HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 20 Jul 92 23:10:07 GMT
Organization: New Mexico Tech

In article <10959@cis.rand.org> Rodger_Madison@rand.ORG (Rodger Madison) writes:
>     I don't doubt that a nuclear reactor can be build that will operate
>     perfectly for an indefinate period of time.  This can happen only if
>     competant individuals dedicate themselves to making it happen.  I DO
>     doubt that this will happen in every case in which a reactor is built
>     and operated.  Somewhere along the line there will be human mistake,
>     inattention or malice that will cause a system failure.  When this
>     happens it may illuminate a previous human mistake in the design or
>     construction of the facility and cause a catastrophe.

	In a perfect world,  all of the materials used to build a nuclear
reactor are of the highest quality.  In reality,  one ends up buying
concrete from the mob.  In a perfect world,  well-trained and attentive
experts work in the control room.  In the real world,  they run an extension
cord from the bathroom to power a TV set.  We can never underestimate the
human potential for making honest mistakes,  never mind dishonest mistakes,
sheer stupidity and everything else that can go wrong.

-- 
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9713 sci.physics:11315
From: dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska)
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 20:29:47 GMT

In article <STEINLY.92Jul23130521@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>
>I don't know if 5 years is an exact number, but banks will provide
>loans at different rates and terms depending on how the loan is
>secured, a large capacity hydroelectric plant is usually finance on
>very low interest and 40-50 year terms, as they are reasonably
>expected to last 100+ years, are a very well understood technology
>and have a well defined rate of return. Residential housing
>similarly has a well understood life expectancy and a relatively
>stable market, plus the bank no doubt demanded you take out
>insurance? New energy technologies are less well understood,
>may fail and are therefore capitalised in the "free market" 
>at short term and high rates.
>	Arguably why public subsidies and research are appropriate.
>
>*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
>* steinly@helios.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
>*  Just because there's a reason          			*
>*  Doesn't mean it's understood              Specials, 1979	* 

This also helps explain why a small player like Luz had such troubles.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Keywords: Cars Transit Cities
Date: 31 Jul 92 00:02:19 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul29.222232.6070@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.144248.2912@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul28.204107.16302@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>::	If you have to park far away, then you have to walk as long as
>::you would in a shopping mall -- probably longer -- and almost
>::certainly across a street or two.
>
>:Not around here anyway. Strip centers have proportionately as much parking
>:lot space as enclosed malls with the advantage that the store doors open
>:directly on the lot instead of having to go to a Mall entrance and then
>:wend your way through a simulated downtown pedestrian way to the store
>:you want to patronize. 
>
>	That would be a good objection _only_ if one was guaranteed
>parking just in front of whatever store you wanted to shop in. C'mon,
>Gary Coffman, what makes you so sure you won't have any competition?

Queing theory. On any given day, my odds of finding a parking place
in front of the store I wish to patronize is proportional to the number
of other customers at the strip center who simulaneously want to shop
at that store instead of another store in the center. At the Mall, 
*everyone* wants to park next to the Mall entrance regardless of which
store they want to patronize. Therefore I'm almost always going to get
a better parking place at the strip center.

Gary
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10056 sci.psychology:3258
From: sharvy@reed.edu (V Headshape)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Whale rights - Science and sentimen
Date: 27 Jul 92 04:37:07 GMT
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon

In article <1992Jul25.022645.12740@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:


>Is it OK to eat the retarded or is it not OK to eat
>hamburger?  By the way, what have you done to preserve the trillions
>of microbes you kill every day with soap and water?
>
If a human being is ontologically equivalent to a cow, and it is OK to eat
cows, then it is OK to eat the human being.  I have no idea what 
the question about microbes is about.

>>the properties which we think render us intelligent.  "Intelligent"
>>does not necessarily mean "just like us."  Simpler social structures than ours,
>>or even simpler languages, do not necessarily equate to less intelligence 
>>than ours.  To large extent, the supposed complexity of our social structures
>>can be attributed to environmental factors such as over-population.  There
>>have been in history many groups of people with extremely simple social
>>structures.

>Well, in that case you had better tell us how to define intelligence.
>In general, I think we're going to define it as "smart like us" until
>we bump into something that isn't "smart like us" but that makes us
>accept it as a fellow intelligent species through the application of
>violence.  

Do I need to define intelligence for my own rights to be acknowledged?  Or
any one else's?  I have already mentioned a few properties that I think
are relevant, and of them all I am concerned most with self-awareness.  The
issue is: what kind of behavior constitutes sufficient evidence for the
existence of self-awareness in an animal, human or otherwise?  I posted one
anectdote, several hundred articles ago, which I thought strongly in-
dicated that a particular whale was self-aware; the whale exhibited
behavior which strongly suggested, and perhpas could only be explained by,
 self-awareness.  Behavioral evidence is also the only way we know that other
people possess a certain order of intelligence, and have minds generally 
similar to our own; a definiton of a thing is not required in order to know
what it is.

-- 
Liberate the Weirdoes and You Liberate the Squares
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: More Global Warming
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Distribution: usa
Date: 22 Jul 92 10:21:00

In article <DmR-_H#@engin.umich.edu> blagdon@engin.umich.edu (Kenneth James Clark ) writes:

   In article <BrsG3D.37H@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
   >What are the "full expenses" that we are suffering under today?  I hear
   >a lot of claims that doomsday is around the corner, but everywhere I look
   >I see thetremendous improvements brought about through the industrial
   >revolution, and none of the "hazards" of it.  Where are the dead bodies?

   In the ground? :-)

   Do large numbers of people have to die for you to see a problem?  
   Maybe you meant to say "What exactly are the hazards?"

   Ken

The answer is yes.  Large numbers of people today die in ways that
can be remedied.  If you invent a hazard and get media support to
exaggerate it, you are killing people from the known hazards to the
extent that you succeed in diverting resources.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: dchung@efi.com (Daniel Chung)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: [Les Disposables] disposable eating-ware (cutlery)
Date: 31 Jul 92 01:07:40 GMT


     In parties, it is almost impossible not to use disposable (misnomer; should
be "disposing", because they "will be disposed", rather than "can be
disposed") cutlery and paper plates and napkins (never use plastic plates,
because they cannot be disposed).  However, this high-consumption
products can perhaps be and should be eliminated from everyday use in companies.
Some companies allow employees to use for example polystyrene (foam
rubber) cups or paper cups.  Although they can be kept from day to day,
it is too convenient so that many people disposed of them after drinking,
and also dispose of stirrers after stirring once.

     || What a waste! ||

						Daniel Chung (Mr.), U.S.A.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Organization: LLNL
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 01:27:30 GMT

In article <22009@venera.isi.edu> finn@dalek.isi.edu (Greg Finn) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.000116.4102@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>>In article <JMC.92Jul22091522@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
:::The Interstate system is financed by the gasoline tax, more than 100
:::percent, I believe.  In fact the lawyers want to tap the gasoline
:::tax to finance their public transit boondoggles.

::	If one does some VERY clever accounting, then just MAYBE. But
::total costs are:

::	1979 US government agencies on highways:

	[Correction: 1989]

::	$71.2 billion total

:	You would need pre-1974 figures according to my information,
:since after 1973 the fund was subject to raiding for other purposes.

	By how much?

:You may be right, you may not be.  It's a good area to look into
:honestly though.

	But how much raiding?

	Out of the 40 cent/gallon Federal gas tax, 1.5 c/gal goes to
mass transit (about 4%). And that's not much at all.

	One would have to be a real crybaby to complain about that.
And if one _does_ like to drive, might one not welcome a chance to get
people _off_ the roads so that one doesn't have too much competition?

	There is a proposal to have 1 c/gal go to Amtrak (2.5%); I'm
not sure if it will go through.


/Loren
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9675 sci.physics:11255 sci.energy:3469
From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 21 Jul 92 15:21:12 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.


In article <1992Jul17.163846.15871@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU:, gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
: When the regulations are properly followed, nuclear power is
: reasonable safe. When regulations are properly followed, medical waste
: is reasonable safe.
...
: When will happen WHEN someone shady operator dumps radioactive waste
: somewhere? It has happened before (Brazil) and will happen again. 

Based on 50 years of experience, that simply will not happen in the US.
The licensing requirements are so stringent for every entity that touches
the stuff and the fines for even paper transgressions so severe that
shady operators don't exist.  Consider that the NRC considers liability
for FUPs to be joint and several, meaning that all parties involved are
fully liable for the FUP.  Further consider that $100,000 fines from the 
NRC for even simple things like paperwork foulups are not uncommon,
and what we have is a rather draconian and grossly expensive system
of disposal that nontheless works.

Interesting to try to make a point by comparing what might happen in
the US to events in one of the more environmentally disasterous third world
countries.

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |Interested in high technology and computers?  
Marietta, Ga                  |Write me about "Performance Engineering" (TM) 
jgd@dixie.com                 |Magazine. 
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: rkrii@cco.caltech.edu (Roberk Kim Rickenbrode II)
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:47:47 GMT

[...]

{Malcolm}   If so, what is the proper US-speak
         term for planning how to co-ordinate resources and needs by means of
         appropriate pricing?

{Smith} "The Free Market".
[Larry Smith`s signature deleted]

  Except that the free market does not correlate resources and needs very well.
For example, up to now, heavy industry had a free ride as far as pollution 
was concerned because the secondary costs -- pollution, loss of habitat, etc --
were absorbed by those afflicted, with the exception of legal compensation. 
There are movements now to have the sources accept some of these costs --  
internalizing the externalities -- by taxes of some form.  While this 
will give the free market more information and allow for the most efficient
allocation of resource use and needs via prices, it does so only within
a limited framework.  For example, future needs are ignored by the tacit
assumption that money in the bank is equivalent to wood in the forests (ie,
if it is more profitable to cut down and stick the proceeds in the bank
to grow via interest than to sustainably withdraw forever, we will do so).
How do we weigh the needs of future generations, given that they have no
say in the current free market?
  The free market is fine for efficient allocation, however, it cannot see
anything beyond that.  How does one price the negative effects of millions
of cars in their creation, operation, and maintenance ?  Or, as a more
illustrative example, how do we internalize all of the costs of sea levels
rising due to global-warming effects (loss of species and land; creation of
new coastlines; relocation of coastal peoples and the construction of residences
and businesses for them to move into and work in -- along with other
massive infrastructure adjustments; compensation of those who had nothing
to do with it, yet felt the effects anyway --not that this is possible, 
because, there are after all, things not representable by money in the bank).

  Read _For the Common Good_ by Daly and Cobb for a much more lucid and
scholarly portrayal of misplaced confidence in the market, and the rest
of modern economics.

Robert Rickenbrode (rkrii@coil.cco.caltech.edu)
 
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9663 sci.energy:3463 sci.physics:11237
From: ken@sugra.uucp (Kenneth Ng)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 21 Jul 92 04:57:24 GMT
Organization: Private Computer, Totowa NJ

In article <1992Jul17.232801.905@nmt.edu:, houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle) writes:
: 	Most advocates of nuclear power that I discuss this with claim that
: all the technical problems of nuclear waste disposal are solved -- that it
: is only the fault of the "god-damned environmentalists" that we don't have
: any permament facilities.  Many people who think that waste disposal is a
: problem feel that way on a gut instinct -- there is just no safe way to
: get rid of something that is as awful as a mixture of radioactive
: Strontium,  Technitium,  Plutonium,  etc.

Wait a minute!  Why are we disposing of substances like stronium 90 and
plutonium?  *RECYCLE* them!  Stronium 90 makes a great heat source for
litterally uninterruptable power supplies.  Plutonium can be recycled back
into the nuclear reactor.  Multiple recyclings will help spike the high
end plutonium isotopes, therefore detering using it for bomb material.

'Gut instinct' is no excuse for actually doing the research, doing the
studies, learning the models, etc.  Doing the actual learning is the only
way to tell the hype from the facts.  Question the sources (even myself),
learn the reasoning.

: 	Assuming that safe disposal is possible -- say,  we find a good
: standard for keeping the stuff confined,  and nobody ever slacks off and
: just figures he can grind up a fuel road and use it to pave the street
: with,  the cost of disposal must be added to the total cost of energy
: from nuclear sources,  as must the cost of extraction,  processing,
: decomissioning,  etc...  All the costs which are currently disassociated
: with the operation of a nuclear power plant.  I wouldn't be suprised if
: we find that nuclear power simply costs too much to do it right.

I seem to remember that there is indeed a fee paid by nuclear power plants
to go toward decommissioning, can anyone confirm this?  Reprocessing or
recycling of nuclear wastes is for the federal government only, by law.
By the way, define "safe".  The present deposits of uranium, radium, and
radon are hardly distributed in nature in 'safe' locations.

-- 
Kenneth Ng
Please reply to kdn5669@hertz.njit.edu for now.
"No problem, here's how you build it" -- R. Barclay, ST: TNG
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: sherwood@adobe.com (Geoffrey Sherwood)
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 17:28:26 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.042401.23718@pta.pyramid.com.au> bgg@pta.pyramid.com.au (Ben Golding) writes:
:
:But the commercial airlines are just mass transit, and a very
:successful successful transit system it is too.  The posters that
:continually assert that the American public doesn't like mass transit
:seems to forget this.
:
:	Ben.

Let me get this right.  You are claiming the people *like* airplanes?
We put up with them because they are the most cost-effective (including
time as a cost) way to get from point A to point B when these are a
long distance apart, but *like* doesn't even enter into it.  You stand
in interminable lines, get mashed into a bus-like thing where you sit
for sometimes many hours, then wait in more lines for them to get your
luggage back to you.  It beats the alternatives, but it is not a pleasant
experience.

	Geoff Sherwood
From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Date: 27 Jul 92 00:12:19 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:

>In article <cydmy-j@dixie.com> jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>ken@sugra.uucp (Kenneth Ng) writes:
>>Absolutely true.  I think it a mistake to even use the term "nuclear waste".
>>Only a tiny bit of what comes out of a reactor is truly waste.  Most
>>isotopes have potentially great value.  Sr-90 as a heat source, Cs-137 as

>Similarly, used tires have potential value, as does auto exhaust. But,
>for nuclear wastes to have real value a working nuclear fuel cycle must
>be developed. As the French have shown, this is not a solved problem.
>Assuming that such a cycle exists, while the waste inventory continues
>to build, is simply wishful thinking.

Haaay! Yackadam's back.  The day's not wasted yet.

French you say.... Hmmm.. Same ones who invented the Citroen and eat
that slimey cheese we would feed to the hogs?  Hmmm..  Problem solvers????

John
-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |Interested in high technology and computers?  
Marietta, Ga                  |Write me about "Performance Engineering" (TM) 
jgd@dixie.com                 |Magazine. 
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Interstate Freeway System (was: Cost of public vs. ...)
Date: 22 Jul 92 16:21:04 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <=mR-8C#@engin.umich.edu>, blagdon@engin.umich.edu (Kenneth James Clark ) writes:
>In article <1992Jul22.135049.25666@pmafire.inel.gov> cdm@pmafire.inel.gov (Dale Cook) writes:
>>
>>As I recall (sorry, no references), part of the justification for the 
>>interstate freeway system was military:  to facilitate the rapid 
>>deployment of troops anywhere in the country.  That would partially
>>justify the expenditure of general funds to build it.
>>
>
>As I recall, that was the *main* justification.

Don't forget that there were supposed to be fallout shelters under all the
interchanges.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9870 sci.physics:11499 sci.energy:3583
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Democrats & Ecology
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 11:26:05 GMT

Why do Democrats kill bees while professing an "environmentalist" outlook?
I would have to say that it is because their REAL interest is in using the
issue to gain more power over individual people's lives.  They used to say
that they needed to have control over the businessmen to prevent poverty
(and some still do) but with the fall of the USSR, that theory has been shown to
have some pretty serious flaws.  Now they insist that thye need to control
us to "save the Earth".  I didn't believe them before and I don't believe them now.
Thyey are just political opportunists.

-Brian

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<28508@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 25 Jul 92 11:50:33

I'm puzzled by Mike Smith's reference to the B2 bomber in connection
with a discussion of the unseen hand.  Assuming the Air Force needs
a bomber to replace the ancient B-52s, how should the matter be
handled more in accordance with the unseen hand.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: moore@theory.chem.ubc.ca (Brian Moore)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 05:01:15 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.001125.9798@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.223430.6269@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>>
>>	And if one drives, one's time is occupied controlling the car,
>>while if one travels by public transit, or is driven by someone else,
>>one is free to do other things. Is _that_ ever figured?
>
>I can tell you aren't a veteran auto commuter. We eat breakfast, shave,
>drink coffee, talk on the phone, sing along with the radio (real loud), 
>...

Which brings up another pet peeve of mine.  As someone who has been
forced to take public transit for several years (5 years of grad. 
school in L.A. and now a post-doc in Vancouver), this idea of the
bus being less stressful than the car is a myth.  Just try taking
the bus during (or even close to) rush hour in the city.  The
majority of the time you'll have to stand, usually in a crowd.  
Definitely *not* a stress-free experience, especially if you have
some place where you're supposed to be at a certain time.  Every
once in a great while it is the enjoyable experience where you
can sit back and read a book.  But that is the exception not the
norm.

--
Brian Moore
Chemistry Dept.  University of British Columbia
moore@theory.chem.ubc.ca
Newsgroups: sci.environment