An Inconvenient Truth

[Isotopia]

Don't forget the your parasol.

[Apollonaris Zeus]

An Inconvenient Truth!

recent research in siberia has discovered the melting permafrost is releasing carbon gases at an sigificantly higher rate then then predicted- more 3x and it's coming from microbes!

We may already be at the point of no return!


AIIZ

[mdmf007]

I figure we have 2 choices -

The first (is what we are choosing by default) is to do nothing, and see what happens. I believe it will lead to a very bleak future if this is the route that we take. Humans will not go extinct as we have the means to adapt Horses, fish, birds, and plankton will fare much worse. There will be mass extinctions and the earth will change including famines that make africa look like nothing. I bellieve that even if by default we choose that route then option 2 comes into play but as a last desperate measure to reverse the devestation. Could be a hundred years from now or more.

Option 2
in the next 10-15 years people, corporations, and governments get it. Even though it is not the cheap alternative, fossil fuel use starts to decline, more nuclear plants, solar plants, and a gradual switch to hydrogen fuels may stem the tide and halt - not reverse the changes.

I see that as the best that can happen. Worst case we build massive carbon extraction plants, and sequester it in to some useable product, or stuff underground.

I actually bought a smart car to commute to the office in. For 14 years I have driven a current year Ford F-350 or 450 dual wheeled, crew cab diesel, 4x4 truck. (a few chevys in there.) I average 60000 miles a year, at 12 miles a gallon x 14 years. That is 70K gallons of diesel!!!! 14 tankers full just for my ass to go to work, and do my job. Not too mention the 6000 airplane flights our guys do a year (20 RT's on average each a year)

i figure I can drive this little bugger for half of my miles. and it is supposed to get 60+ miles a gallon. so we will see. I am great about keeping track of just about everything.

later all.

PS. Its funny, 20 years ago, I didnt give a shit about conservation, I cut trees down in training classes by the hundreds, would use a bulldozer to dig trenches - when a ditch would have done, poured my old oil into the dirt behind the shop, and bought vehicles based on horsepower. Now I am recycling at work, sipping gasoline, and trying to reduce my families and companies footprint.

amazing.

[MikeVDS]

I think if we had a good leader who pushed and sold the idea of nuclear to the public, it's be a whole lot cheaper than oil overall. We spend so much money and time fighting, politicking, smogging, etc over oil, if you could replace that with nuclear and a public that is actually well educated and trusts modern nuclear technology things could change for the better.

[Archantael]

I think if we had a good leader who pushed and sold the idea of nuclear to the public, it's be a whole lot cheaper than oil overall. We spend so much money and time fighting, politicking, smogging, etc over oil, if you could replace that with nuclear and a public that is actually well educated and trusts modern nuclear technology things could change for the better.

Do you have any thoughts on how to handle the high level nuclear waste that would be generated by such a plan? I occasionally read up on the topic and the one idea that I kinda "like" would be to encase the waste in glass cylinders and drop it deep in the ocean. It's not an ideal solution but since we don't have any real solution at the moment one has to start somewhere. I'd also like to see the waste being stored on site at today's nuke plants cleaned up before any new reactors are constructed. And if the NRC was to actually approve a license request for a new plant I wonder if they would consider any of the Pebble Bed reactor designs that are being tested on a smaller scale...the Pebble Bed design has fascinated me ever since I first read about it....I'd like to see more government funding put behind the concept and see what the scientists can really do with it.

[helitack]

...or conversely, get rid of 1/2 to 2/3rds of the world population that depends on these forms of energy. Simpler and oh so human nature in it's style...

[MikeVDS]

Do you have any thoughts on how to handle the high level nuclear waste that would be generated by such a plan?

I'm no expert but I've taken a few classes and done some research.

Modern nuclear technology produces much less waste than we see used in most US facilities. This is not a complete solution but a great advantage. As for as storing the material new research has been coming out that shows that many of the containers that we thought would last 1000's of years are already failing. There are complex answers but the basic one is that when they made the calculations they didn't take into account the effect that the damaged material would have on the containers. So it would take 1000's of years for the nuclear material to eat through but once you form cracks in brittle material they propagate much more easily. So even if storage was a solution it would have to be dealt with. But the reduction in the amount of waste should be able to be developed beyond our current technology as well.

As far as dealing with the waste in other ways that storage, a lot of people think that the half life idea is set in stone. Left to its own devices that theory holds, but nuclear waste is just atomic particles like any other substance we deal with. I've read articles where they have taken nuclear materials and reduced their life to days instead of centuries. I'm not sure this has been substantiated since it was in one of those pop-science magazines, or if it is cost prohibitive, but if it's fact than it shows that there is room for development in those areas. As space travel comes down in price, it will become easy to get rid of the material (thinking long term since short term we can easily deal with the waste anyway).

When it comes to meltdowns, you have to take them into consideration. Our current statistics on how safe nuclear plants are vs. coal (which is mainly what we'd be replacing) show that nuclear is far safer. When a meltdown happens it is a tragedy because so many lives are lost all of a sudden, but the pollution from coal factories has been linked to many more deaths than you'd expect to find from nuclear, even if we used our past track record with nuclear (which you'd expect to improve as the technology improves). This is not even counting deaths related to mining the coal, from the need to burn oil for cars, dealing with nations with oil etc.

Long term we will have to deal better with nuclear waste, but long term there appears to be many viable solutions.

[mdmf007]

Mike et.al. are right. The NEWEST nuclear plant is more than 30 yars old, built on 50'S designs. (in the US that is) other countries that have newer designs, like France and Japan only emit fractions of the amount of radioactive waste today. Obviously there is no perfect system, but IMHO the Pros of Nuclear outweigh the Cons -

especially in countries that are developing a western appetite for power i.e. China / India. If these two countries lived like the US (which is everyones goal in a developing nation) Earths doomed.

Later all.

[mdmf007]

hate it when it posts twice -

[Badger]

As far as dealing with the waste in other ways that storage, a lot of people think that the half life idea is set in stone. Left to its own devices that theory holds, but nuclear waste is just atomic particles like any other substance we deal with. I've read articles where they have taken nuclear materials and reduced their life to days instead of centuries.

Called accelerated transmutation. Done using a high energy proton accelerator. First real attempts made at LANCE at Los Alamos.

Problem: the amount of power/energy it takes to transmute even the smallest amount of waste material is quite prohibitive.

[Archantael]

Ultra high energy powersources are going to get more research dollars thanks to projects like the US Navy's "railgun" project....if the railgun is to be scaled up to it's full potential it's going to take massive amounts of electricity to do it....perhaps the energy sources for the railgun project might work for providing the energy needed for the high energy proton accelerator that Badger mentioned... I may be way off base with this but I wanted to throw it out here just the same.

Here's a link covering the railgun announcements:
http://tinyurl.com/6zwuk
(links to Military.com which is work safe)

[Apollonaris Zeus]

newer designs, like France and Japan only emit fractions of the amount of radioactive waste today. Obviously there is no perfect system,

True, but store the waste in your state no mine.

Where does France store their waste?

Only answer is less people. Parents that have more then two children should be uthanized when the children become adults. That would stop idiots from having more then two and save the world.

AIIZ

[mdmf007]

Zeus -

France puts it in the drinking water like flouride. -

all kidding aside France's system emits much less waste in the form of Highly radiactive material. They are stored in regional underground repositories. Their waste is safer in decades, and not the millenia that US designs emit. Our fuel is so hot that millions of dollars were spent to develop symbols that can be understood when someone comes across the casks underground and not one of the languages spoken now exists!!!!!!!!!

Their storage (FR) is not nearly as burly as Yucca Mountain is/will be because they do not need to be. We need Yucca Mtn. to store waste from sites like Hanford, Oakrdige, Las Alamos, and every operating nuclear plants water ponds, and dry storage on site. The stuff stored at these sites dates back to the early 1940's. Some tanks at Hanford - are so hot, and corrosive that the best that can be done is to build a tank around it and underneath it to catch the goo as it burns through the existing tank. Some tanks have had this done 3 times.

The newest design in the US was designed in 1955-1960. it has been 34 years ince a nuclear power plant has been built in the US. Time to get with technology license new plants, upgrade the old. and brinmg the promise of safe nuclear energy to the market.

I also agree with population control - not the Chinese method of infanticide and abortion clinics on wheels, but maybe the Orson Scott Card method of making it cool to have only one or two kids at most. (Enders Game, Tor Publishing)

later all

[Badger]

I agree on most points. The exception being that I believe the attempt to come up with a marker for a waste repository was more of an exercise in which submissions were solicted and not paid for but government monies.

If there was money given out I never received any of it. My suggestion that a 500-1000 ft tall stainless steel sculpture of this creature would undoubtedly allowed me to take home the bacon.



Using the likeness of 'Cathy' as a Totem of Certain Fucking Death to mark a nuclear waste repository would insure security of the site for multiple thousands of years..

Christ, that should scare the pig shit out of any curious, post-apocalyptic hole digger that comes within 30 miles of the burial site.

[BAS]

Unless Hollywood lied to me, the statue of Cathy would come to life and rampage across the countryside until destroyed! (Or driven into the ocean, in which case it would cross the ocean and destroy Tokoyo....)


B.

[Badger]

Unless Hollywood lied to me, the statue of Cathy would come to life and rampage across the countryside until destroyed!

BAS, I think you may have confused that secret weapon for the Ultimate Doomsday Machine...Isotopazilla v2.0

KNOW FEAR....

[mdmf007]

http://blog.wired.com/nucleardump/2006/ ... of_th.html

Check out some of this stuff



Those spikes are one theorists way to display the danger below. I believe it would probably draw people to the area like another stonehenge - lol. I would keep trying. The link at the top has more artwork.

later all

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Their waste is safer in decades, and not the millenia that US designs emit. Our fuel is so hot that millions of dollars were spent to develop symbols

I also agree with population control - not the Chinese method of infanticide and abortion clinics on wheels, but maybe the Orson Scott Card method of making it cool to have only one or two kids at most. (Enders Game, Tor Publishing)

What is the half life of these new Isotopias?

And if we have to develop signs that maybe will have to be decifered by aliens from another world, how can you predict that they will not be violated by natural processes and cause rupturel. I've come around too many old mines that leach metals. We even have new mines that have the most advance containment structure around them, but still they fail.

I like to trust our engineers, but I don't write their checks. The industry does that.

To gain population control, we need to rewrite or destroy most religions

I guess the answer is war. It kills people and we can put our radioactive waste in the weapons!

Therefore, War is Good! Make more war right!

AIIZ

[Badger]

And if we have to develop signs that maybe will have to be decifered by aliens from another world, how can you predict that they will not be violated by natural processes and cause rupturel.

Get thee to a pharmacist.

I pray thee quell thy inner voices enough to solicite the apothecary for Loxapine and a new tin foil hat.

[Archantael]

Someone needs diversity and sensitivity training in regards to their personal interactions with people having mental challenges. Certain mindsets of "give them their meds and shove them back into dark mental wards" is pre-20th century treatment philosophy that modern medicine has thoroughly debunked as not only being wrong, but fundamentally wrong. To hear someone in the medical field no less continue to spout off such 19th century thinking about mental illness issues raises so many questions. I'm sure others who are aware of what that person does for a living and their activist past also find that mindset particularily disturbing.

The bottom line is there is no place for discrimination in today's society, be it by race, sexual orientation, HIV status, mental disabilities or illness. It can't be justified, period. It doesn't matter who is making the statements, or what the targeted person may have done past, present, or future, it's still wrong. And even the most hostile online attacks can't change the fact.

I expect to see a nasty post from the usual suspects...the overall hostility will be a clear reflection of their level of ignorance and intolerance. Think carefully about if you want to be associated with someone like that.

Edit: Additional Related Resources
http://www.stopshrinks.org/articles/globe6-9-02.html
http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/spring03/f ... ation.html
http://psychrights.org/force_of_law.htm

[Apollonaris Zeus]

People in the industry are the first ones to claim that their's processes are safe, but only to find out later that they are not.

The Phamacutical industry is a good example. Many Drugs placed on the market are then taken off once the true HUMAN experiment has taken place.

If todays nuclear power is so safe, then why isn't the insurance industry backing it up.

OK if you want them, then let private industry built it, insure it and pay for it. Not the public.

On another note someone does have a problem and they should seek the help they need. They have already cause many eplayans to stop posting. Anger management is a good thing.

You will never get your way by attacking. So seek the help you need! See a psych now!

AIIZ

[AntiM]

If human overpopulation is a problem, wouldn't radiation poisoning then become a solution? And if humans cease to exist, would not any mutations in the other species not matter because we, humans, supposedly the only sentient species, would not be here to witness and record it?

Just taking the long, long view.

[Badger]

And if humans cease to exist, would not any mutations in the other species not matter because we, humans, supposedly the only sentient species, would not be here to witness and record it?

That's assuming that the remain species couldn't at some point develop into sentient species. Consider that dinosaurs/reptiles had a huge leap ahead of the early mammals. If it hadn't been for an unfortunate collsion with a big rock 65 million years ago it seems quite possible that the dominant, sentient beings on the planet at an altenative moment might well have been saurian.

[MikeVDS]

The bottom line is there is no place for discrimination in today's society, be it by race, sexual orientation, HIV status, mental disabilities or illness.

IMO this is absolutely wrong. People should be discriminating in our society in some ways and not in others. Let's take HIV status for example. It would be wrong to deny a job to someone with HIV that has nothing to do with it, but to refuse to have sex with said person if you normally would have is discriminating and IMO a very good decision. Someone with a mental disability is incapable of acting "normally" in some respect and should NOT be treated as if they can be treated normally.

I work at a hospital for the developmentally disabled. I was not around at the time but I guess years back the thought was that these people should be treated like normal. They should be treated just like any other adult. From what I hear the results were disastrous. No locking the TV behind plexiglass even though once a week someone would smash it apart, no using plastic dishes because typical adults don't use plastic etc. They ARE different and will live better lives when people treat the like the people they actually are.

I'm not saying I'm agreeing that we should just stick people on meds and lock them up, but discrimination can be a very good quality to have. The problem is when people discriminate because of a completely unrelated quality. If I didn't hire someone to type for me in an office because they weren't a midget, that'd be wrong but if I didn't hire someone because they weren't a midget to drive my submarine that only fits midgets, that's preferable and the right kind of discriminating.

[Apollonaris Zeus]

That's assuming that the remain species couldn't at some point develop into sentient species. Consider that dinosaurs/reptiles had a huge leap ahead of the early mammals. If it hadn't been for an unfortunate collsion with a big rock 65 million years ago it seems quite possible that the dominant, sentient beings on the planet at an altenative moment might well have been saurian.

Possibly, but most likely NOT. Dinosaurs did survive the asteroid collision, but for many reasons they evolved into birds or lizards, but why birds and not a higher evolutionary form in the same amount of time that we humans did? We both existed together, b.

Studies on current human development might have an answer. The difference maybe called "sanctuary". Tut developed into other forms, was it the hollow bones of birds, but lizards don't. T

he ability to live without fear so certain development chemicals can do their thing on the brain. Not only Our brains release different forms of chemicals under certain conditions, but all animals.

I don’t know the name of the person who did the research or the name of the study, but it makes sense. It correlates to why do some ants become worker ants and some army ants. Army ants are fed a different substance to make their bodies morph. It seems that under certain stresses, like constant fear- ie. Terrorism, war, abuse etc the brain will not development beyond say reptilian type brain. This occurs in pre-natal develoment- A child bearing woman that is loved and cared for without fear or stresses will develop into to a higher cortex brain, even better it will have more developed frontal lobes. In some people brains and I’m sure you have seen this the forehead is extenuated. In some people the forehead slants backward: a reptilian brain. Now I’m not saying that a reptilian brain person doesn't have a cortex or frontal lobes and cannot be smart, in some case some of these people are very intelligent, but these people can be better at taking orders or being, say army quality- great followers, but lousy leaders. Whereas, people with extenuated frontal brains can solve problems requiring greater abstract thinking.

Why? Well say you live in a society that is under constant threat of war. You need more soldiers, not scientists. Once those threats are gone, bingo, greater advances in social development and learning. The spartans knew something of this when they would raid and attack their own slaves once in a while to make them nore condescending to their orders.

Back to the Saurian development; They live in constant fear of being eaten. Therefore they need to be as agile as possible to escape once they hatch or are born. Monkeys live in trees and have a higher form of society or even moles that live under ground both have a relative life safe from harm, so therefore the brain develops.

Then again, maybe we had sex with the gods or at least aliens!

Fuck God!

AIIZ

Ps- If you haven’t look around for those with extenuated skulls. They are out there and they may be the next evolutionary form of humans. Skulls with eyes that never get wet in the rain.

[Badger]

Possibly, but most likely NOT. Dinosaurs did survive the asteroid collision, but for many reasons they evolved into birds or lizards, but why birds and not a higher evolutionary form in the same amount of time that we humans did? We both existed together, b.

I find it deliciously ironic that someone who strikes me as a superb example of human de-evolution should comment with some sense of authority on the exact opposite.

[cowboyangel]

I never voted for Al Gore.

[BAS]

I think I voted for Gore...?!?


B.

[Isotopia]

I never voted for Al Gore.

Truth be known, neither did I.

That was around the time that I decided I no longer wanted to feel like I needed a shower after leaving the voting booth.

[Apollonaris Zeus]

I did!

because you didn't we have to put with Bush, war and the collapse of the America's perception in the world's mind as one that supports real democracy and freedom.

AIIZ

PS- Badger, I still love you why can't we be the way we were, before you stared PMing me with your personal threats?