Ridding our dependence on foreign oil.

[Cynic]

Incidentally space seems like a pretty stupid plan. For starters rockets tend to explode on the launch pad and that is a pretty bad outcome.

Whose rockets tend to explode?

...It's a dumb idea for waste because we're talking tons, and rockets expend tons for fuel for pounds of cargo.

But your argument is why people protest satellites and probes with advanced batteries and clocks.

-Crissa

While I agree with you that protesting sattelites and probes because of malfunctions is a damned fool thing.

I think cthulhu has a point in this case. I'm not the most informed on space-tech so I can't tell if there is much truth in what he says.

But if there is, in cases such as Nuke-waste disposal, the probability of the transport not even happening because the payload taking it up explodes which could cause chain reactions with the type of hazardous shiite the craft is supposed to be carrying. Unless the probability of that rocket explosion is brought to a very negligible amount, the trashing of the waste in space is too much of a danger to even try in my opinion.

Again, this all goes on the assumption that what Cthulhu said had a basis in fact.

[cthulhu]

I'm presuming you'd only launch reprocessed and viritified waste, and you'd use biofuels to make the launch fuels - in any 'low carbon' world we're going to need biofuels to make jets fly, so we're going to have some.

So in that scenario the level of emissions would be relatively low, and the amount of waste launched would be minimal - with a full reprocessing regime that spins out material you can re-use in reactors you're getting down to a 3 x 1 m3 blocks of High level waste a year, which is certainly launchable.

I'm assuming you'd dispose of low level waste and medium level waste like we do now.

Costs for that reprocessing regime would be quite high though, possibly as much as a 1c a kw/h, and you'd then need to launch the vitrified waste.

however, putting three blocks of highly radioactive waste - presumably without to much protective shielding because that would be seriously heavy - ontop of rockets, which do occasionally explode. You'd have to launch every year of course, and if one did explode it would be a Chenobal scale incident.

Not sure I'd be in favour of that. Burying is definately less risky. Then something might go wrong, rather than having a count down until something does go wrong.

[IGTN]

Not sure I'd be in favour of that. Burying is definately less risky. Then something might go wrong, rather than having a count down until something does go wrong.

You have a countdown until something does go wrong either way; launching gives you an explosion scattering high-level nuclear waste everywhere, but burying still gives you the possibility of an earthquake, or a leak, or radiation transmuting your materials into something weaker/smaller and causing a collapse, or anything else going wrong.

The countdown takes longer, but it's still a countdown. Nothing ever built by human civilization has ever lasted a million years.

[cthulhu]

How could anything built by human civilization have possibly lasted a million years given that humans probably evolved 300k years ago?

[Talisman]

Lies! Humans were made by God 6,000 years ago!!1! Read your damn Bibble!

---

Seriously though, what has humanity every built that could be expected to last 1,000,000 years? Large-scale, I mean; not plastic bottles and Pampers.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Uranium!

[Username17]

How could anything built by human civilization have possibly lasted a million years given that humans probably evolved 300k years ago?

Well I think it's fair to include other hominids as "humans" since they were building stuff. But the fact remains that stuff we built out of stone some 8000 years ago looks like this:



That was made out of stone. And well, it still is. But now it's also covered in holes. The outsides of that thing were flat at one time. It used to have a nose.

What exactly do you intend to make these underground vaults out of that can survive hundreds of thousands of years against the harsh erosion of radioactivity when all out shit breaks in mere thousands of years?

-Username17

[Crissa]

There is a theory that much of the heat in the core of the earth is created by radioactive decay.

So, given enough technology it may be possible to drill into a subduction zone and pour the stuff in. The million years of erosion takes it to the depths of the earth.

Assuming of course that it isn't densely packed, and doesn't come boiling back up without being thoroughly diluted, that would be a earth-bound way of doing it.

However, we don't know how subduction zones work, we can't drill holes two miles under the sea, and that might as well be as far as orbit considering the costs.

Hence this not really being a good idea to use on a big scale - like for all of our power - until we figure out how to deal with the waste.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

The real physical costs of nuclear power and coal exist no matter how much we go into denial with our market price.

Ultimately those costs apply to society anyway, it just happens in a different, and much less pleasant, way.

Well there are going to be environmental costs to coal and nuclear, but lets face it, those aren't going to be felt for some time, and on the short term, nuclear and coal is cheaper.

And considering that countries are competing with each other economically, that's very important.

And as to investing in solar power causing recession. Well, no actually.

I'm led to believe it is like investing in infrastructure and technology. Because, well, it is actually exactly that.

So potentially it brings you OUT of recession.

Not at all. It's much like gas prices going up. When gas is expensive, the economy suffers, because people have less money to spend, and thus businesses take a hit, and then have to lay people off. Which takes more money out of circulation. This is how recessions start, regardless of what Republican economics would have us believe. If the average citizen has less money to spend, everyone suffers.

Electricity works the same way. Like gas, everyone uses it and thus everyone pays for it. And the electric company certainly isn't going to eat the loss by selling cheap power. So if power takes more money to generate, then you can bet it's going to cost more money to buy. Also, making expensive electricity makes electric cars even less feasible and makes it harder to drop the dependence on oil. Meanwhile the economy takes a hit because people are spending more money on electricity and less money on anything else, so businesses are going to go downhill.

[PhoneLobster]

Well there are going to be environmental costs to coal and nuclear, but lets face it, those aren't going to be felt for some time, and on the short term, nuclear and coal is cheaper.

And in the short term jumping off a cliff is a really fun and exhilarating experience with absolutely no down sides or risks.

And really to get where you do in your "it'll cause a recession compared to oil/whatever" you need to really take the attitude that we won't ever hit the bottom after jumping off that particular cliff.

Because as is evidenced right now it is inappropriate valuation and risk management that leads to REAL shrinking of the economy and recessions.

Investing in solar power eliminates those risks and inappropriate valuations from the economy. We pay a larger short term cost to avoid a massive long term disaster. And that cost all goes into technology, industry and real jobs that produce something beneficial to society.

It's real investment in real permanent wealth creation instead of real investment in fake wealth creation and long term disasters.

That kind of investment doesn't cause recessions, it draws you out of them, if you don't know that then you don't know much about economic theory.

[RandomCasualty2]

And in the short term jumping off a cliff is a really fun and exhilarating experience with absolutely no down sides or risks.

And really to get where you do in your "it'll cause a recession compared to oil/whatever" you need to really take the attitude that we won't ever hit the bottom after jumping off that particular cliff.

Because as is evidenced right now it is inappropriate valuation and risk management that leads to REAL shrinking of the economy and recessions.

Not really. Our economy hasn't shrunk at all due to pollution or other risks associated with generating electricity.

What does kill economies is when the price of energy goes up. Gas prices rising for instance.

Investing in solar power eliminates those risks and inappropriate valuations from the economy. We pay a larger short term cost to avoid a massive long term disaster. And that cost all goes into technology, industry and real jobs that produce something beneficial to society.

It's real investment in real permanent wealth creation instead of real investment in fake wealth creation and long term disasters.

That kind of investment doesn't cause recessions, it draws you out of them, if you don't know that then you don't know much about economic theory.

While such an investment may pay off in the long run, the problem is that we're all using the same planet, so if there's anyone doing bad shit with nuclear energy or pollution, we're all going to basically suffer for it eventually when the thing blows up. The only difference is that the guys who go with the pro-pollution set up get rich in the process and the more green economy tends to suffer. The only time the green economy pulls ahead is when the pollution based economy kills itself off with all the pollution, and by then the green economy may be screwed anyway.

Really, it's understandable that most countries are waiting for solar power to be as efficient as oil/nuclear. Because there's really not much of a benefit to trying to be the pioneers in being a green nation. Once efficient solar stuff is developed, then the nongreen countries will adapt it anyway, and they'd have saved all the time of having to come up with the plans themselves.

Paying more to go green with energy just isn't very practical, because it means that your country is making a sacrifice and not getting much back in return, because everyone else can outproduce you badly.

Going green is something that can't be decided by one nation, it has to be a UN decision, and the penalty for not being green has to be a total embargo, so that other countries are forced to comply.

[PhoneLobster]

The "but everyone else is doing it mum!" argument stopped working for most people when they were 3.

It doesn't fly as a justification in this situation either as the ones whining about everyone else doing it are usually major polluters like the US pointing at countries that have yet to actually do serious pollution and justifying their present pollution on the POTENTIAL pollution of developing nations.

And the thing is green energy is an export industry. The country with the best solar energy industry will win the next era of the world economy. And the developing nations have no problem with going green since the technology is well suited to their location and situation, and hell oil and coal ARE limited and prices ARE rising.

Every damn expert and study says it again and again, investing in green energy is a profitable enterprise for a nation to engage in.

[Crissa]

How, exactly, would energy prices go up from solar?

Once the solar is installed, it no longer 'costs' anything but minimal maintenance. Other sources of energy constantly cost more than maintenance!

That's like saying there's less money in people's pockets because we invested in freeways (which cost more to build, but are free to use) instead of keeping to railroads (which cost to use, but are cheap to build in comparison).

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

How, exactly, would energy prices go up from solar?

Once the solar is installed, it no longer 'costs' anything but minimal maintenance. Other sources of energy constantly cost more than maintenance!

That's like saying there's less money in people's pockets because we invested in freeways (which cost more to build, but are free to use) instead of keeping to railroads (which cost to use, but are cheap to build in comparison).

Well If the statistic is that solar is more $ per megawatt produced or whatever, if that stat is accurate then you're paying more for the power.

Now I don't know what goes into that statistic. I'm assuming it includes maintenance costs and stuff, and if you can provide a statistic that says otherwise I may agree with you. Right now I'm going on the fact that solar is more expensive per unit of power.

[Crissa]

Also, any power source you're not using is 'more expensive' than what you're using now, since you have to build that infrastructure. Each technology has its initial costs, its maintenance, and further costs. A new nuclear plant will cost more than adding onto a previous nuclear plant.

Would we be 'paying more' for electricity? Well, we would if it was an unfunded mandate to just replace current systems. We'd be paying more if they said to just build new plants of the same type we're using now and stop using the old ones, too! So it's a false choice.

Government spending is good. If the government backs or builds new power plants, no, we won't be paying more for electricity - because the supply of electricity would go up, and demand's proportion to it would then go down.

We know that energy prices using oil may skyrocket at any time, and are ultimately unsustainable.

So how, exactly, is that a comparison? All energy prices must rise in the future! The choice is merely - do we pay now, or do we pay for the remainder of human life on this planet, possibly longer? Also note, we may have done damage to the point that we already are paying a permanent price.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

Would we be 'paying more' for electricity? Well, we would if it was an unfunded mandate to just replace current systems. We'd be paying more if they said to just build new plants of the same type we're using now and stop using the old ones, too! So it's a false choice.

I was under the impression that it would cost more money to set up a solar power system than it would to just build a nuclear or oil power plant.

Is there even a functioning solar power plant right now?

Government spending is good. If the government backs or builds new power plants, no, we won't be paying more for electricity - because the supply of electricity would go up, and demand's proportion to it would then go down.

Sure, the government could take up the slack, but I really don't know if I like that idea, because government money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is either taxes or by increasing the national debt. Raised taxes mean that the people are paying for the electricity just in a different way. As for the national debt, that's another building problem.

Of course, you're right that the government could do it if it wanted to. It would be much more beneficial for Bush to have built solar plants with all the money he spent on the Iraq war. Really, most of the US's problems could be solved by averting one pointless war and spending the money at home. But then again, what are the odds of that ever happening?

We know that energy prices using oil may skyrocket at any time, and are ultimately unsustainable.

Yeah, there's going to be a huge economic crash when oil runs out. A country actually could pull ahead by getting itself onto electric cars and solar power if it timed it right. Of course, nobody is really sure when the oil is going to run out. Everyone has their own BS predictions.

So how, exactly, is that a comparison? All energy prices must rise in the future! The choice is merely - do we pay now, or do we pay for the remainder of human life on this planet, possibly longer? Also note, we may have done damage to the point that we already are paying a permanent price.

It's not that I don't agree with you. I do.

It's just that it's one thing to argue for all this stuff and it's entirely another thing to figure out a feasible way to get it done.

These issues really are global issues. They're not just American issues, European issues or Asian issues. They apply to everyone. That means that the solution really needs to be something universally adopted. It actually won't matter much if just one country does it.

[Crissa]

Yes, there are solar plants working as utilities; and it's been a percent of national power for the last ten years and growing.

There's many installations on the private and industrial level, however, which is where most of the solar power comes from - from supplying remote spots, or phones/signals in random places even in cities.

The creation of solar power is an investment that creates jobs, lowers imports, and all in all is a win-win at almost any price.

-Crissa