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The Forum > Article Comments > A nuclear powered world > Comments

A nuclear powered world : Comments

By Peter Gellatly, published 28/9/2007

Without early, broadscale adoption of nuclear power, unremitting world energy demand will make a mockery of greenhouse amelioration.

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Like water we can learn to live without high levels of energy consumption. But In the end it comes down to what every man or woman can do for themselves. Unfortunately we live in a society that can’t find enough suitably trained nurses and doctors the meet our expectations. Such a society can’t hope to build and run their own nuclear power stations.

All this chat about future technologies and endless links on the internet is leading us nowhere. I can say that because in R/L we meet hundreds of your average punters in personal trade who make up this society.

I grew up in the post war housing boom when houses were framed in six weeks by two carpenters from random length timber packs using only hand tools. Being nostalgic I picked up a vintage Skil power drill for $5 this W/E as I was reminded of our local power tool history. The Skil / Sher combination is typical of our post war manufacturing history.

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160274b.htm

With the age of plastics came the Black & Decker Power Tool Co and those orange bodied home handyman power tools.

http://www.blackanddecker.com.au/about/history/

Several weeks ago, I picked up a large collection of used high speed drill bits but nobody wanted them, offered again at the markets where thousands pass by. Recycling important tools is my retirement hobby so I sharpened them all during the week. Every last one was snapped up yesterday by tradesmen. Readers should note that I collect mostly P & N tools as I do other Australian made tools from the bygone manufacturing era.

Patience & Nicholson Aust Pty Ltd

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2003/10/03/959239.htm

P & N high speed steel drills, taps and dies enabled our transition from the hand driven to the power driven age that occurred for the average Joe here about fifty years ago. Most people I meet still can’t sharpen their drills let alone build a reactor.

What nonsense I see on OLO about the our age prospects.
Posted by Taz, Monday, 15 October 2007 9:12:02 AM
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“So how do you add energy to a closed system?” – simply imaginary, following up delusions of native UK-linked English speakers privileged to get professors' salaries at Melbourne University particularly.
Posted by MichaelK., Monday, 15 October 2007 1:12:38 PM
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KAEP,
Thank you for the first link, a brief summary by B. Van Zeghbroeck, of UColorado.
I note that you quote it as saying:
"(b)The entropy of a closed system (i.e. a system of particles which does not exchange heat, work or particles with its surroundings) tends to remain constant or increases monotonically over time."

and so I ask again, how do you add energy to a closed system?

I also wondered who we could thank for the quote:
"If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase".
because I would like to know who said that, and where.

I was disappointed to receive, in reply, a lot your opinions about me and other things. Such comments only lower the standard of discourse on this forum. You are welcome to your opinions, of course, but they did not answer my questions.

Your second link, to "information entropy" in Wikipedia, offers the idea that
"Intuitively, [information entropy] measures how many yes/no questions must be answered, on average, to communicate each new outcome of the random variable."

After that, the article gets a bit murky, for me.

Further down the page, it does say that

" … adding heat to a system increases its thermodynamic entropy because it increases the number of possible microscopic states that it could be in, thus making any complete state description longer."
Which appears to be the opposite of your assertion, that adding energy will decrease entropy.

Who do I believe? There have been articles critical of Wikipedia, of late. Is the author mistaken, or is it you who must face up to a revision of your theory?

I was intrigued by the remark in the Wikipedia article that
" ... in the view of Jaynes (1957), thermodynamics should be seen as an application of Shannon's information theory".

But that connection doesn’t convince me that nuclear electricity is at all sustainable, or that it represents a net energy gain, when the entire nuclear fuel cycle is considered, cradle to grave; or that you know what you are talking about.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Monday, 15 October 2007 3:46:56 PM
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Vivor,

The statement "If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase" is just another way of stating the equivalence between classical and shannons thermodynamics. Energy is equivalent to information.

Any system can be considered closed over defined time periods and neglecting small energy inputs and outputs that cancel.

Most living systems are considered closed. Between eating and ablution the human body is essentially a closed system and may be treated mathematically as such. Nations like Australia may be mathematically treated as closed systems.

The wiki article does seem to have a problem.

S(Entropy) = k*Ln(W): k=boltzmans constant, W=probability that a system will be in a certain state.

Thus the greater the heat input, the more states to choose from, the lower the probability of being in any one state and by the formula the LOWER the entropy .

There are exceptions where phase changes occur. I noted that in my last post:~ "so long as adding more heat at an optimal level won't harm the system integrity". For example adding heat to ice raises its entropy.

Now, PBR Nuclear plants can NOT not harm national integrity. They add heat thus lowering the national entropy inventory in the form of electricity and manufactured liquid fuels. By Shannon's theory that adds to the number of information states in the nation and thus its intelligence and resilience against reaching chaotic states as existing OIL-low-entropy inventories dwindle.

Cradle to grave PBR reactors are many orders of magnitude less damaging to national intgrity or security than the human sex drive or even coal power plants, as I have pointed out time-and-again.

Perspective is important here. The next 20years will be survival-critical.

When petrol gets close to $10-per-litre, the chaos inherent in human nature will bite. Talk of rationing and teamwork will rapidly give rise to warlord mentality where the strongest will seek to survive at current energy usage or better at the expense of anyone weaker.
Human history tells us this is so. The only thing stopping it is OIL.

Readers should understand .... Australia must go nuclear or PERISH.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 3:52:30 AM
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KAEP, I have fatal difficulties with your argument in general and these statements in particular:

"If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase" is just another way of stating the equivalence between classical and shannons thermodynamics. Energy is equivalent to information."

First, you are depending on unresolved assumptions rather than a tested, falsifiable theory.

The second difficulty is that I that I know of no established relationship between energy and information which allows any reliable prediction for engineers .

If we take the relationship E = mc^2, we have a durable relationship between energy and matter. But I would think it unwise to say that energy is equivalent to matter. That seems to me to be about as practical as your grazier or saying "my sheep and sheepdog and I are all equal, because we are all animals with backbones.

With matter, energy and information, we have clearly different categories of phenomena, and to equate all three, or any two, without a detailed understanding of the relationship between them is to risk a multitude of fatal errors. I am intrigued by the relationships, but there is nothing more I can say on the topic. I hope you appreciate my reservations.

As for PBR's; in addition to my previously expressed arguments against them, I do not expect many at all will be up and running in time to provide a test of your idea that they will soften the blow when the "civilised" world goes pear-shaped, when petrol hits $100/bbl. IMHO, I guess that may happen within a year.

Any links addressing my concerns in this or other posts will be considered.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 4:13:16 PM
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Like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, trying to save Holland from the floods, the Greens are trying to go all biodeisel on us to save Australia from PEAKOIL.

http://search.smh.com.au/click.ac?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsmh.com.au%2Fnews%2FNATIONAL%2FGreens-seek-plans-to-oilproof-Australia%2F2007%2F10%2F16%2F1192300749512.html&t=4&n=11&s=greens

If they were even a bit genuine, albeit naive, they would have suggested the obvious solution of halting Australia's IMMIGRATION fiasco. How the bloody hell can you expect to oil-proof Australia when you immigrate 160,000 petrol guzzling migrants every year.

Halfwits!

I used to admire the Greens but now I find them incredibly stupid and naive.

The only way to oil-proof Australia with its voracious demand for OIL and fossil fuels is to go NUCLEAR. For a strat tyhe harvesting of biofuels depends on plentiful OIL supplies which won't be available after petrol hits $10per litre. Any other Green renewable alternative at this late stage of the game is equivalent to national suicide as I have pointed out in my last post.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 4:18:10 PM
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