Prices of the electricity we use to charge

Ghost1951

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Yes - I had already read that and linked to it in my post - that article was 2017 though and the evidence has "firmed up" since then.
Has it?

How?

All I am aware of is that there is a great deal of loose talk about thousands of deaths, which as we have already seen (if we have read the article we both linked too quite independently) points out that it is based on very poor evidence and flawed methodology. The whole idea that it makes any sense to look at life expectancy in a group of American cities and use the rates of Air pollution found in different districts to cobble together a mortality statistic based on different air pollution levels without doing anything to take into account the socio-economic differences of the people, and their lifestyle habits, such as smoking rates is utterly laughable to anyone who has any grasp of research methods and statistics. ALL the crazy death rate figures we see being attributed to air pollution are based on this Pope and Colleagues 'research' paper. It is a real croc Peter.
 

saneagle

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Has it?

How?

All I am aware of is that there is a great deal of loose talk about thousands of deaths, which as we have already seen (if we have read the article we both linked too quite independently) points out that it is based on very poor evidence and flawed methodology. The whole idea that it makes any sense to look at life expectancy in a group of American cities and use the rates of Air pollution found in different districts to cobble together a mortality statistic based on different air pollution levels without doing anything to take into account the socio-economic differences of the people, and their lifestyle habits, such as smoking rates is utterly laughable to anyone who has any grasp of research methods and statistics. ALL the crazy death rate figures we see being attributed to air pollution are based on this Pope and Colleagues 'research' paper. It is a real croc Peter.
When some religious zealot thinks he has seen the light, you cannot convince him with science and logic about what light is. All he will do is bring winess from other people, who have seen the light, and search the texts of his religious book to confirm his belief.
 
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Ghost1951

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When some religious zealot thinks he has seen the light, you cannot convince him with science and logic about what light is. All he will do is bring winess from other people, who have seen the light.
I do not at all doubt there is harm being done in places like Chinese and Indian industrial cities or those in other places where there are catastrophic levels of air pollution. But these are VASTLY different to the levels of air pollution in the UK.

The levels of particulates in Tianjin right now are 63ug per cubic metre, and 102ug per cubic metre for pm 2.5 and pm10 particulates.

The worst place in the UK right now - and it is a single spot, is half of that.

67% of Indians live all the time in an average particulate level of over 40 ug.

The side of a busy four lane road often congested in Newcastle has levels of 15uG. I know the site well and the sensors are twenty feet from the carriageway.
 

Peter.Bridge

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Apr 19, 2023
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Has it?

How?

All I am aware of is that there is a great deal of loose talk about thousands of deaths, which as we have already seen (if we have read the article we both linked too quite independently) points out that it is based on very poor evidence and flawed methodology. The whole idea that it makes any sense to look at life expectancy in a group of American cities and use the rates of Air pollution found in different districts to cobble together a mortality statistic based on different air pollution levels without doing anything to take into account the socio-economic differences of the people, and their lifestyle habits, such as smoking rates is utterly laughable to anyone who has any grasp of research methods and statistics. ALL the crazy death rate figures we see being attributed to air pollution are based on this Pope and Colleagues 'research' paper. It is a real croc Peter.
So from the (2017) article we both linked to :

"What does this actually all mean for our health?

The crucial issue, repeatedly emphasised by COMEAP, is that we cannot identify these 29,000 as individuals– there are no recorded deaths to count, as nobody has ‘pollution’ on their death certificate as the cause of death. They state that:

Given this complexity, it is not plausible to think of the figure of ‘attributable’ deaths as enumerating an actual group of individuals whose death is attributable to air pollution alone, i.e. the victims of outdoor air pollution.
Such a number may be suitable for comparing the overall health burden of air pollution with things such as alcohol (22,000 attributable deaths in England) or smoking (80,000 in England), but it may wrongly suggest that people drop dead from pollution, just as they used to back in the days of London smogs. In contrast, air pollution tends to make existing illnesses worse, and COMEAP say that the actual number of people whose death is brought forward by pollution is likely to be much bigger than 29,000, and suggest it is better to say the estimated harm is “equivalent to 29,000 deaths”.

They suggest it would be even better, although not so memorable, to focus on the estimate that 340,000 ‘years of life’ are lost each year through particulate pollution. There are different ways of allocating all these life-years lost, some shown in Table 1 below, including COMEAP’s recommended intervals

When the 340,000 life-years lost is spread over the whole adult population of 38,000,000, it’s only 3 days a year each, which does not sound much. Or we can say that all deaths are brought forward by an average of 7 months. But air pollution mainly influences cardiovascular (CV) health, and so it is perhaps more realistic to say that 190,000 CV deaths are brought forward an average of 2 years."

And he concludes

"There are huge uncertainties surrounding all the measures of impacts of air pollution, with inadequate knowledge replaced by substantial doses of expert judgement. These uncertainties should be better reflected in the public debates.

In addition, the situation in the UK is not what we would usually think of as a ‘crisis’. It can still be good to seek improvements in air quality, but only provided these are based on a careful analysis of the costs per life-year saved."
 

Peter.Bridge

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Here is the latest (2023) review of evidence


"However, over the last ten years there have been over 35,000 new studies on air pollution and health.
These have strengthened previous understanding, led to the downward revisions of the World Health
Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines(3), and shown impacts on health outcomes that have not been considered in previous health impact assessment"
 
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MikelBikel

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You have a lot of rust coming from the trains and tracks that get deposited everywhere in the tunnels as much as passages and zillions of rooms, cupboards, racks, cable trays etc that cannot be easily kept clean. Sometimes I wish people think first about what they would do if they were in the shoes of those they criticise.
I hope they are NOT getting a lot of "RUST" from the trains and tracks otherwise there will be huge SAFETY issues to be addressed? :eek:
(Meant humorously, not seriously :) )
 
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Woosh

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Not a lot but stuff like magnetite is nearly impossible to clean. It will stay accumulated until somebody breathes it in.
 

Ghost1951

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When some religious zealot thinks he has seen the light, you cannot convince him with science and logic about what light is. All he will do is bring winess from other people, who have seen the light, and search the texts of his religious book to confirm his belief.
This is true and is why I should stop wasting my time.
 

MikelBikel

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Jun 6, 2017
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"It's not possible to change London Underground because it is too difficult".
Difficult, but built in 1863 Metropolitan line *Steam Train* in 'cut&Cover' tunnels with *extensive road excavations*.
Changed 1886 to Deep Level at 25m
Changed 1890 *Electrification* started, wow, electric boogie woogie, all change!
It can be changed if the will is there.

After all, Child "Slave" sweeps were 'Banned in 1875'. Real deadly particulates, not pretend, Real Change.
So machines were invented to do the chimney cleaning.
And machines exist to clean train tunnels with dry vacuum. But London has gone back to "victorian hand cleaning! o_O
 
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MikelBikel

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Not a lot but stuff like magnetite is nearly impossible to clean. It will stay accumulated until somebody breathes it in.
Then they'll have to add MAGNETS to the cleaning train, like on road sweeping machines, yes?
Or would electrostatic filter take care of air-borne "magnetite" particulates? :)
 

Woosh

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If it were easy, they'd done it. Magnetites stick to surfaces like glue.
 

MikelBikel

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Reclaiming magnetite from a wet slurry "Drum separator, as used in mining for many years". Trouble is 630v electrics and wet slurry don't mix well! Need a dry method? Still if it's stuck down that well, then we can't breathe it in, can we?
 

Woosh

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China is perfecting thorium molten salt reactors. The first tmsr will be commissioned next year. They have enough thorium for 20,000 years at their current energy consumption. In a generation or two, we'll stop burning fossil fuel.
 
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flecc

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China is perfecting thorium molten salt reactors. The first tmsr will be commissioned next year. They have enough thorium for 20,000 years at their current energy consumption. In a generation or two, we'll stop burning fossil fuel.
If we can afford to buy them, since it seems we can no longer build our own reactors. Hinckley Point is a French Chinese collaboration and the same intended for Sizewell C, which build won't even be financed until after Hinckley Point is fully operational.

On January 23rd, EDF formally announced that Hinkley Point C, Britain's next nuclear plant, could be delayed until as late as 2031. Specifically, reactor one is expected sometime between 2029 and 2031. The second reactor no longer has a firm expected operational date!

So we'll only decide to proceed with the Sizewell C build after an unknown future point with both Hinckley reactors operational. Once both Hinckley Point and Sizewell C are fully up and running, far into the future, they will still only supply 13% of our need, so I'm afraid the ending of burning fossils fuels to back up inconsistent "green" resources seems very distant indeed.
.
 
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Woosh

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The main difficulty with thorium reactor is the chemistry. Small modular reactors may be bought from the Chinese, leaving us the job of processing the fuel.
 
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MikelBikel

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How long to build?
They need a good builder..
build.jpegEx: French "Gravelines-4 was completed in only 63 months" (5.25yrs), sacre bleu!
What are they waiting for?
 

Woosh

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What are they waiting for?
They are waiting for the Chinese to complete TMSR-LF1 (2024) and see it running (2025).
Small reactors attract a lot of attention and investment at present. China is leading the field because they think they can make several in a day for the entire world.
 
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flecc

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What are they waiting for?
As Woosh said, we want to be convinced. This isn't new, Toshiba led this design field many years ago with Hitachi hard on their heels, but both found SMRs difficult to fund and lost interest.

Rolls Royce are keen, but probably for government money and backing again. Fat chance, they've twice lost us money before and we've more important things to spend money on.
.
 
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