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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Mar 16, 2011 - 10:43pm PT
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Bulls eye Werner...rj
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 10:46pm PT
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Currently, 25% of the nuclear reactors in the US are the same models
(GE built), as those that are melting down in Japan.
Do you know why the nuclear operators have to get congress to insure them?
Because no company would ever cover such a risky business. . .
Oh, and I get 100% of my electricity from solar power. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html
Experts Had Long Criticized Potential Weakness in Design of Stricken Reactor
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: If the cooling systems ever failed at a “Mark 1” nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment.
Now, with one Mark 1 containment vessel damaged at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and other vessels there under severe strain, the weaknesses of the design — developed in the 1960s by General Electric — could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Mar 16, 2011 - 10:50pm PT
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The problems all started when Eve bit that damn apple from the tree of knowledge. And we've been trying to re-create our own version of paradise ever since. Seems natural we'd take a few missteps along the way.
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sallyclimbs
Sport climber
new zealand
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Mar 16, 2011 - 11:08pm PT
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This week I noticed my Home insurance does not cover Nuclear problems. I'd be reading the fine print If I lived within 50km one. Imagine being evacuated for 30 years( that's how long some of the isotopes take to break down) and no insurance.
It may be that I live in a nuclear free place so it would take an act of war though, and that's why it's excluded.
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CrackAddict
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Mar 16, 2011 - 11:57pm PT
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@Jeremy- have you seen all of the wind mills outside of Palm Springs? They power 10,000 houses. And that is one of the windiest places in the country. You would have to COVER the state of Nevada with them to power Los Angeles. Wind is a 1% solution at best.
Solar power is more promising, but it still has problems. The biggest one: nighttime! Also, there is a limit on the amount of power per square foot that we receive here on the surface of the earth. That is not a technological limit - it is fundamental, and it virtually guarantees we will never have a practical solar car. I would say solar power is a 3% solution at best.
Also, if 25% of the nuclear plants in the US are like Japan's, then let's upgrade them. But you have to understand that this plant faced a "worst case scenario", a 9.0 EQ taking out the primary power source followed by a massive tsunami taking out the second.
And Werner, of course it would be best if we all just used less power, then maybe solar would be the answer. But people (yourself included) do not seem to be shutting off their computers, so we have to come up with a real solution, not idealism.
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BooYah
Social climber
Ely, Nv
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:20am PT
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There's always Sunshine in Space. Orbital Solar, maybe?
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:34am PT
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Chernobyl was awful. But even outdated reactors like the one in Japan or the 24 in the US are very unlikely to have something like that happen.
Coal kills plenty of miners. Coal and oil burning kill thousands via air pollution. Are those deaths less horrible than the pictured ones?
And I remember at least a few people on here not wanting windmills around, or solar panels in the Mojave, or dams killing salmon.
So beyond conservation, what exactly is it we're supposed to do?
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:36am PT
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
The Lung Association’s report reveals the real public health threat from coal-fired power plants.
Coal-fired power plants that sell electricity to the grid produce more hazardous air pollution in the U.S. than any other industrial pollution sources.
More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release more that 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.
Particle pollution from power plants is estimated to kill approximately 13,000 people a year.
“Power plant pollution kills people,” said Charles D. Connor, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. “It threatens the brains and nervous system of children. It can cause cancer, heart attacks and strokes.
http://www.lungusa.org/about-us/our-impact/top-stories/toxic-air-coal-fired-power-plants.html
so we have only killed 130,000 people in hte US in the last decade if you believe the American Lung Association. but hey, who wants to listen to these guys. i mean they are the same guys that exposed smoking. what the f*#k do they know.
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tooth
Trad climber
The Best Place On Earth
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:37am PT
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I had a patient in the office this month - victim of this.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:47am PT
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You're way off crack addict.
Ps End of Oil...great book Coz, though a bit outdated.
With hindsight it turns out that Roberts was overly optimistic about the state of world oil production, light sweet had already peaked by the time the book was written (2005?). And overly pessimistic about the rate at which alternative energy technologies would come to scale. For an example, look at the difference in cost per watt for solar technologies in 2005 versus today.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 17, 2011 - 12:55am PT
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http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/04/obituaries/anatoly-grishchenko-pilot-at-chernobyl-53.html
Anatoly Grishchenko, Pilot at Chernobyl, 53
SEATTLE, July 3 — A Soviet helicopter pilot who contracted leukemia after trying to douse the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986 has died, a hospital spokeswoman said today.
Anatoly Grishchenko, 53 years old, had been in critical condition with a lung infection for more than two weeks at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he received a bone-marrow transplant April 27.
He died of cardiopulmonary failure late Monday, according to a spokeswoman, Susan Edmonds.
Mr. Grishchenko repeatedly flew his heavy-lift helicopter through the intensely radioactive gases spewing from the Chernobyl plant, dumping sand and cement in an effort to cap the crippled reactor.
He and a handful of others in the operation were designated heroes of the Soviet Union, the country's highest honor.
Despite lead shielding on the aircraft and other protective gear, Mr. Grishchenko suffered radiation sickness and was found to have radiation-related leukemia last year.
He arrived in Seattle on April 11 for the marrow transplant, which was performed after chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 17, 2011 - 12:57am PT
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I posted this to the other thread but it really belongs here.
Chernobyl military graveyard. (Many of the workers who drove or piloted these died from radiation poisoning or cancer.)
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Mar 17, 2011 - 12:59am PT
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Chernobyl military graveyard. (Many of the workers who drove or piloted these died from radiation poisoning or cancer.)
In the aftermath of the accident, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness, of whom 31 died within the first three months
237 guys drove all that sh#t?
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 17, 2011 - 01:16am PT
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These guys here believe everything the lab coats tell em.
They're believers ......
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Oxymoron
Big Wall climber
total Disarray
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Mar 17, 2011 - 01:17am PT
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Whistling past the Graveyard, Radical? Good idea.
I'll join you.
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krahmes
Social climber
Stumptown
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Mar 17, 2011 - 02:05am PT
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Good post GC. Let’s hope that epidemiology of this event is not swept under the rug as Chernobyl was.
But let me get on my soapbox and put on my lab coveralls: You can Google per capita oil equivalent use for Japan/USA and see that since 1996 Japan per capita energy has flat lined at 4000 kg equiv oil/yr. For the USA (and Canada) the energy flat lined at 8000 kg equiv oil/yr in 1985.
So here are the graphs:
You can try to innovate and supply side America to energy independence and you will fail. Population is the correlation in the rate differences of the graphs.
On the other hand for those suggesting we follow the road of D. Quinn’s Ishmael; wasn’t that tested out in Cambodia in the 1970’s?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Mar 17, 2011 - 02:54am PT
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it's not about the technology of power generation and distribution
(tesla solved that a hundred years ago, but the solutions are top secret)
it's about the politics of centralizing power
technology that is easily monopolized is heavily supported
technology that is difficult to monopolize is heavily suppressed
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Mar 17, 2011 - 10:37am PT
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We need to realize that there is no free lunch when it comes to energy.
yea, yea. look down during a night flight sometime and see all the light bulbs burning across america--and the world--so the neighborhood watch burglar won't be prowling around. and i'm still fool enough to turn off the lights when i leave the room, not for the electric bill so much as the common good.
a poignant thread, granite, and my congratulations. i've had some discussion with friends about france, which is very dependent on nuclear energy. not many earthquakes there, of course, but it only takes one. not many earthquakes in the mississippi river valley, but they had a big one once, not that long ago.
if you like looking at nuclear deformities and misery, check out what your new world order has done in the vicinity of basra, and to some of our own soldiers in prolonged proximity to "depleted" uranium.
who was the general who offered to sleep every night on a pillow made of depleted uranium, to prove to everyone how harmless it is? haha--just joking. he doesn't exist.
tom cochrane has it right here. jackson browne put it in the right words:
some of them were angry
with the way the earth was abused
by the men who'd learned
to forge her beauty into power
and they struggled to protect her from them,
only to be confused
by the magnitude of her fury
in the final hour.
you're a bright young fella, granite. some day you'll wake up and realize that the power clique ain't no joke. meanwhile, keep up the postings from the s.p.e.c.t.r.e. division. beautiful stuff.
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CrackAddict
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Mar 17, 2011 - 06:47pm PT
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Coz, Not to belittle what the people (and animals) in Ukraine went through, but this does not sound like a sterile environment to me: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html
In fact, it seems to me that if you want to create a thriving animal sanctuary, have a nuclear accident there because animals thrive when people leave.
Another thing, you are not looking at the costs of eliminating nuclear power. The US produces about 6 GIGA (Billion) TONS of carbon dioxide from its power consumption every year. Currently we produce 20% of our power with nukes. So if we did not start using nuclear in the 70s, we would be swimming in an additional 1.5 GT per year of carbon, or about 60 GT since 1971.
So lets see here, for the US in the last 40 years:
**Nuclear: ~0 tons carbon dioxide, no fatalities, a few hundred thousand tons of nuclear waste that we need to find a safe place to bury (yucca mountain possibly). And this is with current plants, which are infinitely safer than Chernobyl but much less safe than pebble bed reactors.
**Coal/fossil fuel plants: ~ 60 Billion tons carbon dioxide, and roughly 1200 coal mining deaths since 1971. Not to mention the other noxious gases and particulate matter that fossil fuels have produced since 1971: ~400,000 Tons of sulfer dioxide (acid rain anyone?), ~30,000 tons of carbon monoxide, ~8,800 tons of hydrocarbons, ~6,800 pounds of mercury, ~9,000 pounds of arsenic, etc., etc. Does anyone in their right mind think that these pollutants have NOT killed thousands, if not tens of thousands of people?
It is funny that in light of these statistics people still choose fossil fuels (and make no mistake, that is the ONLY alternative right now, unless we cut our energy consumption by 99%). People are always afraid of the big, scary (but relatively rare) events, but not the ones that are really more likely to kill you. Sure it is painful to look at pictures of mutated kids. But we have to make a rational and scientific decision about how to produce power, you have to look at hard numbers, not base it on emotions. If anyone has a better solution, lets hear it-
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