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[Invelious]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/10/07/keystone-pipeline-washington.html

Cast your votes now folks, im thinking something historic will happen and this keystone op is not going to happen. Here's hoping *crosses fingers*  that North America can finally end it's gluttonous desire for oil and fossel fuels.

[Myrhial Arkenath]

Would be nice could it be so. I'm wondering, considering other countries live off oil, has a pipeline project like this ever been done before or does it tend to get pulled up at the source? It could help judging the risk this is. Though, then again, there was that ridiculous affair with BP which dragged on for ages, and just one of that is more than enough, really -_-

[orange]

How would you suggest N. America (, Europe, & Pacific Rim) actually end their oil addictions?

Do you suggest we shift towards large scale Nuclear Fission power?  I support the idea, but there are a ton of obstacles from a public relations standpoint.  The technical/engineering side is not the hard part.

What about all the countries where goods we buy are actually produced like China or India?   Their appetite is only increasing.

There are a multitude of reasons to largely leave oil*/coal behind and shift to other power sources.  Preserving the environment** is just one of them.

*There are some very useful ways to use oil products for which alternatives do not exist or are very expensive.  For example, highly refined oil makes an excellent rocket fuel, which while less efficient than LOX-Hydrogen generates more thrust due to the total mass (momentum equals mass times velocity squared).  Other options for growing beyond the planet are in conceptual stages, but most require liquid rocket infrastructure to actually put it in place.

**Environmental preservation is an interesting concept in my opinion.   The environment is dynamic and human efforts to preserve the existing environmental could be detrimental to the dynamic environment.

[lallara zhuul]

**Environmental preservation is an interesting concept in my opinion.   The environment is dynamic and human efforts to preserve the existing environmental could be detrimental to the dynamic environment.

Then you must feel that all the advances in medical technology and technology in general is interfering with this natural flow.

[orange]

**Environmental preservation is an interesting concept in my opinion.   The environment is dynamic and human efforts to preserve the existing environmental could be detrimental to the dynamic environment.

Then you must feel that all the advances in medical technology and technology in general is interfering with this natural flow.

I do not feel it.  I recognize as fact that medical technology and technology in general interfere in the natural flow.

My use of the word detrimental was inappropriate to relate my thought.  If I had said "dampen the dynamic environment" it would have reduced the negative connotation I mistakenly presented.

[Milo Caman]

**Environmental preservation is an interesting concept in my opinion.   The environment is dynamic and human efforts to preserve the existing environmental could be detrimental to the dynamic environment.

This tends to occur when management of conservation projects isn't decentralized to a local level. Unfortunately, more often than not, governments will pump money into one thing, ignoring all sorts of factors that will cause issues later on (or further downstream in my experience).

As for Oil, weaning the world off it is going to be a long and painful process. Unsurprisingly, Oil companies are not happy about the prospect being cut out by alternative energy, and are quite happy to act like amoral shitbags to keep things the way they like them.

[Lyn Farel]

That is interesting. Maybe people will also wake up and open their eyes on what is happening in Canada too, with the exploitation of oil sands, which is a complete environnement disaster.

Concerning full fission power I have always been mitigated on this, as more than 90% of France energy comes from nuclear power plants (first nuclear country in the world in that regard). The direct advantages are enormous (no direct pollution, its "clean" compared to oil or coal industry, colossal energy, etc), but the cons are here too imo :

- Uranium deposits on Earth are soon to be depleted, much like oil iirc.
- Radioactive waste and garbage is extremly hard to take care of : they put everything in specialized centers to accelerate the radioactive decay, but stocks are always growing and we do not even know what to do of them. Funnier thing is that other countries using nuclear fission power plants do not always even have such centers (or small ones) and they send us happily all their waste for it to be processed too. Thats a whole mess and I honestly do not know how they will handle this on the long run. Building more reprocessing centers ? Anecdote : they found lobsters that grew up to 1-2 meters long nearby the site, in the see. :p
- It can be dangerous (either the power plants or either the radioactive waste conveys), as shown in Japan (silly japanese, building nuclear plants in seismic countries).

Anyway, considering oil, what is terrible is also to think what we will do without it, because nuclear fission is not an alternative for all the uses we have of oil : hard to put a car on nuclear fission, hard to create plastics and do petrochemical industry issued stuff without oil, and we realize that everything we live on is based more or less on oil.

[Lyn Farel]

And now the idiots have found new oil deposits nearby Guyana, and are all happy just because of it. Lets go fuck up the environnement here and all the delicate ecosystem around (especially the mangrove barriers). /o\

[orange]

Concerning full fission power I have always been mitigated on this, as more than 90% of France energy comes from nuclear power plants (first nuclear country in the world in that regard). The direct advantages are enormous (no direct pollution, its "clean" compared to oil or coal industry, colossal energy, etc), but the cons are here too imo :

- Uranium deposits on Earth are soon to be depleted, much like oil iirc.
- Radioactive waste and garbage is extremly hard to take care of : they put everything in specialized centers to accelerate the radioactive decay, but stocks are always growing and we do not even know what to do of them. Funnier thing is that other countries using nuclear fission power plants do not always even have such centers (or small ones) and they send us happily all their waste for it to be processed too. Thats a whole mess and I honestly do not know how they will handle this on the long run. Building more reprocessing centers ? Anecdote : they found lobsters that grew up to 1-2 meters long nearby the site, in the see. :p
- It can be dangerous (either the power plants or either the radioactive waste conveys), as shown in Japan (silly japanese, building nuclear plants in seismic countries).

- Uranium is an element/ore/ and likely can be found places other than Earth.  Oil & Coal are results of biological decay and unlikely to exist outside of biospheres.

- There are companies and research groups evaluating how to utilize the by-products of high-end nuclear reactors for smaller nuclear reactors that utilize the decaying material for heat and energy production.   There are efforts to design and build safer reactors that produce less waste.  ( Bill Gates TED Talk )

- Power plants can be dangerous.  Even hydro-electric can be dangerous, especially in the event of an earthquake.  The damn could burst and flood the towns and cities downstream.

All of these are engineering challenges that can be solved given the motivation and funds to do so.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Regarding Nuclear power:

I guess I'd consider myself a proponent; while I definitely recognize the inherent dangers nuclear power represents, I also feel that virtually every other power technology has similar associated dangers (coal is ridiculously dirty, gas + oil are rapidly running out, not to mention international and national political concerns, and what does remain is also rather hazardous to recover; wind and solar technology both have international concerns as well, especially considering the rare earth elements needed for solar panel construction).

In the end, the two things that concern me most are 1, the mis-representation of dangers and deliberate corner-cutting by virtually every industry in existence - and while I do recognize the danger of a nuclear accident, I can't exactly be trembling fear of that alone while many other industries get off with little or no oversite or regulation of their own practices - and 2, the incredible growth of NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") syndrome - you don't want a coal or nuclear plant in your area? Alright, but don't complain about how "wind turbines break up your beautiful landscape" or "solar panels look all industrial and ugly" - you can't have it both ways.

[Matariki Rain]

Alright, but don't complain about how "wind turbines break up your beautiful landscape" or "solar panels look all industrial and ugly" - you can't have it both ways.

Happy to have wind turbines in my line of sight (currently have only one, that's kind of a representative token turbine: happy for more). Will probably install a small domestic one once the price/noise/neighbours/battery/house-conversion equation works out for me.

Solar panels can mean different things, and are an area where the technology is changing. I've held off so far mostly because I expect that something better (more efficient, cheaper, with critical mass for support) will come along soon. When we do our next major house project -- renovate or build -- it's likely to include photovoltaic and might also include direct water heating (although one of our likely architects says "Why bother with the water? Make the electricity and use that to heat the water").

I strongly prefer renewables, which for us means wind, geothermal and hydro. I'd like to see us getting better use out of our existing hydro rather than building more of those, since they're not without environmental cost, either. I'd like to see us removing coal-powered power generation, and using gas-fired powergen only in emergencies (which is tricky because maintaining access to a gas supply costs).

Transport, though... that's a whole 'nother ballgame. If a crunch hit I could cycle to work, which would probably be good for me. Just... this city isn't designed for utility biking.

* Matariki Rain goes to find her bike helmet and check her tyres.

[lallara zhuul]

The propeller things are obsolete.

http://www.windside.com/

[Lyn Farel]

- Uranium is an element/ore/ and likely can be found places other than Earth.  Oil & Coal are results of biological decay and unlikely to exist outside of biospheres.

- There are companies and research groups evaluating how to utilize the by-products of high-end nuclear reactors for smaller nuclear reactors that utilize the decaying material for heat and energy production.   There are efforts to design and build safer reactors that produce less waste.  ( Bill Gates TED Talk )

- Power plants can be dangerous.  Even hydro-electric can be dangerous, especially in the event of an earthquake.  The damn could burst and flood the towns and cities downstream.

All of these are engineering challenges that can be solved given the motivation and funds to do so.

Yes for uranium (or other radioactive isotopes), this is true, but I do not think that we are close to harvest ores in space yet. Will take quite some time, especially considering the space programs current situation.

Comparing radioactive disasters like Tchernobyl with a simple flood is a little exagerated imo, different scales involved. But yes, as Esna said I too think that alarmists tend to forget the inherent dangers of everything compared to nuclear technologies (omfg its like a nuclear bomb wtfpwnbbq !!1!11).

Then yep, I don't understand people that whine because of wind turbines or solar pannels in their landscape. I find that quite modern and beautiful, a good mix between nature and the new version of windmills, mostly. But well, they do not produce enough, its mainly a backup / support source of energy rather than a main supplier.

[Borza]

Concerning full fission power I have always been mitigated on this, as more than 90% of France energy comes from nuclear power plants (first nuclear country in the world in that regard). The direct advantages are enormous (no direct pollution, its "clean" compared to oil or coal industry, colossal energy, etc), but the cons are here too imo :

- Uranium deposits on Earth are soon to be depleted, much like oil iirc.
- Radioactive waste and garbage is extremly hard to take care of : they put everything in specialized centers to accelerate the radioactive decay, but stocks are always growing and we do not even know what to do of them. Funnier thing is that other countries using nuclear fission power plants do not always even have such centers (or small ones) and they send us happily all their waste for it to be processed too. Thats a whole mess and I honestly do not know how they will handle this on the long run. Building more reprocessing centers ? Anecdote : they found lobsters that grew up to 1-2 meters long nearby the site, in the see. :p
- It can be dangerous (either the power plants or either the radioactive waste conveys), as shown in Japan (silly japanese, building nuclear plants in seismic countries).

Hopefully Thorium molten salt reactors start rolling out on a much wider basis. They are the future imo, at least until/if we get reliable fusion power.

[orange]

Yes for uranium (or other radioactive isotopes), this is true, but I do not think that we are close to harvest ores in space yet. Will take quite some time, especially considering the space programs current situation.

I think we have time to become an interplanetary civilization before the Earth's Uranium/Radioactive isotope supply runs out.