Discuss: Reasons Not to Glow

TO:  Dr. James Singmaster, III:
Nuclear “waste” is valuable fuel that is being wasted.  Nuclear
“waste” should be reprocessed into fuel and put back in nuclear
reactors.  Plutonium is fuel made out of Uranium 238 that needs
to be used in reactors.  Thorium should be likewise bred into
uranium and used as fuel.  Any so-called “waste” that cannot be
made into fuel should be used as gamma ray sources to kill germs
in food to prevent spoilage.  You do use a microwave oven don’t
you?  Gamma rays are like microwaves but shorter in
wavelength.  Yucca Mountain is a nuclear fuel mine.  You have
been led astray by coal company propaganda.
  Coal fired power plants put 100 times as much radioactive
material into the air as nuclear power plants.  NATURAL
BACKGROUND radiation is 1000 times what you
get from nuclear power plants and 10 times what you get from
coal-fired power plants.  All matter is “frozen” radiation.  The
Universe began as pure radiation.  As the temperature of the
Universe fell, it underwent phase changes analogous to freezing. 
After several phase changes and a lot of cooling, some of the
radiation became “matter”.  Eventually, some of the matter went
through two more phase changes and became solid.  All matter is
still made of atoms and every atom still has a nucleus. 
  I have no connection with the nuclear power industry.

PLEASE GAMMA-RAY MY RASPBERRIES!

I am so tired of all the “fresh” red raspberries in the grocery
store being dark from mold.  Red raspberries are supposed
to be light, bright red, not quite pink.  Neither the shoppers
nor the grocers know what raspberries are supposed to
look like and taste like.  They buy the moldy ones, thinking
that darker means riper.  The dark ones lack the tartness
and taste that raspberries are supposed to have. 
Raspberries are very high priced because they spoil very
quickly if not frozen.  So Please, seal the raspberries in air
tight transparent containers and gamma ray them within 1/2
hour of picking them.  I picked and ate wild raspberries as
a child.  Thank you, FDA, thank you.  Finally.  I hope
that at least some of us are overcoming our paranoia
concerning all things nuclear.  It has been half a century
too long.

Likewise for strawberries.

A really bad taste thing happens to milk.  A lot of the store-
bought milk tastes of the detergent the farmers use to wash
the bulk tank.  The detergent is very harsh and
intentionally toxic to kill germs.  Detergent is a pseudo-
estrogen.  The fact that the detergent is pseudo-estrogen
means that it is a gender bender.  It makes boys into girls. 
All of the milk that comes in plastic bottles tastes like
plastic.  I will not drink it.  I have the advantage of
knowing what milk is supposed to taste like, having tasted
milk that was still warm from the cow.

RE: Amatul Hannan:
Yes, the sun is a hydrogen fusion reaction.  Since you live in
Boston, you have two fine local colleges, MIT and Harvard,
where you could get your post-doctoral degree in physics.  Then
you could help do the research to invent the local hydrogen fusion
reactor. 
  When there were only one Million or fewer people, the power of
photosynthesis was enough.  Now there are more than 6.5 Billion
of us.  We could go back to the Agrarian Age and use only the
technology of the years before 1700 or the Stone Age, but 6.5
Billion of us would have to die.  The difference in population is a
factor of 6,500.  The population of Boston is now many times
larger than the population that would remain alive if your wish
were granted.  Please be more careful what you wish for.

TO: Donna M. Kust:
  I think you meant LNG not LGN.  Liquefied Natural Gas, not
frozen.  And I think you meant http://columbiarivervision.org/ not
.. 
  With what form of energy would you replace LNG?  LNG is
cleaner than coal and petroleum and produces less CO2 per unit of
energy than coal and petroleum, and takes up less land area than
solar or wind.  The only better alternatives are nuclear and a
hydroelectric dam.  A dam on the great Columbia River would be
a great idea.  Consider the alternative of coal:  We humans go
extinct in 200 years.  Or, you could pay 10 times what you now
pay for electricity.  Be careful what you wish for.  The Clatsop
County Planning Commission made the right decision.

To the several commentors on Ms. Solnit article: Now with various comments being made on nuclear power, warming and energy. two major points here and with all environmental reports and proposal have been ignored that have to be addressed to get anywhere.  First though, we have to recognize that nature had set up a balance of energy from the sun to warm the globe allowing our basic environment with glaciers, icepacks etc..  Then a few centuries ago we began burning fossil fuels to release more energy as well as carbon dioxide, which also helped keep excessive energy trapped on the globe instead of being radiate out in space(black body radiation).  With nuclear energy and hoped for fusion energy, we also are getting into creating more energy on the globe to add to the melting of ice and ever nastier weather. 
  So the first major point is that we have an excess of kinetic energy on the globe causing the flooding taking many lives lately and spoiling crops as well as the melting of ice.  Unfortunately, all the attention is directed to carbon dioxide without anyone really stating the need is to actually remove carbon in some way if we want to get some control of global warming. But we also have to find a way to get remove some of the excess of kinetic energy on the globe
  The other ignored major point is that we have our massive mess of organic wastes that also feeds energy and carbon dioxide to the globe’s surface as they biodecompose especially in composting.  These are a biofuel crop wasted needlessly that can be, by a process called pyrolysis, converted into charcoal and some electric energy or a fuel.  In pyrolysis,  organic wastes such as food leftovers, disposable diapers, paper, wood and many plastics are heated up without oxygen to cause a distilling out of water, organic chemicals and possibly some hydrogen.  The distillate could be refined to get a liquid vehicle fuel or perhaps be burned to fire the pyrolysis with exhaust gases passing through a turbine for electricity.  The hot charcoal at probaly 1000degrees F would be past through a heat exchanger to generate steam for electricity.  To use this system would be taking advantage of nature’s trapping of carbon dioxide in plants and would greatly reduce the costs of maintaining dump sites in which controlling leakage of germs and hazardous chemicals is the malor cost. Overal pyrolysis of our wastes would remove some carbon from converting back to that gas and generate some energy while eliminating the contaminating mess of our organic wastes with costs of many billions of dollars a year. And pyrolysis releases no carbon dioxide without putting it to work generating electricity.
  Concerning the one comment on windmills, they are the only system that recycles the excessive energy already released in the envirnoment.  Every other energy proposal involves adding more kinetic energy to the excess already causing nastier weather.  Recently a much more efficient windmill system was put up in the San Francisco Delta with claims of much fewer problems for birds.  Since we have thousands of electric power lines across the country, I don’t see much difference in aesthetics between the two.  While they may take space, some type of farming can be done beneath them.  Excessive electric power can be used to generate hydrogen by electrolysis of water, and the gas can be stored to provide backup for high energy use or low wind days.
  Concerning nuclear wastes through further reprocessing proposed by Asteroid Miner, too much radioactive material will end up being around to be grabbed by a terrorist group to make a dirty bomb. If the wastes can really be reprocessed so successfully, why did the Yucca Flats idea ever get off the ground as the N-power people should have been very enthusastic about reprocessing.  And leakage problems have recently been reported at several nuclear power plants.
  Again we have to recognize that we have an excess of kinetic energy in the air that has to be remove to get some control of global warming.  And we have those massive amounts of organic wastes going to waste uselessly with their trapped carbon escaping, while they could be helping us to get control of global warming by using the pyrolysis process.

The best alternatives to nuclear power and fossil fuels are solar, wind, goeothermal, conservation - negawatts, to use Avery Lovins’ term - and kinetic energy systems that harness the power in ocean currents and waves.  These are good for the environment, and good for the economy. 

It’s not just visionaries in startups like Akeena Solar, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, Marine Current Turbines, SunPower, Vestas Wind, and World Water and Solar Technologies that are building these systems. Visionaries in old companies like General Electric (which would build nuclear power plants if anyone would buy them) are also building these systems.  GE is the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines.  BP is one of the largest manufacturers of photovoltaic solar modules.

To put this another way, visionary engineers will design cool stuff they believe will change the world.  Visionary management will build and sell this stuff when they believe it will enhance shareholder value, or to wax colloquial, when they see dead Presidents, when they smell money, when the hear bells going ‘Cha-Ching’

The visionary engineers of today are building solar arrays, wind farms, geothermal systems, and ocean current driven turbines.  Some of them, I trust, support organizations like Greenpeace and Union of Concerned Scientists.  Others read things like Business Week, Forbes, and the Wall St. Journal.

Dr. James Singmaster, III said:  With nuclear energy and hoped
for fusion energy, we also are getting into creating more energy
on the globe to add to the melting of ice and ever nastier weather.

Asteroid Miner answers:  Added heat is easily dissipated into
space if the greenhouse gasses are low.  It is carbon dioxide
[CO2] we have to worry about, not total heat generated.  If CO2
is high, the temperature increases even if we generate no further
heat.  Switching from coal to nuclear reduces the carbon added to
the air because a 1000 Megawatt coal fired power plant burns 4
Million tons of coal each year.

Dr. James Singmaster, III said:  [T]he need is to actually remove
carbon in some way if we want to get some control of global
warming. 

Asteroid Miner answers:  Green plants from pond scum to giant
trees take CO2 out of the air.  If we slow our rate of adding CO2
to the air by 80% soon enough, the percentage of CO2 in the air
will stabilize and eventually start to go down.  If we don’t do it
soon enough, we will trigger nature to release more greenhouse
gasses.  If you saw Nova on PBS during the past week, you saw a
simulation of methane bubbling out of the Arctic Ocean in
response to a threshhold temperature being crossed.  The methane
causes an additional 17? degree temperature rise.  We don’t have
much control of CO2 removal except by planting trees.  I suggest
not mowing your yard so that trees will grow there.

Dr. James Singmaster, III said:  [T]oo much radioactive material
will end up being around to be grabbed by a terrorist group to
make a dirty bomb.

Asteroid Miner answers:  Wrong.  I don’t believe that terrorists
groups will be able to grab it.  The place it goes that it isn’t
supposed to go is Israel.  This happened in a small town near
Pittsburgh, PA circa 1970.  A company called Numec [no longer
in business] “lost” half a ton of enriched uranium.  It wound up in
Israel.  Terrorists can’t compete with Mossad and Israeli dual
citizens who are CEOs of companies like Numec.  Israeli nuclear
weapons are exact duplicates of American nuclear weapons.

Larry Furman: Did you check the price of solar cells, windmills,
batteries, controllers, power converters, etc.?  The price per house
is something like $1 Million per house for solar cells alone, and
that provides adequate power 20% of the time.