1. Cape Town
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    14 Feb '15 10:31
    http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/the-mythologies-of-thorium-and-uranium/blog/48625/
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    14 Feb '15 10:37
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#Possible_disadvantages

    Wikipedia suggests otherwise. It lists lots of countries doing research and development. Why 'research and development' if it is already proven technology?
    Aeroplanes are proven technology...

    Doesn't mean that people have stopped doing research on aeroplanes.

    The working experimental reactors were built in the 50s~60s...

    Proved the technology works, but probably need some updating.
  3. Cape Town
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    14 Feb '15 11:37
    Originally posted by googlefudge
    The working experimental reactors were built in the 50s~60s...

    Proved the technology works, but probably need some updating.
    But oddly enough, they stopped working on them in the 60s. Why was that?
    I have heard that it was simply politics, but others have claimed it is not that simple.

    As you can see here:
    http://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/118859-scary-details-of-south-africas-secret-russian-nuke-deal.html
    politics often does get heavily involved with nuclear, more so than with most other power industries.
  4. Joined
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    14 Feb '15 12:16
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    But oddly enough, they stopped working on them in the 60s. Why was that?
    I have heard that it was simply politics, but others have claimed it is not that simple.

    As you can see here:
    http://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/118859-scary-details-of-south-africas-secret-russian-nuke-deal.html
    politics often does get heavily involved with nuclear, more so than with most other power industries.
    Molten salt thorium reactors are a solution to how to generate lots of
    electricity for civilian use safely.

    What they wanted at the time was a way to power nuclear submarines
    and make materiel for nuclear weapons.

    Pressurised Water Reactors were the solution to the Nuclear Submarine
    problem, and they basically just scaled those designs up for civilian
    power.
  5. Joined
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    14 Feb '15 12:18
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/the-mythologies-of-thorium-and-uranium/blog/48625/
    I will read over this later... But while it doesn't mean that what they say here isn't true...

    Greenpeace lies about nuclear power ALL the time.

    I studied physics and have an interest in nuclear power, and read quite a bit of their stuff
    where they were obviously and plainly flat out lying about known facts.

    So I am not prepared to take Greenpeace's word on anything nuclear related.
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    14 Feb '15 13:053 edits
    Originally posted by googlefudge

    Greenpeace lies about nuclear power ALL the time.
    yes, and I for one have noticed that. The problem is, just like with the so called "friends of the Earth", because much of what they say is just all lies, on the few rare occasions they say something that is true, many people would just assume it is just another lie. Then if you, who isn't someone that believes their many lies, says that one truth, many people assumes you are just another crackpot Greenpeace/'friends of the Earth' supporter because you agree with them on that one thing thus you and cannot be taken seriously and it is just another lie. Its a bit like crying wolf too often except it is not you but someone else that keeps crying wolf that makes you disbelieved. For this reason, friends of the Earth should really keep their mouths shut about global warming because many people, albeit mainly from the less rational proportion of the human population, would automatically assume there is no global warming just because they, friends of the Earth, say there is.
  7. Cape Town
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    14 Feb '15 13:49
    Originally posted by googlefudge
    So I am not prepared to take Greenpeace's word on anything nuclear related.
    OK, I believe you on that one. The problem is, governments lie too, and so does industry, so who is someone like me to believe when we do not have training in nuclear technology?
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    14 Feb '15 14:44
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    OK, I believe you on that one. The problem is, governments lie too, and so does industry, so who is someone like me to believe when we do not have training in nuclear technology?
    Yeah, I know that pain.

    If only we had an unbiased news media capable of analysing the facts and
    applying rational methods for determining as best as possible what the truth
    is... Sadly we don't.


    I'm not sure I actually have a good answer to that one...

    I'm not sure there is any way out other than investigate the issue yourself,
    but it's not possible, let alone practical to do that for every important issue
    we face.
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    18 Feb '15 06:58
    Originally posted by googlefudge
    Yeah, I know that pain.

    If only we had an unbiased news media capable of analysing the facts and
    applying rational methods for determining as best as possible what the truth
    is... Sadly we don't.


    I'm not sure I actually have a good answer to that one...

    I'm not sure there is any way out other than investigate the issue yourself,
    but it's not possible, let alone practical to do that for every important issue
    we face.
    "If only we had an unbiased news media capable of analysing the facts and
    applying rational methods for determining as best as possible what the truth
    is... Sadly we don't."

    Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Are you sure you want to take that position?
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    18 Feb '15 10:563 edits
    Originally posted by Metal Brain
    Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
    Then you are delusional. googlefudge or anyone else here merely pointing out that the news media is often biased doesn't imply "conspiracy theory". We scientists generally would NOT believe there is some kind of mass "conspiracy" in the news media. The distinction in meaning here between "conspiracy theory" and "biased" here in this narrow context being that "conspiracy theory" would require the whole or almost the whole news media to be deliberately biased to saying the same falsehood knowing that the falsehood is a falsehood i.e. deliberately lying and consistently all saying the same lie. I am sure few people but you would believe that here. Someone can be biased and inadvertently saying a falsehood without necessarily believing he is being biased or saying a falsehood.
  11. Joined
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    18 Feb '15 10:58
    Originally posted by Metal Brain
    "If only we had an unbiased news media capable of analysing the facts and
    applying rational methods for determining as best as possible what the truth
    is... Sadly we don't."

    Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Are you sure you want to take that position?
    Only if I believed that they were all working together to deliberately mislead people.

    Mainly it's incompetence rather than malign intent.
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    18 Feb '15 13:07
    Originally posted by googlefudge
    Only if I believed that they were all working together to deliberately mislead people.

    Mainly it's incompetence rather than malign intent.
    Let me get this straight. For many years NBC was owned mostly by General Electric and despite GEs business in nuclear NBC showed incompetence when reporting nuclear? Maybe GE cannot build a safe power plant but I'm sure they would not let NBC discourage nuclear power when it is GEs business.

    Tell me, what specifically is the corporate news media saying that is untrue or biased against nuclear power?
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    18 Feb '15 14:27
    Originally posted by Metal Brain
    Let me get this straight. For many years NBC was owned mostly by General Electric and despite GEs business in nuclear NBC showed incompetence when reporting nuclear? Maybe GE cannot build a safe power plant but I'm sure they would not let NBC discourage nuclear power when it is GEs business.

    Tell me, what specifically is the corporate news media saying that is untrue or biased against nuclear power?
    I live in the UK, we don't get NBC here.

    I don't know the quality of their reporting.

    However what you just highlighted is a potential bias, the news organisation
    was owned by a company that builds/runs nuclear power plants.

    Twhitehead was asking me about how you can get reliable unbiased information
    that you can trust without becoming an expert in the subject and don't trust
    the industry [for whatever reason].

    Thus the question is less about accuracy and about trustworthiness.

    The reporting can be perfectly accurate, but unless there is a mechanism which
    twitehead can rely on to ensure that that reporting IS accurate he is not in a
    position to tell if it is accurate.


    That is the problem.

    There has been plenty of reporting on the topic that is accurate [probably more that
    isn't] but there is no strong mechanism that ensures that reporting is true and accurate
    and thus it's like a game of "He said/She said" and you can't tell who, if anyone to trust.

    Similarly with politicians.

    They don't all lie, quite often they care about and tell the truth, but we lack the mechanisms
    to reliably ensure that this is so and thus we can't just trust them because they also often
    lie and or distort the truth [often unwittingly, again incompetence rather than intent].
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    18 Feb '15 14:54
    http://phys.org/news/2015-02-nasa-science-york-city-climate.html
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    18 Feb '15 20:18
    Originally posted by humy
    http://phys.org/news/2015-02-nasa-science-york-city-climate.html
    Pay attention to this sentence in that article in the link you posted:

    "Whether the majority of the cause is anthropogenic or natural, the end result is indisputable"

    It is nice to know that the writer of the article does not take sides on this issue. The author does not claim it is anthropogenic. Do you read these articles you post?
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