Yet by all the 'consensus' thinking it should have continued to rise, but it didn't, why. Hottest since modern records began over a century ago. What about the Roman Warm period and Medieval Warm Period ? Have you stopped riding your 999 for pleasure ? Maybe you should start taking the bus, I hear they are very good in Switzerland
I'm going to bale out here, as I can only put forward my thoughts rather than facts and figures. But I will say that I strongly believe man's influence on the Earth is much less significant than some would have us believe. And that the only reason it is big news is so that some people can make money out of it.
The current generation of nuclear power stations came from the desire to produce weapons grade nuclear material, it needn't be like that. Lessons have been learnt and no doubt will continue to be learnt. I see no reason why modern nuclear facilities can't be built to an acceptable level of risk. Thorium is a viable alternative which is inherently much safer in that it does not rely upon a moderated chain reaction but uses an external neutron source to sustain the reaction, which means it can be built to fail safe.
You might be interested in this: I live in a farmhouse which is mainly heated by electricity. The cooker is electric too, and I have the normal freezer, TV and other electronic gadgets. I also buy wood for the fireplace which I get working every winter evening. I analysed all my electricity bills over the past 10 years, since I have had the house. No insulation has been added to it in that time, although I have replaced a few of the old radiators (which dated from the 70s - plenty of them still do) with run of the mill replacements. Over the past ten years: My electric consumption has fallen by 14% My electric bills have fallen by 8% The unit cost of the electricity has risen by 8%. That's 8% over the past decade, not year on year. I've never changed electricity supplier (not even sure it's possible here). So, if your energy bill doesn't look like this (bearing in mind that much of the electricity is imported from France, notably) you might want to ask yourself why not? I can, on request, tell you how the electricity is produced (hydro, green, nuclear, imported) though I may need to dig around a bit. 8% increase in 10 years? It's a bargain.
Yes, I read a bit about the thorium thing, but can't remember enough about it, except that it seemed a very good idea. I wonder why the Japs didn't go that route, or the Germans, as surely neither have any use for nuclear weapons.
I get my energy through EDF's Blue+ system, promising 'electricity backed by low-carbon generation'. It's supposed to be ever so slightly cheaper than regular leccy. Regardless, my bills go up every year without fail. Personally I can't bloody wait for global warming...
France produces the majority of it's energy from nuclear. An they, and the Swiss presumably, are not being hit with feed in tariffs and additional charges to subsidise 'green' initiatives. So why do you think your cost of energy isn't rising like it is in the UK ?
No, I've stopped riding my 999 as much as I would like because of all the gardening it seems I must do! But I do confess to sometimes feeling a pang of guilt just roaring about aimlessly burning up hydrocarbons. But can't complain too much - it's pretty damned good on fuel. It's not as if I cruise around generally in a Hummer.
EDF are the biggest leccy supplier in the UK. You should be asking them! How come Swiss electricity is cheaper? How much have UK unit costs risen over the past decade, and is this all down to tax? What about gas and oil? I know nothing about these two fuels as I don't use them or have to pay for them. I would expect the Swiss to make more efforts with solar too, but the paradigm is the same as elsewhere. The lobbying power companies don't want people adopting local solar. As for writing off solar, it's a bit like flash memory. Prohibitive yesterday, affordable today, in small amounts, and getting hugely cheaper every year. Why? A massive potential market with increasing production. The Chinese have vastly reduced solar unit costs (heavy subsidies from their government, apparently, which is killing off/has killed off the European solar industry). But these will still go further south if there is wholesale adoption of solar. It's then going to look very clever.
One last thought. In a world where energy is no longer cheap and plentiful who do you think will have access to the energy that is available and what will that world look like ?
I like the idea of solar energy, but the only way I can see it being cost effective is if you fit it yourself, of if it's that well-built it'll last for generations. Neither is likely for most people. And the less regular energy we use, the more it'll go up in price, so you end up saving very little. And if we're soaking up all the sun's rays, what's that doing to the planet? Eh?
This is your weakest point, Glidd. Have you forgotten that radioactive isotopes are common in nature? That uranium, radium, thorium etc occur in the earth in great quantities at many locations? That the rocks, the sea, and the air all have radioactive materials in them? And that ionising radiation pours down on us from the sun every day, as it always has done? What you call "waste materials" all came from the earth in the first place, and are in fact valuable assets which future generations will find useful. Incidentally, shit in a garden is also a useful asset (although gardeners call it manure, and polite ones call it fertiliser) so your simile is quite apt.
I don't know, the house runs of direct debits , it is getting very expensive to fill the car though. It takes energy to harness energy and the energy returned on PV is substantially less than cheap oil and gas, it isn't a simple case of cost. When we trade energy for RAM we get a very different product in return, when we trade energy to get more energy then the efficiency of that process is critical. Question. If a PV panel was 99% efficient in terms of converting sunlight to electricity would it be a viable way to produce electricity ?
It's a question of concentration, isn't it Pete? Whilst it has been shown that the granite houses some Cornishmen live in are radioactive (and indeed harmful over a lifetime), generally, in nature, radioactivity is spread very thinly and we are physiologically equipped to deal with it. But gather it up, refine and process it to high concentrations, and you have a problem. Radioactive waste is highly dangerous stuff - or they'd just spread it on the fields. I have to pick up my dog's turds on a daily basis. Unpleasant, but I'm used to it. I object to having to pick up the neighbour's dog's efforts as well. But what I really don't want is a 5m mound of dog shit outside my front door. That would not be amusing (and a potential health hazard). A couple of dog turds in a largish garden aren't really an issue. 5'000 of them would be. Oil is also a natural asset. It's just not much fun covering a beach.
It is true that Thorium 232 can be used in a reactor to produce energy. It is also true that Uranium 235 is the only naturally occurring isotope which can sustain a natural chain reaction on its own. If Thorium is used in a reactor, it has to have an external neutron source to produce a reaction, as you rightly say. And what is this source? Uranium 235. And what does the Thorium 232 turn into as it reacts? Uranium 233. The Thorium cycle nuclear reactor has been investigated for several decades, but not implemented because it has several drawbacks. Sorry, no magic solution here.
Clearly. But there isn't much you can do in energy production that will get you anywhere near that figure. Surely it doesn't matter too much, in that it already is a viable way of producing electricity. You also have to factor in all these unseen costs in nuclear electricity production: the building of the thing, the decommissioning and the dealing with all the waste. Does nuclear look that good if you factor everything in? I don't know. And that's assuming you never have an accident. Not sure how keen the Japanese are on nuclear now. That is one major headache they have there.
Some silver linings have a cloud Solar Panel Toxic Manufacturing Byproducts, Product Disposal Needs Greater Oversight, Report Urges : TreeHugger
