You and I define "we" differently than the decisionmakers behind that policy. They define "we" to include the guys who invested in exploiting the Saudi fields and profit handsomely from the sale of that product globally. "They" are doing just great from that partnership ... and could care less what it does to "us".

The truly unfortunate thing is that those same people could make the same money by going to nuclear power. Supplying the fuel, refining, waste storage/reprocessing, facility construction and other things would be a pretty big business. The only ones who'd really lose would be oil commodity speculators and Middle East tyrants. I'm ok with both those things.

They aren't done milking the oil tit yet, gotta squeeze every dollar out of that first. Don't worry, once they've done that they'll be happy to force you get your energy from multibillion dollar nuke plants on an easily controlled grid and tell you that locally produced renewables are just pie in the sky.

Force us to get power from clean, cheap, reliable, safe power plants as opposed to filthy, dangerous, exploding ones that have mountains of waste product burying towns and destroying ecosystems?

Oh noes...

The bondholders of my state know that 'cheap' is a marketing term, and your results may vary.

Cheap may be a marketing term, but the facts show that electrical power from nuclear plants, over the life of the plant, is now as cheap as coal power. While the initial investment is massive, running the plant costs next to nothing. The fuel is cheap, maintenance is cheap, automation means a whole lot less workers (meaning overall labor costs are cheap), and they don't explode like coal power plants. Add in carbon-capture costs and coal power becomes quite a bit more expensive than nuclear. Add in the safety record of all the various plants and you find that nuclear is also less expensive in terms of human lives. And if you've bought into the human-caused-carbon-driven-global-warming thing, nuclear continues to shine over the competition.

In fact, around the world, new nuclear plants are being built at or under cost and on time or early. In China, they're building loads of new nuclear plants and the CANDU plants are coming up ahead of schedule and under budget, providing many megawatts of electrical power without burning out carbon, smog, mountains of dangerous waste product, and without exploding. France runs so much nuclear power that they're selling excess production to their electricity-starved neighbors at a profit. Nuclear plants are the safest, cleanest, more reliable, and now one of the cheapest ways of powering major grids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Implo...r_Supply_System

It will never be publicly financed in this state again.

Sounds like a lovely failure of governmental bureaucracy. Meanwhile, China's building plants under budget and ahead of schedule.

Guess they just have more competent leadership working on their projects.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
http://www.aecl.ca/NewsRoom/News/Press-2008/081024.htm

"Sounds like a lovely failure of governmental bureaucracy. Meanwhile, China's building plants under budget and ahead of schedule."

You will find there are few solutions adopted by police states that I will find it desirable to emulate.

Ah, now that I have access to a full-sized keyboard, let me elaborate.

I am in no way a technophobe about nuclear power. I think it is part of our energy solution. If it's a sure thing with a settled waste management solution, then private companies will have no problem obtaining private financing and building these facilities to operate at a profit. Have at it, boys.

But I am not a believer in a single "magic bullet" solution that creates just another dependency such as the one we have on petrochemicals today. That is exchanging one master for another. Centralized, megaproject utility energy is just a form of social control to me, so it is no surprise to me that China is diving in with both feet. Decentralized, small scale, local generation is a form of independence to me, and I think that the technologies to make this feasible in North America are numerous and expanding rapidly. I would rather have 5,000 million-dollar windmills than one 5-billion dollar fission plant. But the reality is that we will probably have both, and other solutions, going forward.

What I will resist strongly is government going into hock on the multibillion dollar utility generation item and then telling us we *must* use it to pay it off, to the exclusion of other solutions. Diversify, diversify, diversify, there is no reason for a free people not to want this approach.

Ok, but if government isn't going to be involved in one, it shouldn't be subsidizing the other. Let's pay the full cost of both and see which sources the people actually want.

Regarding localization, while it would increase costs a bit, you could actually do that with nuclear plants. Nuclear power plants can be built in all different sizes (right down to garage-size plants powering a small town like what the DoS was working on for remote places). Waste is hardly an issue at all with modern designs like CANDU-6 and the more dangerous nuclear waste is, the faster it becomes less dangerous. Considering the fact that entire towns are starting to be buried by massive coal waste spills, it looks smarter and smarter to move away from fossil fuel plants entirely. Wind and solar are very expensive and only work in certain places. Hydro's not bad, but also only works in certain places. Nuclear is cheap, clean, safe, and works anywhere there's at least a bit of water to use for coolant.

Technologically, no argument with any of that .... but egg first, then chicken. Show me the waste management plan that's so good that private investors consider the plant a safe bet for private capital, and I'll support my relevant government agencies permitting the construction.

Should the government be funding renewables at all? For me, today, yes ... because it's a national security issue to get us off our addiction to the Saudi tit. But that doesn't require 100% elimination of oil, coal, natural gas and uranium from our energy chain ... just replacement of Gulf petrochemicals. Obama says that's his energy priority, I agree with it, I support doing it.

France and Canada don't seem to be having any major waste issues. Nuclear plants produce very little waste at all, especially when reprocessing on "waste" is done. You're taking out loads of very heavy neutrons when you're processing and reprocessing this stuff over and over. Not much has to go in to begin with in these reactors, so very, very little ends up coming out in the end.

While we don't have to eliminate 100% of oil, coal, and natural gas from our energy chain, there's no reason not to do so. They're dirty to get, dirty to burn, and dirty to clean up later (byproduct, especially with coal). The problem with most renewables is that the technology simply isn't there to make them cheap and efficient enough for widespread use while the durability over long periods of time is questionable. It's not that they're a bad idea; it's that they're an idea that needs to mature quite a bit more before they're ready for large scale adoption. In the meantime, nuclear and hydro give us all the power we could ever dream of without concerns about safety, cost, reliability, or environmental impact. Best of all, they do so without needing to depend on any given region for resources. There's tons of Uranium all over the world including right here in the US. Rather than being stuck in a particular region looking for Uranium, we could easily shop around to virtually every country on the planet for the best pricing. Even Africa has tons of Uranium, which could see booming business for people in currently poor African nations.

The only thing missing from complete freedom from fossil fuels would be gas for cars (solved with Tesla Motors style electrics) and plastics, etc that are secondary products. We have plenty of domestic production to handle making plastics and other petro-based products, we could have enough nuclear and hydro plants online within 10 years to kill off most of the coal and oil plants, and we could potentially have enough all-electric cars to virtually eliminate the need for large-scale gasoline sales in 12 - 15 years.

If you went to Al Gore and told him we could virtually eliminate coal and oil from use in the United States within ~15 years, you'd think he'd throw his arms around you and thank God for your existence. But of course, explain such a plan as mine to someone like him and he'd kick you into a Spartan pit.

Well, Canada's population means radically different energy needs than the U.S., and France is not entirely without waste management issues, but then I'm not contending that waste is an insurmountable problem, simply that the industry in the U.S. has not surmounted it. I think they can, it's both a technical and political issue.

I just don't see nuclear as a magic bullet when it comes to energy. Nor is it for France, of course, since something like 70% of the actual energy consumption in the country (including vehicles, as you noted) is non-nuclear. Again, I'm not a Luddite on nuclear, I think modern reactor technologies will offer a valuable part of our overall energy solution. But dependence on any single solution would seem to make us very, very slow learners.

The main obstacle for waste management in the US is our completely idiotic aversion to waste reprocessing. In fact, if we lifted that ridiculous restriction, all the "waste" we currently have stored would make for excellent fuel in new reactors. In the CANDU designs, not only could you basically just dump in our existing waste as new fuel, you could even dump in the plutonium from our decommissioned nuclear weapons. How's that for recycling?

As for France, this is what they're up to:

That's purely electrical grid production, and I already distinguished that from overall energy consumption.

But since we're mostly in agreement, except to the degree to which we would encourage reliance on nuclear, I'm not sure we have anything to argue here.

I like Nuclear Power, a good reliable resource that can power millions of homes.

Yeah, but so much of the rest is just in cars. Convert those to electric (ie. Tesla Motors ~300 mile range Model S) and you end up with electrical production nearly matching energy consumption. And if we're going to built the next generation of cars as all-electric, I'd much rather see an electrical grid like France's than anything else. China has the right idea about power. They're going to have dirt cheap, clean power while we're on our knees begging the Saudis to run the pumps faster.

We would be fine if the environmentalists would let us drill our own oil and natural gas, and would let us have more nuclear plants.

And great centralized control of the populace's energy use ... again, a police state solution is not one I'm interested in emulating.

I don't believe in a magic bullet for vehicle use. Biodiesel, electric, ethanol ... we're a big country, different markets should exploit their strengths. I'm a big proponent of pushing the move to electric by encouraging Florida, Texas and California to be the early adopters: huge market, tons of solar resource, a real chance to leverage economies of scale that the rest of the country that then take advantage of. The plains states, the Dakotas ... not so much solar, but biodiesel and ethanol should be their strengths.

The Northwest, where I live? My garage should collect rainwater in the spring that my solar cells and personal windmill convert to hydrogen, which my car's and home's fuel cells use for energy year-round. No need to be on a grid at all.

Some of that we can do today, some tomorrow, but none of it makes me think that a big, massively expensive, centrally controlled utility approach of the past is the solution, any more than China's top-down authoritarian government of the past is a solution for its people.

Ask and you shall receive.

Not really. The relevant problem is that the rest of the world is developing and developing rapidly. We need to find a way to provide energy to BILLIONS of people with American standards of living by the end of the century, and there just isn't enough gas or uranium for it.

Which is why Loki is pointing to those reactors that produce more usable uranium than they use.

To quote Bill Cosby, "What do you mean WE, kimosabe?" Maybe they should control their population and not *have* billions of people in one country.

But that's why I'm in favor of us having domestically sustainable energy production from a diversity of sources ... between energy and water, China and India are rushing toward the abyss if they don't change how they govern, live, and develop.

I'm not a big fan of autarky. If there is a global shortage of energy and the Chinese corporation is willing to pay a higher price than the poor American family, the proper recipient is the Chinese corporation.

Nuclear power is the answer, France gets 75 (77 some say)percent of its energy from Nuclear Power.

False. No one power source is the answer. Diversification will give us more flexibility.

we have enough oil and natural gas here in America to last us for 60 years!!

So we should stop trying to innovate and move on from fossil fuels because we have enough for the short term?

'

O YEAH, we have had sooo much "green" innovation! Lets see, windmills that chop up birds, and ruin the appearance of our mountains; solar panels that blind pilots when they fly over them... We cant build Nuclear Power Plants because of rare meltdowns; and O YEAH! OIL COMPANIES ARE EVIL!!

Our state's policy is zero energy imports by 2020 ... you sit around waiting for the feds to do this and you'll end up cooking over a cowchip fire.

So the technology is not perfect...that's the reason you don't want to keep trying? And I'm pretty sure I never said that "OIL COMPANIES ARE EVIL!!" Just that dependence on any single form of power is foolish.

Nuclear power is something I'd like to see more of. My personal reservation has more to do with waste than the risk of a meltdown.

Wind power needs to be better regulated so that placement of turbines in regard to local wildlife is taken into account.

I don't know about the solar panels blinding pilots...can't seem to find an article talking about it.

Geothermal energy is another thing I think areas with geothermal activity should look into.

Hydroelectric is another good source, except building dams and rerouting water sources can have a significant environmental impact.

"I don't know about the solar panels blinding pilots...can't seem to find an article talking about it."

Seems kind of preposterous ... the only solar systems that actually use mirrors auto-rotate the mirrors to keep them focused on a collection point for creating heat to generate steam & turn a turbine, so pointing the reflection into the sky would sort of defeat the whole purpose.

Otherwise .... sure, solar panels might be coated in glass, but are glass-coated office buildings routinely bringing down airliners because of glare?

i was being sarcastic about it

do you know that farmers are being forced to give up substantial portions of THEIR land to cater to these windmill companies? And now they are scarring mountains and completely wreck the appearance of the surrounding area! And to make it even worse, WINDMILLS ARE VERY INEFFICIENT!!!

Eminent domain, it's a pain in keester.

What makes you think the wind energy is inefficient? What do you mean by inefficient, anyways? I think it probably produces more energy than it consumes at the very least. Keep in mind that the true costs of all the hydrocarbons are actually substantially higher than they presently are because of the carbon dioxide emissions.

Yes it is, sadly.

How do you scare a mountain? But let's suppose he meant scarring ... yeah, mining companies never do that, let's try once again to pass legislation requiring them to do restoration after mountaintop removal mining and see where that goes. I guess that's "good" mountain destruction.

Come on, give a serious objection. Farmers in the west *love* windmill projects, they put up some towers, keep farming the land, and get paid to do it. Like wind energy projects are even a fraction of farmland loss compared to suburban development projects in this country. Where do they get this stuff?

When they want to put up wind turbines in Yosemite get back to me, I'll be right there with you in drawing the line, but a productive use of a little vertical space above farmland? Not a serious argument.

it SIGNIFICANTLY decreases the value of your land.

No, it quadruples it.

Okay, I have nothing to back that up, but since we're just throwing out unsubstantiated anecdotal claims here ... unless of course you have actual data supporting that. How an annual revenue-producing asset on real property that's more reliable than crops might serve to lower the value of the land seems a bit farfetched, it's not like farmland's value is based on its aesthetic value.

Let me ask you this, do power lines decrease property value?

Yes they do, drastically.

How are you going to transport the electricity made by the windmills?

By power lines.

I get it, still no actual data to support your claim of substantial reduction in value, and no answer to the simple point that we're talking about a revenue-generating asset on the land in question. Your claim is that putting a new revenue-generating asset on land, or lease payments to the landowner, markedly reduces the value of his land. It's both counterintuitive and unsubstantiated. Unimpressed.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/.../171851335.html


Power lines decrease land value
----------------------------------------------

And the farmers dont chose whether they want it or not, their land gets seized by the govt, and they get close to NOTHING of what their land is valued at.

That's why you use wave power. No dames and as the genorator is underwater for the most part, no eyesore.

You have successfully defended a point I did not dispute ... are those goalposts mounted on wheels or rails?

Which one uses less energy?

EDIT: As for me, I don't really care too much (I think we're going to work out a solution despite government interference but I'm prejudiced) but please get us off Saudi oil and corn ethanol. Both are terrible.

Its the Governments land after they seize it, the farmer gets no profit.

Anarchists popping up all over the place.

I am no anarchist, but for people who pay their taxes and work hard everyday, shouldn't have their property taken to cater to environmentalists. I believe eminent domain should only happen to people who cheat their taxes.

*
Would an anarchist believe in this? http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=71226

I don't.

And i believe there should a government to govern people.

Cater to environmentalists?

How about cater to matters of national security and scientific facts?

O YEAH, building a windmill is gonna make us safer

And i don't even want to hear global warming is a "scientific fact", when AL Gore cant even debate about the issue!