Good news or nut case?

[FarmerDave]

Hey Mike, what's Dr. Greer's position on bigfoot, and don't say missionary.

 

[pcray1231]

I didn't say I agreed with Greer. I called him a pseudo-scientific hack.

I merely said that, unlike free energy, cold fusion is something that is not contrary to the laws of physics. It's nuclear power, nothing more. Just a little bit of a different type of reaction than our fission reactors. Our sun runs on fusion power. And thus, so does the entire earth. All of our solar, wind, coal, gas, hydro, etc. That energy was supplied by fusion, just indirectly.

I do think that someday, it may be possible to harness fusion power, and it has some innate advantages over fission (which we already can handle). I don't put much/any faith in this guy accomplishing it, though.

Fusion is not free energy. Nor is fission. They are stored energy in the Earth. The raw materials are fuels just like coal and gas are fuels. Free energy (perpetual motion, or achieving "unity" without a fuel) is contrary to the laws of physics and impossible.

 

[jdaddy]

pcray1231 wrote:
I didn't say I agreed with Greer. I called him a pseudo-scientific hack.

I merely said that, unlike free energy, cold fusion is something that is not contrary to the laws of physics. It's nuclear power, nothing more. Just a little bit of a different type of reaction than our fission reactors. Our sun runs on fusion power. And thus, so does the entire earth. All of our solar, wind, coal, gas, hydro, etc. That energy was supplied by fusion, just indirectly.

I do think that someday, it may be possible to harness fusion power, and it has some innate advantages over fission (which we already can handle). I don't put much/any faith in this guy accomplishing it, though.

Fusion is not free energy. Nor is fission. They are stored energy in the Earth. The raw materials are fuels just like coal and gas are fuels. Free energy (perpetual motion, or achieving "unity" without a fuel) is contrary to the laws of physics and impossible.

You are absolutely correct and it's not even a discussion.

Having said that, the US will always (well ~ 30 years or so) be afraid of nuclear power for completely irrational reasons. So let's fool these bitches, call it cold super funky fusion fission (tm) and have Justin Beeber sing the catch tune on all of the commercials, reduce electric generation rates by 25% and call it a day!

 

[DanW]

jdaddy wrote:
You are absolutely correct and it's not even a discussion.

Having said that, the US will always (well ~ 30 years or so) be afraid of nuclear power for completely irrational reasons. So let's fool these bitches, call it cold super funky fusion fission (tm) and have Justin Beeber sing the catch tune on all of the commercials, reduce electric generation rates by 25% and call it a day!

Speaking strictly for myself, I do have a fear of nuclear power, and I'm not sure it's irrational. For the record, it's not the technology I fear. The problem is it will be built, operated and maintained by corporations where profit is the primary motive. The military has certainly demonstrated that nuclear power can be done safely. But I seriously doubt they run a cost/benefit analysis on maintenance or upgrades.

My $0.02

 

[pcray1231]

Nuclear industry is extremely heavily regulated. As it should be. Safety record is excellent, much better than any other form of power generation.

The part that always gets me is that the regulations aren't always the smartest. For instance, many of them are counterproductive to their own purposes. Consider, modern day reactor designs are safer, produce far less waste, and more energy efficient than older reactors. But we don't build them, as safety and environmental regs make it cost prohibitive to do so. So instead, we keep running the first generation plants because they are grandfathered in past all those regs, despite the fact that they are also well beyond their designed lifetimes. Brilliant!

 

[DanW]

pcray1231 wrote:
The part that always gets me is that the regulations aren't always the smartest. For instance, many of them are counterproductive to their own purposes. Consider, modern day reactor designs are safer, produce far less waste, and more energy efficient than older reactors. But we don't build them, as safety and environmental regs make it cost prohibitive to do so. So instead, we keep running the first generation plants because they are grandfathered in past all those regs, despite the fact that they are also well beyond their designed lifetimes. Brilliant!

Which gets back to my point that cost and profit trumps safety.

 

[BeastBrown]

DanW wrote:

Which gets back to my point that cost and profit trumps safety.

As it does with gas, except gas affects millions of more people globally for the worse than nuclear power could ever dream of doing. Power that is, watts, not tons.

 

[osprey]

BeastBrown.........I think the judgement on the Fukoshima sp? are still out for a verdict no?