Why on Earth is this topic in Great Debates?
Fine, you’ve convinced me. I was going to vote for Obama, but I now recognize that he’s just too oldety-old-old. I’m running for President on a sex androids for all platform. Do I need a party name? Evil Overlord Party?
I’d say it fits in nicely with third plank of The Scorched Earth Party’s platform:
BTW, if you do the math, $700 billion works out to be almost 600 gallons of gas for every man, woman, and child in America at $4/gal.
So we spend $300 billion to switch from being dependant on oil to being dependant on natural gas? Hydrogen is just a storage method - the energy is still coming from a fossil fuel.
And, as far as cool shit, where is my god damn flying car?!?
Natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline, and we have more natural gas in the US than we do oil.
Well, for $700 billion, you could buy 1.4 million of them.
Any alternative energy scenario that does not include nuclear power generation is not worthy of being taken seriously, because it is being driven by emotion and not reason. That lady’s nat-gas-to-hydrogen plan, the Dem platform, and Gore’s “end foreign oil” thesis, all ignored nuclear. Therefore, they’re hard to take seriously.
Any statement on an empirical matter that is offered without substantiation is not worthy of being taken seriously, because it is being driven by emotion and not reason.
More generally, nuclear power is a rather expensive way of producing electricity, both before and after waste disposal costs and governmental subsidies are factored in. Cite. That’s not to say that is should be dismissed, but rather it should be subject to the same cost/benefit evaluation as any other source.
Gore’s position is, “We have a lot of nuclear plants in the U.S., and … I’m not anti-nuclear. I’m a little skeptical that’s it’s gonna play a much bigger role than it does now. I think it’ll continue to play a role.”
Sorry, but modern conservatives are the Kings of emotions-and-feelings. They make claims about Al Gore after consulting their gut, rather than google. And their flat and uninformed statements regarding nuclear power are just another demonstration of this.
You can consider it all you want, but how many nuke plants do think we can actually build within a decade? Una’s stated in the past that if you waved away all the paperwork headaches, it’d take 70 years to replace the coal plants in the US. Cite. I can’t imagine that adding a significant number of nuke plants (while still keeping the coal burners going) would be any faster or easier.
Man, when I was half the age I am now, I would have joined them. For about a minute.
Over what period of time? Approaching that level of additional gasoline consumption in under three months would spike the price again, possibly by 75%.
Didn’t see it on that list, but what would you say a smallish (50 sq miles?), nuclear-powered, climate-controlled island that could go oh, 20 knots or so, would set me back, Tuckerfan?
With 30 to 40 members of The Swedish Bikini Team included of course…
As much I love you, Tucker, this makes no sense. I’m not particularly in favor of the crash-build scenario, but we could easily put 10-20 nuke plants up within a decade, which would be a substantial portion of our power, and noticably cut emissions from coal plants since we won’t need as many.
EDIT: IIRC we have 102 now, which supply 20% of American power. 10-20 new ones would be, more than that proportionately, because they could be bigger and better than the tech we had in the 1960’s and 70’s. 10 new plants would be about a 2% increase in percent power generation*. That may not sound like much, but it will seriously helped air quality if you cluster them in the right regions. 20 new plants would be about 3-5% in percent power generation*.
*After the increase in demand overall.
Una’s the expert on this, you’ll have to ask her if that were possible. Mind you, I’ve talked to people who worked for the NRC and claimed that ten years ago, they were still processing the paperwork from the TMI accident, if that’s true, then we’ve got a helluvalot of paperwork to dispose of (several small deciduous forests, it would seem).
Also, I seriously doubt that you’d have an easy time getting nuke plants built, because of all the “OMG! We’re gonna die!” halfwits screwing things up with court challenges, etc.
30 to 40? From what I hear from the girls down at the pool hall, your eyes are bigger than your, ah, pistolo peligroso.
Dude, at 52, what do you think my odds are of scoring with a bodalicious twenty-something member of The Swedish Bikini Team? 30 to 1? 40 to 1? There’s your answer…and remember, I’m an optimist.
And if you haven’t tried eye-sex yet, don’t knock pudner…'cause you will. 
I was taking the “government stops halfwits from being stupid” assumption. But while the technical challenges are certainly a pain, it’s not fundamentally much different than any other large building structure - even easier than many skyscrapers in technical complexity. You’ve got a huge, thick concrete dome, a reasonably complex system of pipes and safe nuclear storage, and some very complex reactor equipment. It’s a project, definitely, but things of that scale can be done. Even counting planning and design, you’re looking at 3-7 years to ge them built (depending on size and siting).