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Posts tagged with "environment"

Cars Are Eating More Than Miles

Thursday, 29. March 2007, 20:47:00

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(If you are too tired to read through my rumblings please jump right to the end of post and read the linked articles. This is way too important to miss.)

I'm not much of an ecologist, which is I don't believe that ecology alone is a theory that may be used to successfully change society. I find ecology as part of a broader political theory much more viable. To say it simply, I'm not the first to yell "close that fucking stinking factory" because I'm well aware that this factory gives food to it's workers and their families and if it closes down there will be a huge humanitarian problem (unless you care more about wildlife than humans which is a totally respected view but it's not my view (yet)).

What I'm trying to point out is that our world is a far cry from being simple or even linear. You think that you have a solution for a problem but you may be inches from creating a worse problem. Simple to predict but totally obscured under your rush to solve the problem at hand.

So. You may have heard of biofuels. Simple and ecologic idea. We can make diesel out of plants. And this process won't add up to the global warming problem because we won't be freeing extra carbon - just the carbon that the plants used to develop. So, in a simple move we get clean gas which we can feed our cars without having to reside to fancy technologies.

In fact this idea seems to be so good that USA and Europe are rushing to make it happen. It's not placed somewhere in the distant future. It's actually being deployed right now.

I too, thought of it as a nice idea. Funny how short an engineer's view may be sometimes.

See, let's follow this scenario. Biofuel gets momentum. Larger and larger still areas are being used to grow plants solely used to get fuel out of them. Yet, demand for fuel still rises and now we have tied eatable crops with the energy economy which means that food starts to cost more. To meet growing demand enterprises buy more land mainly from underdeveloped countries. They, in turn, start to sell land that happen to host say the Amazon forests. Meanwhile poor people start having problem in buying food... More forests gone, more people starve, etc.

Looks more like hell now than a solution, doesn't it?

If you want to get a much better analysis on the subject please read the next two articles.

Feeding Cars, Not People by George Monbiot
and brand new update
A Lethal Solution by the same journalist.

(Btw, the man kicks. I'm really sorry I was so late to discover his blog.)

3 comments

Oil price soars. Should we nuke?

Wednesday, 12. April 2006, 20:16:10

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According to Greenpeace’s advertisement video we should not because one of the bad things that may happen is a hijacked airplane crash onto a nuclear reactor. Like I said some time ago I’m not a Greenpeace fan. I admire those people for their courage, commitment and excellent job but sometimes I think there is a luck of political thought and insight. Every state decision is based on politics. The way we live and work, where our energy comes from, global warming et cetera are direct or indirect outcomes of some kind of politics. Cut politics out of your think-tank and you may have a misleading result. Terrorism issue shouldn’t be there at all! If a highjacked plane is all that we are afraid of then the solution is getting out of Iraq, stop exploiting Arab countries and all and we can then go happily nuke.

In my humble opinion there are other really good reasons for not going nuke which I hope environmental organizations (including Greenpeace) will promote. I translated (I hope not very badly) an interview of Dr Athanasios Geranios, Nuclear Physics Professor at University of Athens. More about where I found this stuff is at the notes session. Here it goes:

-Professor it’s 20 years since Chernobyl accident. Nuclear energy is appearing again as an alternative to oil. What do you believe?
-Even if it appears like nuclear energy gains ground compared to oil, it means nothing for the security issues that nuclear energy rises. There are serious security issues concerning not only accidents in nuclear reactors but their everyday operation as well. Don’t also forget that a nuclear reactor makes a state capable of making nuclear weapons.

-What do you mean about everyday operational security?
-Security reasons constrain the pressure inside the reactor to certain low limits. In order to lower reactor pressure nuclear gases are often left to the open air. There have been denunciations, especially in Germany, that nuclear factories often pollute over the specified limits. You may know that the maximum allowed limit for nuclear factories workers is ten times higher than the civilian limit. That doesn’t mean that workers are more durable than the other of us but that if this limit was stricter then reactor operation would cost way much more. The security systems would make nuclear energy way more expensive than the conventional (oil energy). Health issues are not over yet and the specified limits may contribute to a lot of diseases and maybe deaths in some decades.

-A recent study supports that Chernobyl related deaths weren’t that many. Did we make it bigger deal than it really was?
-That’s the announcement of International Atomic Energy congress that took place in Vienna this summer. They talk about only 50 deaths. Nevertheless, if you listen to other organizations, you’ll see that we can’t conclude yet. We’re still in the middle of this process. The radiation that hit those people at Chernobyl, especially those who worked to decontaminate the area, stays dormant for about 30 years before the possible illnesses (especially cancer) show up. Therefore, it is too frivolous, to draw conclusions this early. Anyway, they admit that child thyroid cancer cases have gone up by 30% in Ukraine and Belarus. No one knows for sure how these cases will end up. In my opinion they’ll be deadly. Maybe, again, such announcements are yet one more attempt to promote nuclear energy.

-Are there any statistics from Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
-There are many people that died many years later. There were visible radioactivity manifestations even to the next generation. It has been 60 years since then and the process is at the beginning. Radioactive remnants stay in Earth for thousands of years. So, it is too early to speak of radioactivity consequences.

-There are nuclear weapons confinement treaties that date back to 70’s which are not being respected. What about nuclear weapons’ dispersion on the planet right now?
- Not only there are many nuclear weapons on Earth but research for new ones is going on.

-We hear a lot, lately, about India and Israel.
-These are two different cases. We know that India, and Pakistan, have nuclear weapons. Yet, all Israel governments deny having nuclear weapons due to being threatened by US help interruption. That is help to develop nuclear weaponry that poses now as the third largest in the world. So, it seems that treaties are just papers. Yet, in these treaties there is a fine point that allows a country that has nuclear technology to put that technology to military use. That goes us to Turkey scenario which is very close to us. If it starts producing nuclear energy, by signing of course that this technology won’t be used for military purposes, then it can summon national security reasons 3 months before prohibiting inspection from International Atomic Energy organization. That means the transformation of reactors to military ones and it also means that the reactor has been producing plutonium that can be enriched in order to make a nuclear bomb.
Iran, operated it’s enrichment unit while UN inspectors were present because this is allowed. Enrichment is mandatory for the reactor to operate. Yet, the same unit that may enrich uranium to 3,5% may reach up to 90% and we then talk about weapons. It is too easy to transform a simple reactor to a nuclear weapon factory.

-What about environment? Many say that radiation levels are now normal at Chernobyl.
-Yes, but what about the living organisms chain? Everything got polluted. How about the health of those in this chain and about those that inhaled that cloud? All of them are candidate victims. Cloud reached even Equator and Japan.

-Yet, there were many accidents even after Chernobyl.
-When there are deaths those accidents reach the news. Otherwise almost no one learns about them. Small accidents with consequent radiation leakage are everyday phenomenon.

-Nuclear energy use is on the rise?
-Thankfully not. At most one or two reactors per year are being built because nuclear waste costs a lot. In the past we had 20 to 30 reactors per year. A reactor lasts for 30 years but then what can we do with it?

Notes:
1. Interview found at the Greek edition of Popular Science (Apr. 2006).
I generally don’t like this magazine but sometimes it has some space for one or two good articles among the look-what-US-army-built main article.
2. I hope my translation got the meaning right.
3. You'll find this Greenpeace page very interesting. Where are nuclear weapons? Have a zoom at mediterenean too. Yes. That Araxos thing is Greek. Do you see my inner bitter smile? No Greek government will ever admit that and to be honest it was a shock for me to learn that.
4. Image credit. OK, maybe it doesn't fit very well with this post but it is interesting nevertheless.
5. A Chernobyl accident recount.
6. (Late Addition - 13 Apr 2006): Just saw this - No I didn't know about it when writing this post.

HYS

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Current administration? They must be the Beach Boys.

Monday, 20. March 2006, 23:07:17

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Hansen told CBS he believes humans have approximately 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases before global warming becomes unstoppable. He says the White House is blocking that message.

"In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," says Hansen.


Come on Mr. Hansen. Guys are too busy running the world (straight to hell) to pay attention to nerd scientists. So, what if things get hotter? We'll have enlarged summers, bonus sun rays and new Sahara beaches all over the Earth. Let's get a new bathing suit. Whoopee! (I hope my cynicism is apparent).


Credits:
Happy swimmer image.

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