kristopher
kristopher's Journal(Bicycling) Helmet cam brings justice for road rage victims
The footage – all too typical of what urban cyclists regularly see – has helped convict dangerous drivers
Helmet cam footage has helped convict dangerous drivers. Photograph: David Hartley/Rex Features
We all have those moments where something happens and we wish we had a camera. This is as true on the road as anywhere else. Many cyclists now use helmet cams to record their journeys, good and bad, and in the past month several have even helped convict dangerous drivers.
The Birmingham cyclist Rob Styles was riding home in August last year, when a driver pulled up alongside him as he tried to join a right-hand filter lane.
Styles said: "I saw the driver coming along from behind, already shouting. He then pulled up on the inside of me, mounting the pavement and got out of the car, shouting. There was no build-up, no pre-cursor, it just happened."
Styles added: "The driver's explanation to the police is that I was 'in the way, blocking the road'. As the police pointed out to him, that's not how people should drive."
Local police ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/feb/22/youtube-justice-road-rage-victims?intcmp=122
Construction firm aims at space elevator in 2050
I would have titled this "Construction firm muses about space elevator by 2050" if I had written the headline...
The Yomiuri Shimbun
It may be possible to travel to space in an elevator as early as 2050, a major construction company has announced.
Obayashi Corp., headquartered in Tokyo, on Monday unveiled a project to build a gigantic elevator that would transport passengers to a station 36,000 kilometers above the Earth.
For the envisaged project, the company would utilize carbon nanotubes, which are 20 times stronger than steel, to produce cables for the space elevator.
The idea of space elevators has been described in several science-fiction novels. Obayashi, however, believes it is possible to construct one in the real world thanks to carbon nanotubes, which were invented in the 1990s, the company said.
Some other organizations...
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120221004421.htm
Top Three Reasons Cheap Natural Gas Won’t Kill Renewable Energy
By Stephen Lacey on Feb 21, 2012 at 5:02 pm
I’ll be the first to admit that cheap natural gas prices are one of the biggest short-term threats to deployment of renewable energy in the U.S. today. With a glut of gas dropping prices to historic lows, the competitiveness of technologies like wind, solar PV, and solar hot water are facing significant challenges.
But here’s the important thing to remember: The industry is being challenged, not beaten. Amidst all the hand wringing over what cheap natural gas will do to investment in renewables, we often lose sight of the fact that the cost and price of renewable energy technologies are still chasing the record price drops in natural gas. When the price of natural gas starts to climb back up (according to many estimates, it will fairly soon), renewables will be more competitive than ever.
Over the next couple of years, I believe that the age-old idiom will again be proven true: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Below are my top three reasons why natural gas won’t be the death of renewables.
1. Cheap gas won’t stay “cheap” for too much longer
2. ...
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/21/421319/top-three-reasons-cheap-natural-gas-wont-kill-renewable-energy/
3000 pages of NRC transcripts from early days of Fukushima released
WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission released Tuesday some 3,000 pages of transcripts from the days following Japan's tsunami and nuclear disaster last March, showing that U.S. officials were concerned at an early stage about possible meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and their debate over the scope of the evacuation zone.
The documents showed that as early as March 16, five days after the accident, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko projected "a worst scenario" that all three operating reactors at the crippled plant might be experiencing meltdowns.
"The reactors would likely eventually...breach primary containment and have some type of (radioactive) release," he said during a conference call, while adding that "it's difficult to predict the magnitude of that released."
The prediction turned out to be accurate and showed that NRC officials viewed the situation gravely, a stark contrast to the lack of crisis management in the Japanese government which took months before finally acknowledging that there was a meltdown.
On the evacuation zone for U.S. citizens...
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120222p2g00m0dm025000c.html
Transcripts available here:
http://michelekearneynuclearwire.blogspot.com/2012/02/nrc-data-dump-on-fukushima-transcripts.html
Kuwait scraps nuclear power in light of Fukushima crisis
KUWAIT (Kyodo) -- Kuwait is no longer pursuing nuclear power following the disaster in Japan, scrapping a plan last July to build four reactors by 2022, an official of a Kuwaiti government research body told Kyodo News and other media Tuesday.
While a number of countries, such as Germany, Switzerland and Italy, have decided to turn away from nuclear power due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis, it is rare for a country which has signed a civil nuclear power cooperation agreement with Japan to do so.
Nuclear energy was intended to be part of Kuwait's strategy to preserve its oil resources and it had set up a national nuclear energy committee in 2009.
But in July, four months after the radiation-leaking crisis broke out at the Fukushima plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, issued an order to dissolve the committee, according to the researcher.
The researcher ...
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120222p2g00m0dm102000c.html
What does the term "operational characteristics" mean to you?
In this case it refers to the way the limitations and advantages of a power source cause it to be operated. It is a combination of technical and economic factors that define when a grid operator decides to put energy from the resource onto the grid.
Those factors for coal and nuclear are very similar. Addressing your question specifically, economically coal and nuclear both have large, up front capital costs and both require fuel, therefore both have fuel costs.
In comparison geothermal has a much smaller up front capital cost and no fuel cost at all.
The technological characteristics of these sources are shaped by economics. Coal and nuclear are most profitably built by making individual generators very large. The size of a geothermal generator is limited by the less concentrated nature of underground heat. A geothermal facility is made larger by building multiple smaller units (it is similar to hydro in this respect). What happens as a consequence is that the shafts of the generating turbines for coal and nuclear plants are very large while the shafts for geothermal and hydro plant generators are much smaller.
These "characteristics", in turn, affect how each of the energy sources are best used from the grid operators point of view. Coal and nuclear are designed to run 24/7 at a constant speed. Their large individual size has the consequence of making them poorly suited to ramping up and down quickly, or shutting down and restarting quickly.
That is why natural gas has been exploited for electrical generation. Its smaller size makes it more nimble and able to respond to the variability in demand. Since the variability we see with wind and solar presents itself operationally as the same problem we see with variable demand, the natural gas that is already in place now is sufficient to handle a much higher level of renewable penetration.
The smaller size of natural gas turbines also means that the up front capital costs are far, far lower than that of nuclear and coal, but it has traditionally had far higher fuel costs than coal and nuclear, a fact that limited its economic viability. Fracking has changed that and made NG competitive with coal and nuclear; but even with fracking, there is still a significant fuel cost relative to renewables. If fracking is severely curtailed it will, at this point in time, probably benefit renewables more than it would nuclear or coal.
Due to past high per unit manufacturing costs determined by limited deployment, the zero fuel cost advantage of renewables is only now beginning to be felt. The amount of new generation capacity installed last year is most significant in that it is a leading indicator of future price declines brought about by a growing manufacturing base.
Each resource in the renewable portfolio has its own set of characteristics. As renewable penetration increases, the needs that grid operators are meeting when they select the power source required at the moment is going to be increasingly determined by the zero-fuel cost of renewables instead of the merely low fuel costs of nuclear and coal.
That also applies to natural gas. While there is currently a glut, no one expects that to continue. As the backbone renewable manufacturing continues to ramp up, their zero fuel costs will to some degree displace all sources that have fuel costs. The degree that each specific fuel will be a loser will vary by region.
I hope this helps make the situation more clear. It will take decades but we are in the process of building a distributed grid based on the operational characteristics of renewables. This is why I reject spending money to build or extend the life of nuclear plants. The larger the percentage of renewables on the grid, the more the decision-making of grid operators is guided by the needs of renewables and the more zero-fuel cost renewables are deployed to meet those needs.
A report documenting the way nuclear (or coal if it were supported like nuclear) crowds out renewables can be downloaded here:
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/IEE/20100909_cooperStudy.pdf
Japanese Gov't emergency headquarters refused to conduct additional thyroid testing on children
...Between March 26 and March 30 last year, the emergency headquarters used simple radiation sensors to test thyroid radiation exposure among 1,080 children between the ages of 0 and 15. The children were living in areas outside the 30-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant where high levels of radiation exposure were likely.
None of the children registered radiation exposure levels exceeding 0.2 microsieverts per hour, the figure set by the NSC as one above which children would be required to undergo a more thorough examination. However, one child from the Fukushima Prefecture city of Iwaki registered 0.1 microsieverts per hour, whose accumulated thyroid exposure to radiation was calculated to be around or above 30 millisieverts.
On March 30, after the NSC was informed of the results from the government's nuclear emergency headquarters, NSC asked that additional tests be conducted on the child with a thyroid monitor, which is capable of taking more precise measurements.
...On April 1, 2011, however, the government's emergency headquarters decided not to conduct further tests, citing "the difficulty of transporting a 1-ton thyroid monitor," "requiring the child to travel long distances for tests," and "risk of spreading extreme panic and making the child, the child's family and their local community targets of unwarranted discrimination" as reasons...
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120221p2a00m0na018000c.html
United Nations Environment Programme Yearbook 2012
Chapter 1
YEAR IN REVIEW
2011 saw a number of environmental extremes, including record extreme weather and climate events and increasing degradation of marine ecosystems. However, progress was made towards new investments in renewable energy, with continued investment needed to transition to a green economy.
Chapter 2
THE BENEFITS OF SOIL CARBON
The carbon in soils provides multiple benefits, especially in enhancing food production and regulating our climate. Effective management of soils is important for maintaining and even enhancing soil carbon content, in a way that will meet the food, water and energy demands of a growing population.
Chapter 3
CLOSING AND DECOMMISSIONING NUCLEAR POWER REACTORS
The number of nuclear power reactors that are set to be decommissioned is increasing. The scale of the task ahead will require careful planning and co-ordination to ensure that decommissionings are carried out safely and cost-effectively.
Chapter 4
KEY ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS
Global environmental trends that illustrate the state of our environment can be inferred using several key indicators. These indicators bring to light a number of positive trends, but also highlight the need to address mounting challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and land and soil degradation.
Links to download each section or the entire report here:
http://www.unep.org/yearbook/2012/
In other words you can't answer the question without showing you are being misleading.
In the first place, the line of argument about shutting down nuclear plants is a red herring, it isn't related to the discussion at all unless you are replying to this reference in post #3:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11275859
And if you were, then you seem seriously confused about what that article is about since the reductions in nuclear are gradual and result from increased deployment of renewable generation - thus negating the entire premise of your screed.
As for your position that humans aren't to be trusted with nuclear power, I can only say that you are extremely consistent over many years in writing posts that contradict the position you claim here to hold.
You can't minimize the significance of the OP - 68% of new capacity in the EU last year was renewable energy.
You want to portray the OP as representing some sort of failure because natural gas is also surging. While I can appreciate the purity of the call to eliminate all fossil fuels as soon as possible, the fact is that the process is going to require decades to accomplish. It is also a fact that the different generating sources have different operational characteristics that must be considered when we prioritize our choices now and going forward.
In that sense the additional deployment of natural gas is a step in the right direction. Even if it emits CO2 at a level similar to coal there are significant differences in the way it integrates with renewables that work to create a grid that encourages deployment of ever increasing levels of renewables and expanding efforts at energy efficiency and conservation.
Nuclear and coal are NOT compatible with renewables, energy efficiency efforts or conservation in the same way. In fact they are virtual twins of each other and form the basis of a system that works to shut out renewables and expand not only the level of consumption overall but also the consumption of natural gas.
Lawyers send complaint to European Commission about subsidies for nuclear power
A formal complaint about subsidies for nuclear power has been sent to the European Commission. If it is upheld, it unlikely that any new nuclear power stations will be built in the UK or elsewhere in the EU. The complaint may be followed by legal action in the courts or actions by politicians to reduce or remove subsidies for nuclear power.
The complaint has been prepared by lawyers for the campaign group Energy Fair group, with several other environmental groups and environmentalists.
One of the largest subsidies in the complaint is the cap on liabilities for nuclear accidents. “Like car drivers, the operators of nuclear plants should be properly insured,” says Energy Fair. It has been calculated that, if nuclear operators were fully insured against the cost of nuclear disasters like those at Chernobyl and Fukushima, the price of nuclear electricity would rise by at least 14 Eurocents per kWh and perhaps as much as 2.36 Euros, depending on assumptions made. Even with the minimum increase, nuclear electricity would become quite uncompetitive.
Other subsidies in the complaint are: that uranium is exempted from a tax on fuels used to generate electricity, and that the UK government is proposing to provide support for the disposal of nuclear waste, and to provide a subsidy in the form of a 'feed-in tariff with contracts for difference'. Research by Energy Fair shows that there are several other subsidies for nuclear power in the UK and that proposals by the government would introduce more.
Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and leader of the Green party of England and Wales, said: ...
http://www.engineerlive.com/Power-Engineer/Nuclear_Power/Lawyers_send_complaint_to_European_Commission_about_subsidies_for_nuclear_power/23960/
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