[Robaroni]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Funny you should mention long term effects of 2 and 3 quakes. The mechanical and civil engineer I talked to about this have absolutely no worries.
They say if any major structure fails due to a tiny 2 or 3 quakes then it was "the straw that broke the cammels back" and that such a failure could only happen after years of neglect and/or abuse facilitated by criminally covering up and hiding problem areas and warning signs. Or something to that effect.
They only studied vibrations, materials science, past failures and other related subjects for 4 years, make a living with this knowledge and can design buildings that have a natural resonance not produced by earth quakes. But what do they know.

The long term effect of the chemicals pumped into the ground will be the same as the natural chemicals that accumulated there all by them selves. They stayed there for millions of years under thousands of pounds pressure until the monkeys came along, drilled down and pumped them out. With the chemicals we pump down there and leave at 0 well head pressure have a better chance of staying put than the natural stuff that was there originally.
So after 100 years, its all still going to be exactly where we left it.

The so called waste fuel rods are in fact around 95% useable fuel if recycled. Throwing away a once used fuel rod is the most irresponsible, most ignorant thing that could possibly be done to dispose of them.
Raw fuel rods could remain highly radioactive for many thousands of years. When the waste nuclides are isolated and concentrated away from the usable fuel their radioactivity drops very rapidly. The radioactivity decays so fast that after 40 years, the waste nuclides will be 99.9% less radioactive then when first separated or about as radioactive as granite.
Your fear of all things nuclear is astounding and clearly the product of the medias fear mongering.
If you love, hate or don't know anything about nuclear power you should watch the first 5 minutes of this. Its pretty much everything you need to know about current nuclear technology in a nut shell.

If you watch all of it your mind will be blown.

You mention fukushima. There were problems with that plants management, remember I lived in northern japan for 3 years. I know a few things you don't.
The managers of the fukushima power plant were fired years ago while I was in japan for fraud and mismanagement. It was big news over there. They built a 15 foot sea wall in a place that has been known for hundreds of years to be hit by periodically hit by 45 foot high tsunamis. Actually when the earth quake happened everything worked the reactor was being shut down properly until the emergency shutdown backup systems lost power. If they had 24 hours of battery power or if the sea walls were high enough to protect the emergency systems backup generators or had the generators been in a sealed bunker and vented to high above the ground none of this would have happened. That was all due to bean counter management saying no, because it would cost money. Then on top of all that for some reason the emergency hydrogen vent pumped hydrogen into an enclosed area above the containment dome. That caused the explosion.
These were mismanagement and poor design problems not nuclear problems.
These problems were solved by a new reactor to the south of fukushima that was hit by the earthquake and tsunami and survived, shut down with out issue.

Chernobyls only purpose in life was to produce as much weapons grade plutonium as possible. Safety concerns and extra robustness for unauthorized science experiments were not part of the design.

3 mile island failed and did exactly what it was supposed to do in that mode of failure.
It could be properly cleaned up but it will be expensive and will be a political lightening rod. So they are going to leave it alone for as long as they can.

Funny you should mention decommissioning nuclear power plants. Nuclear power stations like wind turbines now have decommissioning funding plan built into them.
Some of the really old nuclear power stations might not have a decommission fund but that doesn't mean new ones wont have one.
A decommissioning fund prevents what you see in California where you have sites with thousands of abandoned wind turbines that were built in the 1980s just sitting there.

The sad thing about solar is its so pathetic if you took the entire worlds solar power out in 2010 it wouldn't even be able to provide 20% of japans power in 2010.
So japan couldn't even buy all the solar panels in existence and power their country.
How do you propose we power much of anything in the US with solar?

I could answer everything you have said here but this thread is about autonomy and that is the question you didn't answer. An you didn't answer it because everything you promote is a product of people and systems that don't want anyone to think outside the box they have created and never want you to ask it.

When we talk about existing without oil, gas, etc. we are talking about existing without the corporate control that hooks, like a drug, people. Your only answer is to think in the box because that's the pabulum you've been fed and that's the only answer you know.

Control energy, water, food, etc. and you control the people. You can't live without the gas in your car can you? That's exactly what the Koch brothers and their 9 million dollars in profits want. You can't live with a limited system of supply, you have to go to the super market constantly, don't you? And you think you are free, well you're not free. You're on a drug.

Tomorrow the oil runs to a trickle and the food runs to a trickle. What do you do? Go watch Fox News? Because your basic plan is live off coal for the next 250 years until it chokes everything in sight with acid rain.

And what do you do if another relay fails or the real threat of terrorism takes out the grid for a year? What's you plan? Sit in the dark and hope terrorists don't blow up a nuclear plant so that you'll be sitting in the dark while being radiated? Because out of all the nuclear plants only the people at Fukushima ever made a mistake or cut corners because of greed? It won't ever happen again?
And I don't care what went on at Chernobyl, it melted down and created a barren waste land. And I don't care what an engineer said about earthquakes or how safe his company thinks the proprietary chemicals they pump in to the ground are. We thought DDT was safe, it wasn't. Monsanto said Agent Orange was safe but it killed more US troops than the Vietcong. PCB's weren't safe either but all the crap we're pumping into the ground is?

Alternative will only get better and they will keep affording the individual the best and cleanest, chance for autonomy. Their diversification will only make the grid stronger. You keep talking like alternatives are at a standstill technologically, that's what you've been taught and the best you can do is parrot it.

The last big oil find was in the North Sea. Do you know when it happened? The year we went to the moon, 1969. But let's keep polluting the planet until we don't have drop of oil left and the smog over our cities is so bad that we're all walking around with masks.

So again, what is your answer to the original question? The question that your oil, gas and coal philosophy can't answer.

And by the way, I could see everything POTUS could see and was working on the first top secret military computers and had several medical instrument patents before you were a star in you mother's eye.
I went to school too, graduated Summa Cum Laude and was one of 20 students out of 20,000 thousand nominated for the Chancellors Award for Student Excellence.
I retired at 46 and today have a full machine shop, electronics lab, organic gardens and an autonomous house. I can make a windmill from scratch including all the electronics which I can fabricate right here. So maybe you might want to stop telling me what I don't know!

Rob