Tracking Earth's Future via Current Events, etc.

[Annoyed]

I see zero evidence for this conclusion. Do people not want to see the squandered resources in all "first world" nations based on greed? Yep.
For example, take the recent GM shutdowns. All the plants creating small, mid-range or sedan vehicles are the ones hit because selling SUV's or pick-up trucks garners more profit for GM because they market the gas guzzlers as a "need" so get away with more of a margin at point of sale. That's not to say there is no ACTUAL need for SUV's or 4x4's, you need one for your boat towing, and that's perfectly fine. The guy or gal who drive 5 miles a day to do the round trip to pick up the kids in a urban setting however, does not.
But they are told they do.

GM can sell large vehicles at a higher profit because that's what US consumers WANT. And it's not just for towing/load needs.

They are safer. 5000+ Lbs is gonna knock an econobox into next week every time. That's the primary motivation for large SUV/Truck class vehicles.

[Gatefan1976]

Lots to unpack here, I'll try to be brief.



I can agree with that. I just think its important to clarify notions in regards to radioactive waste, since most people think nuclear power plants don't pollute at all, unless an incident occurs.

On the whole, it's actually true.

Well I think this whole saga just proves how the corporate world has no moral, ethic or conscience. Its about the money, cold hard cash. They received a nice 700 million gift and as a welcome they shut down plants in both Canada and the US.

Not the point I was trying to make, but sure, corporations don't give a hard turd about people. You can consider them the typewriter equivalent of Skynet.

A perfect example would be hydro-turbines. To create dams with sufficient water flow, you need to either flood huge hectares of terrain, close rivers, etc. So its not a ''clean'' energy source, as the damage to the wildlife is extensive, plants and animals suffers a lot from this. Not to mention the natives, which saw their ancestral grounds become a literal pool. It's important to look beyond the appearance, to see if a technology is truly clean or not.

And, you just made the "life based argument", a distinction I clearly pointed out. Let me tell you something, NOTHING in this world is "clean" in terms of "without consequence" and that my friend is what pure idealists fail. The left tree hugging hippy crap fails for the same reason right corporate model fails, because neither extreme actually gives a damn about people.
The ONLY reason we are around today is because we put people first.

I remember a a child they said that we'd be out of oil in 2010's. But yea, its a finite resource.

What is the relevance of that?

?

Any rail gun around big enough to shoot isotopes into space GF? This is not an alternative, the costs are just too high. I'm not saying its a bad idea, I'm saying its not a viable idea. I'm not sure you grasp the quantity of nuclear waste we currently have on earth.

Cost?
What is the COST of NOT doing it?
What is the cost of sticking to traditional fuel?

Spoiler:

The IAEA estimates that 370,000 tonnes of heavy metal (tHM) in the form of used fuel have been discharged since the first nuclear power plants commenced operation.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informa...anagement.aspx

Spoiler:

I am suggesting a totally different model to burying it in unsustainable nuclear coffins. Basically, you are making the exact same argument as fossil fuel proponents make.
It costs too much.

Nuclear is a shortcut and should not be considered as an alternative. There is no cheap solution to get rid or store the ML-HL wastes, and considering the amount of countries that produce this trash, increasing in quantities each year, at some point accidents / negligence is bound to happen. Shooting them into space / burying deep underground is too costly. There is, simply put, no workaround disposing nuclear wastes.

Again, you argue the cost, while ignoring the argument of what is the cost of NOT doing it.
Swear to god, this is why the left fails all the damn time, when confronted with a problem, they fall back onto the exact same faulty logic of the right.

[Gatefan1976]

Also @Gatefan1976 about launching wastes to the Sun, it's not easy as it seems and requires slingshot maneuvers to get there.

I never said a damn thing about launching it into the sun.

[Gatefan1976]

GM can sell large vehicles at a higher profit because that's what US consumers WANT. And it's not just for towing/load needs.

They are safer. 5000+ Lbs is gonna knock an econobox into next week every time. That's the primary motivation for large SUV/Truck class vehicles.

So drive a B double, it will knock your SVU through the ground at every turn.

[Chaka-Z0]

I never said a damn thing about launching it into the sun.

No, they should be used, then shot out into space rather than buried. Aim it at the next closest star system and by the time it gets there in a few hundred thousand years on low thrust, it won't even be a problem, it's how the universe deals with radiation, why should we not learn a thing or two from the universe?

Sorry I misread ''Star System'' for the sun or a sun, since that's actually one possibility people talked a lot about? Are you really suggesting launching radioactive matter at random vectors into space?

so many things could go wrong with that including the possibility of the object coming back towards Earth.

[Annoyed]

I remember a a child they said that we'd be out of oil in 2010's. But yea, its a finite resource.

What is the relevance of that?

Ever hear about the boy who cried wolf?

[Chaka-Z0]

And, you just made the "life based argument", a distinction I clearly pointed out. Let me tell you something, NOTHING in this world is "clean" in terms of "without consequence" and that my friend is what pure idealists fail. The left tree hugging hippy crap fails for the same reason right corporate model fails, because neither extreme actually gives a damn about people.
The ONLY reason we are around today is because we put people first.

Okay you're going to extremes here, sure nothing is 100% clean, I'm not suggesting that. But what classifies as ''clean'' is something that does not affect either the environment or surrounding wildlife, which is something that Hydro doesn't qualify. Here's another one, the fluo-compact light-bulbs, which were marketed as enviro friendly bulbs, actually pollutes more in the production process since it contains gas.

What is the relevance of that?

I replied to your post?

Without a real alternative to fossil fuels, we're screwed in 100 years, let alone 10K years.

Ever since I can remember the ''we're screwed'' deadline keeps getting extended by decades. There are MANY oil deposits left, most of them are in locations that are hardly accessible. I don't believe we'll run out in 100 years.

Cost?
What is the COST of NOT doing it?
What is the cost of sticking to traditional fuel?

The cost is much less, not even remotely comparable to launching junk rockets into space. There's no problem with storing radioactive materials, in the short term. My whole point is that in the long-term nuclear isn't a viable solution for a permanent energy source and should not be favored over alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind.

I am suggesting a totally different model to burying it in unsustainable nuclear coffins. Basically, you are making the exact same argument as fossil fuel proponents make.
It costs too much.

Yes but your model doesn't work, sorry. You think you're the first guy to think that? There's a difference between investing a couple millions in solar farms or wind turbines and spending billions on sending junk rockets. There's a world of differences between fossil fuel vs clean and this.

Again, you argue the cost, while ignoring the argument of what is the cost of NOT doing it.
Swear to god, this is why the left fails all the damn time, when confronted with a problem, they fall back onto the exact same faulty logic of the right.

Again, the cost is not much, which is why nobody gives a f**k. Radioactive wastes properly stored don't generate pollution. So no, not the same faulty logic, just plain realism like seriously you think anybody on Earth would spend millions or billions to get rid of some trash?

As far as I know, Finland is the only country that's coming even close to this, they're currently building a huge storing facility deep underground.

[mad_gater]

Okay you're going to extremes here, sure nothing is 100% clean, I'm not suggesting that. But what classifies as ''clean'' is something that does not affect either the environment or surrounding wildlife, which is something that Hydro doesn't qualify. Here's another one, the fluo-compact light-bulbs, which were marketed as enviro friendly bulbs, actually pollutes more in the production process since it contains gas.



I replied to your post?



Ever since I can remember the ''we're screwed'' deadline keeps getting extended by decades. There are MANY oil deposits left, most of them are in locations that are hardly accessible. I don't believe we'll run out in 100 years.



The cost is much less, not even remotely comparable to launching junk rockets into space. There's no problem with storing radioactive materials, in the short term. My whole point is that in the long-term nuclear isn't a viable solution for a permanent energy source and should not be favored over alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind.



Yes but your model doesn't work, sorry. You think you're the first guy to think that? There's a difference between investing a couple millions in solar farms or wind turbines and spending billions on sending junk rockets. There's a world of differences between fossil fuel vs clean and this.



Again, the cost is not much, which is why nobody gives a f**k. Radioactive wastes properly stored don't generate pollution. So no, not the same faulty logic, just plain realism like seriously you think anybody on Earth would spend millions or billions to get rid of some trash?

As far as I know, Finland is the only country that's coming even close to this, they're currently building a huge storing facility deep underground.

CFL's also have mercury in them...another drawback is that CFL's have to warm up when first turned on so the light you get is very dim at first...this drawback also makes them a poor choice for outdoor lighting in areas that tend to have brutal winters...this is why we're slowly but surely changing our incandescent bulbs over to LED's (except for a couple of problematic sockets, one in our family room in which LED's don't seem to want to work at all and incandescents burn out within like a month or 2 and the other in our oven due to the fact that most of the circuitry in LED bulbs is inside this stuff made out of some kind of hard plastic which simply makes them a poor choice to use as appliance bulbs in ovens where the temps involved in oven-baking would melt that part of the bulb.

[mad_gater]

*tiptoes in*



"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

*tiptoes out*

*throws banana peel in her path*

[mad_gater]

Nuclear power on the surface is the most attractive, BUT, you forgot to take into matter all the residues generated from nuclear power generation AND the risk of accidents, as remote as they may be, can leave a mark on our planet for 10k-20k years.

Nuclear isotopes factories, nuclear power plants, etc. generate radioactive waste which needs to be either buried deep at a few KM underground, which nobody does since its too expensive, or covered in ''coffins'', which are garbage dumps for nuclear residues.

These coffins have throughout our history been documented to leak when high tides occur, natural disasters, and the ''soup'' from the coffin affects all its surrounding area, mainly by tainting the water supply and the soil, which in turns contaminates the plants, then the animals eating it, then you eating the animals.

Even the best engineers of our planet cannot create a coffin that will last thousands of years, it is impossible with our level of technology and the materials, which is mainly concrete, at our disposition to build these coffins. Can you guarantee the succeeding governments will maintain the coffin for 2000 years?

Once a nuclear rod has served one fuel cycle it needs to be replaced, and this rod becomes a High-level waste. No administration currently have a borehole / deep underground facilities to store these HL wastes, and they are increasing exponentially each year. Plutonium takes 24,000 years to decay.

Radioactive elements should stay underground, where they belong.

I think we still need to try to find a way to harness the hot air coming out of DC

could try harnessing the electrical output in thunderstorms via their lightning strikes but at current technology levels the capacitor would have to be enormous to have the capacitance necessary to store that much electrical energy, not to mention most capacitors are designed to discharge all their electrical energy at once rather than in a controlled fashion (an example is a defibrillator, whose capacitor builds up a charge then releases it all at once when the paddles are placed properly and the buttons on the paddles depressed)

[Annoyed]

CFL's also have mercury in them...another drawback is that CFL's have to warm up when first turned on so the light you get is very dim at first...this drawback also makes them a poor choice for outdoor lighting in areas that tend to have brutal winters...this is why we're slowly but surely changing our incandescent bulbs over to LED's (except for a couple of problematic sockets, one in our family room in which LED's don't seem to want to work at all and incandescents burn out within like a month or 2 and the other in our oven due to the fact that most of the circuitry in LED bulbs is inside this stuff made out of some kind of hard plastic which simply makes them a poor choice to use as appliance bulbs in ovens where the temps involved in oven-baking would melt that part of the bulb.

Since when do enviros care about the practical aspects of what they want to force us to use?

And this is a fine example of what happens you you try to force something before the tech to do it is on the shelf. Over a period of 20? or so years, a large # of incandescent bulbs were forcibly retired in favor of mandated CFL's which are in reality a very bad choice for lighting, for the reasons you cite and more.

About 5 years ago, LED's started to become more affordable, and they are a perfectly acceptable light source in almost all location.

How much Mercury is now in our landfills as LED's replace CFL's that wouldn't have been there if the enviros had simply waited for LED tech to make it to the shelf?

[Gatefan1976]

Sorry I misread ''Star System'' for the sun or a sun, since that's actually one possibility people talked a lot about? Are you really suggesting launching radioactive matter at random vectors into space?

Yes

so many things could go wrong with that including the possibility of the object coming back towards Earth.

Not really. Even in the infancy of the computer age we sent objects into deep space. Give that same object some pretty basic programming, equip it with solar panels for the small amount of power generation it needs to be sustaining and there is a very, very slim chance it would ever find it's way back here.

[Gatefan1976]

Okay you're going to extremes here, sure nothing is 100% clean, I'm not suggesting that. But what classifies as ''clean'' is something that does not affect either the environment or surrounding wildlife, which is something that Hydro doesn't qualify. Here's another one, the fluo-compact light-bulbs, which were marketed as enviro friendly bulbs, actually pollutes more in the production process since it contains gas.

A product that if not used as a stop gap measure we would not have LED's now. Also, the production impact may have been higher, but you have to compare that to the cost of using old school Tungsten for globes. Gas, bad, yes. Burning 3 (?) times the amount of coal for same effect -also- bad.
Driving innovation that used to take hundreds of years to develop and compressing it to 20 years?
Good.
Sometimes, you need a patch. It's not optimal, but it works and you know going in you have to fix it properly.

I replied to your post?

Relevant to my point?

Ever since I can remember the ''we're screwed'' deadline keeps getting extended by decades. There are MANY oil deposits left, most of them are in locations that are hardly accessible. I don't believe we'll run out in 100 years.

I don't mean out of oil, I mean we will be screwed. Also, if these deposits cannot be reached, they may as well not exist. Our population continues to rise, and, unless you are cool with leaving 3rd world nations in that status, the demand for energy will continue to skyrocket.

The cost is much less, not even remotely comparable to launching junk rockets into space.

You are talking about money, I am talking about COST, they are not the same things.

There's no problem with storing radioactive materials, in the short term. My whole point is that in the long-term nuclear isn't a viable solution for a permanent energy source and should not be favored over alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind.

Yes, agreed, 100%, but nuclear is the best patch we can use right now. Let nuclear cover power generation for land based power generation and gradually be replaced by evolving solar, water and wind technology. When we started using coal and petrol, we had NO IDEA of the damage they could cause. At least with nuclear, we are quite well aware that it is not a solution, but a patch, and a patch that will need disposal of because of it's inherent dangers.

Yes but your model doesn't work, sorry. You think you're the first guy to think that? There's a difference between investing a couple millions in solar farms or wind turbines and spending billions on sending junk rockets. There's a world of differences between fossil fuel vs clean and this.

No, there is simply numbers changing in a system because you keep trotting out the "money cost"
Money does not care about you, it cannot help you.
To quote Yoda "the only difference is in your mind" and by that I mean you attribute greater or lesser value to certain things, and to challenge those things you need to change how you think. launching a "junk rocket" costs material and fuel, and we waste enough of those things every day to probably launch at least 1 a day, but because it has a "price tag" we balk because it's one "big number"

Again, the cost is not much, which is why nobody gives a f**k. Radioactive wastes properly stored don't generate pollution. So no, not the same faulty logic, just plain realism like seriously you think anybody on Earth would spend millions or billions to get rid of some trash?

If you believed that, why are you worried about nuclear power, it just generates "trash".
Seriously, you are destroying your own argument. You worry about the effects of globes that lasted some 20 years, you bemoan the chance of nuclear contamination, and then just call it trash?
Make up your mind dude.

[Chaka-Z0]

Launching junk into space isn't in itself a bad idea, you're right, it's actually the only way to completely get ride of those wastes. I am not arguing this particular point.

What I'm saying, is what you are suggesting is literally like calling a jet to pickup your trash and drop it via satellite guided missile to the junkyard. Its not about the money, its about the actual pollution created by this process is MUCH more important than having nuclear wastes laying around.

Launching radioactive junk in regular quantities, with our current level of technology, implies:

0- All the pollution caused by manufacturing, extracting, mining, refining (oxygen + hydrogen) + transportation and new infrastructures that will be needed and much more, all along the process.

1- Regular rocket launch, rockets would get bigger as the years go on for efficiency and bigger payloads. You can argue that Musk has re-usable rocket now, they have proven their worth, they still need to be refueled which is the main problem here (2).

2- The fuel requirements: Hydrogen and Oxygen for approximately 1-2 million pounds, depending on the size of the payload. A space shuttle needs about 2.2 million pounds of fuel to take off.

3- Packages would have to be separated in small chunks or assembled in a big blob. Each individual package needs to be equipped with reliable navigational systems (I will explain why later down)

4- Who's going to take care of it? NASA certainly won't, that's not their mandate. I just don't see how this is profitable so forget about SpaceEx and the Corporate world. That means either governments or state corporations. This means that quality will not be guaranteed due to the lack of funds, which means malfunctions will be plenty. Malfunction occurs often even with the scrutiny of the NASA team that triple check every single bolt of the craft. Malfunctions render probes derelict, left to drift freely into space. Which brings me to 5

5- Space isn't a free-parking zone, every celestial object has a variable gravitational pull. A derelict probe is absolutely certain to be sucked in by one of those. Introducing highly radioactive materials in certain bodies such as a sun or gas giants can result in many possible doomsday scenarios. It all depends of the composition of the bodies, which we can't tell for sure as of right now in 2018.

That should be enough to dissuade anybody to try this, but let's say we somehow go ahead and do it anyway.

Look up the Galileo incident. They had two choices, crash it on Europa (Jupiter's moon) or on Jupiter's surface. Europa is believed to have lifeforms between its layers of ice, and introducing our species with a welcoming nuke isn't really a good idea. So really they didn't have a choice, they had to crash it on Jupiter's surface.

This, was speculated, could've resulted in a catastrophic scenario. Due to the elements of the nuclear core of the probe, which had many rods of plutonium, the crash combined with Jupiter's hydrogen atmosphere could've triggered the core into a fission state, causing a planetary wide nuclear explosion. The ramifications are unimaginable.

If somehow a huge body such as Jupiter was to explode in an instant, you can kiss our ENTIRE solar system goodbye. Jupiter's core is believed to be 10 Earth masses, its debris would start carpet bombing our solar system, our planet within the year and annihilate mankind and possibly rip our world apart. The sun would suffocate or be destroyed, sending deadly solar winds and x-rays across the system killing anything left standing. The Apocalypse is a soap opera compared to this.

[Gatefan1976]

Launching junk into space isn't in itself a bad idea, you're right, it's actually the only way to completely get ride of those wastes. I am not arguing this particular point.

What I'm saying, is what you are suggesting is literally like calling a jet to pickup your trash and drop it via satellite guided missile to the junkyard. Its not about the money, its about the actual pollution created by this process is MUCH more important than having nuclear wastes laying around.

Is it?
Then just store it in coffins, or underground and stop arguing against nuclear energy.
Easy.
You can't have it both ways bro, we need a patch, and that patch is nuclear.

Launching radioactive junk in regular quantities, with our current level of technology, implies:

0- All the pollution caused by manufacturing, extracting, mining, refining (oxygen + hydrogen) + transportation and new infrastructures that will be needed and much more, all along the process.

Do you know what else needs this chain?
Your weekly garbage collection.

1- Regular rocket launch, rockets would get bigger as the years go on for efficiency and bigger payloads. You can argue that Musk has re-usable rocket now, they have proven their worth, they still need to be refueled which is the main problem here (2).

2- The fuel requirements: Hydrogen and Oxygen for approximately 1-2 million pounds, depending on the size of the payload. A space shuttle needs about 2.2 million pounds of fuel to take off.

How many pounds of coal and it's associated problems am I saving per MINTUE in comparison?
This is the hook with energy, the comparison needs to be in terms of cost in pollution. If I can give a town, a city or a country better results from coal, stick to frigging coal. This is not a X vs Y argument, it's "what works best" argument. The US burns far more than 2.2 million pounds of fuel every day, and if I can run a nuclear powered electric grid that requires that expenditure of independent energy once every few months, I'm more than cool with that. One day, due to need, that won't be an issue, but right now, with current tech as Annoyed likes to say, it's an inevitable cost.
Spend 2.2 million pounds every day, or spend it once a month to actually dispose of your rubbish?
No brainer.

3- Packages would have to be separated in small chunks or assembled in a big blob. Each individual package needs to be equipped with reliable navigational systems (I will explain why later down)

4- Who's going to take care of it? NASA certainly won't, that's not their mandate. I just don't see how this is profitable so forget about SpaceEx and the Corporate world. That means either governments or state corporations. This means that quality will not be guaranteed due to the lack of funds, which means malfunctions will be plenty. Malfunction occurs often even with the scrutiny of the NASA team that triple check every single bolt of the craft. Malfunctions render probes derelict, left to drift freely into space. Which brings me to 5

5- Space isn't a free-parking zone, every celestial object has a variable gravitational pull. A derelict probe is absolutely certain to be sucked in by one of those. Introducing highly radioactive materials in certain bodies such as a sun or gas giants can result in many possible doomsday scenarios. It all depends of the composition of the bodies, which we can't tell for sure as of right now in 2018.

Ya know what?
I'm selfish enough not to care what happens to other celestial bodies, and I also know if that we launched every nuke on the planet, the only thing we would certainly destroy is ourselves. We won't "crack the planet", we would hardly dent it.
When people argue "we will destroy the planet", what they mean is "we will destroy ourselves".

That should be enough to dissuade anybody to try this, but let's say we somehow go ahead and do it anyway.

Look up the Galileo incident. They had two choices, crash it on Europa (Jupiter's moon) or on Jupiter's surface. Europa is believed to have lifeforms between its layers of ice, and introducing our species with a welcoming nuke isn't really a good idea. So really they didn't have a choice, they had to crash it on Jupiter's surface.

did Jupiter explode?

This, was speculated, could've resulted in a catastrophic scenario. Due to the elements of the nuclear core of the probe, which had many rods of plutonium, the crash combined with Jupiter's hydrogen atmosphere could've triggered the core into a fission state, causing a planetary wide nuclear explosion. The ramifications are unimaginable.

If somehow a huge body such as Jupiter was to explode in an instant, you can kiss our ENTIRE solar system goodbye. Jupiter's core is believed to be 10 Earth masses, its debris would start carpet bombing our solar system, our planet within the year and annihilate mankind and possibly rip our world apart. The sun would suffocate or be destroyed, sending deadly solar winds and x-rays across the system killing anything left standing. The Apocalypse is a soap opera compared to this.

[/quote]
Did it happen?
They crashed it into Jupiter, and what happened?
NOTHING.