60 Minutes regarding nuclear energy

[SHRED]

I watched in disgust tonight.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/06/60minutes/main2655782.shtml

Wouldn't a better solution be to decentralize the means of energy production.
To have home and neighborhood based sources (wind, solar, etc...) rather that centralized/monopolistic power corporations dictating to us the amount we receive and price we pay?

I noticed that none of this pro-nuke segment factored in the amount of energy it takes to build, mine, and maintain these plants.
I am not surprised at 60 Minutes for airing this considering who "butters their bread":


WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC.
Westinghouse Electric Company, part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)
whos #1 on the Board of Directors? None other than:
Frank Carlucci (of the Carlyle Group)

Television Holdings:
* CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US.
* CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute.
* Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks.
* Group W Satellite Communications.
Other Holdings:
* Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry.
* Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US.
* Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Nuclear power is safe until something goes wrong -60 Minutes

[NNadir]

11. Automobiles are safe until "something goes wrong." Coal plants are never safe.

Gas plants are never safe. Oil refineries are never safe.

Aircraft are safe until something goes wrong.

Electricity is safe until something goes wrong, like a short that causes a fire.

Imagine if every mention of automobiles in the media was accompanied with a discussion of automobile accidents, and if every discussion of aircraft in the media included a description of air crashes.

Imagine if every discussion of televisions discussed electrocution.

Our fucking media is so fucking technologically ignorant, has its head so far up its ass, that in a way, the happy thing about running out of energy will be the death of the television.

I don't know why anyone would watch 60 minutes to find out anything about energy. Our media has had no credibility on this issue in the last 3 or 4 decades.

I didn't watch the show, but I'll bet that there were at least 5 automobile ads, not one mentioning the tens of thousands of people killed each year by automobiles. But in the nuclear case, there was, I'll bet, all kinds of talk about accidents, even though there hasn't been a fatal power plant nuclear accident in 20 years.

[TheWraith]

18. Too true.

People have an exaggerated fear of nuclear power due to a handful of high-profile accidents, hyped-up Hollywood depictions, and overall fearmongering.

I really have to ask whether Chernobyl, which killed about 4000-9000 people, is that much worse than ten thousand dead from the Dow Chemical plant in India, that nuclear power needs to be eradicated rather than regulated, but the chemical industry is okay.

For that matter, 40,000 people a year are killed in car accidents in the US alone, and again in the US 400,000 people die per year from smoking. Nobody's calling for the elimination of cars, and even on DU suggesting that we get rid of tobacco is like sticking your head into an incinerator.

I myself am not entirely thrilled with the potential downside of nuclear power, but given that it is a potential downside--compared to the very real and obvious issues associated with the other major competitors, coal, oil and gas--I'm perfectly fine with its use. It's pretty low on the list of evils considering the benefits. Life is nothing if not a series of weighed risks. It's silly to worry about something with such long odds against it when there are certainties coming to get you.

[Captain Angry]

2. And that is why you invest in Uranium stocks.

The best choices will not be made by the government. They will never allow decentralization of that kind of infrastructure.

[Warpy]

3. A couple of things bothered me

First, the "new" technology of putting nuclear fuel inside graphite would seem to have been done before-----at Chernobyl. Yes, it's far less likely to melt down at its lower temperatures if everything is working correctly. However, graphite combusts at a fairly low temperature in regular oxygen rich air. They didn't address that, did they?

Second, the French gal was lying when she said solar didn't work on cloudy days. It does. The problem with wind and solar is the storage of surplus energy for retrieval later. Batteries aren't that great since they have environmental issues of their own. However, using surplus energy for hydrolysis and then using the oxygen and hydrogen to power a fuel cell for nocturnal energy sounds like a winner of a system. Cost can be defrayed and a larger, hotter running and more efficient fuel cell purchased for a neighborhood cooperative.

Plus they still don't know what to do with the garbage a nuclear plant generates, garbage that can remain deadly for thousands of years.

The solution to the loss of oil as the all purpose fuel is likely to be a combination of many technologies including wind, fuel cell, solar, hydro, geothermal, and wave. Looking for simple solutions is for simpletons.

[Gregorian]

6. I was just discussing hydrolysis as storage today.

Two mechanical engineers on their bikes. Five hours of riding through forests and talking about energy, society, bikes.

I think it's an attractive way to go. But I am no longer familiar with the storage of hydrogen. I suppose it has advanced. A fuel cell, and h2 storage. But it's a bit more complicated than that. I recall the Home Power magazine article on it many years ago. The guy had a setup that resembled a lab. Pressure gages and regulators and piping everywhere. Mad scientist.

One problem is the energy required to manufacture these types of systems, and their lifetime period. It's a study. Argh. I'm totaled. Got to switch off the computer and soak my tired bones.

[Warpy]

25. PBS had a snippet one night

about a prototype house with a closed energy system. There was a bank of solar panels on either side of the front door, presumably facing south, that supplied all the energy needs during the day. Appliances, lights, and a few gadgets were all energy miser models off the shelf.

In the back yard there was a large shed that housed the electrolysis setup and the fuel cell.

This seems like an ideal setup for mostly decentralized power generation near the point of use. The prototype house was very small and the shed was very large, which is why I suggested that a neighborhood fuel cell setup might be a better idea. Utility companies would move from owning transmission lines and transporting juice (and losing a lot of it in the process) to providing system maintenance. It could work.

The bottom line is that there is a prototype of this sort of closed system that doesn't require environmentally unsound battery storage up and running. It's something to keep in mind for when the oil really does start to dry up.

[Cleita]

7. My DH and I had a couple of solar panels on our trailer, which

worked fine on cloudy days and when we were shaded by tall trees. Not only that solar panels store energy to be used later so while the sun is shining you store your energy in batteries to use later.

[freethought]

13. I saw the piece

I would like to make a few points.

Chernobyl wasn't a pebble bed reactor. The particular design of the reactor that exploded at Chernobyl has a reputation for being "unstable". Additionally, operators at Chernobyl were conducting an experiment that they should not have been doing. What did happen was, when plant operators finally figured out what was going on in the reactor they tried to shut down the chain reaction by lowering the control rods. These rods were tipped with graphite for some reason, and lowering the rods cause an energy spike which sent the reactor into oblivion.

The French seem to have made good use of it and as a result they are reaping the benefits such as clean air and lower carbon emissions. And who says the only things the French are good at is wine and cheese?

There is no one magic bullet to the release of greenhouse gases. Even I don't believe that nuclear power should be dismissed as neither should any other of the other methods you mentioned. Every option should be explored.

[TheWraith]

17. Chernobyl didn't have a full containment structure, and had serious design flaws to boot.

Last but not least, they deliberately circumvented normal safety proceedures for the sake of the experiment they were running.

"However, using surplus energy for hydrolysis and then using the oxygen and hydrogen to power a fuel cell for nocturnal energy sounds like a winner of a system."

I believe you mean electrolysis, not hydrolysis, since the latter doesn't produce hydrogen. And the problem with that is that electrolysis is quite inefficient. The hydrogen produced is usually only worth about half of the energy that it takes to obtain it.

"Plus they still don't know what to do with the garbage a nuclear plant generates, garbage that can remain deadly for thousands of years."

So? A nuclear plant generates about 30 tons of waste per year, which is carefully sequestered and kept away from everyone. A coal-fired power plant produces four thousand tons of waste per year, which is vented directly into the atmosphere. And that coal waste includes a vast amount of radiogenic material, too. For that matter, give me ten percent of what we spend on oil in a year, and I'll build you a Gauss accelerator that will launch our spent fuel rods onto an impact course with the sun.

[Warpy]

24. Yes, that's true, but what they had

worked well for many years until the graphite was allowed to reach ignition temperature.

There's nothing like a once in a million fuckup to expose design flaws, and I think this new US model will be exactly the same.

The problem with nuclear power is the disposal of the garbage from everyday use and also from a massive failure. Pripyat and a great deal of countryside around it is still uninhabitable. Also, people are fallible creatures who nod off, who bump into things, and whose brains go on vacation when they're under physical or emotional stress. Shit happens.

Until technology figures out a way to decontaminate environmental damage and until humans are made perfect, I'll continue to oppose nuclear power generation.

[TheWraith]

32. Do you also oppose cars?

Just curious, are you equally opposed to every technology where failures can cause death and destruction? Cars kill 40,000 people a year in the US, compared to around 4000-9000 killed by Chernobyl. I don't mean to be glib, but airplane crashes, chemical leaks, oil spills--there are too many risks to even seriously think for a moment of eliminating all of them. If you tried, you'd end up killing civilization. But the reality is that with reasonable precautions, most major risks can be reduced to the point where they become trivial. And it's certainly no more unappealing than the very real, very uncontained and uncontainable results of coal-fired plants.

[jpak]

26. Electrolysis is highly efficient: theoretical max 85-94%, in practice 70%

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/electrol.html

Hydrogen fuel cells have similar theoretical and practical efficiencies.

In practice, the overall efficiency of hydrogen electrolysis and fuel consumption is >60% - 60% of the energy used to produce hydrogen is converted into electricity.

In comparison, nuclear reactors convert <30% of fission energy into electricity.

[TheWraith]

33. There's a reason they call it theoretical maximum. It's not achievable.

In an ideal situation, you may be able to get better efficiency out of electrolysis, but you're still talking about a major loss of energy when converting it to hydrogen, and another loss of efficiency when converting it back to electricity, all in all a wasteful process when you consider the far better economies of batteries.

"In comparison, nuclear reactors convert <30% of fission energy into electricity."

And what does that have to do with anything? Are you trying to create a false equivalency? Nuclear fission provides an incredibly high energy density, whereas solar has a very low power density, making relative efficiencies meaningless.

[jpak]

42. Electrolysis for hydrogen is highly efficient and claims to the contrary are false.

Furthermore, CHP fuel cells are also *highly* efficient in terms of deliverable energy. 85% of the hydrogen energy is converted to electricity and recoverable heat (for hot water and/or space heating).

and the comparison to nuclear plants is valid.

period.

[suziedemocrat]

23. EXACTLY!!!! I ignore anyone who dismisses solar while ignoring "storage".

WHY do we not STORE energy? I don't drive down the road with a gas pump attached to the car, I store the gasoline in my car and use it when it is needed. Why does a power plant crank out all this power, and what is not immediately used is wasted? Dumb design - IMO. I don't get paid every hour and what I don't immediately spend is lost. I have a Savings Account, and earn money when I can, and spend it when I need it. The same with Solar and Wind, we should capture it at the best time for capture, and store it for use when we need it. It doesn't take a math wiz to understand this common principle.

You are right that what we need is better/cheaper batteries. Also, IMO, the more distributed the system, the better! The only people who benefit from large, centralized power systems are the fat cats who are already so rich it's immoral. POWER TO THE PEOPLE means distributed power!

First Step for Everyone's Energy Independence is to Reduce Power Consumption: passive solar design, live close to work, fuel efficient car, etc.

Second Step is Independent Power systems, like Solar, Wind, etc., with the appropriate storage systems.

[TheWraith]

34. Storage doesn't change the core problem with solar power.

It's about energy density, not peak demand. Solar power would require an immense amount of square area to produce a significant amount of power, and it's vastly more expensive per watt than pretty much any other form of generation. When I researched a solar roof for my home, I determined that it would only supply about a third of my power requirements, and even then would take about ten years to even pay for itself. To replace a single nuclear plant, you'd need 80 square kilometers of solar panels--probably closer to 100, when you figure in area for access roads and maintainence. To supply the energy needs for the entire US, you'd need to pave over Nevada. To replace all electrical and fossil fuel needs for the entire Earth, you'd need to fully cover an area four times the size of California. There's the problem with solar. Feel free to do the calculations yourself if you don't believe me. Maximum production around ten watts per square foot under perfect conditions, average maximum production around 4-6 hours per day. Demand is 13.5 trillion watts, times 24 to get watt-hours.

That's not to say storage isn't a problem--we have no current capability to economically store such vast quantities of energy. But even if we did, the core issue remains that solar simply is not an energy-dense technology.

[suziedemocrat]

38. You miss the point! Solar doesn't make sense except in distributed systems.

Preferably, capture systems very close to the point of use. I used to live in Denver, and I could hear the electric wires (newly installed electrical wires) crackling when I drove near them - over the sound of traffic! I think the idea of having one single state covered with solar panels to be used throughout the united states is ridiculous. If you put solar panels on roofs of homes or over parking lots, you could cover the same area, but capture the energy close to the point of use, reducing the energy lost during transmission.

You can look at the illustration below and see how much energy is rejected in our current system, over 50%.

Also, 10 years for pay-back is not so bad. It will take me 30 years to pay off my house. Of course my house will last longer than 30 years, hopefully, but solar panels have a lifespan over 10 years. Buying solar panels compared to buying energy from the electrical company is a lot like buying a home instead of renting. When you first buy a home, your payment might be the same, or even more than your rent. But you lock in your mortgage payment and are insulated from rent increases that really make a difference when you get older. When I buy solar panels, I calculate the time for ROI using today's energy rates. However, I have also insulated myself from any increases in electrical rates.

[Gregorian]

4. I'm not worried. When going off grid is attractive, people will do it.

I'm preparing for photovoltaic power soon.


When people start going off grid, GE no longer will get their 10-30 cents per Kilo Watt Hour. It's understandable they'd not want to lose that. If they had more foresight, and integrity, they'd lead the way and perhaps gain even more. I'll probably spend $30k on a system. I'm not sure what prices are now. But that was about right, ten years ago for a similarly rated home. Ie., fat ass with diswasher, etc.

[roody]

10. Solar and on-grid is easy and costs less.

When the sun is out, the excess goes to my neighbors and my bill goes negative. In cloudy winter, I use up my negative electric bill.

[TheWraith]

20. No one's paying 30 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Here in New York we have the third-highest average energy price in the country, and it's only 10.4 cents per KWh. My own provider, which is amongst the highest standard rates in the country, is only 12.5. Real average prices are 7 to 8 cents per KWh.

Anyway, a word of advice. Forget solar. Buying yourself a medium sized wind turbine would produce a lot more power for less cost.

[razzleberry]

22. Denmark pays thirty cents per KWH

really 29.5 cents, in 2005

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/elecprih.html

[Gregorian]

27. Thirty two.

I went from 6.5 cents in Oregon, where it's hydroelectric, to a scale of 11-33 cents where I currently reside. Much of last month was at the 32 cent rate. Just so you know. We ARE paying that.

[TheWraith]

31. Then you're being absolutely robbed. That's 4x the national average. NT

[oldhippie]

41. $0.16 per kW-Hr average on my last bill........

.... in Central Texas.

[Cleita]

5. I turned it off. As someone who lives near a nuke plant and

who gets much of my electricity from it, the big problem is dealing with the waste it creates, nevermind the possibility of meltdowns. I guess I should have kept it on to find out how France gets rid of their radioactive waste, but I leave it up to you to tell me if they even addressed it since I got the impression the piece was to sell nuclear energy to us. Oh yes, it's so safe that the county distributes pills for free to all it's residents that are supposed to reduce the effects of radiation poisoning if there is a little accident. It doesn't seem like a very good solution to me, since there are all those other options like solar and wind power that we should be working on.

[SHRED]

8. France recycles the spent rods to be used again

They covered that.

One BIG problem with that is that it gives up weapons grade plutonium during the process.

[Cobalt-60]

9. let's not forget the energy for fuel refining

Nuclear fuel can't be used as it comes out of the ground.
It must be enriched. And that takes a butt load of energy.
It might make sense if the fuel were refined with solar power and shipped to the far north and south where solar isn't practical.
Unless it's Oak Ridge, Tennessee, it's unlikely to be refined with hydro electric power.
But it is in fact refined with the very same fossil fuels it supposedly replaces.
The nuke plants are sold and operated by the same energy cartel that sells the fossil energy to charge them up. So the constant pressure to get new plants built has an obvious motive.
Let me add in closing that it is inevitably the local taxpayers saddled with the vast financial burden of cleaning up the site after the plant is retired.

[NNadir]

12. Solar energy to enrich nuclear fuel?

Are you out of your mind?

Solar energy can't even fuel a Denver suburb.

It does not take a "butt load of energy" to "enrich fuel."

Nuclear energy produces 30 exajoules of primary energy. Do you know what that means? Do you suppose that 30 exajoules of energy is used enriching uranium?

Hydroelectricity on the entire planet produces 10 exajoules, and guess what? The vast majority of that does not go to enrich uranium. The amount used to enrich uranium doesn't even approximate the energy output of the Hoover dam.

Where exactly do you come by this information?

Solar energy has yet to produce a single exajoule in a single year. It couldn't power ethanol refineries, or even 1/1000ths of the world's computer monitors.

I'll bet that the viewers of this website consume more electricity talking about solar energy than the solar industry can dream of producing.

You are mouthing rather silly mythology.

The world needs 470 exajoules of energy, and fast, and it all must come without burning fossil fuels. The world will fail to do this without nuclear energy, and many billions of people are likely to die as a result.

[Cobalt-60]

14. I could have hamsters turn a generator if I so desired

Solar power is of diminishing utility as the location grows closer to the poles.
Abundant equatorial solar power rather than scarce and filthy coal or oil can be used to refine the nuclear fuel and ship it to those areas.
Some can't stand the thought of of energy not being marked up by multiple big business before reaching the consumer.
As for the obvious scorn of solar power, consider this.
Every erg of energy produced on this planet by combustion or nuclear reaction is already solar power. It's been converted to the traditional fuels with which we are familiar.
Animals fed by solar powered plants or other animals that fed on solar powered plants as well as the surviving plants were compressed over millenia to form hydrocarbon fuel.
Heavy elements like uranium and thorium were cooked in another star billions of years ago before finding their way here.
Finally,
I'm not going to get into flame war with an obvious shill for the nuclear industry.
I submit that everyone thoroughly research nuclear power on their own.

[TheWraith]

19. Your arguments are specious.

"Abundant equatorial solar power rather than scarce and filthy coal or oil can be used to refine the nuclear fuel and ship it to those areas."

And yet, other forms of energy far more abundant--for instance, nuclear power itself, or hydro, or whatever's on tap--could just as easily be used. The obsession on solar power makes no real sense.

Oh, and solar power isn't quite as abundant as you seem to think it is, since it would require about 80 square kilometers of solar cells to replace a single nuclear reactor. Do the math.

"Some can't stand the thought of of energy not being marked up by multiple big business before reaching the consumer."

Strawman much?

"As for the obvious scorn of solar power, consider this.
Every erg of energy produced on this planet by combustion or nuclear reaction is already solar power. It's been converted to the traditional fuels with which we are familiar."

True, and also completely irrelevant. What we're talking about is photovolatic panels, which--as NNadir pointed out--have yet to supply more than 0.2% of the planetary energy demand, despite decades of hype.

"I'm not going to get into flame war with an obvious shill for the nuclear industry."

I heartily suggest that you retract that statement and apologize. Personal attacks are forbidden on DU. NNadir challenged you with facts--you've failed to respond in kind.

[Cobalt-60]

21. have it your way, kids

My mission at DU is to facilitate the demolition of the Republicon Party.
I'm sorry I pointed out that our associate sounds like a shill for Kerr McGee.
It was like drawing attention to a third party's fart.
I don't retract anything else.
Nuclear power plants make money only for the Republicon corporations that sell and operate them.
The taxpayer is stuck with the monstrous expense of nuclear waste and site disposal.
Even if we went mega nuclear, eventually all the readily extractable uranium will be dug out.
there's the plutonium breeder cycle, of course.
That could be sustained. It does mean a lot of Pu239 flying around. its just a matter of time until the wrong people get some.
We will ultimately be driven to extracting solar power whether it be via biological processes or direct conversion. Why waste effort on intermediate steps?
And finally, anything that Republicons love as much as nuclear power has got to be a mistake.
I will admit that fission power kicks ass in naval vessels, spacecraft, and Antarctic bases.
Those are my last words here on the subject, gentlemen.
the floor is yours.

[Dead_Parrot]

29. The Finnish government is a republican corporation?

Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for the heads up.

[Dogmudgeon]

36. Big Business and Energy

I'm already there:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x91175#91196

--p!

[NNadir]

28. Well you're not going to get in flame war but you're not going to make sense either.

First of all, your science is well, wrong.

Some can't stand the fact that their little political fantasies are going to kill people by appealing to inaction on the most serious issue of our times, climate change.

Neither geothermal nor nuclear energy are "solar energy." The source of geothermal energy, if you had graduated from a good elementary school, is nuclear decay, and it is an absurd bit of ignorance to lecture about supernovas. It is irrelevant and shows a poor comprehension of the subject of energy.

Ignorance kills, OK? Nuclear energy <em>saves</em> lives.

Nor is it true that waving your hands and discussing the energy history of cow shit can produce a single exajoule of electricity.

You are a shill, I think for the "do nothing because fossil fuels are OK energy."

[suziedemocrat]

30. Why do you suppose Google is going Solar then?

Because the like the "good press" and they essentially write it off as advertising?

Because they don't know what an exajoule is, and even more importantly, don't know that "solar energy has yet to produce a single exajoule in a single year?"

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070329-its-easy-being-green-google-goes-solar.html

The move to solar made sense for Google, and not just "hippie Gaia-loving" sense. Ravitz said that Google will earn its investment back in 7.5 years, after which it will continue to enjoy inexpensive power for decades. With the company sprawled across a large campus of many low buildings, roof space was easily available. Solar also has the unique property of pumping out more energy when power is the most expensive—peak afternoon hours. When air conditioners across California kick into action on sunny days, Google generates the most power.

9,212 Sharp photovoltaic modules now cover the rooftops of the Googleplex, each one capable of pumping out 208W of DC power in full sun. To gain even more solar surface area, Google installed solar panels as "shades" over several of its parking lots, keeping cars cool and generating power at the same time. The installation can generate 30 percent of Google's peak demand power, or enough to light about 1,000 California homes.

The solar modules are wired in series, 14 to each circuit, and their output is sent to 10 SatCon inverters. The inverters transform the DC power to utility-grade AC, and are 96 percent efficient at installation (efficiency drops each year that they are in operation). The inverters are then tied into Google's own power systems and the general electrical grid. The system is set up for "net metering," which means that any excess power generated by the panels is pumped back into the state grid and Google receives a credit for that power.

Here's one part of the article in your favor:

It's still an expensive tech to install (though prices are dropping). Ravitz wouldn't give an exact figure for the project, but did say that it was only doable thanks to subsidies from local utility PG&E and a generous federal tax credit.

Appendix A:

Definition for Exajoule: A quintillion (10^18) joules

Definition for Joule: The basic SI unit of energy. A joule is equal to the kinetic energy of a two-kilgram mass moving at the speed of one meter per second.

Definition for Watt: One watt is one joule (the SI unit of energy) per second.

[NNadir]

35. They're no more "solar" than the State of New Jersey.

You apparently have no sense of scale, or you would know what the units and numbers you are reporting actually mean.

Everybody falls for this cheap marketing trick, without doing the math, and noting that a solar "watt" is 20% of a physics watt, since the best solar facilities manage 20% capacity utilization.

In a literate society, this sort of silliness would not be taken seriously.

Google gets the vast majority of its electricity from fossil fuels and hydroelectric. The energy produced by these 9,212 is the equivalent of a small diesel generator, a 400kW generator (time weighted over 24 hours.)

It's a joke and a public relations scam.

We all like reality will kill us, and you know what? It will.

[suziedemocrat]

37. Can you give me a reference for your statement that a solar watt is 20% of a Physics Watt?

Also the article says: "The installation can generate 30 percent of Google's peak demand power, or enough to light about 1,000 California homes". I didn't know you could power 1,000 homes with a small diesel generator. Your arguments don't ring true. I don't think Google would do this simply for "public relations." Go ahead, insult my mensa eligible intelligence, you seem to be better at insults than anything else.

[Dead_Parrot]

39. It doesn't say power, it says light.

Sounds about right. At least in terms of Joules, although it makes me wonder what the fuck is wrong with Californians that they have the lights on at noon on a cloudless day, the only time the array would generate its rated capacity. Have windows been banned or something?

Attempting to light 1,000 homes with PV at night is another story, of course.

Google will benefit from having extra power when they need the A/C most, so it's a sane idea for them. Unless they want to pull the blinds and put the lights on, of course.

[freethought]

15. I saw the piece as "pick-your-poison".

The French seemed to have good safe use of nuclear power. Is it perfect? Of course not, it has its drawbacks. Some of them are pretty substantial.

There are a great deal of good points made in this thread. But there is no one magic bullet in doing something to reduce/eliminate carbon emissions. I do not think we should shut the door on nuclear power. There are drawbacks to just about every form of energy generation.

You could turn North and South Dakota into a supergiant windfarm and theoretically generate all the power you need. The problems is getting that power to where its needed on the coasts. You loose power when you send electric current over long distances. Sorry, we don't have room temp superconductive transmission lines yet.

Geothermal is another great solution. But where are the suitable sites in relation to where the power is needed? How many good sites are there in this country?

Solar-I think PV solar has great potential it will just take time to get there.

I just believe that with the specter of global climate change hovering over us and our future, no possible solution should be dismissed. I do think that nuclear power will be, at least in some way, part of that solution.

[Dogmudgeon]

16. The "Nukes are corporate" argument?

GE and RCA (which owns NBC) are huge companies, joined at the hip, and they build nukes.

AND they make solar panels and high-tech windmills.

ANY large-scale energy enterprise is going to be corporate. We must plan on dealing with corporate power in the "green" industries, too, whether or not nuclear power is involved.

The argument for nuclear power is in their low pollution output and their high energy efficiency. The argument against nuclear power is in the risks involved with nuclear material. Corporate issues are completely separate.

And this kind of calculation applies to ALL forms of energy production. We will overlook it at our peril.

--p!

[DODI]

40. Westinghouse Electric no longer owns CBS, BNFL no longer

owns Westinghouse. Westinghouse is owned by Toshiba Corp.