[AMC-list] more digression - Re: ugly cars of past 50 years

[adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)]

" From: tom jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
" 
" []
" 
" With Fukushima, wanton sloppy drilling, all those crap GE reactors (and I do
" know something about that tech), oil costs and harms, it's embarrassing just
" how few Americans have any positive vision of the future.

and let's not even get into dick cheney's 'halliburton hole'...

i used to lean towards the liberal knee-jerk antinuke attitude, though
fascinated with tech.  in the late '70s i read the procedings of an
energy conference and started to learn...  our reactors are like
curved-dash oldsmobiles with airbags, abs, and '70s-style emissions
controls.  reflecting the era when they thought nuke power would be
too cheap to meter, their efficiency is appalling - like filling your
car up, driving -5- miles, then draining it [and disposing of the
hazardous waste] and refilling!  yes, ~2%.  no wonder we have so much
high-level radioactive waste!

even 35 years ago there was a lot of research into what you might call
'total burn' reactors, which would use radioactives until completely
decayed to lead.  this would be low-level radioactive waste, quickly
cooling off, and imho the best way to dispose of our high-level waste
would be to build reactors fuelled by it.

independent of that, i've heard the gee-whiz figure that between
powerplants and warheads, the us has enough uranium already mined and
refined to power our entire grid for the next 5 centuries,
extrapolated growth included.

i'm still wary of letting util co monkeys run nuke plants.

" Every potential
" change is seen as certain loss. It's stupid and short-sighted.
" 
" Making new energy sources (never mind other stuff) is so exciting and
" interesting and cutting-edge and space-age and everything else, and all
" anyone can say is grunt grunt i wanna burn oil like my pa did. We now have
" 1.5liter engines that out-perform 60's V8s, get 30 mpg and last 250K miles!
"  I'm increasingly embarrassed to be American, by the utter lack of vision
" and interest in the PRESENT never mind the future and the world yr kids will
" live in. Never mind the plain old meanness everywhere.

it must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry
out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than
to initiate a new order of things.  for the reformer has enemies in
all those who profit from the old order, and only lukewarm defenders
in all those who would profit by the new order, this reticence arising
partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their
favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly
believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
- niccolo machiavelli, oxford translation

imho ol' nic was very clear-sighted and his rep is largely a misguided
attempt to kill the messenger.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought
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