I think the people of Chernobyl might disagree with that first graph. Also, when solar goes wrong it doesn't tend to render the area uninhabitable for 20,000 years.

Interesting that nuclear uses so little concrete.

Interesting. It wouldn't surprise me if much of that is true. I remember watching a documentary some years ago about the Windscale disaster, where ex-workers gave their accounts on what really happened. Apparently the British government put pressure on Windscale to dramatically increase production. This was not for the benefit of producing more clean energy but so that the waste/by-product of the nuclear reaction could be used to make atomic bombs. Warnings were ignored and production was eventually pushed beyond breaking point.

+1. It would be helpful to at least provide the source for these graphs (unless I missed that), so that it's clear where this analysis originates from. And nuclear safety is a bit like aircraft safety - all or nothing, and I certainly wouldn't have got on a 737 Max 8 last week.

The nuclear industry also has a less than perfect track record of concealment of problems, which seems embedded in the industry culture (particularly in the West), so I'm slightly sceptical about safety claims.

As a topical and close to home example, Hunterston B, on the West Coast of Scotland, is still shut down, due to the cracks discovered around the core of that reactor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47485321

It's also worth noting the global tendency to site nuclear sites far from large population centres, which may or may not imply some concern about the fallout risk.

Very true. But what are the long term effects of renewables like solar if we've got it wrong? We could be causing environmental damage that might take much longer than 20,000 years to recover from, if recovery is even possible.

And while even one death is a death too many, nuclear is still statistically the safest, so I don't think we should be deterred by the disasters of the past. We should learn from disasters such as Chernobyl and move on. Similarly, despite over 1 million deaths caused by road traffic accidents worldwide each year, nobody would suggest we ban all motorised vehicles. Instead we learn from accidents and strive to make roads safer through research and technology.

Interesting thread this one: what are the likely long term environmental damages for more than 20,000 years from solar that you're thinking of Mark? Or extending that slightly, I'd also be interested in the same likely potential long term damages from other renewables - e.g. wind and wave. They're not obvious to me.

But we're talking about older technology here and dated nuclear facilities. With investment, Nuclear power can be made very safe. Just like the development of electric vehicles, the safety concerns associated with the use of volatile battery technologies and very high current charging are challenges to overcome, not deterrents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclea...eactor_designs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

And the holy grail would be Cold Fusion of course, if we ever crack that elusive problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion


Personally I think that we should also focus on developing better ways to extract geothermal energy along with making nuclear power safer. Solar and wind energy are ok for supplementing small-scale local energy needs but they're far too impractical for meeting global energy needs.

If you watch the TED talk I posted, he puts forward a very credible argument about the damaging effects of renewables. I'm not saying that I fully agree with his point of view (I would need to do some research first); I was just posting the talk because I think he makes some plausible points that are worth discussing here. I'm completely open to any counter-information that invalidates his claims.

What he says does make a lot of sense I think though. When you consider the vast amount of land, materials, manufacturing energy, transportation, hazardous materials, etc, etc that would be required to produce sufficient wind and solar generation units to power the entire planet, there will certainly be a price to pay, especially when you consider that those type of renewable energy sources produce miniscule amount of power relative to their size.

Here's the sources cited at the foot of the graphs in the video (I cropped the graphs when I screen-shotted them, unintentionally omitting that info):

The first one cites the Lancet (a peer-reviewed medical science journal):
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...253-7/fulltext

You need to register to view the study (registration is free) so I've attached the pdf version of it.

The second graph cites the US Dept. of Energy, in particular the Quadrennial Technology Review of 2015:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/fi...iew-2015_1.pdf

Sources, sources everywhere...
 

....and not much time to think ;)

Thanks for the reminder to watch the video Mark - I haven't yet, but I will when I get time later this week.

Interestingly, a very quick (and therefore potentially not reliable ;) ) google search brings up this website - https://www.wiseinternational.org/nu...s#main-content - which paints Shellenberger as a pro-nuclear activist (though it does seem to be written by an anti-nuclear group, which is why understanding sources is so important these days...). At least I can now judge between two sides of the story now ;)

And - to reinforce your point about technology moving on quickly - this article https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../12/1900556116 gives some of the latest developments about water electrolysis to generate hydrogen for fuel cell use +++

I thought they built these things to ensure the world kept turning.





https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...on_Bank%29.jpg

Yeah! Bring on the electric Audis!
Shame he kept the manual transmission, I guess he left it stuck in a particular gear. That's 70kg of extra weight.

I think Cold Fusion does work, but I worry 'they' will never release it to ordinary people because it would make us too independent and not reliant on central energy companies.

Hot fusion, ie TOKAMAK, would of course be a clean form of nuclear energy if they ever make it work.

I like solar too, depending on solar cell efficiency, if you cover an area smaller than the UK in solar panels it would supply the current energy needs of the whole world. Not bad.

One thing you get from watching the video is that this guy is a bit of a tree-hugger so I think it's probably quite unlikely that he's a pro-nuclear activist, at least not without good reason or rationale.

Personally, I'm pro-anything-that-works. I like the idea of renewables such as solar, I just don't think they're very practical or scaleable. And, something I hadn't previously given much thought to, until watching that TED talk, is the sheer scale of manufacturing required to bring renewable energy to the world. When you take that into consideration and think about the amount of energy and materials required to go 100% renewable (not to mention all the maintenance and the waste generated by continually upgrading and replacing the technology), it does start to seem somewhat counter-productive and futile.

To capture enough solar energy in an instant to meet the world's growing energy needs, will take vast amounts of land and materials, especially if we're to meet the new demand and challenges that electric vehicles bring, which could potentially double the world's electrical energy requirements within a few decades. Using energy reserves makes far more sense, but not in the form of fossil fuels of course. One major energy reserve we have available to us is geothermal. Geothermal has the potential to provide practically endless amounts of energy very cleanly, if we can only develop better and more practical ways to tap into it.

Nuclear energy, assuming we make it 100% safe, is the ultimate in tapping into endless energy reserves. This is the energy that forms matter; the energy of star-stuff. Huge amounts of energy converted into matter by the stars (thanks to E=MC^2), ready to be released and harnessed. It's not a burning or chemical process but a direct conversion of matter into energy. There is no denser store of energy than an atom and no cleaner way to obtain energy than to reverse what happened in the stars by turning some of the matter they created back into pure energy. The biggest challenge for nuclear of course is making it 100% safe, but I think with generation IV reactors we're almost there. And through greater use and investment, I think it's likely that someday we'll crack Cold Fusion.



I like the idea of hydrogen as a fuel. On paper it's a perfect fuel; burn it and it combines with oxygen to make water. But in practice, storing and transporting hydrogen (safely) is a problem. It's one if the most highly combustible elements in existence. It also has a very low density so it needs to be greatly compressed, under very high pressures, to provide any kind of practical energy density.

And the bigger picture for me is that using hydrogen, as with any fuel, is just the harnessing of a chemical reaction. It's nothing more than the primitive burning of stuff. If the human race is to ever move up the Kardashev scale, and survive beyond this planet, we need to leave behind this 'burning stuff' and learn to harness energy properly. And that can only be achieved with nuclear.

The more I think about it, the more nuclear seems to be the obvious answer. I'm not pro-nuclear but I am very much pro-science and I would conclude that the science points to nuclear.

I'm into installing these Ray, converting old dumb barges into quite complex cable layers and conversions to carry the towers and blades for the turbines.

Hmmm....I've watched this video now, and I do think he's a patsy for the nuclear lobby. For me, so many of his arguments in this video fall into now typical classic misinformation territory - such as making a minor point and then extrapolating it to a major conclusion, often emotionally - e.g. "ripping turtles and their babies out of the ground to make way for solar farms", or his data on rising German electricity costs as evidence of how renewables cost more, not less (which is out of date, wilfully ignoring/not pointing out the subsidy effect on this data)

I have no idea if he genuinely believes the stuff he quotes, or if he is just naively regurgitating it, but it's not convincing at all. So I'm out. Others may disagree.

I generally - perhaps cynically? - tend to look for a greater burden of proof of an argument where I know there is a powerful (and rich!) lobbying group trying to make their point, particularly where they are trying to protect their vested interests/the status quo - whether that's the C**k (sorry Koch... :rolleyes: ) Brothers in the Oil & Gas sector, Pharma companies, etc, etc, and this guy falls into that category for me.