www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil...
It's a terrible situation, but it's also quite different. There, the gov't is basically owned by the oil companies. Those in power make the money - and nobody else. The people have become enraged by the fact that they are being forced to live in poverty despite their national wealth and some have decided to revolt. To kill, steal and destroy. They attack the oil companies, they attack the equipment. And this is all because their gov't doesn't care even as much as the US gov't does about its people. What's truly sickening is this really demonstrates just how oil makes the rules in the world. America (and most of Europe) has no trouble telling other countries what they're doing wrong as far as human rights goes, but they don't give a **** about how Saudi women are treated. They'll rush to aid in natural disasters like the tsunami, but don't give a **** about man made disasters that hurt an immense number of people - if the oil companies are at fault, that is. Nigeria's problem, here, is that they just aren't big enough internationally to make constant headlines like the US is. If they were, there would be international outcry like we see over the Gulf. Since they are not, the oil companies are allowed to keep their bottom lines as low as they can so we can get that oil as cheap as possible. The lives of the people there don't matter because nobody has to see them.
I drive a car.
/hypocrit
Yea. Oil needs to go away. meh. It's the black blood of the earth and it should stay there.
/pipedream (/pun)
We need a new direction, though. 'Course that would require changing the way the entire world functions. Nukes? Not for power, I mean, like, as a reset button or somethin' ...
Just infect marijuana with the rage-inducing ebola, nobody would ever expect the hippies and ganstas to join up and attack en masse.
Just infect marijuana with the rage-inducing ebola, nobody would ever expect the hippies and ganstas to join up and attack en masse.
... just what we need. Someone to make reefer madness a reality.
Nuclear power for civlian use is perfectly viable. Hell to get rid of it just put the spent stuff on a rocket and shoot it into space to jetisoned outside of earths orbit.
That is a horrible waste of a good potential fuel source. Current nuclear energy harneses the heat to spin turbines and thus generate electricity. What we need to do to make nuclear power more viable is to figure out how to turn the radiation emitted during the fission process (and by the spent waste) into electricity. We can already turn solar radiation into electricity. I'd imagine that turning nuclear radiation into electricity shouldn't be that much more difficult.
Nuclear power for civlian use is perfectly viable. Hell to get rid of it just put the spent stuff on a rocket and shoot it into space to jetisoned outside of earths orbit.
That is a horrible waste of a good potential fuel source. Current nuclear energy harneses the heat to spin turbines and thus generate electricity. What we need to do to make nuclear power more viable is to figure out how to turn the radiation emitted during the fission process (and by the spent waste) into electricity. We can already turn solar radiation into electricity. I'd imagine that turning nuclear radiation into electricity shouldn't be that much more difficult.
I suppose I am biased towards nuclear fusion. Sure fusion takes more power to activate than fission, yet you humans spend a lot of your productivity on keeping the fission reactor stable and storing its radioactive waste.
Nuclear power for civlian use is perfectly viable. Hell to get rid of it just put the spent stuff on a rocket and shoot it into space to jetisoned outside of earths orbit.
That is a horrible waste of a good potential fuel source. Current nuclear energy harneses the heat to spin turbines and thus generate electricity. What we need to do to make nuclear power more viable is to figure out how to turn the radiation emitted during the fission process (and by the spent waste) into electricity. We can already turn solar radiation into electricity. I'd imagine that turning nuclear radiation into electricity shouldn't be that much more difficult.
I suppose I am biased towards nuclear fusion. Sure fusion takes more power to activate than fission, yet you humans spend a lot of your productivity on keeping the fission reactor stable and storing its radioactive waste.
Except fusion is not viable yet. No one's gotten a fusion reaction at a tempature thats viable
Except fusion is not viable yet.
Neither is going green, but that's no reason to stop looking for ways to make it work, no?
Except fusion is not viable yet.
Neither is going green, but that's no reason to stop looking for ways to make it work, no?
Nope but green energy is a lot closer. Here in FL they are planning on building a fairly large solar farmm, and MOSI and USF are planning on building a bio fuels reactor that can run on garbage. We could probably go at least 75% green for civilian power if we really pushed it at this point, and I see no reason not to.
Still no reason to not research other alternatives.
Never said otherwise I just said right NOW as in for the forseeable future nuclear fusion is not really a viable option without a lot more research, where as Fission is perfectly viable and safe.
I, too, once advocated the notion of launching nuclear waste into space, but then someone pointed out to me something very important: Modern rocketry has something like a 99.9% sucess rate, lets say. So one time in a thosand, that **** blows up mid flight. One time in a thosand, you would spew large amounts of radioactive material into the upper atmosphere. The possibility for disaster is astronomical, compared to what we are currently facing here. A massive oil spill is horrible, an exploding radiation rocket could be so much worse.
That is a very cognizant point. Hmm maybe find some way of reusing it in the reactor or something? There has to be a way to safely dispose of it.
I, too, once advocated the notion of launching nuclear waste into space, but then someone pointed out to me something very important: Modern rocketry has something like a 99.9% sucess rate, lets say. So one time in a thosand, that **** blows up mid flight. One time in a thosand, you would spew large amounts of radioactive material into the upper atmosphere. The possibility for disaster is astronomical, compared to what we are currently facing here. A massive oil spill is horrible, an exploding radiation rocket could be so much worse.
That is a very cognizant point. Hmm maybe find some way of reusing it in the reactor or something? There has to be a way to safely dispose of it.
That is why I said we should find a way to turn the nuclear radiation into energy. If we can do that, then the current waste will become fuel for those reactors and won't be disposed of until they are nearly or completely inert (radiologically speaking).
Beta radiation is composed of electrons and neutrienos, more or less. The Electrons can, hypothetically, be captured and coverted directly into a current. The neutrinos can be completly ignored, the sun is pumping millions of them through your body as we speak.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics
Gama radiation: ???
The problem is, some of this stuff takes millions of years to stop being dangerous, and we cannot accelerate that process. How much material (Pipes, water, lead, copper, electronics ect.) are we willing to dedicate to making a giant car battery that will run for a million years with a constantly decreasing output and in need of constant matinance to insure that it remains safe? How do you keep said materials from decaying and/or becoming radioactive themselves over thosands of years, leaking radiation into the environment?