Saying that we should all switch to clean technologies is a very idealistic statement, yes it should be done, but it won't be done in the short term. I personally believe that nuclear power is right now the best short term alternative to continued consumption of fossil fuels, with a long term plan of switching to cleaner technologies.

Nuclear power can be readily tapped into over the power grids and is substantial enough to supply entire cities, this not true for the various techs like solar, wind and so on. More development is needed in those areas. As for nuclear waste, it is a problematic issue but the waste produced is less readily influential on the environment if stored and disposed off correctly. I have read papers on research to actually break down the waste into something else. Other then that I wouldn't mind sending off a rocket or two to burn up around the sun (just an idea).

But even then we are replacing one sort of pollution for another, instead of smoke stacks or nuclear waste we would have large wind generation farms, large tidal wave areas in the sea, or large fields of concentrated solar generators.

However all these technologies still rely on a fossil fuel process for components, so what we term clean technology isn't really because various components are derived from fossil fuels, if not for power in their manufacture then for the manufacture of various parts like plastics and so on.

Wow, it's not a fair comparison to make between Nuclear energy and Clean energy (solar, wind, waves). Of course we SHOULD switch to clean energy as soon as possible, but at this moment you can't just replace everything else with it - it is simply not efficient enough.

The comparison that must be made is between fossil fules (coal, oil) and Nuclear energy. The amount of nuclear waste is far less damaging than the damage from fossil pollution.

..and nuclear waste is a lot easier to manage than global warming.

let's switch to wind and solar, as soon as possible, but instead of building new gas/coal/or biofuel plants/cars we could take advantage of RELATIVELY clean nuclear energy.

No, of course we won't actually destroy Earth per se, and it's hard to imagine a scenario where humans could do something that would wipe out ALL life everywhere on the planet. That said, there's a lot to be said for stopping the destruction of habitat and creatures, and there's a lot to be said for trying to make sure our own practices don't end up killing us, as well.

I actually agree with most of what you said (as opposed to what I thought of Carlin), esp. the bit I quoted below:

>> ^Ryjkyj:
It doesn't mean that you shouldn't care. It just means that you have to remember that you can't control everything. You just have to do what you think is right. I'm not saying that we should just keep burning fossil fuel and dumping nuclear waste. I'm not saying you shouldn't be active about the things you care for.

I think you might have missed the point a little Calvados.
At no point during this does Carlin say that people shouldn't do anything for their environment. All he is saying is that you don't need to bring the planet into it.

I think the most important point is that people are not trying to "save the planet." We are trying to save ourselves. Saying that we're doing it for the planet makes it sound like we're performing some sort of selfless act, when in fact, the planet is going to be here no matter what. We could set off every nuclear bomb in all of our arsenals and the outcome wouldn't be anything worse than what earth has been through and recovered from already.

I've been an environmental activist for years. I joined greenpeace 10 years ago. I love animals too but I realize that not EVERYTHING is under our control.

Species are going to die. Water is going to get tainted. Air is going to be polluted. Which really just means that they aren't suitable to OUR living conditions. Hell, oxygen (a corrosive acid) used to be the worst threat to life on earth.

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't care. It just means that you have to remember that you can't control everything. You just have to do what you think is right. I'm not saying that we should just keep burning fossil fuel and dumping nuclear waste. I'm not saying you shouldn't be active about the things you care for.

Just don't act like we're any kind of threat to the planet. Only ourselves.

wow, that animation was top notch and very cool. that song brought back memories.

Of course they left out that part about all the harmful nuclear waste that has a half life of ???? (varying dependent upon the type of radioisotopes)

read this and be disturbed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_waste

http://murray.senate.gov/hanfordcleanup/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

I don't know much about this, but it's pretty easy to see instances of big money walking over little people all over this country. Like the pig farm in Las Animas, Colorado, that destroyed the well water for many people nearby, or the fertilizer dumps of big dairy farms in agricultural areas that are invariably built next to small farms. Or places like Rocky Flats, in Colorado, that just wanted to bury the nuclear waste and forget about it.

Big money in America has a nasty habit of making a big mess, moving away, and letting the taxpayers clean up the mess.

It's called "Free Market Capitalism."

"btw i would rather have one nuclear power station than seven gajillion acres of inefficient turbines. They are not made of recycled paper, you know?"...

"If you like progress, and you think a fucking windmill is progress, then you're mental."

You're comparing plastics with nuclear waste and you're calling me mental? At least plastic can be recycled. Nuclear power plants aren't made of recycled paper either, and they must continually be re-fueled every 18 months. Do you think they that fuel grows on trees? Wind turbines require no fuel, and need very little maintenance.

Progress is building more safe, renewable resources for power such as wind, hydro and solar power plants, not building more nuke plants.

I know all about Chernobyl and nuclear reactors, I used to work at one. I know the designs are different, my point is that it only takes one accident and the effects on the environment and life lasts for generations. Do you realize how many nuclear accidents there have been, besides the two major ones (TMI and Chernobyl)? There's more than just accidents at nuclear plants, accidents occur during the manufacturing, transport, storage, and disposal of the nuclear fuel. They may not be as big as Chernobyl, but the damage to the environment has been done, and the "pollution" will be around longer than you or I.

Here's a list of just some of the nuclear accidents in just the US alone:

July 1959 - Boeing-Rocketdyne Nuclear Facility in Ventura County, California, A clogged coolant channel resulted in a 30% reactor core meltdown, which led to the release of the third greatest amount of radioactive iodine-131 in nuclear history.

July 1956 - Sylvania Electric Products' Metallurgy Atomic Research Center, Bayside, Queens, New York, nine people were injured when two explosions destroyed a portion of the facility.

December 1958 - Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. A nuclear criticality accident killed 1 operator.

1959 - Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley Hills, California. A partial sodium reactor meltdown occurred.

January 1961 - National Reactor Testing Station in Arco, Idaho. A reactor explosion, killed 3 technicians, and released radiation. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were buried in lead coffins.

October 1966 - Detroit Edison's Enrico Fermi I demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit, Michigan. A sodium cooling system malfunction caused a partial core meltdown.

November 1971 - Northern States Power Company's reactor in Monticello, Minnesota. The water storage space filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River.

1972 - The West Valley, NY fuel reprocessing plant was closed after 6 years in operation, leaving 600,000 gallons of high-level wastes buried in leaking tanks. The site caused measurable contamination of Lakes Ontario and Erie.

March 1972 - A routine check in a nuclear power plant in Alaska indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building's water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank and the water system.

December 1972 - A plutonium fabrication plant in Pauling, New York. An undetermined amount of radioactive plutonium was scattered inside and outside the plant, after a major fire and two explosions occurred resulting in its permanent shutdown.

May 1974 - The Atomic Energy Commission reported that 861 "abnormal events" had occurred in 1973 in the nation's 42 operative nuclear power plants. Twelve involved the release of radioactivity "above permissible levels."

March 1975 - Browns Ferry reactor, Decatur, Alabama. A fire burned out electrical controls, lowering the cooling water to dangerous levels, before the plant could be shut down.

1979 - The Critical Mass Energy Project tabulated 122 accidents involving the transport of nuclear material in 1979, 17 involving radioactive contamination.

March 1979 - Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. After cooling water was lost, the top portion of the reactor's 150-ton core collapsed and melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses. A study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

July 1979 - Church Rock, New Mexico. A dam holding radioactive uranium mill tailings broke, sending an estimated 100 million gallons of radioactive liquids and 1,100 tons of solid wastes downstream.

August 1979 - A nuclear fuel plant near Erwin, Tennessee. Highly enriched uranium was released. About 1,000 people were contaminated with up to 5 times as much radiation as would normally be received in a year. Between 1968 and 1983 the plant "lost" 234 pounds of highly enriched uranium, forcing the plant to be closed six times during that period.

January 1980 - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (where large amounts of nuclear material are kept). An earthquake caused caused a tritium leak.

September 1980 - Two canisters containing radioactive materials fell off a truck on New Jersey's Route 17. The driver, en route from Pennsylvania to Toronto, did not notice the missing cargo until he reached Albany, New York.

1981 - The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981.

February 11, 1981 - Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee, 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building, which led to the contamination of eight men.

July 1981 - Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 in New York state. A flood of radioactive wastewater in the sub-basement caused approximately 150 55-gallon drums of high-level waste to overturn, some of which released their highly radioactive contents. Some 50,000 gallons of radioactive water were subsequently dumped into Lake Ontario to make room for the cleanup.

January 25, 1982 - Rochester Gas & Electric Company's Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and radioactive steam escaped into the air after a steam generator pipe broke.

January 1983 - Browns Ferry power plant, Athens, Alabama. About 208,000 gallons of water with radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River.

February 1983 - Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey. A catastrophe was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before. Other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

December 1984 - The Fernald Uranium Plant, a 1,050-acre uranium fuel production complex 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Department of Energy disclosed that excessive amounts of radioactive materials had been released through ventilating systems. Subsequent reports revealed that 230 tons of radioactive material had leaked into the Greater Miami River valley during the previous thirty years, 39 tons of uranium dust had been released into the atmosphere, 83 tons had been discharged into surface water, and 5,500 tons of radioactive and other hazardous substances had been released into pits and swamps where they seeped into the groundwater. In addition, 337 tons of uranium hexafluoride was found to be missing, its whereabouts completely unknown. The plant was not permanently shut down until 1989.

1986 - A truck carrying radioactive material went off a bridge on Route 84 in Idaho, and dumped part of its cargo in the Snake River. Officials reported the release of radioactivity.

6 January 1986 - The Sequoyah Fuels Corp. uranium processing factory in Gore, Oklahoma. A container of highly toxic gas exploded, causing one worker to die (when his lungs were destroyed) and 130 others to seek medical treatment.

December 1986 - Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia. A feedwater pipe ruptured, causing 8 workers to be scalded by a release of hot water and steam. Four of the workers later died from their injuries. In addition, water from the sprinkler systems caused a malfunction of the security system, preventing personnel from entering the facility.

1988 - It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987.

November 1992 - The Sequoyah Fuels Corp. uranium processing factory in Gore, Oklahoma closed after repeated citations by the Government for violations of nuclear safety and environmental rules. It's record during 22 years of operation included an accident in 1986 that killed one worker and injured dozens of others and the contamination of the Arkansas River and groundwater. The Sequoyah Fuels plant, one of two privately-owned American factories that fabricated fuel rods, had been shut down a week before by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when an accident resulted in the release of toxic gas. Thirty-four people sought medical attention as a result of the accident. The plant had also been shut down the year before when unusually high concentrations of uranium were detected in water in a nearby construction pit. A Government investigation revealed that the company had known for years that uranium was leaking into the ground at levels 35,000 times higher than Federal law allows.

March 1994 - A nuclear research facility on Long Island, New York. A fire resulted in the nuclear contamination of three fire fighters, three reactor operators, and one technician. Measurable amounts of radioactive substances were released into the immediate environment.

February 2000 - Indian Point II power plant in New York vented radioactive steam when a an aging steam generator ruptured.

March 2002 - Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water.

Do you honestly think that more of this is worth not having to look at a field of wind turbines (they're not windmills btw, yes I get the refrence )? As far as I know, wind turbines have not killed anyone or released toxic and radioactive materials into the environment.

it's just advertising executives having a collective wank all over their "art" when really they wish they could direct movies instead of selling shit.

btw i would rather have one nuclear power station than seven gajillion acres of inefficient turbines. They are not made of recycled paper, you know?

And you should read about Chernobyl. Stupid sleepy soviet corrupt safety practices, big big stupid human error. The world learnt a lesson, nuclear power became ridiculously safe (like air travel compared to road travel) and you have nothing to worry about.
I live near Ignalina which was built to the same design as Chernobyl, and after chernobyl they put so many safety features on the place you couldn't blow it up if you tried. But anyway they are decommissioning it because it is the same design as Chernobyl and maybe politically Lithuania isn't supposed to be allowed so much power generating capacity.

If you like progress, and you think a fucking windmill is progress, then you're mental.

If you think nuclear waste is a problem, go check out how much plastic packaging you throw out in comparison, and get your moaning priorities straight.

Personally I think wind farms are beautiful. Green hills, dotted with massive wind turbines is just an awesome site. Which would you rather have?

wind farms?
http://www.ararat.vic.gov.au/Page/images/windfarm13.jpg
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/06/22/wind_farm,0.jpg

or nuke plants?
http://www.alstec.com/Portals/0/NUCLEAR/CX%20Ext%20Bush.jpg
http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/4em/ch02/figs/nuclear-power-plant.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Nuclear.power.plant.Dukovany.jpg/800px-Nuclear.power.plant.Dukovany.jpg

If you decide you don't like wind turbines, they can be moved. If you decide you don't like that new nuke plant, tough you're stuck with it for at least 100 years. Nuclear energy may be relatively safe, but it is not clean. The nuclear waste has to be stored somewhere, and even when a nuclear plant is decommissioned, it can be up to 60 years before the land can be safe to use. That's even if the plant is torn down, the owner can decide to turn it into a spent fuel storage facility and make more money out of it.

All it takes is one nuclear disaster (Chernobyl), and the environmental impact lasts for generations. If there's ever an accident at a wind farm, at least you don't have to evacuate entire cities and contaminate hundreds of square kilometers of land for decades. Yes I know all the experts say that the chance of a Chernobyl happening with US designed reactors is low, but with each new nuclear plant built, that chance goes up.

I commend the students who organised this protest. That said, what did they expect from a university that is owned by the mormon church? They do not promote free thought, they promote obedience.

It is nice, however, to see that they have finally found a use for the Pacific Islanders within their religion.

For more info on the wonderful treatment of Islanders by the church, look up the farming community of Iosepa, in beautiful skull valley utah, home of a future high level nuclear waste dump.

This is important. It's long, but it's important. If you have the time to listen to Dr. Robert Bussard you will be convinced about clean, cheap power. It's available and it's now. We can do this.

Here's the back-story from Google's page:

Google Tech Talks November 9, 2006

ABSTRACT This is not your father's fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional ... all » thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that's been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects.

Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), has spent 17 years perfecting IEC, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal... until now.

Dr. Bussard will discuss his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the scanning television).

Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google's annual electricity bill? Come see what's possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd.

There are a few good reasons this car isn't on the market:

- Hydrogen takes a lot of power to make; there isn't enough solar power to fill everyones tank with this. Solar power is still very inefficient. If you use conventional power, you are still burning fossil fuels or making nuclear waste.

- Hydrogen is much more volatile than gasoline. Compare getting a leak in one of those hydrogen tanks in a fender-bender (remember the Hindenberg) to getting a leak in your gas tank

- The Hydrogen tanks take hours to refill; try taking a road trip in that

No, I'm not a gas or auto exec, just a guy with a science background

Nah, that's why I posted it in response to global warming thoughts, Godzilla baby, he came from nuclear waste to destroy us all!!! Starting with Japan.

In his 11-page resumé Vayner claims that he runs a charitable organization, is the CEO of an investment firm and has written a book on the Holocaust, among other things. Research by bloggers has shown many of these claims to be false:

* His investment firm's website lists a non-existent address, and the charitable organization is using an unauthorized Charity Navigator logo. The president of Charity Navigator publicly announced that he believed Vayner should be expelled from Yale for this.

* Excerpts of Vayner's self-published book, Women's Silent Tears, a "unique gender-focused perspective on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe" made available for free at Lulu.com show that at least some of its content had been plagiarized from an online Holocaust encyclopedia.

Before Vayner had even begun his freshman year his tendency to exaggerate was first discussed in an article in Rumpus, a Yale humor magazine. He apparently had visited as a high school senior, and told unbelievable stories about himself. Among his claims to people on campus, or to the public, since starting at Yale:

* He claimed that he "is one of four people in the state of Connecticut qualified to handle nuclear waste".
* He was employed by both the Mafia and the CIA during his childhood.
* He gave tennis lessons to Harrison Ford and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

In addition, Vayner apparently arranged for a film he had made about Zen Buddhism to be displayed in a Yale class on eastern philosophies. The film included a "b-roll of Vayner performing various physical feats of questionable veracity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Vayner