BF2S Forums NY-NJ-PA politics discussion thread

Jay wrote:

Me too. Cheap energy is a good thing.

No, it encourages people to be lazy and inefficient with their energy use, hence you have 110V electrics, SUVs for commuting in cities and air-conditioning-driven obesity.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

i like how the guy lecturing on 'americans don't know how to be responsible' in one thread is advocating burning up all the rest of the fossil fuels america has in the next century just so that he can have more disposable income for his aspirant lifestyle.

Well, we have a nice zero emissions nuclear plant, but our fracking banning Democrat governor has recently completed one of his family's life goals and sued it into submission. It's now being replaced with multiple gas-fired plants. Wheeeeeeeee

would you rather have a nuclear spill or a coal/oil spill?

Nuclear power is incredibly safe.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

i like how the guy lecturing on 'americans don't know how to be responsible' in one thread is advocating burning up all the rest of the fossil fuels america has in the next century just so that he can have more disposable income for his aspirant lifestyle.

Well, we have a nice zero emissions nuclear plant, but our fracking banning Democrat governor has recently completed one of his family's life goals and sued it into submission. It's now being replaced with multiple gas-fired plants. Wheeeeeeeee

would you rather have a nuclear spill or a coal/oil spill?

nuclear meltdowns are a sensationalist and frightening possibility but climate change because of fossil fuels is happening now.

pretty sure modern reactor designs are very reliable, too. so long as you don't build one in a tsunami zone.

yes "nuclear power is incredibly safe", and so are oil drills and coal plants and all sorts of other man made engineering feats of energy capture.  Spills and other energy-related mishaps don't happen because the extraction method or storage or transportation is inherently unsafe - it happens because of human error, mismanagement of system maintenance, errors in judgement, etc.

It's incredibly naive to assume nuclear power is exempt from all those reasons.  So I ask again, would you rather have a nuclear spill or a coal/oil spill?

Your question is dumb

Would I rather have:

An energy system which by design spills all its toxic waste into the environment and fairly regularly spills its fairly benign raw input material into the environment.

An energy system which very occasionally spills its toxic waste into the environment and very occasionally spills its fairly benign raw input material into the environment.

Coal spills aren't a big deal, oil spills aren't as big a deal as people think, nuclear spills of input material can usually be cleared up, waste is a bit harder but needn't happen much if people are careful.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2017-02-28 15:24:54)

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

yes "nuclear power is incredibly safe", and so are oil drills and coal plants and all sorts of other man made engineering feats of energy capture.  Spills and other energy-related mishaps don't happen because the extraction method or storage or transportation is inherently unsafe - it happens because of human error, mismanagement of system maintenance, errors in judgement, etc.

It's incredibly naive to assume nuclear power is exempt from all those reasons.  So I ask again, would you rather have a nuclear spill or a coal/oil spill?

A nuclear meltdown is a contained local event. Read some science, nearly everyone with an understanding of physics understands that nuclear is an extremely safe form of energy. There are so many safeguards in place.

A lot of Americans believe that a nuclear reactor can go off like an atom bomb, this is the problem. I have friends of the conspiracy theory persuasion that talk about cesium released by fukushima and how it's going to kill all of us. There's far more background radiation from the natural environment that we're around every day than what was released, but ignorance stokes fear.

uziq wrote:

have we figured out what to do with spent fuel rods yet in a way that is future proofed way beyond the scope of human civilisation?

not that that phases me compared to the worst case scenario of the global warming model.

put it in the middle of the simpson desert in australia.

no life there anyway.

uziq wrote:

have we figured out what to do with spent fuel rods yet in a way that is future proofed way beyond the scope of human civilisation?

not that that phases me compared to the worst case scenario of the global warming model.

American reactors don't recycle spent fuel as well as the French do. The French take their plutonium and move it to the next reactor. We treat it like waste and store it on site. A lot of this is because plutonium is associated with weapons and the association makes it taboo. Dumb. But no, there's no long term storage.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

uziq wrote:

he's selectively comparing something like chernobyl to something like a landslide in the adirondacks or something.

that's like selectively saying that increases to global sea temperatures caused by burning coal is going to cause a chain reaction with all the methane hydrates and is going to blanche the oceans dead and destroy the food chain. i mean, yeah, that's not a disingenuous choice ...

No, YOU are the one doing the selective comparison.  I didn't mention Fukushima or Chernobyl.  You are aware these two extreme cases do not sum the total nuclear accidents in history, right?

That you choose to make that comparison is on you, not me.

Jay- never mentioned a meltdown.  You're in the same boat as uzi.

I believe you are both underestimating humans in their ability to fuck shit up.

so what are you scaremongering about? the modern european reactor design put forward by the french seems pretty failsafe against human stupidity. your stressing the human factor makes it sound like you're talking about chernobyl all over again.

uziq wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

uziq wrote:

he's selectively comparing something like chernobyl to something like a landslide in the adirondacks or something.

that's like selectively saying that increases to global sea temperatures caused by burning coal is going to cause a chain reaction with all the methane hydrates and is going to blanche the oceans dead and destroy the food chain. i mean, yeah, that's not a disingenuous choice ...

No, YOU are the one doing the selective comparison.  I didn't mention Fukushima or Chernobyl.  You are aware these two extreme cases do not sum the total nuclear accidents in history, right?

That you choose to make that comparison is on you, not me.

Jay- never mentioned a meltdown.  You're in the same boat as uzi.

I believe you are both underestimating humans in their ability to fuck shit up.

so what are you scaremongering about? the modern european reactor design put forward by the french seems pretty failsafe against human stupidity. your stressing the human factor makes it sound like you're talking about chernobyl all over again.

Virtually every big engineering project has failsafes.  That doesn't mean that things don't fail.  You can stress how many redundant emergency features a project has, but to think that human error and/or mother nature won't destroy something is, as i mentioned before, incredibly naive.

It's not scaremongering.  As shit as it is, I'd rather deal with an oil spill than a nuclear spill.  French designs and sarcophagi and a triple redundant top secret ultra lead coffins are cool until something happens.

we're still not addressing the actual dangers and risks here, which isn't nuclear spill versus oil spill, it's nuclear spill versus global warming. nobody is campaigning to move on from fossil fuels because they destroy wildlife in the gulf of mexico and make fishing hard in louisiana.