So, What will you give up to save the planet?

What to do with the waste? Bury it in a deep hole. In a thousand years it's less radioactive than the original ore.

How big a hole? All of the high-level waste ever produced by nuclear power reactors wouldn't fill one football stadium. The same volume of coal would keep one medium-size fossil fuel power station running for about a week.

In the age of anthropogenic global warming we can no longer afford ignorance and hysteria about non-fossil fuel energy sources. If we cared about our grandkids we'd start replacing coal fired power stations with nuclear immediately, and pray that we haven't started too late.

 

But where will that football stadium full of waste be located? Last I checked, the good people of Nevada don't want it anywhere in their state, even the remote, thinly populated parts.

It'll have to be away from major populations, and any location that might someday become a major population center. The land must be away from earthquake zones. It'll have to be built like a fortress, in order to withstand any sort of incursion.

And now we come to the problem of getting the waste there. By truck? Then look out for hijackers and SUVs loaded with explosives suiciding themselves on the way. Oh, and don't drive near my town (or any populated area). By train? Probably easier to derail than a truck. Oh, and I still don't want it rolling through my town. By airplane? A malfunction or pilot error rains radioactive waste down on a wide swath of land, yippee.

And finally, do you trust China building a dozen more nuclear reactors? Russia? India? Even if you're not worried about these countries expanding their stockpiles of weapons, how secure will their facilities be? The US can spend billions making each of our plants and disposal sites fortresses, but it only takes one soft target in middle-of-nowhere Russia/China for terrorists to become dangerously armed.

If its a choice between coal/oil/natural gas and nuclear, I'd actually choose nuclear, along with the _possibility_ of a quick death over the guarantee of a slow, painful one. But mercifully, there are other choices.

(still not a nut, but it looks like I'm getting there)

 

There was a proposal a while back that we could put it in soft drinks. Then we pay people to drink it. Thus we spread it out thinly enough that the radioactivity is below the level the government decides is safe. Skeptics counter that no level is "safe." But does anyone really care what people who don't trust the government think?

Actually, I've heard that it takes more like half a million years. But what's 499,000 years among friends?

In any case, even a thousand years is an unrealistic length of time to expect to be able to protect the stuff. Not to mention (as I think Sun__Tzu pointed out) that we'd be creating a constant commerce in some really nasty stuff, subject on a daily basis to theft or accident.

 

The waste problem aside, the consequences of an accident are too high to justify. Three Mile Island, and Chernyobil are to examples of that inevitability. Solar and wind power offer two far superior examples of non polluting renewables.

 

And the worries of it cracking, and the radiation getting into the ground water or rivers.

I live in Western Washington, and having the Hanford Nuclear Repository near the Columbia River is nightmarish. Particularly when we hear reports about the number of waste accidents they've had over the last 10 years.

Also, 1,000 years? I think it's considerably longer than that before nuclear material becomes safe. (And 1,000 years is a long time.)

Believe me, I'd love to be convinced that there are viable, reliable and practical solutions for nuclear waste. But I haven't heard any so far that sound viable.

 

Given American soda consumption I think we'll end up with a lot of radioactive people walking around. I haven't heard of that proposal and I truly hope someone isn't out there thinking that's the way to do things.

As for what I would give up? ... I'll give up driving my current vehicle. Hell, I'll even see to it that nobody else ever drives it. I'll give up buying gas and write on both sides of the paper and... stop drinking things out of glass bottles. And stop smoking, too, that's not only a disgusting habit but I'm sure all that crap floating through the air is pretty bad for the environment.

The point I should be trying to make is, for years, Americans have made themselves comfortable (and rich) by misusing every resource possible. Instead of finding a proper way to dispose of chemical waste, factories just dumped it into rivers. For 200 years, instead of working themselves, rich white Americans kidnapped people and forced them to do all the work. Many have no qualms about going over to some rainforest and chopping it down so we all can have wrapping paper for 300 different occasions. A meal without meat isn't a meal at all. Some of this can be chalked up to ignorance, some of it to greed, but the bottom line is: Decadence is part of our culture, and inevitably, so is waste. There's no silver bullet solution; it can only be hoped that eventually people will wake up to both the problem and the solutions, on their own.

 

Now there, I agree with you 100%.

 

Actually, I'm not sure "huge" cars or SUVs really need to be a problem. Personally, I hate all SUVs and wouldn't mind seeing them all gone, but large vehicles don't necessarily need to be outrageously fuel inefficient. Detroit is simply encouraged to make them a certain weight in order to hit insane tax incentives put in place by some idiots (see: Congress) in Washington. As the Ford and Lexus models will hopefully show, large cars can also be fuel efficient (or at least MORE fuel efficient). We just need to choose the right kind of car to encourage the right kind of design mentality by Detroit. And we need to choose the right kind of Representatives to pass non-idiot legislation.

Same goes with larger houses. If you're smart about it, the size of your house will be only a minor consideration in how much energy you use. If the lights and appliances are left on when no one is using them, then your house is wasting electricity regardless of its size. Here, personal energy-saving behavior is king.

Now solid waste is another matter. We need our governments to step up recycling efforts nationwide. I think I read somewhere that Germany actually requires manufacturers to take back the junk they make. So car and computer makers and such have to figure out ways to recycle most of the products that come out of their factories. Then again, I can't remember where I read this, so maybe I'm just making it up. Still, methinks dems Krauts sure be smart, eh?

 

I'm more in favor of the paper bags, I don't know about the political thing, I know I lean republican due to my detestation of the current welfare system's implementation, but I do agree with saving the environment and such, but feeding some kid's kids isn't the general welfare its welfare of the poor but I digress... (sorry for going OT)

 

Paper bags waste resources, too, even if your kids use them for drawing paper. The politically correct shopping bag is a cloth bag that you re-use forever.

As for giving up stuff, I remember a bit that Dick Gregory did: a cop stops him and says, "What'd you give up for lent, boy?" Gregory pulls out a tommy gun and replies, "Nonviolence!" Most of us are willing to give up a few insignificant things, and Prius folks are willing to spend money on an efficient car (as long as it is super-cool, comfortable, a good performer, and fun to drive) and probably most of us are willing to spend money on improved efficiency, as long as our comfort and convenience are not affected.

Real improvement will require drastic lifestyle changes, and those won't happen until economics force us to change our habits.

 

Imagine a presidential candidate saying "We must change our sources of energy and use energy more intelligently, to improve the quality of life for ourselves and for our children". Good luck getting campaign contributions from big energy companies.

 

The first thing we must give up, for the sake of our future and the good of the planet, is ignorant fear.

Somehow the French and the Japanese have been managing this problem for about 40 years. Are they just smarter than the rest of us? I doubt it.

How would you propose to prevent them? But this is a good argument for placing nuclear power production under the control of an international regime, with facilities guarded by the military.

Unmercifully, the other choices are more expensive and cannot be ramped up fast enough to meet the needs of the emerging middle class of Asia.

The effects of global warming will be more disruptive and ruinous than anything in history, even if we started converting from fossil fuels to nuclear today with all possible speed. The longer we wait the worse it gets.

 

Jimmy Carter pointed out that we waste more energy than we import. He called for improvements in efficiency. He didn't even call for fewer comforts, just that we stop wasting energy needlessly. And he lost by one of the great historic landslides. Of course, it didn't help him that he was indecisive, or that Ronald Reagan promised weapons to Khomeni on the condition that Khomeni hold onto the American hostages until after the election (releasing them, in fact, immediately after Reagan's innauguration).

 

When they have drunk enough to glow, they can lower their utility bills by not needing lights at night.