Greenpeace infomercial

TJohn · 2003-01-02 07:23:28

Has anyone seen this infomercial? I watched it to see how slick it would be against nuclear power and other forms of energy. It even had a couple of Hollywood stars in it. I thought Jeffery Tambor was about to break down and start crying! The Mars Society and the nuclear propulsion communities should team up and do the same thing. In the Greenpeace commerical, they had T-Shirts, a pre-made letter to send to the President, automatic donations, etc... Would this be a good idea for us to use? Let's hear some ideas about this.

Palomar · 2003-01-02 07:58:18

Has anyone seen this infomercial?

*Not yet.

It even had a couple of Hollywood stars in it. I thought Jeffery Tambor was about to break down and start crying!

*I wonder how many of these know-it-all celebs really feel the way they do about certain issues, or if they're just big-time sheep who are afraid their star will fall if they don't go along with all the politically correct b.s. I also have to laugh at the idiotic assumption made by some of these stars and lots of their fans that "just because" they're Hollywood celebs, they MUST be "in the know" and therefore "right."

--Cindy

soph · 2003-01-02 08:02:49

Yes, we should have an infomercial. Follow the same political advertising techniques greenpeace uses, but back it up with real facts. show blurred pictures of polluting fossil fuel plants, bright pictures of clean nuclear plants, and so on.

show video taken from the moon, spaceships going into space, etc. a closing line like, "With nuclear power, we as humans can progress into the future, with clean, abundant, safe energy to support us.

Echus_Chasma · 2003-01-02 14:56:35

In the nuclear space forum there is a good model for an advert, I'll see if I can find it again.

The ironic thing is it was in a thread about greenpeace.
The link is http://pub97.ezboard.com/fnuclearspacef … ...4.topic

Maybe if you guys started an ad campaign that stated the with an ad similar to the following:
Ad starts with a shot of a suburban family, dad is grilling, the kids, are swimming in the pool. mom is bring the potato salad out of the house, and they proceed to the picnic table. they begin to eat as the voice over starts.
Voice over start.
"you have heard many things about nuclear power, most of them negative and untrue. this program will show you the truth that big oil, coal, gas, does not want you to hear."
Cut to aerial of a nuclear plant.
"The (insert name of depicted plant) plant you see here is generating (insert power output). notice the lack of air pollution. The water vapor you see coming from the cooling tower/s is less radioactive than the beer you see in the store."
Cut to aerial of a coal plant.
"The (insert plant name here) is generating the same amount of power as the nuclear powerplant you saw earlier. Notice the air pollution, and the gasses coming from the smoke stacks release (insert weight of radioactive material released)
a day, it would take over (insert number of plants) to match this daily amount of radioactive output from their full fuel
cycle."
Cut to nuclear plant.
"You see the area that the Nuclear plant uses."
Cut to coal plant.
"Now compare that to the area this coal plant uses."
Cut to Video stock of a greenpeace protest outside a nuclear
plant, preferably a recent protest.
"Now you see them."
Cut to ground shot of coal plant.
"Now you don't. Why do they call themselves greenpeace if they protest..."
Cut to nuclear plant"
"this..."
Cut to coal plant.
"And not this.
It takes only (insert weight of fuel) to fuel a nuclear reactor for a full year,*camera pan over coal piles* the coal you see here will be used up in a matter of days."
Cut to nuclear plant.
There have been (insert number of deaths) related to radioactivity in the nuclear industry since 1950.
Cut to coal plant.
There have been (insert number of deaths) related to blacklung, cancer, and other diseises in the coal industry since 1950.
End voice over.
Cut back to family, who are now well underway on eating.
Dad wipes his mouth, and stands up. The camera zooms in on his face.
"my names (insert name), the information you have seen is unbiased fact, I know because I not only support nuclear power, *camera slowly pulls away, revealing the mother and kids standing on eather side of his* I work at a nuclear power plant. I cannot understand why greenpeace hates us, for I do it not just for me, not just for the environment, but for my kids. I want to leave them a cleaner planet, because despite what you have may heard, we owe it to our kids do leave them better off than us, its just what a parent should do."
Fade out as family sits back down to eat.

So, how would that work?

T'is good, aye.

CalTech2010 · 2003-01-02 15:19:43

Why not just use the celebrities to our advantage? I'm sure there are lots of celebs who didn't go along with this greenpeace infomercial, so why not use them?

Just as long as we don't have a nerdy kid with red hair, freckles, and thick framed glasses doing the ad...

Echus_Chasma · 2003-01-02 15:37:44

Revised Ad from the Nuclear Space forums, by the same guy who did the last ad.

This is the ad I promised I would post, all that is left is to plug in the relevent data in the spaces clearly marked.
Tell me what you think, and what changes I should make.

Ad starts with a shot of a suburban family, dad is grilling, the kids are swimming in the pool. Mom is bringing the potato salad out of the house, and they proceed to the picnic table. They begin to eat as the voice over starts.
Voice over start.
"You have heard many things about nuclear power, most of them negative and untrue. This program will show you the truth that big oil, coal, gas, does not want you to hear."
Cut to aerial of a nuclear plant.
"The (insert name of depicted plant) plant you see here is generating (insert power output). Notice the lack of air pollution. The water vapor you see coming from the cooling tower/s is less radioactive than the beer you see in the store."
Cut to aerial of a coal plant.
"The (insert plant name here) is generating the same amount of power as the nuclear powerplant you saw earlier. Notice the air pollution, and the gasses coming from the smoke stacks release (insert weight of radioactive material released)
a day, it would take over (insert number of plants) to match this daily amount of radioactive output from their full fuel
cycle."
Cut to nuclear plant.
"You see the area that the nuclear plant uses."
Cut to coal plant.
"Now compare that to the area this coal plant uses."
Cut to Video stock of a greenpeace protest outside a nuclear
plant, preferably a recent protest.
"Now you see them."
Cut to ground shot of coal plant.
"Now you don't. Why do they call themselves greenpeace if they protest..."
Cut to nuclear plant"
"this..."
Cut to coal plant.
"and not this?
It takes only (insert weight of fuel) to fuel a 200 MW nuclear reactor for a full year, *camera pan over coal piles* the coal you see here will be used up in a matter of days to generate the same amount of power.
There have been (insert number of deaths) related to radioactivity in the nuclear industry since 1950.
Cut to coal plant.
There have been (insert number of deaths) related to blacklung, cancer, and other diseases in the coal industry since 1950.
The radiation released by the Chernobyl plant, which had no containment vessel, was (blank) rads.
The worst us accident was Three Mile Island, which released (blank) number of rads due to the containment vessel
that are in all first generation u.s. plants. The first generation plants were designed in 19** The modular pebble bed reactor is a 3rd generation design and was designed in 19**, and would be much safer. The need for protecting nuclear plants can be soled by hiring armed guards, or by creating a special branch of the military to protect them.
Now on to solar and wind power.
*Arial shot of solar powerplant*
Solar power?
*Arial shot of turbine farm*
and wind power produce a small amount of power compared to nuclear, but are great as supplementing the power grid. They are not practical for the total power supply. Solar power plants are often located along gas pipelines due to the fact they burn natural gas at night to keep their steam turbines up to speed. The nest time you are at a lecture, of hear someone extolling solar power as the clean power source of the future, just ask how much concrete, steel, glass, etc is needed to build them, and the amount of pollutants released manufacturing and refining these materials.
To build a 200 MW solar plant would require (blank) tons of concrete, (blank) tons of glass, (blank) tons of steel,
(blank) tons of plastic, (blank) acres of land, and would burn (blank) cubic feet of gas at night.
Solar power is also intermittent unlike nuclear.
*Shot of windfarm
Wind power is also a very nice supplement to the power grid, but is also intermittent, and requires large tracts of land that is has a good breeze, usually along the coast and on hills/mountains. This the favorite of greenpeace, but the thing they don?t say is just how many birds fly into the turning blades, not to mention the vibration given off by the many slowly turning blades.
To build a 50 MW wind farm would require (blank) tons of concrete, (blank) tons of glass, (blank) tons of steel,
(Blank) tons of plastic, and (blank) acres of land.
*Animation of 200 MW OTC plant
The OTC concept comes closest to nuclear power levels, though not in compactness. They would require
(Blank) tons of concrete, (blank) tons of steel, (Blank) tons of plastic, (blank) acres of land, (blank) tons of fiberglass, and (blank) tons of ammonia for working fluid. They are very clean, but can only be built a couple miles
off the coast.
A powerplant using methane would be much like one using natural gas, but would use methane generated from garbage, sewage, etc. The advantage of methane is that the spent slurry from the digester producing methane is a very good fertilizer and soil conditioner, is weed free, and best of all, has no smell if the feedstock is digested at 95 degrees.
Geothermal is a promising technology that taps into the heat from the mantle, but the problem of turbine blade erosion by the mineral laden steam must be solved first. Also they need deep bore holes which have a habit of causing the steam to be laden with heavy metals and acids. These are solvable problems, but will take much time and resources.
The thing is, (pause) renewable energy, like solar, wind, OTC, Methane, geothermal, are great for adding to the power supply, but should not be relied on completely for power generation. When combined with a modular nuclear
Powerplants, such as a pebble bed reactor, they become extremely valuable in powering the future.
End voice over.
Cut back to family, who are now well underway on eating.
Dad wipes his mouth, and stands up. The camera zooms in on his face.
"My names (insert name), the information you have seen is unbiased fact, I know because I not only support nuclear power, *camera slowly pulls away, revealing the mother and kids standing on either side of his* I work at a nuclear power plant. I cannot understand why greenpeace hates us, for I do it not just for me, not just for the environment, but for my kids. I want to leave them a cleaner planet, because despite what you have may heard, we owe it to our kids do leave them better off than us, its just what a parent should do."
Fade out as family sits back down to eat.

This guys a legend!
Again a link: http://pub97.ezboard.com/fnuclearspacef … ...4.topic

soph · 2003-01-02 17:06:01

yeah i saw that, nice stuff.

Josh Cryer · 2003-01-02 18:05:20

There's one minus to nuclear energy (my favorite). It's almost always (always, actually) controlled by a central authority (or several). It's not like you can just magically derive nuclear energy from, uh, say the air or sunlight. You gotta dig it up. And since the stuff is inarguably nasty, it's gotta be way regulated. (You can't have just anyone get access to it, since they could build a bomb, and so on.)

Myself? I prefer biofuels. Cleaner. Safer. Simpiler. And most importantly, capable of being highly unregulated.

Nuclear sucks.

soph · 2003-01-02 18:09:19

regulated is good. just look at california.

Josh Cryer · 2003-01-02 18:15:49

No, management is good, regulation is bad. When California deregulated, the resources became mismanged, had they been able to manage their resources, in a fair distribution, they would have been fine. If California had decentralized, unregulated, pools of biofuel growing facilities, they could have handled the so called Energy Crisis (which has now been shown to have been caused by Enron and their unjust mismanagement of resources- there was never a crisis).

I said in another thread that there has been successful deregulation of power grids around the country, but it was still largely regulated. Perhaps I should have said it was still largely managed.

Josh Cryer · 2003-01-02 18:31:32

Funny how they don't mention biomass energy in their little ?unbiased? informercial... also... funny how they don't mention how many coal workers would lose their jobs if we went all nuclear, whereas biomass could function as a job replacement for all these workers (and indeed, give jobs to more many many workers).

I would argue that coal could become cleaner- and it would, and is, in fact; the major problems are from older coal factories that aren't up to spec which spew out more sulpher than we'd like.

I would also argue that biomass would clean the air- and it would, biomass facilities could potentially use the same carbon dioxide they produce to speed up the growth potential of the biomass itself! So while coal factories could potentially add to global warming, a biomass facility right next to one could exploit that carbon dioxide to grow a lot of biomass.

Really, this thing isn't as unbiased as these people would profess... in fact, it's a little too biased for my taste.

soph · 2003-01-02 18:47:10

it tries to hard to connect nuclear power to nuclear weapons...which is a stretch. fire can kill, does that mean we cant cook with it?

it also focuses on 50 year old technology. with my understanding, new plants would use 99% of the high level waste, destroying it...so theres no disposal problem, which they dont mention. new designs, such as the Westinghouse AP600, incorporate safeguards against meltdown (ex: water tanks that would drip water for weeks in the case of a leak or overheat, and could be replenished easily). new plants are smaller, and more power producing. none of this is mentioned.

ah yes, wind and solar power. we would have to sacrifice the entire great plains to power the eastern seaboard. and pray its windy. same for solar power, but pray for sun.

explain biomass a little more, please. i dont exactly know what that is.

and i cant figure out, are you for or against nuclear power?

Josh Cryer · 2003-01-02 19:31:51

Heh, how is it a stretch to connect nuclear power to nuclear weapons? In fact... isn't that what we're doing in Korea? I profess I don't know a lot about nuclear power, but by the same token, I've read a lot of reports about such connections. In any case, nuclear material has to be, and will always be, relatively centrally regulated. It's the only truely safe way to handle it. Especially material which is near weapons grade.

I think that, ultimately, nuclear power plants are fine, especially with new technological advances that reduce waste greatly, and I see no reason why we ought not use them from an ecological perspective. But I think that, realistically, they require too much regulation to be a really good replacement to other alternative fuels (and jobs), and they tend to have long term problems in waste storage areas.

I think about it this way. Whereever there are abundant energy resources, we need to use the applicable energy. In southern California, and obviously near the equator, we have lots of light. So solar slash biomass would be the most logical resource to use. Where's the logic in going through all sorts of radioactive materal production when you get sunlight in greater quantities than all the coal and nuclear reactors combined? There really is none... except for profit, since such nuclear material will be centrally controlled, and people won't have easy access to it.

In space, on the other hand, where solar energy is unusable far from the sun, I think nuclear energy is an obvious replacement. And for small devices, I think that nuclear batteries are much better alternatives, since they last for such an utterly long time. There's nothing inherently wrong with nuclear.

The questions I ask, is which is more efficient? If nuclear is more efficient, then use it, but be realistic here, and don't lie to yourself. Obviously nuclear is more efficient than solar when light is scarce, and the converse is true when you have the ablity to gather solar at certain levels.

Biomass is just that, biological mass. Plants and animals are biomass. You grow a plant, you build up potential energy, you burn that plant, you get out kenetic energy. This energy is inherently solar, of course, but it's efficient. It you were to mechinically convert solar energy and put it into a battery, you're losing lots and lots of energy (from a mass to energy ratio), this isn't true for biofuels.

What you do, is grow huge crops of your preferred fuel, say hemp. Harvest, grind, and throw it into a http://www.pyne.co.uk/tech.htm]pyrolysis generator, then you get oils and charchol. The charchol can go to power powerplants, much like coal. And the oil can go to power vehicles, and heat houses, and so on.

It's been estimated that we could grow biomass on only 6% of cropland in the US, and meet our energy requirements (I don't know if this is considering potential fuel efficiency or not- if it isn't, then I bet we could handle a lot more). Since we have a crapload of land basically stored away in a land bank, we could open it up and make damn good use of it.

And like I said, I advocate whatever makes the most sense, and is the easiest to get off the ground. Biofuels win every time...

soph · 2003-01-02 19:57:49

Solar energy at this point cant be converted very well. However, I'm a big fan of putting solar panels on everybodys roof to augment our other power sources, much like wind power can augment other power sources. Not to mention, these panels would lower electric costs, heating costs, and cooling costs.

I live in New York, and it solar power and wind power just wont meet the energy needs of the Northeast. Nuclear power, at least here is the way to go. Theres no reason not to use the solar panels like i mentioned, it lowers the chance of a meltdown by reducing power demand, increases the power reserves in case of an emergency situation, and so on.

Josh Cryer · 2003-01-02 20:41:37

Converting solar energy is the easy part. Storing solar energy, on the other hand, is relatively difficult, especially if you opt to do it mechanically. Batteries are very poor energy storage devices. One book I read points out that storing upon batteries is akin to putting a piece of paper on a door, and carrying the door around to transport the paper!

Nuclear power is obviously the way to go for big cities. But there's nothing saying biomass can't replace it (especially with more efficient machines). Nuclear power is hardly the end all to energy reqirements.

Unless you're talking solar nuclear.

You know what else is funny about the so called ?unbiased? ad? The fact that they name all the building requirements for all these other alternate forms, but don't with regards to nuclear. This is an uneven assessment.

If we were to throw biomass into the equation, we'd find that two forms of biomass growing facilities can exist. We'd have charchol / oil growing facilities which ship the stuff out, or we'd have covered greenhouse facilities which use the charcol locally for power generation, recycling all the emissions for increased plant growth time. Or of course, a mixture of the two. The interesting thing, though, is that a biomass facility could grow its own plastics. Unlike the other alternatives.

soph · 2003-01-02 20:46:32

solar nuclear? fusion?

Josh Cryer · 2003-01-02 20:58:13

Sunlight.

TJohn · 2003-01-03 12:43:49

Good post, Echus_Chasma!

I think that if this were possible to make it should maybe be in two parts of a 30 minute informercial. You current post could the first part, the second could talk about the use in space and the various experts in those fields i.e. Dr. Zubrin, NASA, Plus Ultra technologies, etc...

You think it's possible to format your current post into a letter that could be sent out to Congress and/or VIPs? I imagine that once the data is input it's possible!

Coal, geothermal, solar, and biomass is not going to help us get into space. Only nuclear propelled spacecraft is attainable.

Bill White · 2003-01-03 13:04:24

Here are my two pence (cents) and a variety of points -

#1 Josh continues to make astonishingly good sense. Maybe I will need to amazon 1 click some Proudhon.

#2 From a technical, environmental, and centralized utility perspective, nuclear power is an excellent idea. I am not anti-nuclear in any sense of the term

For Mars - IMHO - nuclear power is essential. No nukes? No Mars.

#3 Many safety concerns about nuclear power are inflated and overblown. I agree. Still, I do not want nuclear plants being run by a bunch of high school drop outs.

#4 Nuclear plants do work best with centralized distribution systems such as the US electric power grid. But, the future of energy - IMHO - is decentralized power generation.

How much energy is lost by transmission along power lines? Lots and lots and lots.

#5 More localized power generation combined with use of hydrogen fuel cells would break the backs of power generation monopolies much like we haev seen in the telecommunications industry. My father in law worked for Ma Bell as an engineer at the Hawthorne Works in Cicero Illinois.

For decades AT&T was the only player in telephone service and was a safe profitable stock to own. Today, since telecommunication rates in the US are dirt cheap, no one can make money being a traditional tele-com.

#6 Distributed generation of electric power in a few deacdes away but increasingly efficient generators make it cost effective - today - for some large buildings to cut their ties to the grid and self generate electric power.

As that trends continues and grows - say good bye to the ConEd monopoly over electric power.

Nuclear power requires a continued concentration (monopoly) of electric generation capability to justify the massive capital investment needed to build a nuclear plant.

#7 Proliferation of nuclear materials is a very real danger. In the post 9/11 environment I daresay NO nuclear spce missions will occur unless they are done under the strict control and oversight of the US military.

As Keith Parton once posted on another forum, the US government ain't going to let a bunch of Mars-happy anarchists take possession of 71 pounds of plutonium. It ain't going to happen.

Back to the thread at hand - more nuclear plants for electric power means more involvement for Homeland Security people.

#8 Coal horrifies me. Coal or nuke? I say nuke. But, for the reasons outlined above I predict neither coal nor nuke at least in the USA.

These reasons and the irrational anti-nuke nut cases.

Bill White · 2003-01-03 13:07:59

Coal, geothermal, solar, and biomass is not going to help us get into space. Only nuclear propelled spacecraft is attainable.

Nuclear power? Absolutely! No nukes? no Mars!

Nuclear propulsion as a necessary precondition to Mars? Maybe, maybe not, IMHO.

Far more important - articulate reasons for "doing Mars" that the beltway bandits find persuasive - accomplish this political goal and access to nukes will be a piece of cake.

soph · 2003-01-03 14:15:30

the forum it was attained from is at nuclearspace.com

i forget who posted the informercial, i could check and ask them if they could revise it into a letter if anyone wants.

Echus_Chasma · 2003-01-03 15:51:24

The dude who wrote the infomerical is whitestar60 from the NuclearSpace forum

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2003-01-02 07:23:28

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#2 2003-01-02 07:58:18

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#3 2003-01-02 08:02:49

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#4 2003-01-02 14:56:35

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#5 2003-01-02 15:19:43

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#6 2003-01-02 15:37:44

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#7 2003-01-02 17:06:01

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#8 2003-01-02 18:05:20

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#9 2003-01-02 18:09:19

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#10 2003-01-02 18:15:49

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#11 2003-01-02 18:31:32

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#12 2003-01-02 18:47:10

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#13 2003-01-02 19:31:51

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#14 2003-01-02 19:57:49

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#15 2003-01-02 20:41:37

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#16 2003-01-02 20:46:32

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#17 2003-01-02 20:58:13

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#18 2003-01-03 12:43:49

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#19 2003-01-03 13:04:24

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#20 2003-01-03 13:07:59

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#21 2003-01-03 14:15:30

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

#22 2003-01-03 15:51:24

Re: Greenpeace infomercial

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