[johnu]

Al_U_Card, on 2019-May-05, 16:58, said:

...
more yada about what? Maybe the shadow knows
...

[johnu]

Al_U_Card, on 2019-May-05, 18:43, said:

...
More yada about Evans
...

6 degrees and not a single one one in climate studies and meteorology. The ACBL employs a number of programmers to program their various systems. Doing so may indicate you are an expert programmer, but does not require being a bridge expert.

[johnu]

Something new on the potential solution front

Study: Climate Change Friendly Air Conditioners Could Convert CO2 to Petroleum

Quote

A new paper claims the vast artificial airflow created by the world’s air conditioners could be harnessed to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, by adding or retrofitting a CO2 absorber and converter to air conditioners. But critics see a few problems with the concept.

Definitely not ready for prime time as there are economies of scale and potential safety problems, in addition to technical problems making the technology affordable and easy to install.

Still, it's nice to see out of the box ideas. Speaking of out of the box ideas, remember Dennison's promise to lead the USA into the 19th century and increase coal production?

President Trump has yet to save the struggling coal industry, numbers show

Quote

Coal consumption last year fell to 717 million tons, slightly lower than the year before. Even more alarming for the industry: Almost all domestic coal consumption is in the power sector, yet despite an increase in natural gas prices in 2017, coal’s share of power generation for the year was just 30%, the lowest on record and lower than natural gas for the second year in a row.

In promising to end the “war on coal,” Trump may not have had a firm understanding of the extent of the industry’s problems, said Rob Rappold, mayor of Beckley, W.Va.

Something that bears repeating

Quote

Trump may not have had a firm understanding of the extent of the industry’s problems

[Gerben42]

johnu, on 2019-April-09, 18:25, said:

I actually didn't mention anybody dying, but now that you have brought it up, how many megawatts is a human life worth? Comparing tsunami deaths to leaking radiation is a strawman argument. Unless you got an immediately fatal dose of radiation, you won't see increased deaths for years. The deaths from radiation overexposure are going to happen many decades later for most people so comparing deaths in the short term is a waste of time.

Most energy plants don't have nuclear waste to cleanup after the plant closes. Do you understand the difference between normal industrial waste and nuclear waste? I'm waiting for you to explain the Hanford cleanup and how things are going there.

Sorry I took some time to answer but I am not very active. Very busy...

There are many types of poisonous waste. Heavy metals is one of them. Nuclear waste is another. Chemical waste will stay poisonous forever, and also some nuclear waste which includes actinides like Plutonium and Neptunium will also be radioactive practically forever. Cleaning up either is very hard.

Luckily, the processes in a nuclear power plant are not such that actinides will ever get to the outside. Even in the Fukushima accident, no measureable amount of Plutonium was released. There were some reports about Plutonium fallout, but it was quickly discovered that it was not released in 2011 but in 1945.

Also, actinide-rich nuclear waste is first of all "not a lot". For Germany, one would fit all of it easily in a large storage hall even after providing electricity for millions of people for 50 years. Second, this is not really waste. For a breeder reactor, spent fuel is a resource. Although these have not yet been built, some countries are planning this and they would allow the storage time for spent fuel to be reduced from 200,000 years to less than 500 years. Which is still long but manageable.

Quote

If it's private companies you are talking about, they can go out of business or declare bankruptcy if they don't want to pay and who do you think it going to pick up the tab? And where does that nuclear waste go? Nobody wants to store nuclear waste, not the states where the waste was created, and not states like Nevada where storage has been going on for years.

In Sweden and Finland, the companies are building or have built a repository for the long-lived nuclear waste. It is paid by the plant operators. The government regulator (Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for USA) can demand the same from the operators. Financing occurs beforehand. If the plant operator goes out of business, the repository is still financed.

Quote

Terrorists killing themselves while committing terrorist acts? Have you heard of something known as 9/11? Or countless suicide bombers who blow themselves up along with innocents who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Terrorist infiltrating a nuclear plant and sabotaging all the safety equipment and causing an explosion? I hope you don't have a job in the nuclear power plant security business. Frankly, you've lost all credibility with your last comment.

You seem to have no idea of the workings of a nuclear power plant. Flying a plane into a modern nuclear power plant would create an explosion, and black scorch marks on the wall. And then what? How does that help the terrorist cause, making stains on the wall? They would be like the suicide squad from Life of Brian...

Sabotaging all the safety equipment SOUNDS like a nice idea, but again, no chance. The plants are designed to have many levels of security which cannot all be destroyed at the same time. It takes too long and once you have started, there will be an alarm and you will have special forces hunting you down. Remember Fukushima: After the tsunami, due to bad design not only offsite power and emergency diesel generators were offline, but also the batteries. NOTHING was working. Still it took about one day until there was a nuclear meltdown.

Now think about terrorist's chances to survive that long being hunted by special forces.

Quote

Nobody is talking about weapons grade material, and I don't know why you are deflecting by talking about enrichment. Just the act of blowing up a nuclear plant leads to widespread radiation fallout (see Chernobyl, see Fukushima, etc).

And how would you try to blow up a nuclear power plant? You would need an atomic bomb and if you had that, no need to try to enter the plant...
In fact I'm not sure if a nuke would really be able to blow up the plant. In case of a threat of nuclear war, inside a nuclear plant is probably the safest place on the planet.

Quote

If the plant is close to a major population center, huge numbers of people are going to be forced to permanently evacuate. And if terrorists steal nuclear material, they can explode a dirty bomb. No enrichment necessary, no weapons grade material required. It won't create nearly as much damage as a nuclear bomb, but large areas will still be rendered uninhabitable.

For that you don't need to go into the plant. After all, Uranium Oxide can be found in the ground if you know where to look. In fact you can buy it online.
Spent fuel is much more radioactive, but stealing that is also more tricky. It's kept under metres of water for good reason. Drain the water and you cannot get near it.

Quote

I am actually not a complete opponent of nuclear power, but there are some crucial safety issues that need to be addressed before I would favor any expansion.

There are safety issues, but they are being dealt with. And they are not the ones you think they are. One major safety issue for nuclear power plants are extreme natural hazards, like the tsunami in Japan. New designs deal systematically with these hazards and old plants are being refitted, for example in Europe there was a stress test for all plants.

[y66]

fyi Jay Inslee is writing the climate plan the next president should adopt by David Roberts at Vox.

More than a campaign document, it’s an instruction manual.

[Al_U_Card]

y66, on 2019-May-19, 17:01, said:

fyi Jay Inslee is writing the climate plan the next president should adopt by David Roberts at Vox.

More than a campaign document, it’s an instruction manual.

Seems like other governmental "5 year plans" likely to lead to strife, struggle and ruin. At least economic plans deal with a measurable commodity and not an imaginary metric that exists only in computer models that are based on a rhetorical reality.

[johnu]

Al_U_Card, on 2019-May-19, 17:09, said:

Seems like other governmental "5 year plans" likely to lead to strife, struggle and ruin. At least economic plans deal with a measurable commodity and not an imaginary metric that exists only in computer models that are based on a rhetorical reality.

Or just like Kennedy's crazy plan to send humans to the moon by the end of the decade. What a ridiculous idea that has no chance to succeed Really, where do these people get there ideas

[johnu]

Gerben42, on 2019-May-17, 13:45, said:

There are many types of poisonous waste. Heavy metals is one of them. Nuclear waste is another. Chemical waste will stay poisonous forever, and also some nuclear waste which includes actinides like Plutonium and Neptunium will also be radioactive practically forever. Cleaning up either is very hard. Luckily, the processes in a nuclear power plant are not such that actinides will ever get to the outside. Even in the Fukushima accident, no measureable amount of Plutonium was released. There were some reports about Plutonium fallout, but it was quickly discovered that it was not released in 2011 but in 1945.

Also, actinide-rich nuclear waste is first of all "not a lot". For Germany, one would fit all of it easily in a large storage hall even after providing electricity for millions of people for 50 years. Second, this is not really waste. For a breeder reactor, spent fuel is a resource. Although these have not yet been built, some countries are planning this and they would allow the storage time for spent fuel to be reduced from 200,000 years to less than 500 years. Which is still long but manageable.

You seem to be hung up on plutonium radiation. 300000 people were displaced in Chernobyl and 160000 people were displaced in Fukushima. I'm sure they are very relieved to know that they weren't bombarded with plutonium.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-17, 13:45, said:

In Sweden and Finland, the companies are building or have built a repository for the long-lived nuclear waste. It is paid by the plant operators. The government regulator (Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for USA) can demand the same from the operators. Financing occurs beforehand. If the plant operator goes out of business, the repository is still financed.

That sounds pretty unamerican to make companies accountable for future public expenses. I'm sure their lobbyists are working overtime to minimize any payments. I don't want to give them any ideas, but a few million dollars to the Dennison presidential campaign can give an unbelievable return on their money. Better yet, if they can help obstruct justice it won't even cost money.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-17, 13:45, said:

You seem to have no idea of the workings of a nuclear power plant. Flying a plane into a modern nuclear power plant would create an explosion, and black scorch marks on the wall. And then what? How does that help the terrorist cause, making stains on the wall? They would be like the suicide squad from Life of Brian...

Sabotaging all the safety equipment SOUNDS like a nice idea, but again, no chance. The plants are designed to have many levels of security which cannot all be destroyed at the same time. It takes too long and once you have started, there will be an alarm and you will have special forces hunting you down. Remember Fukushima: After the tsunami, due to bad design not only offsite power and emergency diesel generators were offline, but also the batteries. NOTHING was working. Still it took about one day until there was a nuclear meltdown.

Now think about terrorist's chances to survive that long being hunted by special forces.

You seem to be obsessed with terrorists flying planes into a nuclear power plant. Have you been watching a good disaster movie that you would like to share?

Special forces? Have you been watching reruns of 24 like Cheney??? So security systems are destroyed, cooling systems are damaged beyond repair, power supplies and generators are all taken out. Now's the time to make your money. What do you do now? No use killing the terrorists to stop the damage because the damage has already been done. You can assume that after sabotaging the plant, the terrorists climb into a plane or helicopter and crash into the plant and leave black scorch marks.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-17, 13:45, said:

And how would you try to blow up a nuclear power plant? You would need an atomic bomb and if you had that, no need to try to enter the plant... In fact I'm not sure if a nuke would really be able to blow up the plant. In case of a threat of nuclear war, inside a nuclear plant is probably the safest place on the planet.

You seem to have lost your train of thought. 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. No atomic bombs are necessary.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-17, 13:45, said:

For that you don't need to go into the plant. After all, Uranium Oxide can be found in the ground if you know where to look. In fact you can buy it online. Spent fuel is much more radioactive, but stealing that is also more tricky. It's kept under metres of water for good reason. Drain the water and you cannot get near it.

There are safety issues, but they are being dealt with. And they are not the ones you think they are. One major safety issue for nuclear power plants are extreme natural hazards, like the tsunami in Japan. New designs deal systematically with these hazards and old plants are being refitted, for example in Europe there was a stress test for all plants.

So you are proposing that terrorists can open a uranium mine, spend millions of dollars in labor and equipment, take the ore and refine it in a laboratory, etc.??? OK, sure, why not Or they can just steal some.

Perfectly safe plants??? Did you ever see Jurassic Park when Ian Malcolm talks about Chaos theory? Maybe not. Oh well, just keep your blinders on and keep on trucking. You might want to watch some episodes of Engineering Catastrophes to see some engineering projects that didn't go as expected.

As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "If it’s not one thing, it’s another!"

[y66]

From Why Carbon Credits For Forest Preservation May Be Worse Than Nothing by Lisa Song at ProPublica:

Quote

RIO BRANCO, BRAZIL — The state of Acre, on the western edge of Brazil, is so remote, there’s a national joke that it doesn’t exist. But for geochemist Foster Brown, it’s the center of the universe, a place that could help save the world.

“This is an example of hope,” he said, as we stood behind his office at the Federal University of Acre, a tropical campus carved into the Amazon rainforest. Brown placed his hand on a spindly trunk, ordering me to follow his lead. “There is a flow of water going up that stem, and there is a flow of sap coming down, and when it comes down it has carbon compounds,” he said. “Do you feel that?”

I couldn’t feel a thing. But that invisible process holds the key to a massive flow of cash into Brazil and an equally pivotal opportunity for countries trying to head off climate change without throwing their economies into turmoil. If the carbon in these trees could be quantified, then Acre could sell credits to polluters emitting clouds of CO₂. Whatever they release theoretically would be offset, or canceled out, by the rainforest.

Five thousand miles away in California, politicians, scientists, oil tycoons and tree huggers are bursting with excitement over the idea. The state is the second-largest carbon polluter in America, and its oil and gas industry emits about 50 million metric tons of CO₂ a year. What if Chevron or Shell or Phillips 66 could offset some of their damage by paying Brazil not to cut down trees?

The appetite is global. For the airline industry and industrialized nations in the Paris climate accord, offsets could be a cheap alternative to actually reducing fossil fuel use.

But the desperate hunger for these carbon credit plans appears to have blinded many of their advocates to the mounting pile of evidence that they haven’t — and won’t — deliver the climate benefit they promise.

I looked at projects going back two decades and spanning the globe and pulled together findings from academic researchers in far-flung forest villages, studies published in obscure journals, foreign government reports and dense technical documents. I enlisted a satellite imagery analysis firm to see how much of the forest remained in a preservation project that started selling credits in 2013. Four years later, only half the project areas were forested.

In case after case, I found that carbon credits hadn’t offset the amount of pollution they were supposed to, or they had brought gains that were quickly reversed or that couldn’t be accurately measured to begin with. Ultimately, the polluters got a guilt-free pass to keep emitting CO₂, but the forest preservation that was supposed to balance the ledger either never came or didn’t last.

[Al_U_Card]

y66, on 2019-May-27, 07:50, said:

From Why Carbon Credits For Forest Preservation May Be Worse Than Nothing by Lisa Song at ProPublica:

Fairly typical of the "pie in the sky" thinking that dominates this movement... while "trying to head off climate change without throwing their economies into turmoil." pretty much sums it up, the whole story is reminiscent of Al Gore, back in the early 90's going to Brazil and coming back with the idea of carbon indulgences for the church of climastrology.

[Gerben42]

johnu, on 2019-May-21, 23:32, said:

You seem to be hung up on plutonium radiation. 300000 people were displaced in Chernobyl and 160000 people were displaced in Fukushima. I'm sure they are very relieved to know that they weren't bombarded with plutonium.

Chernobyl was a plutonium factory which could also be used for electricity generation. Without a containment, it was inherently unsafe.
Fukushima Daiichi (1F) nuclear power plant would not be licensable in Europe. A major risk was overseen due to the lack of systematic safety analysis (which is my line of work). Still it took the largest earthquake and tsunami in Japanese written history to destroy it. The lesson learned from this is:
* perform systematic safety analysis and watch out for cliff edge effects.

After Fukushima, the EU ran a stress test on all nuclear power plants doing exactly that. In addition, for new build plants there is the requirement that even a core melt accident shall not lead to dislocation of people. Generation III+ plants like my company's EPR design, Westinghouse's AP1000 and other new designs fulfill this requirement.

Quote

That sounds pretty unamerican to make companies accountable for future public expenses. I'm sure their lobbyists are working overtime to minimize any payments. I don't want to give them any ideas, but a few million dollars to the Dennison presidential campaign can give an unbelievable return on their money. Better yet, if they can help obstruct justice it won't even cost money.

If a company (for example BP) makes a mess, who is held accountable? The US public? I sure hope not. In case of nuclear power plants, European governments recognize this and bill the nuclear companies for their waste when they still have their cash cows, not when the managers are in Cayman Islands saying "sorry, we're broke".

Quote

You seem to be obsessed with terrorists flying planes into a nuclear power plant. Have you been watching a good disaster movie that you would like to share?

Government agencies take this one seriously. There is a reason why nuclear power plants are no-fly zones.

Quote

Special forces? Have you been watching reruns of 24 like Cheney??? So security systems are destroyed, cooling systems are damaged beyond repair, power supplies and generators are all taken out. Now's the time to make your money.

Objection! Did you notice what happened in Fukushima? Everything was destroyed during the tsunami, more effective than any terrorist could dream of (due to bad plant design), and when did the core meltdown? The next day... And when the cause isn't a tsunami but terrorists, you think everyone will just watch until the plant goes into meltdown? Or will they send in armed forces to avoid the meltdown?

Quote

What do you do now? No use killing the terrorists to stop the damage because the damage has already been done. You can assume that after sabotaging the plant, the terrorists climb into a plane or helicopter and crash into the plant and leave black scorch marks.

Bringing a nuclear power plant to meltdown is much harder than Tom Cruise's mission in Mission Impossible.

For one thing, once inside the terrorists have no means of communication. There is only the plant-wide phone system, a surefire way of being detected. Any type of wireless communication is impossible. Also the plant is built making sure it is easy to get OUT, but not easy to get IN.

Quote

You seem to have lost your train of thought. 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. No atomic bombs are necessary.

In modern European / Asian plants, refitting of accident mitigation systems makes sure that no one needs to leave their house, even in case of a core melt accident. TMI also no one needed to leave their house, so bad example. Chernobyl is another bad example since such a dangerous device doesn't remotely exist outside of the former Soviet Union.

Fukushima teaches us when nuclear power plant is built in tsunami area, build tsunami wall. This is a precondition for plants on Japan's eastern coast to restart commercial operation. What not to do: Dig away mountain so that plant intake is lower, since this saves energy pumping sea water up and therefore increases efficiency (as done in Fukushima Daiichi plant).

Quote

So you are proposing that terrorists can open a uranium mine, spend millions of dollars in labor and equipment, take the ore and refine it in a laboratory, etc.??? OK, sure, why not Or they can just steal some.

Perfectly safe plants??? Did you ever see Jurassic Park when Ian Malcolm talks about Chaos theory? Maybe not. Oh well, just keep your blinders on and keep on trucking. You might want to watch some episodes of Engineering Catastrophes to see some engineering projects that didn't go as expected.

Electricity generation is never 100% safe, irrespective of how you are doing it. So either you stop using electricity or you try doing it as safe as possible. And nuclear is one of the safest way of generating electricity. In addition, it is low carbon and fuel is not about to run out for several centuries (after which we might really have managed fusion power).

No one is claiming nuclear power is 100% safe and the answer to everything, but trying to save the climate without increasing electricity productions from nuclear power plants is simply idealistic and naive.

Germany is pretending to have climate-friendly energy politics, yet has INCREASED CO2 exhaust from electricity production over the last 10 years. The reason is the nuclear phase-out. German electricity consumers pay twice as much as French electricity consumers, and German electricity consumers are responsible for more CO2 than French electricity consumers. The difference? Nuclear power.

Check this site:
https://www.electric...true&wind=false

At the time of writing, Germany's electricity causes 338 g of CO2 per kWh, and France 44 g. Remember, at twice the price (German end users pay € 0.06 per kWh for renewables - basically to feel good). Take that, "climate chancellor" Merkel...

[johnu]

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

Chernobyl was a plutonium factory which could also be used for electricity generation. Without a containment, it was inherently unsafe.
Fukushima Daiichi (1F) nuclear power plant would not be licensable in Europe. A major risk was overseen due to the lack of systematic safety analysis (which is my line of work). Still it took the largest earthquake and tsunami in Japanese written history to destroy it. The lesson learned from this is:
* perform systematic safety analysis and watch out for cliff edge effects.

After Fukushima, the EU ran a stress test on all nuclear power plants doing exactly that. In addition, for new build plants there is the requirement that even a core melt accident shall not lead to dislocation of people. Generation III+ plants like my company's EPR design, Westinghouse's AP1000 and other new designs fulfill this requirement.

There's always a design flaw, a mistake in engineering, an oversight in construction, an unforseen mechanical error that nobody accounted for, just bad luck. Of course, there are safety cost factors too. The plants have to be cheap enough to be profitable to build and operate. You're a glass half full guy on this one, I'm a glass half empty.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

If a company (for example BP) makes a mess, who is held accountable? The US public? I sure hope not. In case of nuclear power plants, European governments recognize this and bill the nuclear companies for their waste when they still have their cash cows, not when the managers are in Cayman Islands saying "sorry, we're broke".

Corporations in the US are not only people in the US, they are supermen according to the Supreme Court. They can legally buy elections and as a result, buy politicians by the busload. Those politicians will pass bills to immunize them from damages. They can lie, steal, cheat, break laws at will, and almost never have to pay any penalties. It's pretty rare for corporations to be penalized for bad behavior, and then it is usually a slap on the wrist.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

Government agencies take this one seriously. There is a reason why nuclear power plants are no-fly zones.

You are the one who said

Quote

You seem to have no idea of the workings of a nuclear power plant. Flying a plane into a modern nuclear power plant would create an explosion, and black scorch marks on the wall. And then what? How does that help the terrorist cause, making stains on the wall? They would be like the suicide squad from Life of Brian.

So what is it? Are you saying nuclear plants aren't safe from airborne attacks, or is this mostly for show since the plants are so well built that there won't be serious damage?

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

Objection! Did you notice what happened in Fukushima? Everything was destroyed during the tsunami, more effective than any terrorist could dream of (due to bad plant design), and when did the core meltdown? The next day... And when the cause isn't a tsunami but terrorists, you think everyone will just watch until the plant goes into meltdown? Or will they send in armed forces to avoid the meltdown?

Duhhh, if the plant is in the middle of a meltdown, armed troops aren't going to be able to stop anything. Maybe they can get into the plant and kill any remaining terrorists. Stop a meltdown? There weren't any terrorists in Fukushima and there was still an explosion.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

Bringing a nuclear power plant to meltdown is much harder than Tom Cruise's mission in Mission Impossible.

For one thing, once inside the terrorists have no means of communication. There is only the plant-wide phone system, a surefire way of being detected. Any type of wireless communication is impossible. Also the plant is built making sure it is easy to get OUT, but not easy to get IN.

I'll take your word on phone systems for now. Nuclear plants are guarded by fairly low paid, lightly armed employees, most with no military combat or police swat team training. They would probably offer limited resistance to a surprise attack by a heavily armed group. Then, as you say, it's not easy to get IN so any first responders would be outside looking in.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

In modern European / Asian plants, refitting of accident mitigation systems makes sure that no one needs to leave their house, even in case of a core melt accident. TMI also no one needed to leave their house, so bad example. Chernobyl is another bad example since such a dangerous device doesn't remotely exist outside of the former Soviet Union.

Fukushima teaches us when nuclear power plant is built in tsunami area, build tsunami wall. This is a precondition for plants on Japan's eastern coast to restart commercial operation. What not to do: Dig away mountain so that plant intake is lower, since this saves energy pumping sea water up and therefore increases efficiency (as done in Fukushima Daiichi plant).

Don't have to leave your house next to a meltdown (and possible explosion)? I'm sure the power companies have added it to their brochures and TV commercials. What incentive would they have to mislead the public just a little bit?

Yikes, build a wall??? And if the tsunami is higher than the wall and the wall is damaged by the earthquake so water pours in? Is that your professional safety analysis opinion? What about not building a plant on land low enough to be hit by a tsunami, and not building on land that is over a known fault? Of course, new fault lines are constantly being discovered in previously "safe" areas so you never know for sure.

Gerben42, on 2019-May-28, 14:55, said:

Electricity generation is never 100% safe, irrespective of how you are doing it. So either you stop using electricity or you try doing it as safe as possible. And nuclear is one of the safest way of generating electricity. In addition, it is low carbon and fuel is not about to run out for several centuries (after which we might really have managed fusion power).

No one is claiming nuclear power is 100% safe and the answer to everything, but trying to save the climate without increasing electricity productions from nuclear power plants is simply idealistic and naive.

We may have to have nuclear power, but sugarcoating the very real dangers of potential disasters is burying your head in the sand.

[y66]

From How California became far more energy-efficient than the rest of the country by David Roberts at Vox:

Quote

California is decreasing its energy intensity (energy consumed per unit of GDP) and its carbon intensity (carbon emissions per unit of GDP).

In fact, if the rest of the nation had improved as quickly as California has between 1975 and 2016, US greenhouse gases would be almost 25 percent lower, NRDC found.

And this improvement in performance has not come at the expense of economic growth. Instead, it’s been a huge factor in the state’s economic boom — over the past 40 years, its population and economy have grown faster than the rest of the US.

[shyams]

https://www.thesun.c...mment-uk-visit/


The Meghan Markle comment is somewhat irrelevant; the fun portion is when he talks about climate change & how "we're doing very well"

[Gerben42]

johnu, on 2019-May-30, 01:34, said:

There's always a design flaw, a mistake in engineering, an oversight in construction, an unforseen mechanical error that nobody accounted for, just bad luck. Of course, there are safety cost factors too. The plants have to be cheap enough to be profitable to build and operate. You're a glass half full guy on this one, I'm a glass half empty.


Corporations in the US are not only people in the US, they are supermen according to the Supreme Court. They can legally buy elections and as a result, buy politicians by the busload. Those politicians will pass bills to immunize them from damages. They can lie, steal, cheat, break laws at will, and almost never have to pay any penalties. It's pretty rare for corporations to be penalized for bad behavior, and then it is usually a slap on the wrist.


You are the one who said


So what is it? Are you saying nuclear plants aren't safe from airborne attacks, or is this mostly for show since the plants are so well built that there won't be serious damage?

It's mostly for show for modern plants. For old plants, there may be an issue, especially in the USA where I don't know the technology so well. Besides politicians like a no-fly zone option. Many plants in Germany and France are however in the regular paths of commercial airlines. When coming from the East to Munich airport, you can see a nuclear power plant. In Lyon also coming in from the east.

Quote

Duhhh, if the plant is in the middle of a meltdown, armed troops aren't going to be able to stop anything. Maybe they can get into the plant and kill any remaining terrorists. Stop a meltdown? There weren't any terrorists in Fukushima and there was still an explosion.

The point is it takes many hours to reach this point.

Quote

I'll take your word on phone systems for now. Nuclear plants are guarded by fairly low paid, lightly armed employees, most with no military combat or police swat team training. They would probably offer limited resistance to a surprise attack by a heavily armed group. Then, as you say, it's not easy to get IN so any first responders would be outside looking in.

There is enough time to send in special forces. There will be no hesitation to do so.

Quote

Don't have to leave your house next to a meltdown (and possible explosion)? I'm sure the power companies have added it to their brochures and TV commercials. What incentive would they have to mislead the public just a little bit?

The explosions in Fukushima were hydrogen explosions, which were caused by the lack of having modern mitigation systems as sold by all nuclear construction companies. Until 2011, Japanese utilities were not interested in such refittings. After that, they are standing in line. Modern plants all have that.

To convince sceptical public living close, the licensing process for new plants in the UK is completely public. You can find the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report for the Hinkley Point C Reactor online.

Quote

Yikes, build a wall??? And if the tsunami is higher than the wall and the wall is damaged by the earthquake so water pours in? Is that your professional safety analysis opinion? What about not building a plant on land low enough to be hit by a tsunami, and not building on land that is over a known fault? Of course, new fault lines are constantly being discovered in previously "safe" areas so you never know for sure.

Read about the village of Fudai. The mayor of that village had the expensive idea to build a wall. After 3/11 destroyed the north-eastern coast of Japan, many villages were flattened. But Fudai remained standing. Unfortunately the mayor had already passed away at that point. Much criticised while in office, they built a statue for him post-mortem for saving their town.

I am fully with you that building the Fukushima Daiichi plant on the spot where it stands was a bad idea. Or any other plants in tsunami area. Or near an active volcano (again Japan). Or on major fault lines (Japan again...).

Still I emphasize the earthquake was not a problem. Japan manages earthquakes in nuclear power plants well. The problem here is you can protest about this, but you are intruding on Japanese authority. Or you can try to help the best you can.

Natural hazards are a big issue when building a nuclear power plant, but has been neglected when the older plants were built.

Quote

We may have to have nuclear power, but sugarcoating the very real dangers of potential disasters is burying your head in the sand.

I am not sugarcoating the dangers of potential disasters, in my daily work in the nuclear safety department I am doing everything possible to reduce these dangers. What I find is that there is often a difference between the expected danger and the real danger. People are afraid of flying, yet the most dangerous part of any flight is the taxi ride to the airport. Motor cycle? 50 times more dangerous than a car.

Similar with nuclear power. The IAEA demands that the risk of nuclear meltdown shall be lower than 0.0001 per reactor year (for new plants this has been reduced to 0.00001). Multiplied by 500 reactors worldwide gives a rate of 0.05 per year or every 20 years. This number is close to what actually happened, the problem however is: The risk is not evenly divided but concentrates on a minority of plants.

And among them, this was known in 2010, Fukushima Daiichi. After the EU stress test, not among them ANY nuclear power plants within the EU. Former GDR and Lithuania had to shut down their Soviet-built plants to be able to join the EU.

The sun is shining in Germany, it is near noon near the longest day of the year, and solar power has the biggest contribution to Germany electricity production (a good thing - I am all for solar power). But on average, Germany is sill at 274 g per kWh due to the 2nd largest contribution which is coal. France, not using coal fired power plants at all, has an average of 53 g per kWh. 93% low-carbon production. Even UK which does better than Germany (201 g / kWh).

Yes, Germany wants to phase out coal, but it has not answered its question of base load. For France, it is nuclear. For Norway, it is hydro. For Sweden, it is both. Much more hydro power will not happen in Germany, and I don't see nuclear ever being revived. So what about base load in Germany? A miracle occurs? This is not sound energy politics.

Conclusion: We need nuclear power, at least until fusion is a commercial reality. There is no such thing as absolute safety, but with new safety systems installed, a meltdown in a new plant will not be anywhere near the magnitude of a disaster as Fukushima or even Chernobyl. For saving the climate, there is no better solution for electrical base load.

My advice therefore: Support nuclear new build, but be critical of plants more than approx. 40 years old unless they have performed a lot of refitting of modern safety systems.

[johnu]

Rising sea scenarios in the next 80 years

Disturbing before-and-after photos show how US cities — and their famous landmarks — could be underwater in 80 years

Before the climate change deniers have to put their $.02 in, I have to say that I agree with their objections, whatever they are. 80 years is a long time. Nobody in their forum is going to be alive in 80 years so why would anybody bother worrying whether sea levels are rising. It's not our problem

[y66]

From Floods and storms are altering American attitudes to climate change at The Economist:

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Four generations of one family run Riverdock Restaurant in Hardin, a small town on a spit of wooded land between the swollen Illinois and Mississippi rivers. The matriarch is Sara Heffington, in red t-shirt and jeans. She says the Illinois river usually passes 400 feet (120 metres) from the long, ground-floor room where they serve biscuits and sausage gravy. Today water laps at the front door. She recalls a previous deluge, as they prepared to open in 1993. Back then, a levee broke and neck-high, muddy water submerged them. “That was a one-in-500-year flood,” she says.

In years when lots of snow melts upstream or increasingly stormy spring rain overfills midwestern rivers, the Heffingtons get gravel from a nearby quarry, fill bags and build a defensive wall. At the moment an oozing white barrier again surrounds their restaurant as diesel-pumps spit defiant jets back towards the river.

They just about keep nature at bay, even as a fast-moving torrent almost wets the roadway on Hardin’s green metal bridge. When that closed, 26 years ago, the town was all but cut off for five months. The Illinois is likely to crest again next week, at almost the same high level. “It’s starting to scare us,” admits Mrs Heffington.

Asked why a one-in-500-year flood is back so soon, she first blames a recent lack of dredging and then talks of “extraordinary rains up north”. She sees a long-term “cycle” as the climate changes, but “the Lord has a plan”, and she doubts people affect the weather much. The youngest waitress, Skylar Giberson, disagrees with her older relative. Denial won’t do, she says. Humans and carbon emissions are changing the climate permanently. Her plan? “We should just move.”

Ms Giberson, just out of high school, may be proved right. America has just notched up its wettest 12 months ever, and floods are worsening across the Midwest. In the past century annual precipitation has risen by 10% across the region, a faster increase than for America as a whole. The Great Lakes region heated up by an average of 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 Fahrenheit) in the 115 years to 2016, concluded scientists from the region in a report in March. That was also faster than the national trend.

Because warmer air holds more moisture (and can suddenly release it), precipitation will keep rising. A 30% increase in the region is possible this century if global carbon emissions go unchecked, according to the federal agencies who produced the National Climate Assessment (nca) late last year. This warned that more winter and spring downpours will mean more sodden soil, leaching of nutrients and delays to farmers’ planting season.

Robert Criss, a hydrogeologist at Washington University in St Louis, says rain bursts are most destructive and can “go crazy” in smaller river basins. But even huge rivers like the Mississippi can struggle with higher overall flows. Decades of building levees close to rivers has narrowed them, blocked flood plains and lifted water. No year has yet surpassed a huge flood in 1903, but he says the Mississippi in St Louis has reached historically high water marks in four of the past seven years.

“Rivers are being constrained like never before,” he says. The Missouri river, for example, is on average half the width of its former natural state. Narrowed channels plus rising rainfall make sudden collapses of levees more likely, such as the one that wrecked the Riverdock Restaurant in 1993, or another that struck part of Davenport, an Iowan city on the Mississippi, early in May this year. Sudden floods can “tear asphalt off roads, strip top soil away, smash grain silos”, making them more destructive than gradual ones.

As waters rise, politicians across the Midwest are starting to speak more about climate change. In part that is because several Democrats took over governors’ mansions after elections last year. By late April 24 governors, including those of industry-heavy places like Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, had joined an alliance of states formed in 2017 to combat climate change. Members vow to meet emissions targets set in the Paris climate accord, defying President Donald Trump’s promise to pull America out of it.

Tony Evers, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, for example, says he has “brought science back” to his state after eight years of “climate-change deniers” under his Republican predecessor, Scott Walker. He did so because he worries about the “amount of water that’s been dumped on the state, as the crazy weather happenings continue. We’re having hundred-year floods every couple of years.” He has also beefed up the state’s once-neglected environmental agency. Illinois Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, declared in January that “climate change is real” and that the state’s emissions would fall by at least 26% (compared with 2005) by 2025.

Democrats are also responding to voters who tell pollsters they care more about the subject than ever. Several aspiring presidential candidates support some form of a “green new deal”. Jay Inslee, Washington’s governor, is basing his presidential run on the issue. Pete Buttigieg, from Indiana, says “climate change is happening in the Midwest now, it is not theoretical”. He says even Catholic conservatives in Indiana warmed to the topic after a papal encyclical on the environment in 2015.

Mr Trump remains as hostile as ever. The New York Times reports that his administration has told scientists not to include worst-case scenarios of climate change in the next nca, due before 2022. Some were told not to make any forecasts for changes beyond 2040, when the biggest disruption is likeliest. Yet ever more voters can see what is happening first-hand.

Older polling, by Pew, had suggested that coast-dwellers were more alarmed by climate change than those living 300 miles or more inland. But inlanders’ views seem to be shifting, too. A survey published this year by the Energy Policy Institute, part of the University of Chicago, found that 70% of Americans believe climate change is real. Nearly half are also more persuaded by warnings from climate scientists than they were five years earlier.

Many said that witnessing extreme weather events—like the tornadoes, storms and floods battering the Midwest —did most to form their views. Michael Greenstone, who runs the institute, says the Midwest is already affected by “hotter summers, and it is more challenging for agriculture”. The region’s farmers are already at the sharp end of change.

Mr Greenstone’s current research, not yet published, points to spikes in summer temperature that could threaten the viability of the region’s two staple crops, corn and soyabeans, possibly even before mid-century. Unless geneticists can develop heat-resistant strains, planting will march steadily northwards. Other researchers, at Indiana University, warned late last year that more frequent summer droughts, plus the spread of pests in warmer winters, also threaten agricultural productivity across the Midwest. One summer drought, in 2012, cost the region an estimated $30bn.

Down by the river, there are some compensations. At Riverdock Mrs Heffington says a few tourists who come to gawp at the floods stop for a meal. Downriver at Alton, high-flood marks adorn white grain silos opposite the tourist centre. Molly Price, who runs it, says the floods at least provide a lively topic of conversation. “And then everyone talks about climate change.”

[Al_U_Card]

y66, on 2019-June-04, 17:31, said:

From Floods and storms are altering American attitudes to climate change at The Economist:

"America has just notched up its wettest 12 months ever, and floods are worsening across the Midwest. In the past century annual precipitation has risen by 10% across the region, a faster increase than for America as a whole. The Great Lakes region heated up by an average of 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.6 Fahrenheit) in the 115 years to 2016, concluded scientists from the region in a report in March. That was also faster than the national trend.

Because warmer air holds more moisture (and can suddenly release it), precipitation will keep rising. A 30% increase in the region is possible this century if global carbon emissions go unchecked,"

Lack of statistical significance notwithstanding, there is just so much wrong with this "analysis?" that treating weather and climate cycles as being altered by CO2 from these values is pathetic.

[Al_U_Card]

Yes, that y-axis is measured in METERS.

[PassedOut]

It's always embarrassing to have a Pinhead President, but especially so when he spews his stupid comments overseas: Trump, pressed on the environment in U.K. visit, says climate change goes ‘both ways’

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“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan on “Good Morning Britain” that aired Wednesday morning. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.”

Here's hoping that the Trump coalition of crooks, racists, and pinheads is insufficient to carry the 2020 election. But, alas, I'm not all that confident...