Quote:
Originally Posted by Griff
We do have other, security oriented, reasons to get off fossil fuels. We subsidize oil heavily with blood and treasure. If we shifted (skip the blood part) that subsidy to biofuel, solar, and wind power (insert nuke argument at your own risk) we could address both GW and energy security, creating a left/right coalition. It wouldn't be painless but the new growth in the cleaner energy sector would offset things somewhat.
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Unfortunately, in the USA, Biofuel immediately gets translated into methanol. As you can see happening already, methanol is being made from corn because it's the easiest (high sugar content) and most profitable raw material available.
The flies in the ointment are; that corn is food for us and livestock, corn is very energy intensive to grow, corn is susceptible to weather/wind damage, corn requires huge amounts of water.
Also, since methanol gives you only 2/3 the mileage of gasoline, producing it from corn, or any biomass for that matter, will use immense tracts of land.
Nukes for power, is the smart way to go. Three mile island happened because the government over regulated the industry, driving the costs through the roof on every plant constructed. This caused the operating companies to cut costs any where they could. It became a cat & mouse game between the feds and power companies. The company sees something that costs $100 and not covered in the rules.... poof, gone and $100 saved. Feds see it gone and make a new rule that will now cost the power company $200. More need to cut costs... more expensive rules, etc, etc, etc.
I've often wondered about the umpteen layers of automatic alarms and controls. The control room operators had too much time to get distracted with entertainment. Too much opportunity for multitasking. Like the guy with the cruise control set, reading a book, while roaring up the turnpike at killing speeds. When the shit hits the fan, he's not prepared to make the right decisions even if he has time. People that are not focused make more mistakes, are not prepared to make those second nature moves in an emergency.
The Soviets may have been the opposite although I'm not sure how their plants operated. But, the other nations have been successful, especially France, by making a design and repeating it as often as needed instead of every plant being unique because of ever increasing government rules.
Hey guys, lets build a nuke.
What's it going to cost?
Damifino, the rules keep changing during, and after, construction so we don't know till it's done.
Uh, well, no thanks.
