Why are we still using the conventional reactors around the world instead of another application?

ANSWER: Military Industrial Complex can't stockpile weapon-grade plutonium using saner means like saaaay, thorium.Thorium-based nuclear power reactors are not in use because they don't serve the purpose of the planet-destroyers.

The current lame duck president and most-likely the next will back construction of more shit plants, as well as tout these conventional types of reactors for the use in "greening" up the planet.

People need to educate themselves perhaps, then demand that the cunts of the world move somewhere off-planet within the next ten years.

Solution? A few suggestions:

Space Catapult
Eradicate the power-hungry and their bloodlines
Legalize Homicide of Politicians/Mafiosi/Organized crime of any kind

No more blue-fin tuna for me...

Are you fucking serious right now? We destroyed their country with nuclear bombs, make their government and basically force nuclear power onto them, but it's their fault? Bullshit.

The December update highlighted an issue that has been driving me insane for years now, an issue that makes me want to punch my fellow citizens right in the kisser for not looking beyond the facade.

His illustration of the price you pay for a t-shirt can be applied, without alteration, to our energy sector in Germany. The old, centralised infrastructure, primarily coal/gas/nuclear power plants, were subsidized heavily over the years, both directly through interest-free public loans and the privatisation of the energy grid as well as through indirect means, such as tax/insurance exemptions, R&D financing. Hell, the clean-up at Sellafield in the UK alone is expected to cost just shy of £100B. All this outsourcing of costs made it possible to keep the price of energy comparably cheap.

Meanwhile, all the subsidies for renewable energy are added on top of the energy price for consumers. No smoke screens, no outsourcing, no legacy costs. You get the price tag on your energy bill. A decent level of transparency, at last. But now people get pissed at the high prices of energy and demand a stop to the renewable energy program, which ironically pushed prices to a record low on the energy exchange. On-shore wind and solar are now cheaper than heavily subsidized coal and gas. My home town in the middle of nowhere generates wind power at 0.08€ per kwh, all year long, with minimal operating costs. Even solar works splendidly, despite the abysmal central European weather.

I think I might just try his Walmart explanation on some people, it's much easier to understand.

So cheers again for pointing out this wonderful series of lectures.

This can't be understated. If we could see the same anti-science lash back for the anti-nuclear and anti-GMO crowds that'd be great. Too bad a lot of the most vehement and vocal climate change warnings come from folks also trying to 'educate' everyone about how terrible nuclear power and GMO crops are. After all the last thing we need are energy sources and seeds that radically reduce the amount of fossil fuels we burn each year.....

Other interesting anti-science partisan issues are GMO/biotech, nuclear power, evolution, big bang, vaccines, AIDS, fracking, organic foods, vitamin supplements, and a host of others. Note that many of those are pegged in liberal circles as well, anti-science is a bipartisan issue, just depends on the issue.

8:53 seconds, he gives credence to the idea that there is some conspiracy to suppress studies that there is a link with autism and vaccines. He makes a separate point about trials and courts from that directly after, but lots of technical high risk industries have protections like this. Nuclear power does, aircraft manufactures do as well, hell, corporations and other constructs are created to limit liability as well...this is nothing new really. I know I am glad that working a company doesn't make me liable for damages filed against that company, the same for a doctor that gives a vaccine. The entire tone of the video is just too conspiratorial for me to appreciate, perhaps that is just a taste thing, though.

And here's more info on him. It sounds like he's a really bright individual who society completely failed to position for success.

After dropping out of community college, Hahn joined the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an undesignated seaman.

Hahn had hoped to pursue a nuclear specialist career. EPA scientists believe that Hahn may have exceeded the lifetime dosage for thorium exposure, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.

And then a sad bit:
On August 1, 2007, Hahn was arrested in Clinton Township, Michigan for larceny, in relation to a matter involving several smoke detectors, allegedly removed from the halls of his apartment building. His intention was to obtain americium, a radioactive substance, from the detectors. In his mug shot, his face is covered with sores which investigators claim are possibly from exposure to radioactive materials

Finally: fer christ's sake, son! what the hell happened to you!
http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/03/boyscout.jpg

I think that you will find enriched uranium is not plutonium. Also, depleted uranium can't be used to make nuclear weapons explode, so I don't know exactly why you bring it up. To be clear, all nuclear nations main weapons plutonium has been made in a very specific way, a way that is inconstant with power generation. It is exactly because power generation reactor are so costly that they are relatively poor weapons materials creators, the method in which uranium needs to be removed from the neutron flux requires you to shut it down often. It is better to get a small, non-power generation reactor and crank out the plutonium. This is what India did with a small test heavy water reactor (CIRUS reactor). You need a reactor you can quickly turn on and off (and uranium extracted), then chemically reprocess the uranium, let it cool down, then put it back into the reactor. This laborious method is why power generation reactors are poor candidates for weapons material generation and why the current generation of weapons have not been made this way.

IAEA safeguards are important to make sure enrichment centers aren't diverting enriched uranium, sure. Plutonium should also have some safeguards as well, so don't take my words for a lack of concern or action on a world stage, I just believe for most, their concerns are blown way out of proportion to the actual risk.

But to reiterate, the relatively complex process to make weapons ready plutonium is why powered reactors aren't used in for weapons material for any of the worlds nuclear weapons nations, nor have any of the non-nuclear nations which have nuclear power and participate in NPT and IAEA systems been implicated in such actions. If Amory Lovins is the one forming your opinion on this, I would suggest a different source. It is like asking the CATO institute their opinion on climate change. I would consult the IAEA or some respectable international organization known for objective science rather than an anti-nuclear advocate. I, actually, fell for the same supposed expert (Amory Lovins) and was fairly anti-nuclear myself as a result. While there surely is some overlap between weapons technology and reactors, they are separate enough that safeguards can be highly effective. The existence of many nuclear powered states without nuclear weapons gives credence to their abilities. Only those countries who decide not to participate in NPT and IAEA systems have been the players known to developing weapons, most notably North Korea.

IAEA Safeguards: Stemming the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/S1_Safeguards.pdf

I think he is pessimistic is because energy use is also in growth, usually from coal. When you similarly look at CO2 emissions over the past decade, they aren't going down...every year is a new record. Even in IEA's 450 Scenario, "oil, coal and natural gas — remain the dominant energy sources in 2035"...this is a problem.

I can't find a notable environmental group that endorsees nuclear at all. Like the public, most environmental NGOs don't really make a distinction in reactor types. Nuclear is nuclear is nuclear. From friends of the earth to greenpeace, they are all pretty proudly anti-nuclear, with only local chapters of FoE even remotely interested in revisiting their views.

At any rate, I hope you aren't finding me to be combative or argumentative, I am not the best communicator of controversial issues. But I think climate issues are forcing us into a pretty thick walled box which will be hard to breakout of even in the most optimistic technological factors, which is why even if every single concern people have about nuclear is completely justified, waste, weapons, ect, we would most likely still need to build lots and lots of nuclear to even hope to address climate issues...they are that challenging.

Reactors don't produce weapons grade plutonium? Then where is weapons grade plutonium made? I think you'll find that it's made in exactly the same reactors as there is no real distinction between a reactor used for power generation and weapons generation other than in name.

"Uranium ore contains only about 0.7% of the fissile isotope U235. In order to be suitable for use as a nuclear fuel for generating electricity it must be processed (by separation) to contain about 3% of U235 (this form is called Low Enriched Uranium - LEU). Weapons grade uranium has to be enriched to 90% of U235 (Highly Enriched Uranium or HEU), which can be done using the same enrichment equipment. There are about 38 working enrichment facilities in 16 countries"
http://www.cnduk.org/get-involved/parliamentary/item/579-the-links-between-nuclear-power-and-nuclear-weapons

The point is that continuation of current tech makes it a lot more economical to produce weapons tech, whether that be weapons grade plutonium or depleted uranium (DU). Reactors can cost upwards of ten billion dollars to build, why would a weapons manufacturer want to pay for one of those out of their own pocket when they can have the taxpayer's pay for nuclear power plants that can produce what they need?

"Every known route to bombs involves either nuclear power or materials and technology which are available, which exist in commerce, as a direct and essential consequence of nuclear power"
- Dr. Amory Lovins (from NEIS)

In terms of renewables:, the 'new' renewables only account for about 3% of total energy use, so if that's what he meant then he's not far off. Stats from IEA, however, state that wind has had an average growth rate of 25% over the past five years, while solar has averaged an annual growth rate of over 50% in the same period. So their impact is increasing fairly rapidly. So I'm not sure why he's so pessimistic about them when the IEA is not.

Have environmental groups specifically spoken out against the type of nuclear reactors he is talking about? Which ones?

I think that you will find reactors don't produce weapons grade plutonium, rather, they produce a grade of plutonium known as reactor grade. Weapons grade plutonium is upwards of 95% Pu239. Reactor grade plutonium is what is known as weapons usable, not weapons ready. This is because of the high contamination factor of Pu240, Pu241, and Pu242. These heavier breads of Pu have both high spontaneous fission rates (bad for your fission weapon), and considerable heat, enough so to make weapons fabrication a problem (is it bad when your closed weapons device needs ventilation to not melt itself). While these problems are addressable in advanced weapons platforms, outside of well established nuclear weapons programs, making weapons from them is very challenging.

The main trouble, however, I think is economics, and nuclear is forced to internalize many of their impacts where as other solutions, mainly fossil fuels, do not. That is a pretty key competitive disadvantage.

Also note that electricity is only a fraction of total power, total power includes many non-electrical uses, most notably motor vehicles via liquid fuels. When you look at solar in this light, it represents a sub-fraction of a percent. So 5% of annual solar electrical generation is only a small part of a larger energy picture, and picture which also needs to be weighted against the rest of the world for which solar provides very little power. This isn't an attack on solar, it is a bringing to light of how vast the gulf is to address climate issues with any one technology.

So I think you will find that he isn't off by orders of magnitude, rather, he was being pretty generous to the total amount of energy produced by solar and wind world wide, and climate issues and emissions are world issues.

Key World Energy STATISTICS IEA:

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/kwes.pdf

(I trust the IEA's numbers)

But I share the sentiment that we need to reduce coal and gas to address climate concerns. The fact that German emissions have risen for 2 years in a row is troubling to say the least. I consider France and Sweden to be better models, lower CO2 per capita and electrical prices in both cases compared to Germany, and both heavy nuclear users...with Sweden using a fair deal more hydro power than France. Nuclear and hydro are the proven heavy lifters in the area of CO2 reductions, which is why I think his criticism of environmental groups in addressing climate issues is justified as they generally oppose both.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND NUCLEAR POWER 2012 IAEA:

http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/Pess/assets/12-44581_ccnp2012_web.pdf

Hrm, interesting talk, but a lot of his arguments seem to be pretty misguided or just plain wrong.

He spends most of the video blaming environmentalists for the various energy problems, however it's a lot more complicated than that. The primary reason Govt's like those in America won't stop using current nuclear tech is because it generates weapons grade materials that can be used by the military-industrial (etc) complex. The lobbyists for these industries have way too much money to throw around for any other pressure to be meaningful. This means that pushing through cleaner nuclear power solutions will be next to impossible despite whatever pressure is applied by environmentalist groups for or against the various solutions.

Also, the fact that he states wind/solar etc only contribute 1% of supply and can't contribute enough to satisfy consumer needs is extremely misguided. That may be the case where he's from (currently), but if you look at the latest EU statistics, wind, by itself is already accounting for 5% of all energy demand, and the contribution is much higher in some countries, i.e. Germany=10%, Denmark=25% (just from wind).

http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/statistics/Stats_2011.pdf

Solar also contributes a significant amount, supplying 5% of all needs in Germany for example (50% of midday demands), and the technology is only improving.

Despite him being completely (by orders of magnitude) wrong in this respect, his statement probably does makes sense if you only apply it to America, because their political system is completely fucked, but he should be honest about that in his discussion if he's really done his research.

He does make some very valid points however, and I certainly hope the realisation of better nuclear power does come true in our lifetimes so we can continue to accelerate the move away off coal/gas.

hey @chingalera
dag hooked me up to this form if nuclear power.
http://videosift.com/video/The-Thorium-Dream
pretty impressive stuff here.
of course anybody who can make cheap,safe and abundant energy will find themselves either 1.dead.2 marginalized (see:tesla) or 3.co-opted into the giant de-humanizing machine and put to work destroying our very life-sustanence provider all in the name of 'profit".

It's a shame that fukushima has tainted the idea of safe, clean nuclear power. There are some really cool, safe modern designs out there that create orders of magnitude less waste, can't melt down and of course produce no carbon emissions. But they are just not politically viable in most western countries. This is probably another area that China will dominate in the future.

Is Fallout good fun Payback (had to ref yer reference)? The only v-games I ever finished were the 1st 2 Ratchet & Clanks, GTA 1, and Destroy All Humans-None of which involved nuclear power of any kind....except DAH, whose antagonist's ship's power source I speak of here so....intelligin..intella

So these thingy-dealies won't contaminate ground water if they gusplode? (He really would make a lovely he-she though, and Chloe with a flapper-cut, a fettishing boy)

Someone's physical androgynous characteristics has nothing to do with their sexuality, does it? merely an observation...similar to the one I made based in my 'ignace' of nuclear power, and all her fucked iterations.

I've been anti-nuclear from the git-go, always will be-
I also must maintain that the power that will push the planet into the next exponential blast (if numb, distracted peeps don't let asshole humans turn the place into a dystopian shit hole) won't come from an energy source that uses radioactive anything-It's gonna be something else that creates the energy needed for whatever sustainable future awaits.

my instincts is all I'm going on, but this cat's gonna get snatched-up by insect-keepers for profit and mayhem...Or fuck me, maybe he's gonna be another Nicole Tesla-(pun-intended, the kids cute)

sexuality my ass.....