Hazard to navigation?

[scotte]

Originally Posted by Joli

I know, lets put wind farms up!
The greenies continue to do all the damage they can.

The funny part is - now these people want the wind farms shut down because birds fly into the blades and die.

The reality is there is no Utopia and everything has it's tradeoffs...

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by scotte

... The reality is there is no Utopia and everything has it's tradeoffs...

"UTOPIA" ~ by Sir Thomas More
Utopia by Thomas More

[roverhi]

one.....does the per KW price that YOU are being charged include the cost of a permanent solution to the waste issue.

The waste storage issue is a political issue. All we have to do is have the will to pick a suitable site and do it. The cost is not great to develop a suitable waste depository. It is made more expensive, though, by really irrational time factors that nuclear opponents have put on the storage design. Right now, Senator Harry Reid (D Nevada) has successfully blocked Yucca Mountain storage facility. Harry is a Real Estate developer, btw.

"Two....It is still a mineral resource that will run out.....it uses far more uranium than people realize."

Due to an ill concieved law, passed during the Carter Administration based on fear of nuclear proliferation, every US nuclear powerplant has all their spent fuel rods stored in water tanks on site. Those rods are all recyclable and recovery of usable fuel is way up there. Believe the fuel rods can be recycled something like 5 times before they are used up. We have enough fuel sitting in spent rods at the reactors right now to last a long time. Unranium is a finite quantity but not nearly as finite as oil.

"Three...there is no safe repository on the planet at the moment."

See number one... BTW, the really nasty stuff, with multi 1,000 year half lives, is largely a product of weapons production. We are largely recycling the weapons grade fissionable material as we downsize our nuclear arsenal so aren't producing much weapons grade stuff now. Contaminated sites like Hanford in Washington are cold war relics, not nuclear generating issues.

"Four...there is no possibility of "the big rocket solution" because the successes to failure rate is to high. (challenger)"

This has always been a pipe dream, real Star Wars stuff. If you haven't noticed, the very long lived nuclear waste is quite dense, more so than lead. Shooting it into space would be incredibly expensive simply on a cost per pound issue with out present technology. There is no problem designing a containment system that would survive a rocket malfunction. If I'm not mistaken, we have already had a plutonium reactor powered satellite misfire without consequences.

"Five...disposal sites will remain a permanent political and geophysical risk until the "safe " levels are reached."

Risk to what????? This stuff is going to be buried miles below the surface, encased in concrete. All you have to do is fill the access shaft with concrete and/or rubble and be done with it. Even if thousands of years were to pass and the puropose of the sites were lost, it wouldn't pose a problem. Any society that had the technology to dig down to it, and could afford to waste the effort to dig for something with no obvious value, would also have the ability to detect the danger involved in the waste material. Bury it and it's done with.

"Six...Why would you spend the money and resources to simply allow us to continue on as we are, whilst handing the yet unsolved practical and financial burden to future generations ?"

If we continue the way we are and limit nuclear energy production, we really are stupidly pushing a mess off on future generations

"Seven...To except that the only way we will ever meet our energy needs is through FINITE resources is to except that we will A. have to change our ways "big time" when they run out and hand this to another generation or B. Except that we are doomed."

Think you meant ACCEPT. All viable current sources of energy require using up finite resources. Some are very polluting with lasting long term effects like coal, others are just polluters like petroleum but almost all are CO2 polluters. The only viable source of energy that has the abilitly to meet our energy needs, with very limited pollution, is Nuclear. It produces virtually no CO2 and very little other pollutants, disposal of which can be done with minuscule effect on our or future generation's environment.

"Eight...Caring about other people (including future generations) may mean being willing to take up the slack from past generations. We have no excuse this time."

What does that mean??? I seem to see a lot of non nuclear toxic waste sites that we are or will be cleaning up. I don't mean to pick on the Chinese because they aren't the only significant polluters out there, just the biggest, but everytime you buy goods made in China, you are encouraging and financing pollution. We have exported our 'dirty' industries over our borders, China is reaping the benefit of our environmental laws. I'm not in favor of punitive tarriffs but think we should have an enviromental tarriff on all goods shipped into the country. Our industries don't seem to be surviving well meeting our environmental laws. 3rd world countries have little or no concern for the environment. We need tarriffs to balance the playing field.

As I said before, the concern about nuclear waste is a Shibai. Just another specious argument by the anti-nuke paranoiacs that keeps us using the dirtiest fuels possible to produce energy.

Aloha
Peter O.

[rwhit323]

There are hunrdreds of political blog sites that are more appropriate to this string.

[ssullivan]

Update on the areas affected by drilling:

Where is offshore drilling allowed? - CNN.com

PS: The thread is quite appropriate, minus the debates on energy we have fallen into. These new piles of crap will destroy the aesthetic quality of our oceans - one of the last remaining untouched places accessible to Americans. I'm mean... don't you care??

I got a Catalac so I could experience unspoiled nature. Maybe you have yours for a different reason.

Also, I still feel they would be a hazard to navigation and a PITA.

[sandy daugherty]

There is a lot of steel on the floor of the northern Gulf of Mexico, including one WWII German Submarine! But only the rigs are visible. The one thing there's NOT a lot of is wind, except when there's too much.

I personally would welcome a whole bunch of windmills, all over!

[bobsadler]

if you can't spot a drilling rig or production platform at night you shouldn't be out alone

[ssullivan]

Looking at this picture, would you rather be sailing around that drilling rig, or the left side of the photo with the moonlight reflecting off the water, sans rig?

Where would you want your children or grandchildren sailing?

Originally Posted by bobsadler

if you can't spot a drilling rig or production platform at night you shouldn't be out alone

[cooper]

My new boat is called Jannali........


hint I live in Australia.

[bobsadler]

Looking at this picture, would you rather be sailing around that drilling rig, or the left side of the photo with the moonlight reflecting off the water, sans rig?

looking at the picture i suspect you'll be motoring - thanks to the folk on the production platform - rather than sailing.

[Steve Rust]

Originally Posted by waterworldly

HERE IS THE FACTS FOLKS, PUBLISHED TODAY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES:
A lesser fiction, perpetrated by the oil companies and, to some extent, by misleading government figures, is that huge deposits of oil and gas on federal land have been closed off and industry has had one hand tied behind its back by environmentalists, Democrats and the offshore protections in place for 25 years.
The numbers suggest otherwise. Of the 36 billion barrels of oil believed to lie on federal land, mainly in the Rocky Mountain West and Alaska, almost two-thirds are accessible or will be after various land-use and environmental reviews. And of the 89 billion barrels of recoverable oil believed to lie offshore, the federal Mineral Management Service says fourth-fifths is open to industry, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan waters.
Clearly, the oil companies are not starved for resources. Further, they do not seem to be doing nearly as much as they could with the land to which they’ve already laid claim. Separate studies by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Wilderness Society, a conservation group, show that roughly three-quarters of the 90 million-plus acres of federal land being leased by the oil companies onshore and off are not being used to produce energy. That is 68 million acres altogether, among them potentially highly productive leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

You beat me to it. This is something that the vast majority of people here in the U.S. don't understand. It is far easier to be taken in by the political posturing than to understand the truth. Trying to open up ANWHR and other enviromentaly sensitive areas has more to do with power politics/political posturing than it does about getting at the oil. There is plenty of oil in easier to reach places. What is the incentive to put up more rigs in the areas already open? Loosen up the supply and lower prices? Now that sounds crazy.

At least in the Gulf they may even be a safety asset. If you get into trouble there will always be a rig with in hailing distance.

[cooper]

FINITE....how many times do I have to say it... Gord came up with 40 to 100 years for the nuclear cycle....and you still have to deal with the aftermath. People that is not a lot of time. Perhaps just enough to hand the problems to another generation. To take a solution now....because it will give some one else time to provide the "real" solution is selfish. It states WE are so dead set on maintaining our life styles, the way they are that we refuse to pull our heads in and leave the planet in a stuffed but more hopeful situation for our kids, kids. This is not greenie talk this is a fact. Spend the money NOW. Spend the money now..........

[cooper]

And finally because I guess I am screaming into the wind.....It is hard to convince people whos lives revolve around the ever increasing "value" and the money that they make from it, (pension payments) that as mineral resources become more depleted, social inequity's will become more prevalent. To suggest that there is no alternative is selfish. Think about it. Do you really want to go to the Bahamas on your riches with the knowledge that the next generation is going to suffer so badly? Not greenie talk......moral responsibility.

[dacust]

Economists say we should not use any of our oil, but buy all we can from overseas. Simple supply and demand. After the rest of the world starts running out and refuses to sell to anyone, then we'll have our reserve left. And it will be even more valuable than before. Only problem is, with our stock market speculation economy, the focus from shareholders is the current quarter's profit, not long term.

cooper: I agree we should be going full tilt in looking for any and all energy solutions. AND we should also be looking for the best solutions for the short term as well.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by cooper

moral responsibility.

What's that? Must be an Australian expression. We don't have that in this country at all.