We won!
 

I just got the news today that the Coal Power Plant in Glades County has been denied! We're still working on stopping the natural gas plant next to the Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge, but it looks like we're making alot of great progress on it and Governor Crist will probably deny it (according to one of his cabinet members). It feels good to win one for a change. The FPSC rejected it for the wrong reasons, but as long as it's stopped, I'm happy.

Palm Beach Post

No Compromise, Earth First!

Nice job...have you heard about this new liquified coal crap?

Yeah. It's still crap. Also, thanks to free trade agreements, much of the coal would have come from Colombia where it is not only an environmental issue, but a humanitarian one due to lack of safety regulations and the AUC. Coal may burn cleaner than before, but it's still dirtier than the competition. Also, they no longer mine the way they used to. Now they literally remove entire mountaintops which destroys rare high altitude watersheds. Magnum Coal was touting their ability to return these mountains to nature. One of their magnificent projects became an exclusive golf course. These corporate *******s are complete scum.

As much as I dislike the guy though, Charlie Crist is one hell of alot better than Jeb Bush, and is legitimately trying to help the environment. He isn't doing enough, but he's definitely doing more than any previous administration has and is doing much more than I could have hoped for when watching the debates. Now if he would start regulating Big Sugar's rape of the Everglades, that would be great, but they fund every government official in Florida except for Cara Jennings in Lake Worth.

repete86 -

Congratulations! Thank you for fighting the good fight.

CarloSW2

niiiiiice i hate coal

Quick question, what are they building instead? Nukes?

lets hope noting. if only everone used a little less it we could slow the need for more plants

Yep. They can just bump up the price until consumption is reduced enough to avoid the need for new plants.

Actually, the state is trying to make FPL start building more wind, solar, and biomass plants. They're currently planning a massive solar plant in St. Lucie County, and a wind farm near Cape Canaveral.

I think more renewable energy plants, and nuclear plants, are definitely the way to go to avoid total meltdown.

I read that if the antarctic ice shelf collapses, sea levels would rise 61m from that alone - what that does to the UK 'coastline' is shocking:

https://www.geomantics.com/sealevel.htm

Scotland does pretty, but most of England goes underwater!

And all it would take is a sudden collapse (slide) of the shelf, into the sea, even if it didn't melt, to cause this.

P.S. I'm sorry if I am a bit mischievous putting 'nuclear' into the list above - but if we had had nukes from the start, then we would have a fair amount of waste to deal with now, but this could be stored safely enough (I also hate the idea of leaving it for future generations), but it is better than flooding most of our land with sea level rises and turning most of the world into desert (even making the air temperature go to 70 degrees C if the methane hydrates all get released at once)...

What storage method is garaunteed safe for the next 100,000 years or so? Everything we've buried in the ground has come back to bite us. Landfills leak, buried gas tanks leak, oil lines leak... Maybe it'll mix with some of the worlds oil supplies and we'll have nuked oil. Imagine the awesome FE gains that would make!

The US (and China, Russia) will REFUSE to lower emissions!
Europe will lower them a little bit.

If we stopped putting out CO2 now, it may already be too late.

Nuclear just buys us time until we can get the renewable energy online (which will take some time - although global warming will no doubt help with solar panels and wind turbines)

If the government needs to replace a power station, or build a new one, I support nuclear all the way (while also gradually building up a renewable infrastructure). Note that renewable energy takes ages - e.g. wind turbines always take years due to local protesters at the damage to the skyline.

Myself, I will continue to reduce my CO2 footprint, both in my car, and by reducing my energy usage at home.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ar...cross_demo.jpg

I watched this - it was one half of Britain's Plutonium production plants.

Although this one power station did supply power to South West Scotland, and a lot of the North of england, in its time.

Being Scottish, do you really mind all that much?

What would the world do without sexy british accents?

bbgobie -

Nothing like radioactive water tables to ruin your DNA.

CarloSW2

Speaking of which, the DOD claims that depleted uranium is so safe, that you can eat it for breakfast and feel fine. If the Department of Defense says that radioactivity is good for you, it must be, right?

repete86 -

Especially when they skip those pesky (required by law) blood tests before sending GIs on tours of duty (no baseline to compare to when they come back home).

https://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stat...2/series1.html
Attachment 562

Hrrrmmm, I wonder. Maybe it's a trick statement. A solid DU object that "passes through" your body may well be "safe" in the sense that the exposure is temporary. It's the DU dust particles (from explosive impacts) that get lodged in your lungs that cause a lifetime of grief.

CarloSW2

Radioactivity being SOO damn dangerous has been pounded in our head over the years... good greif...

Wind power? Last time i saw a wind farm, over half the turbines were down for maintence. The unit of power vs. $$ to keep it running just doesnt make sence!

Global Warming? LOL! Sorry.... hehehhe **rolls eyes**

Nuclear is the ONLY way to go.

However, Can someone educate me about Fussion? I thought fusion was nearly impossible to create on Earth. Then a few days ago I watched a show on the Discovery channel where they actually created a fusion reaction... Why did i watch this on the Discovery channel and not Fox News or CNN?!?! Shouldnt this be a major thing? Im confused....

When fusion reactions become sustainable and usable, we'll hear about it...Unfortunately there's a lot of money between now and then, :p

yeah they said 50 years before it will be a real thing that we can use. i was watching that same show.

Find me some sources other than the Pentagon about exposure to radioactivity such as DU being safe if you're so certain that nukes are great.

Also, find me credible and conclusive evidence against climate change (ie, not an ExxonMobil funded special interest group) if you feel the need to scoff at it.

Also, the cost of wind power in the short and long term and long term is more financially feasible than coal will be in a few years, nuclear is, and natural gas will ever be, and last time I checked has not been responsible for deaths, nuclear meltdowns, and mountaintop removal.

they will come around. my dad used to laugh at me when i would talk about global warming but now he finnaly gets it thank god!!

btw nice #'s they just keep getting better!!

Thanks. The last tank was just great because it was so hot out and I got really lucky and got to draft a truck at about 55 for almost my entire return trip. I don't think that my next tank it going to be very good. I spent alot of time last night driving around in an industrial park because my friend gave me really terrible instructions to a storage unit where a bunch of people were jamming. Hopefully I can bring the numbers back up in the next week. I'm going to be doing alot of driving because I have a few jobs coming up.

Wind, Solar, and the like are all a big waste of money. They're not efficient enough and you're paying up the *** for something that doesn't yield results.

Luckily I live in the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) district and all of our power comes from hydroelectric dams. They're great electricity, but unfortunately only certain areas can use hydro.

Nuclear is a great option. America will have to get over that stigma, because nuclear is the most feasible option for all parties.

I don't consider cost to be an issue when discussing the fate of the world. You use hydro in your area. The use of dams has directly led to the extinction of many species of animals, destroys river systems, displaces indigenous people, and alters the natural cycle of flooding that replenishes the topsoil in the surrounding ecosystems. Conservation is easier than ever. It doesn't even cost any more to conserve, and instead only takes a quick look at what you're buying and smart use of electricity. MY electricity bill is extremely low and I am definitely not living like Ted Kaczynski. If we put the rock that keeps us alive ahead of our own gluttony, maybe we'll get somewhere. At that point, it will be very easy to run off of solar and wind. There are alot of roofs in Amerikkka, and if there's a large enough market, the price of solar panels will drop substantially. We can very easily live off of solar and wind. If as a civilization, we collectively put just a little effort into it, I think that we can be running entirely on renewable resources within a few years. Instead people ***** about how they don't have enough power while watching TV for 6 hours per day in a massive air conditioned house with all of their lights on.

Then just face it, Nuclear is the only way to go. Stop being so damn picky :p




I don't get into the Global Warming debate on the internet anymore. I learned long ago the only thing is does is piss people off. And in the end we wont change our minds on what we believe, will we? Of course not

Bubba Bob -

I know it won't change your mind, but here's the Rocky Mountain Institute position on Nuclear energy :

https://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid185.php
I'll say it once and I'll say it 1000 times. Solve the waste problem and I think Nuclear is workable. However, there is also the national security argument. A nuclear power plant is a great big fat target for terrorists, foreign or domestic. Your best way to solve that problem is to have a decentralized power grid. Solar power, aka solar roofs, are perfect for decentralized power generation. The "bad guys" would have to take out every roof of every house in a city in order to accomplish the same goal as taking out one (nuclear or non-nuclear) power plant.

CarloSW2

Nuclear plants tend to be very, very hard targets due to the measures put in place to minimize the damage from a meltdown. For instance, I doubt they could've successfully plowed an airliner into a plant because of the sheer magnitude of concrete on the outside. I've read some speculation about being about to destroy the plant's cooling capacity while simultaneously taking out the operations center/s so they couldn't avoid a meltdown, but that would require a very large level or coordination and infiltration.

No disrepsect to you or the Rocky Mountian Institute, but that link completly goes against the World Nuclear Association, and, well, virtually everything else Ive ever read. Ill give it the benefit of the doubt though, and do some research on it.

[QUOTE=repete86;58269]I don't consider cost to be an issue when discussing the fate of the world.

hes gota point there

omgwtfbyobbq -

Yeah, but I have read the exact opposite. It has already been published that the security at the plants is terrible and easy to break into.

Nation?s Nuke Plants Still Not Secure, New Gov?t Report Finds
April 7, 2005
https://www.hstoday.us/Kimery_Report/...port_Finds.cfm

GAO Finds Nuclear Power Plants' Accounting of Spent Nuclear Fuel Deficient, Poorly Regulated
April 12, 2005
https://www.hstoday.us/Kimery_Report/..._Regulated.cfm

Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant network
Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 2003-08-19
https://www.securityfocus.com/news/6767

Chernobyl on the Hudson?: The Health and Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack at the Indian Point Nuclear Plant
Edwin S. Lyman, PhD, Union of Concerned Scientists, September 2004
https://www.ucsusa.org/global_securit...wer-plant.html

Here is one that presents your argument :

(Nuclear Power Plant) SECURITY
https://www.nmcco.com/education/facts...y/security.htm

CarloSW2

Bubba Bob -

No problem. Beyond the issue at hand, people tend to listen to and read the stuff that reinforces their argument and world view. It's natural to do so. I read my stuff and you read yours. Our ideas are ultimately valid if they can withstand the light of day.

The Rocky Mountain Institute sees the solution to our problems through technology, but favors some over others. For instance, RMI wants to have a hydrogen/fuel cell future. Some would say that's bonkers, but they have a "game plan" that is pretty interesting to read.

You may notice that I cite RMI alot because they try to marry pro-environment and pro-economic interests. They are looking for win-win solutions.

CarloSW2

I appreciate you concern for the environment, but in all honesty, you're dramatizing something that isn't there. In case you were unaware, one of the primary objectives of the Tennessee Valley Authority was to prevent flooding which had previously been a huge problem. Alongside that, it provided needed jobs and helped to power a section of the country which was in the dark for the many years before its existence. It comes at a cost, as all things do, but the cost is minimal.

Solar and wind power are highly unfesible. Have you even taken geographics into account? How many places actually receive sufficient sunlight or wind to actually sustain a power grid? Not many. The fields required for such a power plant would be massive. Now certainly it has its promise, but it is simply promise. It is not a logical solution at the present time.

It's all well and great that you're taking the initiative to cut your power bill. I would prefer not to suffer from heat stroke, so I intend to run the central air at a comfortable 73 degrees. People can chage their consumption habits, but why would they want to? We have been given so many things by technology and science that have made our lives easier. It would be foolish to ignore all of those advances and essentially "go back in time" so that we can conserve. Science has to account for its advances by also improving upon power and its collection. Until a better method of power distribution is found, it would be foolish to expect people to give up the modern comforts which have we have been afforded.

The point isn't to want to. I would certainly love to have the AC running full blast year round, take long hot showers, and do all sorts of other wasteful things, but I choose not to. You talked about technology making thigs easier. The technology is also there to make things more efficient. What we are doing on a national and global level is not sustainable by any means. Not too far into the future, it will be difficult to live (not live comfortably, but live) because of a mass apathy and utter disregard for their actions that provide a petty comfort.


Bubba Bob-

The World Nuclear Association is a lobbying group representing the nuclear industry. Don't you think that it would be in their favor to hand pick or distort results in the same way King Coal and Big Oil do?

And exactly whom would you rather me look at? Greenpeace?



Actually, I guess you would...

I don't think anyone was saying do without. The object is to consever, you don't have to use less energy then repete86 ,you just need to use less then you did last year. We get carried away here sometimes it's not an all or nothing deal. You think you could be comfortable at 74 or 75 degrees? Unless you don't think we need to consever then thats another thread.

No, I hate Greenpeace. They have changed from being a direct action group in the 70's to a money-making operation doing only enough to cover the feel-good environmentalists who don't do much other than talk about the issues. I prefer independent studies.

For the "why change" argument, here's how I think about it:

It's like a credit card. You can use it well as long as you don't overspend and pay it back in time. But, if you start overspending and can't pay it back, you end up paying interest and becoming mired in debt. At this point you can't get anything new until you pay back your inflated debt and you end up worse off than if you just spent moderately and didn't get into debt at all. In a worse case scenario you don't pay it back at all and the repo person comes and takes all your stuff.

Now, you say I don't want to change, but I think it's obvious at this point we're overspending our environmental capital and pretty soon we're going to end up putting all our effort into paying it back. Don't be so damn lazy and just let it happen.

Great analogy.