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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stribe30 who wrote (135443)	4/2/2001 9:49:18 AM
From: Scumbria	Respond to of 1583791

Scott, Forget all that science stuff. It contradicts right wing philosophy, so it must be wrong. Scumbria

To: stribe30 who wrote (135443)	4/2/2001 1:04:50 PM
From: pgerassi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1583791

Dear Stribe30: The problem is that environmentalists have not come up with the choices one needs to fix global warming and keep all of their other goals as well. Some of these goals are in opposition and can never be satisfied. A case in point is the reduction of SO2 and particulates in coal fired power plants. The energy required to run those systems takes from 5% to 10% of the energy produced by the power plant. Thus to reduce the "plume" in the Arizona Power coal fired power plant, They must burn 6 to 11% more coal to get the same amount of net power. This increases the CO2 emissions by the same amount. The "pollution" control system required by the same environmentalists is contributing to global warming. What the environmentalists do not want you to know is that some of their solutions cause more harm than the original problem. What they are doing is trading one pollutant for another using their own definitions. Removing the catalytic converters in cars and stopping the use of RFG, would cause the cars to pollute somewhat more NO2, CO, and HCs. But they would raise energy efficiency by 7 to 10%, thus reducing greenhouse emissions by the US by 2 to 3%. That is a little less than half of the requested CO2 reductions. It is obvious that our European and Asian counterparts do not use RFG or catalytic converters so that should be OK. Joe is correct that nuclear is the only viable technology currently developed enough to net the whole CO2 reduction (and then some) without either reducing emission controls or our economy. High Temperature Gas Cooled Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor technology has many advantages. First is the ease at which the nuclear reaction can be stopped. Flooding the core with water (even more so if laced with various neutron absorbers) can shut down the nuclear reaction and cool off the core at the same time. The high temperatures generate the electricity with high efficiencies leaving less waste heat to get rid of. Gas turbine generator technology is well developed and understood as well as being compact. The breeder generates more fissionable material than it uses. And the requirement of fuel reprocessing can reduce nuclear waste by more than 100 times (This is where the government is failing. It stops any company from reprocessing the spent fuel yet, refuses to do it itself due to weapons grade material generation fears (they promise to do this but slide the promised plants continually into the future)) while reducing the total uranium mining requirements (we do not need to go to foreign sources as we have the largest reserves). It will come to a showdown pitting "we need the power" consumers and "we need to reduce CO2" environmentalists against the "we can not have nuclear power" scare mongers. When this happens, the scare mongers will lose, the public gets the power they need, and the environmentalists get their reduction in the use of fossil fuels, removal of dams, and the stopping of drilling and other such goals. As to safety, coal fired power plants have blown up, dams break (two in China killed 250,000), there was a time not long ago that feed mills would blow up once a month somewhere in the US (death tolls typically in the dozens), and 50K people are killed each year on the highways. Not one death has occured in the commercial nuclear power industry in the US to date. All nuclear related deaths in the US were from the weapons programs of the government. HTGCFBRs would be even more safe. If other industries were held to the standards required of the commercial nuclear power agency, the economy (GDP) would be measured in negative dollars. The airlines could not fly, the trains not runs, no cars or trucks could be made, ships would not exist, you would not even be allowed to walk across the street (even the street would be missing). Scumbria says that we should reduce CO2 yet, his lifestyle generates more than the rest of us (at least a normal US citizen). On plane trip generates more CO2 than taking his SUV to/from the bay area. Less would be generated if he would simply take the train there and back. Or a bus. IF he is five minutes from work, he could bike there in 15 minutes. But he wants to be warm and comfy. He wants not to be rained/snowed on. He does not want to reduce his lifestyle to get rid of the 7% required, why should we? I walked to school and back as a child, why can't his do so? I rode the bus to work or biked when I lived in the city. If commuter rail would be set up to work, I would use it since I live only a couple of hundred yards from the track and less than a mile from a probable station (center of town). Every car I have is more economical than the last and I do not drive 75 and 80 to go to work. I drive a more economical 55 to 60. That saves more than 40% on gas and so a trip takes a few minutes longer. My townhouse is lit by flourescents and I use less than 600W on average. Taking about conserving and doing it are two different things. In our state, 25% of our electrical power comes from nuclear. 65% from coal and 10% from all other (hydro (the Wisconsin river is the most hard working river in the world as 90% of the possible amount is used for hydropower generation), wind, gas, solar, etc). Our coal plants have the scrubbers and precipitators and are some of the cleanest burning. We have three additional coal fired plants in the works and eight new gas fired plants as well. California had the NIMBYs and BANANAs in power there. They got what they deserved. Pete