Climate Change

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Climate is changing, but the degree and cause are disputable.  I do believe that a prudent course would be to take steps to limit greenhouse gases while researching the phenomeon.  Unfortunately, idiotic Greens often oppose the best ways to do so.  We should be building more nuclear power plants so we don't have to burn coal and emit CO2 to make electricity, not shutting down nuclear reactors that can be operated safely and still have years of useful power generation  that they could do.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Nuclear power will not work because the process of refining and transporting the uranium would produce about as much CO2 as fossil fuels. WE NEED MORE RENEWABLE ENERGY, AND NOW.

I'd really be interested in seeing the source of your claim for CO2 production as a byproduct of nuclear power.  Because quite frankly, based on the information I have such a claim is pure rubbish.

Also renewable enegy is not without its costs.  The low energy density of renewable sources means that vast swaths of land would need to be altered from its natural state in order to produce the energy we use.  Going back to a pre-industrial age level of energy consumption is NOT an option.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If the warming was natural then surely it would be a linear event?

No. Nature is very rarely linear.  Linear extrapolation is the easiest type to do, which is why it gets overused, but unless you have reasons outside of the data to assume a particular type of relation, the results, however statistically pleasing they may be, are scientific junk.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

He's right nuclear power does produce large amounts of CO2. Not directly obviously, however huge amounts of energy are required to mine the uranium and purify it. Then decomissioning nuclear power stations is a vastly expensive, time consuming business. Spent fuel for example is usually melted down and solidified in glass. This itself uses up extraordinary amounts of energy. Fission reactors are pretty much obsolete..

I ask again, can you provide a citation for this claim.  Mining and transporting coal takes energy as well, and given the high energy density of uranium, it takes a lot less effort to mine uranium than the equivalent amount of coal on a per unit of energy basis. Right now the only technology that could hope to replace coal-fired electric generators in the quantities needed to merely maintain current levels of power generation is nuclear fission.  Wind power, dams and tidal barrages are all low density power sources that require vast areas of terrain to be developed.  They can contribute to energy production, but they aren't a viable solution.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

AG Ernest, nuclear fuel isn't the answer to the problem, since it requires huge amounts of time, money and energy to deal with the lethal by-products when the power station is decommissioned. Dams and tidal barrages are NOT low density power sources! The 3-gorges dam in China apparently will produce the same amount of electricity as 200 coal-fired power stations at full capacity!

I see you either chose to decline or were unable to provide any evidence for the claimed CO2 impact of nuclear plants.  The 18.2 GW that Three Gorges is supposed produce at peak production is only 14 times (not 200 as you suggest, if you're going to compare the largest dam to coal, compare it the largest coal-fired plants as well) the output of the largest coal fired generating plants in the US (there are several rated at 1.3GW), but it's attached to a 600 km long lake, so Three Gorges has an energy density of around 30MW per km of lake which is certainly a lower energy denisty than the equivalent coal fired plants and their supporting mines.  (The energy ratio looks even worse for Three Gorges when you factor in the area of the surrounding watershed as well, but that doesn't affect the plant size directly, only where they can be built.  And how many Three Gorges can be built?  Over 1 million people have been forced to relocate in order to build Three Gorges and there aren't that many suitable sites for dams or tidal barrages, and their construction devestates the local ecology.  Hydropower is not the solution to our energy needs.  Hydropower is a nice benefit of flood control projects and we would be foolish to not take advantage of it, but it doesn't solve our energy needs and never will.

As for costs, even the cheapest estimate I have seen for the cost of building Three Gorges is well over $1 billion per GW of capacity.  Plus I easily found several reputable sites via Google that show that nuclear power, even considering its waste-management costs, is competive with coal on a cost per KWh produced.  (BTW, the only info I found concering Uranium and CO2 emissions is that we are can't build enough nuclear power plants so as to be able to reduce CO2 emissions by only doing that.  That's because oil not coal is the primary source of CO2 and while nuclear can replace coal-fired electric plants, it can't replace internal combustion engines.  Nuclear has a part to play in lowering CO2 emmiisions, and only anti-nuclear Luddites seem to think that because it can't solve the problem by itself, we should get rid of nuclear entirely.  Remember Chernobyl, they scream.  Chernobyl was an unsafe plant without a proper containment facility that was operated in a reckless manner.  Had Chernobyl had a reinforced containment dome, it would have been only slightly worse than Three Mile Island.  Worse, in the sense that TMI was repairable had it been politicaly possible to do so, while Chernobyl was a total loss as far as the plant itself was concerned.  With proper containment, something that is and should be a requirement for every new nuclear power plant, the number of deaths attributable to Chernobyl would be the same as for TMI, ZERO.

So what have I shown?  Nuclear can be operated for roughly the same cost as coal.  Only excessive and ill-founded fears are keeping nuclear from being used to its full potential.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well, if you believe Pat Robertson, who has said that God wants Bush to win this election, perhaps he's sending all those hurricanes to wash away the Democrats of southern Florida so that Republicans of northern Flordia can elect Bush.  Unfortunately, it looks like he hasn't gotten Bush enough of a margin yet, so it looks like you'll get to enjoy Ivan as well unless he changes course.