: : : : Today the computer industry is based on silicone, sand, and a healthy dose of human capital; imagination, initiative, and risk taking. : : : Wrong. It's based ultimately on power. Electricity. Without it, there is no power to make injection-moulded bits of plastic; no power to light up cathode-ray tubes; no power to power the telephone lines.
Correctomundo.
: : : Take the combustion of biomass away and you've got a big and complicated paperweight.
: Note: Frenchy makes no attempt to actually debate the points I've raised. Can I take that as tacit acceptance that I am actually correct in my points, Frenchy?
: : Hold on...what about nukes? France is powered to the tune of 80% by good ol' nuclear power. Yeah, that sounds like a win/win.
: No it doesn't. Do you have any idea of how much damage a meltdown can do?
Yup, "The China Syndrome", scary stuff. Isn't that the popular view of a nuclear meltdown? Doesn't that only show that the public is in the dark, correction; has been led into the dark? The best you can do is Three Mile Island. Not exactly what I would label a disaster, since no one died from the radio active steam and the controls worked as advertised. Now, Chernobyl, there's a lesson in Socialist Nuclear Power. And these are the guys who want to put a carbon copy of the Chernobyl power plant in Cuba.
: Nuclear power stations need a) a lot of energy used to produce fuel,
Huh? I thought that nuclear power stations produced energy by using fuel...could you expand on this?
b) a very very thorough safety procedure and c) produce waste that hangs around pretty much forever.
In France they bury it in a granite sheild, seems to work. What's wrong with that? If there is something wrong with that, let's find a solution.
: The seagulls around the THORP plant in Sellafield are now officially classified as 'radioactive waste'; the mildly radioactive coolant water used in the power station flows straight out to sea and collects in the biosphere; mainly in protozoa, who are eaten by fish, who are eaten by seagulls.
: And the Irish Sea is now officially a nuclear disaster area according to concentration of Tc-99; which is 40 times the recommended maximum, thanks to nuclear power.
: It takes someone with the brains of Homer Simpson to believe that nuclear power is a real, sustainable solution.
: And as soon as someone tries to maximise profit by cutting corners on safety, *foom*; and you can kiss goodbye to a couple of hundred square miles of arable land.
Ahh, the old bugaboo, 'profit' nasty! NASTY!! Course the same thing cannot be said of Chernobyl where profit wasn't an issue, but lousy technology was (Homer Sympsyetsky, Cheif Engineer in charge of Nuclear Power Plant Soda Machines).
: There is ultimately no techno-fix; the only real solution is to moderate consumption.
Doh!!
: Farinata.
: Now, are you going to try and argue my points, or are you just going to cover up your ignominious retreat with a few cheap jibes?
I've mentioned the unpredictability of future technologies a number of times. Nuclear power stations today may have drawbacks, although I believe that those drawbacks are exagerrated for political reasons. Even given the possibility of some drawbacks, it doesn't mean that future technologies will not be created, completely independant of today's technologies or partly based on them, a hybrid. Whereas you limit the future to one possibility,ie; reduced consumption, I place no limits on the future. That includes of course everything from nuclear holocaust to a Troll being elected to the Presidency of the United States (with dire consequences for the likes of SDF and anyone else who committs Trollism).
Never underestimate the power of cheap jibes.
