frflyer

Why It's a Good Time to Consider Chinese Stocks

halftrack
Where do you get your information, the John Birch Society?
Michael Savage? The Enquirer? The Art Bell show?
You're wrong. Obama is actually in league with the Grays, you know, those aliens with the big eyes from planet zgeigwst in that other universe who keep slipping into ours to advance their galactic communist agenda.

Chinese Stock Market Bottoms: What Should U.S. Investors Do?

Please read the Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy
On page 21 of that pdf you will see why fast breeder reactors are an absurd argument for nuclear power.

www.theleaneconomyconn...

By the time such a thing was accomplished on a large scale, you could have already powered the whole world with solar and wind. And without spreading fissionable materials and waste all over the world, where terrorists and rogue countries can get their hands on it for dirty bombs and for processing weapons grade plutonium.
Fast breeder reactors are not a viable solution. Why would we even bother when there are better alternatives. Theoretically it sounds good. In reality you are looking at probably 75 years before it was perfected, at which point there wouldn't be enough fuel left to proceed with it.

from the Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy

"Nuclear energy certainly has disadvantages, quite apart from the clincher problem of the depletion of its fuel. It is a source of low-level radiation which may be more dangerous than was previously thought. It is a source of high-level waste which has to be sequestered. Every stage in the process produces lethal waste, including the mining and leaching processes, the milling, the enrichment and the decommissioning. It is very expensive. It is a terrorist target and its enrichment processes are stepping stones to the production of nuclear weapons."

What else is wrong with nuclear energy?
Oh just a few things, like:

One of nuclear's biggest problems is water. It takes billions of gallons to cool a single reactor. We are already seeing potential problems with this. A reactor in Alabama had to be breifly shut down last summer during a drought in that region. How reliable will the sources of cooling water be in a changing climate?

Just look at the concern over Iran's nuclear program. How many times may this kind of scenario be played out if nuclear energy proliferates all over the world?

Every nuclear power plant will require about $500 million to dismantle it, when it has outlived it's useful life. This adds to the nuclear waste disposal problem.

Nuclear power doesn't give us energy independence. We import 65% of our oil and 90% of our uranium. And now Russia is being lined up as a future source of 20% of our uranium.

"The United States and Russia signed a deal that will boost Russian uranium imports to supply the U.S. nuclear industry, the Commerce Department said Friday…."
"The new agreement permits Russia to supply 20 percent of US reactor fuel until 2020 and to supply the fuel for new reactors quota-free."
"So if, under a President McCain, we build a bunch of new nuclear reactors -- they could be fueled 100 percent by Russia."
"I can almost hear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin saying, "Excellent."
gristmill.grist.org/st...

Nuclear power is not safe. According to Argonne National Laboratory, an airliner crashing into a nuclear power plant could cause a complete meltdown, even if the containment building isn't compromised. Think the twin towers disaster was bad?

There is no accountability with nuclear power. The Price-Anderson Act places most of the liability for nuclear accidents on the backs of taxpayers, not the nuclear power industry.

A nuclear power plant costs about $4,000 per kilowatt hour to build, compared with $1,400 per KWH for wind energy.

Nuclear power is heavily subsidized. According to Earthtrack, Federal subsidies to new nuclear power plants are likely between 4 and 8 cents per kWh (levelized).
www.eoearth.org/articl...

The transportation of radioactive waste from all over the country to Yucca Mt. is potentially dangerous, as well as expensive.
"In the United States, current surcharges on nuclear power are too low to cover expected disposal costs. In addition, the US government foolishly absorbed all risk for an on-time opening of a repository for commercial nuclear waste -- despite longstanding technical and political challenges associated with making this happen." from eoearth.org

And you should read The Self Limiting Future of Nuclear Power
www.americanprogressac...

The bottom line is that nuclear is not a good near term climate solution.
Solar and wind are much faster to get up and running than coal or nuclear and we need to begin now. Large solar and wind projects can start generating electricity before they are complete, because they are modular in design. For instance, Brightsource Energy could build a 500 megawatt or bigger solar thermal plant and begin producing electricity when the first 25 megawatt module is completed.

Solar thermal plants up to 1 gigawatt in size can be built in 2-3 years.
I fail to understand why anyone would promote something as dangerous uncertain and expensive as nuclear power when we have clean safe cheap alternatives right now.

To say that nuclear power is safe because we have only had two major accidents in the world is pretzel logic. We are told that the oil industry can safely operate too. We've had at least 3 substantial oil spills just in the last year. There will always be human error. Nuclear power has no room for error. None.

Whatever capacity we do have to build new reactors will have to be devoted to replacing the existing plants that are getting old.

Chinese Stock Market Bottoms: What Should U.S. Investors Do?

derryl

You say solar only works during daylight hours.

That's not true. Solar thermal power plants with heat storage can produce steady power day and night. It won't fade when clouds pass over. Solar thermal plants can function as base load power, which means it can replace coal plants.
These plants store heat, which is 20-100 times more efficient than storing electricity.
They can store heat as hot water, oil or molten salt. Molten salt can hold 99% of it's heat for 24 hours. It seems to be the best medium for this. That's why United Technology's Rockedyne division has developed a molten salt system and now has their own solar thermal company,- Solar Reserve.

We are so misinformed as your assumption proves. I don't mean to criticize you, just to point out that we are being propagandized by those with vested interests in oil etc. They are very powerful at swaying public opinion with vast amounts of money to put into propaganda mills like the Heartland Institute.
I bet 95% of Americans have never heard of solar thermal electric plants, and it is our most promising renewable energy, with about 10 companies ready to start building now. The media is largely as misinformed as the public is.

Here are a few good links with info on solar thermal.

www.salon.com/news/fea...

climateprogress.org/20.../

solarsouthwest.org/

Besides storing energy as heat, some proposals call for storing compressed air in underground caverns.
The molten salt method is to me simpler and doesn't need the caverns.

www.thisisreality.org/...
The Myth of Clean Coal

As for coal, there is no such thing as clean coal, not yet anyway, and any successful technology is at least 10 years away. The exact opposite of what you say is true. Solar and wind are ready now. Coal is not. In those 10 years we could build hundreds if not thousands of gigawatts of solar and wind. Carbon capture and sequestration has not been done yet. No one even knows if it will work.

And by the time you make coal clean and safe it will be so expensive that it will not be able to compete.

When the costs of fossil fuels are compared with solar and wind, the real costs of the fossil fuels are not factored in. These costs are huge.
The same goes for nuclear.

www.americanprogressac...

www.cleanwisconsin.org...

www.theleaneconomyconn...

These links show that nuclear is at best about a 10% solution. It is completely unsustainable
We will hit peak uranium about 10 years after peak oil. That's not a long term solution. And it's not a near term solution either, because solar and wind can be up an running much quicker, with less expense and no fuel ever needed. That will end the wild price fluctuations in the energy market.

Chinese Stock Market Bottoms: What Should U.S. Investors Do?

CLH

How does one become so uninformed. I'm just curious. Coal is the energy of the 19th and 20th centuries. Solar and wind and other renewables are the future. The earth cannot support life on this planet if we keep doing what we are doing. Do you get it yet?
Some seem to never get it, oh well.

"I'd put my money on the sun & solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison, 1931

Now there's a man with vision.

Imagine unlimited energy with no fuel. No fuel ever. No fuel to prospect for, mine, transport, store, refine, burn, clean up the mess from or fight wars over. Imagine that. Coal is killing people by the tens of thousands just in America every year. Coal is killing our oceans with mercury and acidification. Shell fish and coral can't survive in an acidified ocean. No coral reefs, no sealife, no sealife no humans. It's just common sense. Get it yet? As a direct result of man and his actions, species are going extinct at a rate unprecedented since the dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago.
This is happening even without global warming, from loss of habitat, polution, overfishing, deforestation etc etc etc. Eight year old kids get it. Do you?
Using 1% of our southwest deserts in the U.S. we could power the entire country with solar. That is less land than we now use for coal mining and coal plants. And they won't need no stinking coal.
And it can be done cheaper than coal or nuclear could do it. And it will take far less time to accomplish. All that is needed is to educate people like you, so we have the political will. That is all that's lacking. Wind is already cheaper than coal. Coal in fact is far more costly than what is apparent. How about oil?
It's subsidised at about 10 times the rate that solar is.
People keep saying solar and wind can't compete without subsidies. The truth is that it is difficult to compete with the massive subsidies for oil, coal, gas, and nuclear. Get it yet?
You are being fooled by those with a vested interest in oil coal gas and nuclear. Think nuclear is the answer? Are you ready for peak uranium, which will occur about ten years after peak oil? Oh yeah, that's a good long term sustainable solution.