Greenpeace founder support nuclear energy

[Dinner]

Possiblely as a suppliment to the base power load. Solar is good in that it can be located close to consumers so little is lost in transmition and that it produces peak output when demand is highest. The nitch for solar is either being used in remote areas without access to power lines or as a nitch suppliment to the base power output.

Solar heating works fairly well for warming water and, in my opinion, that would be the best use for it. Supplimenting hot water heaters so that less electricity or natural gas is needed to heat the water in everyone's homes or swimming pools.

[Kuciwalker]

niche, not nitch

[Dinner]

BAH!

[Berzerker]

I got to work at one when it was being built, some of the stuff coming into the warehouse was impressive. We had cat problems, they'd get stuck inside some pipe that was about to be installed. And we were way out in the boonies, made me think the desert is crawling with cats

[Odin]

The enviromentalist movement has been hijacked by idealist college students and naive suburbanites who know more about Eco-mystic neo-paganism and New Age power crystals than ecology.

[Dinner]

We've also been ignoring price per MW produced. Solar is VERY expensive though wind is actually pretty competitive.

[Impaler[WrG]]

When one totals the REAL cost of nuclear energy (building the facility, decomishoning it, containing and guarding waste forever, large subsudies, vast research budjets at public expense ect ect). You find that Nuclear power is MORE expensive then solar power.

Right wing polititians and industry types advocate nuclear power because its profitable. The very centralized big investment style of powerplant contruction nessesitates long term contracts which are always very lucrative.

Solar and Wind power on the other hand are small and the manufacturure sells the systems rather then the power itself. The systems range from tiny to huge and theirs constant competition for each new sale, manufacturers have been cutting down the cost of production for decades because of this. Naturaly profits are not as great as the old utility company style of buisness.

Heres a site to back me up

http://environet.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=18534

[Jon Miller]

solar power is not feasible everywhere

neither is wind

water is worse for the environment than gas, often

JM

[Impaler[WrG]]

Another new development is Solar tecnology

http://www.stirlingenergy.com/whatisastirlingengine.htm

This company has perfected a large solar dish and generator that they claim will provide solar power at around 6 cent kwh once in mass production. They resently signed contracts to build 2 huge solar farms near Los Angeles and San Diego (in the desert ofcore) that at 500 MW will be the largest solar power plants on earth.

Realisticaly some fossil fuel based plants will still be nessary, Natural Gass seems most likly as its alredy used for peak power demand situation. I see no future for Nuclear unless a nation comites to it completly as France has done (I wonder what they do with the Waste? dump it in Algeria perhaps?). In any case its nolonger nessary for nations to commit to nuclear to achive non CO2 emiting power, better tecnology has arived and IS SUPERIOR RIGHT NOW. Only the inertia of our old systems prevents us from abandoning them. Eventualy the new systems will become so vastly superior that the choice will be made for us by individuals themselves without any encouragment.

[Jon Miller]

Still won't provide power to Oregon..

And I don't think waste is much of an issue.

JM

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Typically the best arrangment is

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[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
niche, not nitch

Quit being a niche-picker!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Another new development is Solar tecnology

http://www.stirlingenergy.com/whatisastirlingengine.htm

This company has perfected a large solar dish and generator that they claim will provide solar power at around 6 cent kwh once in mass production. They resently signed contracts to build 2 huge solar farms near Los Angeles and San Diego (in the desert ofcore) that at 500 MW will be the largest solar power plants on earth.

Realisticaly some fossil fuel based plants will still be nessary, Natural Gass seems most likly as its alredy used for peak power demand situation. I see no future for Nuclear unless a nation comites to it completly as France has done (I wonder what they do with the Waste? dump it in Algeria perhaps?). In any case its nolonger nessary for nations to commit to nuclear to achive non CO2 emiting power, better tecnology has arived and IS SUPERIOR RIGHT NOW. Only the inertia of our old systems prevents us from abandoning them. Eventualy the new systems will become so vastly superior that the choice will be made for us by individuals themselves without any encouragment.

Natural gas is a terrible fuel to waste generating electricity, it's too useful for consumers to be burned up by Californians too wimpy to bite the damned bullet already and build some nuke plants. The costs of building nuke plants in the U.S. will come down considerably with the proper encouragement of the government. This means in part keeping environmental groups from waging a war of attrition with the firms building these plants in the courts.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Ecological_footprint

"A wind farm that produces the energy equivalent of a conventional power plant would have to cover an area of approximately 200 square kilometres."

Wouldn't that amount to the entire coastline of Britain?

Actually that's more than the coastline of the entire world!!

(because coastlines don't have areas, but length, and even then measuring length of a coastline is a whole other business...)

[Colonâ„¢]

Hmmmaybe. I'd need to calculate what the average MW/m^2 for wind turbines is, and then multiply that by the total generation of fossil fuel plants, assuming the ratio is inelastic.