🚀 go-pugleaf

Murray Love wrote:
> 
> "D.A.Kopf" <dak@dakx.com> wrote in message
> news:3942D053.82030642@dakx.com...
> > Murray Love wrote:
> > <snip>
> > >
> > > I have another question for the "clean energy" proponents.  Assume for the
> > > sake of argument that a nuclear energy technology is developed that
> > > a) Cannot melt down;
> > > b) Produces a vastly reduced amount of unusable waste;
> > > c) Operates passively to shut down the reaction if anything goes wrong;
> > > d) Produces inexpensive 24/7 baseload.
> > > e) Is scalable (can be very large or quite small)
> >
> > Is this hypothetical process also sustainable, or just a short-term fix
> > that makes it easy to postpone long-term thinking?
> 
> I don't understand the question.  Could you elaborate?

To use a credit card analogy, if you are running a deficit using current
income then financial disaster looms ahead. It might be less painful to modify
lifestyle now so as to gradually eliminate the debt, rather than postpone the
inevitable crash for as long as possible and then be reduced to utter penury.
Perhaps you have expectations of a one-time legacy from a rich uncle, but if
this materializes you would be wise to use it to assist in the lifestyle
change, instead of optimistically increasing your credit limit. Of course one
could happily die and pass the problem along to ones children

> > > My question is this:  can you see yourself accepting this technology for our
> > > electrical needs?  If not, why not?  What would it take for you to accept
> > > nuclear power?
> >
> > Perhaps a more comprehensive question to pose would be, "If an absolutely
> > safe, cheap, copious, renewable source of energy were discovered, would it be
> > a good thing for mankind?  My observations are two: (1) it would certainly
> > lead to less war, and (2) it would likely cause alarmingly fast changes in
> > global temperature. There is an short scifi story with this theme, can't remember
> > the name but written by Poul Anderson I think, in which the world freezes
> > after atmospheric heat-extraction is perfected, and no one has the
> > self-control to limit their energy usage.
> 
> Unfortunately, we are already courting alarmingly fast changes in global
> temperature.  I'm not too worried about sci-fi visions of disaster.  And I
> don't see how a zero-emissions technology could increase global temperatures
> to that degree, but it's late and I'm wiped, so I could just be denser than
> usual.

Well, current nuclear production has a rather poor thermal efficiency, putting
two units of heat energy into the plant environs for every one unit of
electricity produced. Consumption of this one unit of course also ultimately
ends up as heat.