As far as nuclear energy and its history, it began with the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission which also developed the US’s nuclear weapons arsenal. The Navy had big role in nuclear reactor development as well. The AEC has jurisdiction over all nuclear technology, from weapons to reactors used by the military and reactors used for civilian energy. We’re talking about huge subsidies, if this counts, and it should.
In 1974 the AEC was split into the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. From wiki:
So, there was significant overlap of our nuclear weapons and nuclear energy research. I don’t know how much in total was spent, but we’re talking about massive subsidies to the nuclear industry.
Does the US have any federal agencies analogous to the AEC, ERDA, NRC for wind and solar, similarly funded? The DOE I’m sure supports research into wind, solar and other technologies. I assume it does, but I don’t think wind, solar or any other renewable energy technologies ever recieved even a tiny portion of what nuclear energy has had spent on it.
Some 2010 numbers and some longer perspective here although I don’t have the time right now to review it again in any detail. It seems to make the case that nuclear is currently paying more in than it takes but historically benefitted mightily from support. They do a good job of handling the external costs of various sources.
Then you should inform yourself. Much of the R&D on nuclear reactors done by the government for weapons and submarines was directly applicable to industrial uses. Finding a cite for that is like finding a cite that water flows downhill.
Life is too short to tutor the uninformed. You have only to look at the birther threads to see that it is useless to present facts to anyone who is too lazy or uninterested to already know enough to get the point immediately.
Back in my undergrad and early med school days I was able get myself attached helping on some grad student’s research projects. One bulletin board had a list of translations posted up to help critically read papers. One of those was this:
“It is known that …” = “There is no evidence I can find that …”
lev’s response is more cogent. There is lots of shit that people “know” that is untrue.
In any case, yes, there has historically been ample support to research and develop nuclear power and to implement it. New nuclear won’t happen in the United States without more of it, not unless the externalized costs are fully monetized. And maybe even then.
My last cite was from the World Nuclear Organization, so its spin is of course very pro-nuke. But the data is still good. Nuclear fission R&D peaked in the US around 1980 at $2.4 billion. Now:
Most interesting on that site is its treatment of external costs.
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lev’s response is more cogent. There is lots of shit that people “know” that is untrue.
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I agree, as was your own which actually showed some of that real data stuff. It seems a really apples to oranges comparison though, comparing subsidies in nuclear to those in wind and solar, especially if we are going to go back to the beginning on nuclear and then try and make some sort of comparison to subsidies to wind and solar. For one thing, ‘nuclear subsidies’ seem to be tied up in a lot of military applications, especially early on. So…what did we get out of those ‘subsidies’? Well, we got nuclear weapons, nuclear powered submarines and carriers, nuclear energy, research into technologies like fusion, etc etc. IOW, we got more than just commercial power.
I will admit that I thought that today nuclear subsidies would be a lot lower, and my impression of wind and solar subsidies were that they were a lot higher (I get tax breaks from the government myself for the solar I have on my house). I’m glad you linked to your cite on that, since it fought my own ignorance there.
The main point being addressed there was that if we poured in the same kinds of subsidies that were given to nuclear into wind and solar that we’d get the same benefits…and that seems dubious. Will we get weapons development? Will we get new power sources for our capital ships? Will we get the same level of electrical production? Heck, without the military applications, would you even be able to get the funding (or in the current budgetary climate, it doesn’t seem likely you’d get the funding even if it did have a direct military application).
Nuclear is the answer… just nuclear fusion, not fission… i believe they have a small working reactor in italy, and a laser one in california… i think the biggest problem is people no matter what nation will do what ever is cheap… which is oil, and coal. all energy soulutions we have now have problems. Coal kills, oil we fight wars over (which is completly justified as the modern world like the us would fall on its knees if we had to pay for oil like they do in europe, like this summer if we hit 5 bucks national average you will see a stop in the economy just like in 08 you cant afford high fuel prices and high food prices) ( food is high b/c we are using corn and soy for fuel not food, and the rest of the world had a shitty growing year) now Wind, solar, hydro GREAT! do more… just you cant get upset when it kills the natural flow of fish, or the painted box turtel, or the godamn view of the ocean… Thats why in china it will be fine, if the gov comes to a farmer and says were going to build wind turbines here he cant say no… in america… people lawyer up until they get a huge pay off… then they complain about the noise.
Its sad really… i really would be for a FREE global government based on england or the us true representation and free speech … b/c then we can do neat stuff like space exploration, which is what we need this planet is getting over populated, and unless you want chinas baby policy we gotta move off world… but were never gonna be able to do that until we are united… and we will never be united until we have a global energy soultion… if we were smart we would have a U.N. meeting, and have every country including broke ass countrys youve never heard off all pony up to build nuclear fussion reactors in each continent… if we didnt have to fight over energy, it would turn to food,… as a farmer i know we can handel that… then we mine out half of canada build a huge spaceship… call it the SS maple leaf and fly to gilese 581E or G and start a new life, or hell colonize the moon and live in giant greenhouses… but sadlly this wont happen until world war 3… which i think is coming the smoking gun was tunisa… just my thoughts…
o and as to that argument of people driving suv’s… its there right, and they are practical… they are safe and can haul people around… my sister just bought a honda fit… b/c she is a comuter… if she ever gets in an accident shes prolly gonna die… id rather she drive atleast a ford escape hybrid… o and theres no reason they cant put big torque 4 cylinder diesles in this huge tahoes and suberbans… they sure have the room… and pare them with an electric motor like the big freight trains… but no… they make something like the prius that looks dumb… screw it put that fancy high tech in suburbans and tahoes, and silverados and f 350’s… and then make them cheap… so regualr people can afford them… the hybrid tahoe is like 70000…
Point A: batteries are not cheap, and that’s the primary cost driver of hybrids.
Point B: SUVs/trucks are not light, and weight is a primary indirect driver of battery quantity required (along with “range” and “desired torque”)
Point C: Hybrid Silverados exist, for $10k more than the same non-hybrid version. Due to the perceived range/torque requirements of these vehicles, though, they only get a marginal MPG boost, of perhaps 5-7 MPG (which is, admittedly, as much as a 50% boost if your driving pattern matches the EPA “city” driver–which a lot of work trucks are going to, with lots of idling and stop-start).
As much as I’m not a fan of saying this, sigh, if you’re concerned about the environment at all (and you should be!), you should probably consider getting a normal car rather than an SUV/light truck unless you need the hauling capacity. I’m not unsympathetic to the argument–my parents drive a Silverado 3500 and a Suburban, but both of them are pushed to their absolute weight limit on a weekly basis in the course of operating their business. As much as I really love the look and feel of driving a truck (I still miss my '83 Ram), there was no excuse for city-boy IT-worker me to get one. Happily, the diesel Jetta Wagon is an amazing family car.
This thread’s been mostly about heavy grid power generation, but there’s an entire discussion here that needs to eventually be had concerning vehicle transportation. It’s a fact of life in the US that our population density is such that mass transit is going to be a non-starter across vast swathes of the country, but at the same time, oil isn’t getting any cheaper–but nothing yet matches it for safe and easily transportable and metered energy density per unit volume (this is why hydrogen cars are a hard sell, for example).
Biodiesel is a potential answer, since by definition it’s carbon-neutral. I’m not particularly happy with the way that the corn agribusiness has jumped onto it in spite of a lot of research indicating corn is a particularly poor base plant from which to produce biodiesel.
I’m seriously considering one of the two as my next car, but that’s solely because I’m planning on replacing my aging Neon with a daily commuter going less than ten miles a day.
The issue with electrics is currently range–they capable of being as good as any other car in every other category.
Some will say the engines aren’t particularly powerful, but that’s effectively a range limitation: more power equals less range.
Uof Michigan scientists have come up wit this. The truth is what will replace fossil fuels is coming down the line . It should not be nuclear. Every year we have better and better options.
Are you willing to wait a decade or so until research is complete, then a few more decades while a method of production is built, ramped up and the things put into wide spread use…maybe? If indeed they can build something practical and economical that actually works along the principals of that article?
We KNOW we will not have fossil fuels forever. Equally, we know that there are not unlimited amounts of uranium–or anything else. The question is, what should we be doing in the interim.
Personally, I think Gen IV nuclear plants, especially the “neighborhood” 25MW type self-contained plants, are potentially very promising as a stopgap to take us through the next 40 years while the current generation of sustainable non-polluting power technologies develops and matures.
As I was suggesting a few posts up, an issue we’re not really touching is portable power for long-range off-grid vehicles. Ships, aircraft, passenger car in the US and other low-density countries/areas, etc. Right now, the only technologies that have the requisite energy densities per pound/cubic are oil and nuclear, and we’ll need to see some significant advances in battery technology (either in rapidity of charging, or in power-per-unit-size) before that changes.
I’m still curious as to my question upthread–are there any actual studies/statistics on the amounts of construction materials (not consumables, but manufacturing inputs, especially rare ones) for renewable power vs. fossil fuel power?
I agree with you about the safety of the Honda Fit, with one caveat: Lighter vehicles do worse in impacts against heavier vehicles. Both may have the same front and side impact scores when driven into a wall or hit with a ram, but in the real world, all else being equal a 3500 lb vehicle being hit by a 6,000 lb SUV is going to fare better than a 2500 lb vehicle in the same circumstance.
However, I’d feel just as safe in a Fit as in an Escape. I have an Escape, and it’s a very safe, very robust vehicle. I’ve been hit twice now by smaller vehicles - both times suffering no damage to my Escape other than scuffs to the cladding, while in both cases the smaller vehicles were significantly damaged. I was rear-ended by a compact Chevrolet sedan last year, and his front end crumpled back and he clearly had thousands of dollars in damage, and I suffered no damage whatsoever.
But an Escape is not really an example of a gas-guzzling SUV - it’s basically a small car with a tall body. The curb weight of the base Escape is only 3231 lbs (3504 in AWD trim), making it lighter than most mid-sized sedans. It’s lighter than a Honda Accord.
That’s really a bad example - the small improvement in mileage of the Silverado is because it’s a ‘mild’ hybrid - a cheap way of claiming hybrid credentials without all the hardware. They can’t run in all-electric mode at all, have smaller batteries, and mainly benefit from having a small electric motor inside the transmission that allows the engine to shut down when stopped and may give a slight boost to the engine when running - but not much, because mild hybrids have small batteries.
The full hybrid Yukon/Tahoe is a huge vehicle (almost 6,000 lbs) - and it gets 21mpg EPA in the city. The Lexus RX450h weighs close to 5,000 lbs, and it gets 32mpg in the city in 2WD mode, and 30mpg city in 4WD. That’s better than a lot of small cars.
I disagree. I think it’s actually the other way around - if you want a small car, it makes no sense to buy a hybrid - not when you can buy a non-hybrid Ford Focus for $10,000 less and get 40 mpg. The beauty of hybrids is that they allow you to drive an SUV while getting the kind of mileage a small sedan would get.
Also, MPG is a misleading statistic used only in the U.S. It makes it look like going from 10mpg to 20 mpg is the same as going from 40mpg to 50mpg. But it’s really not. If you invert the units you get a better measurement - most other countries use Liters per 100km.
In terms of overall fuel consumption going from a 40mpg Focus to a 50mpg Insight isn’t that big a deal - a 20% gain. But if you want to drive an SUV, going from 10mpg to 20mpg will cut your fuel consumption in half. A hybrid that saves 10mpg will pay itself back more than twice as quickly in the SUV as in the Insight.
For urban drivers, a plug-in hybrid or an all-electric is a great choice. The Volt is too expensive, too heavy, and a little too early. If they can get plug-in hybrids down to prices where the average person can afford them, they’re pretty much the entire answer we need for city driving. 80% of all commuter trips are within the all-electric range of a plug-in hybrid, meaning that annual fuel consumption could be the equivalent of 100-200 mpg. At that level of consumption, it becomes feasible to burn all kinds of fuels. Or just burn gasoline - at 200 mpg, we can afford that, and so can the environment.
Corn ethanol is not particularly greenhouse friendly, and is best thought of as a government payoff to large agribusiness. You should shut that down, and eliminate the tariffs on cane sugar and foreign ethanol imports. Then you might actually have an ethanol that helps the environment.
I wasn’t actually aware of the Lexus. That’s a stellar performance for a 2.5ton vehicle–heck, it’s on par with my Neon’s highway performance.
Hence, diesel for my current car choice.
While the relative gain is true, if you’re typically driving yourself and a briefcase, you’re probably still better off in the Insight. I mean, I say that as an SUV lover myself.
One of the reasons I’m very happy to see the Volt and Leaf coming out now is that I plan to buy an electric or plug-in-hybrid in around 3-4 years.
40 mpg is 25g/100 miles. In a 12,000 mile year that would use 300 gallons.
Switch to a 50 mpg car and over the year you use only 240 gallons. You saved us from having to import 60 gallons of gas and from emitting that much gasoline’s CO2. Good on you. At $4/gallon you will save $240 a year and $1200 over the usual 5 year ownership period.
10 mpg is 10g/100 miles and in that same year 1200 gallons of gas. Increase by 10mpg and you use 600 gallons. You saved us from importing 600 gallons of gas and that much associated CO2. You did as much good as getting 10 drivers to switch form that Focus to that Insight. And at $4/gallon save $2400 a year and $12,000 over the usual 5 year ownership period of a new vehicle. You save 10 times as much.
Oh sure, you’d make an even bigger difference switching from the SUV to the smaller car, be it the Insight or the Focus, but some people really do need, or really do very much want, a big honkin’ SUV, and getting those to go up from 10 to 20 mpg is a huge thing that mpg numbers do not capture the flavor of at all.
A PHEV SUV that got only 30 miles a day gas-free, driven every day would be 10,950 miles, but figure not driven every day, and driven quite a bit farther on some days, hell make it that it drives 9000 of its 12,000 annual miles a year gas free, would save that same 600 gallons of gas over a middle of the road moderately efficient SUV that gets 20 mpg and would use only 150 gallons of gas. It would, at $4/gallon, be worth that same $2400/yr, $12,000 premium. And that’s without any tax credit. And compare it to the non-hybrid Yukon that get 12 mpg combined … sheeyut.
Yeah, the biggest knock against it is that it’s bloody expensive. Even by Lexus standards.
But the main reason I like hybrid SUVs is because I think it’s a losing game to demand that everyone drive small cars. Clearly, people do not want to do that. So if we can make big vehicles as efficient as smaller ones, we have a much better chance of getting widespread adoption.
That’s one reason why I think the best hybrid vehicles on the market today are the Ford Fusion hybrid and the Ford Escape hybrid. The Insight and Prius are cachet vehicles - they appeal to people who want to wear their environmentalist credentials on their sleeves, and I think that’s great. But that’s a small market.
If you really want to penetrate the overall vehicle market with something more efficient, you have to provide the vehicles people want to drive, and not convince them to leave behind the kinds of vehicles they want to drive and force them to conform to some other ideal.
That’s basically my theme in this entire thread: There are two ways to come at environmental problems: One is to use government to impose solutions on people, to use subsidies to drive adoption of otherwise non-cost effective power sources, and to use taxes on people’s preferences to attempt to change them, and the other is to figure out a way to provide what people actually want and can afford so that they come to you willingly. The same is true with cars.
We’ll never get widespread adoption of renewable energy until we can make renewable energy a better choice than fossil fuels on a global scale. That means our focus should be on getting to that end game, rather than imposing poor solutions on people today by force. I’m in favor of wind where it’s being implemented for market-based reasons, and against its imposition on the population in large scale when it’s not.
Not necessarily. I wouldn’t trade my Escape for a small car for anything. I like sitting high. I like having lots of space for my stuff. I like the big greenhouse and awesome visibility. I love all-wheel-drive - living on the Canadian prairies, I will never again own a 2WD vehicle.
But more to the point, I can’t afford a second vehicle to cover the other uses I have other than commuting. For example, I fly R/C airplanes for fun. I have a Border Collie that goes places with me. I take my family on trips to the mountains, with ski gear or diving gear or camping gear. I do a lot of mechanical maintenance and construction projects around the house, which means I need a vehicle that can carry a lawnmower or a sheet of plywood. That’s why SUV’s are called ‘utility’ vehicles. They do a lot of things for us. I’m sure people sneer at me when they see me commuting along to work in my SUV, but they don’t see all the other things I do with it.
I agree. I’m waiting for the Ford Plug-In Escape. My current one is 8 years old and starting to get a bit long in the tooth, but I’m holding out for the plug-in hybrid Escape. It’s supposed to come out next year, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it delayed until 2013. Hope mine hangs in there that long.
