Science Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

[Kaiten]

Fusion is not feasible. The massive amount of energy needed to overcome the Coulomb Barrier prohibits practical use of Nuclear fusion in the foreseeable future. While Fusion has been achieved in laboratory environments there is little chance of a breakthrough that would make fusion a practical source of energy during our lifetime. Fusion produces a massive amount of energy, as evidenced by the sun and stars, but requires a massive amount of energy to achieve.

 

[segua]

Fusion is not feasible. The massive amount of energy needed to overcome the Coulomb Barrier prohibits practical use of Nuclear fusion in the foreseeable future. While Fusion has been achieved in laboratory environments there is little chance of a breakthrough that would make fusion a practical source of energy during our lifetime. Fusion produces a massive amount of energy, as evidenced by the sun and stars, but requires a massive amount of energy to achieve.

But that has not dismiss the notion that nuclear energy can't be clean. The real question as you put it is feasibility.

 

[Kaiten]

Fusion would be cleaner, without a doubt. It is simply a matter of material used: fission requires radioactive uranium, the waste remains radioactive. Fusion would use an isotope of hydrogen, the smallest element and stable. The waste created in the fusion process would be helium, obviously not a radioactive material. The odds of fusion becoming a viable energy source are extremely low compared to other, cheaper potential clean fuels though. A combination of solar, wind, and biothermal is far more likely.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Sim City 2000 ...

we need to develop the middle of solar panels and fusion:

the Microwave Power Plant^tm Sim City 2000

we have a satelite (a big focusing mirrior) which directs the sun's light into a huge solar beam down to the power plant's dish which collects it into solar panels, hehe

let's just hope our aim is good... or people don't get any ideas for tilting the beam intentionally... or some space debris doesn't hit and move it...

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or we could always go the Matrix movie series route... of using Humans as our energy source.... hehe

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I still don't understand why we don't just cover all the deserts with solar panels, oceans hills mountains with wind turbines, and yellowstone other calderas volcanoes with geothermal, rivers coasts ocean floor with hydro, and etc ....

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but the real hurdle is this:

not requiring electricity... as all of the "power sources" are merely methods of turning turbines to generate electricity, which is our actual one and only power source.

 

[segua]

The reality has been a variety of different electrical generation technologies. I think that people do not generally take into consideration about the waste factor. Then, there are variables that one could also consider such as making thing more electrically efficient, environmentally-neutral energy production and so forth.

 

[HegemonKhan]

I also don't see why we can't just shoot nuclear waste up into outerspace, and pray nothing goes wrong on the way up-away from earth, lol.

 

[Zatono]

Cmon Khan xD

Not only would that be super expensive, especially if you're thinking about continuously doing it, but we'd still need a place to store the waste while we wait for enough of it to build up into an amount that'd be worth the resources needed to send it to space anyway.

 

[kkck]

I don't think it would be possible or practical to throw garbage to outer space. Taking waste far enough of earth so that our own gravity would not get it back seems time consuming and expensive. On the other hand, we don't seem to be doing much with the moon nowadays lol. I wonder how practical would it be to simply take stuff to outer space and throw it back to the atmosphere though. It is already protecting us from radioactive from space and god knows how much stuff that would otherwise fall directly on earth (nothing large but a decent amount of space materials to say the least).

 

[HegemonKhan]

...we can easily go beyond our atmosphere (or rather our ozone or rather our van allen radiation belts), so we don't have to worry about the nuclear waste coming back to earth, lol. Heck if we really wanted to, we could shoot our nuclear waste into the sun, lol.

...THE PROBLEM is with not having any accidents on the way "up", lol.

Well does "expensiveness or practicality-pragmatism" matter when our survival is on the line (based upon projecting us far into the future when the nuclear waste starts to noticeably build up beyond where we can store it out of people's fear) ??

Same question with why not to build De-Salinization plants all along the coast, when we need more fresh water, and all the other geographic ways of producing electricity too (i.e. windmills all over the entire ocean hills mountain, hydros along all rivers beachs on ocean floor, geothermal on all calderas volcanoes and sea volcanoes-vents-geysers-calderas, solar panels covering all the deserts arctic antarctic, and etc...)

 

[xi0]

I don't think waste disposal via space is really practical or safe until we have space elevators and/or orbital rings (assuming we get to a point where having them is even feasible).

 

[kkck]

...we can easily go beyond our atmosphere (or rather our ozone or rather our van allen radiation belts), so we don't have to worry about the nuclear waste coming back to earth, lol. Heck if we really wanted to, we could shoot our nuclear waste into the sun, lol.

...THE PROBLEM is with not having any accidents on the way "up", lol.

Well does "expensiveness or practicality-pragmatism" matter when our survival is on the line (based upon projecting us far into the future when the nuclear waste starts to noticeably build up beyond where we can store it out of people's fear) ??

Same question with why not to build De-Salinization plants all along the coast, when we need more fresh water, and all the other geographic ways of producing electricity too (i.e. windmills all over the entire ocean hills mountain, hydros along all rivers beachs on ocean floor, geothermal on all calderas volcanoes and sea volcanoes-vents-geysers-calderas, solar panels covering all the deserts arctic antarctic, and etc...)

Going beyond the atmosphere is in principle easy but only because what we have done so far usually involves a rocket which has a force pushing it away from the earth.... In this regard, how would we go about trash? If we go outside the atmosphere and simply throw it out on its own it could easily make its way back to earth. On the other hand we have the alternative of going far out enough for it to not come back.... If we simply throw it out we would invariably have to deal with this, if we release it too close to earth it is certainly coming back. I still do wonder how "clean" it would be to burn waste in the atmosphere. Space debree gets burned all the time and the atmosphere already protects us from radiation....

 

[HegemonKhan]

I'm talking about outerspace...

while I don't know much about nuclear waste's actual "anatomy", shooting it off into outerspace is a way of getting rid of its danger via its radiation. If it has chemical dangers like corresiveness... meh... it could come back to earth, but would it be much different from the acid rain that we already have falling back to earth anyways or ash from volcanos or other poisonous gases from man, volcanoes, or underground (google the Lake of Death, or just click here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,962228,00.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos ) ?

our nuclear waste's radation in outerspace would feel right at home, with the sun, and all the other stars, and/or various sources of energy (energy=radiation).

Also, in terms of physical debris... we've already got a crowded belt of it around the earth with all of our space shuttle stuff and/or satelittes. And, that's not even mentioning about all the debris that is out in outerspace which crashes to earth contantly (most of it is burnt up upon entry thanks to our atmosphere-friction).

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the atmosphere mainly only protects us from sunlight (via clouds), but the "real dangerous" radiation (x-rays, gamma rays, and background radiation) is blocked by the ozone and van allen radiation belts (via the magnetic fields) - with the north and south "lights" (northern and southern lights, aurora bolialis and whatever the other is called - too lazy to look it up lol) as the trash bin, hehe.

Also, UV light (ultra violet radiation) from the sun GOES RIGHT THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE (CLOUDS), you need your sunscreen on yourself on a cloudy overcast cold day just as much as you do when there's no clouds and the big hot sun is blazing down on you. UV radation causes cancer (mainly skin cancer, or if lucky you just get "sun-burned" instead).