Undeclared final war

Aelgifu I'm noticing a trend in your posts. They seem to abandon the notions of practicality, and concentrate solely on the "what if everything that could possibly go wrong does" scenarios, even though if we followed that approach we would never have discovered fire.

Denis, Of course I read the article on concentrated solar power and it sounds very exciting and innovating and fantastic, and if it is feasible, as it 'appears' to be, then brilliant. We're all saved.

We already have given a disproportianate amount of diplomatic power to the likes of Saudi Arabia exactly because they supply so many of our energy needs. The development of the CSP would be no different than our current degenerative system of importing oil from the Middle East. No better or worse than our current self destructive system :)

And anyway, the possibilities of forming a multi-continent electricity grid is indeed exciting. Hydro from the as of yet untapped wonder of Siberia and the not-exactly-at-maximum-potential Norway; Wind and wave farms in coastel regions such as Western Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, Northern Spain etc. Solar from North Africa, Arabia and potentially central asia. The question of biomass can be answered quite easily - Take away the damn EU subsidies on farming, leaving European farmers with the challenge of remaining competitive. The emerging market of Biomass can indeed make up quite a lot of our energy needs.

Maybe I'm a dreamer, an idealist, but I'd rather see us make an attempt at really developing reknewables rather than look back in fifty years time as I ring your home number to say "I told you so" as I watch some tin pot Eastern European 'democracy' such as Belarus incompetantly watch over a Nuclear Power plant which melts down causing thousands of deaths, or oversee a crazed airplane crash into Sellafield Nuclear plant by dissidents of whatever political persuasion, be they radical Islamofascists, Anarchists, communists, fascists or whatever.

/rant.

I don't see how it could be useless. DO you know how electricity grids work?

Originally posted by Zaitsev Small issue - you can fly dozens of planes into a nuclear plant and it won't do a darn thing. Having read up on CSP I still don't believe it is feasible until more research has been done to make it more efficient. The solar panel technology itself is not up to scratch. It is also, as you said, a dream to think of a multi-continent power grid in this political climate. Alot of people have also ignored the fact that by the time the power from Norway gets to France, let alone America or Australia, it will be just about useless.

Edited by Seko - 19-Feb-2007 at 14:47

I am aware power has been exported for some time, but this is a highly inefficient process with much signal loss. In addition, the problem of "dirty power" occurs, which can cause problems in alot of appliances, especially computers.

Looking at that "alertnative energy" diagram I would say that nuclear power is the most environmentally friendly option.

Originally posted by Aelfgifu I'm also noticing a trend. You seem to be suffering from a chronic short-sightedness, constantly focused on short term satisfaction with little or no care for any future effects at all. If we would all follow your course, we will have poisioned our world into a uninhabitable dead rock within a couple of decades.   Fire, or pretty much any other source of energy including fossile fuel, water, wind and solar energy, does in absolutely no way have the possibility of making a significant portion of the earth uninhabitable for several centuries. Nuclear power does. Plenty of reason to go for any alternative what ever it is.   Nuclear power is not safe, it is not environmentally friendly, and although the price may be low the cost is higher than we can afford.   If we would build more nuclear power stations, the chances it will go wrong somewhere increases. Simple maths. The fact that it already did go wrong in an American nuclear power plant proves that money, safety measures, regular maintenance and such does nothing to excude possible risks. If it can go wrong in America, it can go a lot worse in poor countries. The USSR won't have been the only country not to take safety and maintenance too seriously. Encouraging the building of Nuclear power plants is asking for more trouble.

Wow, you really have been affected by the propaganda. Nuclear waste, properly disposed of, does not make any area of the Earth uninhabitable. You accuse me of being short-sighted, when you just said that fossil fuels don't make areas uninhabitable. If we're not careful they'll make the whole Earth uninhabitable.

Nuclear Power IS much safer than just about any power source around. Do you know how many people have died from coal mining? In accidents at coal plants? Alot more than died in Chernobyl and all Uranium mining combined. Thousands of people have died in dam construction around the world.

Nuclear Power is also alot more environmentally friendly than coal, or oil or even gas power. In many ways its also alot more environmentally friendly than hydro-electric, which disrupts the eco-system and water cycle significantly. The amount of waste produced by a nuclear reactor is miniscule when compared to that of a coal power plant, and oil is even worse.

The One Mile Island incident is damn good proof that modern nuclear power is safe. The incompetent workers did EVERYTHING wrong, and the system itself still easily averted disaster. If you can come up with a practical alternative which won't polute the atmosphere beyond breathability, please tell me.

Solar energy, as pointed out above, wind energy, earth-warmth systems, etc. There are plenty.

Edited by Aelfgifu - 20-Feb-2007 at 08:45

Originally posted by Aelfgifu Solar energy, as pointed out above, wind energy, earth-warmth systems, etc. There are plenty.   Congrats, Not only have you managed to completely and utterly miss my point, you also contradict yourself in other posts in your haste to talk yourself out of your mistakes. I could go further on this, but you wouldn't get it anyway, and I have far better things to spend my time on than you.

Cop out.

Regardless, I have already said "earth-warmth" systems are useful. However these systems can only be used in some areas of the world. The majority are not suitable. Solar and wind energy ARE NOT VIABLE. Just the land costs to build them are enormous, and they don't even produce enough energy to pay for their own construction.

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