Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumBerlin court rules GreenTec Awards' disqualification of nuclear entry unlawful
"'The DFR exactly matches the GreenTec Awards criteria,' says Dr. Götz Ruprecht. He is one of the DFRs inventors from the Institute for Solid-State Nuclear Physics (IFK) in Berlin. The reactor is environmentally friendly, sustainable and economical, he says. Without CO2 emissions and with minimal land use it can generate large amounts of cheap electricity and fuel. And it eliminates pollutants, namely the spent nuclear fuel of existing nuclear power plants. 'The DFR belongs to the class of fast fission reactors and can therefore use this waste as fuel,' the nuclear physicist explains. 'With todays conventional nuclear power plants this is not possible at all. However, the DFR can even do it in a particular efficient manner.'
But GreenTec Awards organizers and jury did not join Ruprechts view. They could not imagine to have a nuclear reactor in the final round of their green competition. Therefore, they constructed a subsequent rule change and threw the DFR from the race. The public vote should no longer be valid. The jurys decision should count solely.
However, the DFRs expulsion from the GreenTec Awards was unlawful and must be undone, the Berlin Court of Appeal decided now (case 25 W 22/13). The court also allowed the DFR makers application for an injunction. Greentec Communications GmbH must accept the results of the online voting, treat the DFR according to the original contest rules and allow it for the finals. Consequently, the jury must repeat its vote for the overall winner, taking into account the Dual-Fluid Reactor as a regular candidate. In addition, the IFK has the right to receive a movie about the DFR created by TV broadcaster ProSieben, one of the awards media partners. As a nominee, the DFR must also receive an adequate presentation at the GreenTec Awards gala on August 30th in Berlin. The courts decision is final; Greentec Communications must bear the judicial costs."
http://rainerklute.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/injunction-dual-fluid-reactor-nominated-for-greentec-awards-nevertheless/
kristopher
(29,798 posts)I'm sure the nuclear propaganda machine had nothing at all to do with the voting...
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)Go watch this:
The Atomic City / The Magic of the Atom - 1950's Atomic Energy
Then check out the reality since then.
Look, the nuclear industry has been shitting on the planet all along. There's even a nuclear dump 30 miles from my house to take in all the waste from the other nuclear dumps that couldn't leak, but did.
So shit on me is one thing. Laughing cause I stink is beyond the pale.
So yeah, I won't rah rah this magic process, either.
wtmusic
(39,166 posts) nuclear energy is estimated to have saved 1.8 million lives which would have been lost to fossil pollution
nuclear energy is the safest way to make electricity, bar none
the total number of radiation deaths from nuclear energy is less than the number of Americans killed by coal pollution every year
Please don't fall for the "Friends of the Earth", oil-industry financed bullshit. Because that's all it is.
In 1970, Robert O. Anderson, a Texas oil man whose long career included a stint as the Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) (now part of BP, the company formerly known as British Petroleum), gave David Brower $200,000 to start Friends of the Earth (FOE). Here is a quote from that organizations page about nuclear reactors:
For 40 years, Friends of the Earth has been a leading voice in the U.S. in opposing nuclear reactors. In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, it is clear that there can and must be a thorough debate on our energy future and the need to move beyond this dangerous and dirty technology to the clean renewable energy and efficiency technologies of the 21st century.
Funding FOE is only a part of the financial and political support that Anderson provided to help establish the global antinuclear energy movement. His decision to fund Friends of the Earth came after Brower was involved in an internal struggle in the Sierra Club; he was fired after being accused of reckless spending and insubordination.
Brower had originally supported the Atoms, Not Dams campaign waged by the Sierra Club in the late 1950s. However, before he was ousted from his job as Executive Director in 1969, Brower had changed his position on nuclear energy. During the tumultuous 1960s, he was instrumental in establishing the Sierra Club as a leading member of the antinuclear movement.
He was often ahead of his time in the environmental battles he waged (in his early opposition to nuclear power, for example), a precociousness that sometimes brought enmity even from his friends.
Friends of the Earth established its initial branch in the UK. Amory Lovins, then a student at Oxford, was one of the groups first campaigners. In 1971, Lovins dropped out of college for the second time to become a full time employee of FOE.
http://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun-robert-anderson/
kristopher
(29,798 posts)You wrote: "nuclear energy is the safest way to make electricity, bar none"
Neither the study cited by the Washington Post nor the Washington Post article itself makes that claim - they can't because it isn't true.
Limiting the world of generation to fossil and nuclear is what the folks in the world of fossil and nuclear like to do because renewable generation is going to put them out of business. We see this pattern in "the six lies of the nuclear industry"; to which we now seem to need to add a 7th:
1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if wed follow the lead of many other nations and recycle our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable;
5. there are no other large low-carbon baseload alternatives;
6. theres no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.
7. Nuclear energy is the safest way to make electricity, bar none.
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)TXU, which owns the nuclear plants in Texas, gets 20 cents per KWH.
Please don't patronize me. I live 30 miles from the newest nuclear dump in the country, where they are now shipping all the waste that leaked in the old dumps. Hardly safe at all.
Fact is, nuclear power is the most subsidized, filthiest, and most dangerous method ever devised to boil water.
Wind and sun. Beat that for cost.
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)TXU's lowest rate for wind-powered electricity is 9.4 cents/KWH around Andrews, and their highest rate is 13.9 cents/KWH.
https://www.txu.com/view-plans.aspx?cint=5&dwel=01&prom=PS&zip=79714&tdsp=ER_ONCOR
So no, you don't pay "6.8 cents per KWH" for wind-generated electricity, and no one pays "20 cents per KWH" for nuclear electricity. And to make matters worse, the fact is that you use more nuclear electricity than wind - regardless of what your plan reads. That's what's on Texas's grid, and the electrons don't give a crap what's pushing them through the wire.
http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TX
How does it feel to be railing against nuclear power on a nuclear-powered computer? It should feel a little hypocritical.
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)You will note that wind and other renewables is equal to nuclear output. And I live in Odessa, Texas, which is in the center of the Saudi Arabia for wind power. Texas is already #1 in wind power among all states, and still building, while nuclear is at a standstill. So there's mostly natural gas generated electricity in Texas with equal nuclear and renewables, with renewables on the grow.
Karnak, there's not a bit of use trying to convince me that I was not paying 20 cents per KWH to TXU three years ago, because that raise was what caused me to dump them after 39 years as a customer.
I never said I was still with TXU, and I'm not. Liberty Power gives us a great small business rate of, you guess it, 6.8 cents per KWH, and we've already established that I live in the middle of wind, while Dallas and South Texas live amongst the nuclear reactors.
Now, charge up your crystal ball, call me a liar some more, because I won't be listening - you don't want to have a discussion, you want to patronize me and call me a liar. No use me putting up with that - I can get all I want in person from teabagger townspeople.
Have a wonderful day there in nuke heaven!
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)but keep typing that bullshit on your nuclear powered computer, and call it whatever makes you feel good.
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)... with the 6.8 cents per kWh? I couldn't seem to find it anywhere in the Texas energy plans.
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)Thanks for asking!
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)... of Central Texas. Does your 6.8 cents include the TDU delivery charge?