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The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Sat 02 May 2020, 07:34:27

EV’s and Renewables are vital and excellent tech but the application is important. If human behavior is going to remain status quo of growth, comfort, and more capable then green is just a slave to these unsustainable attitudes. The film highlights the fallacies of a fossil fuel world attempting to be made fake green but that does not mean EV’s and all those other great techs are then wrong. This is point is probably as bad. These technologies can be used in excellent applications. Even if the world goes full into a sure to failed 100% renewable world policy the failure of this will leave many good applications. 100% renewables policy will likely fail at around the point where the amount of grid, storage, and gathering systems overwhelms. This overwhelming will be economics, technical, and with human acceptance and in several places this point is near. These places will have been test beds of how far renewables can be introduced into this complex system set to fail with any policy. It is obvious the world will not be covered in renewables then experience the failure. Failure is much closer in time and investment. This means what is being done with renewables now is fine. Economies of scale and innovation mean many more needed successes. The waste and redundancy will happen. Now tell me please on the other side of the equation with fossil fuels if the situation is much better for our complex system? It is not like we have much of an alternative. There are no alternatives and the opportunity cost next to none with a system carbon trapped in path dependencies. This is a natural evolution of failure.

Of course, a world that embraces smart degrowth with the acceptance that civilization is failing and will fail is a paradigm shift. Planetary failure plus limits to growth are obvious beacons for this smart degrowth. In this case, yes, the much of the renewable project as is being pushed today would be a waste. The reason is a vastly different world would emerge of life boats of things and hospices of attitudes. In this world both green and brown tech would be utilized in a reality tested way and applied to lessen the pain and suffering. Instead huge wind and solar farms will likely be stranded assets as will huge fossil fuel development but also skyscrapers and vast highway networks. The understanding the climate is no longer Haloacene and is now adapting on its own in tipping points makes things like the Paris accord a joke. In this world it would be understood modern life peaked in 2020’s and will eventually find a floor significantly lower with population and consumption. It would be accepted and adapted to with behavior acceptance of forces of decline. The acceptance would be with consequences too like a criminal who embraces his fair punishment in atonement.

There would be economic abandonment, dysfunctional systems, and irrational policy but this would be proactively prepared for. Chaos of decline is unavoidable but it can be managed. True wisdom of an awakened human intelligence would embrace this. If this new human system is more sustainable and resilient then the forces of decline will become a benchmark of policy for change. This new way is completely centered on human behavior and the wisdom of acceptance. It revolves around the huge human behavioral ability to say no and to stop. These are so simple and basic as to appear absurd but paradoxically the keys. The inability to embrace this most fundamental change is the reason in a macro and systematic way why humans are failing and will fail. Instead forces of decline just like we see with Covid will shape the world in a haphazard way. What we are seeing now is a muddle of policy and emotions that are irrational and dysfunctional to begin with in any situation. They reflect the fantasy of continued status quo human growth in any form fake green or brown. This point to a human society in a state of shock moving into the unknown blind and angry. Finger pointing everywhere instead of a profound self-examination and a resulting learning experience.

So, this “Plant of Humans” is wrong too as is its criticism. Humans are wrong and can’t be made right except by the forces of decline. Humans will muddle through this but with so much more damage both planetary and human. Where the awakening of transformation will occur is with individuals and small communities who will be like the small little mammals who survived the Dinosaur demise. This is happening and these individuals and groups will be the seeds of a new world if that is humans survive as intelligent beings. We may go back to savages in the wreckage of techno pyramids or worse the way of the dodo bird.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby ralfy » Sat 02 May 2020, 08:44:44

There is one interesting article here about nuclear power and global energy needs, but it's from 2011:

https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-p ... nergy.html

The gist is that time, there was 375 GW of power supply from nuclear reactors. Given their rate of consumption, there should be around 80 years' worth of "viable uranium." There is also a limit brought about by availability of "exotic metals" needed for the nuclear reaction.

Global power consumption that time was 15 TW. Clearly, nuclear power cannot cover it because that would require around 15,000 nuclear reactors and uranium supply down to 5 years' worth.

According to another article, consumption as of 2016 was around 18 TW:

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/

Uranium can be extracted from seawater, but it might be impractical to do so by three decades or so.

Given these, we might be able to have at least 1 TW of power from nuclear sources.

Another source

https://www.world-nuclear.org/informati ... power.aspx

points out that by 2040 energy demand may increase by more than half, or probably up to 25 TW by 2040.

That 25 TW figure is supported in the "How Much Energy" article mentioned earlier, but it refers to conditions similar to what we face today, i.e., with most earning less than $10 daily. In order to lift most out of poverty, that has to rise to almost 70 TW. But that's for the population of 2016.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby evilgenius » Sat 02 May 2020, 09:30:36

If we do officially decide we've failed, get ready. The world will be at whatever so many consider a sustainable population level very quickly. Flipping that switch comes with serious consequences. It would be a grand tragedy if we were wrong. We probably wouldn't stop at that level. We might get down to a few hundred thousand breeding pairs.

I didn't used to think that, but the economics suggest it. There would be a trend in investment. Money would dry up. What works would have as much trouble getting financed as what does. Education would break down. Tax bases would dry up, permanently. People might engage to go to war, but not to provide ordinarily. Oh, loads of people would be happy. But those would be the same people who have always made a living by imposing upon others. Their power is evident today, in how they prevent money being spent toward things they consider ineffective, like basic research or a real safety net for people. Their grip is the one that will tighten. It is our advanced civilization that has made people more equal, even economically. Yes, we have wealth and income inequality, but even a poor person in a civilized society lives better than any king from a few hundred years ago.

I think giving up is a mistake. I prefer to think we are in a management situation. We have to discover a way to get past the boundaries of discovery that the markets give us. They are a powerful tool for discovery, but don't direct effort or investment the way that is necessary given time constraints and scale. They don't have a means for trying the unexpected. They give up, like when a network cancels a good TV show. I don't believe in the socialist model as a balance. It does not respect the discovery that markets make enough, preferring to believe that the wisdom of the crowd they provide can be ignored. And they think that common sense is actually common. Socialism doesn't put the aces in their places. It insists, oddly, not unlike the worst sort of capitalist employers, that anybody can do the job. That being said, the world will probably do something like a vast socialist experiment. It could even start to show up as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 02 May 2020, 14:18:20

ralfy wrote:There is one interesting article here about nuclear power and global energy needs, but it's from 2011:

https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-p ... nergy.html

The gist is that time, there was 375 GW of power supply from nuclear reactors. Given their rate of consumption, there should be around 80 years' worth of "viable uranium." There is also a limit brought about by availability of "exotic metals" needed for the nuclear reaction.

Global power consumption that time was 15 TW. Clearly, nuclear power cannot cover it because that would require around 15,000 nuclear reactors and uranium supply down to 5 years' worth.

According to another article, consumption as of 2016 was around 18 TW:

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/

Uranium can be extracted from seawater, but it might be impractical to do so by three decades or so.

Given these, we might be able to have at least 1 TW of power from nuclear sources.

Another source

https://www.world-nuclear.org/informati ... power.aspx

points out that by 2040 energy demand may increase by more than half, or probably up to 25 TW by 2040.

That 25 TW figure is supported in the "How Much Energy" article mentioned earlier, but it refers to conditions similar to what we face today, i.e., with most earning less than $10 daily. In order to lift most out of poverty, that has to rise to almost 70 TW. But that's for the population of 2016.


YAWN! Once again we get citations that if we keep using 1970 technology and insist on using it in the same poorly thought out manner we have used it for the last 5 decades we will run out of Uranium toot suite.

However alternatives to 1970 level Nuclear technology have existed for decades as well.So far the only country to try deploying them commercially is Russia but so far their deployments have been a success story. When that technology, plutonium breeder reactors, was developed and tested in the USA/France/Japan in every case anti-nuclear politicians closed down the programs. In the USA the IFR proved itself to be safe and viable a few weeks before Chernobyl, but the Clinton Administration and Senator John Kerry took the extraordinary measures needed to kill the program anyhow. In France the Superphenix was completed but every attempt to bring it online was blocked and delayed by anti-nuclear politicians until it had wracked up so much debt it was in an unrecoverable financial state, at which point they ordered the whole thing scrapped as a financial loser. In Japan a series of poorly constructed sodium pipes developed leaks which in turn caused small scale fires and damaged some equipment. There was never any danger to the public but the Monju Reactor was closed for years as activists inside and outside the government used the problems as a hook to terrify the public. After the 2011 Tsunami it was never reopened and again the anti-nukes blame its expense and inefficiency on its technology instead of on their NIMBY attacks at every step of the program.

On the other side of the coin the IFR in the USA ran for thousands of hours with 100% safety record and Russia has been operating BN-600 sodium breeder reactor since 1980 and the BN-800 larger version since 2014. Russia also developed REMIX fuel to use up reactor grade plutonium in light water cooled reactors without requiring any changes in the core design.

Once upon a time before 1972 the USA was the world leader in development and deployment of advanced nuclear energy designs. Then the Petroleum Industry as a whole decided commercial nuclear power was a threat to their business model and since that time it has been a full court press of support both over and covert through lobbyists and payments to anti-nuclear groups like Greenpeace and Earth First. Isn't it odd how little these so called environmentalists protest fossil fuels while taking every opportunity to stage events against nuclear power? Coal power kills more people in a single month world wide than Nuclear power has killed in its entire history. If you use a 5 year timescale coal power has killed more people than nuclear power and nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Yet Nuclear is the "terrible boogeyman that is going to destroy us all"!
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sat 02 May 2020, 14:30:19

I don't know how the energy transition will work out, but this whole Covid crisis has taught me one thing clearly: decisions will not be made by logic and fair debate. Those who have power will use that power to maximize their short term pleasure at the expense of the masses.

In the end, the problem isn't really that we need a new source of energy- we need a new type of human.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby Ibon » Sat 02 May 2020, 14:37:54

Tanada wrote:Isn't it odd how little these so called environmentalists protest fossil fuels while taking every opportunity to stage events against nuclear power? Coal power kills more people in a single month world wide than Nuclear power has killed in its entire history. If you use a 5 year timescale coal power has killed more people than nuclear power and nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.



In a perfect world a politician who spoke in such articulate terms about energy would get voted into office.

But since money talks in politics, and since the Nuclear Industry Lobby has very little cash and since the Fossil Fuel Lobby is loaded, we have this reality.

I wonder how the coal power death rate compares with the Covid19 pandemic?

Why don't we grind the global economy to a halt because of the coal power pandemic killing so many? Aren't we all about savings lives these days?
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby jawagord » Sat 02 May 2020, 16:13:33

Ibon wrote:
Tanada wrote:Isn't it odd how little these so called environmentalists protest fossil fuels while taking every opportunity to stage events against nuclear power? Coal power kills more people in a single month world wide than Nuclear power has killed in its entire history. If you use a 5 year timescale coal power has killed more people than nuclear power and nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.



In a perfect world a politician who spoke in such articulate terms about energy would get voted into office.

But since money talks in politics, and since the Nuclear Industry Lobby has very little cash and since the Fossil Fuel Lobby is loaded, we have this reality.

I wonder how the coal power death rate compares with the Covid19 pandemic?

Why don't we grind the global economy to a halt because of the coal power pandemic killing so many? Aren't we all about savings lives these days?


Probably because coal power is not actually killing anyone? There are no deaths from burning coal, maybe a few from mining coal. The “statistical” shortening of life from coal burning is only of value to the EPA in justifying regulations, it has no meaning to the rest of society because no one is actually dying. Which is not to say Western countries haven’t grossly over reacted to the coronavirus based on model projects that used poor data.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a value of statistical life (VSL) estimate to express the benefits of mortality risk reductions in monetary terms for use in benefit cost analyses of its rules and regulations.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/fi ... 83_all.pdf
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby ralfy » Sat 02 May 2020, 21:37:08

Tanada wrote:
YAWN! Once again we get citations that if we keep using 1970 technology and insist on using it in the same poorly thought out manner we have used it for the last 5 decades we will run out of Uranium toot suite.

However alternatives to 1970 level Nuclear technology have existed for decades as well.So far the only country to try deploying them commercially is Russia but so far their deployments have been a success story. When that technology, plutonium breeder reactors, was developed and tested in the USA/France/Japan in every case anti-nuclear politicians closed down the programs. In the USA the IFR proved itself to be safe and viable a few weeks before Chernobyl, but the Clinton Administration and Senator John Kerry took the extraordinary measures needed to kill the program anyhow. In France the Superphenix was completed but every attempt to bring it online was blocked and delayed by anti-nuclear politicians until it had wracked up so much debt it was in an unrecoverable financial state, at which point they ordered the whole thing scrapped as a financial loser. In Japan a series of poorly constructed sodium pipes developed leaks which in turn caused small scale fires and damaged some equipment. There was never any danger to the public but the Monju Reactor was closed for years as activists inside and outside the government used the problems as a hook to terrify the public. After the 2011 Tsunami it was never reopened and again the anti-nukes blame its expense and inefficiency on its technology instead of on their NIMBY attacks at every step of the program.

On the other side of the coin the IFR in the USA ran for thousands of hours with 100% safety record and Russia has been operating BN-600 sodium breeder reactor since 1980 and the BN-800 larger version since 2014. Russia also developed REMIX fuel to use up reactor grade plutonium in light water cooled reactors without requiring any changes in the core design.

Once upon a time before 1972 the USA was the world leader in development and deployment of advanced nuclear energy designs. Then the Petroleum Industry as a whole decided commercial nuclear power was a threat to their business model and since that time it has been a full court press of support both over and covert through lobbyists and payments to anti-nuclear groups like Greenpeace and Earth First. Isn't it odd how little these so called environmentalists protest fossil fuels while taking every opportunity to stage events against nuclear power? Coal power kills more people in a single month world wide than Nuclear power has killed in its entire history. If you use a 5 year timescale coal power has killed more people than nuclear power and nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Yet Nuclear is the "terrible boogeyman that is going to destroy us all"!


I can't see anything in your post that addresses what I shared. Let me summarize my points (using estimates):

World power consumption: 20 TW

World nuclear power capacity: .4 TW

Uranium supply given world nuclear power capacity: 80 years + 30 from sea water

Uranium supply given world power consumption: less than 5 years

Feasible world nuclear power capacity given exotic metals supply: 1 TW

World power consumption needed to adjust to population increase by 2040: 30 TW

World power consumption needed to decrease poverty in current population: 40 TW

World power consumption needed to adjust to population increase plus decrease poverty: 70 TW

Given that, here are my questions:

1. Given advancements in technology, what do you think will be the highest world nuclear power capacity, and why? What will be the new figure for uranium supply in years?

2. Will it meet current world power consumption of 20 TW? World power consumption double that to decrease poverty? World power consumption double that plus 25 pct or more to meet increasing poverty? If not, what do you think will have to take place?
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sun 03 May 2020, 01:18:45

If you can't watch the movie yet here is a really good article that sums up a good portion of it

https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/why-eco-l ... ael-moore/

Apparently a campaign by greens to get You Tube to take down the movie is gaining steam so your time to watch it may be running out. You know how much we hate people learning things in America.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Sun 03 May 2020, 04:05:11

REAL Green wrote:EV’s and Renewables are vital and excellent tech but the application is important.

In my view these technologies can provide some means to smoother transition into barbarian world.
They will not provide for sustainable future of billions.
Have watched this film and it has only confirmed my existing views.
Yes, recently I have installed photovoltanics on my property but mainly to exercise my engineering hobby. Making construction and electric connections is interesting as long as you are doing it all yourself and the first (and last) time.
There is a certain knowledge involved and it is fun to gain it.
Electricity comes as a bonus.
We may go back to savages in the wreckage of techno pyramids

This is the best bet, we can hope for.
Mind you, these magnificent cities and their buildings are only designed to last for several decades.
It will be really cool to watch how they are falling to disrepair and then derelict with natural process taking them apart while industrial infrastructure and engineering skills which would allow to orderly disassemble them is simply no longer there.

or worse the way of the dodo bird.

At some point in the future we surely will.
The only question is *when?*
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Sun 03 May 2020, 04:17:57

Tanada wrote:However alternatives to 1970 level Nuclear technology have existed for decades as well.So far the only country to try deploying them commercially is Russia but so far their deployments have been a success story.

You know, what is the problem with nuclear?
Within 2 - 3 decades there won't be intellectual capacity to run it any more because hardly anyone wishes to train himself in relevant subjects.
Also - within 3 - 5 decades there wont be an industrial capacity to build critical components.
Also - within 1 - 2 decades (and may be even earlier) there won't financial capacity to fund it.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 03 May 2020, 04:30:29

ralfy wrote:
Tanada wrote:
YAWN! Once again we get citations that if we keep using 1970 technology and insist on using it in the same poorly thought out manner we have used it for the last 5 decades we will run out of Uranium toot suite.

However alternatives to 1970 level Nuclear technology have existed for decades as well.So far the only country to try deploying them commercially is Russia but so far their deployments have been a success story. When that technology, plutonium breeder reactors, was developed and tested in the USA/France/Japan in every case anti-nuclear politicians closed down the programs. In the USA the IFR proved itself to be safe and viable a few weeks before Chernobyl, but the Clinton Administration and Senator John Kerry took the extraordinary measures needed to kill the program anyhow. In France the Superphenix was completed but every attempt to bring it online was blocked and delayed by anti-nuclear politicians until it had wracked up so much debt it was in an unrecoverable financial state, at which point they ordered the whole thing scrapped as a financial loser. In Japan a series of poorly constructed sodium pipes developed leaks which in turn caused small scale fires and damaged some equipment. There was never any danger to the public but the Monju Reactor was closed for years as activists inside and outside the government used the problems as a hook to terrify the public. After the 2011 Tsunami it was never reopened and again the anti-nukes blame its expense and inefficiency on its technology instead of on their NIMBY attacks at every step of the program.

On the other side of the coin the IFR in the USA ran for thousands of hours with 100% safety record and Russia has been operating BN-600 sodium breeder reactor since 1980 and the BN-800 larger version since 2014. Russia also developed REMIX fuel to use up reactor grade plutonium in light water cooled reactors without requiring any changes in the core design.

Once upon a time before 1972 the USA was the world leader in development and deployment of advanced nuclear energy designs. Then the Petroleum Industry as a whole decided commercial nuclear power was a threat to their business model and since that time it has been a full court press of support both over and covert through lobbyists and payments to anti-nuclear groups like Greenpeace and Earth First. Isn't it odd how little these so called environmentalists protest fossil fuels while taking every opportunity to stage events against nuclear power? Coal power kills more people in a single month world wide than Nuclear power has killed in its entire history. If you use a 5 year timescale coal power has killed more people than nuclear power and nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

Yet Nuclear is the "terrible boogeyman that is going to destroy us all"!


I can't see anything in your post that addresses what I shared. Let me summarize my points (using estimates):

World power consumption: 20 TW

World nuclear power capacity: .4 TW

Uranium supply given world nuclear power capacity: 80 years + 30 from sea water

Uranium supply given world power consumption: less than 5 years

Feasible world nuclear power capacity given exotic metals supply: 1 TW

World power consumption needed to adjust to population increase by 2040: 30 TW

World power consumption needed to decrease poverty in current population: 40 TW

World power consumption needed to adjust to population increase plus decrease poverty: 70 TW

Given that, here are my questions:

1. Given advancements in technology, what do you think will be the highest world nuclear power capacity, and why? What will be the new figure for uranium supply in years?

2. Will it meet current world power consumption of 20 TW? World power consumption double that to decrease poverty? World power consumption double that plus 25 pct or more to meet increasing poverty? If not, what do you think will have to take place?


Uranium supply is not limited to 80 years at current consumption rates, the true figure is on the order of 6400 years at current consumption rates. The 80 year figure is made using the assumption that "known reserves" are most of what exists and totally ignores the facts on the ground, like for example Phosphate minerals usually produce Uranium as a byproduct. In the USA they stopped producing the Uranium component from phosphate processing because the regulations add a huge cost and the price of Uranium is too low to support doing all that regulatory BS. On top of that the USA/France/UK/Russia/China have a million tons or more of "depleted Uranium" but what does Depleted mean? Natural uranium in about 0.7% U-235 but everything from 0.4% down to 0.15% processed Uranium counts as "depleted" even though the former still contains over half its initial U-235 component. In addition to the raw Uranium supply every Uranium consuming reactor produces from 50% to 100% Plutonium replacement fuel as it operates. The oldest Gen I reactors managed a touch over 50%, the Gen III EPR is expected to produce around 85% and all the Gen IV designs are expected to produce 95%-105%.

In other words the Gen IV designs are all high fuel efficient convertors or technically breeders meaning they consume all the Natural Uranium, plus they can consume the natural Thorium as well once they are operating. If we are using Gen IV designs like the American IFR or Russian BN-600/BN-800/BN-1200 sodium cooled designs or the Molten Salt reactors that are currently the hot topic in development then instead of the proposed 80 years using the 0.7% U-235 you keep bringing up you can burn all of the 99.3% U-238 in that natural Uranium plus the 100% natural Thorium that is four times as abundant as the Uranium. That effectively means 500 times as much energy just from the already known supplies or 80*500=40,000 years at current consumption rates. Divide that by current world energy demand and you still have 400 years producing 40 TW a year of energy. If we can't come up with a solution in 400 years we deserve the fate which awaits us then.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby ralfy » Sun 03 May 2020, 07:47:28

Tanada wrote:Uranium supply is not limited to 80 years at current consumption rates, the true figure is on the order of 6400 years at current consumption rates. The 80 year figure is made using the assumption that "known reserves" are most of what exists and totally ignores the facts on the ground, like for example Phosphate minerals usually produce Uranium as a byproduct. In the USA they stopped producing the Uranium component from phosphate processing because the regulations add a huge cost and the price of Uranium is too low to support doing all that regulatory BS. On top of that the USA/France/UK/Russia/China have a million tons or more of "depleted Uranium" but what does Depleted mean? Natural uranium in about 0.7% U-235 but everything from 0.4% down to 0.15% processed Uranium counts as "depleted" even though the former still contains over half its initial U-235 component. In addition to the raw Uranium supply every Uranium consuming reactor produces from 50% to 100% Plutonium replacement fuel as it operates. The oldest Gen I reactors managed a touch over 50%, the Gen III EPR is expected to produce around 85% and all the Gen IV designs are expected to produce 95%-105%.

In other words the Gen IV designs are all high fuel efficient convertors or technically breeders meaning they consume all the Natural Uranium, plus they can consume the natural Thorium as well once they are operating. If we are using Gen IV designs like the American IFR or Russian BN-600/BN-800/BN-1200 sodium cooled designs or the Molten Salt reactors that are currently the hot topic in development then instead of the proposed 80 years using the 0.7% U-235 you keep bringing up you can burn all of the 99.3% U-238 in that natural Uranium plus the 100% natural Thorium that is four times as abundant as the Uranium. That effectively means 500 times as much energy just from the already known supplies or 80*500=40,000 years at current consumption rates. Divide that by current world energy demand and you still have 400 years producing 40 TW a year of energy. If we can't come up with a solution in 400 years we deserve the fate which awaits us then.


Abbott refers to similar numbers in other papers:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10 ... 0212459124

In p. 27, he refers to 5,300 years given uranium from seawater, and if fast breeder reactors are used, over 300,000 years worth' of uranium. What's the problem, then? Read the paper to find out.

The rest of your points are mostly discussed in the same paper, with additional points that you did not address.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Sun 03 May 2020, 08:35:56

This is so dystopian to me. Our system has proceeded to a point where robots will cut up animals for our consumption. What needs to be done instead is a return to the small-town butcher who respects and values his meat. People who come to buy and share conversation and see the meats visually. Meat raised locally and with respect. The butcher buying from local farmers who he knows respect and raise good meat. If we are going to consume the planet like killers then lets at least show the value of what we are consuming. Instead humans want it sanitized and hidden from view all that blood and gore combined with mechanical suffering that animals go through to make it to our plate. I raise animals. I realize the need to feed people but the idea of an automated industrial process of killing is amazing. It is of course from a progressive scientific point view an ideal system by eliminate the dangers of human interaction but the morale side of it is grotesquely modern. This is what science has become and the reason I point to science is now a religion and it is objectivity without adequate reflection a deadly pathogen:

“Slaughterhouses Robots Ease Labor and Health Woes, JBS Says”
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-lab ... jbs-says-1

“JBS SA, the world’s biggest meat producer, plans to expand its use of robots in slaughterhouses to counter health threats to workers from the coronavirus pandemic and a tight labor market. The Brazilian company runs a plant in Australia that uses only machines to slaughter sheep, and automation will expand globally for other livestock, Chief Financial Officer Guilherme Cavalcanti said this week.”
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 03 May 2020, 09:13:16

REAL Green wrote:This is so dystopian to me. Our system has proceeded to a point where robots will cut up animals for our consumption. What needs to be done instead is a return to the small-town butcher who respects and values his meat.


When we sacrificed a cow 2 weeks ago who broke her hip when a bull pushed her over an embankment we laid out a plastic tarp in the shade of a tree at the edge of the forest. The cow was mercifully killed with a blow to the head with a sledge hammer. All normal work stopped that day, all staff helped Alejandro who worked for a butcher for 10 years prior to the contract work he now does. Neighbors came from surrounding farms and we shared the meat. While butchering there was definitely a sense of respect to the animal who had to be sacrificed and the communal work was bonding for all the staff. Floor freezer full will make us remember that gentle cow every time we make a stir fry with her meat together with the snow peas and greens we grow in our greenhouse.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby jedrider » Sun 03 May 2020, 10:46:49

I ate a pig with a name that the kids raised in a Youth 3H program. It tasted very good and I'm not much of a meat eater.

First thing I want to do when lockdown ends is go camping where trees outnumber humans by a huge amount.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby C8 » Sun 03 May 2020, 12:41:52

Here is a great article that shows how state environmental mandates are leading to the wholesale destruction of forests and fragile ecosystems as companies are clear cutting complete forest regions to meet state standards- bold and italics are mine

It’s music to an environmentalist’s ears: Six Flags Great Adventure wants to power its park with solar energy by installing a solar panel farm on a portion of the 134 acres of land it owns in Jackson, New Jersey. But as the company spells out its plan, the needle scratches across the record: To make room for the panels, it plans to level 66 acres of trees.

The plan, the largest solar installation in New Jersey, will generate 21.4 megawatts of electricity, enough to power the amusement park’s Garden State facility. The company projects that the initiative will eliminate approximately 215,000 tons of CO2 emissions over 15 years, a result that it says more than compensates for the loss of trees.

Local residents and environmental groups—including Clean Water Action, Crosswicks/Doctors Creek Watershed Association, Environment New Jersey, NJ Conservation Foundation, Save Barnegat Bay, and the Sierra Club—beg to differ, claiming that razing nearly 15,000 trees will adversely impact water quality, air quality and sound quality; decrease the wildlife population; and affect biodiversity, as the state loses a section of forest known as the Pine Barrens. “As green as solar is, you don’t get a pass for chopping down a forest,” said David Pringle, campaign director for Clean Water Action. “If they kept the forest and put the panels in a parking lot, you get all the benefits of solar without any of the costs of clear-cutting the forest.” State officials even offered to buy the land to stop Six Flags from deforesting it, but the company declined their offer.

Those opposed to the project say if Six Flags really wanted an environmentally friendly project, it would have placed the lion’s share of the solar panels on one of its parking lots, creating so-called canopies—structures with panels placed on top, so cars can park underneath. Company officials say most of the lots were unsuitable, citing safety issues, special events held there, and future development plans that might utilize that space. Critics counter that the company just didn’t want to give up parking spaces, as the lots often fill to capacity in peak season, and in the off season, a portion of them is rented out to Amazon, which parks trailers there to serve as warehouse space.

And there are other environmental concerns, too. A recent study in Renewable Energy found that as many as 138,600 birds have been killed at what the researchers call Utility Scale Solar Energy projects—either from birds flying into panels or being singed by exposure to concentrated sunlight—and if all of the large-scale projects currently planned are built out, that figure could rise to 480,000 annually.

“I think the major environmental issue here is that deforestation undermines the greenhouse gas benefits of the solar project,” says Dustin Mulvaney, an associate professor in the environmental studies department at San Jose State University.

Some 29 states and the District of Columbia now have renewable portfolio standards in place stating that a certain minimum amount of renewable energy such as wind, solar, biomass, or geothermal should be used to generate electric power, and those figures rise over time. The result has been exponential growth in solar energy projects, with the number of installations—residential, commercial, and utility-size—having doubled since 2013, says the Solar Energy Industries Association. Mulvaney says private companies are leasing large swaths of undisturbed land in the Southwest, three or four miles wide, that are full of old-growth cactus, yucca trees, and in some cases, Joshua trees, scraping them clean with these large machines that clear away all the vegetation, and then installing 8 million or 9 million solar panels. The power is then sold back to the utilities, so that they can meet their federal renewable energy mandates.



Did anyone NOT see this coming when the laws were written?

Full article here

https://slate.com/technology/2016/06/go ... trees.html
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby REAL Green » Sun 03 May 2020, 13:52:36

C8 wrote:Here is a great article that shows how state environmental mandates are leading to the wholesale destruction of forests and fragile ecosystems as companies are clear cutting complete forest regions to meet state standards- bold and italics are mine


It is my opinion that solar farms need to be put in brownfield sites when possible. I am sure there are many in NJ but from a business standpoint Six Flags has the land so the lowest cost approach is made under the guise of green development. Tesla did something similar in Berlin with their new EV factory cutting down many trees. There was an outpouring of protest but I believe the project is proceeding.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby jedrider » Sun 03 May 2020, 17:26:36

REAL Green wrote:
C8 wrote:Here is a great article that shows how state environmental mandates are leading to the wholesale destruction of forests and fragile ecosystems as companies are clear cutting complete forest regions to meet state standards- bold and italics are mine


It is my opinion that solar farms need to be put in brownfield sites when possible. I am sure there are many in NJ but from a business standpoint Six Flags has the land so the lowest cost approach is made under the guise of green development. Tesla did something similar in Berlin with their new EV factory cutting down many trees. There was an outpouring of protest but I believe the project is proceeding.


Just like a doctor's oath is to first do no harm to the patient. All green energy initiatitives should stipulate that they must not lead to deforestation.

Nobody really knows how to get us out of this environmental catastrophe that we are headed for, but we all should be able to agree that the forests must be sacred and preserved. Of course, this gets in the way of all sorts of development and, actually, almost all development.
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Re: The "Planet of the Humans" documentary thread

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 04 May 2020, 03:37:13

jedrider wrote:Nobody really knows how to get us out of this environmental catastrophe that we are headed for, but we all should be able to agree that the forests must be sacred and preserved. Of course, this gets in the way of all sorts of development and, actually, almost all development.

I can agree with that.
Issues related to climate change are not resolvable and Nature will take its course.
I don't know where it will lead us but severe hardship is certainly booked in.
Regarding forests - yes. Any policy which damages those cannot be green.

Regarding some mitigations - we know what these are but there is no will to implement them voluntarily so Nature will need to implement them for us.

So lets assume that we want comfortable, high tech world with freedom to all and where anyone can do whatever he wants.

Then we need to do following:

1. Trigger a dieoff in such a way that there are 200-500 millions of survivors.
Preferably without too many nukes going off.
This could be done either by causing/embracing pandemic of highly fatal disease, by denying medical assistance and all sort of aids to masses or by organized genocide.
Perhaps by combination of all above.
Ensure that survivors of IQ range 120-140 are favoured.
Get rid off low IQ people as these are stuck in their ways and resistant to reason.
Get rid of geniuses as these can be too disruptive.
Embrace extreme hardship which would follow and affect 1-3 generations afterwards.

2. Scrap concept of a nation and set global governing body based on global council.
This should be a large body, elected by popular vote.
Discriminate against those with excessive leadership ambitions to make their pursuits of power impossible. Pass rules by popular vote but only after initial approval by councils of elders (representations of local governments).
This should eradicate entitlement idiocies being passed into laws.

3. Leave free market but also place cap on family and individual wealth to eradicate billionaire class and corruption associated with it.

4. Stabilize population - by compulsory sterilization of anyone who is or in future will be fertile and yet needed advanced medical help for any illness except of mechanical injury.
Course of antibiotics should be considered advanced medical help in this context.
It seems that availability of advanced medicine to the mob is a primary culprit allowing population to grow out of control and without it humans are not breeding excessively.
Also - scrap high tech hospital neonatal care and if anything other than painkillers and traditional midwifery is needed - also sterilize mother (if she would most likely die during childbirth without advanced medical assistance) and child (if its life was saved by advanced neonatal procedures).
So the medical profession should work under general premise to keep infertile anything what by choices of Nature would be dead anyway.
But maximum human quotas living on Earth should be in place - if there is a risk of exceeding them then dangerous activities carrying high risk of death should be encouraged.
Instead of wars encourage large participation in extreme sports for example.

5. Assign 80% of land and 90% of high seas including all ecologically sensitive regions as permanent nature reserves. Ban absolutely all industrial activities there but yet allow people to see and explore those areas. Allow settlements as long as those who wish to live there also wish to lead a lifestyle resembling H-G of the past or alternatively live in small settlements and work only to maintain immediate local community (Amish type of settlements, perhaps with more allowance for advanced tech meant only for personal/community use).

6. Disband totalitarian agriculture.

7. Ban fractional reserve banking and fiat currencies.

8. Allow others to embrace anything they like to do on all remaining land, but put a cap on pollution, so the waste processing by planetary system is in equilibrium.
Never allow billionaire class to re-emerge.
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