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This seems a like a faulty argument to me. Those are not our only two choices. Sure coal is really really bad. But that does not mean that nuclear is our only a

by hristov 16y ago

This seems a like a faulty argument to me. Those are not our only two choices. Sure coal is really really bad. But that does not mean that nuclear is our only alternative. Currently solar power is getting much cheaper and more practical. Same thing with wind power. We also have a natural gas which recently has been getting cheaper as large new discoveries are being made. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel but it is much much cleaner than coal both in terms of health pollutants and in terms of CO2. There are some issues with natural gas extraction, but even if the various environmentally damaging methods of mining the stuff get banned as they should, we still have plenty of natural gas from new discoveries to last us for the foreseeable future. Thus, we can use natural gas while solar and wind catch up price wise, which will happen sooner than we think. Solar especially is improving faster than anyone thought. Then we can still use natural gas for occasions where solar and wind aren't working. So the coal/nuclear argument is a false dichotomy. We can have neither. Of course we should run the current nuclear plants until the end of their lives, but there is no reason to build new ones unless some revolutionary technology that makes everything much safer emerges. I would say the only new nuclear plants we should build are ones that burn the waste of the old ones, because those would technically make things safer by removing waste.

vibragiel 16y ago
But your argument seems like a straw man to me, as nobody is proposing that dichotomy. As long as renewable energy sources can't stand as a viable substitute in terms of costs (economic, environmental, power per unit land, etc) and can't cope with an increasing energy demand, I don't see the need of relinquishing an energy source that has proven viable by all those standards and moreover is pretty safe.
tptacek 16y ago
This comment reads like a clever way of getting people to nod their heads (natural gas does indeed seem better than coal) while at the same time getting them to overlook an unsupported assumption (that nuclear is less safe than natural gas in the long run). Statistically, the long-term damages attributable to total nuclear fuel chains are lower than those of the total natural gas fuel chain.
- hristov 16y ago
  Uh ... source?
mortenjorck 16y ago
Currently solar power is getting much cheaper and more practical. Every now and then, I see a tech news article about a new breakthrough in solar that should be ready for the market in the mythical "3-5 years" timeframe, then I never hear about it again. I'd be very happy to see some evidence that there's real, marketable progress being made right now that isn't marginal improvements to existing inefficient and expensive technology.
api 16y ago
Two words: peak oil. Two more words: electric car. In the next 30 years a significant fraction of the transportation and other oil-powered infrastructure is going to get connected to the power grid. Solar and wind can barely make a dent in current demand with current technology. When electric cars get cheap, power demand will explode.
- cwbrandsma 16y ago
  Electric cars (and solar) will work a lot better when we figure out a better way to store the energy. So far, our battery technology barely fits the bill, and is expensive.
joejohnson 16y ago
Exactly. This doesn't make Nuclear energy a smart choice, just because it is better than an even worse choice. We need to stop limiting our view to these two technologies, and start funding crazier energy options that could be cleaner, safer and smarter for the long run.
kwantam 16y ago
In order to actually address the total energy consumption of the world using solar energy, based on 2009 consumption numbers (~500 EJ), we'd have to convert 30% of the total incident solar energy (~1600 EJ) to a usable form. Doing this would cool the earth by about the same amount as moving it ~12.5% further away from the sun. Solar is not a viable long-term solution.
- Pinckney 16y ago
  Where are you getting your figure for total incident solar energy? Using 17410^15 W total solar flux from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Incoming_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Incomin... I'm getting 5.510^24 J/yr ~= 5,500,000 EJ/yr (all wavelenghts).
  - kwantam 16y ago
    You're absolutely right. The source for my original number was quoting a narrow band of wavelengths and making some additional assumptions about usability of energy flux. Thanks for the correction; I'm a bit less of a pessimist now :)

by hristov 16y ago

vibragiel 16y ago

But your argument seems like a straw man to me, as nobody is proposing that dichotomy. As long as renewable energy sources can't stand as a viable substitute in terms of costs (economic, environmental, power per unit land, etc) and can't cope with an increasing energy demand, I don't see the need of relinquishing an energy source that has proven viable by all those standards and moreover is pretty safe.

tptacek 16y ago

This comment reads like a clever way of getting people to nod their heads (natural gas does indeed seem better than coal) while at the same time getting them to overlook an unsupported assumption (that nuclear is less safe than natural gas in the long run). Statistically, the long-term damages attributable to total nuclear fuel chains are lower than those of the total natural gas fuel chain.

hristov 16y ago
Uh ... source?

mortenjorck 16y ago

Currently solar power is getting much cheaper and more practical. Every now and then, I see a tech news article about a new breakthrough in solar that should be ready for the market in the mythical "3-5 years" timeframe, then I never hear about it again. I'd be very happy to see some evidence that there's real, marketable progress being made right now that isn't marginal improvements to existing inefficient and expensive technology.

api 16y ago

Two words: peak oil. Two more words: electric car. In the next 30 years a significant fraction of the transportation and other oil-powered infrastructure is going to get connected to the power grid. Solar and wind can barely make a dent in current demand with current technology. When electric cars get cheap, power demand will explode.

cwbrandsma 16y ago
Electric cars (and solar) will work a lot better when we figure out a better way to store the energy. So far, our battery technology barely fits the bill, and is expensive.

joejohnson 16y ago

Exactly. This doesn't make Nuclear energy a smart choice, just because it is better than an even worse choice. We need to stop limiting our view to these two technologies, and start funding crazier energy options that could be cleaner, safer and smarter for the long run.

kwantam 16y ago

In order to actually address the total energy consumption of the world using solar energy, based on 2009 consumption numbers (~500 EJ), we'd have to convert 30% of the total incident solar energy (~1600 EJ) to a usable form. Doing this would cool the earth by about the same amount as moving it ~12.5% further away from the sun. Solar is not a viable long-term solution.

Pinckney 16y ago
Where are you getting your figure for total incident solar energy? Using 17410^15 W total solar flux from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Incoming_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Incomin... I'm getting 5.510^24 J/yr ~= 5,500,000 EJ/yr (all wavelenghts).
- kwantam 16y ago
  You're absolutely right. The source for my original number was quoting a narrow band of wavelengths and making some additional assumptions about usability of energy flux. Thanks for the correction; I'm a bit less of a pessimist now :)