random notes

Tremonti: serve ministro per lo Sviluppo
«Non c'è emergenza autunnale, solo la necessità di fare riforme. La politica industriale la fa l'intero Paese»

MANCA IL NUCLEARE - Infine il ritardo italiano nella crescita è anche dovuto alla particolare situazione energetica del Paese: «Siamo debolini sul Pil? Competiamo con Paesi che hanno tutti il nucleare, noi abbiamo il costo dell’energia». Tremonti auspica che il rilancio del nucleare «non sia una questione su cui dividersi, con guelfi e ghibellini».] MANCA IL NUCLEARE - Infine il ritardo italiano nella crescita è anche dovuto alla particolare situazione energetica del Paese: «Siamo debolini sul Pil? Competiamo con Paesi che hanno tutti il nucleare, noi abbiamo il costo dell'energia». Tremonti auspica che il rilancio del nucleare «non sia una questione su cui dividersi, con guelfi e ghibellini».


"However, if we decide to employ Nuclear Power, we must do it right" (from nuclearinfo.net)

... il premio Nobel Rubia sostiene centrali al torio di quarta generazione ...
... ed anche la produzione di energia solare nel sud ...
Bernard L. Cohen calculates that ever-escalating safety restrictions increase the cost of nuclear power plants by as much as four or five times, compensating for inflation:
That something is huge safety restrictions. When the risk of meltdown is removed, these restrictions will be lifted. Carlo Rubia, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and advocate of thorium power, writes, “after a suitable “cool-down” period, radioactive “waste” reaches radio-toxicities which are comparable and smaller than the one of the ashes coming from coal burning for the same produced energy”. So waste and containment – the two main sources of cost and controversy for traditional reactors – are all but eliminated with thorium. The world-changing thorium reactor I am envisioning qualifies as a Generation IV reactor. A Generation IV reactor will pay for itself even more quickly than a Generation III reactor, and will replace every other source of electrical power in terms of cost-effectiveness. Generation IV reactors will be the fission reactors to end all fission reactors. Prof. Rubbia further proposed the concept of an energy amplifier, a novel and safe way of producing nuclear energy exploiting present-day accelerator technologies, which is actively being studied worldwide in order to incinerate high activity waste from accelerators, and produce energy from natural thorium and depleted uranium. The energy resources potentially deriving from these fuels will be practically unlimited and comparable to those from fusion.

... questa e' la posizione del premio Nobel CHU (Segretario USA dell' energia):
TOM ASHBROOK: Was it a mistake for the Obama administration, you’re part of it, to just, what, a month ago, say let’s look for more opportunities to drill offshore
SEC. CHU: No, I don’t think it’s a mistake. I think the president has always said that we need a balanced portfolio of measures in order to do several things, in a complete energy package. The first and foremost is we want to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. We want to increase our renewables. We need to transition to renewable to supplies of energy, especially to bring up our energy efficiency – for a lot of goals. These goals range from, fundamentally, this is going to be a big boost to our economy. The world will transition to clean energy and we have an opportunity to lead in that transition.
SEC. CHU: No, it doesn’t. When I say — I hope I didn’t sound cavalier when I said, I believe I said – this truly unfortunate accident happened and that we have to learn from it. It’s something that we want to press towards zero accidents. This is something that industry does all the time, things have gotten better. Clearly, because it happened I would agree things are not perfect, things are not fail-safe, and we have to learn from this. And so we’re pausing, we’re taking a step, and we have to figure out what really happened …

Worried about radioactivity? Coal’s still your bogeyman. Dr. Chu says a typical coal plant emits 100 times more radiation than a nuclear plant, given the flyash emissions of radioactive particles. That doesn’t mean nuclear power is much better. “The waste and proliferation issues [surrounding nuclear power] still haven’t been completely solved,” he said. A big part of the Department of Energy’s job is to oversee nuclear weapons and waste storage. And the Obama campaign made clear that increased reliance on nuclear power will require finding a “safe” way to dispose of radioactive waste.

... il nucleare e' solo un aspetto di un ben piu' ampio problema energetico ...
... il nucleare non sostituisce il petrolio per fertilizzanti e prodotti chimici ...
... il nucleare non risolve il problema di collasso del pianeta ...
... per sovrappopolazione ...
... inoltre il peak dell' uranio e' solo a pochi decenni ...
... e l'uso di motori nucleari potrebbe essere "indispensabile" ...
... per mantenere il traffico marittimo ...
... in certe zone forse anche quello ferroviario ...
... infine, proteggere centrali nucleari ...
... e' un compito molto difficile ...
... "specialmente" in prossimita' di una guerra mondiale ...