Nuclear Yes/No/Maybe

turbine?

The holy grail
If the money invested in fusion r&d was invested in renewables there would be electricity to burn!

The cost of pv is so high at the moment because the manufacturing facilites are so limited. If there was a 200% increase in production cost could be driven down to about 3p kW/h

rsynnott

turbine? wrote:

The holy grail
If the money invested in fusion r&d was invested in renewables there would be electricity to burn!

Really? There has been quite little investment in fusion for power.

Samos

rsynnott wrote:

The other options aren't ready to work now on a large scale.

All the better reason to start investing in them...nobody ever said things chould change completely overnight. These techologies do work on a small scale, and ought not to looked ove in favour of a large artificially cheap source, which neglects the full extent of the ecologicl and health impacts.

People will choose to go back to the stone age? Good lord.

I don't think I said (or even implied) this! Refute a straw man if you will and posit a false dilemma, but the fact remains that personal greed for more energy and the limited amount of resources on this planet do not a happy marrriage make. So, a choice must be made. I think the first things to go will be unnecessary luxuries and frivilous technologies. We won't suddenly lose all medical, engineering and scientific knowledge, and start living in caves if nuclear energy is deemed unviable!

Again, remember that the realistic, economical alternative is coal. How you think nuclear waste on the moon even compares to half the world covered in smog, I don't understand. Ideally, yes, it would be nice to not pollute, and not produce dangerous waste (nuclear waste is not in itself pollution). It's not, at the moment, a practical option.

Again, I didn't advocate coal as an option, so you've just refuted a straw man. How is allowing pollution a practical option? In the short term it might make economic sense to cut corners, but in the long run it seems irresponsible and wrong to allow others to suffer for your immediate gratification and lack of foresight. At the moment we have ways to reduce pollution from fossil fuels (if we insist on using them) and the ability to develop cleaner renewable technologies.

And how do you intend to power your rocket of radioactive waste to the moon once oil is gone?

Are you aware that before the advent of all that horrible, nasty, mean technology, most of the world, even what constituted the developed world at the time, starved and froze? That the average life expectancy was in the 30s? Why, precisely, do you think it would be a good idea to give up technology.

Again, I didn't say give up all technology, just those that cause much more harm than good, and which cannot be sustained.

And I would argue that modern weapons technology has made most large wars unfeasible, computer viruses are an insignificant problem and computers are now indispensable, that the congested roads are the cost of an extensive transport system? I'm sure that in the middle ages people starved stress-free

And bear in mind that the population that our pre-industrial society was unable to adequately support was a couple of hundred million.

So, do you think that everything in "modern" society is all rosy, and the only threat to this idyllic world are those who think it makes sense to curtail growth before there is nothing left?

Would this be the undesirable fate involving nuclear power plants where one might, one day, blow up and kill a few thousand people, the one involving clouds of smog killing and maiming thousands or tens of thousands a year, as in early industrial London, the one involving us trying, and failing, to keep the world going on windmills, or the one involving 95% of the world starving to death?

I am referring to the fate where things become steadily worse because the majority of people fail to take responsible actions to avert avoidable suffering. I did not advocate any of the above possibilities that you list. It does not have to be any of these. It is complex to predict all long-term consequences of any major decision we make now. We can say with some cetainty what the largest risks will be, and make plans to avoid these. I think one of the largest components in preventing energy shortages involves a concerted effort at population control, and this along with minimizing the reliance on dangerous energy sources.

turbine?

www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/news_events/member_news/BEA_WS_1104.asp

The present world-wide fusion budget is about $1.2billion/yr

www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/et21/introduction/introduction.asp

spending - and its decline where demonstrated - is also heavily skewed in favour of nuclear fission and fusion (which accounts for over 50% of total energy RD&D expenditure by IEA member governments).