*coughthreemileislandcough*
Yup. And TMI didn't actually kill anyone. Not only that, it didn't change the statistical cancer, death, or birth defect rate in the area at all. Not one percent.
Turns out that for decades before the plant was even proposed, the place had a pretty high rate of those problems
anyway. Moral of story - don't live near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, reactor or no.
Well lets call it global climate destabilization which AFAIK the big majority of scientific scholars agree is happening and at the human man made extra CO2 levels are responsible for.
Um, no. Look at the data, the CO2 levels
follow the temperature changes, not precede it. Plus, even if you do believe that CO2 is somehow magically changing climate ahead of its own concentration rising, how do you explain that the other planets in our solar system seem to be warming and cooling at the same general rate in the same timeframe as the Earth? Did we plant colonies on Mars when I wasn't looking? When did we ship millions of SUVs there?
Notice the predicted temperature path from what the CRU/IPCC liars said versus reality. (The little green arrow points to the actual current situation.) Also, notice that the frequency between midpoints is about 11 years... what do we know that peaks and drops in approximate 11 year cycles... oh, wait, that would be
THE SUN. You know, big yellow fusion reaction thing in the sky, warms
entire planets at light-hour distances?
It is SOLAR POWERED, people. There is nothing we can do about it. Unless, of course, you believe that we can somehow control the sun, in which case I have a nice tinfoil hat for you to wear.
Chart solar activity against global temperature averages. You will find a direct correlation.
And discarding hydro and geothermal based on needing specific locations is weird. Hawaii has active volcanoes and could easily be powered by geothermal. There's a few other spots like Yellowstone has volcanic activity close to the surface (as it's one of those super volcanoes)
I think the potential for geothermal is something like twice our current needs.
Geothermal turns out to be stupid expensive (especially in maintenance) and if the volcano decides to erupt you lose your power plant. They still build them there anyway, but they're not exactly a great answer.
Also, um, where exactly would you propose to put a geothermal or hydro plant in Texas?
Although not easily "harvested" as most of the places gets so very little of it. But for a single or a few households you can still use it as geothermal heating. And if you put that together with a system for putting back excess heat during the summer and a few solar panels which warms up water which heat you store in the ground you could get a heating system that covers all your heating and cooling needs for years. rather than using an oil burner and AC during the summer.
Uh, what? How the hell does THAT work? How do you 'store heat' for months and months on end without an active power source?
Hydro while damming up a river still creates a lot of electricity for very little labour and only some interruption of wildlife. It can be done in a lot of places. just the Congo river could probably power a huge part of the south part of Africa.
At the cost of destroying whatever ecosystem you build the dam in front of, hoping the river doesn't flood too badly and that you built the dam right. Not to mention that the river can no longer be used for commerce. And that the ecomentalists will let you. Which they won't.
I suggest you google the Three Gorges Dam.
Solar power has a few problems, one being it only produces power during the sun is up. But in a global grid the sun always shines on some part of the planet. And the electric consumption does go down at night. But the best places to put these solar plants is in desserts which you can find all around the globe, have fairly little cloud coverage and the impact on wildlife is minimal.
I suggest you look up 'electric transmission line losses'. You cannot pump worthwhile amounts of electricity around the globe. In fact, you can't even ship it more than halfway across the US.
Wind turbines are great. once they're up and running they produce electricity for 50 odd years with minor repair and maintenance.
No, they don't. They produce a quarter or so of rated power and have to be taken down for extensive repairs about every 5-10 years, including complete overhauls on a regular basis. Between what the British Government has had to admit and what Pacific Gas And Electric has found in their windfarms over the past 30 years, wind is a very expensive high maintenance and not very reliable generation system.
The best solution is not to pursue just one alternative but all of them where they make the most sense. And continuing using the nuclear power plants we have that are capable of running and perhaps even building a few new ones does make sense. The more they're used the higher the efficiency for the next generation of the same technology will be. That's almost always the case. And I really hope Copenhagen will see some good results in the worlds energy creation being shifted from fossil too renewable.
And I'd first concentrate on electricity and house heating rather than fuel for cars, ships and planes. ... but building more and better train networks could certainly lessen the need for the other types of transport. (especially if someone makes one of those vacuum tube frictionless trains...)
Certainly pursuing all of them is not a bad idea, but the only one that will work everywhere, in all weather conditions, day in and day out, is nuclear.
Also, those 'frictionless trains'? Never going to happen, not if people are smart - too much to go wrong and they won't be 'frictionless' anyway.
What? They#ve only just declared CO2 to be a bad thing? Jesus Christ. What next, this new invention called "fire"?
CO2 is not a pollutant, it's plant food. And, by the way, necessary for us to get the oxygen we breathe through plant photosynthesis.
Perhaps you can buy some from the Japanese instead.
