Gozu wrote:therisingblues wrote:Another bonus about nuclear power, is that it is a very real alternative to energy sources we are using right now.
Solar can supplement somethings, as can wind, hydro and other reusable options, but the technology and infrastructure just doesn't exist now to convert those options into something that can answer all our energy needs. And with the amount of carbon getting pumped into the air and the affect it is having on this planet, we need something right now to get off this fossil fuel diet.
Nuclear fits the bill. We have the technology already, we just need to build the reactors, and quick!
Solar etc can exist if they want them too and from what I've read nuclear power is not a real alternative now or in the immediate future. Who's going to pay to build these nuclear reactors?
As Jerry Pournelle has pointed out in several books and articles, solar energy is only going to work efficiently if the collectors are outside the atmosphere, and outside the gravity field where they can be huge without being massive. Previous to Ron Reagan getting the US presidency [conjecturally as front man for the John Birch Society] there was a joint project going on between Russia and the US to put huge solar stations in orbit - they were already training the joint teams who were to staff them. The main problem remaining was that the energy then had to be beamed back by microwave lasers, which were themselves potential weapons - hence the joint staffing. The collector dishes were intended to be about 28Km in diameter.
On the planetary surface, solar power, like wind and geothermal power, suffers from inefficiency. It is not only expensive for what you get out of it, but is prone to fluctuations with conditions and struggles to deliver, consistently, the amounts of power our society uses. That's why despite the 50 year ban on the use of nuclear power in many places those sources of energy have not succeeded in making significant inroads into the market.
The "woolly hat brigade" have, of course, argued that we should cut or power use so they are sufficient, but most of us are not prepared to give up our computers, mobile phones, mp3 players, and cars, and sit around reading by candle light wrapped in several blankets to make that work...
With the prefabrication techniques now available nuclear power plants will get cheaper.
With meltdown proof technology they no longer require the massive and expensive concrete bunkers, and the shielding they do need no longer cracks up and needs to be replaced as often.
Read the technology references available on the web.
If you only read the material from sources that already support your view agree with you you don't get the opportunity to review your old conclusions, but just reinforce them