Earth Hour... Anyone else signing up?

[Tribble]

I am not going to be a nimrod this time around

[rustypup]

obvious news is obvious?

won't stop the prats being insufferably 'green' about it all... tjops...

[GreyWolf]

NUKULUR POWA ALL THE WAI!

[Anakha56]

In my area if I switch the lights off for a hour when they get switched back on my house will be empty...

[ghett0_ghuru]

the concept was cool in the beginning....
awareness is always a good thing,
but now its been hijacked, especially by Eskom, and being made into a circus....
ALL MY LIGHTS WILL BE ON....

[StarBound]

I've switched to LED lights so they take 1/10th of the power my old lights did.

I would like to replace my Sandy Bridge-E to Ivy Bridge-E but I doubt I will get subsidised for that.

[rustypup]

NUKULUR POWA ALL THE WAI!

nothing wrong with either pebble bed or thorium reactors outside of political nattering and go-green-hippies...

other things which would have immediate, lasting, impact is:
1) use lower wattage bulbs...
2) stop breeding like mindless rabbits..

[Tribble]

But the breeding is so much fun.........

[rustypup]

condom use has been recorded as far back as the 15th century... it's probably time we got a clue...

otherwise everything else is indulgent, ineffectual, whining about how selfish everybody else is...

but not me... or my seven kids... and their 30 kids... we're special/unique...

[GreyWolf]

nothing wrong with either pebble bed or thorium reactors outside of political nattering and go-green-hippies...

other things which would have immediate, lasting, impact is:
1) use lower wattage bulbs...
2) stop breeding like mindless rabbits..

Dude I agree with you 100%. When the tsunami hit Japan last year, everyone was all up in arms about the Fukushima disaster. Idiots were too busy focusing on the "NEXT CHERNOBYL" to realise it was actually a triumph for nuclear energy.

Also on the breeding. Tribble, there is a big difference between breeding and having sex for fun.

[Tribble]

But as puppy said = that is what the condom is for

[hamin_aus]

Australia, that bastion of enlightenment that welcomed me as their savior has said a firm NO to nuclear power.

They are exploring literally every other facet of power generation.
Currently about 60% of our power here comes from coal and much of the rest from natural gas.
They are spending a lot to develop other means tho.

They have a wave-generated power plant off the coast of WA which has buoys tethered to underwater turbines which produce electricity when waves drive them up and down. They also have more traditional hydro-electric plants which use dams

They are drilling into massive granite fissures in central Aus - the temperatures deep in these fissures are hot enough to make geothermal power feasible.

They are in the process of setting up a 154MW photovoltaic plant which will be the biggest and most efficient of its kind in the world

They are also heavily investing in Wind and aim to have a country-wide production rate of 10 GW from wind in 2016

In addition to this they have several biomass and biodiesel projects on the go.

You don't need nuclear power.

[Anakha56]

WA

Web Africa is in AUS?

[GreyWolf]

Australia, that bastion of enlightenment that welcomed me as their savior has said a firm NO to nuclear power.

They are exploring literally every other facet of power generation.
Currently about 60% of our power here comes from coal and much of the rest from natural gas.
They are spending a lot to develop other means tho.

They have a wave-generated power plant off the coast of WA which has buoys tethered to underwater turbines which produce electricity when waves drive them up and down. They also have more traditional hydro-electric plants which use dams

They are drilling into massive granite fissures in central Aus - the temperatures deep in these fissures are hot enough to make geothermal power feasible.

They are in the process of setting up a 154MW photovoltaic plant which will be the biggest and most efficient of its kind in the world

They are also heavily investing in Wind and aim to have a country-wide production rate of 10 GW from wind in 2016

In addition to this they have several biomass and biodiesel projects on the go.

You don't need nuclear power.

The thing is: all of those methods take energy from the environment, and the long term implications of harvesting energy from these systems has not been fully explored.

Furthermore: I can't speak for all the alternate methods, but of one thing I am fairly certain: wind power is a dead end. I read an article that states that if you covered every viable place on earth with wind turbines it would only produce 3% of the energy humanity requires.

And lets not even talk about the cost.

Nuclear energy is currently the cheapest, most efficient, most environmentally clean, and yes the safest way to provide electricity.

[StarBound]

Yup Nuclear is the cleanest of the non renewable sources despite the 100 year waste it produces. Solar and wind are nature dependant. But if all houses are built with some form of solar powered panelling it would cut down on what's needed to produce however with the lower production the income from production will also drop.

I believe Norway has the best wave powered energy generation there is.

I also have to add something about going green. My idea and acceptance of going greens means lowering the power needed to run something while providing the same performance.

[GreyWolf]

Yup Nuclear is the cleanest of the non renewable sources despite the 100 year waste it produces.

SCIENCE TO THE RESCUE!

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory think they have found a way to access the remaining 95% of the uranium in the fuel rod. Their technique could produce hundreds to thousands of years worth of carbon free energy just by reusing the uranium that has already been mined, and is currently considered ‘spent’.

[hamin_aus]

Yup Nuclear is the cleanest of the non renewable sources

Hurr durr gold medal at the special olympics...

The thing is: all of those methods take energy from the environment, and the long term implications of harvesting energy from these systems has not been fully explored.

trololololo
4/10

if you covered every viable place on earth with wind turbines it would only produce 3% of the energy humanity requires.

Well when you consider that over 60% of our total energy consumption is America, India and China, 3% could run several smaller countries.

Cost is the only place you got me, it costs more to produce green power. Lets print more money on carbon friendly paper.

[StarBound]

Lets print more money on carbon friendly paper.

In Zimbabwe it is cheaper to use the Zim dollar as toilet paper than to buy 2 ply or 1 square

[rustypup]

They are drilling into massive granite fissures in central Aus - the temperatures deep in these fissures are hot enough to make geothermal power feasible.

wait... Oz, a land with limited surface water reservoirs and a major problem with top-soil loss, from landslides owing to deforestation, is looking to utilise the one form of energy production proven to cause earthquakes...

sounds like a cunning plan!

[GreyWolf]

The thing is: all of those methods take energy from the environment, and the long term implications of harvesting energy from these systems has not been fully explored.

trololololo
4/10

Not at all. Its simple Newtonian physics. If you take energy from a system, it will change.

I do realise that the amount of energy we will be harvesting will be insignificant (in the beginning at least), but if eco-nuts are going crazy over the 14% of the 0.039% of CO2 in the atmosphere that we generate, you can bet your left nut they will kick up a fuss about how we are destroying nature by "stealing the wind".

[StarBound]

...you can bet your left nut they will kick up a fuss about how we are destroying nature by "stealing the wind".

East coast wind farm project? I remember the plans getting turned down because it would interfere with the birds flight paths, wind currents and pollen distribution for the area that was planned to generate some electricity.

The moral of the story? Can't please anyone, nuke everyone! ...nuclear power that is.

[rustypup]

wind farms and solar energy are expensive, load independent and intermittent... you can't wind them up or down to balance load... the output is all over the place... which means managing delivery into the national grid is an exercise in finely balanced forecasting, an eye on the weather and blind luck...

wind farms are stupidly expensive in maintenance and the output varies wildly in extreme temperatures...

solar panels are stupidly expensive to manufacture and only pay back their fabrication cost in energy after 10 years of service... at which point they will have been replaced... so the net gain from solar is still far below the magical "clean" energy bar claimed by the hippies....

they're all good ideas, but they're not having the advertised results... the true cost of these "renewable" energy sources are not well publicised for a reason... they represent political bombshells that nobody cares to handle...

[StarBound]

they represent political bombshells that nobody cares to handle...

When the blades up and disappear from a wind farm or a few panels goes missing no one cares. But when 1 or 2 uranium rods gets misplaced fingers goes flying.

[hamin_aus]

wind farms are stupidly expensive in maintenance and the output varies wildly in extreme temperatures...

Okay, we will disregard those.

solar panels are stupidly expensive to manufacture and only pay back their fabrication cost in energy after 10 years of service... at which point they will have been replaced... so the net gain from solar is still far below the magical "clean" energy bar claimed by the hippies....

Perhaps true 20 years gao, bunk now.
While still the least cost efficient way to produce power, solar in countries like autralia has been proven as a viable way of augmenting existing power output. In 2012 Aus produces over 1.7GW of power using solar, and there are currently 3 more plants in production which by 2016 will add another 500MW to that.

There are also plans to upgrade existing coal plants to CHP heat exchange plants, something which would see the efficiency of these plants go from about 50% to over 75%

they're all good ideas, but they're not having the advertised results... the true cost of these "renewable" energy sources are not well publicised for a reason... they represent political bombshells that nobody cares to handle...

As opposed to the 500 million palace being build for Zuma or the billions pissed away frivolously by your bureaucracy there?

Aus is nuke free and the billions it spends on developing greener power generation have been more than worthwhile as they have augmented its current output capability to the point that it is keeping up with present and future demand. In the early 90's there was a huge debate here about nuclear power. The decision was made to go green instead and nobody has looked back. No load shedding, no mothballing then un-mothballing plants. Nothing but uninterrupted power.

You are talking about adding more nuclear to a country known for being hopelessly inept at keeping anything running. Koeberg has already had several nasty mishaps that a 10th grade woodwork student could probably have prevented. Eskom is a global joke whose current pass time is firing skilled technicians to subsidize its exco's golden parachutes. How long before the house of cards that they have built collapses under a the weight of a new pebble-bed reactor

I can only hope the fallout blows north

[ghett0_ghuru]

You are talking about adding more nuclear to a country known for being hopelessly inept at keeping anything running.

and how this is news to the rest of us?