| ??? 04/30/07 21:24 Read: times |
#138342 - Disagree Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Richard Erlacher said:
Well, those deer and antelope, as you put it, and the bacteria and grasshoppers as well, are just as important as any and all humans. Sorry, I must disagree with you. Global climate change effects take place over decades. Nuclear screwups can mortally injure billions in a matter of days. If you truly don't care whether your offspring, and theirs, survive, then, perhaps it's worth the risk to you. Again, whether it happens tomorrow or the next few decades, we're being told global climate change is going to kill, what, billions of people? I'm trying to remember if that was one of the "mainstream" numbers. If that's the case, perhaps the risk of losing a city to a nuclear accident is a better option than sacrificing billions to global warming? Again, I think it's all hogwash. But I still think nuclear power makes sense. And you don't have to have the plants located in the middle of population centers. One of the advantages we have in the U.S. is vast amounts of land that is far away from everything. Nuclear plants can't be built to operate within tolerable limits of safety in the U.S. because of the culture of corruption. Elsewhere, well, maybe, but not here. I'm taking a wild guess, but based on that comment I suspect you have no idea what real corruption is. If you have two guys building something, it's possible, not certain, but possible, since they can watch one another, that it will be done properly. If you have 10 people working on a nuclear plant, it's nearly certain someone will screw up. If you have 100 people working on the plant, it's nearly certain someone will cut a corner somewhere that will cause, no, not MAY cause, but will, absolutely, cause a problem, in order to save a dime. No, not a dime per kWH, but a dime, total. If you have 10000 people working on the plant, it's a virtual certainty that someone will compromise the safety of the facility to save someone a few bucks and to secure a bribe or cover up his own error. Ok, you've convinced me. Forget nuclear power. Let's just keep burning carbon fuels. Just don't complain about me emitting CO2. I'm sick and tired of people telling me I can't emit CO2 but then they don't really like the alternatives, either. The only conclusion one can draw is that they do want us to go back to living in caves. No thanks. A thinking man knows he has to clean up his own mess. CO2 isn't a mess and it's not something I need to clean up. And I have absolutely no moral problem leaving my children with a few hundred extra PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere. Heck, I wouldn't have a moral problem leaving them with twice as much CO2. And it's not because I don't care about my children but because I don't believe that CO2 is a pollutant that needs to be cleaned up as if it were cyanide in ar river. That's complete nonsense! It applies only to cases where increased volume allows for increased economies of scale. Once the infrastructure is in place, power distribution costs are pretty well fixed and, if anything, an increase in volume costs the supplier more rather than less. Even with fixed infrastructure, it's cheaper to support one client (and related infrastructure) that requires 1000 widgets per month than 100 clients that require 10 widgets per month. Economies of scale apply even to energy. Further, electric power is a scarce commodity. Why would users willing to economize want to pay more than users not willing to do that? They don't pay more. They pay less. They just pay an initially higher rate. The rate goes down, not the total amount paid. If you use more energy, you still pay more than if you had used less. XCEL Energy was, last year, pushing a contol system that allows them to turn off your AC so the buildings downtown can use theirs, even though their building occupancy is down to 10% after close of business. As a consequence, you get to come home, at 6 in the evening, to a house at 90+ degrees so the guys downtown who pay way less than half what you pay for your power can waste theirs. And I declined that offer. Problem solved. And I still paid less than those guys downtown. They might get a lower kWh price, but the total they pay is more than me. I'm ok with that. The obvious solution to the problem of restoring the condition of the planet to a state prior to the existence of industrialized man, is to remove industrialized man and his activities. If you feel so strongly about it, you first. Personally, I don't think that's the obvious solution and I'm not willing to take it. Most people aren't. That's why I think the global warming cult is a bunch of extremist nuts that are out of tocuh with reality. And you seem to be personifying that extremism with great skill. Anyway, since most of us aren't willing to self-terminate to reduce CO2 emissions, you're going to have to come up with another solution. So far you don't like us emitting CO2 but you won't let us go nuclear. What do you propose short of taking out a knife and just eliminating ourselves on the spot? Regards, Craig Steiner |
