[Pablo2079]

Just watched Pandora's Promise. It's about Environmentalists that have converted to being Pro-Nuke (even in the wake of Fukishima). I found it to be enlightening, but I'm still skeptical. The documentary goes onsite in Japan (Fukishima), Ukraine (Chernobyl) and multiple other locations. It covers some of the inherent problems with early reactor designs and how the push to light water reactors (away from breeders) was a mistake. It also covers how wind and solar really encourage NG (due to the intermittent nature of their contribution to the grid). Covers a little coal and oil issues as well.

Anyone else check it out yet? I just stumbled on it... just about 90 minutes long. Very well done. (It seems to have been backed by Paul Allen.)

http://pandoraspromise.com/

[dinopello]

Thanks, I'm always looking for new stuff to watch on netflix rather than watching Breaking Bad for the third time.

[Subjectivist]

Having been a pro nuclear environmentalist all my adult life it is great to see powerful voices coming around to using science instead of appeals to emotion based on myths. I was especially pleased to see Mark Lynas of 6 degrees could change the world as one of the main voices. This will rank up there with A Crude Awakening on my list of recomendations to those seeking the truth.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') will watch this with my wifey. It's probably too late to get a modern nuke program going. Peak oil is now and there is no money, political will, (uranium?) or cheap energy to build a reasonable number of nukes. Certainly no time to put a dent the coal-fired road we have taken. And diesel and gasoline account for much of the CO2. I don't know what we'd do with extra electricity. Never have enough to replace ICE's with EV's. There isn't the electric infrastructure needed to get electrons to EV's outside suburbia. Etc. Etc

Regardless, this film is brave. I was agnostic (must admit I was rabidly anti-nuke for a few young years) after 3-mile Island-- it seemed pretty minor. Completely changed my mind for good after "Nature: Radioactive Wolves" from PBS.

[Tanada]

Watched it earlier with my spouse. It was uplifting to see some of the toughest anti-nuclear environmental movement people have at last joined me in pointing out that the hazards of Fission are grossly exaggerated. The real danger is extreme climate change from CO2.

One statistic did catch my attention. Every smart phone requires a connection to a server farm to be 'smart' and as a consequence it uses a portion of the energy consumption of the server farm equal to operating a refrigerator every day. If your household has multiple smart phones you are adding a refrigerator worth of daily energy consumption for each and every one of them. Just one example of why the high tech future is not a low energy future.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'W')atched it earlier with my spouse. It was uplifting to see some of the toughest anti-nuclear environmental movement people have at last joined me in pointing out that the hazards of Fission are grossly exaggerated. The real danger is extreme climate change from CO2.

One statistic did catch my attention. Every smart phone requires a connection to a server farm to be 'smart' and as a consequence it uses a portion of the energy consumption of the server farm equal to operating a refrigerator every day. If your household has multiple smart phones you are adding a refrigerator worth of daily energy consumption for each and every one of them. Just one example of why the high tech future is not a low energy future.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'W')atched it last night with the wifey. Riveting. I was one of those activists who broke into the Shoreham nuclear power plant back around 1980. Silly kid. What scared me then was the impossibility of evacuation, the problem of choke points and bridges. Even on a good day the Long Island Expressway was a parking lot. It was really the only major artery off Long Island.

I was disappointed that the wolves of chernobyl exclusion zone were mostly ignored (does 'Nature' magazine have a copyright on the animals?. The Coptic priest was not a compelling fill-in. LOL). It never discussed the competing theories of radiation damage either. All health code is based on the linear no-threshold model. No mention of the the threshold model or radiation hormesis supported by seven generations of healthy wolves. Otherwise outstanding.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'D')amn Sub, you expect me to spend another hour of my life doing something worthwhile? LOL.

Plus I have to read this now; Advanced nuclear power systems to mitigate climate change Have you?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'S')ub, the bravenewclimate article is good.

The metal fuel and cladding expand during a loss-of-coolant accident, the reaction goes subcritical, and the reactor shuts down. What could go wrong? LOL

[TemplarMyst]

I was wondering whether this thread would develop any traction. Watched the thread for a bit, with only Pablo's initial post and Dinopello's first comment being the only activity for a while.

I'll chime in with the folks who were encouraged by the reaction to the movie. I watched it not that long ago on Netflix myself.

It was, I admit, Radioactive Wolves which completely changed my mind on nuclear power a couple of years ago. Since then I've only continued to develop a deeper sense that nuclear power is probably the only way we might (repeat might) get out of this mess. I've followed Guy McPherson's blog for a while too. It may be too late, but if we have, say until 2050 instead of 2030, we might have a chance. Maybe.

I'm old enough to have watched The China Syndrome during it's theatrical release. I lived through Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I was terrified of nuclear power as a result of all those events.

Come to find out my fear was utterly and completely misplaced. I've tried to get some others in my local community to take another look at nuclear as a result. Having a bit of luck, actually.

To pstarr, I've thought we could use the extra electricity to actively pull GHGs down and reprocess them into either a solid matrix suitable for burying in the many open pit mines we've dug, or alternatively converting it into some useful short hydrocarbon chains for fuel. Both of those activities are thermodynamically intensive, but hey, when you're running off an energy source a million times more energy dense than oil, not a problem.

So definitely a thumbs up for Pandora's Promise from this neck of the woods

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')his is really my first interest in so-called breeder reactors. I can see why. It always seemed like magic. Perhaps part of the confusion and resistance among the public (and non-interest in nuclear) could be a consequence of engineer/weenies and their techie nomenclature. These are not actually 'breeder' reactors per se (the machines do not magically 'birth' fuel, like a 'momma' reactor) but rather process an otherwise lower quality fuel to make it a high quality fuel ready for fission. They don't 'breed', they steal some energy that would have gone into the fission process, while operating, to convert fertile material into fissionable material.

[sparky]

.
From long past memories ,
The choice of light water nuclear reactor was due to the development of nuclear propulsion for US Navy subs
the taxpayer took on the reasearch and development cost
so GE civilian program had a fully functionnal and fully tested reactor to sell
it just needed to be scaled up , not a problem if it wasn't going to sea
the gravy on top was that the supply network for the fuel was operationnal
the maintenance and operation protocols were written
and the ex sub officers could be poached to provide experienced engineers with great moral qualities
that was a win win , even if the light water path wasn't really the best possible one

The man who did most to make the nuclear sub a success was Admiral Hyman Rickover
a real character who warned the world of a coming energy crisis in 1957


"The earth is finite. Fossil fuels are not renewable. In this respect our energy base differs from that of all earlier civilizations. They could have maintained their energy supply by careful cultivation. We cannot. Fuel that has been burned is gone forever. Fuel is even more evanescent than metals. Metals, too, are non-renewable resources threatened with ultimate extinction, but something can be salvaged from scrap. Fuel leaves no scrap and there is nothing man can do to rebuild exhausted fossil fuel reserves. They were created by solar energy 500 million years ago and took eons to grow to their present volume.

In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect: the longer they last, the more time do we have, to invent ways of living off renewable or substitute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift.

Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare. "

Rickover's stringent standards and powerful focus on personal integrity are largely credited with being responsible for the United States Navy's continuing record of zero reactor accidents.
During the mid-late 1950s, Rickover revealed the source of his obsession with safety in a personal conversation with a fellow Navy captain:

"I have a son. I love my son. I want everything that I do to be so safe that I would be happy to have my son operating it. That's my fundamental rule."

He was on board of each and every one of his boats going for its first dive
he personnally interviewer each and every of the the new officers , A terrifying experience
he was grilling them to know if they were competent to his standards
Jimmy Carter was one of them ,

[Subjectivist]

Actually the whole Jimmy Carter Nuclear Engineer meme is an urban myth. Carter was asigned to work on the Naval Reactor program under Hyman Rickover in 1952, but less than a year later he resigned from the Navy when his father died and left him the family farm and business. Carter had a good career in the Navy and deserves respect for serving his country, but he never went through nuclear power school and never became a nuclear engineer. The Nautilus wasn't even launched until a year after Carter resigned from the Navy.