This puts the Virus into the shadows

[Woody2Shoes]

That's what I'm getting at - there were definitely videos of flaming water, but nobody asked the critical questions - what's causing it and was it the fracking?

If it was fracking (probably not), how likely is it that the rest of us would have the same issue? Not likely. Nobody asked the question after the video "so, we saw that once. If it's really an issue, they should've been able to put together a montage of flaming faucets near wells all over the place".

I suspect that the flaming water was used as a prop. If there were serious issues here other than outright violations of surface water, we'd know more.

Early on, we had all kinds of stories about dead cows and all sorts of horror movie rubbish. It's all gone. I guess people lost interest. If it was really happening on a regular basis, it would be awfully difficult to lose interest.

We will probably never know what caused the flaring water. Because of the coal measures, and gas-bearing shale, under most of Pennsylvania, it's been leaking gas for thousands of years - although I'm sure human activity helps here and there. I think that the use of domestic boreholes for potable water (even in quite suburban areas) is something that would be much more unusual in the UK.

I think that if gas genuinely substitutes for coal (as it seems to have done in your area) then there are some benefits, but gas is still far from ideal - not least because all fossil fuel extraction involves the creation of 'fugitive emissions' of methane and other gases to the atmosphere - methane being a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2 all things being equal - but also because it's a hydrocarbon.

 

[Jacob]

.........

I am not sure it matters to much though while the world is almost certainly vastly overpopulated compared to the resources available. There is no way that the vast majority of the earths population can have living standards like the developed world has at the moment but that will not stop their efforts to achieve this and who can blame them. There are estimates of the sustainable population that range from 2 billion to 11 billion but no-one really knows. ......

Natural selection favours the gene pool rather than the individual.
Increasing reproduction is one basic survival mechanism across the animal and plant world when under stress.
It follows that reducing stress will reduce populations, if we choose to.
But "over population" is fine for the species - there will be survivors even if 99% of the population is destroyed.

 

[Jelly]

For me, a key measure is the marginal cost of production. The Saudis can produce a barrel of oil (or its gaseous equivalent) at a marginal cost of about $5. It is almost certainly impossible to produce a barrel of oil (or its gaseous equivalent) in the UK (or on the UKCS) for less than ten or twelve times that.

I don't think the argument around cost of production taken alone ports well from Oil to Gas, moving LNG other than via a pipeline is comparatively hard and costly, compared to oil; so the economics make more sense for local production.

The sooner we wean ourselves off hydrocarbons - yes, even gas - the better!

Can't disagree with that though...

Gas has been a great stepping stone, but it's just that a stepping stone.

Arguably the UK was 30 years ahead of the US in that energy transition, and we're currently well ahead in a green energy transition too...

We should not squander the potential benefits of our lead in the area.

 

[D_W]

We will probably never know what caused the flaring water. Because of the coal measures, and gas-bearing shale, under most of Pennsylvania, it's been leaking gas for thousands of years - although I'm sure human activity helps here and there. I think that the use of domestic boreholes for potable water (even in quite suburban areas) is something that would be much more unusual in the UK.

I think that if gas genuinely substitutes for coal (as it seems to have done in your area) then there are some benefits, but gas is still far from ideal - not least because all fossil fuel extraction involves the creation of 'fugitive emissions' of methane and other gases to the atmosphere - methane being a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2 all things being equal - but also because it's a hydrocarbon.

"town water" has pretty much taken over here. There are some small towns, especially in mountain areas, where there are only something like 50 households in an area and they may still have individual well and septic, but only in the old areas. My parents live in a rural area where each person has about 20 acres, but they're being mandated to town sewer first, water later. You can refuse initial hook up (which is subsidized, but still expensive), but have five years then to do hook up later and you bear the full cost.

But, like I said - if only 2% of suburban and town dwellings remain on water, the filmmakers will find a house that has fiery water, and justify disinformation by "this is so important that we don't need to tell the truth".

The nimby areas here still have no gas drilling, but they've been sued (townships with very wealthy property owners). The stupidity of that is all of those townships are on public water and sewer, and the drilling areas are nowhere close to the residences - they're essentially in non-buildable areas. The result of the suits is proper - that locales can't introduce rules that supersede land and and mineral rights. They can implement some restrictions, but nothing absurd.

Same crew of "no walmarts" types. Several residences, multiple international vacations each year, 4 large SUVs but they have a google thermostat in their houses and one hybrid car just to show they're eco.

 

[D_W]

I don't think the argument around cost of production taken alone ports well from Oil to Gas, moving LNG other than via a pipeline is comparatively hard and costly, compared to oil; so the economics make more sense for local production.




Can't disagree with that though...

Gas has been a great stepping stone, but it's just that a stepping stone.

Arguably the UK was 30 years ahead of the US in that energy transition, and we're currently well ahead in a green energy transition too...

We should not squander the potential benefits of our lead in the area.

You guys are probably ahead in green energy by percentage due to your fossil costs. As woody said, the coal here is a different dynamic. A friend used to work for a european mining equipment company who refused to listen to the customer here. Their emphasis was on slower but tougher machines to deal with issues when the coal seam isn't clear. The only problem with that is the seams are clear here and speed is the need. They left the market. That's one of the things we notice about the Germans in the states - they tend to like to tell the customer what the customer needs, and sometimes it's to their detriment (all of the german cars sold in the states are garbage - even worse for reliability than the worst of our domestics, but they keep selling them on the stupid "superior engineering" narrative and then complain that they don't know why their automakers are losing market share).

It's hard to find much of anything made in continental europe sold here these days, despite the fact that labor is cheaper in continental europe than it is here.

 

[D_W]

Forgot to complete the thought on renewables - we have a capacity of something like 800 terrawatt hours in the US, or about 20% of the grid (hydro, wind, solar and biomass -and a very small allocation of geothermal, I guess in places near volcanoes). It appears from the google monster that about 40% of UK electricity is considered renewable, though the categories don't look to be identical (120 GWH as of 2020, or about 1/6th nominally of the US).

Something doesn't line up unless the average person in the UK uses half the energy - perhaps that's possible due to the lack of temperature extremes.

Solar and wind are being installed here at a high rate because they don't require much subsidy at this point. We sold our farm last year (270 acres). It nearly went to a solar company, but ....wait for it...

....the township denied permits to us and several other farms because residents convinced the township boards that variances for solar would ruin the rural view.

Solar installers were willing to pay about a 25% premium on the land for anyone willing to contract due to the chance that permitting would fail, or take a couple of years (sale contingent on approval of installation, of course).

Gas is a major headwind here for everything as far as energy production goes - it's 4 cents a KW/hr for profitable gas production (vs. subsidizing wind) and the types of power plants being set up are actually pressuring nuclear out of business. They can run base load or turn on and off regularly without issue, and that makes it very easy for them to draw contracts (generation is mostly private here, distribution is public - that combination has made for low cost electricity but a reliable grid). As renewables get cheaper, they'll probably match gas and pick up speed in regard to implementation - the advantage that you have in the UK toward renewables isn't really virtue, it's cost of other options.

 

[billw]

When it's time to recycle nuclear materials we'll just deposit it in the most convenient third world country, which by the time to recycle the stuff comes will probably be ... England.

 

[MarkDennehy]

As far as nuclear goes, whatever we do in the UK is almost irrelevant

Ahem.

Just don't make a bags of it lads, I have LED lighting in the shop already, I don't need it to glow in the dark

 

[D_W]

When it's time to recycle nuclear materials we'll just deposit it in the most convenient third world country, which by the time to recycle the stuff comes will probably be ... England.

If the currency drops enough, it will eventually be economical to reprocess the waste. hah!

We'll pay you to do it with ours, too - .....

...except our currency will probably be in the toilet by then, too, and maybe we'll make stuff to export to china.

 

[Peterm1000]

If you accept the idea that the solution is to generate more power then nuclear MIGHT be a possible choice. There are some good arguments made for it on here. But I am depressed by the idea that anything that has the potential to cause so much damage is considered a good idea. Surely the long term solution is to make things more energy efficient rather than to generate more power.

 

[rafezetter]

FAKE NEWS
The proposed Moorside Power Station is NOT experimental. It is of the PWR variety which is the world's most common design. We have one already at Sizewell and another under construction in Somerset, both much nearer London. What's more Londoners are only 100miles away from the largest, and now aging, nuclear station in western Europe - Gravelines which lies halfway between Calais and Dunkirk.
Fortunately we have learnt an awful lot from the Windscale, 3Mile Island, Chernobyl and ***ushima disasters. Of those 4 only 3MI was a PWR (an early American nuclear PS). The other 3 have all been abandoned as the basis of viable commercial and safe designs.
As Bill Gates said yesterday, the pandemic is a minor problem for man to solve in comparison to Global Warming and nuclear power will have to be part of the solution for the foreseeable future.
So you'd better get used to it, for our children's sake.
Brian

the Bill Gates bit I said myself not long ago in the thread about how it was all the old peoples fault and... got shot down as usual. They (" the greens" and those younger generations that will need it the most) don't want it because they believe as spetric does and have been brainwashed into thinking geen energy is a VIABLE power source NOW and it's just a matter of putting it into place.

Nuclear isn't "the best" solution I grant you, but it's proven and what we have NOW, while the green systems catch up to a place where we won't need to cover the green fields of England with windfarms and solar.

Speak to anyone in America that has had to live with power shortages recently, as I have, and you'll get a different perspective.

 

[smugdruggler]

Hi all

The original was a PWR which got cancelled thanks to the over spend at Sizewell, Toshiba pulled the plug and ran leaving Nugen high and dry.

This new one is not PWR but a new fusion reactor which in theory will not produce waste products that need to be babysat for decades to come but still is not true green energy. Cumbria could be home to UK’s first prototype nuclear fusion power plant - new plans reveal

As for fall out, they have that well covered up here and the probability is that it would on more occasions than not be driven in a southerly direction but then the Chernobyl fall out did land here and make life really bad for the farming community. So far we have been very lucky, Chernobyl turned out to be a bigger financial headache than anything else but it had the potential to go either way, Fukishima was another close call, but how many close calls can you have before your luck runs out.

Please feel free to correct me but as far as I am aware "Fusion" reactors are the holy grail and no one has yet perfected one large enough for commercial use in fact I don't think anyone has even constructed one that has exceeded unity in other words produced more power out than has been put in.

I apologise if the OP meant to say Fission.

 

[Jacob]

If you accept the idea that the solution is to generate more power then nuclear MIGHT be a possible choice. There are some good arguments made for it on here. But I am depressed by the idea that anything that has the potential to cause so much damage is considered a good idea. Surely the long term solution is to make things more energy efficient rather than to generate more power.

Yep. Just looking for hi-tech solutions to enable us to carry on as usual just postpones the endgame, with probably a shorter and sharper collapse when it finally happens.
We need to work out how to do things sustainably, which means doing them very differently, starting now if it's not too late already.

 

[rafezetter]

The one thing nuclear has the potential to do that no other power generation method currently has is to give us something in common with the dinosaurs, and that is extinction.

haha wow.

I think you might need plans for a bigger tinfoil hat.

Sorry but have you EVER really LOOKED at the planet and what's happening? There are seriously unstable countries with nuclear arsenals at thier disposal and that's just for starters of the things we have no control over in the UK, that are a bigger threat than using nuclear power stations.

So are you suggesting we in the UK just go back to how it was 100 years ago when electricity was scarce, because we are only using green energy that just doesn't provide, and won't for many decades yet, thus we devolve into a 3rd world nation while other countries with a smaller "snowflake" population thrive.

Sure we'll be green but at what cost - you want electric cars in the road? NOPE, not enough juice for everyone. (so back to petrol or nothing**)
You want all children in schools to have access to computers, the internet and mobile learning on tablets? NOPE, not enough juice for everyone.
You want to be able to walk at night with well lit streets? NOPE, not enough juice for everyone. (or go back to gaslamps**)

Enjoying using your home computer are we Spectric? Won't have that if we did as "the greens" suggested.

and on and on.

Then there's the Kyoto Accord and that quite a few big countries have not signed up for it, and still burning fossil fuels and a ridiculous rate - protip - google how much coal Australia is exporting each year and where it's going, if that isn't enough to make you realise that "greenifying" the UK's power at the cost of a SIGNIFICANTLY reduced standard of living will be utterly pointless as we share the SAME ATMOSPHERE as the rest of those countries. sheesh.

All the while STILL being a target for those aforementioned ICBM's

**seems your plan for greening isn't really working is it?

 

[Jelly]

When it's time to recycle nuclear materials we'll just deposit it in the most convenient third world country, which by the time to recycle the stuff comes will probably be ... England.

I mean up until ten-ish years ago BNFL and it's successors were actively selling reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at Sellafield on the condition that whoever sent them the material for recycling took back all the active material waste and useful fuel alike.

If you're looking to point at a nuclear dumping ground of sorts, Mayak Chemical Combine in Russia or the Hanford Site in Washington (State) are the places that come closest to the dystopia you're envisaging... And it's still reasonably well controlled (now).

The reality is much more banal, that we're likely to have to expend small but not insignificant amounts of money and resources on containing and securing waste and storage locations for an almost inconceivably long time, although most of the really nasty radioactive waste gets markedly safer in the first 30-50 years, and the bigger issue is actually around security of fissile materials for non-proliferation reasons.

 

[Jacob]

....... the bigger issue is actually around security of fissile materials for non-proliferation reasons.

I think the bigger issue is the continuity of technical infrastructure and personnel.
Imagine an unknown virus suddenly arriving unexpectedly!

 

[Spectric]

Hi Some very interesting views, and again it is very clear that it is another problem we have created but this time very unlikely to resolve. Yes taking nuclear out of it then we are on borrowed time with fosil fuels and global warming but we need to only move forward, no more fosil fuels would be a fantastic step forward but replacing one bad fuel with another is not the solution. The real problem is over population and that so many countries are basically going through the same industrial revolution that we have gone through but now with much reduced natural resources. We do tend to feed our habbits rather than do the right thing, ie households are using more energy now than say thirty years ago but why, because we want dishwashers and other gadgets to make life easy and have electrical everything. I bet many on here can remember parents using washing boards, mangles and then the luxury of the twin tub.

And there is no real possibility of nuclear power causing an extinction event.

That is wishful thinking, the issue is that the human race thinks it is so clever and to many people believe it. Ignorance will not protect.

Nuclear depends on continual servicing and control by a stable and skilled workforce.
A simple thing like the next pandemic, if not the current one, could end this overnight and be catastrophic.

Jacob is spot on, we are now living on a planet thats survival depends upon these plants being maintained and under constant control, bearing in mind the age of many then if say some virus takes out the personel how long do you think you have before an incident. Yes there are safety measures that should keep things safe but they only work if maintained.

So... there's no way a Cumbria plant would be the UK's first experimental fusion facility,

well lets hope so because they seem to believe that they have the nuclear expertise, god help us.

 

[Jacob]

.......

**seems your plan for greening isn't really working is it?

Nature's plan for survival is working and it looks like greening is definitely on the cards, whatever form it takes.

 

[Jelly]

Yep. Just looking for hi-tech solutions to enable us to carry on as usual just postpones the endgame, with probably a shorter and sharper collapse when it finally happens.
We need to work out how to do things sustainably, which means doing them very differently, starting now if it's not too late already.

I agree with you in principle, but it's not an either-or choice, the necessity is to do both.

We have to cut consumption to levels which can be supplied without exhausting natural resources and find the technologies which allow us to maintain a certain level of resource use (ideally in a closed loop) which will maintain the advantages of modern life which few if any would be willing to surrender.

 

[Spectric]

Sorry but have you EVER really LOOKED at the planet and what's happening? There are seriously unstable countries with nuclear arsenals at thier disposal and that's just for starters of the things we have no control over in the UK, that are a bigger threat than using nuclear power stations.

Yes but we are talking nuclear power not weapons, we do have some say or control but weapons is another ball game because their very design is to result in extinction, nuclear power is just the accident waiting to happen.