Too bad the four bullet points don’t consider either solar (fusion power) or non-land wind power. Not that these non-nuclear, non-coal choices are much talked about or used, so I suppose that the assumption in overlooking them doesn’t render the column that much of a waste of space.
Here’s some useful information on the topic: Renewable energy - Wikipedia written by a collection of idiots, rather than a shill for the big industry.
Actually, yes it does, given that the word “consumption” is not unequivocally dimensionless.
You do know that “energy” is the colloquial term for “power”, right?
Powers &8^]
The consumption of solar energy (eating food) dwarfs all other energy sources already. Add in wood used for building, paper and other sundry uses, the sun is the major source of energy already. It’s just not used that much to heat water, cook food, warm homes, charge cars, and cool your home.
Oh sure in cold dark areas solar is far from ideal. But most of the people in the world live where there is way too much sun, or near enough to use it for almost everything.
If it was easy to tax, and you could make bombs out of it, solar would be already be the number one source of energy for everything.
It seems it may be. What’s your point?
There’s no way to respond to linguistic pedantry like this, so I’ll just leave you with this to mull over: in 2002, global road consumption by cars was 13 miles per hour.
“linguistic pedantry”
I like that description.
Solar power is easy to tax. Most of the costs are in form of building and maintaining the panels, both of which are easily taxable. If they are connected to the grid and commercial, even the electricity produced could easily be taxed.
It’s just that the time until ROI (Return on Investment) would be too late compared to the lifetime of a solar panel.
Only a tiny fraction of the reactors is even capable of generating useful plutonium for weapons, and a tiny part of this would be refined to weapons grade plutonium to be used in one, so I doubt the inability of making solar bombs matters much 
I do agree with you that the sun gives a LOT of energy, but the problem is more about in how to get useful amounts of it collected, and how to store it without MASSIVE losses in energy to be used when needed.
Something I am a little bit surprised no-one has yet mentioned is the “types” of power stations.
One is baseload power station, capable of generating a large amount of electricity effectively, adjusting the power generated though usually takes a long time. These are designed to be run 24/7 with only very short breaks for maintenance (Etc, nuclear and most coal power stations)
Second one is load-following power station. These are capable of generating decent amounts of electricity when needed. and can usually be spun up in minutes. They include hydroelectric (part of the water may easily be routed via bypass instead of the turbines) and gas turbines (Expensive to run due to fuel costs, can usually also use liquid fuels). These are used during the biggest peaks to deal with load, like during noontime as many people turn on their air conditioners. In terms of efficiency and capacity they usually have lower compared to baseload, and they aren’t expected to run the whole time. (Note that hydroelectric plants usually generate at least a little bit of electricity, giving them capacity to act as a baseload station in some countries)
Please note that solar power is counted for the second one, because they generate most of their electricity during peak hours.
What this means, is that they aren’t really competing with nuclear power. They are rather competing with gas/oil turbine plants. Which is also great
The fact that solar and wind can only substitute for dispatchable load-following generation discounts their utility and green credentials. It means they can effectively either save some gas, or possibly keep a dam’s water level higher, but the gas plant and/or dam has to be built regardless.
This is why I keep repeating that the fundamental breakthrough that’ll change everything is a synthetic hydrocarbon fuel production process, either via some kind of artificial photosynthesis or a related system. A breakthrough here would solve the problem of wind/solar intermittency, would offer a solution to the atmospheric CO2 problem, would give us a carbon-neutral fuel for running our transportation infrastructure on, would improve both national and energy security, and would end the threat to food supply that’s posed by agricultural biofuels. In short, it’d be a cure, rather than a treatment.
Are you referring to synthetic fuels such as artificial photosynthesis (which, by the way, is a good way to store the energy collected from sun during daytime, though in plants it usually is rather inefficient. Less than 10% of the sunlight gets used effectively. See sources 1 and 2 at end of the message) or otherwise? It is a good idea to lessen CO2, though it still does need to get it’s energy from somewhere, to quote Second Law of Thermodynamics, “There is no such thing as a free lunch” (Alright, so literally it might be that Entropy increases).
The energy you need to make CO2 into a fuel again is related to the energy you got from originally burning it. With interest to account for the various losses (Entropy always increases)
But it does have good possibilities in storing energy for long term, and transporting it from where it is produced, to where it is needed.
Source 1: What is Photosynthesis
Source 2: Chapter 1 - Biological energy production
Of course. There’s no magic. The breakthrough will just need to make the reaction efficient enough for it to make some economic sense. This will mean catalysts, either synthetic, or organic (i.e. an enzyme system). It doesn’t have to be efficient in sunlight use, but it will have to be time and capex-cost competitive with the alternatives, which for the foreseeable future are fossil fuels and the Fischer–Tropsch process.
Current methods - not ideal: http://bioage.typepad.com/greencarcongress/docs/HydrogenSynfuel.pdf
Funny but, unfortunately not true.
Matter of fact, in the very same war, many European nations suffered far more devastation from coal bombs than Japan did from nuclear.
Of course a coal bomb is no more a sack of coal dropped on Berlin than a nuclear bomb is a bag of pitchblende dropped on Nagasaki. Both require endless refining and modification before they become high explosives or weapons-grade uranium.
However, coal is more dangerous to have around as it will burn in its natural state whereas uranium ore will not go critical however much you poke it.
I think the only coal dropped on Berlin was after the war. To try and help people there who were blockaded by the Soviets.
The fundamental breakthrough would be “some kind of artificial photosynthesis,” which would add energy to the system. Synthetic fuel production in itself would just pour energy from one bucket into another, with some spillage. That’s the point Paradyme was trying to make.
Nuclear power is the worst possible solution to our energy crisis and there are many reasons why. While the nuclear power energy pays off scientists to sell us propaganda about its virtues, we are intentionally being protected from the true facts. Nuclear power is one of the largest threats facing life on this planet. Please educate yourself by doing in an indepth search on this topic. Renewable energy is what we need to be investing all our energy and money in. The technology for renewables is growing aggressively and many European countries are currently in the forefront in developing this. Grassroots efforts in the U.S. are growing, as well, as more people are educating themselves. We need to develop renewables and at the same time, learn how to use less. The following sources are good places to begin by first acquainting yourself with the truth about nuclear:
http://www.democracynow.org/search?query=nuclear+power
http://www.democracynow.org/features/dr_helen_caldicott
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/opinion/27280#
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/PageFiles/24507/briefing-nuclear-not-answer-apr07.pdf
You are going to have to summarize the evidence you are citing. A data dump is not very convincing.
:rolleyes:
Nuclear has many disadvantages, but silly hyperbole like this completely invalidates your contribution.
Ac ille respondens ait: tu dicis.
I would agree in principle that nuclear reactors are not the greatest threat to life. As long as they keep the fuel inside and under water, it’s not much of a threat. Oh sure if something really bad happened, that somehow immobilized or sickened everybody, some war or disease that swept over the world, so that there wasn’t anybody to run the plants, to keep it all going, then it would in fact be the greatest man made threat ever. Almost 500 reactors, and all the spent fuel from them, if all that was burning and exploding and released into the air and water, that would be the greatest damage possible.
But I don’t even want to think about that.
Too many links.
Could you give us a shorter version, and while at it, give us YOUR definition of what a “Renewable energy source” means in your opinion. That would help us to judge whether you are right or wrong a lot easier.
Hm. Does this mean that Slug has immortalized me?