Saturday, May 17, 2014
Behemoths off the Horizon
And if there's anybody out there who still thinks that wind is a viable alternative to nuclear, you really need to get your facts straight. Fact - nuclear power plants have a power density of 54 watts per square meter while wind turbines only register at 1.2 watts per square meter. SO, in order to replace the energy that you get from JUST ONE large nuclear facility, you would literally have to pave the entire state of Rhode Island and build thousands and thousands of industrial sized wind turbines. And, being that wind turbines are by far the highest resource intensity energy source to start AND the fact that they're only 10-35% efficient (nuclear being over 90% efficient) and hence require a fossil fuel backup, they don't even give you all that much of a reduction when it comes to emissions (nuclear, on the other hand, emits zero carbon emissions), for Christ sakes........................................................................................Look, I'm not necessarily saying that nuclear is perfect or a panacea (issues relative to start-up cost and waste) but if the French can do it, and with all of the new technology on the horizon (thorium instead of uranium and plutonium, smaller reactors, new methods of storing and recycling waste, etc.), you gotta think that we can do it, too - one would think.
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6 comments:
I believe Nuclear is the way to go but, with Rethuglicans castrating the EPA and undoing any regulation which curbs the rapacious polluting of Coal and Oil behemoths well I have reservations that all of sudden large piles of nuclear waste would end dumped in rural areas and onto the heads of poor people who have ZERO representation in the Government.
I have to investigate it more but I've heard from a lot of people that thorium might be a viable alternative to uranium and plutonium and that that that substance has a lot less waste.
Grung: The problem lies with the EPA, not with those trying to reign in its excesses, which have included the EPA ignoring actual pollution, and going after carbon in keeping with the the "manmade global warming" faith.
I think that the EPA did a lot of great work in the '70s and '80s in terms of cleaning up the air and water but, yeah, I gotta agree with you that recently there has indeed been some overkill.
Will: Yes. and the overkill has been at the expense of going after real pollutants.
And I don't like the fact that they prosecute (them and the Justice Department) the oil companies over a dozen dead birds and then let the wind sector off the hook for killing tens of thousands (a large % of them birds of prey on the endangered species list). Where's the consistency?
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