Official Global Warming thread (merged)

#8,279
#8,279
It's not a science challenge. It's a political challenge and by that nature an argument amongst idiots and the voters.

We can build Gen 3 nuclear reactors, the same kind we've built for the last 40 years. They are safe, low carbon, and cheap when not treated like an ATM. France and Ontario are examples of how fast it can be done.

Instead the vast majority of world governments would rather listen to green idiots, like Germany, who can't manage to do better than US, who isn't even trying.

Until the same people who espouse the global warming problem stop denying the clear evidence right in their faces in what actually works and what doesn't. Then I can only assume they are simply trying to make a buck off investment in solar and wind.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 05_never_again, golfballs, hog88 and 3 others
#8,281
#8,281
Anyone know what would happen to a nuclear tower if, say, a superflu happened and none of the employees showed up to shot it down?

Just curious. Always wondered.
 
#8,282
#8,282
Orange_Crush said:
Anyone know what would happen to a nuclear tower if, say, a superflu happened and none of the employees showed up to shot it down?

Just curious. Always wondered.
Click to expand...
The fuel would eventually cook off all the pumped water and melt through the containment vessel and into water below. Plants are designed to contain the radiation for a very long time. You’d be dead several times over before it became an issue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: marcusluvsvols
#8,284
#8,284
That's a ridiculous thing to wonder. You think there's just a couple of guys who come and go on this thing.
 
#8,285
#8,285
For a more nuanced response, there are many crews of reactor operators, who dont leave without turnover. So if something happens, and everybody else goes away, they safely shut it down. Eventually the generators kick on, and everything cools down. If for some reason after several days, you cant get diesel and you cant get flex water, then you might uncover fuel...you might not. This is possible in some zombie apocalypse scenario. But unlike Chernobyl, these plants have containment and no graphite, so the doses received would be of the cancer in 40 years type. If there's a superbug like the Stand, or a zombie apocalypse, and you are concerned about low doses of radiation, you might as well pack it in and get it over with.

There's also several hundred employees at the sites. There's 100 or so people constantly on call for emergency response, who train regularly for any number of scenarios. There's been one accident in the history of nuclear power with public radiation exposure that had health consequences, Chernobyl (Fukushima did not). And that was due to Russians doing a test wrong in a reactor that's not the safest design.

These things are as safe as just about anything else on the planet by any measurable statistic. But Hollywood and the media has built this image of cooling towers that might go boom. Without never asking anybody who knows anything. They go to the Union of Concerned Scientists, who aren't scientists. Just tools.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NorthDallas40 and marcusluvsvols
#8,286
#8,286
Weezy said:
For a more nuanced response, there are many crews of reactor operators, who dont leave without turnover. So if something happens, and everybody else goes away, they safely shut it down. Eventually the generators kick on, and everything cools down. If for some reason after several days, you cant get diesel and you cant get flex water, then you might uncover fuel...you might not. This is possible in some zombie apocalypse scenario. But unlike Chernobyl, these plants have containment and no graphite, so the doses received would be of the cancer in 40 years type. If there's a superbug like the Stand, or a zombie apocalypse, and you are concerned about low doses of radiation, you might as well pack it in and get it over with.

There's also several hundred employees at the sites. There's 100 or so people constantly on call for emergency response, who train regularly for any number of scenarios. There's been one accident in the history of nuclear power with public radiation exposure that had health consequences, Chernobyl (Fukushima did not). And that was due to Russians doing a test wrong in a reactor that's not the safest design.

These things are as safe as just about anything else on the planet by any measurable statistic. But Hollywood and the media has built this image of cooling towers that might go boom. Without never asking anybody who knows anything. They go to the Union of Concerned Scientists, who aren't scientists. Just tools.
Click to expand...
Thanks again. I was just curious. We live very close to a nuclear plant. I always wondered what would happen in a near to full society ending collapse type situation.
 
#8,287
#8,287
LouderVol said:
oh it definitely needs to be cleaned up. It will just probably end up in a landfill, or going to some of the pie in the sky projects that never make it main stream.
Click to expand...
In a landfill it will eventually be broken down into mostly methane and CO2. More and more of the methane from landfills is being captured and cleaned up to go into natural gas pipelines (a process my company facilitates with catalysts) or used to power internal combustion engines onsite that generate electricity.
 
#8,288
#8,288
RavinDave said:
In a landfill it will eventually be broken down into mostly methane and CO2. More and more of the methane from landfills is being captured and cleaned up to go into natural gas pipelines (a process my company facilitates with catalysts) or used to power internal combustion engines onsite that generate electricity.
Click to expand...
The organics break down. But what about the plastics? I know very little about their "half life"
 
#8,289
#8,289
LouderVol said:
The organics break down. But what about the plastics? I know very little about their "half life"
Click to expand...
Good question LouderVol. Like "organics" most plastics are made up mainly of carbon and hydrogen atoms, just in longer "carbon backbone" chains. And some of them like polyethylene and polypropylene I expect would have a half-life in a landfill on the order of 10 years while PVC might be an order of magnitude longer, and teflon probably the most bacteria-resistant of all may resist decomposition darn near forever... But sooner or later most all of it will break down and help generate "landfill gas" also known as Biogas which is considered "renewable" with goodies from the government helping make investments to recover/monetize it pay out sooner.
 
#8,290
#8,290
RavinDave said:
Good question LouderVol. Like "organics" most plastics are made up mainly of carbon and hydrogen atoms, just in longer "carbon backbone" chains. And some of them like polyethylene and polypropylene I expect would have a half-life in a landfill on the order of 10 years while PVC might be an order of magnitude longer, and teflon probably the most bacteria-resistant of all may resist decomposition darn near forever... But sooner or later most all of it will break down and help generate "landfill gas" also known as Biogas which is considered "renewable" with goodies from the government helping make investments to recover/monetize it pay out sooner.
Click to expand...
It's amazing what bacteria can evolve to break down and digest, though. I suspect we'd see bacteria feeding on teflon as well. Just a hunch.
 
#8,291
#8,291
Orange_Crush said:
It's amazing what bacteria can evolve to break down and digest, though. I suspect we'd see bacteria feeding on teflon as well. Just a hunch.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree. Reminds me I been meaning to get me a new electric wok for the workplace here because the one I have has started losing it's non-stick coating just because I left some beef or bacon grease sitting in it for awhile.
 
#8,292
#8,292
RavinDave said:
I tend to agree. Reminds me I been meaning to get me a new electric wok for the workplace here because the one I have has started losing it's non-stick coating just because I left some beef or bacon grease sitting in it for awhile.
Click to expand...
That second law of thermodynamics is like the Grim Reaper... sooner or later it's gonna prevail.
 
#8,293
#8,293
RavinDave said:
Good question LouderVol. Like "organics" most plastics are made up mainly of carbon and hydrogen atoms, just in longer "carbon backbone" chains. And some of them like polyethylene and polypropylene I expect would have a half-life in a landfill on the order of 10 years while PVC might be an order of magnitude longer, and teflon probably the most bacteria-resistant of all may resist decomposition darn near forever... But sooner or later most all of it will break down and help generate "landfill gas" also known as Biogas which is considered "renewable" with goodies from the government helping make investments to recover/monetize it pay out sooner.
Click to expand...
are those numbers based on this catalyst? or is this just naturally occurring? I was under the impression that the inorganics lasted for pretty much forever.
 
#8,294
#8,294
LouderVol said:
are those numbers based on this catalyst? or is this just naturally occurring? I was under the impression that the inorganics lasted for pretty much forever.
Click to expand...
Plastics are not inorganics. Inorganics are things like metals and rocks, and Yes those type things tend to last longer although they can erode and/or corrode. Nothing lasts forever! But what my company provides is not involved in breaking down the waste materials (this is basically left to nature and the types of bacteria that specialize in that) but in removing certain contaminants from the gas after it is collected from the landfill- in particular catalysts for Oxygen (O2) removal to meet pipeline specifications, also adsorbents used in separating the methane and CO2. Raw LFG before being treated is roughly half CO2 and half methane by volume (excluding minor constituents and contaminants) but to meet pipeline specs the methane generally has to be concentrated up to about 95%.
 
  • Like
Reactions: marcusluvsvols
#8,295
#8,295
RavinDave said:
Plastics are not inorganics. Inorganics are things like metals and rocks, and Yes those type things tend to last longer although they can erode and/or corrode. Nothing lasts forever! But what my company provides is not involved in breaking down the waste materials (this is basically left to nature and the types of bacteria that specialize in that) but in removing certain contaminants from the gas after it is collected from the landfill- in particular catalysts for Oxygen (O2) removal to meet pipeline specifications, also adsorbents used in separating the methane and CO2. Raw LFG before being treated is roughly half CO2 and half methane by volume (excluding minor constituents and contaminants) but to meet pipeline specs the methane generally has to be concentrated up to about 95%.
Click to expand...
I was always under the impression that plastic didn't really degrade.
 
#8,298
#8,298
LouderVol said:
when I say degrade, I mean break down into different substances like a wood based product. I always thought it was like a metal/stone where it just broke down into smaller pieces of itself.
Click to expand...
Bacterial action in a landfill creates methane (CH4) and CO2 from all kinds of compounds and materials that contain carbon and hydrogen including plastics.
 
#8,299
#8,299
LouderVol said:
when I say degrade, I mean break down into different substances like a wood based product. I always thought it was like a metal/stone where it just broke down into smaller pieces of itself.
Click to expand...

Everything degrades/decomposes, it's just a matter of how long.
 
#8,300
#8,300
RavinDave said:
Bacterial action in a landfill creates methane (CH4) and CO2 from all kinds of compounds and materials that contain carbon and hydrogen including plastics.
Click to expand...
fair enough. I just didn't know otherwise. glad to hear it.

and hog I was considering anything that took longer than a human life, 70ish, years to be non-degrade-able.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RavinDave
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top