A safer nuclear reactor should be meltdown proof, proliferation safe, passively air cooled, deployed underground with waste (stable in 1000 years) shipped off site for centralized underground storage. Such a reactor is possible to build.
In fact, the Chinese are developing this type of reactor today as their first homegrown reactor design. The US loves the light water reactor…and therein rests the problem with nuclear power worldwide. On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 10:29 PM, John Berry <aethe...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Mauro Lacy <ma...@lacy.com.ar> wrote: > >> On 05/13/2011 08:20 PM, John Berry wrote: >> >>> I just don't believe that, first off we know that there is more than >>> enough recoverable solar energy to take care of all energy demands many >>> times over. >>> >>> And that's just solar, yes there would need to be a big project of >>> installation and you would need to store the energy in the day time to >>> use >>> at night but it is totally doable. >>> >>> I wanted to see if I could find something that summed up how much energy >>> could come from these renewables but I can't find any such info, what I >>> can >>> find is that renewables currently account for almost 20% of the >>> electricity >>> generated. >>> >>> So are you saying you think it would be extraordinarily difficult to have >>> 5 >>> times more wind farms? (I have never seen 1 in person) I don't think so, >>> 5 time more solar, that would still not be much. >>> 5 times more hydro may be a bigger challenge but it wouldn't be >>> impossible. >>> 5 times more Tidal power >>> 5 times more wave power >>> >>> You get the point, it would be pretty straight forward. >>> And many of these can be cheaper than Nuclear or easily competitive. >>> >>> Really where does your belief that these are insufficient come from? >>> Do you really think that Nuclear makes so much more sense? >>> >>> >> >> Cost-benefit reasons? I'm not an expert in renewable energies, but I tend >> to think that people who is >> in charge of designing and developing energy policies are not stupid. >> > > Really? You see I differ. > If they aren't stupid they are corrupt. > > >> >> Solar, hydro, wind, tidal and wave power all have their problems. >> > > EVERYTHING has it's problems. > > Solar is expensive and relatively inefficient. > > > Inefficient compared to what? There is more than enough energy as sunlight > so inefficiency is of no concern. > As for cost, they are already quite plausible and if there were to be mass > produced prices would go way down. > There are a lot of advances in Solar that just need some interest to come > through. > > > >> Some breakthroughs are needed. Nocera's artificial leaf looks promising, >> or recent advances in photovoltaics. Anyway, there seems to be a need for >> maturing the technology. This is probably the best of all renewable energy >> sources. >> Hydro is costly, environmentally damaging, and limited. >> > > Environmental damage from hydro is is a different league > to environmental damage from Nuclear, it's a minor issue that always come up > when landscape is changed a little. > > >> Wind has availability and continuity problems. It seems it also has >> maintenance and cost-benefit issues. High altitude wind power can be an >> option, but is new, has some serious technical shortcomings, and needs to be >> carefully evaluated at the cost-benefit level. >> > > Wind is low cost (cheaper than Nuclear in the US according to one chart I > found), and continuity is not an issue if you store energy. > > >> Tidal and wave power both look promising, but are relatively recent. Both >> will probably suffer too from maintenance and cost-benefit issues. >> > > Probably? Wow what an argument. And Nuclear doesn't? > > Wow, you sure make these renewable green options look mildly inconvenient, > best to stick with Nuclear then where the inconvenience is nuclear > melt-downs, an ecological disaster waiting to happen with storage of waste > and inciting wars. > > How many Chernobyl's, 3 Mile Island's and Fukashima's would it take for how > long before these elements made the earth uninhabitable, seriously it is > only bad at Fukashama now, but this stuff doesn't go away, the half-life > makes it almost eternal so it is only a matter of how many disasters the > earth can contain before becoming polluted in the most dangerous way man has > yet devised.. > > >> It's sad to say this, but oil and nuclear energy seem to be the best >> options for energy generation. >> > > Ah, because the others need storage to be ready on demand and > some investment and improvement, the only down sides of oil and Nuclear is > destroying the earth and wars. > > >> I clearly prefer to move to nuclear in the short term, instead of sticking >> with oil. >> One of the consequences of the nuclear accident in Japan will be that >> better and safer nuclear plants will be designed and built. They will also >> be costly, of course. >> On the other side, other consequence will be that more money and effort >> will be put into renewables, and that's very good. >> >> >> Would your view be different in you lived in Japan? >>> >>> >> >> Would yours if you lived in Iraq? >> Listen, I don't want to polemize, but faced with the alternative between >> oil and nuclear, I choose nuclear. Better and safer nuclear power, that >> looks like the best option for me at the moment. >> More research and investigation into renewables and into alternative or >> future sources like cold fusion is clearly a good idea, of course. >> >> >
