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In the long term solar is hardly interesting either. In fact if green is what you want, nuclear (or if we are lucky Fusion) is the way to go but the environment

In the long term solar is hardly interesting either. In fact if green is what you want, nuclear (or if we are lucky Fusion) is the way to go but the environmental organizations are for some reason worried about that. It's not just a matter of the market and political will, there are some fundamental limits on how much energy we can get from solar and wind. They are linear solutions to exponential problems so to speak. I have yet to see any calculation based in realistic metrics (not just wishful thinking) that outphases oil. I hope for it as much as everyone else but I am not prepared to do it at any price.

epistasis 8y ago
> In fact if green is what you want, nuclear (or if we are lucky Fusion) is the way to go but the environmental organizations are for some reason worried about that. > It's not just a matter of the market and political will, That's absolutely untrue, nuclear is waaaaaaay too expensive and old-fashioned to compete in the modern world. Take a few seconds to look at any of the attempts at construction in the Western world. Nuclear is super expensive, and not nearly scalable enough. In the US, Vogtle and VC Summer have been nuclear disasters, but economic disasters. They had a super-supportive regulatory environment and neighbors around the construction sites, but it's just not feasible to build at a reasonable cost. Nuclear is such a terrible idea that there's no way to get private funding for it; it has to have huge amounts of government level backing for it to become even vaguely economic feasible. Look at the UK's attempts to sell their nuclear generation capacity, all of a sudden when they were writing financial documents they had to not lie, and they couldn't get anybody to buy them. And now the UK has the economic disaster of the new Hinkley construction. There's a batch of small-moduler reactor (SMR) startups that may improve the cost and scalability of nuclear, but I'm extremely skeptical. Such SMRs have long been rejected as too costly, it's not at all clear what would make them competitive now. It may happen, but it's further out than the massive scale-back of fossil fuels. > there are some fundamental limits on how much energy we can get from solar and wind. These "fundamental" limits are not in the realm of possibility of limiting our current use. >They are linear solutions to exponential problems so to speak. I'm not sure what part could be exponential. Our energy use is nothing like exponential, and in developed countries it is increasingly decoupled from GDP and other exponential things. Most of our "energy" use is actually wasted energy due to the inherent inefficiency of thermal electricity generation, or, god forbid, the pathetic efficiency of combustion engines in vehicles. We don't yet have applications for energy that could come close to any "fundamental limit" from solar. If we do, then perhaps fusion or something will be useful, but fusion is even more of a pipedream than trying to construct
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Nuclear is the only form of energy of all those we know thats both. Green, reliable, scaleable. The fact that it countries shied away from it because of environmental organizations is the real catastrophe. But as usual the best solution doesn't always win. Solar and wind would also be expensive if they hadn't been subsidized. Nuclear has killed fewer people than coal, fossil fuel, wind and solar. Plus once built it last for a very very long time. Perhaps you should take a few seconds to look at the actual data. There is nothing old-fashioned about nuclear especially not the new types of reactors and there is certainly no other form of energy besides fusion which can provide the amount of energy nuclear can. So no nuclear is the idea you should support if you actually care about the environment. Solar is toxic to the environment and requires quite a lot to keep functioning wind is the same. To get wind and solar to work consistently and reliably through some sort of grid system is going to be a project many many times bigger than nuclear and it's not going to be the increasing demand from the developing countries where more and more people get into the middle class. So you are from my perspective completely wrong about your idea of solar and wind as being the future of energy for the world. They are not and will not be. They simply aren't reliable and scaleable enough sources fuell cells or not.
  - epistasis 8y ago
    It doesn't matter how much I support nuclear, my "support" does absolutely nothing to make it economical or buildable. It's all a fantasy. The only reason that nuclear gets built is so that a country can support their nuclear submarines/aircraft carriers. Nuclear energy is not a realistic solution to anything, because building it is not realistic. >Solar and wind would also be expensive if they hadn't been subsidized. The entirety of nuclear has been subsidized as the technology has been created, just as solar and wind have. What matters now is what can be built. Nuclear can not be built without spending 3x-5x what we'd spend for equivalent wind or solar. And that's ignoring the cases where billions of dollars have been spent and then completely abandoned. Your doubt of solar and wind are at least 10 years out of date. As are your nuclear ideas, because they were the same things being said in 2008 during the "nuclear renaissance." It all proved to be completely false. Westinghouse was given a shot, and it continues to end up blowing up Westinghouse's parent company, Toshiba. If you can not address the specifics of Westinghouse, Toshiba, VC Summer, Vogtle, or Hinckley, then you are just spreading outdated propaganda.

epistasis 8y ago

> In fact if green is what you want, nuclear (or if we are lucky Fusion) is the way to go but the environmental organizations are for some reason worried about that. > It's not just a matter of the market and political will, That's absolutely untrue, nuclear is waaaaaaay too expensive and old-fashioned to compete in the modern world. Take a few seconds to look at any of the attempts at construction in the Western world. Nuclear is super expensive, and not nearly scalable enough. In the US, Vogtle and VC Summer have been nuclear disasters, but economic disasters. They had a super-supportive regulatory environment and neighbors around the construction sites, but it's just not feasible to build at a reasonable cost. Nuclear is such a terrible idea that there's no way to get private funding for it; it has to have huge amounts of government level backing for it to become even vaguely economic feasible. Look at the UK's attempts to sell their nuclear generation capacity, all of a sudden when they were writing financial documents they had to not lie, and they couldn't get anybody to buy them. And now the UK has the economic disaster of the new Hinkley construction. There's a batch of small-moduler reactor (SMR) startups that may improve the cost and scalability of nuclear, but I'm extremely skeptical. Such SMRs have long been rejected as too costly, it's not at all clear what would make them competitive now. It may happen, but it's further out than the massive scale-back of fossil fuels. > there are some fundamental limits on how much energy we can get from solar and wind. These "fundamental" limits are not in the realm of possibility of limiting our current use. >They are linear solutions to exponential problems so to speak. I'm not sure what part could be exponential. Our energy use is nothing like exponential, and in developed countries it is increasingly decoupled from GDP and other exponential things. Most of our "energy" use is actually wasted energy due to the inherent inefficiency of thermal electricity generation, or, god forbid, the pathetic efficiency of combustion engines in vehicles. We don't yet have applications for energy that could come close to any "fundamental limit" from solar. If we do, then perhaps fusion or something will be useful, but fusion is even more of a pipedream than trying to construct

ThomPete 8y ago
Nuclear is the only form of energy of all those we know thats both. Green, reliable, scaleable. The fact that it countries shied away from it because of environmental organizations is the real catastrophe. But as usual the best solution doesn't always win. Solar and wind would also be expensive if they hadn't been subsidized. Nuclear has killed fewer people than coal, fossil fuel, wind and solar. Plus once built it last for a very very long time. Perhaps you should take a few seconds to look at the actual data. There is nothing old-fashioned about nuclear especially not the new types of reactors and there is certainly no other form of energy besides fusion which can provide the amount of energy nuclear can. So no nuclear is the idea you should support if you actually care about the environment. Solar is toxic to the environment and requires quite a lot to keep functioning wind is the same. To get wind and solar to work consistently and reliably through some sort of grid system is going to be a project many many times bigger than nuclear and it's not going to be the increasing demand from the developing countries where more and more people get into the middle class. So you are from my perspective completely wrong about your idea of solar and wind as being the future of energy for the world. They are not and will not be. They simply aren't reliable and scaleable enough sources fuell cells or not.
- epistasis 8y ago
  It doesn't matter how much I support nuclear, my "support" does absolutely nothing to make it economical or buildable. It's all a fantasy. The only reason that nuclear gets built is so that a country can support their nuclear submarines/aircraft carriers. Nuclear energy is not a realistic solution to anything, because building it is not realistic. >Solar and wind would also be expensive if they hadn't been subsidized. The entirety of nuclear has been subsidized as the technology has been created, just as solar and wind have. What matters now is what can be built. Nuclear can not be built without spending 3x-5x what we'd spend for equivalent wind or solar. And that's ignoring the cases where billions of dollars have been spent and then completely abandoned. Your doubt of solar and wind are at least 10 years out of date. As are your nuclear ideas, because they were the same things being said in 2008 during the "nuclear renaissance." It all proved to be completely false. Westinghouse was given a shot, and it continues to end up blowing up Westinghouse's parent company, Toshiba. If you can not address the specifics of Westinghouse, Toshiba, VC Summer, Vogtle, or Hinckley, then you are just spreading outdated propaganda.