Extinction Events

[CavLancer]

.............

 

[CavLancer]

You misunderstand. One reactor would be ample to power an underground shelter of huge proportions, or even several shelters running off one reactor. The nine extras would be in reserve and that point was made to accent the capabilities of a national government, particularly our national government. These submarine reactors are not large, as you must know. Certainly there is ample fuel and if there weren't when all this presumably started there would be now.

I don't mind your attempt at raining on my parade, I recognize it as such instead of a cogent counter argument. Should you be able provide one I'm sure you would have and that it makes my point better than I ever could.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't need to 'make a cogent counter argument', although I have. While your faith that government can move mountains is touching, your pie in the sky ideas don't really merit one.

We've now moved on to having whole spare power plants instead of just cores for refueling available, with no basis beyond "certainly there is ample fuel". Before you present such a thing as a baseline assumption you might at least look into the situation...or listen to someone who has been a lot closer to it.

Naval propulsion reactors run on enriched fuel. That's how they are so small. But to make that small reactor requires about the same amount of raw Uranium ore as a gigantic civilian plant does, because the 'enrichment' process is actually just a process of discarding 99.7 percent of the Uranium you start with. So no, even 'by now' there aren't just mountains of fuel sitting around.

Second point where you are way off track, power production. While a naval propulsion plant is hell on wheels for shoving a submarine around, you are not doing the math when you put it in this hole in the ground if you are thinking it can power a 'shelter of huge proportions'. A normal small town, which uses sunlight rather than powering LEDs to grow food, and having only a moderate amount of heavy industry, will consume about 10kW per home. So 2000 homes, without even considering the LED food business or the fact that just maintaining the reactor will require more than a normal amount of heavy industry, will need a 20 MW power supply...and that's the electrical output capacity of a standard 100 MW submarine reactor. Now, I freely admit that I have no clue how much power would be required to grow this food, but I'm willing to assume that it cuts down the 2000 homes by at least half. So your 'massive' shelter is down to a thousand homes.

 

[Angst]

We're in a mass extinction right now and it's happening unusually fast. Extinction events take tens of thousands of years for all the species to dwindle out in a negative feedback loop.

This.

It's a great reason to hate humans.

 

[El_Machinae]

To me, it's mostly a question of what we've lost. I really do come at it from an incredibly humanocentric position. A reduction in biodiversity makes it tougher to prevent massive tipping points, but there's no guarantee when they'll occur. There's no doubt that humans co-opt the ecology and can (and have) turn that into tools that create human well-being. What we don't know is how much the planet can tolerate.

I tend to appreciate ecologies along three valuations: the ecosystem services they provide (duh), the inherent beauty, and the incredible amount of scientific information contained within an ecosystem.

These valuations create different motivations. Fer ex, climate change is scary because it is threatening ecosystem services. Rainforest diversity is an incredible storehouse of biochemical data. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so that one is a bit more ephemeral.

 

[trader/warrior]

For powering an underground base, hydro seems a much more reliable and sustainable source of power to me. The underground base would need a water supply, so you would need water descending down to said base anyway, and even if that would not be sufficient power I'd bet that a well built earthwork dam would be one of the more reliable options even if it has to be remotely controlled.

 

[onejayhawk]

This.

It's a great reason to hate humans.

That would be amusing if it was ironic. For many people it isn't, which is a problem.

For powering an underground base, hydro seems a much more reliable and sustainable source of power to me. The underground base would need a water supply, so you would need water descending down to said base anyway, and even if that would not be sufficient power I'd bet that a well built earthwork dam would be one of the more reliable options even if it has to be remotely controlled.

Why not geothermal? About 1/2 of all electrical use is for refrigeration, either food or air. Underground that is not as big a factor.

J