I’m not talking about anything major. Fitting a venting stack to the toroidal pressure-suppression chambers of all the Mark 1s was done in the USA by the 90s. That would have eliminated three hydrogen explosions and left the fuel pool decks uncontaminated and accessible for visual inspection and manual top-up.
The other thing I’d like to see and wouldn’t be hard to implement is bunkered, waterproof, snorkelled backup diesels in flood and tsunami zones. Since the gen 2 safety philosophy is based around never losing station power, rather than being able to get by without it, the true redundancy and toughness of the power backups needs to be reassessed.
it doesn’t really matter if the pollution comes from China or Germany or some other place. I’m as much opposed to Germany taking out nuclear as I’m for China building more.
Please post scientific links which support your claim of “Metals that can be directly traced back to Chinese coal powered plants.” That one does not.
I’m glad that “Jonna Odgaard, journalist” who appears to have no scientific credentials has decided to highlight this, and they make vague references to “reports” published, but not only do they refuse to cite any sources, but they do not back up any assertion that it’s “Metals that can be directly traced back to Chinese coal powered plants.” Note your key word of “directly.”
I’m not being paid to translate Dutch documents which are posted on an English message board in support of a claim which cannot be backed up.
It DOES matter, because the solutions to mercury in the environment are political, situational (that is, where and how the mercury is spread once it’s airborne), and technical. If we want to do something about mercury there are low-hanging fruit and places where a little money and effort and will to pollute less can yield huge benefits. That’s part of my job. And yes Chinese coal power plants emit a lot of mercury. I’m not only not denying it, I probably posted on it half a decade ago. But the problem of tracing which source is responsible for which mercury increases is one which a lot smarter folks than I have been trying to do via atmospheric monitoring and modeling for decades, and it’s not really that possible in many (most?) situations.
naa. Probably not. My interests don’t extend to a pissing match. But I’ll remember this next time someone presents a cite. It has to be “scientific,” not “Dutch” and the author to have proper “scientific credentials.” Meanwhile, until I have been shown otherwise (by proper scientist of course), I’m going to go with what I have heard in the news. That coal plants are putting heavy metals into the environment and polluting the fish, seals and whales. The latter has been a very heavy blow to traditional Faroese culture, no less than Japanese being unable to eat sushi. Nuclear pollution hasn’t been an issue at all. The global warming aspect of coal plants however, doesn’t concern me overly. On the whole it appears to have a positive benefit on the Faroe Islands, as the warming ocean seems to be driving valuable fish stock north into Faroese territorial waters. But it must be an issue for the Greens.
Nope I will not note that. As I said, it matters little for me from which nation the pollution comes. I think a lot of probably comes from China, but perhaps it really comes Bolivia, I’m still for reducing it.
That’d be Danish.
I’m all for plucking those fruit.
As I said, I couldn’t care less if the pollution comes from Chinese, German, Swedish or American sources. The environment is global. The only point worth debating is weather coal plants are polluting the environment with heavy metals (and greenhouse gasses), and weather we’d prefer this pollution over the pollution of nuclear plants.
Una may not be a “scientist” but she is a bonafide expert in fossil fuel power plants. I’ll go ten rounds with her on a number of subjects but I’d accept most of what she says on this topic as factual (she is basically her own cite on this subject). If you want to dispute her on this bring your A-game. You’ll need it.
Also, seemed to me she agreed that coal burning power plants emit lots of mercury.
It is quite simple. I prefer nuclear over coal because coal causes heavy metals (and other toxic substances, and of course CO2) which I find is much worse than what damages or risk there are involved with nuclear. Fine that a person thinks otherwise, but then I’d prefer that they come out and say, that they consider fossil fuels a better alternative to nuclear. Just saying nuclear is wrong, without considering the alternative is not ok.
What’s wrong with eating whales? Greenlanders (Inuit) and the Faeroes have been eating seals and whales for more than a thousand years. It used to be advised that children eat it for its health benefits, it is sustainable, the animals are respected and suffer much less than farm animals and it is very much the ideal of a people living on the premises of nature. If the animals are endangered, which the species that were eaten are not, then it is certainly not something caused by these people. And of course the reason the whales are no longer eaten is that they are full of metals. Not, I imagine, something that is healthy for the whales either. If you want to fire up coal plants to save the whales, then yah for a cure that kills the patient. In any case nothing to do with the subject.
Given that your links didn’t even back up your own claim, even if they had been written by Nobel laureates, I’m unsure what you’re after here with the sarcasm.
Why am I nitpicking about this? Because it’s important! Coal releases a lot of mercury, as do many other industrial processes, and tracking their sources down to find out where is best to apply environmental standards and controls is important.
Given that I agreed from the first post that coal power plants are putting heavy metals into the environment, again, I don’t know what your beef is.
Calling me not a “proper scientist” is the closest thing to a personal insult in Great Debates as makes no difference. I may be a lot of bad things but I’m goddamn good at my job.
Perhaps English is not your primary language. Your links to those foreign news sites implies such, as does your dogged insistence on not realizing there is a world of difference between what you and I both agree upon, and your bald-faced claim that the metals could specifically be traced back to Chinese coal power plants.
People care about tracing the sources of emissions. Scientists, engineers, lawyers, politicians, environmental advocates, labor activists, food science and nutrition experts, and everyone else who is concerned about the environment, energy, and health and safety.
:dubious:
Well maybe if you were an actual coal scientist and engineer in the field - as I am, right this fucking minute - it would matter to you. If however your goal was to just bitch and throw out a wild claim about tracing metal emissions directly to power plants from a specific country…mission accomplished.
You’ll note I don’t even say it’s impossible to do so, just extremely difficult.
…and the solutions are site-specific. Site-specific solutions can yield the best results for everyone - the company, the environment, and Ma and Pa Kettle sitting on their front porch. What are you not getting here?
Since when is that a “debate?” Honestly, your wording again makes me wonder if we’re just having a language barrier here.
Nitpick away. As I said, I don’t give shit either way. I merely provided the cites to show that it was not a claim that I had invented, but one that is repeated around here. And for the fifth time, weather it is true or not that the pollution can be traced to China. I care little.
I might well ask you the very same question. Given that we agree that coal power plants are putting heavy metals into the environment, and that is all the problem I have with them, what on Earth are you yapping on about.
I haven’t called you anything. I don’t know you from any person. You might as well be a baker in Utah for all I care. I have you forgotten tomorrow. I was referring to the way you so blithely disregarded Jonna Odgaard for being anything so lowly as a mere journalist with no scientific credentials. Not a proper scientist enough for you, for sure.
People care about a lot of things I don’t. Why don’t you take it up with them that does?
Go knock yourself out.
Indeed, you seem to be unable to understand plain English. The question of the OP is do you support nuke power. The answer I gave is yes. And the reason I gave is because the alternative, coal, pollutes in ways I think is worse. Now if you want to debate this very simple thing. Then we have something going. If however you want to debate tracing mercury to Bhutan and back again, then I suggest you do so with someone who actually give a shit.
You posted it; most folks will feel honour-bound to either defend or retract something when called on it.
First off, it’s “whether”, for Christ’s sake, you’ve done this three times now. Second, if you don’t care, maybe you shouldn’t post.
Oh, simply the fact that you stepped into the debate and created a “fact” out of thin air, and when you were called on it you’ve ducked and weaved and steadfastly refused to revise your claim to make it factual. It really makes one wonder.
Next time don’t dump facts into the thread which have little to do with the OP and refuse to defend or retract them.
The choice isn’t really nuke vs. coal though. It’s more, nuke vs. everything else that could do what nuke does, which is baseload electricity production.
For instance, Iceland gets 100% of its electricity from geothermal and hydro. They get zero electricity from nuke. So, in the case of Iceland, do you prefer nuke or geothermal and hydro?
I’ll guess you’ll pick the latter. That’s my point. When talking about nuke it’s important to remember it isn’t nuke vs. coal, but nuke vs. whatever else could produce the same amount of electricity in the particular locale you’re talking about.
No one is saying, “let’s just use coal foreeeeeever! Bwah, hah, hah!”
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
The choice isn’t really nuke vs. coal though. It’s more, nuke vs. everything else that could do what nuke does, which is baseload electricity production.
[/QUOTE]
And what technology available today can be scaled up to even meet the current energy production we are getting out of nuclear? And what technology can be scaled up to take a real bite out of coal? What is the mystery technology or technologies that can be scaled up to do this?
Well, hell…we should just be like Iceland! I mean, we have a similar population in terms of numbers and density. Similar land area. Similar access to geothermal and hydro to take care of all our needs. And they get zero electricity from nukes, even though they need such vast quantities of energy! Plus they have lots of blonds, from what I’ve heard. You sold me…let’s be like Iceland!
True. I mean, if we happen to be just like Iceland we could get all our power from geothermal and hydro, as you say. I bet a lot of countries could be just like them, since the similarities abound.
No…they are saying ‘well, since nuclear is out I guess we’ll continue to get the majority of our energy from coal for the foreseeable future because nothing else comes close’. As long as you are good with that for the next 50 or 60 years then I guess that’s fine. Or, we could all be just like Iceland…or something. Good luck with that and hope all that Global Warming stuff is just a bunch of stuff and bother and all those scientist types are wrong.
