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My physics professor used the following analogy in support of nuclear energy, in criticism of those who cite half-lives in their opposition to nuclear power. He likened long half-life nuclear waste to a dripping spigot. If a sample of material has a half-life of 10,000 years, then it has a spigot that is leaking radiation VERY slowly and therefore unlikely to cause anyone any harm. It's the high energy, short half-life wastes that are the true threat, and these decay into longer lasting elements within a human's lifetime, generally speaking. It is within our power technologically to contain these elements while they are at their most threatening.
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Wind Power? by VnutZ :: NR8 :: on 30 January 2008
What I find amusing about wind power is that to make it really effective you need to blanket an area with turbines. How long will it take environmentalists to complain about their installation on uninhabited land? How long will it take homeowners to whine about their installation within eyesight of their property?
Wind energy turbines work for particular groups in particular areas ... it's not a nationally scalable technology. Furthermore, I wonder what impact a national swath of turbines would have on the jet stream. After all, each one of them would be removing a little bit of energy from the wind. Could you imagine if it altered the jet stream in such a way as to plunge Europe into an veritable meat locker?
RE: Wind Power? by ldsudduth :: NR7 :: on 31 January 2008
Wind has a demonstratable negative effect on the environment; both from the construction aspect, as well as post construction issues.
Here is one source listing issues. I first ran into this issue, however, with a study on Wind Turbines in California and the issues with raptor populations and rat infestations in an article here, and the article actually advocates nuclear and hydroelectric power.
A crowd of people showed up to voice opposition to putting wind turbines in MD state parks in the Western side of the state. Strangely, there were no environmentalists at the first meeting. Perhaps at the second meeting on Jan 31, 2008?
RE: Wind Power? by NomadSoul :: NR5 :: on 31 January 2008
I think as we move into the future, we'll find that there's no one source of power that will work for all areas at all times. Instead, a mix of power sources will reduce environmental impacts as well as add redundancy in case one source fails.
The big problem is when we try to apply a single solution in a large-scale, centralized way. Instead of huge wind-farms, we could put a small windmill and a solar panel on every house, with perhaps smaller centralized facilities to take advantage of favorable environments for wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal power. If we mix that with energy-efficient architecture, we could gradually ween ourselves away from non-renewable fuels.
Small, Scattered Distribution by gnifyus :: NR7 :: on 31 January 2008
This smaller scale distributed model can especially apply in the case of nuclear energy. Instead of building gigantic plants that are next to impossible to cool and manage; why not have many smaller generation plants that tie into the same grid? The only issue I see with this is that it would probably be harder to keep the nuclear materials secure from theft.
RE: Small, Scattered Distribution by NomadSoul :: NR5 :: on 01 February 2008
For the immediate future, perhaps, although I think we need to move away from nuclear and into renewables as much as possible. The waste products of nuclear power are difficult to deal with--and as you say, there is a lot of potential for theft and/or destructive misuse.