Am I still allowed to question climate change?

[El Cid]

How does that work?

Are the numbers wrong? Can you discredit them somehow? Or are you just going to dismiss them because your gut says that they should be different?

 

I cannot disagree with the outcome, like some do, without giving a really good explanation and backed up by facts.

The longest-lived plutonium-244, with a half-life of 80.8 million years; am I meant calculate the costs of its disposal

[unbeliever]

Yes.

The 'which power source is least dangerous' contest was won some posts back by nuclear.

We're now into the fine detail of exactly how many thousands of times more likely is it to get killed by renewables than by nuclear.

Does anybody care? Is it not enough that renewables are over a thousand times more dangerous; on top of being more expensive, unreliable and with a far higher effective CO2 output?

On this record and reality how did we end up with current government energy strategy?

[Obelix]

I cannot disagree with the outcome, like some do, without giving a really good explanation and backed up by facts.

The longest-lived plutonium-244, with a half-life of 80.8 million years; am I meant calculate the costs of its disposal

 

Something that long lived is not especially radioactive so disposal of it isn't a problem at all...

[unbeliever]

I cannot disagree with the outcome, like some do, without giving a really good explanation and backed up by facts.

The longest-lived plutonium-244, with a half-life of 80.8 million years; am I meant calculate the costs of its disposal

 

Those numbers were about fatalities. You're now commenting on costs. I have no problem discussing costs, but I'm not pretending that they're somehow the same thing because they both contain numbers.

 

 

 

U238 has a half life of (if memory serves) 4 billion years. This is mostly what is in the fuel, although it's not usually the active part of the fuel (except in Pu breeders).

80 million is a lot less than 4 billion.

 

Longer half-lives are associates with lower rates of radiation emission. For rather obvious reasons if you think about it.

What you want to watch out for is stuff with intermediate half lives: hundreds or thousands of years. These are radioactive enough to be highly dangerous and yet long-lived enough that you can't just wait for them to become safe.

 

Nuclear waste is amongst the nastiest stuff on Earth. It's likely that it will end up being burned as fuel in a later generation of reactors, failing that it can be buried underground. In the meantime is has such a small volume compared to most of humanities waste that you can just park it somewhere and put up a big keep-away sign.

[Obelix]

how did we end up with current government energy strategy?

 

Greenpeace and associated uneducated envirowhiners.....

[unbeliever]

Greenpeace and associated uneducated envirowhiners.....

 

Yes. Which brings me around to my earlier point.

These people don't want the solution, they want the issue. A solution would take away their power and influence. So they exaggerate the problem and reject the solution.

[El Cid]

Yes.

The 'which power source is least dangerous' contest was won some posts back by nuclear.

We're now into the fine detail of exactly how many thousands of times more likely is it to get killed by renewables than by nuclear.

Does anybody care? Is it not enough that renewables are over a thousand times more dangerous; on top of being more expensive, unreliable and with a far higher effective CO2 output?

On this record and reality how did we end up with current government energy strategy?

 

I was listening to the BBC radio whilst driving, about a new tidal barrage, it said it would not be as expensive as nuclear.

The tone was the nuclear was expensive, it does depend on what is included.

[unbeliever]

I was listening to the BBC radio whilst driving, about a new tidal barrage, it said it would not be as expensive as nuclear.

The tone was the nuclear was expensive, it does depend on what is included.

 

Yes. They lied.

I sure it's a deniable lie. A combination of cherry-picking, false accounting and such. But it's a lie. And a massive lie at that.

[Obelix]

Nuclear waste is amongst the nastiest stuff on Earth. It's likely that it will end up being burned as fuel in a later generation of reactors, failing that it can be buried underground. In the meantime is has such a small volume compared to most of humanities waste that you can just park it somewhere and put up a big keep-away sign.

 

The USA has I think about 50,000 tonnes of high level waste, which is the total amount ever created by them.

 

Assuming that was all in flasks, you could comfortably store it in a football stadium.

 

Mind you people say its waste. I see that as 50,000 tonnes of fuel for a molten salt reactor that will just produce lots of lead at the very end of the cycle.....

[El Cid]

Greenpeace and associated uneducated envirowhiners.....

 

Because even Trump and Cameron cannot bluff their way past the science.