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No need to panic, posting on CD will resolve this.
It's been claimed by some conservatives that behavior modification will address the issue. They make claims that people should cut back on their carbon footprint by doing things like forgoing unnecessary burning of fossil fuels, but the AGW crowd says that is false. The enivornmentalists dismiss such ideas as nonsense due to a bit of inconvenience.
The best solution already exists. We can use coal an natural gas for now, but those are finite resources. The only power generation system with massive output per fairly small power plant is nuclear power. It is the most efficient electrical power generating technology we have.
Solar and wind would require is to blanket the planet with wind and solar farms.
The best solution already exists. We can use coal an natural gas for now, but those are finite resources. The only power generation system with massive output per fairly small power plant is nuclear power. It is the most efficient electrical power generating technology we have.
Solar and wind would require is to blanket the planet with wind and solar farms.
No way. Nuclear requires heavy subsidies via liability insurance guarantees and does not appear competitive. See the NY subsidy to its older plants.
Solar has no problem finding enough land. It is actually rather compact.
No way. Nuclear requires heavy subsidies via liability insurance guarantees and does not appear competitive. See the NY subsidy to its older plants.
Solar has no problem finding enough land. It is actually rather compact.
We agree. N is not a good option. Thorium looks interesting but it wasn't developed and light water N plants suck from a safety standpoint. They are good at making Pu239 and Pu240.
The best solution already exists. We can use coal an natural gas for now, but those are finite resources. The only power generation system with massive output per fairly small power plant is nuclear power. It is the most efficient electrical power generating technology we have.
Solar and wind would require is to blanket the planet with wind and solar farms.
Nah, that's just thinking too small. Solar is available 24/7, in orbit. All you have to do is rise above the atmosphere - which attenuates the radiant energy anyway. Once in space, you don't need to worry about stiffening the structure much, other than for fine-tuning directional control of the arrays. @ the very cheapest, you could just aim the structure on a permanent basis (from Earth geostationary orbit) @ the sun, & correct whenever the error got too big. Convert the energy to microwaves, or whatever form you like, beam it down to a rectannae, & you're in business. (Siting the rectannae farms might eat up some space - but you can put them wherever you like, on mountains, @ sea, etc. & you can put receivers on the moon, on space stations, possibly on spaceships. It's a big universe.)
Wind, of course, is another indirect solar source, even more attenuated than solar @ the bottom of Earth's atmosphere. A good secondary power source, if you have good consistent winds - to optimize the blades & angles & so on.
No way. Nuclear requires heavy subsidies via liability insurance guarantees and does not appear competitive. See the NY subsidy to its older plants.
Solar has no problem finding enough land. It is actually rather compact.
What nuclear needs is the ability to build new plants. We have ancient outdated inefficient plants in operation out there and anytime somebody proposes replacing them, the ignorant masses protest en masse, stopping it from happening. We have the tech already to recycle nuclear waste and use it for fuel again. Current nuclear tech can create plants that are very small with massive power output too.
Here is the challenge: Name for me an entire first-world developed nation that is 100% solar and wind and does not have to import energy from elsewhere? (Hint: There isn't one, though many have tried.) If it's small and efficient, why isn't the United States Navy using nothing but solar and wind?
The wind doesn't always blow. It is not constant. You could have a wind storm one day and no wind the next. Sometimes the wind is blowing so hard that it's a danger to the windmill and you have to turn the thing off. The sun doesn't always shine. Rainy and snowy days happen. The tremendous fluctuation in output by wind and solar make them hard to use and pretty much guarantee that you'll need other "always on" sources. Presently, fossil fuels are that always on source, and they're polluting like crazy. Nuclear is the only other always on power source that can be built anywhere anytime.
Light water nuclear plants are complex disasters looking for a way to happen. Fundamentally dangerous.
What we have were originally developed for the Navy for submarines modified for commercial use. They use something as valuable as platinum to fuel the reactors with.
Thorium breeders are interesting but I still don't like them.
Embrace of Renewables Has a Hidden Cost . In yesterday's New York Times, a somewhat left-leaning paper, there was a devastating analysis of the naivete and inefficiency of so-called "renewable" energy sources. For reasons laid out in the article they require massive subsidies. The short version of the problem is that solar power is quite available in the middle of a sunny day, other times not so much. Wind power is similarly intermittent. As the linked article states:
Advocating renewables feels good, but has high cost and very questionable benefits.
Other articles have explored wind power's highly blemished environmental record. In an article entitled Wind Forum Explores Concerns. It seems many Vermonters have had not only their scenery, but right to live in reasonable quiet, utterly wrecked.A neighbor of one such project, quoted in the article stated:
Vehicle Emissions Standards Produce More Fraud than Benefit for Environment
In another article strongly hinting at the limits of environmentalism, Volkswagen Scandal Reaches All the Way to the Top, Lawsuits Say The linked article is one of many deailing VW's extensive fraud designed to fool environmental tests of diesel engines. For a reputable company with a lengthy history to go to these lengths it strikes me that the limits are utopian and not practical.
Tell that to Germany, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Sweden. This week Denmark was producing 116% of their electricity usage.
What nuclear needs is the ability to build new plants. We have ancient outdated inefficient plants in operation out there and anytime somebody proposes replacing them, the ignorant masses protest en masse, stopping it from happening. We have the tech already to recycle nuclear waste and use it for fuel again.
Then why is it not happening ANYWHERE? Nuclear power cannot allow for any mistakes, but humans are imperfect; they make mistakes. And we have not put a waste recycling or safe storage into production.
Quote:
Here is the challenge: Name for me an entire first-world developed nation that is 100% solar and wind and does not have to import energy from elsewhere?
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Direct solar
