nanog mailing list archives

Re: California power ... unplugged.


From: "Alexei Roudnev" <alex () relcom EU net>
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 16:06:21 -0700


I don't see any reasonable issue in this discussion. Coal and GAS power plants use
limited organic resources and will be replaced by the other power sources
including nuclear ones; heat plants (coal ones) provide much more enviromental
pollution; nuclear wastes are limited in size and the problem how to store them
can be solved by many ways.

So, the countries which contribute into nuclear power today will have a benefits,
and other will pay to this countries by some way.

And so, it's terrible mistake (it's why I hate green people being one of them by
some mean) to stop the builting and investigation of the nuclear power plants. No
one see any other way out of the current situation, and all we (or green ones) can
do is to move the problem (limited organic resources) to the next generation.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Christian Kuhtz" <ck () arch bellsouth net>
To: "Mike Leber" <mleber () he net>
Cc: <nanog () nanog org>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2001 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: California power ... unplugged.




Pal,

wacky point of view, huh? ;-)

You're way off base with your hypothesis about waste products of nuclear
power.  And I'm by no means "Green" or whatever else you'd like to call the
treehuggers.

Sure they manufacture Usomething from another Usomethingelse.  They are
uniquely different elements and if you don't recognize that, you need to go
check out yourself.  It's interesting stuff, and you mighty learn something.
Uranium, and the isotopes derived from the naturally occuring one, is only one
of the elements of cause serious concern.  It doesn't take much physics and
chemistry and biology knowledge to fully understand the complex of problems.

The point isn't Uwhatever, the point is the series of waste products generated
during the entire lifecycle of the reactor.  This includes what is generated
during the course of the operation of the reactor and has to be disassembled
from time to time for routine maintainence to keep the reactor safe as well
as at the end of the life of a reactor (yes, they have limited lifetimes).
Anything which has been exposed to those amounts of neutron flux common in
such plants is not something you want to live on.

If you factor it all in for the lifecycle of power generation method x,
nuclear power is considerably more expensive than any other power generation
method presently in use.

There are plenty of studies that prove this point, check your favorite public
library for the study and backup materials.

Or, you can just stay ignorant and not consider the entire lifecycle and claim
that nuclear power is cheaper, better, bla bla bla.  Fairy tales do serve their
purpose, I suppose.

Did you know that Chernobyl has to be burried in concrete for the next 25k
years (earliest halflife time of the elements burried in the plant)?  Where
were you or your ancestors 25k years ago?

Simply the facts around proper storage for very long periods of time (25k years
or more) should be a hint at the problems around nuclear waste, even though
it isn't an exhaustive one.

I would strongly recommend you do your homework before broadcasting such
nonsense.

I'm sure I'll just get yet another pointless flame back, but you're so wrong
that I couldn't restraint myself not saying something about all this nonsense.

I suppose it will never cease to amaze me what sort of things are born out of
ignorance...

Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled flamewars...

Cheers,
Chris


On Sun, Apr 29, 2001 at 11:19:54AM -0700, Mike Leber wrote:


On Sat, 28 Apr 2001, Roger Marquis wrote:
No question nuclear is clean but only if you carefully ignore
the danger of depleted uranium.  But I digress, that's a problem
for future generations (if we're lucky).

Here is this wacky view point again... nuclear power plants don't
manufacture uranium.  It's not like the uranium used didn't exist before
it was mined.  Would you consider building a housing track in the middle
of a yellow cake uranium mineral deposit environmentally safe because it
is naturally occurring?

This is the "naturally occurring must be good" falacy.  Take radon gas for
example, though I digress...

Point is, either way future generations will have the same amount of
uranium or less.

I've allways found it hypocritical how antinuclear people support coal
burning power plants that release more material into the air than nuclear
power plants output.  I find it an interesting example of human social
studies.

This being considered, I've been wondering about whether Internet industry
lobbying organizations like CIX or the CISPA should have a energy policy.
My cynical side says that economic darwinism will ensure that people that
don't have an energy policy will end up in businesses that don't rely on
power.  i.e. You don't like power plants?  Don't worry, in a little more
time you won't have to worry about a job that depends as much on
electricity.  California has allways had a large amount of fruit picking
jobs.  ;)

Heh, when the availability and price of electricity start affecting
decisions involving your operations, you are being an ostritch if you
don't atleast examine the possible solutions and develop and opinion.

Mike. :)


Roger

Sorry, but nukes are clean and safe. Sure people have died from nukes,
but millions have died from producing coal for plants. Why do we build
coal plants and not nukes? Because people don't care if OTHERS die, if
100,000 people a year die from digging coal they are not in your
community, that is better then the risk to THEM however small.



+------------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -------------------+
| Mike Leber             Direct Internet Connections     Voice 510 580 4100 |
| Hurricane Electric       Web Hosting  Colocation         Fax 510 580 4151 |
| mleber () he net                                           http://www.he.net |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+




--
Christian Kuhtz <ck () arch bellsouth net> -wk, <ck () gnu org> -hm
Sr. Architect, Engineering & Architecture, BellSouth.net, Atlanta, GA, U.S.
"I speak for myself only.""





Current thread: