5000AD estimate is complete bullshit. Our energy consumption doubles every ~20 years (15 to 35 by various sources). In only 10 doublings (200 years) our energy consumption will increase 1,000 times. After 20 doublings (400 years), it will increase 1,000,000 times. I expect by then we will be using mostly fusion and/or the energy of the Sun (and/or some new energy source).
If you keep that extrapolation up, you are going to get an argument for starting construction on a Dyson sphere. That may be the correct goal, but we really are in no position yet to reason about the necessity or practicality of such energy expenditure.
I really thought this was going to be about Thorium. Surprise - its about extracting Uranium from seawater.
I can not figure out why more effort is not put into thorium nuclear technology research. The only reason I have heard why thorium is not being considered is because it is not weaponizable. Are there any other reasons why thorium based nuclear fission is not being pursued as an energy source?
Honestly, I don't think it's that hand-wavey when nuclear has killed less people ever than coal does every year.
People are more frightened of things they don't understand, so effective advocacy of nuclear power requires making the effort to bridge the information gap. Also, people find concentrated acute harm more scary than dispersed chronic harm, which is why the idea of a plane crash is more disturbing than the larger number of people killed in road accidents.
In the article linked to from this article: A preliminary report by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency has stated that the response to the Fukushima nuclear incident was "exemplary" and that nobody has been harmed by radiation exposure resulting from it. That seems to contract what the Japanese government's own panel concluded: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18718057
The article on safety this article links to is a year older than the article itself (though same author). It doesn't seem responsible to me to leave out a year of analysis of the effect of Fukushima, and I don't think it's been a particularly positive year. In some ways if Fukushima was a result of human error (as that report indicates), then that's positive: it's resolvable. But if we scaled nuclear power up to 10x what it currently is I would worry about more human error, and introducing nuclear power to places that have even more problems with reliability, or cultural problems with creating reliable systems. A nuclear power plant in Nigeria? I'm sure there are very reliable people who could staff and monitor the plant, and that those people could be attracted to the jobs, but I don't trust the political infrastructure of the nation to ensure that all actually happens. That no one uses shoddy concrete, or pushes problems under the table instead of resolving them and opening oneself up to blame, or manipulates risk assessment to protect their personally acquired power in the working of the plant.
Honestly, I don't think it's that hand-wavey when nuclear has killed less people ever than coal does every year.
People are more frightened of things they don't understand, so effective advocacy of nuclear power requires making the effort to bridge the information gap. Also, people find concentrated acute harm more scary than dispersed chronic harm, which is why the idea of a plane crash is more disturbing than the larger number of people killed in road accidents.
If you've read Normal Accidents by Perrow, how would you respond to someone who said that a good reason is because of the extreme complexity of nuclear power coupled with our relatively new understanding of it? I think that's a pretty good criticism of nuclear power.
"Since the Fukushima meltdown - as a result of which, not a single person is set to be measurably harmed by radiation - we know that nuclear power is safe." It seems to me like the primary danger from radiation like that leaked from Fukushima would be an increase in cancer. I think it's a little early to be claiming that Fukushima will cause no increase harm to humans. There is already evidence that it caused harm to…
Hah. The Register takes the IAEA statement, which says "To date no health effects have been reported in any person as a result of radiation exposure from the nuclear accident.", and turns it into the very different statement that no one WILL be harmed. I would give that a classification of Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.
Even though probably not very many people will get cancer that is traceable to the Fukushima disaster, it comes at a price -
There are several. One is to dump it in the Mariana trench, let nature push it back down into the crust. If we're foresighted, we'll bombard a crater in the moon with it. It won't go anywhere, and if we need to get it back, there it is.
Space launch is risky, not just perceived as risky, actually risky. rocketry isn't one of those 5 9's of reliability activities.
One of the interesting things about the pale grass butterfly results is that until now scientists considered such insects to be fairly resistant to environmental radiation at a genetic level, notwithstanding their physical delicacy. There are some references to this in the Nature paper. Those findings must be very disturbing to prospective or recent parents that lived in the vicinity of the nuclear plant.
The article isn't very specific on the specific vectors at work here, but from what the scientists did, it sounds like those butterflies were very close indeed and literally ate radioactive materials. So it may not be relevant to local parents unless their kids eat a lot of dirt right outside power plants.
> ... unless their kids eat a lot of dirt ...
You don't have any kids yourself, I take. They are entropy machines! You never know what stupid (from adult perspective) thing they are going to do next.
Besides, it may be nitpicking, but kids eating dirt right outside power plants would die horrible deaths within days. It is the lesser doses in the rear by populated areas whose effects may not be so well understood.
I really thought this was going to be about Thorium. Surprise - its about extracting Uranium from seawater.
I can not figure out why more effort is not put into thorium nuclear technology research. The only reason I have heard why thorium is not being considered is because it is not weaponizable. Are there any other reasons why thorium based nuclear fission is not being pursued as an energy source?
From what I've heard, it's because we've now got decades of experience engineering uranium fission reactors, during which we've learned tons about the practical engineering challenges involved. While thorium looks great on paper, engineers expect we'll need decades of working with it before a similar body of expertise is available, during which accidents may occur that we know how to avoid with uranium, etc.
In other words, without uranium being scarce and expensive, and with thorium being lumped in the same "nuclear" bucket (with all the political hurdles that implies), it doesn't make much economic sense to start over with thorium.
