ie8 fix
Ad: Whatever you want to do...Droid Does

January 31, 2008 4:00 AM PST

Newsmaker: From ecowarrior to nuclear champion

See all Newsmakers
Related Stories

The public face of nuclear power in the U.S.

October 11, 2007
Related Blogs

Survey: Oil less popular than nuclear power in U.S.


July 23, 2007

A new source of water: Floating nuclear power plants


November 21, 2007

Hydrogen: More polluting than petroleum?


April 3, 2007

(continued from previous page)

Many claim that nuclear is actually the only source of power that is going up in price. These aren't environmental advocates. These are Wall Street analysts. The nuclear energy industry says the opposite. Who is right here?
Moore: Well, the price of the plants is going up in terms of the capital costs, but then everything is going up. Concrete is going up; steel is going up. It's true that nuclear has a higher capital cost than the fossil energy plants, but it has a lower operating cost once it is established.

A compact fluorescent light bulb costs five times as much as an incandescent light bulb, but it only costs a fifth as much to run it and it lasts a lot longer. So it is a good investment. The trouble with individuals is that they want to (be paid) back in 2 years. Big institutions don't mind an 8- or 10-year payback and nuclear provides that.

Is the public perception changing? Do you find more people saying they will consider nuclear or people who are actually in favor of it?
Moore: A considerable majority of Americans are in favor of nuclear energy. It's around 70 percent of the general public. (Editor's note: an MIT survey last year said only 35 percent of Americans wanted to see nuclear power increase.) The closer you get to an operating nuclear plant, the higher the support is. The average within 10 miles of a plant is 80 percent in the U.S. In some plants, it's up to 90 percent because the people living near them know that they have operated safely and that they're a huge wealth generator in the community. They are basically a very compact wealth generating machine, producing energy and producing employment in communities. They say the closer you go to a nuclear reactor, the better the schools and the roads are.

As far as Wall Street goes, there are still a lot of jitters.

How about "Not in my backyard"-ism? Although people support nuclear, they also say they want to see the plants 500 miles away.
Moore: The good news there is that the first (likely) wave of new plants will all be built on existing sites. There is, in fact, a huge amount of room to expand on the existing sites. Many of these sites were originally designed for eight reactors and only have two on them.

Some people have suggested exploiting the waste heat in these factories to make hydrogen or purify water.
Moore: There are additional benefits beyond just giving electricity. And we will use the electricity to charge all our plug-in hybrids. We are going to need more electricity in the future for that. It doesn't make sense to charge a battery with a coal-fired power plant from an air pollution or climate point of view.

There's no possibility that California can meet its objectives without new nuclear, either in or out of state to supply the electricity. Twenty percent of the state's electricity now comes from coal-fired power plants. If you cut that 20 percent out, you simply cannot replace that with renewables unless they can make solar thermal work. They should go ahead, try it, but in the meantime build some nuclear plants. That is the only way that a full umbilical cord can be cut.

What do you think of wave power?
Moore: It is so pie-in-the-sky that we shouldn't even think about it. Just let people test it. If they can figure out how to make it work, fine. But I don't really see that much promise in all those tidal- and wave-powered programs.

What support do you see among politicians, or the bureaucracies, or even the large financial institutions?
Moore: Most major political parties are squarely in favor of nuclear power. There's stronger support on the Republican side, but there is a good majority on the Democratic side, and most Democrats who were against nuclear power openly before are now either neutral or not talking about it much. (John) Edwards is against coal and nuclear. He wants both of them banned. Hillary (Clinton) is neutral. You can't really read her.

As far as Wall Street goes, there are still a lot of jitters. When the nuclear industry failed in the late '70s, early '80s, it was a combination of Three Mile Island, huge regulatory burdens piled on by the antinuclear movements' influence, and huge interest rates. When you have a huge capital investment, it takes 10 years to start paying back from when you start building it. Interest rates are extremely significant and you remember interest rates went to like 19 percent back then. That's what killed the industry. It wasn't anyone of those; it was the combination of all three of them together.

How about the nuclear waste disposal? Has there been much progress technologically?
Moore: It is not a problem technologically. It's called recycling, or what used to be called reprocessing. The French, the Russians, the Japanese all use it. It is basically separating out the remaining uranium and the plutonium that is manufactured as a byproduct and used as fuel again.

Plutonium is a fuel; we don't need to wait 250,000 years for it to decay. We can use it right away as a fuel and turn it into fission products, which will then only have a 300-year lifespan of being radioactive. Japan just opened a $30 billion fuel fabrication and recycling center in Northern Honshu. Japan figured out a way to take the French technology, which is probably the leading technology, and design a system in which the plutonium never emerges as a pure product anywhere; it's only inside, where nobody could, without dying, get it. The plutonium is separated, then before it comes out it's recombined with uranium into what's called mixed-oxide fuel, which cannot be made into a bomb.

How does the supply of fuel look?
Moore: Fifty percent of all the nuclear energy being produced in the United States is from dismantled Soviet warheads. We are turning swords to plowshares, not the other way around. There is enough enriched uranium and plutonium in (missile) stockpiles that is surplus now to (fill) the needs of the military to run our nuclear plants for years. When you start recycling, it magnifies the fuel reserve by 5 to 10 times. So we've actually got a thousand years of nuclear fuel for the existing reactors. The mining industry actually stopped looking for uranium 30 years ago because there already was enough discovered.

Now, they're looking for it again and finding it all over the place in places they didn't know it existed. There's a huge find in Labrador, Canada, for example. Slovakia has now been proven to have the largest uranium reserve in all of Western Europe. Austria still has tons of the stuff, and now Kazakhstan has come on as a major world's supplier.

Before we run out of uranium, there's a lot of people interested in the thorium fuel cycle. Thorium is much more abundant in the earth than uranium, so it's another nuclear fuel that is proven to be workable. India is well advanced in this technology and there is an international group of thorium scientists that is meeting on a regular basis.

One last thing. How about the rogue state question? People worry about states like Iran getting bomb-making capabilities. Is the regulatory framework strong enough to take care of that?
Moore: There is a group of academics from the U.S. and Europe who have come up with the proposal to create a kind of insurance policy for the nuclear fuel supply. The idea is to restrict the amount of enrichment technology because you can use uranium enrichment technology centrifuges to either make nuclear fuel or a nuclear bomb. So there is a big interest in reducing the number of facilities that do enrichment and basically in keeping them in the existing weapon states, which is where they are now except for Iran.

There is also the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership otherwise known as GNEP, which 20-odd countries are part of. It wants control over the front end, which is uranium enrichment, and the back end, or recycling plutonium, to maintain control over those processes in such a way that countries that don't have those technologies are guaranteed a supply of fuel.

It's really interesting, in some ways, how this whole nuclear renaissance is causing a new alignment of interests around the world.

More Newsmakers

Previous page
Page 1 | 2 | 3

See more CNET content tagged:
nuclear power, Patrick Moore, environmentalist, coal, co-founder

54 comments

Join the conversation!
Add your comment (Log in or register)
Year well
I really feel like this enritches the central repulic of Africas prosepces to Enter More diverse farming markers and increase individuals educational need. Still i suppose those guys only have enough meterial market Economy make stuff to pay for well not wven enough money to grow on their own land and improve their staple diet.
Well this guy has a vision so thats important now isnt it and of course there's not enough Silicon, rock, metals, plastics,sun,future carbon energy ect ect and soil to go round now is there.
The Sunnie tribes really didn't get round to working out how the new abilities of resource might fully evolve the world of africa now did they. Anyone fancy a Mcdonalds.
Posted by wildchild_plasma_gyro (294 comments )
Reply Link Flag
About Time!!
...you people fronting the news caught on, and other's like this guy finally grow up!

mycroft69
Posted by mycroft69 (19 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Finally some sanity
Like Nixon going to China, only someone with 'green' credentials can start moving us toward nuclear.

It's not just that clean civil nuclear power replaces incredibly dirty coal (mercury, radioactive ash), it's that the electric power nuclear generates can be used to further clean up the environment.

Imagine replacing all the gas water heaters and furnaces with electric. Imagine replacing gasoline with electric cars. Electrically powered consumers don't pollute - if the power comes from nuclear.

Further out, imagine mining the atmosphere for carbon instead of mining coal or pumping oil. Imagine cleaning dirty water or producing huge amounts of it from seawater. That would take HUGE amounts of power that only nuclear can produce.

All TRUE environmentalists support civil nuclear electric generation.
Posted by bildan2 (77 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Fe: Finally some sanity
That rremains to be seen. I assume you are one of these five "TRUE enviromentalists?" But, you are SO correct, but there is no imagination or real thought process with such as Moore.

Off subject a bit, tell me how such can lead us toward nuclear? I think of New Orleans, why are there none pointing out the foolishness of rebuilding it when so many are convinced of global warming caused by out green house gas emission and the rising sea levels that will again put it udner water by 2050 - 60 by some estiates? I see little sanity yet reaching mainstream.
Posted by alt_bob (9 comments )
Link Flag
Sad
An "environmentalist" who promotes the most toxic form of
energy generation, and who isn't at all concerned about
genetically engineered foodstuffs. How sad.

Moore has the audacity to claim that "no one has ever been hurt"
by nuclear contamination. Incredible. The BBC reported in 2004
on the accident in Chernobyl:

"Ukraine's health ministry has estimated that 3.5 million people
have suffered some illness as a result of the contamination, and
the Ukraine Radiological Institute suggest that there were 2,500
deaths."

With regard to wave (=tidal) energy, he reckons "it is so pie-in-
the-sky that we shouldn't even think about it". Not even think
about it? How about using it?

And what about hydro-dams, that provide 60% of electricity in
New Zealand. Has he ever heard of those?

This man is not an environmentalist, he is an enemy of a clean
and safe environment. Most revealing was his last statement:

"It's really interesting, in some ways, how this whole nuclear
renaissance is causing a new alignment of interests around the
world."

Too right. The military-industrial complex loves nuclear
proliferation, and politicians love implementing carbon taxes
while expanding the surveillance state (nuclear power plants are
prime targets for terrorist attacks).

Renewable forms of energy are the only way forward. We need
to invest in renewables now, they are the future.
Posted by Tui Pohutukawa (218 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Won't produce enough
First, you obviously can't read from an article that his statement about safety from contamination applied to the US, not Russia. Second, find me enough power from tidal energy to replace the 4500MW of reliable power form California's 2 nuclear plants (power we don't have to import and about 8-10 percent of our summer's demand). And for you being a true enviromentalist proposing hydro dams...why are all your environmentalist buddies in California working endlessly to get ours torn down? Thats just hypocritical.
Posted by ittesi259 (696 comments )
Link Flag
Not actually sad...
1 - He specifically exempted Chernobyl, where Soviet-era unsafe design combined with operators TRYING to see if they could cause an accident.
2 - Hydro-electric dams? WONDERFUL idea, except in many places "environ-MENTAL-ists" won't allow them and in fact have demanded that many be DISMANTLED for the safety of obscure variants of the minnow.

Renewables and low-impact are wonderful;, but nuke is beautiful as well, as you would see if you could free your mind from its granola-soaked manacles.

SANE environmentalism is great. There are many, though, who would allow fairy-book idealism to trump reality and plunge us back to mud huts and a 35-yr life-span.
I thin it is good that a founder of Greenpeace would admit that lunatics took over the movement and turned it into a net-negative.
Posted by powerclam (70 comments )
Link Flag
You're kidding, right?
Aside from what other have already posted about your
misinformed comments, remember that photovoltaic panels are
inefficient (40% at best), expensive, and batteries are needed to
store the power (more inefficiency and loads of contaminants in
each battery). I have no problem with research and even
supplemental use of solar power... a friend of mine uses it to
power his small house and well pump, but he even admits to the
cost/benefit ratio problems.
And what of the horrid impact of dams on the environment?
Flooding wilderness areas, destroying animal habitats, death of
entire species, loss of riverbanks and sandbars... don't you care?
Then there's tidal wave power... you mean destruction of fish
species and destruction of water areas by turbidity and salinity
issues is somehow okay with you?
Nuclear IS safe, and the spent fuel can be reused to reduce it to
more manageable levels. Take the time to look at all sides of an
issue and respond with some kind of real factual evidence,
please!
Posted by macvswindows (25 comments )
Link Flag
Health numbers are wrong
Those figures are from a long time ago. They have just recently been revised, and to only a small fraction of what they were.
Posted by bemenaker (415 comments )
Link Flag
Coal as the only alternative
The only practical alternative to nuclear is coal, and more people die from coal power every year than those who were killed in Chernobyl. In fact, it's a difference of two orders of magnitude.

The study you quote says 2,500 deaths from Chernobyl. The U.N. did a very large study on the incident and figured that 4,000 people would die over 100 years.

Recent estimates figured that over 100,000 people die from air pollution from coal power plants every year in China alone. In the U.S. that number is estimated at 26,000 people per year. Back in the 50's there were up to 50,000 people per year dying from coal-related air pollution in London.

Some people talk about subsidies of nuclear power? The coal industry receives hidden subsidies of at least $50 billion per year by virtue of health care costs associated with it's waste.

You want dangerous, dirty and deadly power, look no further than coal. And despite all the yelling and screaming about renewables, coal and nuclear are the only technologies capable of supplying more than 20% of most countries power requirements (only exception being the few countries blessed with large hydro power opportunities, and the U.S. ain't one of those).
Posted by Hoser McMoose (182 comments )
Link Flag
Total cost of ownership anyone?
Although I appreciate the logic behind nuclear energy as a more environmentally friendly alternative to coal, did anyone consider the economic reality of installing solar power vs. nuclear? Continuing maintenance requirements, the need to mine uranium, reprocessing it, etc. etc. should be compared in a cost-benefit analysis to the energy generated by solar power. Granted, nuclear is initially more stable and reliable perhaps, but solar should definitely be high on the list of other options. It's a readily available energy, let's not let it go to waste. And while we're talking about options, how about thermal depolymerization? This is one practical technology that shows we can relinquish our dependence on fossil fuels. I mean, let's face it, this can turn all our nation's garbage into oil and fertilizer. Let's wake up to the fact that we have all the viable alternatives to our crazy use of fossil fuels at our disposal. Let's start using them and let's give each its own, most economically feasible place from a total cost of ownership perspective.
Posted by carlvincent (1 comment )
Reply Link Flag
Why solar subsidies?
If you think solar is economically viable, then why the scramble for subsidies? If it can survive without subsidies, then I'll believe in it.
Posted by bildan2 (77 comments )
Link Flag
Grave Errors In Supporting the "Wrong Technologies"
Grave Errors In Supporting the "Wrong Technologies" that could contaminate the World with Severely Harmful Radioactivity that could in turn cause Cancer and other Major Diseases post Chernobyl Nuclear Disasters

Nikola Tesla the Greatest Inventor of the last century had invented the Technologies to run cars & power stations without fuel one Century ago and these technologies might still be classified top secret immediately after his death. It is time to resurrect Nikola Tesla's life-works to produce electrical power without fuel and sharing them as it was intended by the Greatest Inventor himself.

Stanley Meyer had invented the Technology to turn Water into unlimited amount of fuel for making Unlimited Power Supply and to run cars and all internal combustion engines with HHO "on demand basis only" and so no storage of the HHO gases is required as it is safer & cheaper to store water instead, but unfortunately he was murdered. He had about more than 40 patents in this Technology. No one Car/Technology Company has pursued this technology further by buying up his technology and put them to good use to save our this planet Earth from Global Warming causing adversed climatic changes and disasters and hardship owing to unlimited and unrestrained use of Fossil Oils and Fuels, thus releasing & emitting enormous quantities of green house gases into the atmosphere. I think some company like Google should buy this Patented Technologies from Stanley Meyer's family and make this open source technology for the world to improve on and make good use of this Technology to save our world call Planet Earth.

Also those Zero Fuel Technologies invented by Nikola Tesla should be declassified and resurrected by the next President of USA to run cars and power-stations to save our Planet Earth from destruction and doom owing to unlimited and unrestrained use of Fossil Oils and Fuels for the whole of last Century. Our World the planet earth must be saved from the exploits of greed of the vested self interests of the fossil oil & fuels producers that pumped the unlimited amount of Greenhouse gases into our common atmosphere for the last century.
Posted by K A Cheah (240 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Let live in the real world
So you truly thing these "classified" documents hold the answers....why would they not bring them forward...you say because the automobile or oil industry would loose...but you don't think the person that holds the patent (or company) would make millions or billions...if you say profit motive is the reason to keep them classified...I will counter that argument and say then the profit motive to bring about the technology would be greater....lets leave the conspiracy theories behind and operate on "real facts" not emotion or what "we think"...but instead base it on what we really know...
Posted by grossph (169 comments )
Link Flag
Please remember the first law of thermodynamics.
"The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings." -first law of thermodynamics.

In other words, there is no such thing as unlimited fuel. Stanley Meyer was a conman trying to sucker people out of their money by selling a perpetual motion machine. His 'fuel cell' used the electrolytic process, which can never create enough hydrogen to perpetually refuel itself.

With all due respect to Nicola Tesla's early work, in his later life he was only one step above a conman: he actually believed what he was saying. His 'fuel-less' system was nothing of the sort (again, violations of the laws of thermodynamics). His idea for transmitting electrical power (which, by the way, he never claimed to be fuel-less) transmitted power by inductance. A person today can see the same effect by sticking a wire in a microwave oven. to be fair, his idea would have acutally worked, but no living thing could get close enough to use it, just as no living thing can survive for any amount of time in a mircowave oven.

I enjoy conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but PLEASE keep it within the realm of the physically possible.
Posted by Kesteral (69 comments )
Link Flag
Bwah-hah-hah
Let me guess - you're a Ron Paul supporter as well?

Why not mandate that all business, industries, and cars be powered by Federal-subsidized perpetual-motion machines?

Tesla was awesome, but people who have only a cartoon-level uinderstanding cause more harm than good.

GTFU.
Posted by powerclam (70 comments )
Link Flag
science and politics
I found the following paragraph in Mr. Moore's interview both enlightening and disturbing:

"As a co-founder of Greenpeace, even though I was a scientist, I made the same mistake in those days as all the rest of my colleagues did. We kind of lumped nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons as if all things nuclear were evil. It was an honest mistake. We were totally focused on the threat of nuclear war during the Cold War. Nuclear testing was what Greenpeace started on and we were peaceniks, and I think it's fair to say that the antinuclear-energy movement to some extent was formed out of the peace movement."

On one hand Moore describes himself as a scientist and on the other clearly implies his politics shaped his findings. Though he says "It was an honest mistake" and excuses himself, it isn't excusable.

Mr. Moore's eager mixing of science and politics, so widespread in the academic community, is why there is so much skepticism about global warming and other issues.
Posted by rbrustman (1 comment )
Reply Link Flag
Thanks for NOTHING, Dr. Moore.
You and your too-late-repentant colleagues can just crawl back
into your holes. You and the millions of unthinking antinukes
you spawned caused the world to forgo an energy source which
would have allowed us to prevent the release of a great deal of
the CO2 that has been committed to the atmosphere over the
last 30 to 40 years. Now there is a very real possibility that all
the other solutions to that problem will arrive too late, and will
cause very serious problems along the way (think biofuels).
THANKS FOR NOTHING!
Posted by billmosby (533 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Not VIRTUAL Reality
BREATHING releases carbon dioxide. Do you know how many billions of people live on this earth?? And how long? More than "30 to 40 years." According to the popular Environmarxist logic, the ultimate direction is to tax and control everyone's breathing!
Posted by mycroft69 (19 comments )
Link Flag
Refreshing - Nuclear has ALWAYS been safer than coal
There are a lot of things about nuclear power that make it superior to coal. I'll just mention the fact that if you want to know the radiation hazard you face, all you have to do is turn on a detector. You'll know immediately. There are beeping dosimeters or inexpensive portable detectors. But compare the readily available radiation detector with the lab space required (not to mention the time required) to monitor sulfur emissions or dioxin or ANY other chemical pollutant. I've been away from the nuclear industry since 1978 but even then it was superior to coal.
Posted by howlann (4 comments )
Reply Link Flag
no hope for this world
Besides the biggest problem of the nuclear waste (so we can kill the planet a bit later) does anyone know how long it takes to build these nuclear power plants? And how much of the tax dollars are to be spend to subsidize this nuclear power industry? And how much it costs at the end? Great message that we don?t have to change the way we use power and dismiss all renewable energy sources?
The millions of dollars the nuclear power industry uses to promote their image seem to pay off. Even the politicians are using this as a ?green? argument in their presidential race.
Do we want to be at the mercy of a small group of industrial companies? Did we learn nothing from the history of the oil companies?
Posted by mhoutney (1 comment )
Reply Link Flag
I understand your sense of frustration
As we can see, from many comments made here, too many people
have blind faith in technology. They trust that it will never fail.
Too many people are happy to pass on responsibility to large
corporations, and make themselves dependent on their services.
Too many people are not willing to change focus, in order to only
support clean and renewable sources of energy. Too many people
lack vision, but are driven by fear and a craving for convenience.
Posted by Tui Pohutukawa (218 comments )
Link Flag
Advanced Burner Reactors
Look it up! 2032 the first prototype plant will be produced and consume used fuel rods. The plan is emmit ISOTOPES That decay in centuries at first but with contining study and investment the isotopes could be reduced to decades or years. Get over the I don't understand and become informed
Posted by Riger_25 (2 comments )
Reply Link Flag
you're about half right- it's actually been done already.
It was called EBR-II, and it along with its co-located fuel cycle
facility and other facilities demonstrated almost all components of
such a thing. Google Integral Fast Reactor for a good description of
this program, which ended in 1994. Clinton decided we didn't need
to continue the research, because we were going to stuff the waste
down Nevada's throat instead.
Posted by billmosby (533 comments )
Link Flag
Stanley Meyer
I used to follow Stanley Meyer's work. Everything you can read on
this site is true:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html" target="_newWindow">http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html</a>

Stan was assassinated. It's anybody's guess who was behind the
murder. There are forces in our world that have a vested interest
in keeping cheap, clean technologies off the market.
Posted by Tui Pohutukawa (218 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Thanks for the laugh...
Undoubtedly these are the same all-powerful people who really were behind the 9/11 attacks.
Posted by Farthing Haypenny (67 comments )
Link Flag
nuclear power economics
If any of those people claiming that "nuclear is too expensive and no one knows the true costs, etc" actually took a minute to do a simple google search perhaps they wouldn't sound to asinine.
There is some great information out there, and the bottom line is that amortized capital costs, fuel cycle costs, decomissioning costs, etc are ALREADY taken into account in the price of nuclear, and even with all that it is still competitive with coal. Granted that the recent spike in uranium prices may drive up the expense a bit in the short term, but only until new mining capacity gets up to speed, and/or reprocessing catches on. Here is some information:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm" target="_newWindow">http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm</a>
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.virtualnucleartourist.com/basics/costs.htm" target="_newWindow">http://www.virtualnucleartourist.com/basics/costs.htm</a>
Posted by gatornuke (27 comments )
Reply Link Flag
economics
I read Patrick Moore's interview with CNET last pm.

I thought about the proposition of using nuclear power to boil water to drive electricity generators.

I held out my two forefingers about a quarter inch apart.

I imagined this was the useful life of a power plant, before it has to be decommissioned and replacement generation has to be built, about the same for wind/solar as for nuclear, although as technology improves, wind/solar may be able to stay on station longer, while a thermal plant ? in this case nuclear ? has expansion-contraction degradation, erosion, and contamination problems inside the containment vessel that cause it to be worn out, requiring abandonment and care forever, along with other components outside the containment vessel.

Once a wind/solar unit is worn out, if it is designed to cradle-to-cradle specifications, the materials are far more re-buildable into new equipment, as compared with a nuclear plant.

Then I spread my arms full length, and thought about whether that proportional length to the quarter-inch began to represent the length of time all the waste from nuclear, either shut-down facilities or mining or processing sites, is going to cost everybody to tend to.

Think of all the costs of the nuclear fuel cycle ? planning, engaging staff, finding office space, building a proposal, finding preliminary funding, doing detailed environmental studies, doing economic projections, projected costs of site acquisition, meeting after meeting with backers, submission of proposal to government authorities, public hearings, reading and responding to public comment, political and public relations and legal battles for years and years before a decision is made about mining a particular site, and then final arrangements made for financing based on changing market conditions and permit requirements, negotiating with landowners and/or local governments for condemnations, before massively degrading the mine site?s environment forever could begin, etc.

Then, there is a similar process that goes on with processing facilities, generating stations, fuel handling, de-commissioning, waste storage, replacement generation built somewhere else ? for longer than civilization so far.

Wind/solar has no fuel cycle.
Posted by gfbird (3 comments )
Link Flag
Probably murdered by one of his VC's
One of his investors probably murdered him when they realized that he was selling a con and they were never going to get their money back.
I've looked over his work. It's basically promising perpetual motion. It talks about making hydrogen and oxygen out of water, then combusting them (back into water.) Sorry, but at 100% efficiency you only get as much energy out as you put in. ICE's are more like 33% efficient, so at best you're getting 1/3 out from what you put in.

I'd recommend finding some good reading on physics and chemistry before you preach about energy con sites.
Posted by skrubol (178 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Meant to be a reply to 'Stanley Meyer'
NT
Posted by skrubol (178 comments )
Link Flag
Environmentalists are open minded
Patrick Moore shows that many environmentalists are open minded. This is a good thing. We need intelligent usage of our resources for the well being of all, present and future. This is a moral consideration and science is a tool. Because it is a moral consideration, it becomes political ? I can't see why people have a problem with that.

Tim Flannery (2007 Australian of the Year) stated his position two years ago:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/lets-talk-about-nuclear-power-emandem-other-energy-sources/2006/05/29/1148754933159.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/lets-talk-about-nuclear-power-emandem-other-energy-sources/2006/05/29/1148754933159.html</a>

I don't think the subject of waste was sufficiently addressed. There is a decommissioned nuclear power station (Dounreay) on the northern coast of Scotland which is costing the UK £3 billion to clean up until 2030s. It has completely ruined the beach near there ? if you inhale a spec of contaminated dust you are dead. So don't get emotional ? put a cost on it ? it is expensive.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dounreay" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dounreay</a>

We can hope that newer plants would be cleaner, but long-term we should be doing more research into renewables.
Posted by Ian Joyner (66 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Dounreay is an atypical example
All of this info is pulled straight from the Wikipedia article you cited. First of all, 2 of the 3 reactors on the site were very experimental. The first reactor to go online was strictly for research, the second reactor did produce power, but was also for research. Those two reactors went online in the 50's. The 3rd reactor was built nearly 20 years later, and was basically a power reactor, with more than 10x the power capability of the second reactor.
The article also describes the gross negligence that the waste was treated with at the site. It describes a 65m deep shaft that's being used for waste storage, even though it wasn't built for that purpose. Furthermore workers actually fired guns into the water in the shaft, and at one point there was a hydrogen gas explosion in it. It's not a big suprise that something like that might leak.
The day to day operation of this site would be considered a nuclear disaster in the US. The meltdown at 3-mile island didn't contaminate nearly as much earth or water as Dounreay has. The other reactor at 3-mile island is still in operation today.
Yankee Rowe, which was the first commercial reactor to go online in the US, and also the first to be decommissioned cost about $350M to decommission from 1992-1995ish. Granted, this was a much smaller reactor than modern reactors, but it also presented problems that would not be present with modern reactors. Most likely the industry has learned a lot from this decommissioning that will help to reduce costs moving forward (ie, building reactors with considerations to make their decommissioning in 30 -50 years easier.) Yankee Rowe operated for 32 years. There's no reason modern reactors would not be able to run for longer.
Posted by skrubol (178 comments )
Link Flag
Giving up on imagination, giving in on military-industrial complex
These "environmentalist" nuke guys believe we lack the imagination to create inexpensive and plentiful energy from non-fossil, non-nuclear energy. In the face of a challenge, they are giving up and handing the keys over to our old friends, the military-industrial complex, with their seemingly limitless Congressional connections and supply of corporate welfare. So they hope to seal in a self-fulfilling prophecy that nukes are the only economically viable alternative to fossil fuels. Lets pile on the corporate welfare and deny it to the small-guy alternatives. This would then assure that nukes become, then, the only economically viable alternative, since they get the tens of billions in welfare.

The head of the international nuclear power association estimated a couple years ago that we will need 8,800 new nuclear plants to remediate global warming. What are the chances for even one truly ugly accident along the way - enough to scare lots of people into halting further development of nuclear plants? That's one reason there is little private investment, and mostly a lot of the GE types grabbing the free money while they can.

We can't allow global warming to continue - true - but what will it be like 30 years from now when we have a pile of half-finished nuclear plants, no more money for any kind of energy research, and little progress on global warming? Even if you succeed in building the 8,800 plants and the massive paranoid security infrastructure it will engender, you'll always know you gave up on small-scale alternatives when you had the chance.

Big challenges are a time for big ideas and hard work, not just collapsing and turning it all over to the Halburtons and GEs of the world.
Posted by fokwp (44 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Don't let paranoia scare ya...
After all, you seem to have more than a passing acquaintance
with it yourself. Try to imagine a world in which nuclear is one of
a number of alternatives, a world in which we don't don't bet
heavily on just one or a few untried "alternatives". We can
develop a lot of sources and see what mix works.

"No money for any kind of energy research"? Get a clue, pal.
They're already building as many solar panels, windmills, nukes,
and biofuel plants as can be built, and the work will continue.
Not a lot of research to be done on some of these. If the energy
they produce is profitable, there will be more than enough
research money to go around.

On second thought, just keep scaring yourself to death. You
seem to be good at it.
Posted by billmosby (533 comments )
Link Flag
economics
Patrick Moore ?

I read your interview with CNET last pm.

I thought about the proposition of using nuclear power to boil water to drive electricity generators.

I held out my two forefingers about a quarter inch apart.

I imagined this was the useful life of a power plant, before it has to be decommissioned and replacement generation has to be built, about the same for wind/solar as for nuclear, although as technology improves, wind/solar may be able to stay on station longer, while a thermal plant ? in this case nuclear ? has expansion-contraction degradation, erosion, and contamination problems inside the containment vessel that cause it to be worn out, requiring abandonment and care forever, along with other components outside the containment vessel.

Once a wind/solar unit is worn out, if it is designed to cradle-to-cradle specifications, the materials are far more re-buildable into new equipment, as compared with a nuclear plant.

Then I spread my arms full length, and thought about whether that proportional length to the quarter-inch began to represent the length of time all the waste from nuclear, either shut-down facilities or mining or processing sites, is going to cost everybody to tend to.

Think of all the costs of the nuclear fuel cycle ? planning, engaging staff, finding office space, building a proposal, finding preliminary funding, doing detailed environmental studies, doing economic projections, projected costs of site acquisition, meeting after meeting with backers, submission of proposal to government authorities, public hearings, reading and responding to public comment, political and public relations and legal battles for years and years before a decision is made about mining a particular site, and then final arrangements made for financing based on changing market conditions and permit requirements, negotiating with landowners and/or local governments for condemnations, before massively degrading the mine site?s environment forever could begin, etc.

Then, there is a similar process that goes on with processing facilities, generating stations, fuel handling, de-commissioning, waste storage, replacement generation built somewhere else ? for longer than civilization so far.

Wind/solar has no fuel cycle.
Posted by gfbird (3 comments )
Reply Link Flag
3 Errors in the Obvious -- how can you believe any of his words?
There are at least three facts that are wrong in what Moore says; when you are wrong on such obvious facts, how can we believe the rest of the things he says that aren't so easily checked.

1) No US deaths is clearly false, and
2) Three Mile Island (TMI) was NOT the worst accident in the history of the West:

a. Arco, ID killed 3, Jan 3, 1961. They were so radioactive they had to be buried in lead coffins. Here's an easy link: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_National_Laboratory#Fatal_accident" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_National_Laboratory#Fatal_accident</a>

b. Having Moore say "no members of the public" is disingenuous: last I checked US servicemen do not give up their citizenship when they join up. Note that the Nuclear industry is no better when they qualify it as no deaths from "commercial" nuclear operations.

c. US government estimated 3300 early fatalities, and 45,000 illnesses will result from Three Mile Island in 1981. All Moore pointed out is that you can't prove them; small consolation for those whose lives have been cut short by TMI. Even if you don?t believe it, the insurance industry does, and as a result commercial insurance is unavailable to the nuclear industry.
Nuclear Liability after Three Mile Island
William C. Wood
The Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep., 1981), pp. 450-464

3) Clean? ? if you don?t count the radioactive waste that doesn?t decompose, and for which there is no disposal. This is the stuff of superfund sites, so there is no honest interpretation that can make it "clean". Currently it is being held in ?temporary storage?, many times in major floodplains. No one can seriously advocating that we trade in a Carbon problem for Uranium and Plutonium. Furthermore claiming that radioactivity with a half-life of minutes with coal is worse than nuclear waste with a half-life of millenia is pure and simple disinformation.
Posted by yetanothergeekguy (2 comments )
Reply Link Flag
energy needs to be decentralized
This guy says that CA should spend it's solar incentives money on nuclear. He says that for the money, 3.2 billion you could build a powerplant that makes 5 to 10 times the energy. That's just super...but it will take years, if at all. This guys argument for nuclear is just business as usual for the energy industry. His argument against solar is the "5 days of clouds" argument. Certainly this is an issue, but imagine, if you will...Take all the money needed for powerplants and put it into incentives and subsidies for home generation of solar. If it is cheap, I will buy it. I almost did, but it wasn't quite cheap enough. Batteries are not needed, putting power back into the grid is a "virtual battery". More incentives stimulates the solar industry. More people get in on the biz and creates a new market with new money. If everyone gets solar, this reduces the need for more powerplants. The ones still running provide nightime and peak demand (the "5 days of cloud argument). The power companies never quite go out of business (good or bad, you decide). As more cars become hybrid and plug in hybrids and pure electrics, people can always just "fill up" at home. This further reduces oil dependence and carbon emmissions. This can be combined with other technologies as well. I have hellaciaous winds (as do many in SoCal). Small wind generator can function at night and cloudy days. AC systems that run full blast at night to freeze water for use during the day sound like a good bet. Plus, homeowners love to have new toys and brag! Having a small to nonexistant elec bill is an awesome incentive.
The most important thing is...the products are already on the market. If the money is there, people will buy it. Solar makes electicity the minute you stick it up. I could have solar up and running inside of 4 weeks. So could most of us. A nuclear plant will take 10 years to come on line.

Everything we need to become energy independent and reduce carbon emmissions as well as stimulating the economy is here. Now. Let's go!
Posted by tomslik (3 comments )
Reply Link Flag
Wow.
First , when I was younger I couldnt stand the taste of beer. I didnt like the smell, the look, all that froth on top... nothing. You couldnt get me to cosign for it for someone else to drink. Im older now. Beer still stinks. I can never drink the head (the foam at the top ). I still dont like the taste. But now... I will drink it . I couldnt see the forest for the trees. It wasnt suppose to taste good. It was suppose to get me drunk. I realized very early in life not to lump things together. Just about everything has its own specific purpose. Nuclear Bombs and Nuclear Power are two different things. I figured that out by the time I was eleven. I figured the beer thing out in my early twenties (bout 20 years ago). Now the have flavored beer. for people like me. People change opinions all the time. Thats why I never care what a elected official stood for more than 10 years ago. Thats my cut off for peoples agenda. more then 10 years ago and it doesn't matter to me. I drink beer now.
Posted by Sevenizm (1 comment )
Reply Link Flag
 

Join the conversation

Add your comment

The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use.

ie8 fix

RSS Feeds

Add headlines from CNET News to your homepage or feedreader.

Markets

Market news, charts, SEC filings, and more

Related quotes

Dow Jones Industrials (-0.60%) -74.92 12,454.83
S&P 500 (-0.22%) -2.86 1,317.82
NASDAQ (-0.07%) -1.85 2,837.53
CNET TECH (-0.20%) -4.05 2,040.30
  Symbol Lookup
ie8 fix
  • Recently Viewed Products
  • My Lists
  • My Software Updates
  • Promo
  • Log In | Join CNET