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posted by on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the drill-baby-drill dept.

From CNN:

The massive find of conventional oil on state land could bring relief to budget pains in Alaska brought on by slumping production in the state and the crash in oil prices.

The new discovery was made in just the past few days in Alaska's North Slope, which was previously viewed as an aging oil basin.

[...] "The interesting thing about this discovery is the North Slope was previously thought to be on its last legs. But this is a significant emerging find," Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix told CNNMoney.

Of course, this news won't ease rising concern among investors about the stubborn glut of oil in the U.S. There are increasing signs that shale oil producers are preparing to ramp up output after surviving a two-year price war with OPEC.

It's a gift from $DEITY! Who needs renewable energy when we just keep finding oil! Right?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:05PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:05PM (#478220)

    like molten salt nuclear reactors

    Nukes are the most expensive way ever devised to boil water.
    They also produce incredibly nasty waste which remains dangerous for eons and for which no one has devised a viable permanent disposal/re-use solution.

    landscape-destroying

    Rooftops, dude.
    **Distributed** energy; NOT giant corporate installations.

    A local college recently erected some things that not only provide shade for their parking lot (and protection from the occasional rain here), they also collect solar energy.

    Farmers graze their livestock in the same fields where wind turbines operate.

    ...and, nukes may not use huge tracts of land but they do use huge amounts of WATER.
    ...then there are the idiots who build them on earthquake faults.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @12:26PM (2 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @12:26PM (#478366) Journal

    like molten salt nuclear reactors... They also produce incredibly nasty waste which remains dangerous for eons and for which no one has devised a viable permanent disposal/re-use solution.

    certain molten-salt nuclear reactors were themselves designed from the ground up to be the viable permanent disposal/re-use solution. LFTR systems are designed to eat the nasty trans-uranic waste of current inefficient designs you seem to be confusing them with.

    nukes may not use huge tracts of land but they do use huge amounts of WATER.

    The earth's surface is 75% water. Even if nuke plants *kept* the water they used (spoiler: they just borrow it), their consumption of water would round off to 0% of terrestrial water by all known measuring methods.

    ...then there are the idiots who build them on earthquake faults.

    The only thing I can think of there is that perhaps they were trying to keep the plant out of the reach of Godzilla's usual hunting grounds.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @10:06PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @10:06PM (#478657)

      Are you going to build nukes within a few feet of sea level?
      AKA on the Atlantic coast and/or Gulf coast where global warming and sea level rise will soon inundate them.

      Are you going to build more nukes on the Pacific coast?
      AKA The Ring of Fire where there are earthquakes and volcanos.

      ...and most of Earth's water is SALT water, which is significantly more corrosive than fresh water (which is in short supply in many places).

      Even if nuke plants *kept* the water they used

      We did a previous story (can't locate that now) about how already-warm water (global warming again) has less and less capacity to absorb the heat from nukes.
      So, the "solution" is to use MORE water to cool the damned things?
      ...or to reduce the generating capacity of the nukes?
      ...while still negatively impacting the ecosystem.

      .
      ...and if you -did- re-use the same water over and over, just how much more REAL ESTATE would be used for the additional cooling apparatus for that, including the additional water volume?
      (We're getting into of GP's original argument -for- nukes.)

      A closed-loop cooling method for a nuke is fantasy.
      How about the methods of generation which do NOT involve creating MORE heat?

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @11:10PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @11:10PM (#478682) Journal

        So, the "solution" is to use MORE water to cool the damned things?

        That's *a* solution, sure.

        already-warm water (global warming again) has less and less capacity to absorb the heat from nukes.

        I don't think that the additional cooling capacity that might be required by this is as much as you are thinking, but even so...

        how much more REAL ESTATE would be used for the additional cooling apparatus

        Some, sure, but orders of magnitude less than would be required for wind or solar installations of comparable generating capacity.

        This is a problem that solar and wind need to address. Rooftop, as you pointed out, is a good start, but these installations are really huge if they have any notable generating capacity. The energy required by a typical building, whether residential, commercial, or industrial, is much more than can be supplied by that building's rooftop area worth of solar.

        There are off-grid designs that go to extremes to use less energy, thereby working within the parameters of onsite wind and/or solar installations, and that approach might be another way to address the problem.

        We will solve these problems because we have to, when the price of fossil fuels becomes out of reach, or because they are a good idea, or a combination of both. But they will have to be solved in order for civilization to keep using energy at anywhere near the rate it currently does.

        How about the methods of generation which do NOT involve creating MORE heat?

        So that's, what, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric. All with their own problems, sure, but good sustainable solutions. We need more of those.

        Solar doesn't create more heat, but it captures and keeps earthbound more solar heat than would have been, so it's probably a net of the same thing.

        But if clean nuclear were possible, I wouldn't be against using lots and lots of water to cool it. Heck we could use some of that heat for desalination in a double bonus configuration.