MovieChat Forums > Promised Land (2013) Discussion > The sad part is...

The sad part is...

posted 11 years ago by estella2
11 replies | jump to latest

Where should we get our energy?

Let me be clear: I am against fracking and find it dangerous...but I also don't really like coal because it is bad for the atmosphere and it is a very dangerous and an unhealthy job to mine for it...and I also don't like nuclear power because of the risks like what happened to Fukushima, three mile island, chernobyl....but I also am not that big on wind power because of the sprawl it creates when you have hundreds of wind turbine fields, noise, and threat to bird populations....and solar power can be okay sometimes if it is just put on the roof of a house....but if you put miles and miles of solar power panels out in the desert it can ruin the ecosystem for some of the wildlife that live out there like with the prairie dogs and toads, and water power can also be dangerous to certain populations of fish like the salmon, and Oil is another source of energy that causes air pollution and is spilled into our waters like around the Gulf coast and around Alaska, and Lake Michigan. and Galveston Bay.....

So how do we safely get energy without polluting or major risks? Should we maybe just all build our own dynamos? run our cars off of french fry oil (even though french fries aren't really good for us to be eating, but I still do because I love them) .

[–] hrstar24 11 years ago

Even if you use french fry oil, your car will still emit the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as a normal gas car.

[–] modman-2 11 years ago

...except the claim isn't the biodiesel, for example, doesn't emit CO2 but rather that it's carbon neutral, unlike burning fossil fuels.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] theboxingcannabyte 11 years ago

hemp oil and hempcrete (carbon-negative buildings can be made from this) are two of many different solutions that should be applied. There are also measures that can be taken to help restore our the health of our ozone layer. I don't know how hemp fuel would burn but I've heard it burns really clean, it would be easy to mass-produce as well. You can also make environmentally friendly plastics from it that are very hard, as well as rough-to-silky clothing.

There was this one guy on Bill Maher who was talking about putting sulfuric acid into the atmosphere to stabilize the overabundance that is already there. It sounded (to a layman like myself and Bill) counter-intuitive but I the guy explained it pretty well. I'll try and find a clip on it.

There is a lot we can and should be doing and we are not doing enough. One moral question is this: If we have the power to stop big polluters at the expense of their "freedom" to do so, shouldn't we for the survival of our own species as well as countless others? It's a tricky step to take but one we will have to if we want to survive the 21st century, I think.

[–] Ethereal-Cloud 11 years ago

"I also don't like nuclear power because of the risks like what happened to Fukushima"

U.S. submarines have been using nuclear fuel for 60 years, U.S. power plants have done them same.

The wind power industry insists that there have been more human deaths from wind turbine accidents than from (non-Soviet) nuclear power.

[–] Kent_Kainer 10 years ago

The main prob is the nuclear waste. At least that is the prob in Europe with it. It needs to be stored absolutely safe and that for decades but no state here wants the waste.

Dunno about the US.

---
Lincoln Lee: I lost a partner.
Peter Bishop: I lost a universe!

[–] mpyner 9 years ago

Except those spent rods stay hot for 1000 years. Nuclear energy creates horrible waste that needs to be kept cool for that long. Very difficult to predict what might happen over that much time even if we were to banish Nuclear power today.

[–] frogca 11 years ago

>So how do we safely get energy without polluting or major risks?

The answer to your question may be "Use less."

Vaclav Smil (global resource expert) and Pavan Sukhdev (economist) both have this as a key concept. Sukhdev is also interesting in his concepts about evolving/reforming corporations to be much more responsible. We have to stop wrecking the world.

[–] dhart-2 10 years ago

I also don't like nuclear power because of the risks like what happened to Fukushima, three mile island, chernobyl.

Fukushima was caused by an earthquake coupled with a much larger tsunami than they had planned for. If the power hadn't failed to the pumps it would never have happened.

Three Mile Island happened because people didn't trust what the gauges were telling them and worked against the system until it failed. Chernobyl was such a disaster because the nuclear reactor didn't have a containment shell. Both of these were really old reactor designs. In fact, many of the nuclear reactors running today are using technology from the 70's or earlier.

I do agree that there are risks to nuclear power but modern reactor design is much safer and good site planning can mitigate a large majority of the risks.

In my opinion, nuclear power is the best option today. Of course, it's unlikely to happen until we have a real power shortage as the American psyche views nuclear as deadly as ebola, no matter how safe it is proven in comparison to coal, fracking, etc.

[–] Kent_Kainer 10 years ago

I do agree that there are risks to nuclear power but modern reactor design is much safer and good site planning can mitigate a large majority of the risks.

Until a terrorist comes. I bet noone considered that when designing the power plant.
Many countries had their plants checked and many (most?) failed.
Noone wants a Fukushima or Chernobyl in the own state.

And what do you do with the radioactive waste?
The money you save now from the cheap nuclear energy is the money you need to spend later to keep the waste secured for decades.
And if anything happens then the costs to clean this up are imense too and the soiled land is unuseable.
Nuclear energy has an as large dark side as light side.

---
Lincoln Lee: I lost a partner.
Peter Bishop: I lost a universe!

[–] 10 years ago

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