Scientists link harsh winter to dramatic decline in Arctic Sea Ice
- Thread starter Cobalt_Kid
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Like a lot of "Greenies" you don't debate....you preach!
This is why we call "Global Warming" or whatever name they have morphed into......"The New Religion"
Here's a CBC piece on Thorium.
CBC News In Depth: Science
The reactors this story talks about are still PWRs I think which are much less capable than MSRs.
We have enough thorium in reserve in Canada to provide energy for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years if utilized properly.
CBC News In Depth: Science
The reactors this story talks about are still PWRs I think which are much less capable than MSRs.
We have enough thorium in reserve in Canada to provide energy for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years if utilized properly.
I'm not much interested in debating GW or AGW.
As far as thorim is concerned, a little (non-selective) reading shows that thorium reactors don't present no problems, they present different problems. The development of thorium reactors has a long way to go before we can say with certainty that they are the way of the future.
As far as thorim is concerned, a little (non-selective) reading shows that thorium reactors don't present no problems, they present different problems. The development of thorium reactors has a long way to go before we can say with certainty that they are the way of the future.
No, but there should be in a few years, in China the son of a former premier is heading their thorium MSR program and has about $350 million in funding. It should be the first one up and running for experimental purposes. After that it will probably be another five years before a full-up production reactor is ready.
Every form of energy production has it's drawbacks.
Thorium presents an energy source that is several millions times more dense than coal and oil, meaning you have to mine a lot less of it to produce the same amount of electricity.
Thorium used in MSRs removes a lot of the most serious drawbacks of current PWRs. For one thing a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor isn't pressurized meaning there no need for a very heavy primary reactor vessel. Also it doesn't use water as a separate coolant or control rods to allow the safe functioning of the reactor. It has passive safety measures built right into it with a negative thermal coefficient of reactivity, meaning as the molten salt heats up as the fission rate increases the fluid expands and drives part of it out of the core removing fissile material from there slowing the reaction. If for some reason the reactor overheats, there's a frozen salt plug in the bottom of the reactor that will drain the molten salt fuel mixture into safe containment under the reactor. It's also how the fluid is removed to do maintenance in the core, as was done at ORNL with the MSRE.
So there's no highly pressurized coolant in the core to create an explosive release of radioactive material, there's no water to be disassociated into oxygen and hydrogen to create an explosive environment and the fissile material can't melt through the bottom of containment as with a PWR.
You also end up with a lot less radioactive waste and most of that is not long lived, being inert within about ten years. Less than 20% of the waste is still dangerous after that period, whereas current PWRs produce large amounts of radioactive waste that will still be hazardous thousands of years from now.
LFTR vs Nuclear Waste - Plutonium, americium, curium (transuranics) can be fissioned / disposed - YouTube
Every LFTR would also be a medical isotope producer, some of the other byproducts also include noble metals like gold.
Who will make the most money from REEs (thorium extraction) IF a method of mass electrical generation is achieved?
What is the environmental impact of REE extraction and processing?
Is it okay to level hundreds of sq kms of forest to extract the REEs? Is it justifiable in the end?
When the first war for control of REEs happens, how will you react? Oh, wait, we've already have/had wars for control of REEs. How did you feel about them?
What is the environmental impact of REE extraction and processing?
Is it okay to level hundreds of sq kms of forest to extract the REEs? Is it justifiable in the end?
When the first war for control of REEs happens, how will you react? Oh, wait, we've already have/had wars for control of REEs. How did you feel about them?
So you're saying that the past temperature record of the Earth is unknowable then?
If that's the case your position on global warming should be, "I don't know since we cannot know the past." And yet, your position, based on your previous comments on this site, seems to be "Global warming is a pile of crap"
Illogical, as Spock would say. :lol:
I try to debate. However, I've noted that most so-called skeptcis don't have a very firm grasp of the science and as soon as I start mentioning climate sensitivity or the Stefan-Boltzman Law they start changing thier position rapidly, or launching into irrational diatribes, or linking to silly scientific papers that do things like try to prove that the Laws of Thermodynamics are all wrong.
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There are environmental concerns with rare earth mining as there is with all forms of the industry. It wouldn't involve the removal of hundreds of sq. miles of forest or the removal of entire mountain tops as is done with oil sands mining and coal mining respectively.
Millions of tons of material must be removed to acquire the necessary material to meet demands every day with both coal and oil sands, being so much more energy dense, the amount of material needed to replace that with thorium would be several tons.
I'm not sure what you're talking about with wars over control of REEs, most of the mining has shifted to China which is already putting North America at a strategic disadvantage as many high tech components require REEs to manufacture.
effects of past climates can still be tested using current technologies even if we can't send thermometers and whatnot back in the past. The info that say icecores, for instance, provide are quite accurate these days when cross checked with other methods of investigation. Otherwise you anti-whatever-you-are people wouldn't be able to say Earth has climate cycles or what effects the sun has had on our climates. Chemistry and other sciences can do wonders in investigations.
And if the temperature dropped to about 4 deg above absolute zero every night, you'd have a point worth debating. :lol:
What makes you think that? There is a massive REE deposit that sits next to the oil sands and under the oil sands, how would it be extracted without hacking down forests and raising toxic dust? Mine the oil first then go after the REEs?
You've heard of the mesosphere haven't you?
The mesosphere (/ˈmɛsoʊsfɪər/; from Greek mesos "middle" and sphaira "ball") is the layer of the Earth's atmosphere that is directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere temperature decreases with increasing height. The upper boundary of the mesosphere is the mesopause, which can be the coldest naturally occurring place on Earth with temperatures below 130 K (−226 °F; −143 °C). The exact upper and lower boundaries of the mesosphere vary with latitude and with season, but the lower boundary of the mesosphere is usually located at heights of about 50 kilometres (164,040 ft; 31 mi) above the Earth's surface and the mesopause is usually at heights near 100 kilometres (62 mi), except at middle and high latitudes in summer where it descends to heights of about 85 kilometres (53 mi).
Petros is a master at turning the discussion of complex scientific issues into surreal examinations of completely unrelated topics.
My recent favorite was his trying to turn a discussion of climate change into one about Disney character tits.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/climate-change/115354-james-hansen-climate-change-2.html
The coldest part of the mesosphere is at the highest altitude on that region and it only gets down to around -100 C. 4 degrees above 0 K is -169 C
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/mesosphere_temperature.html
Fighting fiction with fiction since 1968
Who are these women?
Who has the nicest tits of the bunch? Snow White? Cinderella or the third broad in the back?
Who are these women?
Do you know the answer? Do you want to hear the answer?
There are degrees of relevance, that's the whole point of the peer review system and scientific method.
We've come a long way in the last 50 years and still have a long way to go to fuller understanding, that doesn't mean that we don't have powerful methods for understanding complex concepts like climate change.
It takes a certain amount of conviction to remain ignorant of the most consistent facts, something that gets communicated here quite well at times.
opps -269. wifey's rubbed off all the letters and numbers on this board. but whatever. if the mesosphere only gets down to about -100 then it sure as hell (
) isn't anywhere near 4 K.