Reply #47: Well, there's a start. [View All]

[TheWraith]

"This is vastly different than what Nnadir does, which is repeating out and out lies about how solar energy has never produced an exajoule."

Actually, it hasn't. We're talking about solar power, not insolation/solar flux. You're the one manipulating the definition of "solar power" to include all light hitting the Earth's surface.

"Furthermore, why is it that my abrasive language is a problem when Nnadir is well known to be inflammatory and even his OP here is inflammatory tripe that essentially infers if you aren't pro-nuke you don't comprehend the basic facts about energy science."

I'm not pretending to speak for NNadir, but I can understand why he gets annoyed. A lot of people here who buy into the solar power mythos refuse to acknowledge the basic math of the situation. It's like that 100 x 100 miles myth, which is most often repeated as 100 square miles. It makes the whole thing sound simple without giving anyone an appreciation of the actual scope, starting with the fact that that would be 1000 times as great a production and deployment of solar panels as has been achieved in the last 50 years. Or the fact that you'd need much more area to provide for overnight demand, plus a way to store terawatt-hours of energy, something that no existing technology is capable of.

If I had three wishes, I'd certainly provide the world with a dense source of power that doesn't have the potential downside of fission. But right now, fusion is still at least 10 years out, and all the alternatives are either even more theoretical, or unsuitable for true mass production, which means that we're looking for the least of all possible evils. I would have a solution now, rather than wait another twenty or thirty years for something I considered more perfect and uncompromising, burning filthy coal and oil all the while. Europe knows this, which is why places like France have had pollution from their power industry drop by 80-90%, and greenhouse emissions by similar numbers.

"Nnadir and the rest of you pro-nuclear folks act like a bunch of bullies spouting intellectual bullshit and I think it's reasonable for someone to take off the gloves and call you on it."

I'd invite you to try and debunk anything I've said here using facts. Not myths, not random assertions. Show me the math that says we can produce enough energy with solar and wind to displace fossil fuels, within reasonable production goals, and store it, without the ecological disaster that would be entailed by having to cover 50,000 square miles of wilderness with solar panels.

"I've been here on DU for 3+ years with well over a thousand posts up and numerous threads surfed."

Lovely. Me too. Though actually, I've probably been here closer to 5 years.

"Hands down Nnadir and some of the of the other pro-nuke contingent in this forum are the biggest bunch of jerks on DU."

Then your exposure to DU is rather limited. We have far more than our share of jerks, and to be honest, many of them are on your side.

"The truth is that the sun provides a huge amount of energy that far surpasses any nuclear or fossil fuel fantasies."

And little to none of that is capturable with current tech. We simply cannot produce enough cells to generate the terawatts our planetary civilization requires, and even if we could, we'd be desperate for places to put them. Sure, total energy of the sun is huge. But most of what hits the Earth goes to supporting our biosphere, and of what's left over we can only harvest a tiny fraction.

"As for your dollar figures, you are just cherry picking numbers because you choose to ignore all the externalities of nuclear energy procurement."

Actually, no, I'm not. I'm going on established baseline figures for costs. It's not like this stuff is a mystery, or some giant secret the way it's portrayed: exact costs for maintainence, fuel, decommissioning, and storage are all factored into operating costs for a nuclear plant.

"Worldwide there's 437 nuclear power plants that supplies about 6% of the world's electricity."

Actually, that figure is 17%.

"In your fantasies, you would need 20x or more than that just to meet the demand to stamp out fossil fuel based sources of electricity (keep in mind we use more and more electricity every year and it doesn't take long for the demand to double)."

No, actually you'd need a total of about 2,600 plants, give or take, an increase of six fold. Minus the 437 already operating, that's 2,163. To build that many plants would cost around $3.3 trillion dollars, or as much money as the United States alone spends on oil in 44 hours. Think about that for a minute. For two days' oil costs, all global electrical production could be greenhouse free. Not to mention, those demand numbers are based on peak consumption--off peak, there would be tons of excess power to do things like desalinate water for drought-stricken areas and charge electric vehicles.

"I guess you can cut the total number of plants down by making the plants bigger, but that doesn't mean the total number still doesn't go up by magnitudes."

Magnitudes means orders of ten. Even doubling and then redoubling global electrical demand doesn't get you to an increase of even one magnitude.

"And once you have all these fabulous brazillions of nuclear plants in such awesome places like aren't much different than the old soviet union that basically operate on the Potemkin principle then you have really fucked up our world for our grandchildren."

You rode that one totally off the rails. I honestly don't know what you're trying to say--providing electricity for uncivilized places is bad and dangerous? Logically, the 1st world countries that built the reactors would have to supply staff to run them, since I doubt that Eritrea and East Timor are producing that many nuclear physics engineers.