A Week Without Dinosaurs

It shows the limitations of Solar-derived energy for transportation: 700 square feet of Solar cells generate 0.5 kg of H2 per (sunny) day, which is enough to move one of their cars about 25 miles. Double that to get an average commuter's use. Double it again for the average number of cloudy days. Multiply by the 80 million or so cars in the US. That gives about 21,000 square km (8,000 square miles) of Solar cells for the US alone. Yeesh.

Safe, clean nuclear power plants, with their waste heat used to de-salinate seawater into drinking water, will be much a more practical and economical energy source.

 

Show me a SAFE, CLEAN nuclear power plant and I will eat my tie.

 

How does a nuclear power plant desalinate seawater?

 

with their waste heat of course, Though that probably wouldent' happen, since the heat is used to turn steam generators to create electricity

 

Do you want salt with that? :_>

Visit http://www.world-nuclear.org/
and consider the 210 nuclear plants now operating in the US, France, and Japan.

Also ask yourself whether you would you rather have China build a few hundred coal power stations, or a few dozen nukes? If coal-fired power stations in the US had to meet the same limits on release of radiation that every US nuclear station has to meet, all of the coal-fired power stations would have to close immediately. This is because coal naturally contains a few parts per million of uranium and thorium, which are infeasible to remove before the coal is burned.

Paraphrasing James Lovelock, one of the first scientists to point out the possibility of man-made global warming, we can no longer afford ignorance and hysteria about nuclear power.

 

After making the high-pressure steam that spins those electricity generating turbines you still have to get rid of billions of watts of "used" heat. That's why there are big cooling towers near power stations that don't use river water or seawater for cooling. That "used" heat is still near boiling temperature, which is very useful to help drive a desalination plant. Besides making electricity one large nuclear plant could also make millions of gallons of pure drinking water every day from seawater at competitive prices. Southern Californians, along with driving a hydrogen-powered fuel cell car, wouldn't it be nice not to fight with the Central Valley over drinking water? Wouldn't it be nice not to suck the Colorado River dry?

 

my dad was a nuclear power generation technician/operator for the US Army for 17 years. although he questions the BS involved with the technology, he does admit that it is several times safer than ANY OTHER METHOD OF POWER GENERATION. that is ignoring the air polution created by hydrocarbon sources.

and all nuclear plants have enormous amounts of waste heat to dissipate. that is why they are all located near large bodies of water.

and how safe is the waste heat? when i was living in Alaska at Ft. Greeley, the waste heat was piped throughout the base in steam pipes and was the ONLY SOURCE OF HEAT for base housing. and yes... in Delta Junction, Alaska, it gets COLD!!

 

I think the problem with waste heat is when its put directly back into a stream or river with a population of fish. Some of these creatures can't handle a 1 to 2 degree rise in temperature.

 

I've got a question about Nuclear power.

Who pays for the 1000 year storage of the spent fuel?

Do the rate payers pay, or do taxpayers?

And if taxpayers pay this, shouldn't this fee be included in the cost of the electricity the plant generates in the first place?

And if not, why not?

 

i guess the real question is how to implement the source of energy that has no compromises or trade-offs. i guess we have to find that source first.

sure we must store spent nuclear fuel. dont have that problem with hydrocarbon fuel since we just vent all the waste into the air that we breathe. so i suppose by your question, you prefer breathing dirty air?

so i guess the real question is how dangerous is nuclear waste??

well i do know that it hasnt killed an estimated 2 million people a year world-wide like the air polution from hydrocarbon sources has.

how much money would it cost to store the nuclear waste and insure its safety. would it add up to the 20 billion a year that is estimated to be lost to sickness from respiratory dieases and other ailments caused by polution in the US alone?

before you go shooting down nuclear power think about the FIFTY MILLION TONS OF POLUTION SPEWED INTO OUR ATMOSPHERE EVERY SINGLE DAY BY COAL FIRED PLANTS.

there is a plant in smeryna, ga that consumes 2500 boxcars of coal a day!! there are several dozen just as big and as hungry all over the US.

then add the polution from oil fired plants and automobiles. i still find it amazing that the Earth has taken this abuse as long as it has and done as well as it has. but to say that everything is ok is waaay wrong.

im not offering solutions here. just want you think a little is all.

 

Great answer. I hadn't thought of that.

I've never been totally against nuclear. However, I'm not sure it really is the correct solution.

I fear that the reason the energy companies prefer nuclear is more due to the business model of the energy industry and not to the 'physics" of energy production.

By way of example, a downside of solar power, from the perspective of a company whose reason to exist is profits, is that a MAJOR breakthrough in solar energy production would mean thousands of energy producers per square mile. Thus the risk of having thousands of energy "pseudo" companies per square mile would spread out the profits.

The current energy industry business model has a single power plant for thousands of customers. This is a great way to control cash flow and profits.

So what I would argue is if nuclear is the best source of power because it's really the best source of power then the argument is over. Lets go nuclear. So be it.

But if it's argued to be the best source of power more because of the business model that it is based upon, and NOT due to it's inherent energy production superiority, then maybe we are continuing to have the wrong conversation. It then becomes no longer about the relative merits of coal waste (into our lungs) over nuclear waste (into our mountains in a state far away).

Sadly, I remain unconvinced that nuclear is being promoted because of it's "physics" than for it's "economics", ie., a business model that promotes the centralization of profits.

Again, I tend to find nuclear promising. But there is no doubt in my mind that the number of dollars spent on R&D for solar PALES in comparison to the billions spent on the R&D of nuclear, even without including the Manhattan project.

And I am not convinced that this difference in R&D spending is based upon physics as much as it's based upon the respective business models.

And personally, I think the very success of the Prius proves that R&D money spent in an alternative way pays off, contrary to what the major American auto makers have been telling us for over 20 years.

And just like you, I don't have the answer.

 

well i believe we do have the answer... but getting anyone to go along with it is the problem.

i think that we can get enough energy from hydroelectric, solar, wind and convection towers to satisfy most of our needs.

but that would take a change... a rather large one at that. but then we would be talking about having an estimated 70% of all our power needs met in less than 15 years if we went whole hog on the renewable energy sources.

but the oil companies wouldnt allow that and they would put billions if need be to make sure that the government doesnt do it either. and to make this work, it would take the government and more money than anyone else is willing to spend.

recently a problem developed with a wind farm that was 30 miles off the coast of the new england seaboard. this windfarm would have been large enough to service 250,000 homes. as it was out in the middle of the ocean. space, noise, etc were not a factor.

well, someone still found something to complain about, and because of a handful of people a vital source of energy is on hold... or more likely, will be cut back to the point where it will be expensive and ineffective for what it was originally intended to do.

now why did these people complain?? especially when this project had been in the works for years? some think the oil companies planted the seeds of doubt in the local residents minds. some also think that oil company interests actually went so far as to buy up property in the local area with the express purpose of creating a grass roots movement to abandon the windfarm.

in my mind the real problem is how to counteract the nickel and dime undermining perpetuated by companies who have enough money to buy and control their own environment AT ANY COST TO the environment.

i was living in Alaska when the oil pipeline was started and i have always been in favor of the pipeline. you have to have been there to understand the huge impact to the state and its economy that came about because of that project. it took Alaska off the national welfare role and did immeasurable good for developing several vital social, economic and educational programs in the state.

but as usual, the oil companies dropped the ball. despite their promises, they did all they could to destroy one of the most fragile and pristine areas in the world. The Alaska oil spill was a wake up call right?

nope... this was simply another example of the oil companies doing what they want to do. supposedly, double hull tankers would be required.

well the most recent stats say that only 35% of the tankers cruising Prince William sound are double hull...

lets face it, the only thing the oil companies were sorry about on that spill was losing the 11 million barrels of oil...

 

That's the problem underlying so many problems: lots of people just hadn't thought about it. Lots of people form opinions knowing too little about whatever-it-is.

The time to start replacing coal and oil fired power plants is now, while there might still be enough time to prevent some of the consequences of global warming, such as Florida disappearing under the Atlantic.