Nuclear Lebanon

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Ajani wrote :

Did you hear Hassan Nasrallah’s speech last night?

As the Hezbollah chief was talking (televised from his top-secret hiding place, as usual), fights were raging in the Beirut barrio of Bourj Abi Haidar.

Big Nas didn’t mention the clashes in his speech, however. Instead, he introduced some much-needed comic relief by telling the Lebanese that we need a nuclear power program to solve our electricity crisis. He even noted the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran.

What’s wrong with Nasrallah? Can't he think outside the parameters of provocation? Must everything he suggests be controversial and designed to piss Israel off? The Jewish State was seriously considering bombing Bushehr. Wouldn’t it be easier for them to wipe us off the face of the earth, considering our proximity? It’s not like they haven’t been talking about it for 30 years…

And what’s wrong with solar power? We have 300 days of sunshine a year in Lebanon, and nobody’s going to vaporize the country over a mountainside covered with solar panels. It’s actually kinda pretty, especially since we don’t have that many trees lining our mountains anymore.


On BeirutSpring blog, Mustapha wrote :

Sayyed Nasrallah in yesterday’s speech:

“I call on the Lebanese government to seriously consider … building a nuclear power plant for the peaceful purpose of generating electricity, which would be more cost-efficient than the plan the government has endorsed,”

Irony aside, there is no doubt that nuclear energy is one of the most efficient and clean ways to generate power. The only reason such technology is being denied to Iran (and Hezbollah by extension) is because it can also be used for military means.

It is also very expensive, and that is why Sayyed Nasrallah probably meant it as a joke, to criticize the hugely expensive and inefficient electrical sector in the country.

I don't see how that's provocation. It's simple to realize that building a nuclear power plant and building an atomic bomb are two very different tasks, and the raw material used in a power plant is not suitable for making a working bomb.

Plenty. Expense, reliability, energy storage/transfer, etc.

Not saying solar power shouldn't be considered. Just that it isn't necessarily the best or only answer.

And advances are being made that are fixing all of those issues...well, except reliability which can't really be helped (or maybe it can if you're into the whole chemtrails/HAARP conspiracy).

I still think we should just absolutely plaster all of the unused desert land with solar farms. I'm talking hundreds (maybe thousands?) of square mileage.

Well, right, advances are being made, but they aren't here now, and the question remains whether the advances will be sufficient. Reliability of solar cells remains a problem even in the absence of weather conditions because of certain maintenance issues.

I'm not opposed to solar power, and I certainly think it's one avenue we should invest in. But we can't trust just one thing to supply all we need. Diversification of energy sources is needed.

Solar power is not reliable base line power, except in a few places in the country where sunshine is steady and abundant. Ditto for wind power. For steady, predictable baseline power, the only reasonable alternative to burning stuff is high head hydro-electric power, nuclear fission heat generation and geothermal power. The latter is technologically beyond our means except in certain spot in the world where tectonic plates collide and expose magma. Iceland, for instance.

ruveyn

'Above ground - good, below ground - bad' is all an old friend of mine ever had to say about choice of energy source.

Lebanon is a small country with a militarily hostile neighbor. This presents two obvious disincentives to nuclear power generation.

1/ Where will you put the masses of waste and is it responsible to poison water by using it in cooling and then where will it go? All in a water scarce region.

2/ How can you be sure of it's security? Really all you would be doing is placing an excellent ultimate target that can be turned into a toxic disaster with a single barrage or air strike.

China seems to be making great advances in 'cleaner' energy production as they are aware the current tech is a dead end for all, however imagine the faces of all the xenophobic god fearing white folks if the Occident and the Orient, Islam and Communism were to get too co-operative
Good luck with that.

peace j

Last edited by RedHanrahan on 28 Aug 2010, 4:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, you might want power at night for a start. Solar or wind power can never generate enough power for a modern industrial society.

Coal, gas and nuclear are the only energy sources that will do the job.

Why does no one ask these questions about hydrocarbon-based energy sources? They produce arguably worse waste than nuclear.

Just to comment real quick on the solar panel thing, I recently read a PopSci article regarding an inventor who figured out a way to make a solar panel that can be embedded in the road and driven over. The initial roll out is going to be big box retailers like Target and Walmart that have huge parking lots, the calculations show them not only powering the store but feeding power back into the grid. Eventually roads and highways could be used as giant solar farms feeding power into the system, I love the idea for the space efficiency alone.

Add in geothermal heat, at least in principle. There is a lot of heat underground. Also high head dams are a good source of baseline hydroelectric power. The problem is that high head locations are rather sparse.

ruveyn

Fair point, however radioactive toxicity does not degrade readily and cannot be absorbed by carbon sinks or degrade into less toxic compounds within natural ecological systems. All of the toxins from hydrocarbons are produced by natural terrestrial phenomena and other natural phenomena respond accordingly.

Personally I think the only real solutions in being less energy hungry and to plant trees like mad - but I am a self professed luddite... kind of out of step with modern consumerism etc.

peace j

Last edited by RedHanrahan on 31 Aug 2010, 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Interesting terminology usage from a person who derided another person as being racist in another thread.

In what sense is this descriptive irony racist? In what way did I encourage hate or predjudice?

It is I presume OK for you to use irony and descriptive language in your posts on the 'american empire' thread yet when it is turned on you it is racist [your inference]?

My observations are valid given the US administrations anxieties over Iran, are they not?

peace j

"Hot" radioactive waste can either be recycled in a breed reactor or it can be dumped/buried in a safe place. I favor the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. The water is nearly seven miles deep. That should be plenty of shielding against unwanted ionizing radiation.

ruveyn

Over Iran? You ... yes, the USA is concerned about Iran, and so is most of the middle east, not just Israel. Their leadership is insane and they are almost ready to have nukes, what the friviolity is there NOT to be afraid of? It's like letting kids play with a Dylan minigun... it's just not a good idea in any stretch of the imagination. All such cliched talk about equality does not apply to people of this type. We might as well go to an asylum and pass around flamethrowers.

Someone recently came up with a scheme where hot waste is put in metal capsules and dropped down something akin to a deep sea oil well, except it's just a really deeply drilled hole. Apparently the waste would generate enough heat to literally burn it's way through the rock down into the earth's mantel, where it would be reabsorbed into the planet. I don't know enough about the science to rate the plausibility, but it sounds good if it works.