5 ms·

safety isn't just about deaths. we're all gonna die eventually, independently of our power source. what is the most important factor to me is the quality of li

by borism 16y ago

safety isn't just about deaths. we're all gonna die eventually, independently of our power source. what is the most important factor to me is the quality of life provided by different energy sources. personally wind is the big winner there for me. Full disclosure: I like sailing.

lemming 16y ago
I love sailing too, but I'm not huge on wind power. The problem with it is that it's not constant (whereas the demand on the power grid is). The only form of energy that we currently have that's sufficiently controllable to be able to top up wind is burning coal. I'm also not quite sure what you mean by "the quality of life provided by different sources" - surely wind lights your lights just like nuclear does?
- borism 16y ago
  surely wind lights your lights just like nuclear does? at what cost? and by cost I don't mean market cost. surely cost of electricity in Japan didn't account for nuclear meltdown possibility, thus far. of course nuclear is still better than coal, which requires huge open pit mines and produces incredible amounts of dust, radioactivity of which is greater than all nucleotides released from nuclear power plants as far as I understand.
  - eru 16y ago
    > surely cost of electricity in Japan didn't account for nuclear meltdown possibility, thus far. They did, up to a point. All the safety measure that are build into the reactors have to be paid for.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > of course nuclear is still better than coal, which requires huge open pit mines Many/most US coal mines are not open pit so "requires" is a bit strong.
    - borism 16y ago
      really? looks like 50/50 to me, and the biggest ones are certainly surface ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mines_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mines_in_the_Unite...
      - anamax 16y ago
        > really? looks like 50/50 to me Yes, really. The claim, which I disputed, was that open pit was required. Showing 50/50 (open/closed) disproves that claim.
bigiain 16y ago
Nuclear's big win over wind (and solar and wave and tide and hydro and...) is it's density. The _little_ reactor at Fukushima daiichi is ~500MW. The other 5 are closer to 1GW. Big wind turbines (at least here in .au) are rated at ~2MW peak, but with 15-30% utilization (the wind doesn't always blow at just the right speed to provide the amount of power you're using). That means the littlest reactor at Fukushima daiichi would need about 1000-1500 large wind turbines to replace it, and the 10 reactors in the two Fukushima complexes would need 20,000 or 30,000 400 foot diameter turbines on 250 foot tall pylons. That needs a _lot_ of space. Putting them off shore increases the maintenance requirements and the difficulty of getting to them means the increased maintenance is also more expensive. I really like wind power. I think wind farms look beautiful. But they aren't capable of supplying anything like as much power as we need.
- borism 16y ago
  I'm not against nuclear. Sure, fission is the most energietic natural force we conquered as of today and we have to use it. Hopefully fusion will come online in this century. I'm just saying that of all energy sources we have today the wind energy has the least negative impact on our lives.
cturner 16y ago
Wind has downsides for quality of life. I'm unfamiliar with particular research, but understand there are health effects on people who live near the installations, possibly from being constantly exposed to low frequency sound. It also affects visuals of the landscape, and you need to affect a lot of landscape to create small amounts of power. My own disclosure: have positions in uranium, which have taken a bath this week :)
fabjan 16y ago
Hydro works well here in Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_Sweden.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_...
- jarek 16y ago
  And geothermal works pretty well in Iceland, but we're not all in Sweden or Iceland.
  - borism 16y ago
    well, we all live on planet Earth, so the question about geothermal is just about how deep you're willing to dig. Geothermal is pretty nice IMHO.
- sfgfdhgfdshdhhd 16y ago
  Norway even more, iirc it's around 99% of the electricity generation for the whole country. Why isn't hydro used more? (2% of world production according to the post). Once built it will generate: * Alot of power, as opposed to wind/solar. * With zero emissions, as opposed to coal/oil. * That requires no storage of dangerous waste, as opposed to nuclear. Win, win, win.
eru 16y ago
But other than using wind for moving your boat, why is your quality of life affected by the `colour' of electrons?

by borism 16y ago

lemming 16y ago

I love sailing too, but I'm not huge on wind power. The problem with it is that it's not constant (whereas the demand on the power grid is). The only form of energy that we currently have that's sufficiently controllable to be able to top up wind is burning coal. I'm also not quite sure what you mean by "the quality of life provided by different sources" - surely wind lights your lights just like nuclear does?

borism 16y ago
surely wind lights your lights just like nuclear does? at what cost? and by cost I don't mean market cost. surely cost of electricity in Japan didn't account for nuclear meltdown possibility, thus far. of course nuclear is still better than coal, which requires huge open pit mines and produces incredible amounts of dust, radioactivity of which is greater than all nucleotides released from nuclear power plants as far as I understand.
- eru 16y ago
  > surely cost of electricity in Japan didn't account for nuclear meltdown possibility, thus far. They did, up to a point. All the safety measure that are build into the reactors have to be paid for.
- anamax 16y ago
  > of course nuclear is still better than coal, which requires huge open pit mines Many/most US coal mines are not open pit so "requires" is a bit strong.
  - borism 16y ago
    really? looks like 50/50 to me, and the biggest ones are certainly surface ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mines_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mines_in_the_Unite...
    - anamax 16y ago
      > really? looks like 50/50 to me Yes, really. The claim, which I disputed, was that open pit was required. Showing 50/50 (open/closed) disproves that claim.

bigiain 16y ago

Nuclear's big win over wind (and solar and wave and tide and hydro and...) is it's density. The _little_ reactor at Fukushima daiichi is ~500MW. The other 5 are closer to 1GW. Big wind turbines (at least here in .au) are rated at ~2MW peak, but with 15-30% utilization (the wind doesn't always blow at just the right speed to provide the amount of power you're using). That means the littlest reactor at Fukushima daiichi would need about 1000-1500 large wind turbines to replace it, and the 10 reactors in the two Fukushima complexes would need 20,000 or 30,000 400 foot diameter turbines on 250 foot tall pylons. That needs a _lot_ of space. Putting them off shore increases the maintenance requirements and the difficulty of getting to them means the increased maintenance is also more expensive. I really like wind power. I think wind farms look beautiful. But they aren't capable of supplying anything like as much power as we need.

borism 16y ago
I'm not against nuclear. Sure, fission is the most energietic natural force we conquered as of today and we have to use it. Hopefully fusion will come online in this century. I'm just saying that of all energy sources we have today the wind energy has the least negative impact on our lives.

cturner 16y ago

Wind has downsides for quality of life. I'm unfamiliar with particular research, but understand there are health effects on people who live near the installations, possibly from being constantly exposed to low frequency sound. It also affects visuals of the landscape, and you need to affect a lot of landscape to create small amounts of power. My own disclosure: have positions in uranium, which have taken a bath this week :)

fabjan 16y ago

Hydro works well here in Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_Sweden.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_...

jarek 16y ago
And geothermal works pretty well in Iceland, but we're not all in Sweden or Iceland.
- borism 16y ago
  well, we all live on planet Earth, so the question about geothermal is just about how deep you're willing to dig. Geothermal is pretty nice IMHO.
sfgfdhgfdshdhhd 16y ago
Norway even more, iirc it's around 99% of the electricity generation for the whole country. Why isn't hydro used more? (2% of world production according to the post). Once built it will generate: * Alot of power, as opposed to wind/solar. * With zero emissions, as opposed to coal/oil. * That requires no storage of dangerous waste, as opposed to nuclear. Win, win, win.

eru 16y ago

But other than using wind for moving your boat, why is your quality of life affected by the `colour' of electrons?