I think if people had pushed …for years… for research and use of alternative sources of energy, we wouldn’t be in the shit we are now. Dr Lovelock is not saying “Oh my god, I just realized that nuclear power is perfect”. He is saying “We’re in such deep shit with climate change that nuclear power is our only chance in the short term”.
Had we put the billions that were wasted in fission|fusion in improving efficiencies of alternative source of energies we wouldn’t be in such trouble that we’d have to switch to nuclear (neither cheap or trouble free).
But if we HAVE to do it, I like spingears idea… This is not something you want to leave in the hands of the cost-cutting private sector. Maybe let the military take care of it?
Until the issue of how to dispose of spent nuclear waste is addressed, I doubt that nuclear fission power has any future here in the U.S. Just look at the all the fighting that has been going on for a long time about the proposed nuclear dump site at Yucca mountain in NV. No one in the USA wants nuclear waste in their backyard. And it’s not only the problem with storing it, there is also the problem of how you get it to the storage area, safely and protected from criminals and terrorists. Now, if we could send the stuff into the sun, that would be a good solution. But it is too heavy to get it off Earth, so this solution is excessively and prohibitively expensive.
Nuclear fusion would eliminate the whole waste problem. Nuclear power everywhere will become much more viable once (if?) fusion becomes a reasonable alternative.
Most (95% or so) of the nuclear waste could be recycled, and the total volume reduced if the US decided to start reprocessing it back into fuel. Of course, the enivromentalist would throw a fit if you tried to do that, so you end up with a lot more waste that needs to be buried, and then the eniviromentalist throw a a fit when you try to do that. You just can’t win with some people.
On a Slashdot post about this very announcement, someone asserted that, because the government is required to step in when a nuclear plant fails (for fear of a hostile force buying it), plant owners have simply abandoned plants when they had a spill or were no longer profitable. In effect, those who built the plants reaped the profits and collected the subsidies, then just walked away when something bad happened, leaving the government to clean up (not to mention paying for it).
Is this true? If so, this is a situation that needs to be remedied before we think seriously about more nuclear…
Count me in with the staunch environmentalists who are open-minded about the future of nuclear power. However, it’s silly to talk as though the only real problem with it is that hysterical environmentalists are overreacting about the dangers. Yes, there’s some overreacting going on, but plenty of the objections are quite sensible and realistic. Radioactive material does pose serious environmental and health hazards, and you can’t just hand-wave that away by complaining about environmentalist hysteria.
And the condition and regulation of commercial nuclear power plants in the US at the present time are unlikely to reassure many people about the safety of nukes. Consider the near-accident at an Ohio nuclear plant discussed by the GAO a week ago:
US nuclear reactors in general, as emk points out, are far from cutting-edge technology, and there are serious safety concerns about their old and outdated systems. (I thought I saw an online article somewhere just yesterday about the hazards of the US’s aging reactors, but can’t find it anywhere at present; jshore, you seen that anywhere?)
Yup, if there’s a nuclear power plant accident, you can bet that people will go ape about it. People just don’t like highly dangerous radioactive substances getting loose in the environment, and you won’t change their minds by calling them “hysterical”. Better technology and regulation will reassure many, but there’s always going to be a high discomfort level about nuclear fission.
And stupid mistakes, ineffective regulation, and corner-cutting for the sake of profit by power companies hugely increase the chances of an unpleasant accident that will cause that discomfort level to skyrocket. In fact, the anti-nuke worrywarts who focus public attention on nuclear hazards, and prod the industry and regulators to take steps to minimize them, are actually the nuke advocates’ best friends: they are decreasing the chances of a disaster that would destroy the political viability of nuclear fission power generation for just about forever.
iamme:Nuclear fusion would eliminate the whole waste problem. Nuclear power everywhere will become much more viable once (if?) fusion becomes a reasonable alternative.
Very true. jshore, how you physicists coming along on that job?
Actually, they’re coming along pretty well… just not in America. Japan, I think, has the latest on fusion…
And again, as far as the waste is concerned, if we could reprocess it appropriately, there’d be a lot less than you think. What was the old comment? All the waste from one plant in one year would fit under a desk?
And, again, yeah, our plants are old fashioned, old engineering, and old design work. But pretty safe, all things considered. Love to see something newer come out.
Honestly, if we’d spent more on green fuels back in the 50s and 60s… well, we wouldn’t have the nuclear arsenal we have today, which is why we spent the money. And we probably would be in about the same place we are today, the limiting factor wasn’t money spent but computational power, for a very long time. Believe me, the oil companies and auto manufacturers want alternative fuels to work at this point. Admittedly, they want to control them as well, but they know there’s money to be made there, and if they don’t make it, someone else will. People have been trying to make alt-fuel vehicles since Edison, including Edison, and it just hasn’t been working out. Still, fuel-cell shows promise, while hybrids don’t (The EPA fuel economy on a Prius is an imaginary number. It gets about 30 MPG, not 40+, in practice. This isn’t bad, but my car, which has a hot rod engine in it, gets 26, and a 1964 VW Beetle can get 40 or 50), and we expect to see them hitting the market in under four years.
My impression is that some progress is being made but it is fairly slow. I don’t think there is anyone who believes that fusion can play a role in the next 30…or even 50…years. I believe that people talk about it as hopefully coming on-line in the second half of this century.
I don’t have my Prius yet so I can’t talk from personal experience, but I think your numbers are low. The Prius is rated something like 51 highway/60 city and while you are correct that those numbers are apparently hard to realize in practice (as is also said to be true, at least to some extent, of the EPA ratings for other cars), I have heard mid-40s as easily attainable. (Actually, when I test drove the Prius, I think the computer calculated I was getting low-mid 40s and I was probably not driving it very efficiently because I wanted to see what the acceleration and braking were like.) Also note that the Prius is almost the size of a Camry.
Now, trust me. Never question me when I make an assertion about cars. I tend to have hard numbers behind it somewhere.
Check the blog linked in the article, by the way. Now, the reason the guy’s not getting the mileage claimed is that the EPA test is based on a exhaust trap, not an observed number effect. It’s simply not counting the electric side of things at all. It might be fairer if it started with a drained battery, but basically, the test is not designed to handle electric vehicles and get meaningful numbers out of it.
Well, after I posted that, I did go look out on the web, and it is true that there are a few people claiming low to mid 30s but most are claiming low to mid 40s. Also, it is easy to drive almost any car stupidly enough (speeding up to red lights then braking hard) to get low mileage. For example, I think Consumer Reports number was in the 30s…at least for the old Prius…but they almost always get numbers significatnly lower than the EPA estimates. The question (at least for me) is what sort of mileage one gets if one drives in a way that gets you at or near the EPA mileage for a regular car (as I do in my current car).
Here is a site where the person has been keeping track and is averaging about 45 mpg. [url=]Here is a site that talks about the mileage problem and quotes a survey by Toyota that finds and average of 44mpg for the first generation and 45-49 for the new one. (It doesn’t explain how the owners were told to measure it though.) It also says:
So, my expectation is that one is going to be able to get in the 40s in mpg as long as one doesn’t drive it too stupidly. Also, presumably the average will drop in the winter.
Your point about one reason why the mileage ratings might be too high for hybrids though is a good one though. Clearly, they should really be tested in a way that not only insures that one fills the gas tank up to the same level as before but also makes sure the battery is charged up to the same level. My impression is that with careful driving, you can get the EPA mileage in a conventional car but it sounds like this is not true for the Prius…You’ll still come up about 20%-25% short of the 51/60 estimate.
I screwed up that link. [url=http://www.autosafety.org/article.php?scid=77&did=854]Here](]Here[/url) it is. Note that the Toyota engineer who they talk to claims he typically gets 53-55 mpg by knowing exactly the technique to get the best mileage out of the car, but he admits that ~44mpg will be more typical for most owners. Note that Toyota would like to publicize more realistic estimates in order not to set drivers’ sights too high and then disappoint them but they are not allowed by law to advertise anything but the EPA numbers.
I must admit that it is a little disappointing to learn that I am only likely to increase my mileage by ~30% above the ~34-35 mpg that I get in my Plymouth Colt at the moment. But, hey, you take what you can get. Note that the hybrids are also considerably cleaner in terms of pollutant emissions.
Not to beat a dead hijack too much, but here is an owner’s messageboard thread where someone wrote in complaining that he was only getting 34 mpg, and the people re-assured him that his mileage will improve significantly as the car breaks in, he gets used to driving it, and he starts averaging in some longer trips. They seem to think that mid-to-upper 40s is what one can expect long term.
Yep, it’s a good hijack, and I can dance to it. I agree that 45 is about right if driven exactly right, and the Prius is not a tiny car, but it’s not a worldbeater the way the 60 shows. We could do close to the same with diesel… and will shortly, in all but three states, if I’m remembering correctly. Keep an eye open on that side of things.
I agree that diesel can compete with hybrids in terms of gas mileage. However, what is still a question is whether they can compete with hybrids…or even regular gasoline cars…in terms of pollutant emissions.
(Nitpick: I don’t think that 45 is what you get “if driven exactly right”. As the Toyota engineer claimed, he can get 53-55 if he drives it exactly right. My impression from reading the stuff is that 45 seems to be what you get if you drive reasonably intelligently…which admittedly is a minority of people out there, since most seem to believe that red lights turn faster if you race up to them even if they are driving the same route everyday and ought to know the light cycles. And, the average Prius owner, according to that Toyota survey, is getting about that number, although my guess is that the average Prius owner drives more conscienciously to maximize mileage than the average driver.)
This sounds unlikely to me. There is a government-backed liability program in the case of accidents, but I never heard of a complete government takeover. I would be interested in seeing any cites.
Those EPA mileage specs are pure BS. In any car I’ve had, I’ve never hit their highway mileage number and I keep a spreadsheet of gas usage for every car that I own. Here is the overall summary for my 2002 Nissan Altima with the 3.5L V6 240hp engine. Now I’ll admit to driving a bit aggressively now and then but the highest mileage I ever got (straight highway) was 21.8 mpg and the lowest (stop and go around town) was 14.16! The car requires and I only use premium gas.
Miles Gallons Used Cost Avg. $/Gal Real Avg. MPG
21690.0 1082.85 $2,071.49 1.912 18.95
iamme99: You didn’t tell us what the EPA mileage ratings are for that car.
I just looked at mine…They are 29 city, 35 highway. And, I actually tend to average about 36-37mpg in the summer and 31-32 in the winter [due to both the cold and the snow tires, I assume]. I don’t see much difference with the type of driving because Rochester doesn’t have much true “city” driving and I coast up to red lights and such. I think my odometer might run as much as 5% high, so these numbers might be inflated by that amount, but even accounting for that, I’d still be matching the EPA numbers pretty well.
Here’s another environmentalist, sounding in on the idea that the negative aspects of nuclear power have been exaggerated and those of fossial fuels largely down-played by comparison. I think this thread has done well at summarizing the various points pro and con, and certainly fusion power, when it is effectively realized, will change everything.
But I still wonder: even with fusion power, won’t the boogeyman words “nuclear” and “radiation” still strike hysterical fear into the minds of most of the peeps who at present vociferously oppose fission?
I don’t think this would necessarily be the case. As kimstu noted, there are very real reasons for the public to be concerned about fission plants. Yes, the fear may be out-of-proportion with the danger (especially compared to more incidious dangers like deaths due to pollution from fossil fuels), but there are very real dangers there.
I remember watching a program on IFR reactors and it was discussing the benefits of it as compared to other reactors (it could handle waste from other reactors and the core was safe enough for folks to stand in unprotected), then mentioned that the funding for the program had been cut, it also showed a clip of Clinton stating that during his administration some of the waste eliminated from the federal budget came from cutting funding for research into nuclear reactors.
Now, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why any administration or congress would want to do that. No, really. Many of the ships in the Navy are nuclear powered, and there’s no way in hell that the Navy would ever consider switching back to diesel powered subs, so you can expect to be using nuclear reactors until someone comes up with the incredibly small and powerful Mr. Fusion unit, so wouldn’t it make sense to continue research into improving nuclear reactors so that there was as little danger from the reactor on a sub as possible?
