Nuclear Energy

@Yanny:

But seriously, Space could work. Problem is, what happens if the Space Shuttle blows up while on earth?

Space would not work.
It’s too dangerous: think of a shuttle blowing up while being a few kms up in the sky, that will be a nice fallout.

My last Ford lasted me 10 years, 140,000 miles. Well worth the 8 thousand US dollars I paid for it…

@Field:

My last Ford lasted me 10 years, 140,000 miles. Well worth the 8 thousand US dollars I paid for it…

that’s lucky :D

we have had our Chevy since 92 and put about 120,000 miles on it, and she is still ticking.

Before I go on, I would like to say, Yanny, you are one of those people that really impress me. Most people I know tend to fall in the “Liberal Anarchist” or “Victicrat” scope of things. This means they enjoy criticizing government practices (call it mangled free speech activism), yet offer little views on what needs to be changed and the right way to do it. At least you, Yanny, are attacking the problem upfront (as Clinton would say, “It’s the oil - stupid” 8)). Now with that said,

1. As with F_alk, I am a strong advocate of Nuclear Fusion, not Nuclear Fission, as I mentioned before. Fusion is much cleaner, it won’t “explode,” won’t leave nuclear fallout, is much safer, and doesn’t leave the nuclear “waste” of its cousin. The main problem is with the technology. So far Nuclear Fusion can only be achieved on the small scale with electromagnetic field. Then there are the rather large start up cost associated with it. But Yanny, if you are willing to look into long-term (ex your 5 year electrical deal), then it seems a likely way to go.

2. There is nothing wrong with government-controlled nuclear reactors (if you choose this path), this will ensure that they will be maintained with the highest building codes, security, and strictest safety standards possible. Capitalistic have a very good tendency of taking shortcuts in building codes and safety standards in order to save that almighty buck.

3. As for Nuclear waste, leave Canada out of this! :) Do you really want to have radioactive polar bears stalking your neighborhood? :roll: As long as the nuclear waste is neatly stored in lead shielded underground bunkers (along with being carefully monitored), it shouldn’t poise that much of a threat. At least not as much as coal burning power plants that unfortunately provide most of the world with their energy source (including ours). There have been several proposals made of storing the waste out in the Nevada or California (gasp!) Deserts.

4. If you want electrical powered cars, I suggest going with fuel cell and not battery operated. I’m also a strong supporter of fuel cells (I prefer the Proton Exchange Membrane using sodium borohydride). Fuel cells offer much more advantages over traditional battery operated cars. Unlike fuel cells, batteries must be recharged by power companies that continue to pollute the environment by burning fuel to create electricity. Fuel cells do not have to be harmfully disposed of either. Also, the cost of recharging a PEM would be the fraction of the cost of battery charging (not to mention the increase in overall distance [less charging recovered] and time required to refill). However, the main problems with PEM is that the technology is still new (as with nuclear fusion) meaning high start up cost. However, this can be offsetted by mass production, where the cost of a fuel sell car would be considerately cheaper (even cheaper than traditional fossil fueled cars). Another problem is the need for a strong infrastructure and hydrogen pipeline, but with government subsides and incentives, the possibilities are endless.

5. American cars are an acquired taste!
   :wink:

Not to mention the extreme GreenPeace Activist.

@Yanny:

I still see no problem with dumping the waste in Canada. Pick some remote city or island. I support Nova Scotia, but I’m sure we can find something a bit more interesting. Too bad most of their major cities are almost on our border.

I haven’t heard any real disagreement here. Does anyone disagree? If so, please say so, I’d like to hear arguements against this plan.

I’ll give you an argument. If you’re joking - ha ha, but it’s been used a few times.
If not - dump you’re own waste in your own country. America creates more crap than any other country in the world (well, on a per capita basis, i think we do), and they should be responsible for cleaning up after themselves. I think that America takes enough of our resources as it is without using our land for their own hubris-tic ends.
I guess if you need a place to dump it, it might as well be Quebec. Nova Scotia on the other hand . . . why, that’s just criminal. Kind of like kicking a puppy.

“1) As with F_alk, I am a strong advocate of Nuclear Fusion, not Nuclear Fission, as I mentioned before. Fusion is much cleaner, it won’t “explode,” won’t leave nuclear fallout, is much safer, and doesn’t leave the nuclear “waste” of its cousin. The main problem is with the technology. So far Nuclear Fusion can only be achieved on the small scale with electromagnetic field. Then there are the rather large start up cost associated with it. But Yanny, if you are willing to look into long-term (ex your 5 year electrical deal), then it seems a likely way to go.”

Actually, the biggest problem with Nuclear Fusion is that it requires the use of more energy to squish the Hydrogen atoms together than the energy you get out of fusing the atoms. You’re right that it’s safer. After all, you get Helium which will just leave the atmosphere naturally because the atmosphere can’t hold it. The sun is a big fusion ball, maybe the solution to being able to use Nuclear Fusion lies in further study of the sun.

The biggest problem with your plan Yanny is hte waste. The problem with it is that it stablizies into lead, which is extremely poisonous to humans and serves only the purpose of blocking nuclear radiation which they use in Fission plants (why do you think that lead stopped Kryptonite in Superman?). You can’t put it in Canada or bury it because it will enter our undergorund water supplies and it will do serious damage t o us and kill many people. THis will especially hurt the Untied States if you bury it in Nova Scotia because Nova Scotia is close to the American border and water systems run north to south. Sending it into the sun might work, since the sun is a huge fusion ball and sending lead into it wont affect it much. It’s also a very big philosophical problem. Many say that there may be life out in space and we dont have the right to send out poisonous garbage there.

@EmuGod:

“1) As with F_alk, I am a strong advocate of Nuclear Fusion, not Nuclear Fission, as I mentioned before. Fusion is much cleaner, it won’t “explode,” won’t leave nuclear fallout, is much safer, and doesn’t leave the nuclear “waste” of its cousin. The main problem is with the technology. So far Nuclear Fusion can only be achieved on the small scale with electromagnetic field. Then there are the rather large start up cost associated with it. But Yanny, if you are willing to look into long-term (ex your 5 year electrical deal), then it seems a likely way to go.”

Actually, the biggest problem with Nuclear Fusion is that it requires the use of more energy to squish the Hydrogen atoms together than the energy you get out of fusing the atoms. You’re right that it’s safer. After all, you get Helium which will just leave the atmosphere naturally because the atmosphere can’t hold it. The sun is a big fusion ball, maybe the solution to being able to use Nuclear Fusion lies in further study of the sun.

The biggest problem with your plan Yanny is hte waste. The problem with it is that it stablizies into lead, which is extremely poisonous to humans and serves only the purpose of blocking nuclear radiation which they use in Fission plants (why do you think that lead stopped Kryptonite in Superman?). You can’t put it in Canada or bury it because it will enter our undergorund water supplies and it will do serious damage t o us and kill many people. THis will especially hurt the Untied States if you bury it in Nova Scotia because Nova Scotia is close to the American border and water systems run north to south. Sending it into the sun might work, since the sun is a huge fusion ball and sending lead into it wont affect it much. It’s also a very big philosophical problem. Many say that there may be life out in space and we dont have the right to send out poisonous garbage there.

I bet Alabama, kentucky and some of those southern states wouldn’t notice it much . . . .

But Yanny and DasEWokSS might, after all, they do live in the armpit of the United States which is in the north.

@SUD:

In typical US fashion your gov’t has withdrawn from ITER, preferring to go its own way. There are many reasons for this; however, at least one of them is because you have not been able to get your own way, and the US was not able to dominate the governing body. So, you have taken your marbles and gone home.

WRT, I know a bit of nuclear fusion, and what I will tell you was that it [US withdrawing from ITER] didn’t have that much to do with so-called “Yankees always want things their way” as SUD so diligently mentioned. The main problem was government spending. Initially, US was a major proponent in getting nuclear fusion power plant to work (expected to a prototype fusion reactor by 2025). However, that was when Congress initiated huge paycuts (literally hundreds of millions of dollars) from nuclear R&D, and called for that sector to be restructured into something much boarder and more science based (ie cutting back on long term technology for short term science). This caused the department to lose 800 scientist and several of our production facilities. This is not to say that the US government was against alternative energies, but also wanted to invest time to other, more conventional projects like hydroelectric, solar, and wind power (already billions of dollars had been invested in fusion research).

However, that doesn’t mean we have pulled out of ITER entirely, in fact we’ve sent several scientist aboard to Japan and Europe to help them out. Also our department is very willing to show our own findings with the ITER and help them out in any ways possible besides costly funding (as said before, Congress rolled back a lot of research spending). Hopefully we can continue to help them with the sciences involved in self-sustaining plasma research in order to power their own technologies.

Now there is a very strong possibility that US will rejoin ITER. This is due because of funding, something the remaining members of ITER are having problems of there own. But in a promising indication, the ITER agreed in 2000 to design a much smaller prototype capable as serving as model for a nuclear fusion plant at half the cost ($4 billion). Also promising is the fact that Congress has reinitiated some funding into Nuclear Fusion.

Seriously, imagine the laugh the rest of us will have if we are successful. Superpower one day, 3rd rate banana republic the next. Going to cost you big time to buy your way in later.

Actually, the strongest possibility lies that it will be the other way around (US first to develop a nuclear fusion power plant before the parties aforementioned). From what I can tell, US is still the dominant power in the field of modern nuclear fusion (esp. for Californians! :)) and is responsibly for much of science that governs it. By not joining ITER, we can now spend the increased funding in domestic research Department of Energy, Defense Programs, and Fusion Energy Sciences, which have made sustainable gains in this field – with the possibility of joining the ITER in the near future.

For some additional information, I suggest you check out:

http://www.iter.org/
http://www.aip.org/pt/mar00/iter.htm
http://www.pnl.gov/energyscience/04_99/brf.htm

@EmuGod:

Actually, the biggest problem with Nuclear Fusion is that it requires the use of more energy to squish the Hydrogen atoms together than the energy you get out of fusing the atoms.

As I said before, the science is not so much as the problem but technology and cost. A very small fusion power plant can be build, but an actual one would require billions in spending and technology. We can get our energies from electromagnetic fields and Advanced Tokamak to exploit the use plasma pressure. I believe that the ITER is using a standard Tokamak (Donut design), whereas the US has already discovered much more efficient ways (NSTX) in which to manage plasma (another reason why we opted out from ITER).

I bet Alabama, kentucky and some of those southern states wouldn’t notice it much . . . .

Yeah, those Northern Yankees are always finding ways to put us down. Fight the power! :)

Where will you get your maple syrup, premier ham, and lumberjacks from? :roll:

Well if Canada is selected as the site for the ITER research complex, I am sure there is a stronger possibility of joining in the future. Just don’t expect this immediately is what I’m trying to say. Anyways, it’s not that US didn’t want to join ITER (though Congress was quite strong about it), but that we couldn’t join with the fervor that accompanies most joint US programs. Still I’m was hoping that the ITER would use at Advance Tokamak.

@EmuGod:

Actually, the biggest problem with Nuclear Fusion is that it requires the use of more energy to squish the Hydrogen atoms together than the energy you get out of fusing the atoms. …

Fusion bombs work fine, the problem is a controlled fusion.

I imagine that’s where most of the power consumtion of any fusion reactor comes from.

@bossk:

I imagine that’s where most of the power consumtion of any fusion reactor comes from.

Yup.

What you have to do, for a controlled fusion, is to
(1) get the hydrogen atoms really hot and under a really high pressure.
To do this, you can’t avoid to:
(2) break the hydrogen atoms into their nuclei and shells. Or: rip off the electrons from the shells, and form a “plasma”.
Then you
(3) put on a strong (!) magentic field, to keep the plasma away from the walls (it’s hot!) and confined (high pressure!).

So, heating, pressure and keeping these two inside something takes quite some energy. The heating on the other hand is only “expensive” a long as the fusion does not run on its own. Aftwards the fusion processes will heat up the plasma, so that you have a positive energy balance there and hopefully for the whole system.