On 27/12/2021 11:42, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 10:10:48 +0000
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> One day somebody may come up with a marketable version of
>>> nuclear power or a way to overcome the massive popular resistance to
>>> the idea.
>>
>> They have oddly,
>> It's called 'renewable energy'.
>
> Ah you spotted the point, well done. We couldn't have gone straight
> from coal to nuclear - there was too much opposition.

We could have and we did, but then the gas business stared to use the
ecology moment to demonise nuclear and club it to death with scare
stories over regulaton and interest rate rises finnaly killed it

> Renewable energy OTOH
> was an easy sell and it might just be made workable (all it takes is a
> Shipstone grade battery to be invented and all the problems vanish - don't
> tell me how unlikely that is, I know)

No, renewable energy - like electric transport - always had to rely on a
number of things that didnt and/or couldn't exist. It wasn't ever an
engineering solution, it was always an emotional marketing solution to
people who actually believe marketing.

It should never have happened. I blame gas and big oil - they used it to
ensure coal and nuclear were politically unaccceptable and since
windmills didn't save fuel it was a great way to keep product flowing
and profits up.

> but if not there's always nuclear to
> fall back on and it will be a much easier sell with coal and oil firmly on
> the reject pile and gas in the "'ow mmmuccchh gggrraannnvvvillle" pile.
>

Coal is understood to be if not dead, certainly very curtailed, Unlike
nuclear, it does have a lot of genuine pollution (including more
radioactive waste than an equivalent nuclear power station) . Oil is
about transport these days, for fixed installation energy generation we
rely on gas, gas, and gas basically.

The vox pop will probably be clamouring for new nuclear much in the way
it clamoured to shut it all down post chernobyl and fukushima even
though neither did any real damage in the sort of scale the responses
justified,

Renewables are the Emperors new Green clothes. One tries to be the small
boy...

--
"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted
man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest
thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly
persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid
before him."

- Leo Tolstoy

On 27/12/2021 10:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> On 27/12/2021 06:08, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>
>>     There is one problem with nuclear that you ignore, and for which
>> nobody has yet found a solution - it has become increasingly difficult to
>> site and fund a nuclear power plant ever since the Three Mile Island
>> plant
>> had troubles.

And similar problems in Cumbria, UK, Japan, Ukraine, etc.

>>     Nuclear plants are extremely expensive to build at the best of times
>
> Actually they are not., they are comparable with coal in terms of raw
> material and construction labour.

PROVEN LIE REPEATED! See the reports linked earlier today.

>> but when each and every one requires a decades long campaign to find a
>> site
>> there's no way we can ever get enough of the things built. Also CND
>> did far
>> too good a job of hammering home the relationship between nuclear
>> power and
>> nuclear weapons as it was then. As for siting a reprocessing plant - good
>> luck with that!
>
> The greens have with massive assistance form the various fossil cule
> interest managed to make windmills acceptable. And demonise nuclear,
> It wouldn't take much of a reversal to turn propaganda against windmills
> and pro nuclear - in fact its already happening

FALSE! This has nothing to do with any fabled conspiracy between greens
and fossil-fuel interests. It is a matter of public record that
fossil-fuel interests have been attempting to cover up and/or deny the
environmental deficits of their industry for decades, and to a large
extent still are. No-one is more anti-green than the fossil-fuel
industry, and the propagandising of the idea of some cosy conspiracy
between them is the sign of a seriously deranged and paranoid mind,
which is why it is entirely within character for you.

The environmental problems facing the nuclear industry are largely of
their own making, because while significant accidents are comparatively
rare, when they do occur their effects can be regional in scale, and,
although nuclear power generation has killed fewer people than many
other forms of power generation, not unnaturally, people are concerned
about the possibility of another of those big disasters.

> Oh, and we already have an internationally famous reprocessing plant. In
> full operation

Seemingly FALSE!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield

"Activities at the Sellafield site are primarily decommissioning of
historic plants, and reprocessing of spent fuel from UK and
international nuclear reactors, which will completely cease when the
Magnox fuel reprocessing plant closes in 2021.[7]"

.... or perhaps merely its closure is as far behind schedule as the
opening of new nuclear power stations! It wouldn't exactly be out of
character for the nuclear industry, would it?!

>> I seriously doubt that there's any grand plan or big conspiracy
>> though - I think it's all just people winging it with whatever they
>> can get to work today.
>
> No, its not even that. Perhaps the best way of looking at it is
> commercially and politically.

[Snip more chunder tl;dr from the arse of an idiot that never supports
any of its claims with any robust *EVIDENCE*!]

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Java Jive wrote:
> You're sig

Is he? (Man, I'm a Kraut, me.)

> Fake news kills!

Why should I fake them?

--
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On 27/12/2021 13:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> On 27/12/2021 13:01, TimS wrote:
>>
>> On 27 Dec 2021 at 12:47:03 GMT, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 27/12/2021 02:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Mathematicians have computer models, trying to solve Napier Stokes
>>>> equations by piecewise integration.
>>>>
>>>> Engineers use wind tunnels, because the physics of turbulent flow is
>>>> simply too difficult to model accurately in a computer.
>>>
>>> You can't model the whole earth's system in a wind tunnel, which leaves
>>> only computerised mathematical modelling.
>>
>> Just because that's all it leaves, doesn't mean that it's going to
>> work. And
>> remember that models don't TELL you anything; they make predictions.
>
> Well it's usual Jive illogic.

Except that they work:

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

"Climate models have already predicted many of the phenomena for which
we now have empirical evidence. Climate models form a reliable guide to
potential climate change."

> Windmill vendors are like anti-vaxxers, selfish and without any conscience.

Except that they too work, and year-on-year produce more electricity
than they did previously.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 27/12/2021 13:43, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> On 27/12/2021 11:42, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>
>>     Ah you spotted the point, well done. We couldn't have gone straight
>> from coal to nuclear - there was too much opposition.
>
> We could have and we did, but then the gas business stared to use the
> ecology moment to demonise nuclear and club it to death with scare
> stories  over regulaton and interest rate rises finnaly killed it

FALSE on a number of accounts ...

Firstly, where is your *EVIDENCE* that gas killed off the nuclear
industry? One suspects that half-a-century of the Chernobyl legacy
followed by Fukushima were much more cogent forces in weakening it
commercially and politically.

Secondly, perhaps unfortunately, perhaps not, here in the UK the nuclear
industry is not dead, and is still getting government subsidies in the
form of inflated feed-in-tariffs at double the rate of the next most
expensive option, off-shore wind.

[Again snip diarrhoetic claims unsubstantiated by any *EVIDENCE*!]

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 27/12/2021 13:29, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> Once Maggie had  fucked the coal unions her party couldn't wait to fuck
> her - job done, now let the establishment chaps run things.

FALSE! What killed off Maggie was the Community Charge, aka the Poll
Tax. No government can survive taking 6m, I think it was, of its
householders to court. I knew of a couple who were stalwarts of the
local Conservative Party who resigned from it and fought the tax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax_(Great_Britain)

"According to the BBC, up to 30 per cent of former ratepayers in some
areas refused to pay.[7]

The anti-poll-tax organisations encouraged non-payers not to register,
to clog up the courts by contesting local council attempts to gain
liability orders, and ultimately, not to attend court hearings arising
from their non-compliance.[8] In November 1990, South Yorkshire police
said they were planning to refuse to arrest poll tax defaulters, even
when instructed to by the courts, because it would be "physically
impossible for the police because of the large number of defaulters".[9]

[...]

Political consequences

After the poll tax was announced, opinion polls showed the Labour
opposition opening a strong lead over the Conservative government. After
the Poll Tax Riots, Conservative ministers contemplated abolition of the
tax but knew that, as a flagship Thatcherite policy, its abolition would
not be possible while Thatcher was still Prime Minister.[12] Kinnock had
vowed to abolish the poll tax if he won the next general election.[13]

For this, among other reasons, Thatcher was challenged by Michael
Heseltine for the Conservative leadership in November 1990. Although she
prevailed by a margin of fifty votes, she narrowly missed the threshold
to avoid a second vote, and on 22 November 1990 she announced her
resignation after more than a decade in office. All three of the
contenders to succeed her pledged to abandon the tax."

> [Snip yet more claims unsubstantiated by any *EVIDENCE*!]

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 27/12/2021 01:20, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> On 26/12/2021 22:52, TimS wrote:
>>
>> You could always look at gridwatch.org.uk to see what is actually
>> happening
>> minute to minute with UK electricity - or French for that matter.

It has shown a year-on-year increase in the proportion of our
electricity generated by renewable sources.

> [Snip yet more claims unsubstantiated by any *EVIDENCE*]

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 27/12/2021 13:48, Axel Berger wrote:
>
> Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> You're sig
>> Fake news kills!
>
> Why should I fake them?

Hopefully you won't, but sadly many people do, including one in
particular participating in this subthread.

During WW2 there were posters in bars and other public meeting places
which said something like: "Careless talk costs lives!", designed to
warn forces staff off discussing operational matters in a public space
where they could be overheard by potential spies.

"Fake news kills!" is my adaptation of that to modern times, in response
to the increasing amounts, and increasingly dangerous types of, fake
news that were and unfortunately are still being propagated in response
to the pandemic.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 14:27:51 +0000
Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:

> During WW2 there were posters in bars and other public meeting places
> which said something like: "Careless talk costs lives!"

"Loose lips sink ships" IIRC.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

On 27 Dec 2021 at 15:40:34 GMT, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 14:27:51 +0000
> Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>> During WW2 there were posters in bars and other public meeting places
>> which said something like: "Careless talk costs lives!"
>
> "Loose lips sink ships" IIRC.

The long time that it took for many parts of the US East Coast to get proper
blackouts in place didn't help, either.

--
Tim

On 2021-12-27, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> There is one problem with nuclear that you ignore, and for which
> nobody has yet found a solution - it has become increasingly difficult to
> site and fund a nuclear power plant ever since the Three Mile Island plant
> had troubles.

I've always considered this ironic. The Three Mile Island meltdown
was physically so well contained that I think of it as a demonstration
of the safety of nuclear power under worst-case conditions. At least
if a plant is well designed and decently run - Chernobyl is the other
side of the coin. But poor management can make a disaster of any
design - at your next seance, ask those 346 passengers on two 737 MAXes..

> If some bright spark invents a table-top fusion reactor with no
> output other than electricity and heat that costs like a microwave oven to
> build and produces a gigawatt hour out of a teaspoon of water ... they'd
> better not use the word "nuclear" when describing it.

Pronounced "nook-yoo-lur", of course. :-)

> Have you met any human beings ? In groups ? In *large* groups ?
> They're not an engineering problem - unless you mean social engineering
> which is a very different thing.

Sad but true.

No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have
searched the records for years, and employed agents
to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating
the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.
Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
-- H.L. Mencken

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.

On 27/12/2021 15:40, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 14:27:51 +0000
> Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>> During WW2 there were posters in bars and other public meeting places
>> which said something like: "Careless talk costs lives!"
>
> "Loose lips sink ships" IIRC.

Not here in the UK, I've never heard that one before, my version was
hazily remembered from a book by Nevil Shute, and the examples below
show my memory to have been correct:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Careless+talk+costs+lives!%22

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 18:03:29 +0000
Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:

> On 27/12/2021 15:40, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Dec 2021 14:27:51 +0000
> > Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> During WW2 there were posters in bars and other public meeting places
> >> which said something like: "Careless talk costs lives!"
> >
> > "Loose lips sink ships" IIRC.
>
> Not here in the UK, I've never heard that one before, my version was

You're right that one originated in the USA.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/