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Termyn8or -> RE: Nuclear Energy: Congrats, President Obama (2/18/2010 7:52:59 AM)
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FR
While I am all for a few more nuclear plants, we shouldn't be in a hurry to built thousands of them, for reasons already stated involving waste and risk. First of all the technology is a bit bnackwards. I believe ways will be found eventually that are even more efficient. Some already exist, and though the money people don't like them, there are some which pose real problems involving their implementation. And that particularly goes for the US which comsumes alot, to say the least.
Fission, and even fusion of today is an indirect process. Heat is generated and it turns shafts to power a turbine. In turn there are generators of course. Very inefficient actually. Fusion is hard to use effectively and has trouble generating it's own power hungry containment field. Still it produces heat which........... No big gain here using current technology.
But now we have some recent developments in fuel cell technology. The water powered car is a reality, and more efficient than ever. Even that would be very difficult to implement on such a large scale.
Then we have the possibility of making the generators themselves more efficient using something like "hummingbird" motor technology. The drawback is that the efficiancy will drop as the permanent magnets lose their power over the years. However it might lend itself well to nuclear power because nuclear plants are commonly decommisioned after so many decades.
No matter what, nuclear energy is still a consuming resource. As these plants are decommisioned the land and surrounding area is not fit for agracultural use, nor many others. In the long run, it's not such a good deal. However with the lack of a better technology it's all we have. Coal just isn't going to cut it. The sulfur content of the coal (which causes acid rain) is a big problem. You can't remove an element from the exhaust of a burning process without taking to great lengths. Nitrogen and it's propensity to combine into other nasty pollutants is another ball of wax. The nitrogen chiefly comes from the intake air. An O2 concentrator could be used, not unlike a machine they would use in a hospital. It is actually only a nitrogen remover in theory, but since nitrogen is about 78% of the air, it is effective enough. However building one with enough output for large scale power generation will be a challenge.
However the first part of the real solution has nothing to do with technology. Real solutions are found by good thinkers who are not politically influenced or motivated. We have too much junk science. Money can prove the sky is red, just give it a reason. Unfortunately the way the world works today that is the biggest challenge.
Nuke plants ? Yes we need to build a couple. However it is my considered opinion that we are not ready to go whole hog into this. Neither was France. However they did what they had to do, and so must we.
Other technologies sit there undeveloped as well. It is possible to use ocean currents and tides to generate huge amount of electricity, but again whether politics and money have had a negative effect on this development, it is also difficult to implement.
At this point in history, the undisputed best solution is to cut demand. There are only two ways to accompish that. Either each person uses less or there will have to be less persons. I'm starting to believe that any other solution is not all that effective and probably limited in life, either due to obsolesence or deterioration. And nothing is cheap either.
And even a grand scale cutback in personal demand will do nothing to abate the needs of industry, if we ever get any back. And that is paramount to the economic recovery, so the demand will hopefully be there, or we are screwed either way.
T
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