Will we return to Coal?

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Well that's OK then.

 

Green options like what? Wind? Solar? Both still too inefficient and take too much space (wind-farms spring into mind). And the non-green options? Coal is like spreading nuclear-waste into the atmosphere willingly. Oil is the same. Both are also becoming very limited in availability due of the high price.

Then there is gas, which is also a pretty good option, but comes from the same sources as oil. Fusion energy is still too far off despite the expensive (and pretty much useless) government projects. So, in my mind, nuclear-energy is the best option despite the flaws in its "perfect" record and we know that there is no way anything can be perfect.

It's a trade-off, but worth it. Tens of thousands of homes warmed and we can continue living in comfort. On the other hand, now that energy-saving came up, I have to agree: people should really start thinking about leaving their lights/radio/TV/PC/console on 24/7. It is enough for me to glance at the computer classes of my university to give me shivers of the waste: 3,000 computers kept on all day all night together with the lights, ventilation, and heating.

And that is just one university! When taken in all 20 of them plus other schools, institutes, offices, private homes, facilities, road lamps, leaks, line resistance, etc, etc, you could say that we currently live like kings and care as much for what we take (and throw away). Of course, the best thing is that no one of us can actually do anything to it due of bureocracy and ignorant leaders. I actually tried to hint about this to our Chief of IT Department as part of my research paper, but he simply turned it down by not wanting to think about it. Why? Because it wasn't a problem in his books and so the wasting can continue...

"If it isn't broken, don't fix it." I would just love to see some strict usage-caps put on all energy-users as part of Kyoto Protocol, which has proven to be total garbage thus far with none of the countries managing to reduce emissions.

[ July 02, 2006, 01:50: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

Sweden doesn't seem to be having any trouble converting to green energy. They consistantly meet their goals and are on pace to be Oil free by 2020(!). It's amazing what can happen when you make sustainability a priority, isn't it? Sweden's green energy policy.

 

It's not so much "not managing" as much as "not trying very hard". Remember what Bush said a few years ago about CO2 and greenhouse effect? If world leaders don't WANT to stop increasing emissions (never mind reducing them), it ain't gonna happen by itself.

Never mind genetical engineering. You'd be amazed at what the naturally occurring microorganisms can consume. Some can metabolise the REALLY toxic stuff as if it were sugar.

 

we all know thats never going to happen

IMO one thing we need to do is stop looking at countries and look at the world as a whole, money and competition are whats causing the slow progress to safe, clean renewable energy sources.
this needs to be a joint project with the worlds most developed countries combining resources and knowledge into one product which can be used by all

 

It can and will happen if there are limits. When electricity/water is no longer semi-free, you also watch how much you use it. The same as with bread and money.

 

Of course I don't- but you've completely missed the point. There are about 6 billion people on this planet right now. We are on pace to have 7 billion when my son turns 20. While our actions today may not effect us today (not actually true....but for the sake of argument I'm letting this one go) they most assuredly will effect the people of the future.....our descendants. Just because I'll never know them doesn't mean I don't care if they live or die.

Personally, I don't want the short-sightedness of one generation to lead to the deaths of billions of people. I want people to still be able to live on this rock when I'm gone......and I don't have faith that technology will always step in to solve the problems it creates. It's easy to have faith that we'll "fix" the problems we've caused later because we aren't the ones who will potentially need to find a solution or die out.

[ July 02, 2006, 21:57: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

That is correct. Many of us are so spoilt by all the cheap and seemingly limitless energy available to this current generation. I think this will actually be seen as an anomaly in history and that we will see changes within our lifetimes as we are forced to cut back. You can't create energy out of nothing. That's fundamental.

 

Creating a vault and burying the waste there hardly "consumes" living-space. Yes, I know; we absolutely must habitate every inch of this cramped planet, but perhaps those few kilometres aren't that important after all, no? I mean: out of the all potential dangers a few tonnes of deep-buried waste is hardly the biggest headache the next generations will have.

I'm sure they will have more than enough to do with 100% regular waste we and our factories produce every day. And since when we have actually cared of what we throw away? Most people seem to be perfectly happy with the current situation and nuclear-power can only improve it.

 

If enough nuclear waste contaminates ground water, the land will cease to be useable for farming and without drinkable water we will simply die. For, like, the third time, we are still having instances in which nuclear waste is getting into the groundwater. Containment has been anything but perfect. If we had a track record of perfect containment you might have a point, but we have had anything but........a point I was even kind enough to make with a few examples (a meltdown, a near-meltdown, a nuclear waste leakage, and a still uncleaned nuclear testing site). If you need more examples of times we have failed to contain our nuclear waste I'd be more than happy to oblige.

 

Okay then. Prove it. I can prove the contrary:

According of finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority and Cabinet of Energy, building more nuclear-power is in line with the interests of the country (beneficial to the country). This statement was accepted in votes 107-92 in the parlament. Source.

So there you have it. I have proven that nuclear-power is a good thing -unless you want to doubt the credibility of some 300 parlament members and the Nuclear Safety Authority.

[ July 03, 2006, 01:26: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

The opinion of 300 parliament members means nothing. More than half of the US Congress believes that there is no Global Warming......and the head of the EPA, who was appointed by the president, has repeatedly made deliberately misleading statements about the scientific community being "fractured" on the subject of global warming despite the fact that no refereed scientific study has disagreed with the scientific communities stance on global warming in over 13 years. Regarding proof....proof of what? It is an established fact that a nuclear meltdown destroys the surrounding area and makes its land unarable.....and that this is a hazard of nuclear power (since incompetence and screw-ups happen in every profession, from management to the lowest rung on the chain). We know this because it has happened before (Chernobyl) and, due to deregulation, the same conditions that existed in (and were attributed to) Chernobyl now exist in many US nuclear power plants (without Bush's deregulation these plants would have been required to close their doors). It is an established fact that we have had nuclear waste leak from power plants into groundwater more than once....something we already know isn't exactly a good thing. If you need proof, that's actually quite easy to do:

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10571
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1553896.shtml
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/lovecanal/index.htm

We also know that "perfect containment" is never possible. The way we store nuclear waste deep underground merely slows down the rate at which it contaminates the envioronment to a "tolerable level" based on what we know about the chemical reactions involed in the process. A growing number of chemists and other specialists in the field are still nervous about this since the storage method is largely based on a somewhat sparse knowledge base. Based on currently available knowledge, it appears that this method of storage will work and slow down the rate of contamination to a tolerable level (barring natural disaster or other unknowns), but they are still making new discoveries every year about how these types of chemicals will interact. Some discoveries are positive and some are negative, but scientists are concerned that if they are just now learning about this process, there may be others with more dangerous consequences. Not even Yucca Mountain will have "perfect containment". http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/17/MNGB633I4B1.DTL

[ July 03, 2006, 03:43: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

The Earth is forever, we are the temporary factor. If evolution is true then life will evolve to the changing condition of the Earth so what does it matter how we use the natural resources. Whatever conditions we create life will evolve to not only adapt but evolve to a higher life form.

 

[QUOTE[Whatever conditions we create life will evolve to not only adapt but evolve to a higher life form.[/QUOTE]Evolution is a very, very, very slow process. We are causing the envioronment to change at unprecedented speed.....one with which the slow and steady march of evolution cannot keep up. Life on earth isn't evolving with the changes. It is dying. The earth is currently going through its largest mass extinction in 65 million years.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35734/story.htm

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6502368/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3375447.stm

 

If there is global warming then how do you account for polar ice getting thicker? Shouldn't it be getting thinner?

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1281

Also didn't we just recently (last 30 years or so) have a freak outbreak about global cooling?

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

 

Mankind as we know it may perish but the Earth will continue in one state or another.The earth maycurrently be going through its largest mass extinction in 65 million years but look how far we made it since then. Who is to say the next 65 million years won't be even better! We all must die, does it matter that we have no control over the Earth and what form it takes next. What speicies rule next.

 

Polar ice getting thicker is due to increased precipitation caused by increased vaporization of water since the air is getting hotter.

So whether the polar caps are getting thicker or not the increased irregularities in weather patterns, or increases in some normal processes, such as precipitation, are playing merry hell to ocean currents, which is not a good thing.

My, we live in interesting times.

 

@Arahar: There hasn't been a single scientific article disagreeing with the idea that global warming is very real and caused by excess greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere due to human's releasing said gases in far greater ammounts than they would be released naturally published in a refereed scientific journal in over 13 years. The world climatological community clearly forms a united front on this issue.

 

Of course, the problem with coal is that it would exponentially increase the rate of global warming, thanks to the metric feckton of pollution created.
Nuclear power would mean poisoning the planet in the long run, if we don't find a wasy to safely contain the waste.
And, quite simply, alternative energy sources aren't enough to power an entire country without covering fields with noisy, cumbersome windmills and blocking up every river with a hydroelectric dam.

So, to summarise: we're doomed! Oh God, we're all going to DIE!