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2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

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Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#231

Post by Retric »

JBReefer wrote: post #49
flubert wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Geothermal energy was stored back during the formation of the planet "Nuclear Fission Confirmed as Source of More than Half of Earth's Heat" http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nuclear-fis...

That's talking about radioactive decay, not fission. The article doesn't do a great job distinguishing between the two, but it's _not_ talking about the process of splitting atoms. >The new measurements suggest radioactive decay provides more than half of Earth's total heat, estimated at roughly 44 terawatts based on temperatures found at the bottom of deep boreholes into the planet's crust.

Fission is effectively catalyzed radioactive decay from neutrons at the right energy levels. There could be some differences in decay products, but simply waiting will eventually release that energy. http://www.mpoweruk.com/nuclear_theory.htm

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#232

Post by pdkl95 »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #218
pdkl95 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> destroying huge areas for good Even Chernobyl isn't destroyed for good, though it's still an expensive mess to clean up. Fortunately, nobody builds reactors with such an idiotic design (a positive void coefficient[1]). The actual site at Fukushima Daiichi is going to to be a long, expensive cleanup, but that's about the extent of the damage. Concerns about the surrounding area is just radiophobia and an extreme ove…

Caesium 137 has a fucking halflife of 30.7 years. There is still a lot of that material in Ukraine and Belorussia. The economy and agriculture of both countries sustained severe damage as a result http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-3/5-social-economic... now were just very lucky that there was no full meltdown of the reactor core. Can you claim without flinching that this will never ever happen? I doubt it. Jus…

> There is still a lot of that material

I never said there wasn't. The cleanup is ongoing and will take a very long time, but it still isn't "destroyed for good". At least the caesium eventually goes away. The Pb, Hg, and As in the 1.1 billion gallons of fly ash slurry that the Tennessee Valley Authority spilled[0] over homes and into the Emory and Clinch rivers doesn't have a half life.

> economy and agriculture

The tsunami also did incredible damage to the economy and agriculture of Japan.

> Can you claim without flinching that this will never ever happen?

Absolutely. Even the idiotic RBMK design can be run safely after being modified to fix the void coefficient. I suggest actually reading my link[1] above, which explain in great detail the problems in the design of that reactor. Even with those problems, it took incredible effort[2] to trigger the steam explosion.

> 'heroes of Chernobyl'

I'm give a lot of respect and thanks to those that had to deal with Chernobyl's immediate aftermath and the 600,000 liquidators that were part of the cleanup afterwords. In particular, the 3828 people that cleaned up the worst section of roof in two minute shifts. Their story - in their own words[3] - is something I will never forget.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...

[1] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/chernobyl.html

[2] https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#233

Post by dang »

vectorjohn wrote: post #193
dang wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just keep repeating it, but it isn't true. Please edit uncivil language like this out of your comments when posting here. Without that (well, that and the uppercase yelling), this comment would be a fine one. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fixed. Didn't know a single word in caps was considered yelling.

Well, there were two ;) Thanks! That reads much much better.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#234

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

pdkl95 wrote: post #232
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caesium 137 has a fucking halflife of 30.7 years. There is still a lot of that material in Ukraine and Belorussia. The economy and agriculture of both countries sustained severe damage as a result http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-3/5-social-economic... now were just very lucky that there was no full meltdown of the reactor core. Can you claim without flinching that this will never ever happen? I doubt it. Jus…

> There is still a lot of that material I never said there wasn't. The cleanup is ongoing and will take a very long time, but it still isn't "destroyed for good". At least the caesium eventually goes away. The Pb, Hg, and As in the 1.1 billion gallons of fly ash slurry that the Tennessee Valley Authority spilled[0] over homes and into the Emory and Clinch rivers doesn't have a half life. > economy and agriculture The…

Tsunami and coal dusts are less severe than radiation hazards. I think this comparison is deliberately misleading.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#235

Post by at-fates-hands »

yongjik wrote: post #60
InclinedPlane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total CO2 emissions by countries, 2014: US 5.3 Gt China 10.5 Gt India 2.3 Gt Yeah, China and India are totally relevant to global CO2 emissions. The global climate doesn't give a damn about how many people are responsible for a given quantity of emissions, it's completely and utterly uncaring.

So, if China decides to divide itself into ten countries, each with 1.05 Gt emission, the earth will be so much better? The global climate doesn't give a damn about national borders, either. Of course China is important, because decisions made by its government can affect a billion people, but the same can be said for the US. (Good luck persuading Chinese people to reduce their emission, if the US doesn't commit itse…

>> if the US doesn't commit itself to do the same.)

By the stats I posted, it seems we're doing quite a lot actually. Unless you have other data that would indicate otherwise.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#236

Post by api »

rybosome wrote: post #222
api wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO the problem with stopping this and many other forms of environmental degradation is that it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven so to speak. Poverty is worse than all but the most severe natural disasters. Infant mortality in many poor countries is probably a lot higher than it is in Miami during a hurricane . Poverty is worse than pollution or storms. Even if the sea level rises it would be better to…

I have this debate with my parents from time to time. They're big readers of James Kunstler, who seems to advocate for reverting to a primarily agrarian society as the only sensible and correct response to the impending climate crisis. My argument is primarily that the planet cannot support 7 billion people with 19th century technology, so best case we'd still be looking at a decimation of the human population. Addit…

Kuntsler has valid and good points about aesthetics but beyond that he's a kook. He's also rather reactionary when you peel back the layers.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#237

Post by pdkl95 »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #234
pdkl95 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is still a lot of that material I never said there wasn't. The cleanup is ongoing and will take a very long time, but it still isn't "destroyed for good". At least the caesium eventually goes away. The Pb, Hg, and As in the 1.1 billion gallons of fly ash slurry that the Tennessee Valley Authority spilled[0] over homes and into the Emory and Clinch rivers doesn't have a half life. > economy and agriculture The…

Tsunami and coal dusts are less severe than radiation hazards. I think this comparison is deliberately misleading.

You're going to have to show some proof for this claim, because you seem to have the risk assessment backwards.

> Tsunami

The tsunami in Japan killed over 15,000 people (with several thousand more missing, likely dead). Radiation from Fukushima Daiichi (or anywhere else) hasn't killed anybody yet, though a handful of unfortunate workers and others in the immediate vicinity may have cancer problems in the future. Hopefully those cases will be treatable, but we won't know for some time.

15,000+ dead seems to indicate some tsunamis are far more dangerous than nuclear power.

> coal dusts

You might want to look again at the contents of fly ash. It's radioactive, full of a long list of heavy metals, with trace amounts of nasty things like dioxins.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#238

Post by voronoff »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #234
pdkl95 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is still a lot of that material I never said there wasn't. The cleanup is ongoing and will take a very long time, but it still isn't "destroyed for good". At least the caesium eventually goes away. The Pb, Hg, and As in the 1.1 billion gallons of fly ash slurry that the Tennessee Valley Authority spilled[0] over homes and into the Emory and Clinch rivers doesn't have a half life. > economy and agriculture The…

Tsunami and coal dusts are less severe than radiation hazards. I think this comparison is deliberately misleading.

Why? The tsunami killed more people than the radiation is estimated to even with the most generous estimates of how many people will get sick from radiation. Hell, even the stress/evacuation caused by the worry of radiation is likely to kill more people than the radiation itself would have if they didn't take those steps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isn...

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#239

Post by Laaw »

joenathan wrote: post #108
Laaw wrote: post #78

2015 was a strong el nino, I dunno if it's gonna tell us much about global warming... It's actually alarming to me that this post is being given any traction on here, when I know everyone here is smarter than to attribute one year to global warming. How many times have we mocked Fox News for saying shit like, "It was -10F outside today, so much for global warming!" Climate change is clearly a big deal, and one of (if…

You talk about how smart everyone here is but you offer no data for your assertion. You mention the el nino being the cause but some might argue that climate change lead to a a bigger el nino. You have evidence showing that there is no link?

What kind of data do you want to see that something isn't causing something else? That's a pretty insane thing to ask for, if you know about falsifiability.

Usually this works by me saying "there's no known link between a single year's temperature and overall global warming", which is a falsifiable statement, and then you/anyone else can go ahead and provide any evidence that what I said is false.

If you can prove that a single year's temperature variance is primarily explained by global climate change, now would be the time to do it.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#240

Post by rwallace »

lamontcg wrote: post #228
13thLetter wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This neglects how the great expense of nuclear and the long amount of time it takes to build is at least in part due to decades of anti-nuclear propaganda. There are certain activist groups who have created this problem and are now disingenuously pointing to the problem as if they had nothing to do with it.

No, even the French nuclear build showed negative learning effects that had nothing to do with anti-nuclear propaganda. A global nuclear build is going to do much, much worse than France did: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421510... Abstract The paper reviews the history and the economics of the French PWR program, which is arguably the most successful nuclear-scale up experience in an industri…

Interesting! The article is paywalled; I don't suppose you could summarize what negative learning effects they found, and the explanations they gave?
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