Aelric - 2008-02-20
Chernobyl has been popping up in alot of media lately. There really is something about it that is horrifyingly fascinating.
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Aelric - 2008-02-20 a combination solar/wind, while certainly not capable of providing as much raw energy as a nuclear plant, is actually cheaper, has minimal upkeep and obviously doesn't kill cities for a thousand years. The only problem is that it can't produce enough to power everything without a extensive initial investment on a wide scale, which is a tough sell on capital hill.
That said, it still doesn't solve the car problem.
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Roachbud - 2008-02-20 Wind costs more than nuclear in the price/kwh which is what electricity consumers pay, it's competitive with gas generation at this point though. Solar PV costs several times nuclear in a price/kwh at this point, though those costs are sinking and PV could get grid price parity in 10 years or so - that would still be more than nuclear. Solar thermal power is three quarters the price of solar pv.
Also both resources are intermittent and without a viable storage method - which is decades away - you need to build gas generation to back them up. They're also far away from from the existing transmission grid and need a lot of lines built out to them to get up and running.
Renewables are important, but you can't supply more than 15-20% of total electricity with them across the country. Nuclear power is cheap, safe (no one in the US has even gotten sick from it and new reactors are ridiculously better than this Soviet shit). It will be part of any reasonable solution to climate change.
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the_clencher - 2008-02-20 Solar PV is very far off, take a look at any Si cell that has been in the sun for about 4-5 years. The surface quality will have degraded so much due to the high energy UV light hitting it. Efficiency will also drop significantly after a year or so. The GaAs cells are far to expensive to even consider using for large scale power generation.
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TinManic - 2008-02-21 i realize oil doesn't usually generate electricity but when oil production starts falling short of demand the cost of energy in general is going to rise.
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Roachbud - 2008-02-21 That is true to an extent, but nuclear's rise has to do with climate change and policies to prevent it.
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MaulLove - 2008-02-20
That part with the little boy with cerebral palsy kept haunting me.
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MaulLove - 2008-02-20 I agree with you that they didn't have any proof that any of the mental retardation or deformities were caused by the radiation. I just thought that was particularly sad, though I'm sure similar scenes play out all over the world, regardless of radiation.
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Valkor - 2008-02-20
Don't let incompetents run your nuclear power plants. Do not build nuclear power plants that are obsolete at the time they are planned. Got it.
Now, how hard is it going to be to convince people that would rather kill off three fourths of the world's population than use nuclear power that they are wrong?
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mouser - 2008-02-20
I'm fucked. I'm definitely going to hell for laughing at 10:22.
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