This is mind blowing ignorance on the part of Al Gore. Gore in an 11/12/09 interview on NBC’s tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, speaking on geothermal energy, champion of slide show science, can’t even get the temperature of earth’s mantle right, claiming “several million degrees” at “2 kilometers or so down”. Oh, and the “crust of the earth is hot” too.
Temperature of the sun’s corona: 1–2 million kelvin
Temperature of the sun’s photosphere: 6,000 kelvin
Temperature of the Earths mantle, more than “2 kilometers or so down”: between 500 °C to 900 °C (773 to 1173 kelvin)
Watching Gore make a complete scientific idiot of himself on national TV: priceless
Don’t believe me? Watch the video from NBC below:
For a faster presentation, without a pre-viewing commercial, here is the same video on YouTube
Oh…and here is a graph of the vertical temperature profile with drilling depth:
And here is the temperature profile of the Earth’s crust, mantle, and core:
Source: Electropaedia (Mpower UK) page on geothermal energy
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Low probability, in this context, btw, has a specific meaning – less that one chance in 10^7 reactor-years.
Sorry ATD, in Barry’s world of absolutes, that isn’t exactly zero, and although it is extremely close to zero, in Barry’s perfect world there MUST be no risk at all.
Barry, do you wrap yourself in bubble wrap before you get into your car or do you just wrap the whole car and be done with it?
Or do you do both?!
Barry, if we allow the terrorists to dictate our energy policy then they have won.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR
“….and that scary radiation stuff!!!” – Barry
Gore’s had plastic surgery. He’s now got that “chiseled billionaire” look. That’s not his natural facial structure, no way. How sadly appropriate, another plastic personage.
A study done in 1993 by the Department of Education stated that 90 million Americans possess only rudimentary literacy skills. 47 percent of America adult population perform only the simplest reading skills. As many as 40 million of the nation’s 191 million adults have only the lowest level of skills- meaning they can add the total on a bank slip or identify a piece of specific information in a brief news article. Instantly, Al Gore has a congregation for his church.
Barry Foster (14:10:45) :
I guess you just don’t leave your home Barry, I mean, every time you leave your home, there’s a risk someone may jump the kerb & run you over, or you may get a puncture in your car & lose control & crash!
Wait Isn’t it true that there are more accidents in the home than anywhere else?
OMG Where can we go to be safe & risk free?
DaveE.
“Nuclear engineering consultancy, Large and Associates, has assessed the secret EdF document and concluded that it includes seriously flawed assumptions about whether the reactor could withstand a potential terrorist attack using hijacked commercial aircraft.”
I’s alsways worth considering sources/ Large & associates is a one-man band, rund by John Large, formerly of Brunel university. It’s not really a “nuclear engineering consultancy” in the sense that it does design or assessment work for plant builders or for regulatory bodies. It works almost exclusively for FoE, Greenpeace, and anti-nuclear groups,
In fact, so far as I’ve been able to gather. Large has never actually worked on designing or building an actual plant….
One thing is certain. With the size of L&A, the can’t possibly have actually done real models of the structural implications of impacts and fires. They’d not have the time or resources to build the finite element models in the first place.
An aircraft is, for obvious reasons, a very light metallic shell containing mainly air. The containement dome of a reactor is very strong indeed since it is designed to contain a massive explosion. Hitting the one with the other is like firing a cigar case at a brick wall.
If people are claiming they honestly believe this is a serious risk perhaps they could confirm how often they have demonstrated outside the larger baseball games explaining to fans that they should be banned in case terrorists fly planes into them. If they are sincere they must have done so since this is a technically possible risk which could cause deaths on a scale matching a deliberate military nuclear explosion & many orders of magnitude more than the 50 killed at Chernobyl, which is above what could be expected from such a terrorist act. Excluding those in the plane of course to whom the nature of the target would be immaterial.
Barry Foster (11:32:41) :
That link represents pure speculation shortly after the attack. Subsequent investigation revealed the target was Washington.
Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93
Man.
I just got back upstairs from having a smoke in the shop. I’m sure a lot of people would not have joined me, because my alarming dosimeter always sets up a howl when I walk near the storage area. Then again, those things are extremely sensitive.
One of my coworkers was laughing at his neighbor, a nurse, who got her TLD readings back and they showed 2mR/y… from working in Nuclear Medicine. What he was laughing at was that her yearly dose exceeded his weekly, and she was almost in open panic.
Meanwhile, the older guys working here have been at it since the 1960s, and the ONLY health issue is someone out from cancer. There’s likely zero causation here, since a) cancer runs in his family, b) he’s a HEAVY smoker, and this is throat cancer, and c) he doesn’t actually work with the material.
Okay, that said, even if a plane or bomb or other “device” managed to breach the outer shell of a nuclear plant, is anyone actually naive enough to believe there are no other failsafes? Most plants are built to withstand an atomic blast at reasonable distance (ie. not a direct hit), a simple aluminum-foil shell of an aircraft is not likely to do much harm no matter how fast it’s moving. And if someone uses a nuke to take out a nuke plant, well, the reactor issue will be the least of our worries already.
We, as humans, grossly overestimate the power of things that happen to be more powerful than we are. In fact, hey, we’re pretty fragile compared to a lot of the things we build and use daily. But we also grossly overestimate the dangers presented by some things, like radioactivity. It’s not true that ZERO exposure is the only safe exposure, since there has never been a being alive on this planet that had zero exposure.
Now, aside from that ramble,
I’ve known people who actually believe in the “hollow Earth” theory. I guess now I know that it’s filled with plasma… 🙂
We, as humans, grossly overestimate the power of things that happen to be more powerful than we are. In fact, hey, we’re pretty fragile compared to a lot of the things we build and use daily. But we also grossly overestimate the dangers presented by some things, like radioactivity. It’s not true that ZERO exposure is the only safe exposure, since there has never been a being alive on this planet that had zero exposure.
Indeed.
Just rereading Barry’s rantings, and his cut-and-paste jobs from anti-nuke sites show what an uphill battle nuclear power has around the world.
Sure. But the engines aren’t like a cigar case at all, as illustrated by what they did when a passenger airliner impacted the side of the Pentagon.
ATD: re dry cask storage of nuclear spent fuel.
You refer, I presume, to the ones in this photo? (Buried well underground, under several feet of reinforced concrete, etc and etc. — NOT)
http://dailyreporter.com/blog/2009/06/17/money-to-shut-nuclear-plants-inadequate/
or these, perhaps?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-there-a-place-for-nuclear-waste
Even jet engines are largely air (otherwise they wouldn’t work;-) )
The Pentagon walls are simply walls. They were not designed to contain reactor explosions. The point about scaling up an example is that you have to scale up both sides.
I note nobody disputes that football games are far more vulnerable terrorist targets than reactors 7 that no opponent of reactors confirms having demonstrated outside one of them calling for their banning. QED none of them actually believe their scare stories or are motivated by them.
Maybe the Associated Press should send the 11 “fact checkers” who were assigned to find any errors in Sarah Palin’s new book, and have them take a crack at Al’s speeches or “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Of course, I’m assuming that the A.P. fact checkers have had a few college level classes in physics, chemistry and geology.
Not always a safe assumption.
Notice that after Uncle Al asserts that the earths core is a “few million degrees”, he also adds that the crust of the earth is also hot. Of course. Wouldn’t want to forget to shore up your $mantra.
The video is funny. The fact that this maroon is taken seriously is frightening.
I would really like to see the EPA-OBD II Annual Vehicle Emissions Inspection Law that Al Gore helped to pass, closely examined and changed.As it stands right now, it is entirely possible for any Gasoline powered Vehicle from 1996 to the present to fail it’s Emissions Inspection, for not emitting enough polluting Exhaust Emissions ! All such Vehicles have on board Oxygen [O2] Exhaust Sensors.These O2 Sensors are set up to detect a level of polluting Exhaust Emissions that would indicate that Gasoline is being consumed by an Engine at 14.7 parts of Air to 1 part of Fuel.If there is a low level of Oxygen, and a high level of Pollution, a Vehicle will fail it’s Emissions Inspection as well it should.But Gasoline can be safely vaporized into a mixture that is 100 parts of Air to 1 part of Fuel.With this, even the largest SUV could easily get 50 + MPG and emit a fraction of the Emissions of a conventional 14.7/1 Fuel System, with an increase in Power, and much longer Engine life.I’m not the first to figure this out.Far from it ! For proof, do a search on [the late] Tom Ogle, and Charles Nelson Pogue.Then, go to http://energy21.freeservers.com/bookrep.html and scan down the page to just before the update.But even if it is not to be believed that Fuel Vaporization is entirely possible, it’s illegal to even attempt to do so with any Vehicle from 1996 to the present.O2 Sensors are set up to detect that Fuel is being consumed at 14.7/1. A mixture of 100 / 1 will not emit enough Polluting Exhaust Emissions to register on O2 Sensors.When such a Vehicle is connected to an OBD II Emissions Inspection Analyzer, an O2 Sensor Failure Code will be generated, which will result in a failed Emissions Inspection.O2 Sensor Exemptions are permitted for Vehicles that have been legally converted to operate on Natural Gas, Propane, or Hydrogen, and are Registered as such.But not for vaporized Gasoline.Thus, it is entirely possible under this EPA-OBD II Vehicle Emissions Inspection Law for any Gasoline powered Vehicle from 1996 to the present to fail it’s Emissions Test for not emitting enough polluting Exhaust Emissions ! As long as this insane 14.7/1 Law that only benefits Big Oil remains in effect, the only way to make Vehicles more “efficient” will be to make them lighter, and smaller.This has got to change ! I have asked the Question many times ; “Why is it illegal for any Gasoline powered Vehicle from 1996 to the present to emit too little polluting Exhaust Emissions”? So far, not one Big Oil Executive, Politician, or Concerned Environmentalist can, or will answer the Question.Those that have bothered to reply can’t seem to come up with an Answer either.Can you ?
“…no matter what the temperature of the outer core is, and most likely it is quite high, the mantle is cold, and its rigidity increases with depth, because otherwise seismic wave velocity cannot increase with depth, for example for P waves from 6-7 km/sec in the surface layers to about 14 km/sec at the mantle-core boundary.” — Stavros T. Tassos, seismologist, October 2008
Depth[km] Component Layer
(0–60 Lithosphere)
0–35 Crust
(35–60 Upper mantle)
35–2890 Mantle
100–700 Asthenosphere
2890–5100 Outer core
5100–6378 Inner core
Bet Big-Al wish he had Googled “Earth” before stating that the mantle begins only 2km below our feet.
The science is settled. Most leading scientists agree that the atmosphere is heating from within the core of the earth. We shall all be vaporized in the next several seconds….
Oops, too late. We’re all dead…. Should have listened to Algore.
Look, I’m no fan of AlGore, but he didn’t say it was millions of degrees two kilometers down. There are two separate statements there.
That being said, the real issue is the hacked emails which prove quite clearly, that this bunch is in collusion to screw us out of major $$ and now that the source code is being analyzed, that doesn’t look too good either.
Hey TomB, hope you’re reading. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1231385/Safety-concerns-deal-blow-Governments-plans-expand-nuclear-power.html
When are you going to get the message Tom, eh? They aren’t safe – even the new ones which you told us all were safe.
To all the others who are, well, intellectually challenged, read Roger Sowell’s links above before you comment.
ok, I saw it and here is what he said.
2km or so below ground at some places they are very hot rocks, because you know the Earth’s core is extremely hot, several millions of degrees.
For people who have trouble understanding, he was saying that since the Earth’s core is hot to the order of several millions of degrees, 2km below ground is very hot. He never said or intended to say the 2km down the Earth is millions of degrees hot.
However, the Earth’s core temperature is not that much and most reasonable estimate it to about 10000 degrees or on that order of magnitude.
Well. You have to hand it to him. He’s taking the global warming thing very seriously.