Your opinion on electric vehicles

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Agreed. Nuclear control requires a uniform responsiblity that can not be maintained aross land and time.

We are self centered, arrogant and bigots if we think that we will be able to maintain a sense of responsibility across time. Any containment can be breached by ignorance. The past tells us that all civilizations disappear after a short while, our own word is about to be blown to bits (pun intended). Who will understand our warnings then? The use of such poisons is selfish and pretentious, period. Wez goin' down the drain baby!

I've got my water wings and aqualung. Y'all feel free to take the whirly ride au natural.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I'd feel better if we could get fusion plants working.

Fusion plants still produce radioactive waste. The entire structure of the reactor vessel becomes intensely radioactive due to neutron bombardment from the fusion reaction.

[eumesmo]

We could cheaply ship all nuclear waste to the sun with a launch loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop .

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Fusion plants still produce radioactive waste. The entire structure of the reactor vessel becomes intensely radioactive due to neutron bombardment from the fusion reaction.

Pesky neutrons! (But how long is the half-life of the structure components?)

HarryT, do you know anything about liquid-metal cooled reactors? I was reading about them a few years ago. I'm still kind of skeptical of using molten metal (and a very reactive one-- sodium) as a coolant. How would we detect what was going on inside the reactor? Ultrasound?

The reason I found them interesting was that they supposedly produced less long-lived radioactive waste. But I think that's primary waste, not secondary waste (such as tools, protective gear, etc.)

I know enough about physics not to be worried about a typical nuclear reactor blowing up. But I really do worry about the waste disposal problem. As a species, we don't have a very good track record for dealing with waste sensibly or safely. I also worry that several studies have shown higher leukemia rates near nuclear power plants. It might be the case that there are comparable health issues near coal plants (it wouldn't surprise me at all), but I'm not sure that makes the nuclear plants any better.

Our energy issues will be non-trivial to solve. I'm no luddite. I like my computer and my ebook reader. (And I like having refrigeration and other less obvious benefits of current technology, too.) But I do believe we need to seek solutions, at a high priority. It seems to me that we ought to be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living for everyone without using nearly as much energy as we currently do.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by nekokami

It seems to me that we ought to be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living for everyone without using nearly as much energy as we currently do.

The key issue here (with all power issues, and especially with vehicles) is the "reasonable standard of living for everyone." Some people enjoy a more "reasonable standard" than others, duly justified by having a thicker wallet, when we all need to understand that the very idea of a "standard" needs to be seriously revisited.

Being more efficient in using the energy we need is key. But we also should be able to find ways of needing less energy in the first place, IOW, adjusting that "standard" to more reasonable levels by adjusting our lifestyles.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Being more efficient in using the energy we need is key. But we also should be able to find ways of needing less energy in the first place, IOW, adjusting that "standard" to more reasonable levels by adjusting our lifestyles.

I LIKE my lifestyle, I worked hard for fifty years to attain it, and I refuse to give it up! Call me selfish and self centered if you like, but I drive to work every day; BY MYSELF!

[HistoryWes]

Regardless of the gas savings, I would like to have one because they are just cool-- especially the Tesla Roadster.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by wodin

I LIKE my lifestyle, I worked hard for fifty years to attain it, and I refuse to give it up! Call me selfish and self centered if you like, but I drive to work every day; BY MYSELF!

Okay: You're selfish and self-centered.

You will kindly take note that I am only calling you what you told me to call you, as opposed to any number of choice phrases I could have chosen to use.

For the record, I like my lifestyle, too, and I took (almost) 50 years to attain mine. But sometimes, you just gotta take one for the team, y'know? No man is an island? All for one and one for all, and all that? Eh? Wot?

[Greg Anos]

Plenty of roads to drive on here in Texas, Wodin. Let me send you a invite to Single Only Drivers On Fast Freeways - Self Centered Arrogant Bastiches...

[NormHart]

Originally Posted by HistoryWes

Regardless of the gas savings, I would like to have one because they are just cool-- especially the Tesla Roadster.

Seconded, if I had the cash flow that would be my car. Then I'd solarize my house so I could charge the thing off the sun most of the time and I'd be a happy camper.



Don't much worry about the environmental impact since it's got to be better than my neighbors SUVs.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Plenty of roads to drive on here in Texas, Wodin. Let me send you a invite to Single Only Drivers On Fast Freeways - Self Centered Arrogant Bastiches...

That sounds great, here in Hawai`i we have six lane wide freeways with 35 MPH speed limits!

But then, I heard you have SNAKES in Texas!!!

Never mind!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Pesky neutrons! (But how long is the half-life of the structure components?)

HarryT, do you know anything about liquid-metal cooled reactors? I was reading about them a few years ago. I'm still kind of skeptical of using molten metal (and a very reactive one-- sodium) as a coolant. How would we detect what was going on inside the reactor? Ultrasound?

Yes - "Fast Breeder Reactors" as they're called. When I worked in the UK nuclear industry we had an experimental one at a place called Dounraey in the very far north of Scotland. Their prime benefit is that they can use as fuel the "burned fuel" from normal, "thermal" reactors. Unfortunately, the engineering problems of liquid sodium engineering are unbelievably horrendous, and the premise on which the reactor was built in the 1970s - that there would be a massive price in increase in uranium which would make it economically viable - never took place. There's really no economic case for building FBRs.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by wodin

That sounds great, here in Hawai`i we have six lane wide freeways with 35 MPH speed limits!

But then, I heard you have SNAKES in Texas!!!

Never mind!

Yes, but no Mongeese (mongooses?). And we have guns, so you can shoot the snakes...

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Yes, but no Mongeese (mongooses?). And we have guns, so you can shoot the snakes...

Hmmph. Some man you are.

In Arkansas, we picked them up by the tail, and smacked their heads on a rock.

Only the copperheads and rattlesnakes, of course, The rest we let alone. They ate the rats and mice......

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Hmmph. Some man you are.

In Arkansas, we picked them up by the tail, and smacked their heads on a rock.

Only the copperheads and rattlesnakes, of course, The rest we let alone. They ate the rats and mice......

Now DG, I'm just trying to coax him out of paradise....