.  Switchgrass is very good, too.  We should do both.
And if growing the quantities needed to take care of ALL our fuel needs - which is EASILY achievable - the price per ton would be very low.  Right now you can buy plain old prairie hay for about $30 a ton.  Alfalfa at small quantity retail is a couple hundred a ton, or less.  Pot would end up less than hay in the quantities we are talking about.  And at 50 gallons per ton (1910 yields), it would be about 60 cents a gallon.  And if you had a few acres, you could grow some tonnage of your own, build a little biofuel processor and make your own ethanol or biodiesel.  How about that - personal responsibility and independence once again in the land of the free.

Corn is and always will be one of the worst possible ways to get ethanol.  It is physically impossible to make yields/cost come anywhere near the other alternatives.

And when I say ALL of our fuel needs, that means ALL.  It would completely replace oil.  That is the number one reason it will stay illegal.  Can't have the little guy doing for himself.

[nathanm]

Be surprised if he makes it past this weekend...

Yes, it appears the freakout is in full swing.

[cannon_fodder]

If you have the technology to make switchgrass or hemp an economic biofuel of any scale please feel free to post the data here.  Scientisits and engineers have been working for decades to make it work and have yet to succeed.  Even corn based ethonol is uneconomical but-for government subsidies and it isn't clear you actually get more ethonol from the process than the process consumes.

We're working on it, and switchgrass is thusfar the most promising (it's a perennial, hemp doesn't get the same root stock or speed of growth).  The latest tests have met with great success: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109110629.htm . But hurdles still exists, noteably with cellulose based ethonol is the time it takes to "ferment" the material.  Thus, it remains to date a non-solution needing much more research (we've been flirting with it since 1930, working hard since 1990).
- - -
Per the nuclear plants:  don't be too harsh.  These plants were built in the 1970's using, of course, 1970's technology.   Most have actually outlived their proposed useful life and SHOULD be $hut down.     Consider that most things built in the 1970's have long since been replaced with safer and more efficient models. 

Is anyone proposing a ban on cars because Ford Pinto was a safety disaster?  Of course not, we greatly improved the design and the older unsafe models have been put out of service (for the most part). 

Oddly enough, our own hinderance of newer nuclear power plants has meant we keep the older, more unsafe, plants operating far past their designated lifespan.  Then again, most of our bridges, dams, and other power plants *shouild* be retrofitted or replaced too...

too bad we wasted that "surplus" in the 1990's on hookers and blow, or whatever we did with it.

[Conan71]

Nuclear energy is one of the safest, efficient, and healthiest forms of electrical generation, that is until the smile really hits the fan. 

[Teatownclown]

You are a degreed nuclear physicist, correct?

http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/japan-s-nuclear-crisis-worsens-the-world-reacts

Now this indicates some over reacting. Look for brown outs world wide.

And this: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/15/japan_nuclear_storage_pool_boil/index.html
boiling water? Misery to the third degree.

[Conan71]

I didn't read in either story where there would be brown outs world wide.  There should be no reason to.  FAIK, there are no power transmission lines going to and from Japan, so there would be no one else on Japan's grid other than Japan, and therefore other countries power supplies are totally unaffected by this situation.

[heironymouspasparagus]

CF,
Repeating, again, what has been covered several times, the British and Americans did it in 1910.  It has been posted here.  Repeatedly.  50 gallons per ton - in 1910.  12 to 14 tons per acre - hemp.  4 to 6 tons per acre - switchgrass.  About 1 ton per acre - corn.  So, again, for marijuana, a 14 times increase in productivity per acre WITHOUT even taking into account the difference in tilling, harvesting, fertilization, and pest control required for corn.

My conjecture is that we could do better than 50 gallons per ton today with just a little bit of effort.

Luckily, there appear to be some people out there who do pay attention.

[Teatownclown]

10,000 deaths are due to the tsunami. The nukes could potentially cause more deaths than that but they haven't as yet.

Well, if there will be time delays and temporary shut downs across the globe of Nukes then deliver ability becomes an issue.

There may be underwater cables, but of course there are no power transmission lines going to and from Japan.

Thanks for setting that straight.

[custosnox]

CF,
Repeating, again, what has been covered several times, the British and Americans did it in 1910.  It has been posted here.  Repeatedly.  50 gallons per ton - in 1910.  12 to 14 tons per acre - hemp.  4 to 6 tons per acre - switchgrass.  About 1 ton per acre - corn.  So, again, for marijuana, a 14 times increase in productivity per acre WITHOUT even taking into account the difference in tilling, harvesting, fertilization, and pest control required for corn.

My conjecture is that we could do better than 50 gallons per ton today with just a little bit of effort.

Luckily, there appear to be some people out there who do pay attention.

You do realize there is a differance between industrial hemp and marijuana, right?

[heironymouspasparagus]

Absolutely.  One is fun.  One is for work.

[custosnox]

Absolutely.  One is fun.  One is for work.

yet you keep calling it marijuana when referring to the industrial hemp. And I would like to see these studies on using it for fuel.

[Teatownclown]

"The level of radiation at the plant surged to 1,000 millisieverts early Wednesday before coming down to 800-600 millisieverts. Still, that was far more than the average." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/03/14/international/i002205D47.DTL

TRANSLATION: Radiation is about three million times normal levels. An hour's exposure would make you very sick and five hours would kill most people.

CONCLUSION: With the plant abandoned and astronomical radiation levels, it is hard to imagine how a catastrophic meltdown can now be avoided.


The truth becomes inescapable.

[Conan71]

10,000 deaths are due to the tsunami. The nukes could potentially cause more deaths than that but they haven't as yet.

Well, if there will be time delays and temporary shut downs across the globe of Nukes then deliver ability becomes an issue.

There may be underwater cables, but of course there are no power transmission lines going to and from Japan.

Thanks for setting that straight.

The problem is, when there's a large scale tragedy like this a lot of misinformation gets out there in the haste to sell news and get people to read the blogs.  We also need to realize that there are many land-locked plants around the world which likely will never experience even 1/2 of the seismic loads these plants experienced, nor the associated string of problems with an ensuing tsunami.  Painting the whole industry as being bad due to one incident like this really isn't a fair assessment.

I'm a proponent of safe, renewable, and responsible energy.  Under ideal conditions, with the proper safeguards in place, nuclear is a great solution.  But as I said earlier in another post, it's an incredibly safe way to generate electricity until the smile seriously hits the fan.

I think we've seen a perfect storm of sorts that no one could have imagined when the Japanese plants affected were in design phase.  Two lessons learned: never underestimate nature's wrath and never over-estimate man's ability to cover his donkey in the face of nature's wrath.

Chernobyl was somewhat predictable.  What most of us did not really recognize at the time due to the Soviet propaganda machine and the western press being kept out was how truly primitive the old USSR really was in so many ways.  It's a miracle they did not have more disasters over the years.

You can tour the area, as well as the nuclear facility apparently:

http://www.tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/#1