japan earthquakes aftermath

[Steppenwolf]

":1hbklysh]I loled at:

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that seven of the country's nuclear power plants that began operations before the end of 1980 would be shut down temporarily for a three months review to see how they would react in emergency situations like that in Japan"

Like what? A tsunami hitting Germany?

All of sudden, everyone is worried with nuclear energy? Has everyone forgot Chernobyl already?

It's all to bow down to the strong anti nuclear lobby in Germany and get votes in the next election. I really hate it because there is no common sense in these people. When we shut down our nuclear plants as of now then energy prices will raise and we will have to buy energy from Czech nuclear plants which are way more outdated and dangerous then ours but sit just as close. And the next thing more nature will be defaced with butt ugly wind turbines which is the biggest joke ever to consider them eco friendly.

[Orpheus]

The thing that gets me is no one seems happy the things survived the initial quake. (the power plants)

Everyone keeps crying about the nuclear side when everyone should understand a 9 point quake is tough to survive.

I wish people would stop crying about it TBH. If it blows up now, at least that's far more warning than if it blew 5 seconds after the island moved.

[Warby]

And the next thing more nature will be defaced with butt ugly wind turbines ...

i like the look of wind turbines

[dux]

Fuck tonnes of those horrible things around my area ruining the view. They don't even help.

[Orpheus]

Bottomline guys, we need renewable. Face it, most of you kids don't go outside enough to really care about scenic views anyway. Most of you prolly live in crappy places so griping about wind turbines is moot. I bet some of you live in places so butt ugly the turbines bring beauty by themselves.

[dux]

... ok.

[Orpheus]

Dunno about you guys but I'd love to have my own wind turbine. Getting off the grid is one of my ambitions before I retire. They will eventually be realistically within the private sectors reach. Before long average citizens can buy them.. Assuming you got enough bucks I reckon.

Takes off shoes and does figures.

I figure I'll have to live another 87 years to redeem the upfront cost for a turbine in power generated.

KOOL!!!

[ReNo]

There's a lot of more subtle renewable methods as well that people can take on at a more local level. With solar panels on your roof, or ground source heat pumps to provide your heating, you can make pretty major reductions in how much power and gas your house uses. If these things become the norm it'd surely make a massive difference to our power demands. But it's tough for people to justify the up front expense when the savings take years to counteract.

[Orpheus]

Yeah boy.. The solar panels here are relatively cheap (160.00 for 45 watts generation) but the batteries and inverters are high. We are getting those too but the topic was currently on wind turbines so I tried to keep it there for a short bit.

Good call Duncan.

[e-freak]

well, my parents looked into doing the whole off-the-grid thing for retirment:

Solar panels are only really usable for heating and warm water - then they are really effective though and can save at least 60% gas, 90%+ if the sun is good. Needs a good water boiling and keeping system and isolation on the house though.

Wind is pretty much useless in their area. The wind needs to go at least 4 m/s iirc, and that's not the case for the position of their house. If you have enough wind, good windsystems have the advantage though that they are silent and small and for building self supply you can use horizontally aligned ones instead of vertical ones, which will also reduce the shadow-popping, which many people suffer from when they live to close to the wind turbines (high frequency shadow popping when they turn).

[Orpheus]

We are fortunate. In winter the wind blows 28 out of 30 days on average. In summer we have way more clear days than not so we are hopeful that between the two we'll do ok. Sadly the initial out of pocket costs for each is steep.

Good to know others are trying to. Mayhap we can get an "Off the grid" hotline forum going someday.

[-HP-]

Orpheus, are you *that* Orpheus?

[Orpheus]

Since shortly after 2001 people asked me "Are you that Orpheus from Snarkpit"

I started wondering if I was some step child and no one told me I was adopted.

[D3ads]

I'm praying that the reactor doesn't explode... it doesn't bare thinking about what would happen if that occured.. *shudder*

[D3ads]

If anyone ever thinks Chernobyl was a result of anything but the inherent problems in the USSR at the time, then you are poorly educated on the subject. Nuclear power is fine.

"A perfect example of typical Soviet construction..."