Joined: 06 Sep 2006Posts: 135Location: West Seattle
I was reading this article about the carbon offset market and it made me wonder if commuting to work via bicycle couldn't be sold for credits. I think the whole concept is silly but if there's a politically correct way to part a sucker from his money, than why not?
lieutenantsean
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:17 am
Joined: 10 Oct 2005Posts: 1255
I used to work for a company that dealt with things of this sort.
The whole idea is reducing the absolute amount of CO2 by restricting how much any one country can produce. Countries that are alloted more than they need can sell the unused portion of their allotment to countries who produce more.
Another application is green tags. Basically, you are paying electric companies paying a little extra for green power. The extra you pay is subsidizing green power elsewhere. Here in WA, most of our power comes from Hydro (Washington state produces an ungodly amount of power, mostly from hydro). Hydro is technically considered green power even though it does awful shit to the environment.
There really isn't much of a US market for carbon credits yet. That's changing slowly but at the moment, any potential carbon credits you might be creating are worth doodly-squat.
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lantius
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:42 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
actually, alot of the "green power" stuff i've seen excludes big hydro and only counts small-scale, low-impact hydro.
personally i think it needs to include nuclear. bring back the dream, baby!
Stanglor
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:50 am
Joined: 28 Jan 2006Posts: 555Location: Wallingford
lantius wrote:
personally i think it needs to include nuclear. bring back the dream, baby!
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dennyt
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 9:02 am
rocket mechanicJoined: 02 Aug 2005Posts: 2708
lantius
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 9:09 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
i'm pretty sure the nuclear-engined orion project was the inspiration for this as well:
Aaron
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:01 am
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 4645
lantius wrote:
personally i think it needs to include nuclear. bring back the dream, baby!
No nukes is good nukes man. I'm from Oregon. We shut down Trogan!
lantius
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:06 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
Aaron wrote:
No nukes is good nukes man. I'm from Oregon. We shut down Trogan!
i know. =(
Aaron
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:10 am
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 4645
lantius wrote:
Aaron wrote:
No nukes is good nukes man. I'm from Oregon. We shut down Trogan!
i know. =(
Awesome! You are aware that that leaked radiation into the environment. No the cooling tower, per se, but the plant in general. Nuclear power is just too dangerous. Besides, it cannot replace oil.
zuvembi
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:25 am
Joined: 24 Jul 2005Posts: 942Location: Little Addis Ababa
Aaron wrote:
lantius wrote:
Aaron wrote:
No nukes is good nukes man. I'm from Oregon. We shut down Trogan!
i know. =(
Awesome! You are aware that that leaked radiation into the environment.
Pffft. I doubt it leaked as much as all the bloody coal plants do.
Quote:
No the cooling tower, per se, but the plant in general. Nuclear power is just too dangerous.
Not really. Lets count up all the people killed by nuclear power (not weapons). Not that fucking many (even including cancer victims from the worst nuclear disaster ever - Chernobyl).
Now lets count up how many people die from coal and oil fired pollution each year. I can pretty much guarantee it's worse, though I can't be arsed to go look it up.
Now, I'm not a nuclear fan, mainly because I think it's a short term solution and politically it's too costly in the US. But practically, engineering-wise, it's not that bad.
Quote:
Besides, it cannot replace oil.
Well, I don't think anything is able to replace oil currently. But I'm reasonably confident that we'll continue to stagger punch-drunk in the direction of progress. However we get there.
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lantius
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:34 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
Aaron wrote:
Awesome! You are aware that that leaked radiation into the environment. No the cooling tower, per se, but the plant in general. Nuclear power is just too dangerous. Besides, it cannot replace oil.
background radiation at modern nuclear power plants is lower than that at modern coal powerplants, since the handling and burning of coal releases trapped radon gas into the environment. add that to the societal costs of carbon dioxide and other pollutant production and it turns out you're probably safer living out in the rural country near chernobyl than living in a city with air pollution. if you gave me the choice of living next door to a coal plant or a nuke plant i know which i'd pick.
people are irrationally scared of nuclear power because they don't understand the relative safety, and irrationally comfortable with burning fossil fuels because they don't understand the dangers.
the real problem with nuclear right now, as i understand it, is that it isn't economical compared to coal/oil/natural gas in terms of energy production. hopefully green initatives and the realization that fossil fuels are poor long-term fuel sources will help drive the adoption of building new nuclear power plants. certainly if we are to take seriously the "hydrogen highway" proposals they are going to need huge quantities of cheap, reliable electricity. and that means nuclear.
obviously nuclear can't replace petroleum in terms of many of it's uses: plastics, fertilizers, etc, but burning oil to produce electricity and heat is ridiculously wasteful of a finite resource.
of course, if we're going to keep getting inexpensive products from china/taiwan, we're going to need to stop burning oil to push cargo containers around. we need something like the ns savannah:
joby
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:59 am
goes to elevenJoined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 3899Location: The Cloud
The anti nuke-Rederic is idiotic.
We've had large-scale nuclear power for 40 years.
In that time, we've had one severe accident at a poorly designed Russian facility, and one zero-casualty accident at a poorly designed American facility. We've also generated some nuclear waste, that, while troubling, hasn't killed anyone or crashed any ecosystems.
In the same time, our oil consumption has Killed Dead an incalculable number of people, and has pushed our ecosystem to the brink of collapse.
The idea that we'll save the world by reducing average energy consumption by some huge percentage is just ridiculous. It's not going to happen.
Our only prayer is that we can switch to primary energy sources that don't spew carbon in to the atmosphere.
Nuclear could largely replace oil and coal. Lots of our oil consumption isn't for transportation, and things like plug-in hybrids and mass transit could convert a lot of what is.
pete jr
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:18 am
Joined: 13 Dec 2005Posts: 1930Location: balls deepx
am i wrong in thinking that all large-scale nuclear disasters were caused by experiments in the operation of a nuclear plant?
also, i drove down to kelso to see the implosion when it happened. 100% worth it and awesome to see something that big blow up. 100%!
joby
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:22 am
goes to elevenJoined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 3899Location: The Cloud
pete jr wrote:
am i wrong in thinking that all large-scale nuclear disasters were caused by experiments in the operation of a nuclear plant?
also, i drove down to kelso to see the implosion when it happened. 100% worth it and awesome to see something that big blow up. 100%!
Three-mile-island had a terribly designed control system, and was not manageable by mortals. a small thing went wrong, and they didn't have enough information to make good decisions and fix it. Three mile island was not doing experiments when they had their failure.
Chernobyl was somewhat similar, but they combined a poor control system with a poor reactor design. I don't know if Chernobyl was doing experiments. I've never heard that they were.
langston
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:24 am
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 5547Location: Columbia City
joby wrote:
Chernobyl was somewhat similar, but they combined a poor control system with a poor reactor design. I don't know if Chernobyl was doing experiments. I've never heard that they were.
I thought it was because Russia tried to go from serfdom straight to proto-socialism and ended up with a bunch of ex-potato farmers at the helm.
I have this funny suspicion that after 30 years, the engineering community MIGHT have found ways to make nuclear reactors smaller, cleaner and more efficient. Look what they've done with cars' fuel economy...
lantius
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:28 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
basically, it was a bad reactor design, improperly trained engineers, and a poorly-considered test that lead to the incident. compared to things like katrina or wtc, the term "disaster" is a bit of a misnomer.
pete jr
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:34 am
Joined: 13 Dec 2005Posts: 1930Location: balls deepx
oh also while we are on the topic of reactors, check out the mural on the side of these towers in france- i took this from the tgv as we passed them by.
children at play with the ATOM
lieutenantsean
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 5:09 pm
Joined: 10 Oct 2005Posts: 1255
lantius wrote:
actually, alot of the "green power" stuff i've seen excludes big hydro and only counts small-scale, low-impact hydro.
personally i think it needs to include nuclear. bring back the dream, baby!
That's becoming increasingly common because of the sheer environmental havoc big hydro can wreak. The Three Gorges Dam already has several hundred million tons of silt built up behind it which means more erosion downstream.
However, the carbon people don't always care. Their definition is KW-CO2=green=> money.
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Aaron
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 9:20 pm
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 4645
I wasn't suggesting that nuclear power is worse than buring oil or coal.
The nuclear waste is certianly a problem we probably cannot solve. Where to put it and the risk of transporting it is pretty high if there is a crash. Also any storage facility will basically require technology forever.
Using less energy is the answer. Then we can start shutting down power plants instead of worrying about making more.
Use less, turn off the lights and recycle, or just go without. Oh, and ride a bike.
I think that nuclear weapons pose more of a danger than power plants. When I said, nukes, I was being all inclusive.
We are lucky to live in the NW where the folks are smart and kill nuclear power and have hydro. Sure hydro is not perfect but the damns were built before we were all born, so what we gonna do. Using less here would allow us to "sell" the excess to the rest of the nation so they don't have to burn coal.
henry
Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:05 pm
somewhat piggishJoined: 05 Aug 2005Posts: 5415Location: on porch with shotgun
I've heard some interesting things about coal gasification? From my understanding there is a large amount of carbon left as a biproduct, which then needs to be stored not unlike nuclear waste (although obviously much less hazardous).
Obviously we need to consume less energy individually, but that's only realistic to a certain point.
I'm sitting in an apartment right now with all the lights on, which is retarded.
The Hanford super fund site is the most contaminated site in the western hemisphere regardless of the 3 mile island hype. The still have high level radioactive waste (plutonium, etc) in drums buried in unlined dirt ditches. We can't even bury our kitche4n garbage in unlined ditches. It probably doesn't help that it sits right on the Columbia River. As for the river... they've already found spikes of strontium and tritium in the Columbia. Fuckin' sad. I hate both DOE's for letting this happen.
The Hanford super fund site is the most contaminated site in the western hemisphere regardless of the 3 mile island hype. The still have high level radioactive waste (plutonium, etc) in drums buried in unlined dirt ditches. We can't even bury our kitche4n garbage in unlined ditches. It probably doesn't help that it sits right on the Columbia River. As for the river... they've already found spikes of strontium and tritium in the Columbia. Fuckin' sad. I hate both DOE's for letting this happen.
side note: I'm not anti nuke or pro but the least we could do is wipe our asses. The French have the right idea. They use radioactive waste glassification plants that stabilize the waste for hundreds of years. Unlike our drum in dirt solution... drums have a very limited lifespan.
lantius
Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 10:00 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
i agree about hanford, but hanford was never about power generation, it was about weapon generation.
Finn
Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 1:04 pm
AlabamaJoined: 15 Sep 2006Posts: 303Location: Central District
Yes, the new nuclear technology is safer than it was.
Yes, they can even separate the radioactive component of the waste now, reducing waste volume by 90%.
Yes, nuclear can largely replace fossil sources for electricity needs.
However, at even the newest efficiency, there's only enough uranium for 50-100 years. That's right- peak atoms. By then, we'd better have those solar panels cost effective.
In the mean time, over 30% of our generated electricity is lost in an inefficient grid with transformers using 60 year-old technology.
Aaron
Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 7:27 pm
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 4645
So our grand kids are screwed either way. Great. Yeah Humanity!
Jace
Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 10:39 pm
Joined: 11 Oct 2005Posts: 601Location: Seattle
Speaking of chernobyl, a friend sent me a link of someone going and visiting the zone. It's a fairly interesting read with lots of cool photos.
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