but a much bigger carbon footprint! http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ia37e17bc1457412e508423123fb19536 [rquoter]Viewers don't warm up to 'Live Earth' coverage By Paul J. Gough July 10, 2007 NEW YORK -- NBC's three-hour primetime "Live Earth" special, which included highlights from Saturday's global concerts, failed to generate much enthusiasm in the ratings. The estimated 2.7 million viewers was slightly under the 3 million viewers NBC has averaged on Saturday nights in the summer with repeats and the Stanley Cup hockey playoffs on what is already the least-popular night of television. It also performed below the Live 8 concert two years ago, according to preliminary estimates released Monday by Nielsen Media Research. The three-hour concert special from Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., drew a 0.9 rating/3 share in adults 18-49 --- the same as a typical summer Saturday after Memorial Day. The special was also just under ABC's primetime coverage of the Live 8 concert, which occurred Independence Day weekend on July 2, 2005. Live 8 averaged 2.9 million viewers and a 1.0 rating/5 share in adults 18-49. Ratings for the all-day, all-night telecasts on NBC Universal's cable platforms, including 18 hours on Bravo and even more than that on Sundance Channel, won't be in until Tuesday. Meanwhile, CBS and Fox split Sunday night in primetime, with CBS winning viewership while Fox won in adults 18-49 thanks to repeats of "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons." "Big Brother," which CBS has hoped would rescue it from the summer ratings doldrums, failed to do just that as it was beaten in viewership at 8 p.m. by "Dateline NBC" and in the demo by repeats of "The Simpsons" on Fox. "Big Brother" averaged 5.9 million viewers and a 2.1/7 in adults 18-49 compared to "Dateline NBC" (6.3 million, 1.4/4) and an hour of "The Simpsons" (4.9 million, 2.5/8). Fox's "Family Guy" (6.1 million, 3.2/9 for an entire hour) was the winner at 9 p.m., against repeats "Desperate Housewives" (3.3 million, 1.0/3); "Cold Case" (7.1 million, 1.7/5) and "Law & Order" (6 million, 1.5/4). CBS and NBC split at 10 p.m. with "Without a Trace" (7.3 million, 1.7/5) and "Law & Order: SVU" (6.6 million, 1.9/5). Sunday averages: ABC (4.1 million, 1.3/4); CBS (7.1 million, 1.7/5); NBC (5.7 million, 1.4/4); Fox (4.4 million, 2.2/7); The CW (1.3 million, 0.5/2).[/rquoter]
kind of surprising and somewhat embarrassing. I think people are generally turned off by jet-setting multi-millionaires telling them how to live their lives. I have a question for you scientists out there. Why do environmentalists hate nuclear power so much? I saw some Live Earth act where all the musicians wore shirts that said "JUST SAY NO TO NUCLEAR POWER". I'm not an expert by any means, but I thought nuclear power was considered a very viable alternative to coal or oil fired power plants? Aren't nuclear power plants "carbon-neutral"? Were those musicians just idiots who didn't know the difference between nuclear bombs and nuclear power? Nuclear power supplies 75 percent of France's electricity. FRANCE!!! for gawd sakes! Being very facetious here - but isn't France the ideal model for progressive thinking?
So shouldn't we let anyone who wants too build them? I'm not really sure the point basso is trying to make but I listened to a few hours of it while fishing Saturday on XM and had a great time!
The sheer arogance is amazing. How can people who produce the most environmental waste with their lifestyles try to tell others to cut back? People just associate anything nuclear to the A-bomb and hiroshima. It's more fear then rationality. Even though Nuclear power doesn't produce carbon, the deposal is problematic but not impossible to solve. I guess environmentalists would rather have the CO2 though.
The myths about nuclear power go both ways. I'm not sure that many nuclear proponents today comprehend how unbelievably, incredibly expensive and difficult starting up a nuclear plant is. I read a long Bloomberg story on it today - unfortunately I can't link it. It's not just safety or regulatory costs - the actual start up costs nuclear plants (parts, material, training, etc) are absolutely staggering and it would take years and years for them to get into the black. The US gov has encouraged new nuclear plants for years but thus far theyv'e found few takers, for precisely these reasons. It would require massive public subsidies to get them done. There's a legitimate argument that that money is better spent trying to clean up the power sources we use now rather than building nuclear plants that nobody wants to invest in.
I am aquainted with someone who works for Westinghouse who swears up and down that they constantly have dozens of openings for Nuclear Engineers that they can't fill because of the pace at which the plants are being built in China. Also, a google shows that France has 56 working nuclear plants... I don't doubt that the story says what you've said, but wonder why it is such a popular idea in these other countries if it is such a horible investment.
France has 56 plants but I thought most of those wer built back in the 70's, I think that is the problem. Nobody builds them anymore because you can't get parts. I don't think there's been a new plant built in the US in at least 25 years (one in Tennessee, IIRC) - and I think they closed that one down. I don't know anything about nuclear power China but I thought they burned soft coal for pretty much everything, at least that's the way it seemed to me. every even mid size chinese city seemed to have a nasty coal plant right in the middle of it or outside. edit, here is a link to the story which explains all this: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=agGMCRlWdMyU
actually, as there are two nuclear power engineers in the family, including one who was part of the team that built the power plant for the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, a design that is still in use btw, i'm quite aware of the costs. it's quite wrong to say however that the government has "encouraged" nuclear plant construction. they've paid lip service to it, but w/o changes in the regulatory environment, and some sort of legal reform, similar to medical malpractice reform, so the kind of lawsuits that shut down shoreham (wonder what long islanders think of their fuel oil bills these days?) are less likely, it's all just lip service. nuclear power should be cheap (relatively) easy to come by, the french have proven it. unfortunately, we still live with the legacy of the "no nukes" concert. if there's a lesson from the miserable failure of live earth, it's that we shouldn't let emotions, however well intentioned they might be, dictate sound policy.
interesting article. this bit caught my eye: [rquoter] Investment banking consultant Gary L. Hunt, president of Global Energy Advisors in Sacramento, California, estimates the cost of building a plant at $2,214 per kilowatt of generating capacity. The market places a value of $1,730 per kilowatt of generating capacity on currently operating reactors, he says. TVA's renovation of Browns Ferry Unit One was attractive because it retooled an old reactor for just $1,558 per kilowatt. By comparison, traditional coal-fired plants cost $2,022 per kilowatt to build, Hunt says. And Congress is considering clean-air legislation that would add about $500 per kilowatt to the cost of those conventional coal plants. [/rquoter] so, with the additional regulatory costs, coal plants are actually more expensive per kilowatt that nuclear. however, it doesn't say what the market value of a coal plant is, not why the market places a lower value on nuclear plants. and this: [rquoter] Democrats' hold on Congress, meantime, has taken some steam out of the nuclear lobby. ``It is not unqualified or unambiguous support we are enjoying,'' says the Nuclear Energy Institute's chief executive officer, Frank L. ``Skip'' Bowman. Morgan Stanley Executive Director Caren Byrd says political consensus may not emerge until after the 2008 presidential election: ``Both parties -- certainly the Democrats -- are concerned about the environment. But I don't see a lot of Democrats pounding the table of new nuclear yet.'' [/rquoter] i don't see how one can claim, at least in this day and age, to be "green" and not be enthusiastic about nuclear power.
Caught some of the shows online and some were pretty good. I particularly liked the Roger Waters show but thought the best was a guy in South Africa, I think his name was Yusi Mahelasi, was the best of the shows I saw. The stadiums looked kind of empty though and the show in Shanghai seemed to only feature sappy pop singers. I think a lot of the low turnout and viewing was due to little publicity. I hadn't heard about it until two weeks ago and didn't really see that much promotion of it until this week. If Basso is trying to hint that people were turned off by the message I don't think that was what led to low interest. I doubt many people go to see shows concerts and festivals primarily for the message but mainly for who is playing and the promotion. I would chalk this up to bad promotion.
I think there is some irrational fear going back to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl but a lot of the fear has to do with what to do with the waste. I've heard that new generation reactors produce very little waste and that waste can be recycled if that is true then I think nuclear may gain more proponents.
Three hours is way too long. I can't afford to run my gasoline fueled television that long. Prices are way too high.
I must say that I actually watched a little bit of this, you know, in the spirit of 'know thy enemy'. Then when a troupe of looney tunes came on and told the audience to visit Chevron-Toxico.com, I turned the trash off. What morons they must be to think that villifying the very people who are investing the most in alternatives and new, cleaner technologies is a good idea.
I think it's growing in acceptance to some pragmatic people, but there are several good reasons against it: Like oil, it's a limited resource. A widespread adoption with current technology would raise the price of nuclear fuel sooner or later. Like oil, it runs on the same infrastructure, which is good or bad depending on which side of the fence you're on. Nuclear power plants are not cheap because they're built to large scale and the model America uses are based on Cold War designs that mirror reactions to what happens with a fissile bomb. Which leads to the safety issue... As others have mentioned, there is some fear of another 3 mile island or chernobyl. This is based upon old designs of nuclear power plants which use control rods to moderate the reactions. What they do is harness the power of the bomb and ramp it down with the number of rods they determine based on demand. There are newer technologies that use a different method such as pebble bed reactors which take a much more cautious approach. However, I think a meltdown would be rare and the knee jerk assumption of a nuclear holocaust in a radius around ground zero are overblown. You'd be more likely to die from radon poisoning. I do think that the safety issue would be focused upon the creation of weapons grade material with current nuclear plants. Like coal, it has to be dug out of the ground and most companies don't care about future environmental impacts in the surrounding areas...they'd rather pay the penalties and leave future generations reap that clean up "investment" when it matures. It also has to be processed and refined, which also adds on a considerable strain. Finally, with current plants in use, there's an issue of storing spent fuel as nuclear waste. Right now it's being stored nearby power plants across the nation. The Yucca Mtn proposal is a grand scheme to ship all of our nation's waste from the 100 or so individual "temporary dump sites" into one singular location. The process would take months to years, all while nuclear material are sent in transit along our highways and railways. Assuming every piece gets to Nevada, it would be stored underground inside a mountain with seals that would last shorter than the estimated halflifes of the nuclear waste. Then there's the issue of an earthquake within the next 200,000 years around that site and possible leakage of waste into the underground water table should a cannister rupture. So one can possibly consider nuclear as a less damaging alternative in the form its consumed, but considering the cradle to grave impact and the materials very long half lifes, it could be potentially devastating to future generations. Now that doesn't mean we should dismiss nuclear power altogether. I think the progress China is making by bringing out portable modular pebble bed reactors is very promising for their energy needs. It's just that from an energy standpoint, it's not a complete alternative nor will it be in the future with total adoption. So it brings out a dilemma. Newer nuclear plant technologies are safer, more secure and would serve as a great stopgap until sustainable fuels become cheaper to scale, but we'd have to invest a lot of money to refine and economize new nuclear tech. Most decision makers would rather just resume the plant models we already have. It'd be something we're familiar with and there'd be less training needed. But it's those models that the public has grown an aversion against, and it's those models that have created the waste and weapons grade fuel problems that affect foreign policy such as Iran and N. Korea.
Thanks for the education fellas. So obviously nuclear power has its own issues. Seems like knowledgeable environmentalists at least agree that there are positive aspects - while they may still disagree with its feasibility. Good to see that both sides of this issue can at least discuss it rationally. That act I saw on Live Earth was most probably not "knowledgeable" or "rational".
that new Madonna song sucked. She now thinks she's British and has some fake accent. On top of that, she's not original. Angelina adopted abunch of kids, now she's copying her. Give me Michael Jackson's "HEAL THE WORLD" if I want to feel like saving the planet.
nuclear power may be the only option if you want to limit Co2 output and not stifle world economic growth at the same time. 3 mile island wasn't an accident - no one was harmed, the amount of radiation released wasn't enough to do anything to anyone. The real damage to the industry was the perception that it caused, and that move "The China Syndrome" didn't help much either. I come from a "nuclear" family as well, my father having been the cheif engineer on Waterford 3 out in Lousiana and he also worked on the STNP - which is why I ended up growing up in Houston as a kid. Today, with no plants to build he works on refurbishing older ones and now works on making the plants terrorist proof. They are already designed to withstand a direct hit by a 747, but other security flaws that could be exploited by terrorists are being shored up as well. People for get that Chernybol was a terrible design and should have been shut down long before the accident, and that the U.S. safety record with nuclear power is incredible. New reactors would be even safer and produce less waste.
QUESTION: The more we use nuclear power and learn from it. . it will be come cheaper? safer? Rocket River
