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I heartily applaud Ireland's efforts towards "green energy." I remember when "solar energy' was on the fast track in the late '70's to the point it was being said that it would be available and affordable to a large percentage of the population by the mid-80's or so. And, then, it suddenly disappeared from the marquee. I always wondered about this until someone mentioned in a discussion circa 1990 that what happened was Exxon bought out 51% of the worldwide solar interests...so, no solar till we get all the oil. I've never been ever to validate this bit of info. But it wouldn't surprise me since it wouldn't be anything new in the corporate world. However, when Mercedes-Benz bought Chrysler it came out, factually, that the owner of no less than 43% of Chrysler stock was none other than... the Kuwaiti government! So much for energy-efficient automobiles. The whole oil racket is such a tangled web of power and ownership. Anyway, the main problem with nuclear energy is not just the low grade radiation seepage. The two largest problems are the threat of a major accident (and, now, add attack to the equation) at many of these increasingly antiquated and ill-supervised plants; and, then, of course the spent full storage, now mostly in onsite containment that's even more vulnerable to sabotogue or accident than the plants themselves. Yucca Mountain isn't the easy solution here, folks. The answer?...I really don't think anyone has one yet. The old story of a rush to a new technology without plans for its safety or waste ramifications. But I've been through this over and over, it seems, first with the No-Nukes in the 70's (Three Mile Island woke me up...I was at the No-Nukes Concert in lower Manhattan, '79, with 500,000 people, biggest outdoor jam since Woodstock), and, now, with the Unplug Salem Campaign here in South Jersey since '95. The three Salem (2) and Hope Creek (1) reactors on the Jersey side of the Delaware Bay just below Wilmington, DE, are the oldest and most problem-prone reactors, and with the worst safety record, of any in the country. They've been shut-down for infractions by the NRC numerous times, and yet they keep restarting them. AND they are the only reactors allowed to circumvent the Clean Water Act and operate without cooling towers, thus using Delaware Bay water which they suck in through intake pipes that kill an estimated 3 billion fish per year. The trade-off for this was a Wetlands Mitigation plan that has turned into a fiasco of nil value, and also caused the spraying of thousands of acres of wetlands with Roundup to kill phragmites, an arguably detrimental plant intruder, and the defoliant has completely devastated all the vegetation in these areas leaving acres of seared brown holes in the marsh oozing with thousands of gallons of herbicide. And, speaking of "Jersey barriers," if there is a major accident at either Salem/Hope Creek or Oyster Creek just above Atlantic City, on any kind of west wind (or any wind in Oyster Creeks' case), there is no vehicular escape route out of the South Jersey peninsula, and especially Cape May County, that doesn't head directly into the radiation plume (we're within the 50 mile catastrophic area and there is no bridge across the Delaware River or Bay below the Delaware Memorial Bridge near Wilmington). The only way out is by plane or boat...so, if you don't have a plane or boat... Anyway, I present this mostly factual rumination (except for that Exxon/Solar energy deal...if anybody can either verify or discredit that I'd appreciate it) for perusal; and you can decide for yourselves. I will say that if they ever offer a provably SAFE and ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND way of producing nuclear power, I probably wouldn't have a problem with that. There's now over 1,300 hits to the Unplug Salem on Google it's grown so rapidly, but here's site links that sum up the gist of it, for those who might be interested. It's really more about common sense at this point, there's even pro-Nuclear people who would like to see these old and dangerous plants shut down. You wouldn't drive your family around in a car so old it might kill them, so why would you run old and decrepit nuclear plants? http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/PressReleases/PR2000/PSEGawardProtest.htmhttp://unplugsalem.org/airplane.htmhttp://unplugsalem.org (they're revamping the site, so alot of the links aren't loading yet, scroll down to the red "Unplug Salem...McGreevey...KI..." link for a good overview)
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Good, objective comments WO'N - thanks.
BTW....You wouldn't drive your family around in a car so old it might kill them....
Unfortunately I do - a 1964 job with limited power, drum brakes without power assist, poor cornering, vague steering, steel dash replete with glovebox lid that can behead passngers, no window washers...... Worst of all - no seat belts. Although compulsory in Oz, if they weren't fitted in pre-legislation days they don't have to be present. Putting this all to one side, she's rated as the coolest car on the block and EVERYBODY just wants to go for a spin....When I find a set of original belts I'll put them in.
stales
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Dear Rubrick: "This sandbank experiences no winds under 60mph " Have you by any chance overstated the
wind velocity? (what part of the time are such velocities observed?)
Whoops! Sorry about that. If you look at my previous post you'll see that I said it was 60 miles off the coast. I obviously repeated myself in haste. Can't remember what I was trying to say about the speed of the wind but it is mighty out there!
As for tidal power, I have read about some French use of it, but not for a long time
Many years ago there was a proposal to construct tidal dam from Maine to Nova Scotia, but that must have
been a pipedream. Imagine the headaches.Worse than Chinese Three Gorges project.
Actually, tidal power has been tested in Ireland and it works. The biggest problem has been development. Since there was a monopoly on the production of electricity here for the better part of 80 years the ESB has been loathe to embrace it as a viable alternative source of energy. The recent deregulation of monopolies by the European Union means that private companies have been able to develop this area and the tidal and wave power plants are fast becoming a reality. Ireland, as an island nation, would be the perfect place to adopt this.
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belM said: We do not have any windfarms that I know of.I think I saw something on CBC one night (Venture, maybe?) that talked about new windfarms going up on the Gaspé peninsula. I found a story about windpower in general, which mentions that project, on the CBC website: http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/environ/windpower/index.htmlOn the other hand, most of Canada does get its electricity from hydroelectric power. Most provincial electric companies are called "Hydro ______" or "______ Hydro". For example, there's Hydro Québec, as belM, pointed out, Manitoba Hydro, Newfoundland Hydro, Ontario Hydro... In Ontario there are some nuclear plants (which I assume are the Candu reactors, which are safer in many ways than the type which was used at Three Mile Island, see http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cz725/ for much more information). Since my university education has been in physics and radiation physics (although now I'm in physical oceanography), I've had an opportunity to learn about nuclear power from people who know what they're talking about, rather than the scaremongers who don't know a thing about radiation physics. And I'd say that, thinking in a risk-management kind of way, the small risk of a nuclear accident is probably preferable to the guaranteed illnesses and deaths caused by burning coal. The unsafe plants probably need to be shut down and redesigned, undoubtedly, but nuclear energy isn't necessarily worse for people or the environment than burning coal. The fundamental problem with all this is that unless the demand for power stops increasing, people will just have to live with the consequences of their thirst for electricity, be it hydro-, wind-, or nuclear- generated. You can't have your cake and eat it too!
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I figured the subject would turn to this, left to stew long enough, so I've been waiting to put my two cents in... I've got a car on order that's a step in the right direction. I'm getting a Toyota Prius, which is the hybrid gas/electric sedan first released in 2001. It's not the kind of electric car that you have to plug in, the batteries regenerate upon braking (absorbing the energy through the brakes, effectively). It idles on battery and accelerates on gas, giving it something like 53 miles per gallon - only exceeded by the Honda Insight, which runs on the same technology, but being a smaller 2-door with an aluminum frame accounts for the obscene 65 mpg or whatever it gets. For more info (and pictures!): http://prius.toyota.com/technology/hybrid.html http://www.hondacars.com/models/insight/engineering.htmlHonda and Ford (!) are in development for fuel cell cars, but the infrastructure is guaranteed to take a while to catch up... they don't just have fuel cell stations on every street corner here in Minneapolis...  But for more info on fuel cells, here's a good resource: http://www.ballard.com/products.aspAnd as for windfarms, I think they're lovely. The sound of the wind turning the blades is very soothing... and I like the look of the farms themselves ~ in the same way that I like military cemeteries. Orderly lines of identical objects, viewed from a distance - I think that's why Christo's umbrella project was so resonant to a lot of people. Connecting the dots, finding the pattern. Wow... that was stream-of-consciousness! From windfarms to Christo, one line, no waiting!  http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/9173/umbrellas.html
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Thanks Bean - I was starting to feel a bit alone here! But could I also thank all the rest of you for the restraint you have shown in this thread. There's few subjects more emotive than the nuclear debate.
stales
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FB - good for you with the Prius. I am a devout Toyota person and think we should consider a Prius for my wife's next car. They are quite expensive here though. She only does around 2,000 miles a year, mostly within a 3 mile radius of home. Interested to hear your report on your Prius experience - please mark it in your diary for about six months time.
stales
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Carpal Tunnel
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We need all the power we can get. The biggest problem though, worldwide, is nuclear waste disposal.
What a pity fusion power seems a dream unlikely to materialize.
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Carpal Tunnel
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What a pity fusion power seems a dream unlikely to materialize.
Oh, I wouldn't write it off completely so soon. Admittedly the early promise hasn't eventuated, but I've seen a few papers floating about which suggest that there are alternatives to the tokomak approach which might receive research funding in the nearish future. We know it works, we get proof renewed every day at dawn!
But another power source which no one has really commented on is beamed power from space, using large arrays of solar collectors in geosynchonous orbit. The technology, I understand, is readily available and the costs are actually calculable, but there has just been no commercial uptake as yet - too big a commercial risk, I suppose. There's still oil and coal to burn, uranium to enrich and rivers to destroy.
Time, I suppose, will tell.
Which brings me to the axiom which I didn't post on Mav's thread:
Wot, me worry? - Alfred E. Newman
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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