I believe France is a net energy exporter, quite possibly increasingly
to Germany. Could you say more what this "paying dearly" business is
about?
The slow moving hydro turbine thing is interesting, but I don't know of
any that aren't experimental. There would of course be a gov't subsidy
per kWh, as for other solutions.
Wind farms are very steel intensive (transmission lines), and of course
there's the niobium mining issue, so you might want to factor those
things in.
As with all of these technologies, there's the balance you have at the
time you make the decision. Newer solar could be less environmentally
problematic than old solar. Gen II nuclear plants are way different
animals than Gen IV plants (whatever their merits), but they are lumped
together as "nukes", which I think is somewhat disingenuous. I don't
think, e.g. a Hyperion module is subject to quite the same arguments
(pro or con) as a BWR.
On 12/8/11 9:32 AM, Paul Paryski wrote:
If everything is taken into consideration, the carbon footprint of
nukes is really very high, much higher than the alternate forms of
energy such as wind, solar, hydroelectric and even some thermal
sources. France is paying dearly for its nukes. One of the innovative
sources of energy that is being installed in Europe is slow moving
hydro-turbines placed in riverbeds.
cheers, Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Holmes <rob...@holmesacosta.com>
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Sent: Wed, Dec 7, 2011 4:29 pm
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Gates discussing new nuclear reactor with China -
Yahoo! News
Yeah, greenest only if you ignore the environmental/human/dollar costs
of getting the uranium out of the ground and then you forget about
that whole messy decommissioning component (which usually relies on
the assumption that national government
must ultimately underwrite/pick up the tab and is therefore free)---R
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net
<mailto:o...@backspaces.net>> wrote:
>From the "I Like Nukes" department we have new designs that look
interesting:
http://news.yahoo.com/gates-discussing-nuclear-reactor-china-124722465.html
They run on depleted uranium and apparently are safer.
Ironically, nukes are apparently the greenest critters around too.
-- Owen
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
