Wind, solar, dams and wave. They may not replace coal and other fossil fuels today but we can substitute a lot of our energy needs with a concerted effort into those renewables.
I've got some bad news about hydro dams for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st... > 1,917 deaths > 26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless. > 1800 - 25000 people killed > 75 fatalities, due to turbine failure There's also the part where we have tapped out the Earth's exploitable hydro capacity. Hydro output is expected to grow by…
A large part of hydro actually is storage rather than production though. It's most valuable as a stabiliser for the electricity network.
I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write th…
>Do you want to risk that happening to your area? Already do. 55% of my state's power comes from Nuclear. Coal releases 100x more radiation and 68x more CO2 than nuclear for equal energy production. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/202/4372/1045 And it isn't like coal is immune from having zero-notice forced evacuation, and making land uninhabitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly..…
That comparison is based on properly functioning nuclear power plants and coal. I daresay when you throw in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, the balance shifts dramatically in the opposite direction. Also, the radiation from nuclear disasters is highly concentrated, while that from coal is distributed at far lower concentrations.
Pollution from fossil fuels kills relatively quickly. Pollution from nuclear fuels remains dangerous for thousands of years. The deadliness of all forms of power depend strongly on regulations. The jury is still out on which will kill more in the end. Though so far nuclear is looking really, really good. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... for some statistics on how dangerous things ar…
Put the waste in Antarctica, and it won't kill anybody.
Do you have magical pixies to transport the nuclear material there that can ensure it won't be stolen in transit? Can you create a secure facility in one of the most hostile climates in the world? If not, that will never work.
Being against nuclear for trivial reasons like these is why we have the alternative: coal plants. Those kill an estimated 300,000 thousand people per year[1]. It's only recently that renewables have become a realistic alternative in some (but not all) cases, but for decades we've had people dropping like flies due to coal, entirely because the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere…
> the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere as big of a deal by comparison. Science illiteracy has nothing to do with it. The industry has a history of non-trivial reasons for mistrust. Regarding coal plant deaths, I'm not in favor of coal either. The sooner we can move away from fossil the better.
Moving away from fossil is very hard. Essentially we have two power sources available to us - Sun and nuclear. We are not very good at capturing sun energy directly, and doing it on massive scale requires both huge investment and global size actions that would have very serious consequences on global scale - from trivial cases like dams changing the terrains to more subtle like massive wind/solar installs changing wind/reflection/heat patterns and thus influencing the climate. I don't think we have any good data on how that would work on the scales needed to replace fossil fuels. With fossil fuels we essentially are using solar energy accumulated for millions of years. Very long term there's an obvious problem there, but on shorter term if we want to make do with only solar energy that is incoming right now, we need to become drastically more efficient in capturing it, and I don't think current technologies are there yet, and that we know how to deal with it on scales required to cover all present energy needs.
>...That mistrust is based on historical facts What historical facts would those be? Historically nuclear has been about the safest form of mass power when looking at accidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents Anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than the re…
It's a little dishonest to state a casualty rate when the spent, toxic fuel going to be deadly for a few hundred thousand years yet. That problem is so very far from solved, and it's a massive problem.
> That problem is so very far from solved, and it's a massive problem.
Fossil fuel emissions and other pollutants build up gradually and can be controlled. You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. And nuclear power generation also emits a very dangerous pollutant: nuclear waste.
I think you have a different definition of the word "emit" than I do. Nuclear waste is stable, does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools, and can be reprocessed if required. All existing spent nuclear fuel in the united states is stored on-site. It's been that way since the beginning of the industry. In contrast, particulate and greenhouse gas (including CO2) emissions from coal-fired plants migrate…
> Nuclear waste is stable
I am fighting an almost overpowering impulse to laugh and cry at the same time.
The ones I know, ex-Navy, are living pretty high on the hog.
There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc. Rationally if these people were required to fix or maintain such systems their yearly value would be in the millions wouldn't it? For some reason I get the feeling that such people are not paid in the millions. Maybe double or triple a traditional sala…
read "On Programming Languages; Why My Dad Went From Programming to Driving a Bus"
There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc. Rationally if these people were required to fix or maintain such systems their yearly value would be in the millions wouldn't it? For some reason I get the feeling that such people are not paid in the millions. Maybe double or triple a traditional sala…
Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising Valley folk to disrupt nuclear! I can't wait for Nucly, the only reactor control panel for iOS and Android.
In all seriousness, there have been attempts at startups looking to disrupt the nuclear industry. It's hit several problems, in the form of bad science and harsh regulation.
Apparently hacking plutonium is not easily accomplished.
This is one of the best annecdotal posts I have ever read on the internet. My grandfather was a nuke eng for GE his entire career, built Hanford - he is the reason I got into what I do... He died of cancer as they didnt quite yet know that radiation was a problem for human health when they started out... My dads best friend was sec energy under reagan.... I am speechless with respect to how moronic this admin is to n…
> He died of cancer as they didnt quite yet know that radiation was a problem for human health when they started out... That's putting it a bit strong, after all Marie Curie died of "aplastic anemia brought on by exposure to radiation" in 1934. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie And "actress Midori Naka, present during the bombing, was studied extensively for radiation poisoning. Her death in 1945 was the firs…
And before that, women were poisoned with radium, which was used to mark watch dials with luminous paint. What's remarkable was that executives and scientists were aware of the toxic nature of the radioactive paint, yet the women were instructed to use their lips to form points on their brushes to make the painting more precise. Lawsuits happened in the 1930's.
There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc. Rationally if these people were required to fix or maintain such systems their yearly value would be in the millions wouldn't it? For some reason I get the feeling that such people are not paid in the millions. Maybe double or triple a traditional sala…
Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising Valley folk to disrupt nuclear! I can't wait for Nucly, the only reactor control panel for iOS and Android.