BS: Whither Humanity?

Subject: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 11 Oct 16 - 08:06 PM

In the 15 (-ish) years I've hung around this sink of... *ahem* *ahem* Why am I here anyway? ;-) I've almost never started a thread. This arises out of a discussion (argument!) with a Fb friend. I thought it might exercise some intellects (or verbiage, at least... :p ) here... Jim, by the by, is the chap whose post provoked the response. His original post was anti-nuclear, anti-Hinckley. It had 7 points; point 7 was the same as point 6 (7 being we don't know how to decommission - yes we do; we don't know how to deal with the waste; which was point 6). Point 6 I allowed; the rest I told him were either highly dubious / arguable or not allowed because they weren't unique to the nuclear power industry.

Baseload

This comes not just from a post of Jim's, but because someone else said something recently about incipient energy storage technology. Baseload power is your "always on". If you wake up in the middle of the night & flick the light on... That's baseload, right there. There are fluctuations in demand (remember all those stories about a surge in demand when the kettles go on at half/full-time / end of Dr Who?), but there has to be enough power generation available that the lights never go off. Even when they're off! If you see what I mean.

Now, Jim's post was about nuclear energy, and (I suppose) about the planned new Hinckley plant. And Jim, most definitely, is anti-Hinckley. I'm not pro-nuclear, myself. But I am pro-baseload. My view of human history is that, essentially, we are all about energy thresholds. We started out as hunter-gatherers. At some point, we sort-of learnt that fire could be harnessed. It was, perhaps, the first threshold, but a very small one. Control was erratic, knowledge was erratic; to the species as a whole, it made precious little difference, even on an evolutionary timescale.

The REAL first step was agriculture. Suddenly, there is a lot more personal energy available. We have more to eat, we don't simply follow the herds / whatever in small family groups. We stay in one place & we farm.Population expands, civilisation (such as it is) begins. The second step very quickly follows – animal husbandry. We start to domesticate. Some of those animals are food animals. Some of those animals help us look after our food (dogs & cats). Some of those animals help us produce more (ploughs, beasts of burden). And so on & so forth.

Work out your own steps. Mechanical power was probably the next one – Archimedes' Screw, Mill wheels & windmills. The Industrial Revolution the next – not just steam engines & the like, but systematic, scientific improvements in food production as well as industrial. Then the Infernal Combustion engine. I mean, of course, the utilisation of oil & gas; more energy dense & convenient than coal. And then you get to nuclear... Well, fission nuclear isn't really a step. It hasn't added much to the energy pool, just another way of filling it. Same as renewables (so far) haven't added anything to the pool. The next step is nuclear FUSION. Yet to be conquered...

All of which is a lengthy preamble. We are, I think, on a cusp right now. We still NEED baseload. Our world demands it. Renewables (which aren't as green as some people think) can't supply it. The sun doesn't shine at night, the wind doesn't always blow, the tide... Well, actually, you can make use of it both ways, but it doesn't always flow fast enough in either direction.

So we need, still, baseload. Yet fossil fuels are evil (all that CO2!), nuclear is evil (need I say more), energy storage is the future! Well, yes, it is. The advances in technology are such that it's a pretty good bet that over the next half-century or so, we'll master the art of storing that pesky, intermittent renewable stuff, so that our need for baseload... Well, only stabilises, probably. We live in an energy-hungry world that grows ever more ravenous. I've got me doubts about whether we can ever do away with old-skool, always on baseload plants!

But, in theory, renewable energy & battery / energy technology more than fill the need / gap until fusion power is mastered (which, very definitely, is the next leap). The problem is, of course, that energy storage tech isn't here NOW. How long will it take? We'll have good energy storage tech in the next decade or so? So say some... And if we don't? If it takes 20, 40, 80 years? Bearing in mind the energy ravenous world we live in, how long will it take storage tech and renewables to catch up? Also bearing in mind, of course, that renewable energy tech also grows more efficient as time goes by... Jim's argument is that it is "criminal irresponsibility of the highest order" to go ahead with building new nuclear plants.

Really? I can't agree. It would be criminally irresponsible to assume that energy storage technology will provide an economic, viable (never mind ecologically justifiable) solution to our energy needs now or soon. Energy infrastructure, be it conventional or nuclear, is not built in a day, any more than Rome was. I favour renewables (and fusion), as anyone one sane & sensible presumably does. But you can't make a plan for the next 30 years (which is "short term" in power terms) on the basis that "It'll be alright, renewables & energy storage will be sorted by then". What if they're not? Will you be sticking your hand up, saying "I'm sorry about the brown / black- outs, I'm sorry your freezer is defrosting; oh dear, I'm going to die shortly because the various hospital gizmos I'm connected to have just switched off for lack of power"? Yes, Jim, I'm looking at you. :p

In short, we still need baseload power. Energy storage will eventually reduce / remove the need for it, but it isn't here now, none of the green lobby actually knows what the environmental cost of it is anyway, and we are majorly, majorly screwed, as a world, without sufficient power. So power plants have to be built now to cover the needs of the next few decades.

Which do you LEAST prefer? Fossil fuel plants? Or (allegedly) carbon-neutral nuclear? I'm willing to bet that whatever your choice is, you really don't want to go back to horse & cart and candles...

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Oct 16 - 08:35 PM

This not a sink of...
It is a sandbox and you got some in your eyes.

There may soon be an entire island that is self sustained with energy from water, sun and air. It is a challenge that evolves in steps.

Your false equivalencies are as silly as "would you prefer self sustaining and renewable energy or eating your brother in one sitting?"

Your post requires 3 more readings before I can digest it.

If you believe everything about nuclear energy is ideal , I have a time share in Aleppo for you.

(see what I mean)

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Oct 16 - 08:46 PM

sorry, I didn't mean to meddle in the bromance.
Jim its not energy as we know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 16 - 09:02 PM

I've completely changed my mind about nuclear. I think it's the only real answer we have. Governments the world over are lukewarm about green energy and the investment just isn't going in. We have no lust at all for energy conservation. For every windmill we subsidise we could insulate twenty or thirty houses a year. Per year for every windmill. Go and count them. It's insane. Carbon dioxide levels are now over 0.04% and we are clueless as to the tipping point. Emissions have never been higher. The US guzzles energy like there's no tomorrow, China doesn't see why it shouldn't follow and they will both lead us to hell in a six-cylinder, 20mpg, air-conditioned handcart. We simply can't behave, and big oil has us in its pocket. It's nuclear or bust. Probably bust, but in the meantime it ill behoves us to brief against nuclear.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 16 - 09:12 PM

It takes a long time to build nuclear plants. There are real reasons to expect that by the time we have Hinckley producing power (and very expensive power) it will be a white elephant. Renewable technology is coming ahead pretty fast, especially connsidering how little is being provide to research and develop technologies - wind power, wave power, tide power, solar power.... And those are by no mean the only renewable technologies available.

And of course it's extremely expensive developing nuclear plants. We are planning to put more into that than we are into developing renewables and energy storeage. Doesn't make much sense.

The reasons we are still going down the route of nuclear power, and expanding extraction of fossil fuel (notably fracking) aren't because they have won the argumants, it's essentially because, for various reasons, more money can be extracted from government for these than for alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 07:45 AM

Everything you say is true, but what I'm saying is that there is little sign of a change in attitudes on the horizon, and we can't wait for another century before we get our act together in terms of the green approach. In many regards we are going backwards. Subsidies for green energy cut, fracking encouraged, cars seem to be getting bigger and bigger, flights as cheap as chips, the US and China showing little inclination to curb energy consumption, India waiting in the wings, no lack of ultra-cheap oil and gas. We'd rather give massive handouts to landowners for ugly turbines that don't work half the time than help people to insulate their homes and replace inefficient boilers. We carry on building huge buildings that simply can't operate without air conditioning (don't remember much of that in the Sixties). Lamenting what we don't do enough of now won't save the planet. If I believed in God I'd suppose he'd be up there laughing his head off at us now for being so slow to invest in the low-carbon source of energy that will last us for millennia. Nuclear.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: DMcG
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 07:55 AM

While nuclear reactions may last millennia, nuclear power stations don't. They have too many other parts with materials like steel and concrete whose lifetimes are measured in a few decades. To really crack the nuclear energy problem that's where you need to focus your attention.

But overall I agree Steve. While I would love to have reliable renewable sources, we are still too far off to risk the next few decades without new nuclear. Whether the new contracts are the right ones is another question completely.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 08:22 AM

"Whither Humanity"......Good thread Raedwulf, but I think we are looking at the problem the wrong way round if we are really interested in the survival of humanity.
Nuclear energy is the worst possible option....we still have no idea what to do with toxic waste.
It's like I said on another thread, we need to reform ourselves, if we keep producing more and more energy we will use it to make useless junk...anything which can be sold, anything which can be exchanged for peoples lives.

My view would be to cut energy production drastically, return to a subsistence economy where everyone was a contributer and a stakeholder.
There are far to many humans around, as a species, we are at the moment unsustainable.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 08:24 AM

Excelon is a company buying up expired nuke plants. Some of these plants are 30 years beyond their planned lifetimes and still open.
How expensive is it to do this? It costs 34 million dollars a year per expired plant. The company then over charges its customers to keep highly dangerous old plants on line.
What is so dangerous? The steel in the containment vessel is 50 years old but the integrity of that steel is 3oo years old due to a process called embrittlement due to high energy neutrons decaying the steel. The devil is in the details but if you only see costs remember 4 old plants will cost a billion in ten years

You may not care in the UK so look to your south. Those reactors are far more dangerous since they use a special mixture of fuel that uses PU. France has a nuclear public relations group second to none.
Have you ever looked at all their nuke plants?? Do you think terrorists don't know. Look foo yourself

btw the UK has now been approved for FRACKING. Say hello to your local earthquake problems in a town near you.


The forever problem. There is still no depository in the world for nuclear waste storage so it is all on site or as they did in NY next to playgrounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 08:37 AM

We know how to smooth out peaks in electricity production to provide a steady supply: (a) pumped storage, like the Falls of Cruachan station in Scotland and (b) using complementary sources which don't all peak at the same time (solar and wind, for example). We also know how to eliminate most of the world's energy demand: getting rid of the private car - entirely - would cut it by half.

A nuclear power station is basically a very large, expensive and poisonous battery. The energy costs involved in building it and disposing of it are comparable to the power it will generate during its life - and the energy used to do that is from fossil fuel, you don't get mains-electric bulldozers and cement-producing furnaces.

No nuclear power station has ever been decommissioned back to bare, usable earth. And no nuclear waste is in permanent storage anywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 08:51 AM

To store a expired nuke plant demands a structure similar to a concrete pyramid.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 09:22 AM

Toxic waste? We've been disposing of toxic waste into the atmosphere for over two hundred years. It's called carbon dioxide. No nuclear waste, which can at least be confined to small areas, has ever directly threatened the future of the planet like carbon dioxide has. Jack, all power stations have to be built and decommissioned. Wind turbines have to be built and decommissioned, and it takes thousands and thousands of them to be equivalent to one nuclear power station. Look into how much concrete is needed for the base of just one windmill. You'll be amazed. There's no such thing as a free lunch, but there is such a thing as portion control. We're not very good at that.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 09:53 AM

return to a subsistence economy

Got anything practical to suggest, Ake?

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 12:07 PM

Our present lifestyle is certainly not practical Greg.....much too wasteful.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 01:16 PM

Look into how much concrete is needed for the base of just one windmill.

For an offshore wind generator, very little. They're structurally much like oil rigs.

For an onshore one, far less per unit of generated power than a nuclear station (by a factor of about 100), and you can easily double the advantage once you add in the concrete required to encase the nuclear station's waste and burned-out core. (Nobody actually knows because it hasn't been done yet).

A little factoid: most nuclear power stations in the UK are situated near places that brew good beer. The reason: it takes so much cement to build a nuclear power station that shipping it any distance is unaffordable. They locate the stations near a source of limestone that can be burnt into cement. The nearest nuclear power station to me is the one at Torness. It's a couple of miles from the Dunbar cement works, which supplied its construction; the underlying limestone is what puts the calcium in the water used by the Belhaven brewery. Look out of the window on the train through East Lothian and you will see a number of enormous holes in the ground that weren't there before 1980 - their contents are partly CO2 in the atmosphere and partly in the reactor shielding.

There are a lot of onshore wind generators near me. I've never seen even one truck carrying construction materials for one, and they are all located on a very rural roads that can only take light traffic. Occasionally you see a turbine blade being delivered, that's all.

Some energy-intensive bits of nuclear power station construction get quietly forgotten about. Torness is hidden from the road and railway line, where they pass closest to it, by a man-made gamma-radiation-proof concrete drumlin about a mile long. This was described as a "landscaping mound" when it was built. Its actual purpose is to keep the A1 and the railway open if the reactor goes the same way as Chernobyl and Fukushima. God knows what budget it came out of. And the construction of THORP at Sellafield was the heaviest consumer of cement of any building project on earth when it was under way.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 01:18 PM

I worry about us sometimes. We will have to learn to row together. I hope the reasonable quiet ones can outnumber the unreasonable vocal ones who get all the media time vastly enough to make it so.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 01:29 PM

Well I don't want to get into squabbles about comparative anatomy, but a modern giant wind turbine on land requires over a thousand tons of concrete for its base and over 300 tons of high-grade metal for its tower and mechanism. That's just one turbine. You need over two and a half thousand turbines to equal one nuclear power station. Or 5000 acres of solar panels. And a nuclear plant can keep working all the time. As I said, no such thing as a free lunch.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 06:14 PM

This is one of the wind farms near me:

Dun Law

I've been up there. If there's 1000 tons of concrete under each tower I don't know where they're hiding it. (The mass of foundations needed will vary enormously depending on what you're building it on - solid rock needs very little).

Comparisons between the resource usage of nuclear and wind construction are deliberately twisted by the nuclear spin doctors. Steel used in a nuclear plant is mostly not reclaimable; a wind generator doesn't contaminate the tower it sits on and big steel tube is an asset. And you can easily replace wind generators part by part, reusing the foundations; the only bit of a nuclear boiler you can replace is the fuel rods and nobody has ever managed to dispose of the foundations of one.

Fala/Dun Law puts out 47MW. There are a lot of similar farms in Midlothian, East Lothian and the Borders; together they must be pretty close in output to that of Torness (which has not itself been that reliable lately, with its coolant supply interrupted by plagues of seaweed and jellyfish).

Nuclear power has to compensate for variations in load as well - pumped storage was invented precisely for that purpose. You can't up the output of a nuclear generator to match what happens at the end of a popular TV programme. The point about renewable sources is that they don't all fluctuate in sync; have enough different types and enough pumped storage and you can get a steady enough supply.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Oct 16 - 06:38 PM

All things are googlable, Jack. 😉

I don't see this in black and white (I'm no Teribus). I've changed my mind, taking into account all the foibles of the human race and our crass inability to behave. We don't put anything like enough investment into anything as yet unproven, but we can do nuclear. I hate it, but the planet can't wait.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 03:01 AM

In terms of the future of humanity......Why do we need more energy?

Do you seriously think we can continue to expand our economy and spread pollution for ever?

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 04:03 AM

We can easily cut the world's energy in half. Stop using private cars, and more importantly stop making them - most of the energy going into a car is used to make, deliver and scrap it (which is why alternative sources of motive power are in no way more sustainable than petrol, they simply make the car more polluting and energy-intensive to manufacture and destroy).

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 04:17 AM

Well I suppose we can all come up with mighty schemes that simply aren't going to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 06:57 AM

Base Load is about storage.
Nuclear - the energy is stored in the Uranium (other radioactive elements are available) but hard to stop/start. Base Load!
Hydro - stored behind the dam (and Solar ultimately)
Coal/Gas/Oil - it's in there. (and Solar ultimately)
Solar - well there are various schemes supplying energy round the clock - they mostly involve thermal storage, but there is one French proposal that charged batteries, and the electrolyte was pumped out to storage and uncharged electrolyte pumped in. Storage!
Wind is solar ultimately, and harder to store unless you use it to charge electrolyte as above or pump water up a mountain, as with Dinorwic which serves mostly as Peak Lopping

The best solution for the planet is for us to use less, or gear our needs to the sun, any bright ideas that actually work?

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: DMcG
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 07:21 AM

Through Internet-based home working and extensive home deliveries, we could eliminate a vast proportion of journeys if we had the will. However it is not clear how much energy this would save. Heating and lighting one office is likely to be much more energy efficient than doing so in lots of homes in the winter months, for example. It would also quietly move those costs from the businesses to the employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Iains
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 08:11 AM

There are some tired old arguments being trotted out here. Nuclear, coal and gas power stations are reliable, large and produce 24/7.
Renewables are generally small and dependant on sun, water flow or wind.
By their nature they are erratic and therefore unreliable in output.
Further they cannot be relied on to provide base load or cope with surges. At present they can only supplement more traditional power stations.
    The western lifestyle has evolved as a hungry beast consuming ever more energy requiring ever more linkages in order to function. Take away power and modern civilisation collapses. That is a given-unpalatable though that may be.
    For our future wellbeing we need to curtail our energy usage. Burning fossil fuels for energy generation is putting ever more CO2 in the atmosphere. This can only aggravate the existing trends of increasing instability of climate. Our major feed grains require a distinct temperature regime to thrive in. As temperature increases the crop becomes stressed and yields drop(DRAMATICALLY) This takes no account of associated stresses such as drought. Therefore think starvation!
      So we are headed into a corner. Superficially nuclear offers a solution-however end of life cleanup costs are not only expensive but inadaquate. Also when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong. Think Chernobyl, Calder Hall, Fukushima etc. The nuclear option could maybe sort out the climate but potentially destroy swathes of the environment- definitely not good.
    And finally we have uncle sam butting heads with the bear. If that occurs bigtime the factors outlined above become a total irrelevance. Whither humanity in these circumstances is probably a dramatic thinning out(Think Georgia guidestones for numbers), a reduced standard of living, a loss of many of the toys of the technological toys that we have been used to and a very precarious future.
Not a happy thought!

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 08:51 AM

Tens of thousands of coal miners have died over the centuries, and tens of thousands more have died or had their lives ruined or shortened by respiratory disease. Next week we commemorate a tragedy in which a school full of children was wiped out by a collapsing coal tip. Hundreds of millions of people are likely to become sea-level-rise refugees. Oil companies have got strangleholds on governments the world over (and no-one ever voted for an oil company to be in power). When you say that things can go horribly wrong with nuclear, it's only rational to put that in this context. So far, the things that have gone horribly wrong with nuclear have been caused by corner-cutting and bad planning, both avoidable. So far, we haven't worked out how to curtail the inexorable rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. When I was at school in the sixties, in science lessons we learned that carbon dioxide took up 0.03% of the atmosphere. Well it's just officially hit 0.04% and is still rising. When you have a problem you can't solve by tweaking, you need a different strategy. So-called green energy just makes us feel good about wasting it. And as long as real energy reduction and conservation are bottom of the priority lists of the US and China, there is only one answer, and that is nuclear power. And there's no time left to argue about it. I don't like the idea any more than you do, but we've run out of options.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 08:56 AM

Died in accidents is what I meant. Another Shaw absurdity fixed. 🙁🔫

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 09:30 AM

Steve, what if elections only involved corporations? We would just elect the immortal corps we want and cut out all the meddlesome middlemen politicians. Oh we already do. Its called the new world order and advised by the World Bank.

The truncated argument that energy will always be the devil we must pay in blood and treasure is a dead parrot given to us by big oil, big nukes/military and their proponents. I refuse their gift and reject their argument.



renewable energy will work in conjunction with each other

air sun water tide gravity geothermal heat pump and oil for lubrication not burning. Please mix and match

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 09:35 AM

But where's the investment?

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Iains
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 10:24 AM

I don't think world trade can go back to the age of sail. Just in time deliveries mean just that, otherwise people go hungry. Oil for lubrication not burning instantly paralyses all transportation systems.
I do not dispute the need for change but many aspects of modern living need to change before fossil fuels can be binned. Blaming it all on oil companies is a total cop out. We have developed a society built on cheap fuel for heating, lighting , transport. Before anything else can change society must change. You cannot put the cart before the horse, unless you like travelling backwards.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 10:30 AM

I don't blame it all on oil companies, though they do sponsor much of the briefing against climate change. If we need a change of attitude we need motivation. The worst case is that motivation will be forced on us by climate-change disasters on a huge scale. That looks likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 06:09 PM

Interesting stuff, thank you, folks. Just so's you don't think I was playing Knock Down Ginger! ;-)

Unsurprisingly, TANSTAAFL Steve is closest to my own thoughts. More or less the same, really - "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Advocates of nuclear power are few & far between. I'm not one, and I don't think Steve is either. But there are also plenty of costs in so-called "green" or "carbon-neutral" or "renewable" energy. Many of those that I've seen, in various media, pushing for renewable energy either are not willing to acknowledge this, or are unaware of it. My purpose with this (apart from starting a blazing row, of course! ;-) ) was to get people to think about the subject.

"Comparisons between the resource usage of nuclear and wind construction are deliberately twisted by the nuclear spin doctors." can equally, as per the above, be thrown back, Jack. Replace nuclear with green. Never the twain shall meet.

And both you & Ake... Oh dear, Ake, I never have been able to persuade you to stop flying a kite, have I, auld son? ;-) I know what you mean, but you again explain yourself poorly, as well as not being realistic. It's all very well saying that Homo Sap should live a less wasteful lifestyle, but it's not going to happen, is it? First, let's dispose of "subsistence" (which word you used, though Jack didn't). Subsistence is dying on a dollar a day. It's spending 95% of your waking hours scrabbling around to keep body & soul together. Knowing that illness, injury, a bad harvest, means you or people around you will be DYING.

So you aren't advocating a return to a subsistence economy. You're advocating Tolkien's Shire - a misty-eyed romantic view of a happy bucolic existence before Saruman & nasty Ted Sandyman started cutting down all the trees and filling the land with smoke... It never existed, Ake, except in dreams. There's always a lot of poor (in every sense of the word!) sods, covered in sod up to the eyebrows, living at subsistence level so that a lesser number can live higher up the scale (the higher up the scale, the lesser the number). The only question is, would you prefer rich subsistence; i.e. first world benefits, minimum wage, zero-hours contracts; or third world subsistence; starve if it all goes wrong.

So you don't mean "subsistence" at all, do you? You mean we all should consume less. But yer flyin' a kite. Just how do you propose to persuade people they should consume less? Half the world lives below, on, or precious little over, a dollar a day. There are no people (as opposed to individuals) anywhere who want anything other than "more". It's a pious thought, but an empty one. Even if world population suddenly miraculously stabilises (which isn't going to happen either), you can be sure that the demand for energy will continue to rise. There's no point in presuming anything else. In pragmatic terms, it's not a question of reducing it, or even stabilising it. It's how the hell do we feed it? Because energy projects take *years* to come on-stream.

Iains - Nuclear, in the sense of fission, is not a solution; it's a stopgap. It was once seen as the former, but it is very definitely only the latter. However, despite all the scaremongering about nuclear, only once has it ever gone horribly wrong, and that was Chernobyl. Which, for various reasons, it is probably safe to say, is unique. Three Mile Island was the most famous nuclear accident before that - no attributable deaths. Calder Hall / Windscale Fire (I assume you mean the latter by the former) - no attributable deaths; 95% of the radioactive release from the pile contained & captured before release to the atmosphere.

I can go on. People fear nuclear, because they imagine a nuke plant turning into a Hiroshima bomb - not possible. Or because they believe, oh, the "anti-nuclear spin doctors", eh, Jack? ;-) Even Chernobyl hasn't turned out anything like as badly as was believed at the time (so far anyway). Apparently 31 deaths were directly attributable to it. Look up Flixborough. Flixborough killed 28 people and seriously injured 36 out of a total of only 72 people on site at the time. Then consider Bhopal. Both got mentioned in my original conversation with Jim. Steve has touched on Aberfan - that killed 144 people, 116 of them children, simply because we (the collective we) couldn't then manage to look after a spoil heap properly.

Yet, for all the industrial disasters down the years; mines, oil tankers grounding, Piper Alpha, chemical plants going up, Buncefield fer crying out loud; it's nuclear that generates more hand-waving than anything. An error of perception, perhaps? An encouraged-by-interested-parties error of perception?

As I said in my opening post, I'm not pro-nuclear. But, frankly, my best hope is that in 30 years our baseload Megawattage is still the same as now; just a much lower proportion of the whole energy demand. Depending on how you view him, Elon Musk is a visionary, a shyster, or deluded. Or something of all 3! I have no idea, myself. I honestly, though, cannot see any energy storage system allowing renewables to take the strain off of the needed "always on" power supply in the next decade. Energy demand continues to grow. And I'm thinking only of Europe, Australasia, S.Korea, Japan, N.America here. China & India long ago made it clear that they expect to be allowed to catch up by means of dirty power, never mind Africa and Sth/Ctrl America...

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Oct 16 - 11:16 PM

Flywheels, giant mainsprings, hydraulic lifts, thermal-chemical storage and super-capacitors. Any one of these technologies could manage the sustenance of baseload during the daily darkness. There's enough potential generation just in the deserts of Texas to handle the whole nation, and storing the surpluses to even the delivery is really a matter of deploying existing tech, IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 07:59 AM

People fear nuclear, because they imagine a nuke plant turning into a Hiroshima bomb - not possible.

Condescending bullshit. People have a variety of reasons for distrusting the nuclear sales pitch; maybe the most prevalent one is that they don't want to risk having their country end up like this:

Lake Karachay

I have never met anyone, however technically ignorant, who thought it was likely that a nuclear power station would blow up like a bomb. (Though Chernobyl, Kyshtym and Fukushima were all more polluting than the bombs set off during WW2).

Reducing energy usage is the only feasible solution to the fix we're in. And the only effective way to do that involves totally eliminating the private car, along with the planning infrastructure that has grown up interdependent with it. We can't keep on shuffling people and stuff around the planet by unsustainable transport at the rate we're doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 09:43 AM

And what politician is going to initiate the abolition of the private car, Jack?

Pollution doesn't just mean dangerous or poisonous things. The pollution that is threatening the planet is carbon dioxide, and it is all-pervasive.

By the way, road transport of all types contributes around 16% of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Shipping is only two percentage points behind. The generation of heat and electricity contributes 41%. Air transport, 11%. Industry and agriculture, 20%. Deforestation, about 9%. I know that's over a hundred but the categories often overlap. The generation of heat for heating buildiings, or the use of electricity for the cooling thereof, and the amelioration of bad agricultural practices would be far more fertile areas to attack. You go on about cars, but round here tractors being used as ordinary road vehicles for mile after mile are a plague. As for road transport, Dr Beeching has a lot to answer for. I'm not defending cars, by the way. I think that if you choose to buy a car that does less than sixty to the gallon you should pay a hefty annual penalty. And no-one in the US is paying anything like three dollars a gallon. And no-one dares do anything about that. And I know that US gallons are half a litre smaller than ours, but that hardly makes up for it, does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 09:58 AM

Grr. I wouldn't attack the amelioration now, would I. 💩

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 10:11 AM

And your figure for road transport includes the cost of manufacturing and disposing of cars, does it? And the extra energy costs of domestic heating, land misuse with private concrete hard standing, and extra milage for goods delivery because the car results in scattering dwellings across the countryside? (The absolute pits for this are post-automobile shitholes like rural America and New Zealand, where everything in the human landscape is dictated by car accessibility and land is wasted like whales in the heyday of the factory ship).

A 60mpg car probably has a worse carbon footprint than a 1960 Cadillac. Cars use more energy in their manufacture and disposal than they do in fuel, and a modern car uses far more energy-intensive-to-make, hard-or-impossible-to-recycle construction materials than an old banger made of steel and rubber. The most fucked-up proposal ever for a green technology is the electric car - what do you think batteries are made of?

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 11:11 AM

Yebbut at least a 60mpg car is still better than a gas-guzzling super-huge six-pot. Trying to get people to change their ways is a damn sight more viable an approach than wiping out cars. All those figures allow for overlap between categories, as I said.

Incidentally, the countryside is severely underpopulated. That is partly to do with modern mechanised and chemicalised farming methods and partly to do with completely useless rural public transport. My nearest railway station is an hour away. An hour only if I drive my car there. I can't even contemplate trying to get there by bus. I could just about do Exeter St Davids, nearly sixty miles away, with my bus pass, if I can spare just over two hours and go at extremely limited times. You take my car and the countryside gets abandoned.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 11:47 AM

In most of Europe, before the advent of the car, the countryside was more densely populated than it is now. But people and stuff travelled much less.

A giant gas-guzzler is far greener than a new high-tech economical car because it already exists and you aren't burning up resources to make a new one. No matter what its fuel consumption, its energy footprint from continued use will be tiny compared with that of manufacturing one in Korea, shipping it to the UK, and shipping the old one to China or Bangladesh to be stripped down, melted and the electronic scrap worked over by gangs of women over open tanks of acid.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 01:06 PM

Well we can lament the loss of our own car manufacturing industry. Teribus will, I'm sure, tell us whose fault that was. When I were a bonny wee lad my dad drove Ford Anglias (the biscuit tin ones) and Vauxhall Vivas. All made here. I drove Morris Minors and Triumphs that were made here before Japan joined in. I'd love to say that those were the days, but the cars were unreliable and, generally speaking, fit only for scrap after six or seven years, with the honourable exception I suppose of Morris Minors (as long as you didn't mind the suspension top joint jumping out, the exhaust valves burning, the differential case cracking and the wings rusting out). How many of those millions of Vivas or MkII Cortinas do you still see? Those big old cars you mention still had to be made. Every car on the road was made once. And we're making more and more giant gas-guzzlers. I can hardly squeeze my Focus in between 'em at Morrisons any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Iains
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 01:47 PM

I do not think a case can be made for or against nuclear power without a clear understanding of the risks. We are subjected to radiation every day of our lives. I have not seen a clay yet that was not mildly radioactive and radon is detected in many places. The true risk of radiation has not yet been accurately quantified. The problem is that the nuclear industry sets the limits and establishes the safeguards. This is not ideal and does little to inspire confidence. There are studies of radiation from the 2 nuclear weapons exploded over Japan, but there are arguments that they were selective both in choice of subject and interpretation.. Depleted Uranium weapons have been widely used in Iraq and Bosnia. There are studies suggesting an increase in childhood cancers in these area. Others (mainly those that have used them) dispute this. The fog of war, defense secrecy and lack of political will further confuse the true risk.
    All in all trying to quantify risk for nuclear power stations is very difficult because radiation hazard does not appear immediately at low dose levels.Only at high levels of dosage does death occur quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Oct 16 - 06:32 AM

The risks associated with nuclear can be mitigated by careful siting of power plants and by not cutting corners in construction. There are safety considerations too in the mining and transport of materials. To a considerable degree we can addresss these risks. The main risk from fossil fuels, the emission of carbon dioxide, is a factor that we have, as yet, failed to address. And, in terms of the threat to all of us, it's far and away more deadly than the risks associated with nuclear power. But there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: DMcG
Date: 15 Oct 16 - 09:18 AM

We have been concentrating on energy but there are other things equally problematical: water supply, sewerage, and medication for example. Our growing vulnerability to overuse of antibiotics is a case in point.

If I wanted a word to cover it all, I guess I would go for instability. In the engineering sense of the term, a neutral stability is a system that goes back to a similar but potentially different in detail state. A stable one goes to the same state. We are in neither of those positions, in my view: we live in such an unstable system that huge amounts of effort in needed just to keep things running. Lot at the impact of a tube strike in any major city in the world. Our systems are, in the main, designed to get as near 100% efficiency as possible, not for stability. Which is why a single crash on a motorway has such a disproportionate effect.

So I don't propose this as a solution, but as a step towards a solution. Pay less attention to productivity and efficiency and more on stability.

Subject: RE: BS: Whither Humanity?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 16 - 01:05 PM

Pretty well all nuclear power stations are situated close to the sea, which is intrinsically dangerous. Even in places where tsunami are not anticipated, rises in sea level can be expected, and seasonal flooding.

Talk about nuclear power providing a quick solution while renewable power is a long way off are in fact the reverse of the truth, so far as fresh nuclear power is concerned.Nuclear power stations take a long time to commission and construct, renewable technologies are advancing fast, even without the input that could advance them a lot faster. It may be possible to defend existing nuclear power planr, on the grounds that they are providing power at this point, and decomissioning them is an enormous problem, but that's a different story. And we are still far far away from any answer to the prblem of longterm waste, liable to be lethal for tens of thousands of years.

Conceivably in time fusion power plants might be viable - but the most important source of energy long term is going to be the enormous fusion plant we've already got a a safe distance off, the Sun, providing us with solar power, and indirectly water and wind power. Supplement that with tidal power, thanks to the Moon, and in some places thermal energy power from within the Earth. There's really no shortage of available pwer there for the taking.