The New Deal

[npts2020]

The idea that solar and wind energy are not viable because of variability in production would be a fair criticism if we had no way of storing energy. However we have today many methods of storing it, with more being developed all the time. When you have an intermittent power source you store it, whether it is using a rachet to store the potential energy of a wave until the next wave pushes in a tidal generator or making hydrogen or ethanol with excess from solar or wind generation to run another generator when there is a deficit (do you guys really not know this?) I have never said that nuclear power does not have its uses but I do not believe generation for widespread use to be one of them.

[Realitycheck]

This is really another one of Obama's major shortcomings. I just don't understand why he is so dense on such important issues as this. Rather, he would have every single home self-sufficient with its own power source.

[ParanoiA]

This is really another one of Obama's major shortcomings. I just don't understand why he is so dense on such important issues as this. Rather, he would have every single home self-sufficient with its own power source.

 

Uh..what's the problem with that? I love that idea. That would seem the best of all solutions: self-sufficiency.

[Realitycheck]

It is a good idea, but the feasability of it is a real stretch of the imagination. Maybe 50 years down the road. You're looking at quite an investment to impose on every single household, and as insane alien pointed out, there is no guarantee what the weather is going to do, especially if global warming has any effect on it.

[Severian]

I have never said that nuclear power does not have its uses but I do not believe generation for widespread use to be one of them.

 

Why not?

[ParanoiA]

It is a good idea, but the feasability of it is a real stretch of the imagination. Maybe 50 years down the road. You're looking at quite an investment to impose on every single household, and as insane alien pointed out, there is no guarantee what the weather is going to do, especially if global warming has any effect on it.

 

Certainly a valid point. But I like dreaming with the goal posts set high, so I'm personally on a path to symbolically disconnect from the grid and eliminate all credit. So, if Barack is actually pushing this self-sufficiency notion, I won't be quite as spiteful when you all vote for him.

[insane_alien]

The idea that solar and wind energy are not viable because of variability in production would be a fair criticism if we had no way of storing energy. However we have today many methods of storing it, with more being developed all the time. When you have an intermittent power source you store it, whether it is using a rachet to store the potential energy of a wave until the next wave pushes in a tidal generator or making hydrogen or ethanol with excess from solar or wind generation to run another generator when there is a deficit (do you guys really not know this?) I have never said that nuclear power does not have its uses but I do not believe generation for widespread use to be one of them.

 

yes, power storage provides a buffer, but the most you can reasonably expect in the next 25-50 years is perhaps a day of energy storage.

 

now, this is fine if you only have a deficit for a short period of time, but long drawn out deficits are possible.

 

not to mention that due to the variable nature of the energy sources you want to draw from, we will need to build far far more of them than the theoretical minimum. at current even if we use the theoretical minimum we will not recoup the energy required for their construction within the lifetime of the equipment. not to mention the cost.

 

until we can develop a sustainable sustainable energy economy we will need nuclear, especially as oil reserves continue to fall.

 

we NEED nuclear. to say otherwise is to blatantly ignore we have no actually viable alternative at present. please note that i am not saying we will never have a viable alternative just that we do not have one that could be implemented on a global scale before fossil fuels are depleted.

 

And just to make my point on nuclear(fission) perfectly clear, i do think it is a crap solution as fissile materials are also a finite source(and tend to deplete themselves) and is hence not sustainable. BUT it is the best solution we have as the technology and resources to SUCCESSFULLY implement it are available NOW, not later. when the technology to switch to a truely sustainably resource becomes viable then i fully agree we should transition to them, but as it currently stands they are not viable.

[ParanoiA]

we NEED nuclear. to say otherwise is to blatantly ignore we have no actually viable alternative at present. please note that i am not saying we will never have a viable alternative just that we do not have one that could be implemented on a global scale before fossil fuels are depleted.

 

Really? How much time do you think we have before fossil fuels are depleted? Your points would seem more valid to me if we were already running short. But nuclear power plants are time consuming projects to build, on the scale of years I'm assuming for each one. Correct me if I'm wrong, sincerely.

 

That in mind, it also doesn't seem too unreasonable to expect results from wind and solar in the next couple of decades, as long as we're still committed, despite the falling gas prices that will tempt us all to ignore energy independence and advancement.

 

Just seems like we're talking about decades to roll out either one on a global scale. But I'm surely no expert.

[john5746]

Really? How much time do you think we have before fossil fuels are depleted?

 

The problems start much, much earlier than depletion. When the flow of oil is much less than demand, energy prices soar - people starve, riot and wars break out. This may happen sooner than we think.

 

Just seems like we're talking about decades to roll out either one on a global scale. But I'm surely no expert.

 

True - diversity of solutions is the way to go.

[insane_alien]

well, the fossil fuels don't need to be entirely depleted, they just need to be low enough so that extraction becomes increasingly expensive. power prices will rise dues to power companies trying to keep themselves afloat(assuming they do not have a nuclear base for which the costs would stay roughly constant because of the relative abundance of fuels.)

 

and yes, nuclear will take time to roll out, but the point is, we can roll out a viable generation of nuclear plants before solar/wind approaches large scale viability.

[ParanoiA]

The problems start much, much earlier than depletion. When the flow of oil is much less than demand, energy prices soar - people starve, riot and wars break out. This may happen sooner than we think.

 

Ooh, damn good point.

[Pangloss]

This is really another one of Obama's major shortcomings. I just don't understand why he is so dense on such important issues as this. Rather, he would have every single home self-sufficient with its own power source.

 

It's an appeal to the base. That's why I keep telling you all that the present alignment of scientists and engineers with the Democrats/liberals is a temporary marriage of convenience. Y'all don't like knuckle-headed tree-huggers any more than the far right does.

 

But I think it's very important to remember that a president with a high approval rating can get things done in spite of opposition from the base. Obama has signaled that that will be the case on this issue.

[bascule]

This is really another one of Obama's major shortcomings. I just don't understand why he is so dense on such important issues as this.

 

He's briefly mentioned nuclear as an option a few times (which is more than I've seen Al Gore do), but really he's just towing the party line. I don't understand why nuclear power turned into a liberal / conservative thing at all.

 

I think nuclear power gets a bad rap in the environmentalist community because people are afraid of a meltdown or nuclear waste spill massively contaminating the environment, or something. Technologies like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power are seen as "clean", although wind power poses dangers to both humans and animals alike.

 

Environmentalists should be rooting for nuclear power though... it's not only carbon neutral, but carries the potential to actually assist in converting CO₂ back into useful hydrocarbons by "cracking" it with waste heat, if that technology ever gets off the ground. In that case, it not only is a carbon neutral energy source, but could help existing gasoline vehicles become carbon neutral as well.

 

All that said... windmills are pretty awesome looking. Driving along I-80 through Wyoming you go past one of the largest windmill installations in the country. Windmills are fun to look at whereas nuclear power plants generally convey fear and uncertainty. This isn't helped by depictions on shows like the Simpsons where the nuclear plant run by Mr. Burns is billowing out dark, toxic looking smoke rather than harmless steam.

[Pangloss]

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had some impact there, and remember that environmentalism was much less organized and coherent back in the 1980s, lacking the issue of global warming to rally around.

 

I think it's something that with proper leadership could be brought into acceptance by the mainstream environmental community, especially if combined with a strong initiative on carbon emissions across the board and a token effort at "improving safety". There are some real issues that could probably be addressed as well, such as transportation of nuclear material (accident planning and preparation, etc), but it would mainly be giving them something to save face on.

 

And the extremists can just be left spiking sequoias and crying in groups.

[npts2020]

Why not?

 

The biggest obstacle is political i.e. the irrational negative baggage associated with nuclear power from incidents like Chernobyl (not even remotely like any commercial reactor in America) and T.M.I. (operator overriding the safety features). The main technical reasons I oppose widespread use mostly relate to proliferation of the technologies of refining and configuring fissile materials (maybe irrational fear of a bomb?) and unresolved waste disposal problems. The biggest reason, however, is that it is not necessary. I am well aware that it may be the easiest and cheapest method for now but it is not as if there are no alternatives. Much of the cost and ease is simply because that is what we are already doing, IMO never a good enough reason to not consider other means of accomplishing the same thing. In the same amount of time as it takes to concieve of and build a nuclear power plant, you could build enough factories to give you the same or more output equivalence of solar (windmills or whatever I am just using solar for an example). Just the other day Konarka opened a plant that will supposedly produce a enough non-silicon organically based solar cells (they say 1/10 the cost of silicon cells) every year to generate a gigawatt of electricity. The main reason more of these plants are not opening is because the demand hasn't justified it. How long would it take to gear up production to produce enough for the massive number we are talking about? I don't really know but am sure it depends almost entirely on the urgency given to the problem. During WWII we massively scaled up industrial output in just a couple of years time, are we now for some reason unable to do that? If a hundred or a thousand plants such as Konarkas were to be built how long would it take to do a significant changeover? The problem isn't so much that alternatives aren't viable as that they haven't had the demand to justify their largescale production. Demand is largely related to price which will go down for alternatives as production increases and up for fossil fuels (nuclear I expect to remain steady or increase slightly) as supplies dry up and governments realize the environmental cost of using them is not "free". Finally, I think that putting nuclear power into widescale use will only hinder development of even better alternatives than we have now and facilitate those who would manipulate the energy market for their own gain. I'll get off my soapbox now before I have a book written.

[Pangloss]

I think that bit about "hindering development of even better alternatives" is something you hear with oil as well (e.g. when gas is cheap), and I guess that's a valid concern, but that's something I think we have to blame on our reactionary, emotional, event-driven system of government. Pressure from special interest groups, for example, only gets you a little bit of progress. In this case the decades-long barrage hasn't produced abundant wind or solar energy, so if that was their motive they failed miserably. If anything it's contributed to keeping us in oil.

 

Answer: Smarter people in government.

[Severian]

Finally, I think that putting nuclear power into widescale use will only hinder development of even better alternatives than we have now and facilitate those who would manipulate the energy market for their own gain.

 

I think nuclear already is a better alternative than solar power. In fact, you could use the argument the other way - spending money on developing solar power distracts from the real goal, which should be the development of fusion power. Since fusion is a form of nuclear power, ramping up to build lots of fission power stations now, will provide us with the expertise and social acceptance (and perhaps even the political will for the funding) for the building of fusion reactors 30-50 years from now.

 

That is not to say that solar can't be used in certain circumstances, perhaps to augment other power sources. But it will never be viable as our only means of energy generation, especially far away from the equator.

[npts2020]

Pangloss: I would never argue that we don't need smarter people in government but that seems unlikely in a democracy where anti-intellectualism seems to be a common sentiment. It may be the best we can do is have less self-centered polticians (is that an oxymoron?), who will at least consider the common good.

 

Severian: Solar power was just the example I used. I do not believe any single source will be a panacea (even nuclear if there were no problems associated with it). Having said that, I think that decentralizing power production and diversifying it will keep prices more stable and decrease the need for government regulation of energy generation. Can those be achieved by nuclear (or fusion) power? I agree 100% that we need to learn how to use fusion, where we disagree is the about the widespread application of nuclear power. How much has the cost of building nuclear power plants decreased since the first ones were built (or even say the past 20 years)? My guess would be they are more expensive but if someone can show that I am wrong I will accept it. How much has their efficiency increased? I can state with certainty that both solar and wind technology has dropped in cost by an order of magnitude and efficiencies have nearly doubled in the last 25 years. Furthermore, costs (for solar at least) are expected to go down even more and efficiencies increase from the current 14-17% to 20-25% within the next decade. Can we expect the same of nuclear?

[foodchain]

I think nuclear already is a better alternative than solar power. In fact, you could use the argument the other way - spending money on developing solar power distracts from the real goal, which should be the development of fusion power. Since fusion is a form of nuclear power, ramping up to build lots of fission power stations now, will provide us with the expertise and social acceptance (and perhaps even the political will for the funding) for the building of fusion reactors 30-50 years from now.

 

That is not to say that solar can't be used in certain circumstances, perhaps to augment other power sources. But it will never be viable as our only means of energy generation, especially far away from the equator.

 

Well America does experience a summer. I think solar could make provide a regular a nice sized chunk of energy for consumption. I think also that wind could provide another piece of energy. Plus its not as if any solar technology would just stop operating outside of constant intense sunlight.

 

I think America has enough oil shale to live off of for a long time. I think the point about energy, the one that really needs to get pushed more simply is the environmental aspect. If America right now could seize the opportunity to transform to greener energy sources and materials without any real disturbance why not? Why not take that lead internationally on such a large issue by leading culturally and technologically?

 

The other part is that we will eventually have to do this anyways. Is it something that should be done at the last minute, what about the entire history of things leading up to that point? I think change here is far better then to conserve. Simply put global warming and environmental ruin is a true threat to national security and life in general if that matters. Fossil fuel can have a perfect case made against it in court for simply being evil.

 

I am on the boat that the current economical environment simply does not really foster the survival of alternative energy or any real strategy for that matter that would even become remotely comparable to modern fossil fuel applications. I think the government needs to find a way to provide that window in the private sector. I don't mean a tiny one like some three billion dollar grant or whatever. Someone needs to have some gusto and push for a real plan with people that could make such work.

[Mr Skeptic]

npts2020 brings up another good point. The amount of regulation that will inevitably go with nuclear has the potential to create a monopoly situation. Having other sources of power would drastically reduce that problem.