Nuclear polution on FT86.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by HunterGreene

I'd argue that its only been the past 500 years that we have truly been advancing.

And that's the only point you need to make, different strokes for different folks, I'd like to point out that we made most of those advancements without electricity, sure we have made more in the last fifty years than the 400+ years prior, but we also sent man to the moon with what is basically hand calculations and abacuses. Being at the top of the food chain with the only advantage being what's up in our noggins is good enough for me, if we lost power tomorrow it'd be hell but we would survive and thrive as a whole once things evened out.

Originally Posted by HunterGreene

The rest of society is largely less concerned with survival and more with the latest news out of TMZ or the fact that the McRib is back at McDonalds.

http://www.uis.unesco.org/literacy/P...-map-2013.aspx

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle4528932/

Nearly 1 out of 5 humans on our planet can't read, I know your argument is that 'they're not part of our society' I just think we've got other things to worry about than launching stuff in space and keeping our A/C running.

signed, someone currently working on launching stuff into space.

[RFB]

Originally Posted by HunterGreene

I would say that the first 5500+ years of "society" weren't exactly productive on the whole. We had the Sumerian, Macedonian (Alexander the Great), Babylonian, Roman, Chinese, etc, but outside of those empires was largely the metaphorical darkness--people struggling to survive. Its only been in the past 500 years that we have truly flourished as a species.

Starting with the Renaissance (post Dark Ages), there has been an unprecedented amount of innovation and advancement of society. Yes, there are still people struggling to survive in this day and age, but there will always be. The rest of society is largely less concerned with survival and more with the latest news out of TMZ or the fact that the McRib is back at McDonalds.

But what has made this modern age possible? That's right, electricity and powered (steam, combustion, nuclear, etc) innovation. We require more electrical power every year, and that will continue for the foreseeable future, until our resources run low.

Did we survive during the past 6000+ years? Absolutely. But we were productive as a society? I'd argue that its only been the past 500 years that we have truly been advancing.

People seem to forget that productivity, safety, health, (among other things {the nasties}) are a direct result of the very much more recent industrial age, which caused technology to improve at an exponential rate.

The current luxurious human life style (enough to eat, {more so than at any time in history} less premature death, {infant mortality etc.}) is a DIRECT result of historically recent exponential technological advancement.

This great hope of new technology however is hampered by the lack of resources needed for advancement which seems also to be exponential because of what we do to the earth.

As a previous poster said - we have done well at the beginning but then when we ate all the fruit in the tree and polluted everything with shit, we moved to another tree.

We are running out of trees. The planet is a sealed bubble - once atmospheric hydrocarbon saturation excedes the earths ability to re-generate the atmosphere cycle of water exchange - human life is doomed.

A few thousand years and the earth will recover - But us humans won't be here.

As far as fear mongering - many luminaries in the past were accused of that, and policy makers listened to the populist comfortable ideas from those with their heads in the sand (as in Chamberlain {WWII},people on thisforum etc.) all through history and needless lives were lost).

It seems we are repeating history - again.

My favorite wise man of history once said -

"Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience" - George Carlin

Morenukeslessoil!


CERBERUS

[RFB]

Originally Posted by SoCal909

that's the one I watched

Yup - Radioactive wolves - neat program.



Radioactive Cerberus

[Kevstra]

Originally Posted by SoCal909

Oddly enough I just watched a documentary on Chernobyl the other day - there's a damn thriving habitat there. If I remember this post once I'm at a computer I'll link it. It was about the wolves since they are top of the food chain.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

That's not all. There are humans happily living in Chernobyl as well.

Originally Posted by HunterGreene

1) Yup, they do. But most designers take earthquakes into account when they design these buildings, as well as automatic safety measures being in place to shut the reactor down (full control rod insertion) if tremors are detected. In fact, we had a small earthquake under Lake Erie not too long ago, and the reactor at Perry shut down as expected.

2) I'd like to see a terrorist try to attack a nuke plant with anything short of a nuclear bomb. Those places are locked down very tightly, especially since 9/11. Even crashing a plane into the reactor building would create, at worst, microcracks and some slight leakage, but never an explosion.

3) The reactor at Chernobyl was terribly, catastrophically designed. The only other reactor like it was an experimental unit in Berkley, which was quickly shut down after the disaster. No other reactor currently in operation could fail in that manner.

So no, you aren't living next to a bomb if you reside near a nuke plant.

QTF. I'm a structural engineer - the thickness, strength, and quantity of steel reinforcement in a modern containment building's concrete walls exceed that of the Lateral Load Resisting System's shear walls of the Burj Kalifa, the tallest structure on earth.

Chernobyl had no backup systems, no containment building whatsoever, no safety features, no policies, nothing. And the resulting accident has people living in the "fallout zone" with no ill-effects 50 years later. The documentary I mentioned earlier takes a radiation meter next to the plant where the accident occurred, and there's less radiation there than due to natural sources elsewhere on earth.

And the other thing about nuclear plants? They don't blow up like the bombs. Even when they melt down. The level of enrichment of uranium is so much lower than that of weapons grade. The chemical equivalent is mixing 5% alcohol with 95% water. Not flammable. It's not going to burst into flames at room temperature no matter how many times you try and light it.

Originally Posted by HunterGreene

I would say that the first 5500+ years of "society" weren't exactly productive on the whole. We had the Sumerian, Macedonian (Alexander the Great), Babylonian, Roman, Chinese, etc, but outside of those empires was largely the metaphorical darkness--people struggling to survive. Its only been in the past 500 years that we have truly flourished as a species.

Starting with the Renaissance (post Dark Ages), there has been an unprecedented amount of innovation and advancement of society. Yes, there are still people struggling to survive in this day and age, but there will always be. The rest of society is largely less concerned with survival and more with the latest news out of TMZ or the fact that the McRib is back at McDonalds.

But what has made this modern age possible? That's right, electricity and powered (steam, combustion, nuclear, etc) innovation. We require more electrical power every year, and that will continue for the foreseeable future, until our resources run low.

Did we survive during the past 6000+ years? Absolutely. But we were productive as a society? I'd argue that its only been the past 500 years that we have truly been advancing.

Couldn't have said it better myself. There is a direct correlation between quality of life and access to energy in the world today. Modern society would not exist without it. I'm not sure how that's even something one can contest.

If anyone is interested in the topic being discussed, I highly recommend checking out the documentary, Pandora's Promise. A very level headed look at nuclear.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Kevstra

Couldn't have said it better myself. There is a direct correlation between quality of life and access to energy in the world today. Modern society would not exist without it. I'm not sure how that's even something one can contest.

What is 'quality of life'? It really boils down to health, food, and shelter for the basics, safety and leisure time to put you over the top.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life"]Quality of life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

It's really an exercise of perspective, I managed to feel pretty good about my quality of life before cell phones and television and the internet and video games, hell even owning cars. It's not like the knowledge we have gained will disappear overnight (remember that thing we used to use called paper?), I just see all you guys claiming 'energy crisis' as clinging to the bubble you live in rather than betterment of the world.

Lighting up the slums of Sao Paolo or a village in the Middle East isn't going to fix the multitude of problems they face daily. We are capable of scaling back our energy consumption, they are barely capable of keeping food in their bellies.

I admit that I don't have solutions, I just think this is further down the priority list than things like food and education and shelter (focusing solely on our own country, these still takes precedence over power 'demands').

I agree that Nuclear is a good option for supplying the energy our society wants as well as developing societies (less pollution and stripping of the land).