You think Australia has a Nuclear Future

[woodbe]

I never said old nuclear reactors were 100% safe.

No you didn't. But there were plenty of people claiming they were safe before all the accidents, and there have been a few.

Now, we have 'modern' technology that you say IS safe and should be trusted. The story is the same, the results are not yet in, but the possibility is just the same as it was before. If something can go wrong, and eventually does, the impact on the population would be immense. As usual, the disaster is unforseen by the proponents of the technology, and they are shocked that things could go so wrong. Again.

There are lots of solutions for night-time power. Just because you haven't heard one you like doesn't mean there are none. Maybe we need a concert of alternative power sources to supply base load? A reactor is the quick fix, but it's a big bill, a big risk, and it shuts down development of seriously low-impact power generation, and perpetuates the low cost energy mindset that got us where we are now.

woodbe.

[Schtoo]

Wow.

You know, if I was short sighted, I might actually buy into all this wholeheartedly.


Pretty easy to forget how thing were 5-10-20 years ago.

Stuff like cars being 'economical' at 10mpg. Now the best get 60mpg or more.

'Laptop' computers the size of small suitcases that are less efficient at number crunching than a $1 calculator.

Needing enormous cables to speak to someone over the sea, complete with lotsa time lag, bad reception and big $$$.

Talking on the telephone in the car was fine, and it had a dial but no buttons.

Cars belching out black smoke for 15 minutes till you could push the choke in.

Trucks belching out clouds of black smoke moving half the weight they can today.

Able to take 24 photos, and hoping you didn't waste a single one.

Taking a movie meant whirring tapes and sound if you were really lucky, from a camera the size of a shoebox and the weight of a brick that consumed batteries faster than howitzer shells during the 'Battle of the Bulge'.

Torches that always had flat batteries, and cars that did too.

Lithium was only medicine.

The hundred metres world record was over 10 seconds, and steroids weren't even heard of.

Talking to someone was over the back fence, not on this box you are looking at now.


Oh yeah, if we stay where we are at right now, I give us until, say Thursday, if the wind blows just right.


But when a litre of petrol costs $10, you can be sure that it will take you 50 miles, and what comes out the tailpipe will be breathable and prolly drinkable. Heck, coffee might be coming out the tailpipe, just to recycle the heat energy.

A power plant will produce electricity, and it's waste will be clean water and food.

The Tour de France will be a weekend bike ride for old folks.

Your utilities bill will be $3.50 for a family of 5, priced at todays rates.

Bono (the third) will be singing 'ipods for Africa'.

And telemarketers will still be long distance, only it will be mars or some such place where they have been banished to.

(Worried? Yes. Terrified? Not too much.)

[Grunt]

The problem is that we are going to run out of raw materials if we continue to consume.

Let's have a look at copper. Damn usefull stuff. No Ipods for Africans without it. Within the next decade or so, we will have used half the known sources of copper. We've got all the easy copper, the rest will cost more and take much more energy to retreive than in the past.

Copper usage is going up by 2% per year. This means that in 35 years we will use as much copper than we have ever used in the past. Clearly this can't continue. The world if finite.


Have a look at this post.
If you have an our watch the Video lecture that I've linked to. It's an eye opener.

Chris

[bitingmidge]

The problem is that we are going to run out of raw materials if we continue to consume.

Which will in itself limit continued consumption!

Let's have a look at copper. Damn usefull stuff. No Ipods for Africans without it.

No sign of panic there yet: while this sort of resourcefulness exists, (note comprehensive recycling) consumption will decline gracefully.

Within the next decade or so, we will have used half the known sources of copper. We've got all the easy copper, the rest will cost more and take much more energy to retreive than in the past.

So it will be used for important things, maybe no iPods for Australia any more... no more "disposable" tools, back to the old days when copper was more expensive and every wire off-cut on a building site was saved and sold to the metal dealers. Deja vu again!

Copper usage is going up by 2% per year. This means that in 35 years we will use as much copper than we have ever used in the past. Clearly this can't continue.

Watch the usage decline as the cost goes up!

I just want to make the point that it's not all doom and gloom. The last decade or so has been the most wasteful for us as a nation, but we learnt from the Seppos who've been doing it since "the war", and even though the Europeans are a little better (not much), watch the emerging nations come in for their chop over the next decade.

Now here's the thing: do you think they'll be continuing to flog us ultra cheap consumables for ever, or will they realise that they need these resources for infrastructure for them to make their lives a little more comfortable.

Watch for the new eco-industrial systems to emerge in the developing nations which haven't had the "benefit" of a new flatscreen tele every year.

For some, a 12v electric light will be a miracle. They'll achieve miraculous increases in their standard of living by using far fewer resources than we use in "discretionary" spending. Some of us will suffer badly, but others will adapt. Didn't Darwin write something about that?

Cheers,

P

[echnidna]

Some of us will suffer badly, but others will adapt. Didn't Darwin write something about that?

Cheers,

P

Does that mean Grunt will turn into a chimp?????? :eek:

[Grunt]

I will not turn into a chimp. I will not turn into a goat either.



I don't think that it's all doom and gloom. We are in for a bit of a rough ride. The economy is based on growth. Australia is massively in debt. We fund the repayments on the debt with growth. I might of mentioned this before but just incase, growth cannot continue forever, so at some point the economy is going to go south.

Once that happens, we will consume less and start to value things. In the past, everything you owned was valuable. Nothing was wasted. These times will return.

I think the real question is, should I get a new IPod? I've got a blue one but I'm bored with it. Maybe I should go an get a dozen XU-1 tools from Bunnies tomorrow.

[kiwigeo]

From what I've read, Nuclear power is the cheapest and cleanest power there is.

Dan,

I think you'll find that once you address the real costs of nuclear power (eg decomissioning costs) nuclear power becomes quite expensive. There are cheaoer sources of power that the government hasnt really taken a serious look at. One of these is Hot Dry Rock (HDR) geothermal energy. Geodynamics have a well drilled up in the NE of Sth Australia and plan to build a trial power generating plant once theyve overcome some technical problems with the well. HDR works by circulating water through hot granite basement rock via a spread of wells drilled into same. The heated water returns to surface and drives generators via steam turbines.

Cheers Martin

[Schtoo]

Oh sure, we will run out of materials if we continue to use them at the same rate and dig them up at the same rate as we do today.

You example of copper, might be a good one.

Except that what copper is used for, most often transmitting power, can be replaced by various other things, depending on what that situation is.

But what you missed Grunt, (again) is that all these doomsayers base their calculations on 'todays consumption' with 'todays technology'.

We don't know what the heck will be invented/discovered next week.

Take the video camera I mentioned.

The old one would use up heaps of batteries, record images (but not very well), and used up enormous resources just by being old-tech.

The one we have now records longer, at higher quality, is much smaller, made largely from recycled materials and various other improvements as you would expect over 20 years.

I would think that in another 20 years the thing will record for a week, at eye-perfect quality and be the size of a matchbox.


With new technologies popping up all the time, old tech being constantly re-worked, todays consumption figures will prolly increase still, but at a reduced rate than the doomsayers predictions.


There is also a nifty little political model called 'capitalism'.

The short version of it is that 'if you can't afford it, then you go without'. Cold, harsh and tough, but it sorts the men out from the girls.

Also has a nifty habit of bringing prices closer to their proper value, if never quite hitting it just right. If they are too low today, they might just be too high tomorrow.

And for extra credit, it also pushes technology to improve, because if your blue ipod is out of vogue, then the shinier, smaller and slicker red one might just replace it...

And (:eek: :eek: :eek: ) use fewer resources doing it.


You do of course realize that it is advancing technology that got us into this pickle, right? If we had stuck to where we were 20 years ago, I don't think we would be in half the trouble we are now.

But the doomsayers forget that too...

I forgot that, silly me.

[Daddles]

If you believe that Schtoo, you are sillier than you think you are. New techonology will only come when stock market forces demand it and the stock market only works on immediate profits - it is no longer forward looking.

With new technologies popping up all the time, old tech being constantly re-worked, todays consumption figures will prolly increase still, but at a reduced rate than the doomsayers predictions.

Like an example? Go out to your motor car. Open the bonnet, that funny tin (yeah, we still use steel) thing that hides the motor, the infernal combustion engine. It's still burning petrol isn't it (or diesel, or LPG). Yet alternatives have been around for decades and NOT developed - bought out by big companies and crushed in some cases. The profits (the stock market again) are in making the most out the current technology and while my Falcon bears little resemblance to the Ford T, it's not the sort of real developement we will be needing very soon.

Were you aware for example, that back in the early eighties, a bloke patented and had working, and hydrogen powered motor that created its own hydrogen. No storage of the damned stuff. That was crushed by the legalists worried about hydrogen going bang ... but I wonder how many lobbyists had a quiet word in the right places.

Relying on new technology to miraculously appear and save the day is like General Custer waiting for a Cavalry collumn to ride over the ridge and get his #### out of the poo. It might happen, has happened in the past, but if it doesn't ...

Richard

[bitingmidge]

Like an example? Go out to your motor car. Open the bonnet, that funny tin (yeah, we still use steel) thing that hides the motor, the infernal combustion engine. It's still burning petrol isn't it (or diesel, or LPG). Yet alternatives have been around for decades and NOT developed - bought out by big companies and crushed in some cases. The profits (the stock market again) are in making the most out the current technology and while my Falcon bears little resemblance to the Ford T, it's not the sort of real developement we will be needing very soon.

Now there's the rub. While the technology exists, prickles like you Daddles keep buyng flipping Foolcans with 4+ litre engines. Yes I know that they are as economical as 2 litre engines forty years ago, and I also know they are twice as powerful.

Now comes the rub: why do they need to be? Can you go anywhere any faster than you could have in an 850 mini? Or even better a 1600 Peugeot?

The frog cars of the 60's were faster and twice as economical then!

There isn't any reason for ANYONE to be consuming more than say 8l/100km in their cars at the moment. That would be a nice start, using just today's technology and product range.

So once again I ask, what will cause the wholesale shift? TAX and HEAPS of it. All I am doing is artificially bringing forward a situation that's going to happen as soon as the supplies start running out anyway, and at least the money has a chance of being used productively.... like on a super fast interstate solar electric transport network...

Oh and don't give me that crap about needing towing capacity. I towed my 1 tonne TS to the Whitsundays legally, and at legal speeds behind a 1.4l Renault, sure it was a bit slow uphill but it was quite safe and comfortable, and used about a third the juice that our friend's Cruiser used towing the same boat.

Small is good...remember the 40hp VW??

cheers,

P

[Schtoo]

Yep, very true that the stock market (amongst other things) drives what gets released to us suckers in consumerland.

But, and it's a really &^%^$$^ big but, the stockmarket will not likely be the only thing pushing new technology to be used.


Regrettably, I think that 'thing' will change the planet in a really big way...


With that hydrogen thing, doesn't surprise me but I'd like to see some evidence of it along with some (at the very least) suggestions of what made it tick.

If I can't see that, then I don't buy it for a nanosecond.


(It wouldn't be that difficult to hold those big wasters to ransom, but I don't see anyone doing it. Until that happens, we are all just passengers...)

[silkwood]

" I towed my 1 tonne TS to the Whitsundays" Bitingmidge


YOU HAVE A ONE TONNE TABLE SAW??!!! ON WHEELS??!!:eek: :eek:

Cheers

[echnidna]

With that hydrogen thing, doesn't surprise me but I'd like to see some evidence of it along with some (at the very least) suggestions of what made it tick.

If I can't see that, then I don't buy it for a nanosecond.


(It wouldn't be that difficult to hold those big wasters to ransom, but I don't see anyone doing it. Until that happens, we are all just passengers...)

Hyrogen as anm alternate to petrol is very feasible.

The biggest obstacle to hydrogen as a fuel is the Governments all around the world. They all tax petrol heavily for their own slush troughs.

But how can they tax the water that hydrogen is made outa?

So they''ll legislate against anything that don't fill the trough.

[Daddles]

Now there's the rub. While the technology exists, prickles like you Daddles keep buyng flipping Foolcans with 4+ litre engines. Yes I know that they are as economical as 2 litre engines forty years ago, and I also know they are twice as powerful.

Mate, said Falchoon is on LPG which, as I understand it, is rather green in itself. It's certainly cheaper. The big Falchoon regularly gets filled with stuff so from that point of view, it's a volume thing, not a motor sized thing (and I rejected the Commodore coz it's back end was smaller ... seriously, got a measuring stick out and all to compare the dimensions that mattered). I also tow stuff, boats and the like. The big donk does that nicely. So I sort of dismiss your comment about the big car, but only sort of.

Richard

[bitingmidge]

Mate, said Falchoon is on LPG which, as I understand it, is rather green in itself. It's certainly cheaper. The big Falchoon regularly gets filled with stuff so from that point of view, it's a volume thing, not a motor sized thing (and I rejected the Commodore coz it's back end was smaller ... seriously, got a measuring stick out and all to compare the dimensions that mattered). I also tow stuff, boats and the like. The big donk does that nicely. So I sort of dismiss your comment about the big car, but only sort of.

Well when I was a hippy and lived all this stuff I now just talk about, I needed volume, so I had a Mazda Bongo Van (remember them) 1200 cc's and ran it on gas. Only filled it once as far as I can remember....beat that!!

If you were serious about volume and towing and ecology, you'd get an ex-courier Mercedes Sprinter and convert it to biodiesel. Now there's volume, comfort and towing capacity!! AND it's economical to boot.

Not being personal about all this, but if an inefficient 4 litre Falcon runs more economically on gas, a well designed 2 litre will half the fuel use!

Saw a stat the other day to the effect that 70% of all passenger cars in Germany are presently diesel. I know about cost of fuel yada yada yada, but the point is they use HALF what a similar output petrol engine does.

BMW X5 Diesel averages 10l/100 and that's a two tonne high performance truck. :eek: :eek: :eek: See, it is there ready to be done.

but we should only need a litre or so to do it, that's all we needed thirty years ago.

Cheers,

P