Newsgroup sci.energy 66324

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In article <5qdqh9$8ei@freenet-news.carleton.ca>,
Jeremy Whitlock  wrote:
>
> (daryl@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca) writes:
>
>[...]
>>    A related point (addressed by another poster) is that nuclear 
>> waste accounting is not perfect; there is suspicion that some high-
>> grade waste has been diverted for nuclear-weapon development already, 
>> and Canadian Government proscriptions were not able to stop India from
>> diverting waste from their CANDU reactors into weapons production.
>
>This is a myth.  The plutonium for the Indian device came from a
>Canadian-supplied research reactor, not a CANDU power reactor, which would
>have been next to impossible.
>
   Could you explain the difficulties attendant to diversion from a
   CANDU?
   (Good to see a post from you - it's been a while!)
-- 
B. Alan Guthrie, III          |   Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
                              |     
alan.guthrie@cnfd.pgh.wec.com |   My opinions only 
                              |                  

Mirko Vukovic wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know the total amount of energy liberated by human activity
> on this planet?
> the total energy recieved from the sun
> and while we are at it, the total geo-thermal energy that makes it into
> the atmosphere.
> 
> why all this?  if our energy consumption is starting to approach the
> latter two, it stands to reason that climacting changes are not that
> many generations far off.
Mirko. You are starting off at much too global a level. WRT the
available GeoThermal energy, except for a small amount of energy that
(rather indirectly) feeds the clams in the vents at the bottom of the
ocean, most of the core eakage heat shows up in plate tecktonics and an
almost undetectable surface heating. I recall someone giving us numbers
for our output versis the total insolation and they figured we only used
a few percent of the available. But we don't actually use the available,
do we. We use convinient energy concentrated over geological time spans,
(or astronomical, I guess, for nuclear sources). Because of the way we
use and price our resources the catastrophy comes without our ever
having to consider available solar energy, in fact without our having to
wait untill the resources of coal and oil are actually in short supply.
We can produce enough smog today to kill and debilitate tens of
thousands in a dozen or more large cities across the world, in fact
whole forests are being stunted and burned out of the ground by this air
pollution. This is just a minor side effect of our using this fuel in
the way we do. That there may be truely global problems due to our
hosing up the Earth's heat balance should hardly surprise anyone. (I
should point out that our vast particulate emissions may be cooling us
about as much as our CO2 emissions are heating us, keeping an accidental
balance that will not continue.). In any case, we are rapidly runing out
of room to play the hayseed and run our cities and our own lives as if
there were no consequences to our pollution, or that it is "some one
else's problem". (That was the name of the invisibility field in "a
hitch hiker's guide to the Galaxy". Seems to apply very well here. As
long as it is "some one else's problem" I don't have to do anything
about it.).

Bruce Hamilton wrote:
> 
> Will Stewart  wrote:
> 
> >Terry Moore wrote:
> >> In article <5pr5p9$9uu$1@news.rain.org>, bowe@rain.org (Nick Halloway) wrote:
> >> > In the U.S. people, whether they drive or not, subsidize driving by
> >> > paying taxes for road building & maintenance.  If only the drivers
> >> > paid for driving, if roads were maintained out of gas taxes etc., I
> >> > think there would be more incentive to use bicycles etc. and more
> >> > demand for bike paths or whatever would make it safe to drive these
> >> > lighter vehicles.  The U.S. encourages people to drive cars.
> 
> So?. The USA does not have the public transport infrasture of some
> other nations because the car was the preferred mode of transportation,
> consequently major investments were made in roading for cars - because
> that is what the people wanted. Simple really.\
Very interesting post and I can't challenge your figures on most of waht
you say.  But, I think you will find that public transport in many N.
American cities was deliberately dismantled by companies such as General
Motors and Firestone early in this century in order to create cityscapes
which can only be travelled by cars.  There are accounts of this in
"City of Quartz" by Mike Davis (relating specifically to LA) and "the
Geography of Nowhere" - forget the author.  Both books are at home and
if you are interested I can give more details.  I seem to remember that
there was a congressional hearing on this in the 70s? which found a
deliberate policy of destroying streetcar companies in many cities.
	Cheers, Raoul
-- 
Raoul Miller                                    Ph: (218)726-6133
Dept. Of Geography                              Fax: (218)726-6386
University of Minnesota - Duluth
Duluth, MN 55812

*David Hatunen* wrote on Wed, 97-07-09 19:18 in sci.energy:
DH>Imagine a small ferris wheel placed so that one side is over the
DH>shield and the other is not. The side that is not will be "heavier,
DH>and perpetual motion will result. In other words, such a shield is
DH>only possible if you are willing to dump the Principle of the
DH>conservation of Energy.
This does not convince me: If the wheel carries magnets and you place a 
magnet under one side it will not turn forever. I don't see how the 
shield would be different. Am I wrong?
Tschö wa
                Axel
P.S:    Man möge mich korrigieren.

In article <5qdjfg$grh@larry.cc.emory.edu>,
Lloyd R. Parker  wrote:
>B. Alan Guthrie (zcbag@cnfd.pgh.wec.com) wrote:
>: 
>:     I do not know whether the North Korean reactor was foreign-suppled
>:     or a domestic design.  I do know that it was not a power reactor.
>
>
>How can you know that yet not know where it came from?
   Because North Korea has no power reactors.  I do know that the
   reactor in question was rated at 35 MW.  I do not know the origin
   of the design.  Sorry, but I am not omniscient.
>
>And perhaps you'd like to explain the US's concern about Iran buying a 
>power reactor?
  The concern is directed really at the ancilliary facilities which
  Iran is attempting to acquire.  The power reactors themselves are
  not the real issue.
-- 
B. Alan Guthrie, III          |   Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
                              |     
alan.guthrie@cnfd.pgh.wec.com |   My opinions only 
                              |                  

GSD  writes: > Wm James wrote:
>
> p.s.  We don't eat vegeterians as they smell when cooked.  We simply
> feed them to the wild animals that would otherwise deplete our stocks of
> healthy human meat (carnivores).
> 
> I have some wonderful recipes if anyone is interested.
Personally, people should have the right to make jokes publicly
about anything: animals, Oklahoma City bombing, drugs...
But, I don't want some idiotic moron telling ME that somehow
MY posting is "off-topic" in these newsgroups when these uncreative
posters post their unoriginal "jokes" to these science newsgroups.

In article <5qig5p$dhn@mtinsc03.worldnet.att.net>, "Steve Spence"
 wrote:
>  your idea of intelligence is to spamm numerous newsgroups with your
> personal philosiphies that have no relevence or interest to us?
I didn't start the thread, nor did I choose the groups to which it is
posted. But I did feel it necessary to defend myself.
I appologize if I have crowded your favorite newsgroups with stuff you
didn't want to see. Still... it beats "FREE SEX--ONLY $2.99 A MINUTE!!!"
doesn't it?
  Toe!  ("`-/")_.-'"``-._ 
      \  . . `; -._    )-;-,_`)
         (v_,)'  _  )`-.\  ``-'
        _.- _..-_/ / ((.'
      ((,.-'   ((,/
epastore@erols.com

In article <5qig4i$dhn@mtinsc03.worldnet.att.net>, "Steve Spence"
 wrote:
>  Most of us don't find it disturbing, nor do we feel the need to justify our
> actions.
Most people didn't find slavery disturbing. Nor feel the need to justify
their actions.
Through history, people seem to have gradually become more civilized.
Slavery used to be totally acceptable. So was murder before that. Now we
are finally starting to question war. I predict that within a century or
two, people will look back on the meat eating (and other animal killing) of
previous ages with horror.
  Toe!  ("`-/")_.-'"``-._ 
      \  . . `; -._    )-;-,_`)
         (v_,)'  _  )`-.\  ``-'
        _.- _..-_/ / ((.'
      ((,.-'   ((,/
epastore@erols.com

> In article <33bd8c72.1460620@nntp.a001.sprintmail.com>,
> Wm James  wrote:
> >If socialism is wat you want, just say it.
On 10 Jul 1997, Don Baccus wrote:
> We already own these forests, so the socialist principle of community
> ownership and rights in this property exists, and has for the 100 or
> more years these lands have been owned by the US Government.
Community ownership, or rather, US management of the forests is necessary to
ensure that new trees are planted to replace the old ones. I care about the
environment from a HUMAN perspective, but couldnt give a rat's ass about the
spotted owl. The environment that needs to be protected is there; if corporate
tree-plundering were allowed to continue unchecked, there would be nothing but
barren land, and several years in the future we'd be out quite a bit of wood,
thus destorying an important part of our country. We need environmental
management to make companies replant trees, so that our natural
RENAWABLE resources will in fact remain renewable. If they aren't usable at
all, as you and your spotted owl ecoFreaks would like, MORE PLASTIC BAGS made
from UNRENEWABLE, TOXIC PETROLEUM sources will be used instead.
And THAT, is what is REALLY hurting the earth, destroying the planet for our
children instead of saving it for them - mismanagement of resources by NIMBY
nutcases who want to save every cuddly little animal at any expense -
including the environment they claim to love so much...
BY THE WAY:
I saw a bumper-sticker I *really* liked on a truck in Oregon, but since the
issue isnt so big here in SoCal, I havent been able to get a copy. (Plenty of
wealthy ex-hippie yuppies are all for saving spotted owls because they dont
depend on forests for jobs and dont realize what really happens to prices...).
The bumper sticker said:
Save the trees;
Wipe your ass with a spotted owl.
 ___            
    >                         Linux - the answer to the microsoft problem
   /    _  _ |_  _  _     _|  Sysop - The Portal BBS - 805/642-7038
  <____(_(|_)| )| `(_((_)(_|  jkenner@rainorg (add dot to reply)
          |
        Dogs crawl under fences, applications crawl under windows
          Their address sums up their attitude: 1 Microsoft Way 

lparker@larry.cc.emory.edu (Lloyd R. Parker) writes:
> Not when you add in construction and decommissioning costs. If this
> were the case, why is no utility building new nuclear plants?
Nuclear and large scale fossil powerplants are being built in
countries wich has a growing industrial economy and a quicly rising
standard of living. Its not yet time to replace the US reactors and
fossil burners, most of them got decades of lifelenght left.
> Are you seriously claiming the carcinogenicity of alkanes compares
> with an alpha emitter like Pu? Because if so, you've just lost any
> shred of credibility.
> Uh, no, it is not. It is a fact that inhaling a microgram can cause
> cancer.
But you need exposure to get the ill effects.
Its like being afraid of vulcanoes instead of regular fires.
> Perhaps you should look up what actually happens in a fission
> reaction. Hint -- the Pu nucleus breaks apart.
The reaction is far from complete, a nuclear weapon blows itself apart
before all of it is consumed. 
> Well, hydrocarbons aren't particularly toxic to begin with.
> Secondly, they degrade quite rapidly in the open.
But when you pump and dig up billions of tonns and burn them including
sulphur and heavy metals that is spread in the atmosphere or put in a
shallow landfill it got to have an effect.
> Well, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iraq, and South Africa
> sure found the will to extract the fissionable material from the
> fuel!
Its still easier to get weapon material from specialised reactors so
civilian nuclear power dont add much to the already present danger. 
...cut...
> Here's another bit of advice:  Don't believe everything you read on 
> somebody's web page.  Try some scientific books.
That is a very good advice, learn arithmetic, read, calculate and dont
forget to doubt. I would still be against nuclear power if I had not
done that out of curiosity.
Regards,
--
--
Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
Mail: Magnus Redin, Rydsvägen 214B, 584 32 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600

In article <33CD2C4C.3430@geol.niu.edu>,
Neil Dickey   wrote:
>David Hatunen wrote:
>
>>>You're welcome to suggest anything you bloody-well please.  I clearly
>>>indicated the source of my information (TV and memory) so that any
>>>reader could evaluate its usefulness.
>> 
>> And I have done so and posted that evaluation. You may do with that
>> evaluation as you bloody well please.
>
>I thought it was a shame, really.  You didn't have anything substantive
>to contribute, nothing to say about the behavior of metal-hydride
>tanks containing hydrogen in accidents.  All you could think of to
>do was belabour a point I had made myself, and in rather
>uncomplimentary terms besides.  You, and your evaluation, have told
>me rather more about yourself than you might imagine.
If you will look back carefully, you will find that you had little of
substance to say. Memory of long-past events, and especially TV shows, tends
to be unreliable, and consequently of little use in a serious discussion.
What will pass in a college dorm bull session will not necessarily pass
muster in a worldwide discussion which begs for facts.
My suggestion in this regard is directed at a whole lot of people, of whom
you are only one; i.e., facts are required, and someone's dim recollection
should be treated as just that.
Let us consider, for instance, the exact nature of firing bullets at a
gasoline tank: how was it done? Was it a standard automobile tank? What were
the conditions to make the comparison as fair as possible (after all, you an
drop a lit match into the gas filler opening on your car and it is unlikely
anything of note will happen)?
Finally, how are any of us to see for ourselves? Do you have the anme of teh
program? Were the producers biased in some way?
I hope what my comments tell you about me is that I look for facts. 
If you want tender treatment, stick to your dorm room.
-- 
    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
    *                Daly City California:                *
    *       where San Francisco meets The Peninsula       *
    *       and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea       *

In article <33CADC50.3B2FD691@his.com>, Rob Thomas   wrote:
>Back in April, the underground reading was 63.9 degrees F at it's 
>minimum. Now that we've had months of 80s, 90s, and a few 100+ days,
>the max reading has been 65.5 degrees F.  It's usually 65.1-65.3.
>
>Is there any way I can use this to help cool my house? One (hare-
>brained) way I thought of is to bury about 100 feet of 4 inch iron 
>pipe 4 feet under.  THere will be about 5 u-shaped turns in the pipe.  
>The joints will need to be well sealed and cemented to keep out ground 
>moisture and 'dirt' odor.
>
>Suggestions for better ways or references for proven methods?
A proven but expensive method is a ground-loop heat pump, also called
geothermal heat pump.  There are at least 3 configurations, closed-loop
and open-loop, and you can use a stream or lake if available. This
would provide all your heat and possibly hot water too, besides air
conditioning.
--
Norman Goetz		Network Technician		Reed College
audio: (503) 771-1112 X 7646	superhighway: norman.goetz@reed.edu
This has been a test life.  This was only a test.  If this had been an actual
life you would have been given instructions on where to go and what to do.

Frank_Hollis-1@sbphrd.com.see-sig (Triple Quadrophenic) writes: > In article <5qcdoo$gkh$1@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>, 
> >  I note that the Conservative who goes by the name "Uncle Al" has come
> >here to insult and lie under an alias.
> >
> >  Why are the Uncle Al's of this world motivated by hate?
Don't forget about the Teddy Roosevelt-type Conservatives: 
the Bull Moose Party types who were concerned about conservation.
Of course, Teddy Roosevelt hated animals by blowing off their heads,
and he should have been punished for it.  It was NOT a "necessity"
for him to do that, even back in his time.
So, even though I proudly declare myself a liberal, 
environmentalism is neither a conservative nor liberal issue.
(Conservative and liberal are truly meaningless words, strictly
speaking.)

Michael Richmann  writes:
> It is in that human screwups occur all over, not just in the
> ex-Soviet sphere of influence. On the western side of the pond,
> lucky for us, that "little" hydrogen bubble in the TMI core didn't
> cause problems or the cleanup problem would be quite a bit more
> significant than it is now.
It would still have been a far smaller accident then Tjernobyl. There
were nuthing that could burn like a pile of graphite inside TMI.
> As it is, we're still studying ways to properly dispose of the
> melted material from that particular accident.
Why? What is the problem with hacking it into small pieces and perhaps
enclose it in a extra metal layer. If you as a thought example use
zirkonium as a cladding you will get something about as good or bad as
regular spent fuel elemets. If that is wrong since it need to be
mostly pure uranium oxide to be safely stored dissolv the pieces in a
reprocessing plant and turn it into somewhat dirty oxides and
glassified waste. Why would the experiments needed to do this take
more then a decade to do?
Regards,
--
--
Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
Mail: Magnus Redin, Rydsvägen 214B, 584 32 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600

Dennis Nelson  writes:
> And if you really want to magnify your bang for the buck simply
> detonate your fertilizer bomb under a trainload of nuclear waste,
> preferably in a populated area. You could have Chelyabinsk in
> Chicago or a Mobile Chernobyl. It is sheer idiocy to speculate on
> these scenarios. They must not be allowed to happen and can only be
> prevented by keeping the spent nuclear fuel on the site where it is
> generated.
Nope, not if your transportation casks are anyway near the Swedish one
in design. They have a more then 100mm thick steel-casing. To cut
through that requiers a fast detonating explosive in close contact
with the container. A fertilizer bomb detonates slowly and releases
large ammounts of gas, suitable to create a wide overpreassure that
for instance could collapse a building. A cask for nuclear waste would
only be tumbled over and perhaps bent. Even if it broke it still could
not vaporize a lot of the fuel and the clean up people would "only"
have to pick up the solid pieces of the spent fuel assemblies.
You could however cause a panic anyway with it, that risk will not
disappear untill people learn more about nuclear power and risks.
Regards,
--
--
Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
Mail: Magnus Redin, Rydsvägen 214B, 584 32 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600

John McCarthy  wrote:
>rabbtech@acr.net.au (Rabbo) writes:
>
> >
> >I was thinking more in terms of designing future towns and cities so
> >that communal heating systems could be used. 
> >The technicalities don't seem all that difficult. It just requires
> >some forward planning.
> >Why, for instances should large shopping malls and home unit complexes
> >not be equipped with their own coal or wood fired boiler rooms? The
> >savings would be enormous.
> >Of, course they might still need electrified summer cooling systems.
> >
>When I was a child, our house was heated by a coal furnace.  The
>problems
>were 
>
>(1) removing ashes
>(2) a coal storage area
>(3) lots of coal dust
>
>Schools and other institutions were also heated with coal and had the
>same problems.  Coal heating requires a lot of manpower and space.
>The only kind of heating that is worse is wood - requires even more
>manpower and space and dealing with wood of varied quality.
>
>Everyone was glad to get rid of wood and coal stoves and wood and coal
>heating.
>-- 
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>
I'm very aware of the problems of small combustion heaters. Forget about those.
I am suggesting that with some government insight and planning, large scale
systems would be not only practical and environmentally sound but also very
profitable.  They would easily undercut electricity producers. 
Central heating of large buildings has the potential to reduce costs by about
two thirds. We're not talking about savings of only a few percent here!  

spam@here.not (Wm James) writes:
> And what about the animals who eat meat? should they be killed
> off?  And what about the vegatarians who have the animals killed
> to make room for the growing of vegtables?
For your information: you need about eight times more "room" for
growing vegetables if you happen to process them into meat via animals
before eating them.
> And what about the
> vegatarians who kill animals like tapeworms, heartworms,
> leaches,ticks, fleas, ect...
Perhaps they had not explicitly *raised* them for the purpose of
killing them?  Although I would not be too surprised if cultivating
tapeworms (preferably made sterile by some measure) would not sometime
become a popular measure for losing weight...
-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut für Neuroinformatik, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany

-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
                         GRAVITY SHIELD
This  is  an invitation to engage in experiments leading  to  the 
practical  application  of my discovery of a material which  when 
placed  on a balance and tare weight adjusted to  zero,  exhibits 
weight  reduction  of approximately 14% of  any  sample  material 
placed  on the center of example 6" diameter  shield.   Geometric 
changes  produces  some surprising results which  follow  obvious 
laws  of  physics.   This is not an anti-gravity  system.   I  am 
approaching  age 81 and do not seek fame or profit because it  is 
too late in life.   This is strictly a non-profit offer.   I have 
withheld  identification  of the substance responsible  for  this 
phenomenon to prevent it from becoming public domain.  This opens 
the  possibility for you to rediscover and take advantage of  its 
future  through  further research and patenting.   The only  clue 
given  is that the shielding substance is not  expensive.   $2.00 
for printing,  postage and handling brings a page containing five 
drawings  and text explaining all details of  the  concept.   
   William Rhodes, 4421 N. 13th Place, Phoenix, AZ 85014-4546
-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
-- 

Does anyone know the total amount of energy liberated by human activity
on this planet?
and
the total energy recieved from the sun
and while we are at it, the total geo-thermal energy that makes it into
the atmosphere.
why all this?  if our energy consumption is starting to approach the
latter two, it stands to reason that climacting changes are not that
many generations far off.  Now if I am that smart, I should be able to
make some money on the stock market from this reasoning :-)
tia,
-- 
Mirko Vukovic, Ph.D   	3075 Hansen Way M/S K-109
Novellus Systems	Palo Alto, CA, 94304
415/424-4969		mirko.vukovic@varian.grc.com

Cooling depends strictly on delta-t, whereas comfort depends on
several other factors: temperature, humidity, air flow, etc.
You will probably find that blowing air through a buried iron pipe
will condense some of the water vapor, yielding a significant
corrosion and odor problem.
All of the successfull earth based cooling systems I have seen use
earth as a heat sink (instead of outdoor air) with an otherwise
ordinary heat pump based on mechanical refrigeration.  But I live in a
very humid and rather warm area, so there may be adequate solutions in
other climates.

meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
> 
> In article <5qbpfd$aga$2@venus.plain.co.nz>, geoffh@wtl.co.nz (Geoff Henderson) writes:
> >a)     they already do (wind power alone is about 6 GW worldwide,
> 
> What do you mean, 6 GW.  Power is measured in GWH.  If the 6 GW you
> mention were generated over 20 years, that's preciouos little power.
So a 500 MW coal power plant is hard for you to understand?
> >In high population density countries (Europe, Japan, India and China)
> >nuclear may still have a (growing) role to play, but I doubt it will be
> >as high as the nuke-nutters would like to think.
>                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> You discussing technology, or preaching?-)
Physician, heal thyself  :-)
> >The missing ingredient (for both nuclear and the renewables) is the
> >application of polluter-pays to fossil fuels.
> 
> The polluter is the one who uses the energy.  This means pretty much
> everybody.
That's why a carbon tax is such a good idea.  It puts the ball
completely in the utilities' court.
Cheers,
-- 
Will Stewart
To reply, remove "_spam" from the reply line
http://www.patriot.net/users/wstewart/first.htm
Member American Solar Energy Society
Member Electrical Vehicle Association of America
"The truth will set you free:  - J.C.

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please forward this information to anyone you think might be interested
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it also provides our nation with a blueprint for how to attain a more 
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  --Former United States Senator Mark O. Hatfield
About the Author:  John J. Berger, Ph.D., writes and teaches on energy 
and natural resource issues, and consults on environmental science and 
policy to organizations such as the National Research Council of the 
National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of previous seminal books 
on nuclear and renewable energy, environmental restoration (Restoring 
the Earth), and a forthcoming volume on forestry.
ORDERING INFORMATION
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visit our website at http://www.charging-ahead.com

In article <5qivvh$l2n@newsops.execpc.com>,
   Lon Levy <"levy"@[a]execpc.com> wrote:
|Guerilla wrote:
|> 
|> In article <5qhoqd$rnq@newsops.execpc.com>,
|>    Lon Levy <"levy"@[a]execpc.com> wrote:
|> |Michael A. Fishman wrote:
|> 
|> |> In evolutionary terms, any individuals operating ``for the benifit of
|> |> the species'', rather than for their own short-term, selfish advantage,
|> |> has less descendants than the selfish individuals. So, even if genes
|> |> for altruism appeared once, they would quickly disappear.
|> |> Selfishness is our evolutionary heritage!
|> 
|> Well put.
|> 
|> |So, are we to breed like bacteria in a closed container, until we reach
|> |the point of total collapse and die out as a species?  I would like to
|> 
|> Why dont you decide to survive?  I plan to survive almost anything;  a 
nuclear
|> event is the only thing that will cause myself serious trouble.
|
|You are mistaken.  A population collapse would seriously trouble you. 
No, my guess is you are mistaken.
|Are you aware of what happens when a species breeds itself exponentially
|beyond the numbers suppportable by its environment? 
Sure, there will be a famine.  Or worse.  Fine by me, the gene pool may need a 
little chlorine.  Whatever, still wont effect my survivability.
| This is illustrated
|by the bacteria experiment.  We live in a relatively closed ecosystem. 
|We are breeding exponentially.
Ya, people like to screw.
|> |think that our sapience would give us some other path.  Certainly there
|> |would have to be some mechanism for enforcement so that short term greed
|> |does not destroy the chance of long term survival.
|> 
|> Ya, there is, Lon.  Its been tried before--its called: slavery.
|
|If there is only a choice between death and "slavery" then we need to
|explore that "slavery".  However, I don't see restrictions on activity
|as being the same as slavery.  The latter implies some "masters" who are
|free of those restrictions. 
That would be you.  And the rest of your elitist buddys, in the name of moral 
supremacy, of course.
| My proposals include no "free masters",
|thus there are no slaves.  
|
|As population grows, there are a necessary set of restrictions imposed
|upon us.
On YOU, perhaps.  Ill retain all of my God-given Freedoms, as recognized in 
the Constitution and B or Rs.
|  For example, if one lives in a rural area, one can blast one's
|stereo with impunity.  One cannot do the same in a city without
|violating the liberty of others.  This is not slavery; it is simply
|etiquette. 
Yes, I agree.
| As our population grows towards an impending crisis, we
|should follow a similar etiquette for the sake of our long term survival
|and restrict our growth.
My decision to procreate in no way violates any of your Rights.  Period.
Are you free?
Do you own your body?  Can you prostitute yourself, sell your organs, or
medicate yourself?  Do you own your labor?  Can you work for any wage
you want, whatever hours you want, and keep the fruits of your sweat?
Do you own your possessions?  Can the terms of your property ownership
be changed at any time, or for any reason?  Can your property be taxed
without limitation?
Can you travel freely?  Must you carry identification papers for you and your
property, submit to search without warrant, cause, or recourse?
There is a spectrum upon which lie two endpoints.  One point is slavery, and
at the other end:  FREEDOM.

In article <5qjibr$jdk$1@newsy.ifm.liu.se>,
Magnus Redin  wrote:
>hatunen@shell. (David Hatunen) writes:
>
>> And you are absolutely positively certain that USA, French, German,
>> et al, reactors do compensate for all human stupidity?
>
>Its enough if the accidents are small and far between enough to hurt
>much less people and nature then fossil fuels. And it could be far
>worse then TMI for that. You dont need perfect safety to advocate a
>better alternative to a harmfull one.
Teh person to whom I was responding seems to have more absolute terms in
mind. You are, in fact, making the same point I was. Accidents happen. Ther
risk of a serious accident is much smaller for American plants., But it is
not vanishingly small.
>> Having worked on, at, or for, six nuclear power plants, I'm not so
>> certain. I am certain that there are still a lot of stupidities
>> hidden in the original construction that may or may not become
>> important at some point. I am not, admittedly, as familiar with
>> Operations.
>
>There ought to be a lot that can be improved. If we for instance would
>replace large scale coal power with nuclear power the reactors built
>would be of a more recent design so I hope the old stupidities are not
>forgotten.
I was in the construction side. All the good design in the world is lost if
not implemented to the same high standards as the design itself.
-- 
    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
    *                Daly City California:                *
    *       where San Francisco meets The Peninsula       *
    *       and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea       *

IF YOUR TOPICS OF DISCUSSION ARE NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO
GEOLOGY (IN THE STRICT SENSE), PLEASE DO NOT CROSS-POST
TO SCI.GEO.GEOLOGY.
STILL THEY PERSIST...  AND YET STILL.
THANK YOU.

Perhaps the fact that Lilco was prevented from operating a completed
nuclear power plant contributed to its bankruptcy.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

According to Reuters today, 82 percent of France's electricity is now
nuclear.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Chris Baron wrote:
> 
> I tend to think this is the course that most of these environmental
> "crises" will take if handled without hysteria or excessive politics.
> I also find most real scientists are not quite as concerned about
> these issues as the people who get time on the TV news or those making
> political hay of the issue.
> 
> Historically as resources of one type or other become more scarce
> people adapt by changing to an alternate, moving, or taking steps to
> increase the supply.  It may well be that costs/prices will increase
> but this is by no means obvious in every case as you point out.  Nor
> is the Oglalla region inevitably doomed to become an arid wasteland
> due to possible current overuse.
Alternate methods cannot keep up with exponential population growth. 
Continued migration implies that there is still some frontier to which
to move.  Neither appears viable.  It is time to stop population growth.
Regards,
Lon.

 no, only 5 or six chunks a day. we used 1 cord per season.
--
Steve Spence
sspence@sequeltech.com
Http://www.sequeltech.com
SteveSpence@worldnet.att.net
Http://www.areaairduct.com/spence
MSMVP, MSDN, ClubIE
BetaID# 254651
ICQ 2063316
____________________________________
Nick Pine wrote in article <5qj1g4$1d7@ufo.ee.vill.edu>...
>Steve Spence wrote:
>
>>Growing up, we had an outside wood boiler. It was a 4'x4'x8' firebox...
>>fuel was not a problem. we would dump a load in once a day...
>
>A cord a day? :-) Heating an old house for 3 years with 6 cords of wood
>per year quickly taught me one virtue of solar house heating: it only
>needs to be done once...
>
>Nick
>
>
>

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Greig Ebeling wrote in reply to my posting:
>>Greig Ebeling recently made some absurd claims about biomass 
>>technology.
>>
>>The most absurd was that biomass technologies for power generation do 
>>not exist, whereas nuclear power does.
>>This overlooks the simple technology of wood-fired power, using (for 
>>example) circulating fluidised bed combustion.  This is the same as 
the 
>>latest technology for coal-firing and was in fact developed in the 
>>1980's for wood-firing in the Finnish forest-product industry.  There 
>>are of course other biomass technologies available.
>
>Please list each biomass power plant, and their capacity in MW
>electric.  
I have better things to do with my time than to do this sort of 
research for you.  Maybe someone from Finland, Sweden, New England or 
any other regions/countries which use or are planning to use biomass 
for power 
generation could chip in here.
If you are wanting the answer to the question "does biomass provide 
more energy than nuclear?" the September 1990 Scientific American (page 
25) gives world nuclear production as 6 million barrels of oil 
equivalent per day (hate those units) versus "other, including 
traditional fuels" as 22 (same units).  Woody biomass would be the vast 
majority of this "other", outweighed of course by 129 (same units) of 
fossil fuels.
>
>>He also claimed a price for wood of $1000/tonne, although I had made 
>>the point that I can (and do) get firewood commercially delivered to 
my 
>>home in Christchurch for about $100/tonne.  So $50/tonne at 
>>industrial/power generation scale seems feasible.
>
>As I have previously pointed out to Mr Henderson, it costs very little
>to pick some firewood off the ground, but it costs a lot to guarantee
>the delivery of a 100 tonnes/day of firewood to a biomass power plant.
The situation in New Zealand is not one of "picking firewood off the 
ground".  Commercially grown firewood plantations supply this 
sustainable fuel to a growing domestic market.
Geoff Henderson

:(PS PROVE that the CFC/Ozone mechanism is false before you call it a 
:hoax, or is it you can't and have to counter an arguement when you don't 
:have support?)
This is a science related group. If you ever took basic science,
or even a simple logic course you would understand the idea.
The person making a claim has to provide the evidence.  Can you
prove that unicorns do not exist?  If I could produce good,
reproducable evidence of a single one, then I could prove that
they do exist.  I beleive that they do not exist, but I cannot
prove it.
The same is true for the ozone hoax. Extraordinary claims demand
extraordinary evidence.  There is no evidence at all that CFCs
have posed or will ever pose and danger to the ozone layer, much
less extraordinary  evidence.
There are many things that demonstrate the hoax as the
non-science - nonsense that it was, but here is the most obvious:
Nearly all of human industry that produces and uses CFCs is in
the northern hemisphere. And the transfer of air mass between the
hemispheres is not very effecient.  But the so-called 'ozone
hole' opens seasonally over the south pole. If this was due to
human activity, if would have occured over the north pole decades
ago.  This hole has likely been a seasonal occurence for millions
of years.  It was discovered recently, but there is no known year
when it didn't occur.  What we know didn't occur was the northern
ozone hole that was predicted by the scaremongers.
So learn a little science or come up with a little evidence.
William R. James

Triple Quadrophenic wrote:
> 
> In article <33cb56de.30067386@news.syd.aone.net.au>,
> eggsoft@sydney.dialix.oz (Greig Ebeling) dusted off the quill, prised open
> the inkwell and wrote...
> >
> >On Sun, 13 Jul 1997 17:31:55 GMT, mjramsey@bellatlantic.net (Michael
> >J. Ramsey) wrote:
> 
> >In Europe and Japan the waste is reprocessed to regain valuable
> >isotopes.  The remainder is to be encased and buried, although the
> >choice of method (vitrification or 'Synroc') and burial sites have yet
> >to be finalised.
> >
> 
> Dunno what the method is, but the waste - after reprocessing - is sealed
> in a ceramic rather than a glass.
> 
> At Sellafield the temporary storage facility for these containers is
> rapidly filling up. The permanent storage facility planned for Cumbria has
> been shelved.
> 
Also reprocessing of irradiated fuel rods produces one hell of a lot of
caustic and unstable liquid waste.  How do you dispose of the toxic,
corrosive and potentially explosive liquids.  At the Hanford reservation
the liquid wastes were dumped into pits with concrete walls and dirt
bottoms.  The theory was that the liquids would percolate into the
ground where they would be bound up by soil particles.  Instead the
earth acted as a column chromatograph and the unreclaimed residual Pu in
the liquid waste separated out into a narrow band within just a few
inches of the top of the soil and threatened a criticality event in case
of water runoff from snow melt, which would add the needed additional
reflectivity for the pit to go critical.  Eventually they dug the Z-9
pit up and disposed of the stuff somewhere else.
At the FSU equivalent plant in the Urals waste was even less efficiently
stripped of Pu and the waste ended up exploding, either nuclear or
chemical or a combination of both, sending radioactive aerisols all over
the countryside and effectively permanently contaminating up to 1,000
square kilometers of forest and countryside East of Kyshtym.  Who knows
how many people died from that fiasco, or will never be able to return
to their homes.  Nuclear waste is not benign even when reprocessed.
Dennis Nelson