h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes?

"We have not worked out how to store electricity yet "
we have - that is not an issue.

"Yeah, the last time Westerners took barren wasteland from Arabs and made it productive worked out so well didn't it?"
Try googling "EU-MENA Agreement"

Just watching BBC News 24... and saw a report on the UK's lunar project

Makes you wonder who else is reading this forum?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7438270.stm I'm guessing the real purpose of this is to see how deep the surface deposits of helium 3 go.

sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. The govt is going to spend large sums looking for a fuel for a hypothetical energy technology?

It may be a side benefit, but I don't think it's the driving force.

Nothing hypothetical about helium 3 as an energy source. The Fusion Technology Institute of the University of Wisconsin at Madison has produced small-scale helium-3 fusion reactions in the basketball-sized fusion device, the reactor produced one milliwatt of power on a continuous basis. Google "helium 3 fusion" and you will see that some very serious people and governments are putting time and money into helium 3/Moon/fusion research.

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"if *there is an accident the results are very bad for life on the planet and impossible for humans to remedy"

Is it so bad though? I mean, Chernobyl wasn't a great thing obviously, but how bad is it compared to rising sea levels and billions of people displaced?
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Dogster, I don't believe that we (industrialised nations) are considering nuclear power because of the people that would die (or are already dying from extreme weather). I think it's because we consider we have a right to the standard of living that oil has given us. So the problem with global warming isn't deaths (we currently let millions of people die despite there being enough food, medicine, and technology on the planet to save them), it's the impact on our own backyards of bad weather and refugees. Plus we are all committed to the capitalist ecomony which is based on perpetual growth. Anyone who spends intelligent time in nature knows that nature works on cycles of growth and death and regeneration. The idea that we can just find new technology to support our demand for perpetual growth is counter to how the physical world actually works.

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I agree with the argument against uranium mining. How long 'til peak uranium? Has anyone even worked that out? (and I haven't seen any discussion of the environmental and social justice impacts of uranium mining here yet).

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Novo, nowhere have I ever said we should go back to living in caves (ok, well maybe once when Reddyfreddy was hassling me). You are misunderstanding or misinterpreting my argument. I'm not saying go back to the old days. I'm saying we have no choice but to live within our limits, it's just a matter of how soon we wake up to that. Personally, I think we could be using technology in much more intelligent ways to make our standard of living sustainable.


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I think the issue of waste is being too lightly dismissed here. What is being proposed is that for the forseeable future of all life on the planet we are willing to create highly toxic and dangerous waste that for all intents and purposes is going to be here permanently. Do we have the right to do that?

People are talking about the effects from Chernobyl as harming humans but not the rest of nature. Can someone say more about that? eg why humans get affected by nuclear radiation and radioactivity but not insects, fish, bacteria, plants, fungi, water etc etc

It's not that the rest of nature is not effected by radiation more that the overall effect of radiation on nature at Chernobyl and its surrounding area is apparently less than the overall effect of the presence of human civilisation.

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I would have thought that anyone who understands nature would know that species expand to fit an ecological niche. Humanity is in its infancy, geologically speaking. We haven't filled the niche yet.

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60 years until existing mined stocks run out, assuming usage at current levels. That's before any more deposits are mined.

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What limits are those? Should we have accepted that the limit was reached when we started using coal, or oil?

Suppose you mean live within our current limits. Is that just the people in the developed world, or are you saying that the West should stand still whilst the rest catch up? But if we allow Asia, Africa & S America to develop to current Western standards, surely that means that humanity as a whole has increased the limits. Should the West tell the developing nations you, stand still. Die in famines, subsist at a primitive level because the Earth cannot sustain any more development. How do you think 4bn+ people are going to react to the news that they cannot have clean water, electricity, hospitals etc?

>>It's not that the rest of nature is not effected by radiation more that the overall effect of radiation on nature at Chernobyl and its surrounding area is apparently less than the overall effect of the presence of human civilisation.
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Oh, right. It's the lesser of evils then? Are you saying that those are our only choices?

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I would have thought that anyone who understands nature would know that species expand to fit an ecological niche. Humanity is in its infancy, geologically speaking. We haven't filled the niche yet.
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Didn't follow that, SWL. Species do expand to fit niches, but if one species expands too much then the impact is catastrophic.


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60 years until existing mined stocks run out, assuming usage at current levels. That's before any more deposits are mined.
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In your mind is 60 years a long time? I was thinking more like at least seven generations.

In the context of this thread we can't of course assume usage at current levels.


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What limits are those? Should we have accepted that the limit was reached when we started using coal, or oil?

Suppose you mean live within our current limits. Is that just the people in the developed world, or are you saying that the West should stand still whilst the rest catch up? But if we allow Asia, Africa & S America to develop to current Western standards, surely that means that humanity as a whole has increased the limits. Should the West tell the developing nations you, stand still. Die in famines, subsist at a primitive level because the Earth cannot sustain any more development. How do you think 4bn+ people are going to react to the news that they cannot have clean water, electricity, hospitals etc?
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Well leaving aside the fact we do expect people to die in famines already, I think your argument is predicated on the idea that we *can* keep growing indefinitely, therefore to stop that growth intentionally is immoral because people will die. I'm saying that we *can't* keep growing, it's not a questions of whether we want to or not, it's simply that there aren't enough physical resources to go around.

This is the crux of most of the discussion here. Most people seem to believe that we have access to infinite resources. We don't.

erm... no
In the interest of fairness I made post 5, by way of showing an alternative for the short to mid term I made post 23 and by way of showing a possible long term solution I made post 36 - perhaps you may want to reread these posts?

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Care to give an example?

The 60 year figure for Uranium is one I've seen quoted for *existing mined stocks*, not counting what's still in the ground.

Regarding limits - you're advocating a steady state approach. Go tell that to Africans, Asians and South Americans. I've used the term before but it's apt - environmental racism.

We do not have enough energy to meet current requirements worldwide. Even if we were to stop all development now, we would still need to build new power stations. If only to maintain current standards. Carbon resources are linked to global warming. The only practical alternative is nuclear.

Unless of course you're advocating that everyone lower their standard of living. Try that and you and your ilk will be hanging from trees and I'll keep a piece of the rope as a momento.

And no, most people here do not think we have access to infinite resources. I think most people here recognise that there are alternate resources - fission, solar, tidal and possibly fusion.

"The only practical alternative is nuclear" - no, see post 23 (although the link talks about a solution for Europe/North Africa/Middle East the fact is all the populated continental groupings have sunny spots.

The only practical alternative that offers some level of national energy security is nuclear, would be a more accurate statement (IMHO)