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Now that we are witnessing (at least a partial) core meltdowns in Japan, I guess it's fitting to say a few words about the nuclear salvation, that is going to save us from global warming and fossil fuel depletion. Some of the forum members here seem agitated that I have blocked them from sending me the gospel of Nuclear industry. I apologize. But after a while you can only take so much. Even the Jehova's witnesses can take a hint after you slam a door to their face, how ever the same is not true to the acolytes of Nuclear Renaissance. They seem eager to regurgitate the nuclear industry talking points of de jour, even to people who have repeatedly said that they are not really interested.
I personally think that a lot of these people have lost their minds. Someone claimed that fukushima proved that nuclear energy is safe. In that case we should redefine the word "safe". We should also add that getting hit by a meteor is also considered "safe". Another person claimed that I was responsible for the energy policy in the United States. Now that is impressive, since I actually live in a very small country the other side of the ocean. But apparently I have superpowers to influence Barack Obama and the White House. Cool. 8)
I personally don't believe in Techno Triumphlism or in some kind of a Utopian vision, like the one marvelously presented in Fallout game series. I am more interested in practical issues that may come in the way of said nuclear nirvana:
-Net energy: some studies indicate that with nuclear energy the EROEI is actually negative. In any case it is not as good as with fossil fuels. So what is the actual EROEI? We should get as many independent studies on this subject, before we make any kind of long term plans with nuclear energy.
-Nuclear Waste (It has to be stored for longer than any human civilization has existed. Only one government is implementing plans to do so, Finland) Some of the side products of nuclear industry go into weapon manufacturing, such as depleted uranium. It has a half life of over 4 billion years. It has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan widely. It will be there till the end of times, killing people. It is causing serious health issues to civilians in those countries plus soldiers returning home.
-Safety, The industry has been dumping nuclear waste into oceans for decades. They have also given false safety records (like Tepco at Fukushima) Are we to really trust them now?
-Trying to substitute the- "just in time delivery system" addicted to oil, with nuclear energy. Can we maintain this level of socio-economic complexity without fossil fuels? If not, then should we even try? Shouldn't we rather adapt to a future that has a lot less energy instead?
(For reference, read the Hirsch report) Perhaps build local economies and local resilience?
Just a month a go Japan was held as the prime example of hot to do Nuclear and how technologically advanced they are. Today we hear about the fake safety records, the complacency, reliance on decades old technology that was desogened to be used in nuclear subs, not in civillian use.... The point being; Perceptions change. What was considered and take as truth yesterday may be falsified by tomorrow.
-Replacing the current energy infrastructure takes 3 decades. That's an estimate that has been widely accepted in various peak-oil circles and with people who are interested in issues energy depletion.
-World gets about 6,3% of it's energy from nuclear energy. What are the practical implications of ramping up nuclear energy production to make that figure higher? Are the resources there? Labor, capital and fuel? Do we even have enough oil to take on such a massive project? Won't this project just burn up even more fossil fuels and push us over the edge in terms of global warming? Will this not be a self defeating endeavor?
- The Nuclear industry is in it's present form reliant on fossil fuels. Construction, maintenance, uranium mining, decommissioning and dealing with nuclear waste, all presently require fossil fuel inputs. How will the industry survive another oil shock that is surely coming (again refer to the Hirsch report)? How will the future generations be able to maintain, decommission nuclear power and deal with the waste without fossil fuel inputs?
Lastly , If I get nuclear industry propaganda here, I will just delete those post. People who are interested in that stuff can go and visit the industry web sites instead.
I personally think that a lot of these people have lost their minds. Someone claimed that fukushima proved that nuclear energy is safe. In that case we should redefine the word "safe". We should also add that getting hit by a meteor is also considered "safe". Another person claimed that I was responsible for the energy policy in the United States. Now that is impressive, since I actually live in a very small country the other side of the ocean. But apparently I have superpowers to influence Barack Obama and the White House. Cool. 8)
I personally don't believe in Techno Triumphlism or in some kind of a Utopian vision, like the one marvelously presented in Fallout game series. I am more interested in practical issues that may come in the way of said nuclear nirvana:
-Net energy: some studies indicate that with nuclear energy the EROEI is actually negative. In any case it is not as good as with fossil fuels. So what is the actual EROEI? We should get as many independent studies on this subject, before we make any kind of long term plans with nuclear energy.
-Nuclear Waste (It has to be stored for longer than any human civilization has existed. Only one government is implementing plans to do so, Finland) Some of the side products of nuclear industry go into weapon manufacturing, such as depleted uranium. It has a half life of over 4 billion years. It has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan widely. It will be there till the end of times, killing people. It is causing serious health issues to civilians in those countries plus soldiers returning home.
-Safety, The industry has been dumping nuclear waste into oceans for decades. They have also given false safety records (like Tepco at Fukushima) Are we to really trust them now?
-Trying to substitute the- "just in time delivery system" addicted to oil, with nuclear energy. Can we maintain this level of socio-economic complexity without fossil fuels? If not, then should we even try? Shouldn't we rather adapt to a future that has a lot less energy instead?
(For reference, read the Hirsch report) Perhaps build local economies and local resilience?
Just a month a go Japan was held as the prime example of hot to do Nuclear and how technologically advanced they are. Today we hear about the fake safety records, the complacency, reliance on decades old technology that was desogened to be used in nuclear subs, not in civillian use.... The point being; Perceptions change. What was considered and take as truth yesterday may be falsified by tomorrow.
-Replacing the current energy infrastructure takes 3 decades. That's an estimate that has been widely accepted in various peak-oil circles and with people who are interested in issues energy depletion.
-World gets about 6,3% of it's energy from nuclear energy. What are the practical implications of ramping up nuclear energy production to make that figure higher? Are the resources there? Labor, capital and fuel? Do we even have enough oil to take on such a massive project? Won't this project just burn up even more fossil fuels and push us over the edge in terms of global warming? Will this not be a self defeating endeavor?
- The Nuclear industry is in it's present form reliant on fossil fuels. Construction, maintenance, uranium mining, decommissioning and dealing with nuclear waste, all presently require fossil fuel inputs. How will the industry survive another oil shock that is surely coming (again refer to the Hirsch report)? How will the future generations be able to maintain, decommission nuclear power and deal with the waste without fossil fuel inputs?
Lastly , If I get nuclear industry propaganda here, I will just delete those post. People who are interested in that stuff can go and visit the industry web sites instead.
....
Unless you haven't realized it yet,I won't be adding any new "art" here, so don't bother adding me to your watch list, since there will be nothing new here to watch.
I will only visit this place every 6 months or so to delete all the messages, so don't send me any messages either.
Deleting my gallery.
A couple of weeks a go I said I was going to close this account, and I have pretty much have done so.
The only thing left to do, is to delete all my pictures here. So in a few days time I am going to delete all the pictures here as well and close this account for good. If , for some motherfucking retarded reason you like my really lame pictures, then you better download them now, because I am deleting them soon enough.
Killing this account.
Well... I've said it before.. I am the boy who cried wolf for umpteenth times and more. Except no one really gave a shit. As it should be. But for the 2 persons watching me, I feel like I need to make a half assed explanation; This is not me and In don't want to keep on doing this, or making pictures of super-heroines that 12 people want to look at. (my god, how fucking lame is that?). I don't like dev art, the damn forums and the people there, the complacent middle class people here, the need to comment-whore to get any attention... I don't like the idea of seeking attention. Yeah all of my work sucks. Glad to find it out the hard way. I d
The Unbareable Heat.
What a crazy summer it has been. Heat records have been broken time and time again. We had many days during last month of what counts as record braking temperatures. Temperatures have risen above 30 degrees Celsius on several days during the past month. (Thats over 86 Fahrenheit).
Today it was yet another crazy day. Temperatures reached over 34 Celsius. Considering that I live in Finland, a country very far to the north, all of this is unprecedented. I can't remember ever experiencing this kind of weather in my life time. If you don't know where Finland is located, then take a look in the map (don't feel bad if you don't know where Finland i
© 2011 - 2024 Tachikoma-X
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Let me start my comment by disclosing that much of my immediate family's wealth comes from oil production (tho much of my extended family are still of the country mouse variety). Let me also state that my background gives me a _very_ broad perspective on energy and I am deeply aware how the equation PV=nRT effects every aspect of every life on this planet. I also come from that part of the world that sucks back 25% of the worlds energy resources for 5% of the population.
Oil is a precious, precious resource and I fear the day I tell my great grand children how we squandered it. It is also a resource that as Tachikoma-X noted through his peak oil reference is one half consumed. It is getting harder and harder to find and what we _are_ finding, is heavy oil that is hard to pump out of the ground, transport to market; refines down to less of the nice gasoline and diesel we all want and more of the asphalt, tar and nasty sulfurs we don't.
Consider for a moment that one of the largest importers of U.S. oil is Venezuela. How could that be you ask? They are an oil exporter in OPEC! Well, the oil they produce is so heavy, they need lighter West Texas Intermediate to blend up with so their oil doesn't freeze inside the oil tankers on the cold oceans. As much as I may respect oil, we will be scraping the very bottom of the barrel in a couple hundred years. We need alternatives, we need _every_ form of energy we can get our hands on.
Nuclear _will_ be a major part of that and I'm sorry to inform you Tachikoma-X that your "feelings" are not relevant to these cold hard facts. It simply doesn't matter if nuclear is safe or not, all of us will have to accept any and all of the risks that nuclear energy brings with it if we are to continue to enjoy the artwork that you produce with your energy hungry computer. That is the cost of the lifestyle we have created. A life style that everyone reading this comment enjoys to a greater or lesser extent. I have recently lived on a "reduced energy diet" while sailing across the very ocean you mentioned. I am aware of the equation PV=nRT like few others.
Other forms of energy come with costs as well. I live in a part of the world that has had wind farms for many decades. They kill thousands of birds. You talk about waste. I know how microchips are made, what toxic chemicals that go into their production and photo voltaic cells are really just specialized microchips. When George Bush passed a law requiring ethanol use, tortilla prices in Mexico tripled as we turned food in to fuel. Food we burned diesel to make so my whole family, country and city mouse alike, made money on that disgrace. Can you imagine living in the filth that was London when everyone burned coal to heat their house? Now consider it has grown four times the size and is still dwarfed by cities like Tokyo. Maybe we could go back to whale oil, but at 80 _million_ barrels a day every whale on the planet wouldn't last us to lunch time.
No, it simply doesn't matter the costs or the risks. We must pursue all of these possibilities to a greater or lesser degree because we can't live the way we want without energy and there are five billion other people who want to live like we do, you and I. I'm sure many of them would enjoy your art as much as I do if they had the energy to run a computer.
Oil is a precious, precious resource and I fear the day I tell my great grand children how we squandered it. It is also a resource that as Tachikoma-X noted through his peak oil reference is one half consumed. It is getting harder and harder to find and what we _are_ finding, is heavy oil that is hard to pump out of the ground, transport to market; refines down to less of the nice gasoline and diesel we all want and more of the asphalt, tar and nasty sulfurs we don't.
Consider for a moment that one of the largest importers of U.S. oil is Venezuela. How could that be you ask? They are an oil exporter in OPEC! Well, the oil they produce is so heavy, they need lighter West Texas Intermediate to blend up with so their oil doesn't freeze inside the oil tankers on the cold oceans. As much as I may respect oil, we will be scraping the very bottom of the barrel in a couple hundred years. We need alternatives, we need _every_ form of energy we can get our hands on.
Nuclear _will_ be a major part of that and I'm sorry to inform you Tachikoma-X that your "feelings" are not relevant to these cold hard facts. It simply doesn't matter if nuclear is safe or not, all of us will have to accept any and all of the risks that nuclear energy brings with it if we are to continue to enjoy the artwork that you produce with your energy hungry computer. That is the cost of the lifestyle we have created. A life style that everyone reading this comment enjoys to a greater or lesser extent. I have recently lived on a "reduced energy diet" while sailing across the very ocean you mentioned. I am aware of the equation PV=nRT like few others.
Other forms of energy come with costs as well. I live in a part of the world that has had wind farms for many decades. They kill thousands of birds. You talk about waste. I know how microchips are made, what toxic chemicals that go into their production and photo voltaic cells are really just specialized microchips. When George Bush passed a law requiring ethanol use, tortilla prices in Mexico tripled as we turned food in to fuel. Food we burned diesel to make so my whole family, country and city mouse alike, made money on that disgrace. Can you imagine living in the filth that was London when everyone burned coal to heat their house? Now consider it has grown four times the size and is still dwarfed by cities like Tokyo. Maybe we could go back to whale oil, but at 80 _million_ barrels a day every whale on the planet wouldn't last us to lunch time.
No, it simply doesn't matter the costs or the risks. We must pursue all of these possibilities to a greater or lesser degree because we can't live the way we want without energy and there are five billion other people who want to live like we do, you and I. I'm sure many of them would enjoy your art as much as I do if they had the energy to run a computer.