[threadbear]

Interesting and balanced article from LA Weekly. After reading most of the article it seems to me that to ensure economic feasibility the govt has to promise some lucky player(s) a monopoly in exchange for strict regulation of safety issues. The govt also can't interfere with pricing, or the numbers won't crunch. A best guess would be a merger of a few major players like Duke Energy and a couple more, united under thecommon umbrella of crisis management, and national security, with an assured monopoly. It's going to be REAAAAAALLLY expensive, for the customer. .

Matt may be incorrect in some of the details but a world where energy is only accessible to those who can afford it, is a stark reality. So peak cheap energy is the issue, and the future could be very dark, indeed.

A vision of the future shouldn't necessarily

"Lochbaum describes himself, and UCS, as “neither for nor against nuclear power — we’re just safety advocates, and we’re concerned about global warming, too.” But he is clearly not optimistic about nuclear energy’s future. It’s not so much the technology itself; Lochbaum believes it can be made to work, and made to work safely. But as the electricity market around the country becomes increasingly deregulated and competitive, plant owners have more cause to put profit above reliability and safety. And the NRC is not working the way it’s supposed to: According to a 2003 report by the NRC’s inspector general and the Government Accountability Office, 47 percent of NRC employees don’t feel comfortable raising safety issues. “We get more calls from NRC employees than from employees of all the plants combined,” says Lochbaum."

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/51/features-lewis.php

[Tanada]

I calculated to replace our fossil fuel plants in Texas with nukes, we'd need to build 21 new reactors, at least.

Where the heck would we build these, I wonder?

I don't see this happening.

No offense Ludi, but i would like to reveiw the math you used to reach that conclusion, you might be too low, or too high.

[Daryl]

What you need to understand is that Earth is a ball of chemicals that is temporarily hospitable to our species and that one day it will kick us out no matter how "eco friendly" or "sustainable" we are.

Good point. Don't geologists theorize that humans have only expanded their population at all because we are in a very brief warming period between ice ages? Even without manmade global warming, it won't be long before a natural climate change crushes humanity. It's important in the meantime that we don't eat ourselves to death like goldfish and try as hard as possible not to create our own demise. At the same time, we should understand that there is nothing permanent or sustainable long term about human existence on this planet. Ecology makes a real bad religion in that sense. Yet secularists continue to anthropomorphize heaven here on Earth. Not going to to happen. Even an ideally sustainable eco-topia will pass away before long.

[MonteQuest]

Your poll is silly. You have 2 options, one OR the other.

Silly? It is a poll that reflects this from another thread:

I would rather powerdown, conserve, lower my standard of living, and switch to renewables than engage any more nuclear plants, whatever that choice might entail.

I wonder how many would agree with me?

I'll do a poll in the Energy Forum.

It was only suppose to have the two options.

Maybe I should have couch it like this:

Under any circumstances would you embrace building more nuclear power plants?

My answer: no.

I would rather cope and adapt, whatever that might entail.

I bet the 75% of people who voted yes so far would agree.

We don't have to have more pwer, we just want it.

What is silly, is thinking about building another unsustainable energy system fraught with uncertainties.

[MonteQuest]

This poll simply makes no sense.

If the results were reversed I bet you wouldn't say that.

The poll says that 75% of the people on this site so far would choose to powerdown and embrace renewables rather than go the nuclear route.

[MonteQuest]

The choice to forego nuclear and "choose" re-newables would mean that we are limiting ourselves to a set supply of energy as received by solar flux. How is it practical or realistic to expect mankind to make this enlightened choice up front? We wont. This whole debate over nuclear or renewables is not about an energy choice. It is about choosing between sustainability and growth. So nuclear energy will allow us to avoid hitting the natural limits that peak oil presented mankind? So if we can’t rely on limited energy to impose limits on our growth than we have to fall back on natural disasters, global warming or disease? It seems we are always counting on some external force to modify our behaviour. That is by the way how nature has always worked. Nuclear allows us to continue to live on borrowed time until we willfully, of our own volition, through our own self devised design, limit ourselves to a sustainable paradigm. Can we do it?

Yes, going the nuclear route allows us to continue to ignore ecological limits. What happens to our technological civilization is peanuts compared to what will happen to our ecosystem if we continue to ignore the limits of the environmental sinks to absorb our wastes--and whether they are produced by solar or nuclear is a moot point.

Going the solar/renewables route will dictate supply based upon sustainability and not demand. We need to base our civilization around this sustainable supply, not try to meet the demand by any means available.

Nuclear will just make the inevitable collapse cliff much steeper.

It's back to the debate over world views that I brought up in the Tip of the Iceberg thread.

Newtonian Mechanics paradigm versus an Ecological Paradigm.

[MonteQuest]

How do you expect to make solar panels (aluminum frames, highly refined Si ingots etc) using renewables?

You don't. You use the existing grid of NG, Coal, Hydro, and nuclear. As the demand on the grid drops, it extends the fossil fuels.

Remember, I don't offer these things in isolation. Peak oil solutions must address the following:

1. They must address population growth.
2. They must address the global warming issue.
3. They must address the negative consequences of conservation efforts on the economy and efficiency gains increasing consumption.
4. They must address the economic issues of a no-growth economy and past debt.
5. They must be sustainable/ renewable and the least toxic to the environment.
6. And probably most important, they must be global in perspective.

[Ludi]

I calculated to replace our fossil fuel plants in Texas with nukes, we'd need to build 21 new reactors, at least.

Where the heck would we build these, I wonder?

I don't see this happening.

No offense Ludi, but i would like to reveiw the math you used to reach that conclusion, you might be too low, or too high.

Probably! My calculations were very simple and probably not accurate, since I didn't double check my info. TX has two nuke sites, I believe they each have 2 reactors, these provide almost 15% of our electricity, which I rounded up to 16 to make calculations easy = 4% from each reactor. So, 100 - 16 = 84/4 = 21. I didn't take into account the actual Gigawatts produced by each reactor versus the production of modern reactors, and I didn't take increased demand into account, just went with current demand, so yeah, my calculations certainly aren't brilliant, or even accurate. If someone else wants to do better ones, that would be great.

[MonteQuest]

For example I cannot understand the position that nuclear will lead to a culture which disregards natural ecological balances. Plentiful energy could mean=> food production takes places in greehouses => decrease in the area of land we cultivate=>more land for "nature".

Lead to? We are a culture that disregards ecological balances!

Going from wood to coal didn't instill an ecological embracement.

We had plentiful energy then, and it was cheap!

Going from coal to oil didn't instill an ecological embracement.

We had plentiful energy then, and it was even cheaper!

Going from oil to nuclear will follow the same path...but it won't be cheaper. Perhaps the only saving grace.

[MonteQuest]

Monte, why are you (cleary) hell bent on maintaining your anti-nuclear bias? I haven't been able to figure this out.
Do you not agree it is better than burning ff in terms of global warming?
Do you not think that the economic impacts from peaking oil are going to be significant? (I know you do). Is it therefore not preferable to minimize the economic impacts, reducing the chances for social chaos?

If so, then why on earth do you insist on bashing nuclear? Why are you not seeing the big picture in this case?

Because the Big Picture is we are in overshoot. The worse thing that could happen would be to postpone this correction. We need to live off of the received solar flux only.

But that won't support our current population and our current industrial way of life, you say?

No, it will not, and we should not try.

Need I say more?

[MonteQuest]

If so, then why on earth do you insist on bashing nuclear? Why are you not seeing the big picture in this case?

I'll answer for myself this question. Is nuclear putting out an immediate fire but planting the seeds of a greater inferno? I don't mean bombs here either.

Nuclear is an energy we can harnass that supplements the energy alreadly falling on the planet from solar flux. Fossil fuels did basically the same thing in that we pulled out of the ground stored solar energy like a battery to supplement the total available energy during the past 150 years. This supplemental energy permits us humans to develop societies that live beyond their carrying capacities since we don't know how to manage or design on our own limits to our growth. This is the bigger picture Father of Two and inherant in the nuclear solution are the seeds of this greater inferno. Using renewable energy sources forces us to live within the sustainable amount of energy that falls on the planet and avoids these imbalances.

It is not coinicidence that Ibon has the same answer as I, nor did I read his post before posting mine. This is the Big Picture.

[MonteQuest]

Therein lies the problem.

It will allow us to continue to ignore the ecological limits.

Ecological limits would be irrelevant. If we had infite energy we could theoretically construct our own planet or grow food through hydroponics or any number of ludicrously energy intensive schemes that would support exponential growth.

And I don't know what it would take for people to understand ecological limits.

[orz]

Assume we had a source of infinite energy, say fusion. Theoretically we could use such a source to convert something abundant like nitrogen gas into nutrients to use for hydroponic farming. Where would the water come from? Energy intensive desalinization of ocean water. We could also use the energy to harvest minerals from our solar system or simply for ridiculously energy intensive "alchemy" converting abundant elements on our planet into elements that we need. Population too big? No prob. Terraform a nearby world and start a colony there. What happens to your ecological limits in such a theoretical world?

If overshoot is strictly a function of not enough energy, which in the basest form food, shelter and water are all functions of, then a source like fusion would negate the problem.

If you want to claim that we are missing the big picture, then I would suggest that you are missing the Universal picture. Might we, 100 billion years from now have converted all energy in the universe to a more entropic and far less usable form. Perhaps, but who knows what we might know about energy then. Remember, Newtonian physics was for hundreds of years thought to be the end all be all scientific ruleset guiding all mechanical interactions. Only recently was it realized that it was actually a macroscopic subset of relativistic motion. I don't think that it is unimaginable that the laws of thermodynamics might one day fall under a similar category.

[Dezakin]

And I don't know what it would take for people to understand ecological limits.

Probably actual limiting effects rather than fantasy assumptions of overshoot that will never be realized. Ecological limits postulated as such are the dreams of ecologists wed to the idea that nature is somehow going to punish mankind for our arrogance. It wont happen.

I dont know what it would take for ecologists to understand that most of their field is garbage sophistry.

[MonteQuest]

If overshoot is strictly a function of not enough energy, which in the basest form food, shelter and water are all functions of, then a source like fusion would negate the problem.

Overshoot is not just a function of not enough energy. Carrying capacity is determined by the least abundant necessity. Liebig's Law.

Unlimited energy in a finite world still has limits.

[MonteQuest]

And I don't know what it would take for people to understand ecological limits.

Probably actual limiting effects rather than fantasy assumptions of overshoot that will never be realized. Ecological limits postulated as such are the dreams of ecologists wed to the idea that nature is somehow going to punish mankind for our arrogance. It wont happen.

I dont know what it would take for ecologists to understand that most of their field is garbage sophistry.

Maybe I should start the worse "post of the week"?

[Antimatter]

If so, then why on earth do you insist on bashing nuclear? Why are you not seeing the big picture in this case?

I'll answer for myself this question. Is nuclear putting out an immediate fire but planting the seeds of a greater inferno? I don't mean bombs here either.

Nuclear is an energy we can harnass that supplements the energy alreadly falling on the planet from solar flux. Fossil fuels did basically the same thing in that we pulled out of the ground stored solar energy like a battery to supplement the total available energy during the past 150 years. This supplemental energy permits us humans to develop societies that live beyond their carrying capacities since we don't know how to manage or design on our own limits to our growth. This is the bigger picture Father of Two and inherant in the nuclear solution are the seeds of this greater inferno. Using renewable energy sources forces us to live within the sustainable amount of energy that falls on the planet and avoids these imbalances.

Environmentalists and ecologists do not trust energy sources that add supplemental energy to human endeavours since humans act like all other critters and just multiply using this supplemental energy.

That is another reason by the way why we cant separate energy strategies from socio/political/religious/cultural stuff. We do so at our peril since we aren't capable to organize ourselves with a self imposed limits to our growth. At least until now.

Living off the solar flux can mean anything from quantum dot photovoltaics to burning wood. Given that the solar flux is four orders of magnitude larger than our total energy use distinctions between received energy and so called supplementary energy from the ground appear somewhat arbitrary. Perhaps enviromentalists and ecologists who don't trust supplemental energy and push for an "ecological paradigm" just have a poor understanding of the Newtonian world view they love to deride.

[MonteQuest]

Living off the solar flux can mean anything from quantum dot photovoltaics to burning wood. Given that the solar flux is four orders of magnitude larger than our total energy use distinctions between received energy and so called supplementary energy from the ground appear somewhat arbitrary. Perhaps enviromentalists and ecologists who don't trust supplemental energy and push for an "ecological paradigm" just have a poor understanding of the Newtonian world view they love to deride.

Oh, and if we could just "tap" all that energy. However, sustainability is not just about energy. Perhaps we have considered the Big Picture.

We could live beyond sustainable limits even on just the received solar flux. Population, arable land, water, loss of biodiversity, topsoil, etc.

[orz]

Unlimited energy in a finite world still has limits

How many times do I have to say that with abundant enough energy we won't be stuck on this planet?

There's more places to live in this universe than "Mother Gaia" if one has sufficient energy to build the tools to get there and inhabit the area.
And in any case you seem to still be running under the faulty assumption of infinite exponential population growth, which simply isn't the only(or even most likely) scenario.

If you're going to use physical laws as shields to hide behind, then you better be prepared to accept the possibilities that these same laws allow as well.

There are no limits to our growth given a large and long-lived enough energy source.

[MonteQuest]

Unlimited energy in a finite world still has limits

How many times do I have to say that with abundant enough energy we won't be stuck on this planet?

There's more places to live in this universe than "Mother Gaia" if one has sufficient energy to build the tools to get there and inhabit the area.
And in any case you seem to still be running under the faulty assumption of infinite exponential population growth, which simply isn't the only(or even most likely) scenario.

If you're going to use physical laws as shields to hide behind, then you better be prepared to accept the possibilities that these same laws allow as well.

There are no limits to our growth given a large and long-lived enough energy source.

This thread has evolved into a "don't rain on my parade with reality" rant.