Posted on 07/02/2005 10:50:54 PM PDT by FairOpinion
As mainland China is trying to acquire an American oil company to fuel its industrial expansion, and gas prices at the pumps are shooting sky high, the world is haunted again by an energy crisis that will not go away any time soon. There is a ray of hope, however, and it comes from a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy supply -- from nuclear fusion. This week, an international consortium consisting of the United States, Russia, mainland China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union announced that it has chosen France as the site of the world's first nuclear fusion reactor. The ambitious, US$10 billion project is seen as crucial to solving the world's future energy needs.
Of late, mainland China has been making international headlines for its unsolicited, US$18.5 billion bid to take over the California-based Unocol, America's eighth largest oil company. The bidder, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is a state-owned firm.
Mainland China is energy-thirsty. With its economy growing at an average of 9.5 per cent annually in the last two decades, the country has a critical shortage of energy. According to recent reports from Beijing, the mainland now suffers a shortfall of energy supply totaling 31,000 megawatts, and is planning to build 31 nuclear power plants of 1,000 mw each in the next 15 years, at an estimated cost of US$3 billion each unit.
The situation is not very much different in Taiwan, where power shortage is common, especially in hot summer months. The island's controversial fourth nuclear power plant in northern Taiwan, with two boiling-water reactors supplied by General Electric will barely satisfy the country's energy needs upon completion many years from now.
In Taiwan, anti-nuclear energy has been the policy of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, causing delays in the construction of the fourth nuclear plant. Environmentalists the world over are against nuclear energy, citing the danger of toxic, radio-active waste.
Moreover, dreadful images of the Three-Mile Island's nuclear reactor meltdown in the United States in the 70s and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the former Soviet Union in the 80s still haunt the memory of the world. As a result, many countries in the West have shunned nuclear energy by shutting down their nuclear plants or stopping building new ones.
Why, then, the multi-billion-dollar project to develop nuclear fusion technology in France? Is the energy from nuclear fusion cleaner and safer than that from nuclear energy? There seems no simple answer to these questions.
To begin with, nuclear energy has been controversial since its beginning. Countries like France and Japan depend on nuclear energy as a major source of energy supply without serious safety problems. Coal-fired power plants pollute the air and cause global warming and climate change. In fact, there is no clean energy except wind, hydraulic and solar energy, but they are not big enough to meet the world's demand.
Judging from the prospects that crude oil will be depleted by 2035, and coal is just too dirty to be relied upon as a major source of energy, the world has little choice but to turn to nuclear energy. Fusion may become the ultimate method of producing energy because it is the way the Sun produces light and heat, and it uses far less "fuel" than in the case of nuclear energy.
Why less "fuel?" Remember Albert Einstein's famous equation: E equals mc square? The m in this equation is the mass lost during fusion, and the tiny loss in mass results in a large release of E(nergy).
It's time for Taiwan to take a serious look at its energy future. Unless we have a better and viable alternative, nuclear energy seems the inevitable choice. Just look: All the six members of the consortium, except mainland China, are wealthy industrial democracies who care about the well-being of their citizens no less than the politicians and ideologues here do about their compatriots. We must have long-term plans for our energy future. "Love Taiwan" should not be a slogan; it should not in fact "sink Taiwan."
Exactly. It's time to start using nuclear energy.
China must be stealing our journalism secrets too.
Indeed it is. I haven't checked recently, but I think the new Grand Gulf license is getting closer:
End of draft EIS comment period 07/14/05 - T Optional final inspection complete 09/08/05- T Final SER issued 10/21/05 - T Regional Administrator's Letter 11/22/05 - T ACRS subcommittee meeting on final SER 11/22/05 - T ACRS full committee meeting on final SER 12/08/05 - T ACRS letter to Commission 12/22/05 - T Final EIS issued to EPA/Issue Notice of Availability 2/23/05 - T Final SER issued as NUREG 01/28/06 - T Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) initial decision 6/06/06 - T Commission decision 10/10/06 - T
I, for one, am fearful of the use of nuclear energy until we devise a safe way of treating the waste from it.
no no no, thinking like that might lead to thoughts of conservation or investments in alternative energy, neither of which concepts is allowed at FR.
I agree
If we can only find a mountain out west that's isolated like in Nevada or somewhere, where we could safely bury the waste I would be all on board
We are using nuclear power right now, as a matter of fact, so are you terrified out of your mind right now? or just a little concerned?
Well, I shouldn't mock. Nuclear waste is a serious concern, no doubt. But when does concern become hysterical rhetoric? We have examined Yucca Flats for decades, and when Bush says, OK, let's proceed, the howling commences. It's just not an issue that's being rationally debated.
Every form of popular media, starting with The Simpsons, presents us with the foregone conclusion that it's completely insane to even consider using nuclear energy ( even though we use more than France - or at least we did. ) It is rhetoric, not logic that holds sway.
"I, for one, am fearful of the use of nuclear energy until we devise a safe way of treating the waste from it."
So, you would rather have coal plants pump radiactive material into the air rather than bury reactor waste at Yucca Mountain? It is the ill educated like you that drive me nuts.
radiactive=radioactive
Oddly, the way the article is written, it seems the reactor is ready to start producing energy as soon as it is built. I thought we were still the perennial decade away from break-even with Fusion?
Anyway, fusion energy should not be casually lumped into the discussion of the dangers of using nuclear energy. The waste-management problems of fusion power are nowhere near the scale of those for traditional atomic-power plants.
As soon as Popular Science shows me a how-to, I'm going to start building my own.
"Exactly. It's time to start using nuclear energy."
I find this interesting. The enviros are always ranting against fossil fuels... but they are also the first ones to rail against the only currently viable alternative (Nuclear). I bet if solar became economical they would find something wrong with that too. A rule of thumb with environmentalists is that if it's practical, they oppose it.
Ah yes, Three Mile Island, which liberal anchor Walter Cronkite scared America into thinking would be a disaster of epochal proportions killing thousands, but which ended up being less dangerous than a highway traffic accident.
the real lesson of TMI was that nuclear safety methods (eg containment vessels and all) worked.
"If we can only find a mountain out west that's isolated like in Nevada or somewhere, where we could safely bury the waste I would be all on board"
LOL, Yeah, it's a real pity that we didn't spend $20 billion in the last 20 years coming up with a solution to that problem, finding a mountain with a stable location well above the water table that could store this for thousands of years --
I mean, if we did all that, and showed how this waste issue is really a NON-ISSUE that irrational anti-nuke extremists use as a bogus trump card, the anti-nuke movement would go away - right? right!?!?
(sarcasm off)
"I bet if solar became economical they would find something wrong with that too."
Of course - try to use up some desert to build solar power plants and they will find the Arizona horned dung beetle or some other critter to tell you to stop it,
Nuclear energy, properly built and maintained, is the most environmentally friend form of energy production there is,
that is why it is so treatening to the 'small is beautiful' anti-growth anti-capitalist 'environmentalists',
they hate it because it is a possible future of abundant energy, and the eco-extremists biggest boogeyman is abundant energy.
I live in Vegas, wrote a whole book on Yucca Mountain and the anti-nukes. As I get time, I will revise and publish it. I was blackballed for a while. But I only have 10,000 years to get it published.
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