Open Thread 23

Perhaps we need a discussion of Nuclear Fission power, including:
Accidents/reliability
Waste Disposal
Cost

For completeness, also a non-partisan assesment of the Boron/Hydrogen "Polywell" fusion referenced in the previous thread. shorter heartland conference would be helpful.

On fission fusion, it sounds like the Finns are doing well on waste disposal (still at the testing stage). On the other hand it was instructive to find that they mucked up the quality control in construction of a new reactor, delaying it by a year or two - If careful Finnish construction companies do that, what happens when you try to build in a corrupt country ?

This makes the idea of pre-packaged, sealed nuclear power sources attractive, but I presume it's only on paper still.

I personally am opposed to nuclear power that relies on the old water-cooled reactors. I am however a convert to nuclear power using the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) process. There's a good explanation of this here. It seems to me that the IFR design pretty much eliminates all the reasons for objecting to fission as a power source -- it's a great pity that Clinton put a stop to development just when it was reaching the commercialisation phase back in the 90s.

Of course, we also need to emphasise efficiency, distributed power (ie every house having its own solar power) and having a multitude of renewable energy sources feeding into the grid (which should use UHVDC - see here).

My understanding of the 'polywell' fusion is that it has potential, but sadly it's unlikely to actually work as for any given power output it requires an input orders of magnitude greater.

Dunno if people have seen the Edmonton Journal's false op-ed about breaking the temp minimum for March by 12 degrees. (it actually was just the March 10 and there have been at least 2 colder march days over 44 years so a trivial 1 in say 12 years event at best).

Anyway at Wattsupwiththat they had it up and as I had some spare time I highlighted that their correction still gave the op-ed credibility, and still made it sound as though it was a March temp record with the wording.

Anyway - the point is that I just had a peek to see if they had updated anything and shock horror they have pulled the whole story!!! They should have posted a true correction stating they were regrettably duped by a journalist hack... but better than nothing.

Anyway I was quite surprised the story was pulled, and just had to post it somewhere before I wonder if it ever existed.

banal update on post #3 turns out it was just down for an update, and credit to watts he after quite some convincing now presents the incorrect newspaper article, that sadly is on every other sceptical site too, with appropriate introductory corrections showing it is rather false. ho hum.

[Monbiot claims that the situation is irremediably dire](http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/03/17/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/). Is he exaggerating?

Monbiot isn't exaggerating the consequences of global warming.

One could say (at most) that he is exaggerating the probability: it isn't certain that millions will suffer and die, merely highly likely.

Sorry for the repeated comment - I was getting some server error.

Is it the mainstream view among climate scientists that 90's average temperature + 2c is already unavoidable +4c is at the edge of political feasibility (3% reduction per year)?

Monbiot is not exaggerating IMO. If anything, he's realistic compared to the tripe thrown by the usual commentators here in the US. I find his forthright candor - and humor - refreshing...as opposed to a certain honest broker, for instance.

funny, new [CATO list](http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/cato_climate.pdf) contains

Dr. Edward F. Blick, a professor from the University of Oklahoma in his book A Scientific Analysis of Genesis says this: âThere are over eighty scientific indicators of a young earth. Yet, there is no mention of these in most high school biology books. Instead they state that the earth is billions of years old.â1

from [here](http://www.valleyhighlands.com/Blogger/page/Bible-Frequently-Asked-Ques…)

(BTW found the link during the discussion on WuWt)

sod:

My response to the petition from Cato. I think I'll call it the Orgone Petition. (Not to be confused with, well, the Organ Petition.)

Dr. Edward F. Blick, a professor from the University of Oklahoma in his book ... from here.

Love the book review. It has a FIVE STAR average rating courtesy of one review by Mr A Customer. The "editorial review" says he's a "Noted Science Professor" although he sounds a lot more like a Mechanical Engineering Professor to me. Interestingly enough, 9 out of 11 people said they found the review by Mr A Customer useful.

Cato's Jerry Taylor puts up a hilarious defence of that Cato petition.