Big money controlling news in USA

[BTGBullseye]

Do people not realize that every area of the planet has different cyclic climate changes? Central Arizona has a 4 year, 40 year, and 400 year cyclic change. That is what most people are calling "global climate change" now... It isn't a permanent change, it's a natural cycle that has been going for so long that we simply don't have records of most of the long-term cycles. (the ones in AZ are mostly from the natives, and the farmers)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation

 

Climate oscillation is not caused by humans, but can be minimally affected by certain "greenhouse gas" emissions. (not all, just some)

[Xalder]

The problem is that there's still an overall warming trend that has been amplified. We can easily adapt to global changes that occur over the course of centuries. It gets a bit more difficult when the changes are occurring over the course of decades. Since people continue to ignore the evidence of global warming and overall climate change, we're simply not going to be ready once things start to reach crunch time. It won't be particularly devastating, certainly, but it will still be an issue for everyone involved. Which will be literally everyone because this is a global issue.

 

Ignoring global warming, atmospheric conditions are growing unstable on their own. With all the carbon dioxide we're pumping out, we're seeing concentration levels that haven't existed on this planet ever before. On top of being a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide also is a building block of Acid Rain.

 

Point is, we need to curb these emissions as much as possible, but everyone just handwaves climate change and global warming as "natural part of the earth cycle," which may be part of it, but there's still a whole lot of shit humans are doing to fuck everything up. Some people just can't be persuaded by logic and facts. They just believe whatever dumb shit is most convenient. Such as "Oh yeah, that's not because of the shit WE'RE doing at all. That's just a natural part of the earth cycle. I know because there's this scientific fact behind it. All the scientific facts that indicate the need to do something are wrong because I just can't be assed."

[DoNotRemoveBeforeFlight]

Climate oscillation is not caused by humans, but can be minimally affected by certain "greenhouse gas" emissions. (not all, just some)

True to a certain extent. But we're taking shortcuts right now.

 

With all the carbon dioxide we're pumping out, we're seeing concentration levels that haven't existed on this planet ever before. On top of being a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide also is a building block of Acid Rain.

Agreed. Historically, there's never a higher level of CO2 than today. Not to mention other toxic gases like NOx, SO2 etc... sure, geysers and volcanoes produce them too, but we're producing even more! Exponentially! In fact, I'd rather have a volcano eruption over thousands of factories producing worthless crap!

 

I refuse to derail the thread, but you are obviously trying to for whatever reason.

I think so, too.

 

 

Therefore, I shall throw out some contrasting news from today:

Baby Prince George visits New Zealand

Four bombs killed 2, injured 23 in Southern Thailand.

Radical group Boko Haram killed 17 in Nigerian village.

Polio detected in Iraq.

 

Now, tell me, which one gets more coverage over the others?

[Vapymid]

Ah, a global warming debate! Alright...

 

Global warming is probably happening, it is probably caused (or at least seriously contributed to) by humans but most of the people in the world today won't accept either of these propositions. Why?

 

1) The so-called "scientific" debate has long since turned into a politicised alarmist hysteria. No science in it whatsoever - only political and economic vested interests from all sides. The general public may not know their cyclones from their ozone layer but they can tell political BS when they see it, so they will choose status quo as the safest neutral option.

 

2) The "solutions" pushed by the "green" side of the fight are totally ludicrous and often corrupt - from banning population from taking showers (an example of just stupid) to switching all power generation to "renewables" (a perfect combination of corrupt and stupid). In this situation, it is easier to dismiss the AGW altogether, thereby blunting the instrument of corruption, than to reason against each "bright" idea separately.

 

Regards

[Xalder]

I never meant to imply that we need to make an instant switch to renewable resources and in fact we don't even need to switch to specifically renewable sources, we just need to find more alternatives. Renewable sources tend to be cleanest, which is another benefit, but so far we haven't found ways to make them more efficient or reliable to increase cost-effectiveness. I'm thinking primarily of solar and wind right now, which obviously are dependant on weather conditions of the area for energy production. Though there is some work on storing that energy which hopefully becomes more efficient as well.

 

Hold on, I want to show this, too. "In Germany, where wind power has gained very high social acceptance, hundreds of thousands of people have invested in citizens' wind farms across the country and thousands of small and medium sized enterprises are running successful businesses in a new sector that in 2008 employed 90,000 people and generated 8% of Germany's electricity.[150][151] Although wind power is a popular form of energy generation, the construction of wind farms is not universally welcomed, often for aesthetic reasons.[128][146][147][148][149][152][153]"

 

Look at all those sources for wind not being accepted for aesthetic reasons. What the hell, people. "I don't like the way it looks, don't use it. I don't care how useful and effective it is, it just looks bad, kay?"

[BTGBullseye]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

 

It's clean, safe, relatively cheap, and all the "environmentalists" hate it.

 

NUCLEAR POWER OF THIS TYPE WOULD BE THE ONLY PRACTICAL WAY TO RAPIDLY CHANGE TO A "GREEN" POWER SYSTEM!

[Xalder]

I never said anything against Nuclear. The only problem is in the rare events something does go wrong. That has a huge negative impact, but otherwise it's generally safe and very effective.

 

"History shows that no energy sector was developed without subsidies.[137]"

 

But on the other hand "Shi Zhengrong has said that, as of 2012, unsubsidised solar power is already competitive with fossil fuels in India, Hawaii, Italy and Spain. He said "We are at a tipping point. No longer are renewable power sources like solar and wind a luxury of the rich. They are now starting to compete in the real world without subsidies". "Solar power will be able to compete without subsidies against conventional power sources in half the world by 2015".[75]"

 

I don't have time to read about Thorium right now. I take it that's some "new" form of nuclear energy? Like solar and wind, they're likely going to need more R&D to make it more feasible. I'll take a look at that article later and give my full thoughts when I get the chance.

[Vapymid]

Hold on, I want to show this, too. "In Germany, where wind power has gained very high social acceptance, hundreds of thousands of people have invested in citizens' wind farms across the country and thousands of small and medium sized enterprises are running successful businesses in a new sector that in 2008 employed 90,000 people and generated 8% of Germany's electricity.[150][151] Although wind power is a popular form of energy generation, the construction of wind farms is not universally welcomed, often for aesthetic reasons.[128][146][147][148][149][152][153]"

 

Look at all those sources for wind not being accepted for aesthetic reasons. What the hell, people. "I don't like the way it looks, don't use it. I don't care how useful and effective it is, it just looks bad, kay?"

 

I'm afraid you chose a wrong example as German energy policy is the laughing stock of the world - here is a recent article from the FT (hardly a bastion of right-wing conservatism): Germany’s energy policy is expensive, harmful and short-sighted

 

Some quotes:

 

"Germany’s energiewende, the country’s move away from nuclear and fossil fuels towards renewable energies has been regarded by some commentators as an example for the rest of the world. But now Germany shows the globe how not to make green policy. It is failing the poor, while protecting neither energy security nor the climate.

....

Green energy cannot meet Germany’s need for reliable electricity. That is why Germany still needs copious amounts of fossil fuels; German CO2-emissions have risen since the nuclear power phase-out of 2011, despite the incredible subsidies for renewables."

 

But of course, the energy companies refuse to invest in any new nuclear or fossil plants and are actually closing the existing ones because conventional energy cannot compete with the subsidised (but non-sufficient!) "green" power...

 

Unfortunately, the renewable policies in other countries do not seem to be any smarter. It all comes down to - pleasing the greens by denouncing nuclear and fossil fuels, bribing the greens by buying as much as possible of obsolete and useless "renewable" hardware, finally, by squandering taxpayer's money by giving out sweetheart feed-in tariffs deals to those same very greens. This cannot last.

 

I agree with BTG - ultimately there is no way forward for us without nuclear...

 

Regards

[BTGBullseye]

I never said anything against Nuclear. The only problem is in the rare events something does go wrong. That has a huge negative impact, but otherwise it's generally safe and very effective.

Never said you did, it was just a min-rant against the "environmentalists" that are preventing decent power plants from being made. (the newest nuclear reactor is over 50 years old because of them)

 

As for the safety of a nuke if something goes horribly wrong... Thorium reactors cannot go critical... Ever. Thorium reactors have no radioactive waste... At all.

[Seattleite]

BTG, there's a difference between waste with a two-week half-life and no waste. It's not problematic, but it exists. Further, there's no relation between meltdowns and waste production, although I've never heard of a thorium reactor melting down. Lastly, slight nitpick, don't call a nuclear reactor a "nuke". That shit promotes the myth that nuclear reactors can explode, which they can't. (A meltdown is NOT an explosion. It's just a runaway reaction, which results in enough heat to melt the containment system.)

[BTGBullseye]

That slight amount of waste gets put right back into the reactor... No waste total.

 

There are two major reasons you've never heard of a Thorium reactor never going critical... 1 - Thorium can never reach a reaction critical enough to cause meltdown. 2 - There aren't any currently operational Thorium reactors yet. (unless someone managed to get one going before it's scheduled start date)

[Xalder]

 

I'm afraid you chose a wrong example as German energy policy is the laughing stock of the world - here is a recent article from the FT (hardly a bastion of right-wing conservatism): Germany’s energy policy is expensive, harmful and short-sighted

 

Some quotes:

 

"Germany’s energiewende, the country’s move away from nuclear and fossil fuels towards renewable energies has been regarded by some commentators as an example for the rest of the world. But now Germany shows the globe how not to make green policy. It is failing the poor, while protecting neither energy security nor the climate.

....

Green energy cannot meet Germany’s need for reliable electricity. That is why Germany still needs copious amounts of fossil fuels; German CO2-emissions have risen since the nuclear power phase-out of 2011, despite the incredible subsidies for renewables."

 

But of course, the energy companies refuse to invest in any new nuclear or fossil plants and are actually closing the existing ones because conventional energy cannot compete with the subsidised (but non-sufficient!) "green" power...

 

Unfortunately, the renewable policies in other countries do not seem to be any smarter. It all comes down to - pleasing the greens by denouncing nuclear and fossil fuels, bribing the greens by buying as much as possible of obsolete and useless "renewable" hardware, finally, by squandering taxpayer's money by giving out sweetheart feed-in tariffs deals to those same very greens. This cannot last.

 

I agree with BTG - ultimately there is no way forward for us without nuclear...

 

Regards

 

I totally didn't pay any attention to the thing about Germany. My point was about how many sources there were for the thing about aesthetics. I included the rest of the paragraph because I thought it might be necessary context, but evidently it wasn't.

 

Yeah, if Germany is making a switch to "completely green" sources now, that's not going to do any good. There's still a lot of work to be done to make such sources more efficient, but there's just not enough money being put into the research. Thorium is looking like a really good option. The only problem is how "Thorium, when being irradiated for use in reactors, will make uranium-232, which is very dangerous due to the gamma rays it emits." Though they're looking at an altered process, which will create U-233 which is used in atomic weapons, which is why Uranium became more popular to be used in the first place.

 

Personally I'd rather not think about how much of a nuclear arms supply we have in the world. However, if that's what it takes to move forward towards safer alternatives, I'd be happy with that first step.

 

The problem is that there's not much concern about air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. It seems that until we do reach peak oil production, people just aren't going to care. One can only hope that climate change is as much of a non-issue as others make it out to be in the meantime.

[BTGBullseye]

Last I saw, Thorium reactors can't produce significant amounts of the volatile radioactive materials...

 

Also, the Thorium reactors that I was seeing being designed didn't require any irradiation of the Thorium beforehand.

[ThePest179]

Whoa! Looks like I missed a party. Well, so much for derailing the thread. Basically my stance on global warming is this: it is a very real problem that must be dealt with, and so far that I've seen is that you guys came up with a solution that can be implemented (nuclear energy). I say we go ahead.

As for the safety of a nuke if something goes horribly wrong... Thorium reactors cannot go critical... Ever. Thorium reactors have no radioactive waste... At all.

 

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."-Napoleon

"What can go wrong, will go wrong"- Murphy's law

[Xalder]

Last I saw, Thorium reactors can't produce significant amounts of the volatile radioactive materials...

 

Also, the Thorium reactors that I was seeing being designed didn't require any irradiation of the Thorium beforehand.

 

That must be new and it sounds way too good to be true. There has to be some downside.

[ThePest179]

Agreed. Something doesn't seem right...

[Seattleite]

Namely that they DO produce significant waste, it just has a much shorter half-life, you DO need to irradiate it, and it produces either highly unstable U-232 that is extremely radioactive or U-233 which can be used to make nukes. All manageable issues, but significant ones anyway.

 

For the record, I'm STILL in favour of thorium reactors. But it NEEDS to be U-232 creating reactors, not the modified U-233 ones. Highly radioactive waste is a billion times better than nuclear weapon materials. (Well, unless we could tryst all the U-233 went to fueling our abundance of pre-existing uranium reactors, which it totally can but we know totally won't.)

[BTGBullseye]

Actually, there are reactors designed specifically to use 232... I can't remember if it enriches it to 233 before burning it, or if it just burns the 232...

 

As for the unenriched Thorium reactor, it supposedly starts off with straight-up Thorium 232, (with a few other non-radioactive elements) enriches it to U233, then burns the 233, and just goes from there... Pretty neat process if I could ever find the article about it again. (I hate losing stuff on the internet, have to dig through massive piles of shit to hopefully find it again)

[Xalder]

Heh, yeah, putting resources into energy instead of weapons seems to be lost on the U.S.

[BTGBullseye]

Not just the US... It's pretty much every global power that has that failing. They have power, and are afraid to lose it.