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Why don't Climatologists Support Nuclear Power?

Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 10 months ago to Science
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I am open-minded but skeptical about human-induced climate change. WDonway's - recent post got me thinking again.

If CO2 is really the culprit, and one really believes it, why then are these same people not clamoring for the only presently viable solution to resolve it, Nuclear Power?

Renewables are clearly too far off, and far too ineffective. If one really believes human-induced global warming is a looming disaster, why are they not pushing to solve it. This seems a simple question to pose to any climate-religious-zealot. I suspect a majority would think for a moment where the funding originates, and decide to take a evasive political stance.


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  • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
    Increasingly, they are, Thoritsu.

    The Ecomodernist Manifesto that I linked to (yesterday?) has quotes such as, "Urbanization, agricultural intensification, nuclear power, aquaculture, and desalination are all processes with a demonstrated potential to reduce human demands on the environment, allowing more room for non-human species. Suburbanization, low-yield farming, and many forms of renewable energy production, in contrast, generally require more land and resources and leave less room for nature. " and "Nuclear fission today represents the only present-day zero-carbon technology with the demonstrated ability to meet most, if not all, of the energy demands of a modern economy. However, a variety of social, economic, and institutional challenges make deployment of present-day nuclear technologies at scales necessary to achieve significant climate mitigation unlikely. A new generation of nuclear technologies that are safer and cheaper will likely be necessary for nuclear energy to meet its full potential as a critical climate mitigation technology...In the long run, next-generation solar, advanced nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion represent the most plausible pathways toward the joint goals of climate stabilization and radical decoupling of humans from nature. "

    Here is a link to that document. http://www.ecomodernism.org/manifesto
    I think this is a definite 'things are looking up' moment.

    Jan
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
      Well if you can't impress with brilliance there is always razzle dazzle with BS.

      Anyone care to translate all that?
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      • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
        I think that it says, "Trust us, the elite;;; we will work
        it out for you plebes. . Hide and watch." -- j

        p.s. even Christians believe in the "dominion" principle --
        decoupling humans from nature is insane.
        .
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      That is a positive statement. Thanks Jan. Sorry I missed your post.
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      • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
        It is right on the path I want to travel - nuclear power, preferably Thorium (your namesake, almost). It would pull the rug right out from under the Middle East financial model. Our local petroleum would do quite well for industrial use.

        So many benefits - all 'they' (gov) have to do is go away and let us achieve for a while.

        Thanks for starting this thread.

        Jan
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        • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
          There is no question in my mind that one of the first priorities of national defense should be to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. If one views this as a asymmetric warfare problem, making them economically irrelevant is the fastest path to success.
          Gotta keep reading on Thorium reactors.
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          • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
            But that would threaten all those jobs in the military industrial complex! (You remember, the CEOs who sent thousands of bags of cash to my campaign fund and the gang members who laundered it.)
            - - - nameless con-gresscritter 2015
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
              The cycle of dumping and cutting the military then after the election going back on a war time economy is part and parcel of the cycle of repression and cycle of debt repudiation. Caught i the trap are both citizens and citizen soldiers. Infantry lost it's close air -frontal aviation support - once again when the A10's were stood down without a replacement. That's your sons and daughters sent in the past and going to be sent to battlefields unprotected and sacrificed on the altar political expediency.

              No wonder the military despises civilians. You vote for people who willingly send them out to die for nothing and when they win vote again for the same people to play footsie with the other side while those who bled and died are cast aside.

              Like ethanol...cui bono? Agricorps not family farmers and Senators/CEO's are interchangeable parts who serve themselves for the people have no will.

              {PS) I see no evidence in the USA of any nuclear power catastrophes including the much hyped Three Mile Island but plenty of evidence all power producing systems are under attack. Let them burn ethanol or some of Al Bores bituminous coal. A little acid rain never hurt anyone - right? I see more evidence of unfettered offshore drilling caused by politicians and industrialists who are major contributors to the Government party but now that's been swept under the rug.

              Japan is betting it's life by building reactors on top of major fault lines just as we did in California so that one is iffy.But meanwhile Boardman coal fire plant concerted to bituminous from anthracite due to the lockup of that sort of coal by Al Bore and friends and is now after 35 years being shut down. Last one leaving won't need to turn out the lights.
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              • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 10 months ago
                I presume your valid comments are pointed at the con-gresscritter, MichaelA.
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                • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
                  And the people who vote for them. Most don't realize when an citizen puts on the uniform they leave the Constitution behind and come under an entirely different set of rules. In doing so - supposedly - are then capable of protecting that Constititution for the remainder of the population. Meanwhile the remainder are busy flushing it down the toilet. Well it's one two three what are/were we fighting for..? The great unwashed have no responsibility but are only concerned with mostly non-existent rights..

                  I never did consider those of us in the combat arms as part of the complex. The pay certainly didn't support that conclusion.
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            • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
              Good note, but the newspaper test could help in this case. I work supplying defense equipment, and support it. I think most of us would. Not many like working on IED protection.
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    • Posted by VetteGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
      Hi Jan,
      I read that article when you posted it yesterday, and it's always good to hear someone (besides me) who realizes the benefits of nuclear power.

      Today's regulatory environment (partly spurred on by the incident at Fukishima) drives up the cost of nuclear plants almost to the point of economic non-viability. I still remember (barely) when the advent of nuclear plants was going to drive the cost of electricity to be "too cheap to meter". If the regulators and some members of the public could put aside their irrational fears, it still could be ... and still be one of the safest energy sources around!

      Oh, and by the way, no CO2 emissions...
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      • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
        It is the safest energy around. Just review the record of the Nuclear Navy. 75 reactors cruising around in submarines today, many more in the past, plus aircraft carriers with 2, 4 or 8 reactors apeice (depending on the class). No nuclear incidents in 60 years of service.
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        • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
          If we had space drive, then just take a nuclear sub, outfit it with the new drive...hey presto! the stars.

          More realistically, I do not see why the space industry has totally disregarded these nuclear units with which we have a lot of experience. I rarely see this possibility mentioned any more: Is it just because of the weight? Is it politically forbidden?

          Jan
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          • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
            Space propulsion using nuclear power is not uncommon. It has overwhelmingly the highest specific total thrust. Many satellites use ion propulsion for positioning. A PWR may not be the right answer, but another technology might work well in space, where heat dissipation is a main problem.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
            Back in the early sixties Analog Science Fact and Fiction depicted on it's front cover the Nautilus (first nuclear powered submarine) in orbit. The article itself concerned using a new patented invention which converted circular motion to one way motion inducing a state of weightlessness. Heady stuff for one just out of grade school. That was the space drive you are seeking. 55 years ago.
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            • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
              THAT was where I got the mental image. I remembered somewhere a sharp picture of a submarine in orbit and how the story had described how well a submarine was suited to being a space ship...if you had unlimited power and could disregard weight constraints.

              Thank you. I always read my father's Analog's...sometimes when he was still reading them. We would quarrel happily over who got it next, and then discuss the stories.

              Jan
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
              Here are the sources it was 56 years ago.

              System for converting rotary motion into unidirectional motion
              www.google.com/patents/US2886976
              N. L. DEAN 2,. mo UNIDIRECTIONAL MOTION May 19, 1959 v SYSTEM FOR CONVERTING ROTARY MOTION Filed July 15, 1956 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 Norman L.
              Patent US3653269 - Converting rotary motion into ... - Google
              www.google.com.mx/patents/US3653269
              Unidirectional thrust and consequent unidirectional motion are achieved by rotating thrust producing units in a circular orbit. The thrust producing units involve ...
              The Dean System Drive « DeanSpaceDrive.Org ...
              deanspacedrive.org/?page_id=34
              Newton's laws of motion, needed some “amplification” as he was latter on quoted. ... N. L. Dean: System for converting rotary motion into Unidirectional motion
              Polarization Shaping for Unidirectional Rotational Motion of ...
              link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.103001
              by G Karras - ‎2015 - ‎Related articles
              Mar 10, 2015 - Polarization Shaping for Unidirectional Rotational Motion of Molecules. G. Karras, M. Ndong, E. Hertz, D. Sugny, F. Billard, B. Lavorel, and O.
              Motion, Control, and Geometry:: Proceedings of a Symposium
              https://books.google.com.mx/books?isbn=0...
              Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, ‎Board on Mathematical Sciences, ‎Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences - 1997 - ‎Mathematics
              VIBRATIONAL, ROTARY, AND LINEAR MOTION It is a familiar story that Hero of ... systems convert oscillatory inputs into steady unidirectional motion. Recently ...
              Unidirectional rotary motion in a liquid crystalline ...
              www.pnas.org/content/99/8/4945.abstract
              by RA van Delden - ‎2002 - ‎Cited by 106 - ‎Related articles
              Apr 16, 2002 - Irradiation of the film results in unidirectional rotary motion of the molecular motor, which induces a motion of the mesogenic molecules leading ...
              Converting unidirectional linear motion into rotary motion ...
              www.physicsforums.com › Physics › Classical Physics
              Feb 6, 2012 - 17 posts - ‎6 authors
              The linear motion of the pistons is converted into circular motion of the axles .... The device I need would require a unidirectional linear force.
              Unidirectional rotary motion in a molecular system ...
              www.researchgate.net/.../12810237_Unidir......
              ABSTRACT The conversion of energy into controlled motion plays an important role in both man-made devices and biological systems. The principles of ...
              Searches related to rotary motion to unidirectional motion
              rotary motion examples
              rotary motion wikipedia
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              rotary motion to reciprocating motion
              rotary motion is the output of which electrical output device
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      • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
        Yeah, VetteGuy. While I don't recall reading or hearing about it at the time, Wm is fond of mentioning that at one point, electricity that cost less to produce than it did to bill was in our future. It was the Ecology movement (I DO remember that) that made villains of the nuclear industry...and here we are today.

        I have read speculation that if not for the anti-technology movement of the late 1960's, we might already be living in an enclave that is what we consider our dream-future. I am glad that we saved the whales; I am not glad that it was at the expense of our dreams

        Jan
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  • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 10 months ago
    Nuclear energy is the most dense form of energy we know of and it's absolutely criminal that more isn't being done to advance and exploit it. Are there dangers? Assuredly. But no worthwhile endeavor is without risk. The entrepreneurial are those who find solutions to mitigate the risks and derive profits.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 10 months ago
    Some time ago, the Sierra Club paid for an energy study, expecting the results to show that solar and/or wind power was the safest, least polluting power source for the future. They foolishly included nuclear power in the list of power systems to be evaluated, and when the study conclusively showed that nuclear power had lower environmental impact, was safer, cheaper, and less costly than any renewable power system, sued the study team and the publisher to try to prevent anyone hearing about it.

    Environmentalism has nothing to do with science, logic, or economics. It is the religion of Gaia worship, considered a useful tool, filled with useful idiots by promoters of Communist ideology.
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      Would love to see this study. Was the suit successful? Do you have a reference?
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      • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 10 months ago
        Unfortunately, my knowledge of this is a couple of decades old, recounted to me by a former reporter for the Rocky Mountain News. As I recall, the threat of a lawsuit was enough to scare off a third party publisher, allowing the Sierra Club to bury the study. Ironically, the Sierra Club was once an advocate for nuclear power and natural gas as "bridging technologies", but since they, along with almost every environmental group, have become captive to a fanatic element that deals less in fact and more in propaganda, only wind and solar are tolerated. After your response I did try to see if I could find any supportive data online, but since there are literally tens of thousands of pro-environmentalist web sites, and it's hard to find any search engine that doesn't use Google at its core, everything is slanted in the Gaia direction. Anecdotal only, at this point, but I'll keep looking.
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  • Posted by RobertFl 8 years, 10 months ago
    Uranium is the problem. Researchers (mostly China, because we've become too stupid, I digress) are working on Thorium reactors which would be cheaper and safer.
    Thorium research was stopped in the late 50's because the military had need for uranium, and breeder reactors were needed - and that's why we went down that path which was halted in the 70's.
    Had that not happened, electric cars would have happened in the 70's-80's, battery technology would have improved in the 90's, and we wouldn't have been dependent upon furin oil. the Middle East wouldn't have had their wealth, Bin Laden wouldn't have come to power, we'd still have two towers standing in Manhattan, and we wouldn't be worrying about the Middle East melt down.
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      Totally agree. Energy independence is the least expensive method to nullify the Middle Eastern threat. Not sure we had what it took in materials for battery tech in the 70s/80s, but nothing drives like needs.
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  • Posted by cem4881 8 years, 10 months ago
    I have felt frustrated that the necessity of developing solutions to the problems brought about by climate change hasn't thrown open the gates to increased freedom of research and development. That people think somehow the bureaucratic set up we have now is going to take care of the problem. It is NOT.
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  • Posted by NealS 8 years, 10 months ago
    Here in the Northwest we have "Kayaktivist's Battling the Death Star" (the artic bound Shell Oil Rig). I content that anyone in this country must be allowed to protest anything based on the supreme courts decision to allow those despicable Westboro Baptist freeks to demonstrate at some hero's funeral. However in order to demonstrate you must adhere to, and set the example for, whatever you are demonstrating against. In the case of the Kayaktivist's, before they can enter the demonstration area they need to be stripped of anything that is a derivative of oil. Opps, how can they demonstrate without their plastic kayak for starters? How can they drive to the demonstration if they can't use their car?

    When politicians complain about the rich they should be required to disclose their net worth. When Obama talks about "Fair Share" he should be required to explain his share and how he acquired his fair share. Etc., etc., etc.

    I think I might actually listen more to someone that practices what they preach and sets the example for others to follow, rather than than the blowhards. Especially someone like Obama or Hillary. Both of them have to be laughing their asses off at the stupidity of the people. I actually appreciated it when that Gruber guy needed to smart off and tell the world the truth behind getting Obamacare passed (but no one listened anyway). And now no one listen to the facts about the new Libyan/Benghazi documents that surfaced. You know, some other documents that Hillary `forgot' to turn over from her server. After all `she' didn't delete her copies, `someone else' did.

    The truth is meaningless anymore in this country. The only thing we can do is Vote, and Vote Smart, and often.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 10 months ago
    To answer your question, Thoritsu, climate change is merely a straw dog set up in order to trash modern civilization and send humanity into the kind of civilization portrayed in "The Hunger Games." Time and again rational climatologists have proven that mankind has not influenced earth's climate enough to matter and that natural phenomena trumps anything mankind is able to produce. Just yesterday, in The Gulch such an article was presented.
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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 10 months ago
    I doubt that climatologists as a group even care about energy production.
    In order to have nuclear power plants a government agency has to ALLOW them to be built but as we know that is not about to happen anytime soon.
    As for the population being reduced; the way governments are doing things it is taking place.
    War; starvation to name a couple.
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  • Posted by rbunce 8 years, 10 months ago
    For the same reason they do not support hydrocarbon fuel rationing or a Manhattan style carbon sequestration and capture program... this has never been about CO2 reduction... it is about wealth/income redistribution... the Pope sees that opportunity now too.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 10 months ago
    James Hansen, at NASA, does pound the table for nuclear power. No one else in that crew does. They want to kill off everybody but themselves and those they like.

    If they were really sincere in their fear, they would not dare call an annual conference at one ritzy city after another, and fly in on 1200 business jets and rent out every chauffeured limousine on the continent of the venue. As they did for COP-15. I remember. That was the Climate-gate year.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 10 months ago
    Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima have long legacies.
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      ...and the sum of them released a fraction of the radiation released from C14 from coal plants, or to the general public by taking a transcontinental or international flight.
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 10 months ago
        You and I know that, Thoritsu, but the general public is willfully energy illiterate. BTW, I worked in the nuclear business in 1997-1998.
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        • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
          One of the best arguments on this subject I personally witnessed, was between a young anti-nuclear person and a similarly young submarine first class (E5) at our rugby game. The anti nuke started out asking "Do you know what that stuff is doing to you down there?" The submariner replied "I absolutely know what it does, and how much I received, and what it is. Can you say the same? On patrol I receive less that you out in the sun, or a transcontinental flight..." he went on and one, and the anti-nuke just stood there with his mouth open, completely stumped.

          What did you do in the nuclear industry? I've worked on submarines one way or another pretty much my entire career.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 10 months ago
            My job was to consolidate the nation's tritium supply at the Savannah River Site, back when Westinghouse ran it in the late 1990s. I did make it much safer. They gave me an award. I asked about getting promoted. They said they couldn't promote me, and that was why they gave me the award. It was not a bad consolation prize, but that was when I left that job for a private, non-tenure-granting university.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
            The anti nuke people in Ashland Oregon were requesting signatures one day. I walked over and said I''ll sign that even though it doesn't directly effect me (fully uniformed member of the infantry at that time) and I'll sign the one about land mines if you will sign one banning the use of my unit in undeclared wars.

            They hadn't a clue
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            • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
              Ha! Great schadenfreude post.

              Jan
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
                As I watched the last crumbs and smears of thick cream disappear from the plate and heard the disgusting belch I took pleasure in the shock that followed when he was handed the bill. One sachertorte in it's entirety did not a schadenfreude make. Except for me.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
        Radiation is scary because people don't understand the difference between alpha particles, beta radiation, and ionizing EM radiation; and they don't understand radioactive decay. I'm not minimizing the actual danger of radiation travelling through you or ingesting radioactive material, but I think it would seem more scary if it just seemed like dark magic. In this case you know it can destroy bodily processes leaving someone feeling okay at first but dying within days, but you don't know the difference between that kind of radiation and what's inside a smoke detector.

        A few years ago I interviewed a well-meaning activist who thought the ISM-band signals from wireless water meters posed a health risk.
        http://www.element14.com/community/commu...
        It opened my eyes to how scary the world can be to well-meaning people who don't understand science.
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        • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
          Yes. The problem in both cases is fear coming from ignorance, not unlike homophobia.
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          • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
            "The problem in both cases is fear coming from ignorance"
            I think of Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World". That's been the norm for human history, and I think we're slowly coming out of it b/c science and reason help modern people get the things they want.
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        • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
          We have to deal with FM* all the time. We have had customers demand that our system print worksheets BEFORE the accessions that go on said worksheets are entered into the system! They were more than willing to enter the accessions after the worksheets printed...but it would be so much more convenient if the worksheets printed right away...

          Jan
          * (second word is "Magic")
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          • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
            FM is an excellent acronym. Quite understandable.

            Any thoughts on how can the ignorant be FM-educated to support the right answers?
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            • Posted by $ jlc 8 years, 10 months ago
              I read an article a long time ago, I think in Readers Digest, about men having to train women for the workforce during WWII. One supervisor did much better than all the others. His technique was to say: Remember how you change the setting on your washing machine? This dial is where you change the setting on this [industrial machine] - just like on your washer. And then, remember how you set the timer on your washing machine? Well, here is where you set the timer on [machine].

              I remembered this article when we started Schuyler House - I was the chief trainer back then. If I had trouble relating how to work the software, I would try to find some relation to an everyday task. Once, the trainee was so...uh...challenging, that I finally made up a little song, "Three letters of the last name. Comma. Three letters of the first name. Enter...."

              If I recall correctly, Kimball Kennison also taught an heiress about space travel in a similar fashion.

              The problem is that change is happening so quickly that you can barely find a metaphor before the user interface changes again.

              Jan
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              • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
                there is a classic manhattan project story about the
                operators of the "calutrons" at y12 where I worked.
                of course, there were more women available for work
                during ww2, yet the scientists wanted to operate the
                controls of these u235-separating contraptions
                themselves. . they used very heavy magnetic fields
                to bend the flight of uranium atoms boiled from a
                tiny source and collected after their flight through
                the magnetic field. . constant adjustment was
                needed, as the boiling rate and field strength were
                varying all the time.

                someone suggested that they ask some of the
                available laboratory women to operate the controls.
                they did much better than the scientists. . they took
                over the job for the rest of the war. . back then, they
                were called the calutron girls. -- j

                p.s. see the last paragraph in "Scaling Up..." ::: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron
                .
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
                A chisel is to a lathe as a pencil is to a computer. That worked for the older folks when we ran a computer entry level class back in the days of XT's. RAM is the same as the top of a desk the more stuff you put on the desk the less room for work. and so it went. Pretty soon Grandpa and Grandma were splat dot splatting along with the grand kids while Mom and Pop toiled with pen, pencil and paper. However we always ended with test requiring production of a shopping list. The sole printer churned out the finished products then we held up a piece of paper and a pencil. The Lead One point One is often the easiest solution. Remains true to this day. WWII the settings were the width adjustment on the mangles of the washing machine. That was prior to McDonalds and freeways. Deja Vu.
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              • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
                Good comment. Context in learning is critical. I often have to explain how motors work to other engineers or non-technical people. It helps a lot to understand their experience before formulating the manner to make the explanation. I'm very happy when people do that for me. Doctors are a group I often find are patronizing, and many will not make this attempt.
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  • Posted by jdmatthew 8 years, 10 months ago
    Environmentalist and Climatologist are just like anyone else, self serving. If a solution were found and implemented for there manufactured calamities then what would they have to collect government money for?
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 8 years, 10 months ago
    A lot of what is happening due the current govt is in cohoots with the Greenies. Their psuedoscience has become a religion. They don't understand that the cellphones and tablets they used is derived from the use of petroleum plus other earth minerals. A number of years ago the British were trying to redesign nuclear reactors to be more compact, efficient and safer. I have not heard of anything happening in regards to that. But, I still believe that nuclear power is still a viable option for space propulsion.
    The original Orion project in the late fifties through the early seventies is still a great idea. There is still ongoing argument that NASA had the concept first or the scientists and engineers at General Atomics. The experimentation on using small nuclear explosions against a large ablative pusher plate to propel a large spacecraft into space was a part time project at GA. The actual technology was fully engineered but was halted due to the nuclear test ban treaty. The engineering even worked out to mitigate the radiation from the small nuclear blasts behind the craft. Today, it could be built in the space probably at a lagrange point then thrusted out well away from Earth to start the continuous explosion process. We could be on the way of colonizing the solar system and beyond. In reference to Analog Magazine, a number of years back a well known scifi writer wrote an article that had a design of magnetic field generators to protect the astronauts from cosmic rays.
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      Cool stuff. I recall the nuclear propulsion option vaguely. Any idea what the specific thrust is compared to other nuclear propulsion options, e.g. ion?
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      • Posted by Owlsrayne 8 years, 10 months ago
        Project Orion: Standard Orion Spacecraft
        4,000 tons/40 meter Dia. Pusher
        Plate.
        60km/sec impulse
        Using Atomic Explosives w/urea
        for radiation mitigation.
        Super Orion: 300 million tons, 10,000 - 60,000
        km/sec impulse.
        400 meter Pusher Plate.
        1000 Hydrogen bomblets @ 2-3
        megatons payload to reach 1/30th-
        plus the sppeed of light.
        Ref : "Project Orion" by George Dyson (son of Physicist Freeman Dyson); Pub: Henry Holt & Co.,N.Y.; first ed.-2002; ISBN: 0-8050-5985-7.
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  • Posted by $ Stormi 8 years, 10 months ago
    Of course this is not about climate change, climate change is normal. This is about power. Obama and his TPA bunch want to ban all fossil fuels, leaving just windmills and solar panels - no mention of nuclear. How better to control people, maybe lose a few who freeze as a bargain.Carbon credits are illogical. One area pollutes based on the credits from another, yet it all goes into the same atmosphere.
    These folks never bring up nuclear power, as it might work. They never question if the US government or the Russian government is heating the ionosphere and causing some changes, why is that? Not once have I heard an environmentalist confront DC on that. Why, because they do not think. The Sierra is one of the NGOs helping put Agenda 21 in place.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 10 months ago
    1st...there is the problem of waist...where do we store this crap. 2nd, We didn't cause climate change, it's a sun cycle (silly) 3rd...it's likely gona get real cold, so don't sell your winter woolies! Check out Maunder Minimum! Post Script...We actually could use more Carbon in our atmosphere, it's an electrical dispersant and we will need it cause our shields are down 20-25%...can you say; Carrington event? Here is the problem though...carbon released at ground level tends to stay at ground level...ie low in our troposphere.
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    • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 10 months ago
      Waste is a highly overrated problem -- and one we solved at great expense just to have Obama shut it down.

      There is a relatively small amount of waste. The idea that we have to plan for thousands of years with today's technology is incredible hubris. Captain Kirk will be along in a couple hundred years. Don't you think we'll have better tools then?
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  • Posted by RonJohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
    I'm not so sure climatologists accept the idea of CO2 causing climate change. It seems to be other scientists or academics who are pushing that agenda more. So if they don't buy CO2 as the culprit, they're not going to jump on nuclear to fix a problem they don't believe exists.
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    • Posted by RonJohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
      I've been reading the claims and counter claims about what percentage of scientists accept the validity of AGW. Thoroughly confusing. Who is surveyed, who is paying for the surveys, who is publishing, where is it published, how are the survey questions framed, etc., make the whole "97% of scientists agree" something of a farce.
      I have no idea what percentage of climatologists support AGW, based on the reports I've read. Somewhere between 36% and 97%, depending on the survey.
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      • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 10 months ago
        The most common source of 97% is a study by John Cook who runs an AGW promoting web site.

        They surveyed all the papers that had key phrases such as "climate change" and "global warming" in the abstract -- a selection biased in favor of AGW.

        Next they reviewed the 11,000 papers for indications whether the paper made a statement on whether humans caused global warming. Approximately 34% of the selected papers did.

        Of those papers, 97% indicated that humans were causing global warming.

        And they put out that 97% of scientists agree that humans cause global warming.

        Of course it's also legitimate to say that if you select papers based on warming related phrases such as "global warming" and "climate change" 33% of the papers indicate human causation.
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      • Posted by blackswan 8 years, 10 months ago
        Scientific FACTS don't require a poll.
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        • Posted by RonJohnson 8 years, 10 months ago
          Agreed. I have a problem with the number of articles devoted to polling scientists instead of examining their ideas. From my reading, as a complete layman, none AGW assertions hold up, from the lack of actual warming to the weakness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. The critics seem to have the surer argument: the sun did it.
          I'm sure if we polled alchemists in 1400 AD and asked if it was likely they would ever convert lead into gold, 97% of them would have given a hardy YES!, and as proof they would trot out convoluted arguments that no one could understand.
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          • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
            Or polling scientists prior to 900 ad about the Sun rotating around the Earth.

            Hopefully, this time around, we we look at history, we don't see the scientists that were right burned at the stake or arrested like Bruno and Galileo.
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  • Posted by iroseland 8 years, 10 months ago
    a few things..

    "climate change" has nothing to do with what is going on. If that was not the thing they would find something else. So, one must always keep a few things in mind about the "environmentalists" or whatever they are currently calling themselves.

    They are not interested in winning, what they want to see is other people lose.

    They don't not love life, not even their own. They hate life and see placing artificial regulations in the way of living as a good thing.

    Especially since we must keep in mind that there is a bottom number for the number of BTUs of energy available per capita below which civilization goes away because it is no longer possible. Human life consistently gets better because we use energy to do what would otherwise be very boring time consuming work. The washing machine was probably among the greatest most liberating inventions in human history. Right up there with refrigeration and electric light. We got those because we had enough of an energy surplus after staying warm and getting fed to start devoting that surplus to inventing and manufacturing things to make life easier. Amazingly enough those very things make it possible to use more energy even more efficiently.

    Which leads to the next point. There is a wild difference between efficiency and denial. The "environmentalists" claim to want efficiency. But what they actually preach is denial. Freezing your ass off might use less energy, but it does not use it more efficiently. The only way we get increases in efficiency is by people using brain power to find a better way. The best way to encourage that is to allow the very inventors of that efficiency to reap the rewards of their work. Anything less is an attempt to pretend that A=%

    In the meantime..

    I am kind of with the "environmentalists" on light water reactors. Those things are what you get when you let physicists and mechanical engineers do chemistry. But we are in luck.. Folks are starting to do real work towards building a better reactor.


    http://www.transatomicpower.com/
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  • Posted by vido 8 years, 10 months ago
    The current brand of alarmism in climatology stems directly from the previous scam (the ozone scam), simply they renamed themselves to IPCC to move on to the next item on their watermelon (green outside, red inside) agenda, which is a crusade against technological civilization.
    CO2, far from being harmful, is a basis for life on earth : plants and plancton use it to grow, animals in turn consume plants, and living matter is litteraly made from CO2 (in order of importance, the 4 elements entering living organisms composition are Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen).
    Not only it is the basis for life, but it is also an avoidable byproduct of the activity of every living thing, as well as every technological process.
    Climate alarmists, by pointing finger at CO2 for some imaginary ill (actually there is no such thing as global warming, we are in fact in a coolong period), found the perfect target, because of its omnipresence and also its unavoidability.
    Their next problem is to maintain the illusion until it has become undisputable, they are really busy "adjusting" temperature records every year to make it look like they are right. Their goal is the extinction of the technological advances of our civilization.
    The fact that nuclear power does not incur a significant release of CO2 (which is totally irrelevant anyway, like the ozone "problem" before) and is in fact so much cleaner and safer is a problem for them, which they prefer to push under the rug, but which shows their total hypocrisy.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
    they do not want to have an "easy" solution to their
    political quandary -- it is their lifeline;;; they own stock
    in Solyndra, or whatever it is this week. -- j

    p.s. it's directly parallel to the "race industry."
    .
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      Turn left and hope for a crash?
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      • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
        I wish! . if we could just push the scaremongers aside,
        we could do nuclear in a snap and thumb our noses
        at the OPEC nations, plus many others -- and use
        North Dakota oil for our classic cars forever!!! -- j
        .
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        • Posted by VetteGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
          I like that idea as well. Save the old dino's for my 78 Camaro and feed the self-driving cars from nuclear-generated electricity.
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          • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
            first wife and I had a 68 camaro with a 2-speed
            behind a 302 which got 33mpg at 75. . no joke! -- j
            .
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            • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
              Cool. You are talking about a small block Chevy 302 (283-302-307-327-350-400). I was talking about the small block Ford 302. I thought the Chevy 302 was a high-reving race engine Must've been efficient too, which most race engines are in the right RPM band.

              2-speed power glide! Bulletproof transmission.

              That car would be worth something.
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        • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
          Love that! I have a Lotus 7 kit car, and want a CJ2 jeep, setup with a 302 Ford or other nice light, torquey motor.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
            In the sixties and seventies and if in the military overseas one could order all manner of foreign to the USA made vehicles and have them shipped. Flush with money after a non-taxed tour which put $400 a month into savings I ordered a Lotus Europa S2 -which is why I mention this.

            My butt was about four inches off the ground or so it seemed and one had to be on the lookout for any sort of rut, pot hole or whatever. It was not made for US highways. The insurance was ....for those days sky high. Next tour I switched to MGB-GT. Sold both for more than I had paid and the third go round settled for a Land Rover.

            In Panama Canal Zone I joined the motorcycle club and the choices were Triumph, BSA or Harley. One dollar per cc which included shipping. Gas was far far under a dollar a gallon. Do you remember 35 cents to 55 cents? Tax included. Wages were less but disposable income was higher. Three of rented an apartment while attending a school in Washington DC. Groceries were $150 a month minus perishables. For all three The apartment was also $150 a month. Per Diem was $20 a day.

            THOSE were the good ole days
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            • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
              I have a couple of friends with Lotus Europas. Cool cars. I'm not really a Lotus lover, but I like the minimalist Lotus 7. It is my "not a motorcycle" to satisfy my wife. I was thinking of a Shelby Cobra, but after looking into them, the Lotus 7 will out handle and mine will out accelerate them. I can chirp the tires up to about 70, and it corners like it is on rails.
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            • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
              and even though the cigarettes were 3.25 a carton
              they still helped me give myself emphysema. -- j
              .
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
                Funny that was my Mom's excuse after sucking down asbestos laced Kent's almost all her life. Two breast cancer surgeries and emphysema died at 80 blaming everyone but herself. My dad died at 94 one month shy of 95. Smoked a pipe since he was 24 downed one shot of Jack Daniels or what we told him was Jack Daniels every evening. and other than being a registered Democrat had no serious diseases his entire life.
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                • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
                  Like the democrat as disease!

                  One of my soccer buddies is 63. After a game, he has an IPA, and a pipe. The guy is slower than the 30-somethings, but solid as a rock. I bet he ends up living to his 90s like your dad.
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              • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
                Not good!

                I never saw the point, but I got my start a little later than you I think. I do drink too much though. How's that?

                I was a smart, but weird kid. I used to say to people on the street, "Johnny Unitas says don't smoke", when I was like 3-4 yrs old. My mother was mortified.
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  • -5
    Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
    Climatologists study the climate, so they're out of their field if they say comment on nuclear power. The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is so overwhelming IMHO that we should be developing nuclear power.

    I think nuclear will make a comeback in my lifetime, either because of rising fuel costs, concern about local pollution and global climate change, and advances in making nuclear even safer.
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
      Please point me to real data supporting human-based change. Everything I find reads like Leviticus.

      I even have a work buddy whose wife is a professor of climatology, but absolutely nothing she has pointed me too is more than coincidence and appealing to the potential risk IF the coincidence is correct. "Adjusting"prior temperature data from which Global Cooling was prophetized in the 70s is really not helping my suspicions that this is anything but a power play by the Greenies.
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      • -5
        Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
        I think this is a case of no one liking what the data show-- burning stuff, which is key to human civilization, is affecting the cycle of glaciation/deglaciation, possibly in a way we haven't seen in recent geological history and that will be very costly to people. It sucks. We all wish it weren't true. Making it about politics, though, won't change the facts. Maybe it will turn out not to be true, like the 80s notion that we should eliminate fats from our diet. But right now IMHO this is the reality of what the evidence shows, and we have to face it.
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        • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
          I hear you Sax Russell (still reading your series), but I need to see the data/models/discussion.

          Show me the models predicting where we are from where we were. Show me that someone can prove they understand the physical system well enough that we should entrust our freedoms to them. Show me that I should pay $7,500 to someone buying a Tesla, that the EPA should have power to legislate CO2, or that we should have invested $400M in Solyndra.

          The only obvious benefit from reducing our CO2 emissions is an corresponding increase in national security by reducing the strength of our asymmetric enemies in the Middle East.

          If this could really be shown then given necessity, Nuclear Power MUST take off. It is clearly the only option to address the need, and in doing so, we trivialize the Middle East Threat.

          Because it is not obvious, it makes the overall response lackadaisical, which is inefficient in cost and time, and worse, points the consequential investment to longer-term, unaffordable renewable sources. If you are right, we are doing the wrong thing. Convince me and I'll become a vocal supporter, as any good skeptic should do.
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          • -3
            Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
            I don't think we should do any of that subsidy and sacrificing freedoms. I think we can calculate, very roughly, the cost to others of burning stuff and tax emissions commensurate with those costs. I think we should treat local emissions the same way. If we can compare similar properties but one near some type of pollution, we can work out the cost of the pollution and charge the polluter. This way we don't stop economic activity that generates more value than cost. In general I want taxes to come down drastically. If we need them at all, I'd like them to come from things like this, taxing things commensurate with their costs to other people. That's much better than taxing work and investing. This seems better than having everyone affected by a particular pollution suing the people who did it to cover their loss.

            I would extend this argument to what you said on Middle East national security issues. Using Middle Eastern oil for fuel or plastics has costs that should be borne by those who do it.
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            • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
              It sounds like you are describing is what Milton Friedman would have done to resolve pollution. I get this idea, and agree it is more effective than the EPA or tax credits for electric vehicles. This is a better way to deal with a problem. Of course we already severely tax gas, misspend the tax revenue, and it has done practically nothing to curb the demand.

              Again though, you are asserting there is sufficient information to levy a burden on others. You seems to be avoiding pointing me to fundamental technical arguments demonstrating the need for this action. Are you taking the position that enough people have agree, therefore it must be correct?
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              • -1
                Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
                "Are you taking the position that enough people have agree, therefore it must be correct?"
                I accept the expertise of scientists who have found something that we all wish weren't true because there are trillions of dollars worth of economic activity powered by burning stuff. It's not that their conclusion must be correct. Science by its nature is open to new evidence. The evidence at this point is CO2 emissions are affecting the climate in costly ways. We should be working on ways to capture the carbon, run reactions (maybe in plants) that consume carbon, find energy sources that don't emit carbon, and find ways to drive the climate to suit human interests.
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                • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
                  My friend, you and I differ on this point. I am ambiguous on it being true, but I have no data beyond "mob rule" that it is. Sorry, not enough. Not different than religion or the unquestioned superiority of Japanese cars. Just noise, until it is not.
                  BTW - Ford invented the NiMH battery tech that the original Prius used.
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                  • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
                    This is like my saying I have no "data" that the mitochondrion is the site of cellular respiration because I'm not a biologist; I'm just blindly "believing" the religion of a mob of biologists. Cellular respiration fact doesn't put modern civilization at risk, so there's no armchair biologist denial of it.

                    BTW, I think the organelles' function is more certain than AGW. They're only analogous in that I'm not an expert in either one. In any case, I accept scientific opinion over what I wish were true.
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                    • Posted by $ 8 years, 10 months ago
                      They are NOT the same! One of these two assertions does not demand I give up my freedoms to the one making the the assertion. The other wants my freedoms, money and asks impolitely that we change our way of life.

                      The bar is higher for that assertion.

                      I am pleased to read interesting but irrelevant science about mitochondria, spider husbandry, electric eels, quarks and social behavior. The minute someone want to use this information as a basis for power, it is time to become and expert, or be a lemming, and there is never a time to be ignorant of the facts but assert to others they are correct.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
      The Chernobyl Complex was five nuclear power plants of which one was damaged and leaked radiation when it was found the correct paperwork was not backed up with an equal number of correct rods to slow the reactor. Neverthe less all five were shut down.

      Question is. What happened to the rods used in the other plants? Was there no one to say "Quick go grab one each from plants 2, 3 and 4?

      Yes we knew the Eureka and the Diablo Canyon plant near CalTech were built over a major fault line. They made a movie about it. But it wasn't on our check list.

      And you still want to vote the supporters of socialist science back into power?
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 10 months ago
        I do not understand this comment. There is no such thing as socialist science. Science looks for answers based on experimentation and reason. Socialism is a bad philosophy of collective ownership/control of the means of production. The two don't go together.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
          You got it right as intended. If the scientists were running things with real science instead of the politicians with what I call socialist science or running things with a view to correct paperwork versus practical requirements. Problem is the bad philosophy of collective ownership and control not going together means the scientists are not in charge. So we end up with two nuclear power plants on top of the northern end of the west coasts biggest fault line. Might be different if they didn't go together and the politicos had to butt out. It's the same in the military. Shooters and REMFs and behind the latter are the most untrustworthy people in existence ....but they keep getting voted back into office again and again. And THAT is the real danger for any endeavor be it nuclear power plants or baking a cake. There is no such thing as socialist science but we're told sociology is a science and even my own field of political science is hardly a step above sociology. so? I keep digging and picking. Try this one.

          You still want to put the same people back into power and in charge of nuclear power plants?

          Personally from my own perspective I've had enough of winning wars to ...how was it....see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.
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