And as you mention, the economic nonviability of nuclear doesn't even account for the cost of decommissioning outdated plants. For the uninformed, that means filling the reaction vessel with cement and guarding it for 10,000 years on a piece of permanently devalued real estate.

http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap…

http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/

And don't neglect

http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html

It's ideology and politics over reason and sanity, but it's all about control.

On the local radio here, people were rightly holding it in contempt (while being concerned about the loonier or more sinister threats by the Obama administration and people in it who exemplify what I'd written about “Same Solutions to Current Political 'Problem',” namely people who used to be activists in the “population explosion” “crisis” [sic] movement (so many of whom migrated to “global warming”).

It leads to cynical joking: Will they ban athletic contests, due to excessive exhalation (of CO2)?

Let's look at that for a second — ignoring the toy views of the Left that are the real issue here.

Look at nuclear as an engineer's dream and a toy.

Fair enough — I view it in a similar way to helicopters. The timing is somewhat different (earlier for helicopters than for nuclear power plants, and nuclear propulsion for vehicles on earth as well as in space). But with helicopters, also, the initial view was much less inhibited then than it is now, and back then there was huge initial ambition. Helicopters would be used for all kinds of purposes, and that included helicopters as the logical replacement of the automobile for everyone (including the commuter-related scenes you may have seen on magazines).

Reality is different (and with nuclear, involves costs) — helicopters now are seen as the perfect application for — those things for which everything else is impractical or infeasible. Often the use of helicopters is avoided unless there's no realistic alternative. They're too costly to maintain and run.

(With nuclear power, it's the construction costs; running it competes with coal. Many neglect the decommissioning costs.)

Beware of the same naive kind of view (in a different, lefty-style way, going back to 60s activism) for wind and solar.

[gasp]

“My point is mainly that these wind, solar and conservation strategies are available now”

Yes, but how good are they (as opposed to what so many activists, including those in Washington who insist we adopt them out of political reasons first and foremost) and how cost-effective are they as well as how effective and practical?

“uranium will run out as quickly as oil”

1. Sea water? (Especially if we're deluged with rapid melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice?)

2. What about reprocessing and breeder reactors, which Carter killed in the 1970s due to politics?

3.

“federal government excusing them from carrying insurance (Price Anderson Act), “

Tort reform is long overdue. It's bad enough that the word already is out that the law firms in DC are salivating at the prospect of “greenhouse gas” “pollution” [sic] legal actions, but you know how very ignorant so many people are and how voracious the LegaLottO crowd would be toward nuclear power in the event of anything remotely resembling an accident nowadays. (The facts are last on the list!)

James Lovelock's “The Revenge of Gaia” is good reading, even though he goes to extremes that are not only dismal but misanthropic (the kind of stuff directed specifically at the West and especially at the Evil USA by so many others). He discounts the serious renewable for base load, biomass, as bad because it involves combustion and because it would mean alteration of so much more of the surface of the Earth. He doesn't pay much attention to solar and he singles out wind as a popular savior by many, but unworkable. (He quotes someone in Denmark or the Netherlands as saying it has actually amounted to something like a “three per cent solution” of that nation's energy needs.) And he defends his position on fission power as a current non-polluting means until fusion can be had.

More importantly, uranium will run out as quickly as oil and is already experiencing cost increases higher than oil. It takes 10 years to get a nuclear plant online and already it doesn't compete economically. Nuclear is 8-11 cents a kwh vs 5 for wind. There's a lot of speculation involved with projecting the economic reality ten years out, but no speculation on wind energy. It's already cheaper and as I noted, can be installed much more quickly than nuclear.

My point is mainly that these wind, solar and conservation strategies are available now, it's not some future pipedream, and if we commit to it, as I have in my personal life, we'll be far better off than if we invest in going ever further down the petroleum and coal highway. Right now investing in energy retrofits (ahem, green tech) is the wisest investment an investor can make, in terms of ROI. Look at the rate increases in electricity and natural gas and try to find guaranteed growth in any investment that matches it. I'm betting that with China, India and others competing with us for resources, rates will increase even faster than the 5-8% projected by utilities today. If not? so what. My payback is a little longer (11 years on the solar). BTW, thanks stimulus. My $30K system will cost me $10 K out of pocket.

Food for thought. The importance of base load power sources

Renewable energy is a great concept, but to ignore its limitations and pretend there are identified solutions to the baseload problem for wind and solar makes no sense.

Nuclear is still one of the best current solutions, and I for one have not given up on fusion as the next baseload solution, particularly Polywell fusion.

Well, aside from your self-proclaimed role of arbiter of what is and isn't “intelligent” and “normal”, you might want to file the rest of your statement for future reference. I don't know how old you are, if you have children or grandchildren, but this issue isn't just about your own generation. Looking very far down the road hasn't always been a hallmark of many rightward leaning folks (environmentally speaking) but you may want to consider thinking beyond your own skin here. Then again, if you've bought into AGW as a hoax, liberal conspiracy, or religion (funny one this last), you won't bother with any of that.

But it's diffuse, and intermittent, and not used efficiently enough yet. (Yes, meriting government R&D.)

I don't know if or when electricity will get so expensive in the distant future that solar will displace green (truly green — garden) roofs for summer day peak shaving.

* * *

“Here in Colorado, we've installed enough wind power to eliminate the need for another coal fired power plant.”

Colorado is in a blessed place (for solar as well as for wind). Others aren't so blessed, though.

Conservation can be significant, but this strategy is terribly hyped (when not perverted into self-crippling).

“The nation will continue to grow and its energy needs will continue to grow.”

http://images49.fotki.com/v1521/photos/2/292835…

I'll believe it when it actually looks to be that way, including when we have the storage problem solved. (To me it's interesting how the starry-eyed people thinking about batteries for electric ground vehicles — no aircraft — actually neglect the larger maret that includes storage of power someday of wind and solar, as well as replacing existing batteries in existing markets, and creating new ones. Note that I am not unrealistic about expecting such a thing soon. And it didn't require my previous experience working at a battery company to justify such an obvious position to take.)

Certainly the storage problem, as well as wind and solar, merit additional public R&D work.

“You consistently deride solar and wind in a way that makes me think you're stuck in the 70s.”

Actually, it's the proponents that are stuck there (if not in the earlier Sixties). This is so despite the real-world change we've seen since then (including the wind farms I bicycled and drove by in California before I left that state). It's still quite naive. I'll admit that while there's much wrong with the enviros and their “climate change” nonsense, some of it can be touching — those Empower America ads that have the lead character wearing green. (I haven't determined yet if the lead character has green eyes.)

“The only legitimate point you've made, IMO, concerned transmission. It's true that to displace ALL petropower, you'd need more grid infrastructure because the wind doesn't blow all the time. Now, couple wind and solar with vehicle to grid storage”

Well, improving our transmission would also have been a good stimulus project. (It also could have been, and could still be, a rare instance of compromise among power companies and their opponents.)

The long-term future I foresee is electric vehicles (imagine the overall efficiency improvement as well as pollution reduction and noise reduction), and ultimately fuel-cell vehicles and other uses of fuel cells, which truly make off-grid power supply workable (especially when there's no sun or wind). I've also wondered about fuel cells someday not only for shipping, but to drive propellers on aircraft. (An aircraft like that is slower than a jet, but if it were cheaper to use and cost less to fly on it, great.)

With fuel cells and with local (small, low-powered) solar or wind as you describe,

“The best application of solar is local, not central, as solar power is distributed everywhere.”

consider not only the cases concerning many people — about real pollution and resource scarcity, not about global warming — involving China (and India), but also the truly undeveloped world, and modern (improved) wind and solar in, say, Africa. There's an eventual market for it (and no, I don't consider creating and filling such a market to be “neo-colonialism” as the Chomsky people would).

I will note one thing I thought about when it comes to fuel cells, in addition. The hydrogen cell has water vapor as its exhaust. I'm not concerned about any global warming effect, though it could be significant at the local level (where I like the idea of green pavements, roof gardens, etc., anyway).

The other thing I'll note is amusing, something I read that is extreme but reasoned speculation about wind power: If enough wind energy was extracted (converted to other forms) by sufficient wind energy development to meet all conceived uses or application desires, might it disrupt or otherwise interfere with weather and climate?

You consistently deride solar and wind in a way that makes me think you're stuck in the 70s. The only legitimate point you've made, IMO, concerned transmission. It's true that to displace ALL petropower, you'd need more grid infrastructure because the wind doesn't blow all the time. Now, couple wind and solar with vehicle to grid storage, and you've solved most of the issues with both traditional and alternative energy sources.

The best application of solar is local, not central, as solar power is distributed everywhere. Centralized solar will need to rely on storage, such as liquid metal, frozen water, pumped water, etc. I have no problem with natural gas backup for now, as a base load. Here in Colorado, we've installed enough wind power to eliminate the need for another coal fired power plant.

This is, of course, properly directed at the correct people, but you are mistaken with that detail, too.

It hasn't stopped the Movement from trying, nevertheless.

California's zero-emission mandate goals were never (poof!) going to be easily and quickly achieved.

But some fools have no problem with fools actually subjecting us to their goofy energy policy dreams in Washington, not merely in California. Now we have a play-pen silly energy policy in Washington.

[sigh]

Wind and solar are not (poof!) going to replace coal and nuclear power plants. (Transport is ignored other than fuzzily dreaming “sometime soon” of electric cars or something similar; no aircraft ideas.)

As for warming (if we really are), with or without a human effect (whatever it may be) on this, there never has been (among normal, intelligent people, at least) cause for alarm, catastrophism, or the usual 60s-onward “solutions” (primarily directed at the West rather than where problems necessarily are greatest) to the latest “crisis” with “legs.” There's no reason we cannot adapt to any change (not to mention that change could be for the better, not only for the worse, but that's Politically Incorrect). There is obviously no reason why we should deliberately (and perversely) cripple ourselves and assume costs we needn't assume due to silly-to-sinister liberal politics, not science or sanity.

[sigh]

Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 600 leading climate scientists from 40 nations, says it is “very likely” (more than a 90 percent chance) that humans are causing a global temperature change that will reach between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

This 90% says otherweise!!

* * *

“I the rest is solid science”

The topic and real science is actually a fascinating subject that has been hijacked. (In earlier times, it was the “population explosion” [whereas the West faces declining fertility, and fertility nearly everywhere has diminished substantially since 1960; the problem of low fertility and future aging is world-wide], or the “limits to growth” [think "Club of Rome"], and how “global warming” or currently [as the climate is not always warming] “climate change”. In each instance the “solutions” to the “crisis” are the same: much more government intervention, direction, control, and regulation, and policy aimed at liberal agenda items.)

When it's not routinely tainted by politics and corrupted (including PC celebrity Nobel Prize nonsense related to it), it's neglected, such as on Weather Channel, which has become info-tainment with disaster stories like bear attacks (which I've seen) and other entertainment in place of routine stories on things that include climate, which obviously should accompany anything devoted full-time (at least nominally) to weather and atmospheric phenomena (and the science associated with it).

Get rid of the junk and head instead toward science and engineering research while imposing reasonable and sensible regulations to address real pollution, etc.