TRUMP 2020!

[Mack]

ok well it dont bother you to say nuclear waste in the same paragraph as you talk about plant alteration thats better for us?

[Leo]

Why don't we just launch all the nuclear waste into space?


Actually, if you find the green new deal as too much of a hassle, then I'm sure you will just LOVE what's coming in 30 years.

[Lachlan]

Sorry for double posting, but this is a bit too much to add on with a quick edit like I prefer to usually do.

I checked. California is indeed more populated then all of australia. And far smaller in land area.

Australia
2020 estimate
25,671,400
• Total
7,692,024 km2 (2,969,907 sq mi) (6th)


California • Total 39,512,223
163,696 sq mi (423,970 km2)

Roughly 1.5 times more people on about one eighteenth the land. A big problem you have is trying to use Australia as a model. While Your country is nice, it's easily one of the worst countries in the world to use as a model for other countries. I don't mean that as in it's a bad place, it's just so insanely unique. Basically a giant island, no neighboring countries(by land) incredibly unique wild life, etc.

A lot of things that would work well for you guys is absolutely not possible for just about everyone else. Lots of unused land, most European countries don't even have a fraction what you guys got.

Edit-again really want to clarify, think you got a lovely country in wild life, pretty solid government all things considered, but you guys are just too wildly different to just about any other country to be a model to work off of. Probably the most unique country on earth in my opinion. At least that I can think of. Which has it's ups and downs.

yeah the solar power availability in Australia is pretty unique, Africa could do it but each country is too small to do the same thing

[Leo]

Wait couldn't you just build up to use less space? I probably sound naive, but just think about it.

[Lachlan]

Or how about we put it in your head-since clearly there seems to be some vacant space in there based on those points you made and the fact that frankly if you thought about it more thoroughly you would see putting it there would be pretty sensible.

What?

First point. the people and science stations. Now, why you even bothered mentioning that, I don't know. even if we doubled the high end of 5K to a nice solid 10K that is an absolutely tiny amount of people to relocate. Now losing the science bases could be bad, though honestly I doubt we would actually need to even sacrifice them, which I'll explain in my third point.

>>>Do you know what studies and research are done in Antarctica and why Antarctica is the only place on earth from which these studies can be done?
https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ho ... tarctica/#

Second, your point on the very few animals and plants that do only live there. First off, it's a pretty big land mass, and most of that life, lives in the seas around it, or the coasts.
>>>Orcas are noted to be the only animal to breed in the Antarctic during winter. Do you know much about eco-systems?
https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ec ... cosystems/

Just put the damn waste facilities as deep inland as possible, with lead and other resistant metals to keep it safely contained. Maybe set up devices to scare away any animals.

>> So you not only want to put nuclear waste in the Antarctic but you think filling it with lead is a good idea too?
https://emerging-researchers.org/projec ... n%20adults.

Third point-it's a big damn landmass.
>>As far as I know the USA have the right to claim Antarctic Territory but to date haven't made a claim.
https://www.scar.org/


You could probably quite easily keep the science bases along the coasts, along with most of the animals, while safely storing the waste far inland. Now in the very unlikely event that some tragedy like say a meteor hits the waste dump and spreads the waste-the casualties would literally be at the worse case less then 10K, and only a very small amount of wild life would be harmed.

.. I don't have a response to this.

Nuclear energy, is quite honestly the best option to power humanity, that we currently have. If handled properly with a coordinated effort, I honestly think we could probably power all of humanity fairly easily, with far less pollution currently, far more power, and far less waste.

I partially disagree about the nuclear energy, I think if nuclear fusion instead of fission becomes a viable option it would be much better because it could in theory have i think the same or slightly more energy produced with much less nuclear waste

[The Lamb]

So first, Mel, great call on the how special Australia is from all other places.

Second, Dman - Great songs!!! That cracked me up! It reminded me i need to buy more nine line

Lastly, Zeph - Im with you, i think Nuclear is the way to go, and I love your point about salt domes! If memory serves waste fissile material has a half life of 500 years ish, so that would be a great remedy, so long as we used something other than steel barrels

The issue I have with Antartica is that its the last real whole land mass that hasn't been molested. Now granted the ice will NEVER! melt away until the land mass itself moves north but, its got a nerdy place in my heart

Edit : Kim your right on! Fusion would be the answer, there is no radio active waist left over just heaver elements, woohoo! But we cant do it yet and maintain a stable reaction, maybe sometime in the future. And dont talk about cold fusion yet, lets get fusion first

Blue, the idea of shooting crap into space is a great idea too but... remember a long time ago i brought up, you cant just solve the problem, you have to solve the problem your fix makes for it to be a good fix? The amount of fuel needed to get at all this material to space would be huge! They use some of the heaviest materials on the planet to get that nuclear reaction. How you gonna launch all those rockets with the green new deal

[Leo]

Nuclear energy is great for renewable energy but we need to find a way to make it as safe as possible. We want to prevent more catastrophic events like the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown and Chernobyl.

I think that we should use a hybrid of wind, sun and nuclear energy so that if one fails we will have two others to back us up while we fix the problem.

I don't think we should dump nuclear waste in Antarctica, but rather defuse it and recycle it.

[The Lamb]

The problem with solar energy, you can use it at night, and if its cloudy your lucky to get 50% power. So to counter that you need to be able to store the energy in giant battery houses. Plus at todays tech levels, they are only 20% efficient. So if the total energy hitting the ground from the sun is 1000 watts, we could only harvest 200w.

Wind is great too, but the issue there is the more wind turbines you put up, the less wind there is in that area, it gets diluted. Want proof, stand in the middle of the woods, how much wind do you feel?

Edit: Blue, the only thing i can think of to recycle uranium to is bullets that can shoot through armor, im all for it, but you might not like the idea lol

[Leo]

There are problems with all the renewable energy types. Nuclear creates a huge amount of waste that often has no where to go.

That's why I said we should use all of them. When there is no wind, use solar. When there is no sun or wind use nuclear. When there is wind or sun, use that instead.

See what I'm saying? If we only used nuclear energy, we could be heading for a disaster.

[Leo]

Another solution is to use less energy. The government should issue tax cuts for people who commute via public transportation, and even further cuts if they commute by bike.

We live in a world where we are becoming more and more dependent on energy to do things. I suggest we cut back on how much energy we use by making usage more efficient. For instance by making smart phone batteries last longer and charge quicker, you can charge it less therefor using less energy. By making emission and mpg standards for new cars higher, we reduce the amount of fossil fuels they consume.

I believe that the solution isn't to find some magical way to get 100% clean energy, but instead get as much clean energy as we can while overall using less energy.