Reply #13: I am an intellectual and a space buff. [View All]

[megatherium]

The alternative to nuclear is coal. It's that simple: if we shut down nuclear, instead of getting 50% of our power from coal, it would by 70%. If you think solar will take up the slack, you're in fantasy land: a 1 gigawatt solar station would consist of 60 square miles of collectors -- perhaps the largest engineering project in human history. Wind might play a greater role, but there are nimby issues with wind which limit its availability; plus wind is intermittent.

By continuing to rely on coal, we are continuing to rip apart the landscape, especially in West Virginia, where the custom is to sheer entire mountains off to expose a coal seam, then fill the neighboring valleys with the rubble. The resulting land is unusable for agriculture or anything else; a fact which is obscured by the planting of a worthless weed as a groundcover. (This also leads to more property loss in floods, affecting the poor people of Appalachia who cannot afford to leave nor afford to sue mining companies.)

And of course, coal is a horror show for global warming. Only the coal industry still argues that global warming is of no concern.