Carlos Moreno wrote:
> Jerry Avins wrote:
>
>>>> Where do you propose to put the ashes?
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, the trick is that for every trillion of terawatts
>>> that you generate with nuclear energy, you generate less
>>> ashes than when generating a gigawatt by burning petroleum,
>>> or equivalently, cause less damage to the environment than
>>> hydro-electric energy (which BTW is too limited anyway --
>>> it's not accessible everywhere, as thermo-electric
>>> potentially is, and nuclear could be)
>>
>>
>>
>> I can form non-nuclear ashes into cinder blocks, and build things with
>> them. You can't do that with nuclear waste.
>
>
> Yes, this is a good point. But still, think about it; two
> details: 1) it's not only non-nuclear ashes what you produce;
> it's harmful amounts of CO2 and other pollutants (harmful for
> the environment) that go to the atmoshpere, rivers and oceans,
> etc.
>
> And 2) the thing is, again, we're not comparing non-nuclear
> ashes that result from generating a megajoule of energy by
> burning petroleum vs. the nuclear ashes that result from
> generating a megajoule of energy in a nuclear plant.
>
> For the same amount of waste, you had an extra terajoule of
> energy -- perhaps sufficient to do something sensible about
> those ashes -- yes, perhaps even launch them in a capsule
> that goes to outer space (I mean, why not? You had an
> extra terajoule of energy! Spend half a terajoule in
> sending those ashes straight to the Sun, and you still
> had half a terajoule more energy than you would have)
>
> Or, conversely, you could say that for the same gigajoule
> that you generated -- which was after all the amount of
> energy that you needed, so why gebnerate more? -- instead
> of creating one ton of non-nuclear ashes, you're now stuck
> with several milligrams of nuclear ashes... I still buy it!
>
> No, really -- the numbers that I'm using may be an exaggeration,
> but the principle is the same, and it's the reason why the
> Energy Engineers keep insisting -- and it is my opinion that
> they are right -- that nuclear energy is by far the most
> environmental-friendly form of generating energy. It's so
> many orders of magnitude more efficient than anything else!

The nuclear waste builds up and with only our current knowledge, will
accumulate essentially forever. CO2 accumulates too, but it is also
converted. So2 needn't be released (and is washed out of the air as acid
rain). We pump it into the atmosphere only because that's cheaper in the
short run. (Increases hurricane activity because of warmer ocean water
probably should be counted as an economic cost of using the air as a
garbage dump, as should the worth of lost timber.)

Cheap low-pollution energy won't help. There are more than four times as
many people alive now as the day that I was born. Half of the scientists
and engineers who ever lived on this earth are alive today. Reducing the
number of consumers is the only way to adequately reduce consumption. We
need a humane way to do that. Educating people and raising their
standard of living would probably accomplish it.

Killing the "unwanted" isn't the answer. A few years ago, 40,000
children a day died of starvation and malnutrition-related diseases.
Today, the situation has improved; the number is only 30,000. We need to
find a new way to live.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
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