Originally Posted By: Nick R
http://www.dailytech.com/Vermonts+Only+N...rticle33258.htm
Well, it's only a matter of time now. Now that fossil fuels are again cheap, and the buzz around solar and wind are at a fever pitch, it's inevitable that our only truly long term sustainable source of electricity is going to go away. All because of FUD and misunderstanding around the nuclear industry.
That, and the attitude "We can just buy electricity from "x" (insert: Quebec, New York, etc) but if those places do the same thing, eventually who is left actually generating the electricity? In the end, as usual, it all comes down to money.
I firmly believe that Nuclear energy is safe, and sustainable. People who say that our nuclear power plants can "go chernobyl" obviously does not understand what actually happened at chernobyl, or how nuclear power really works. My dad is a 20 year veteran of the US Navy, working with Nuclear reactors for that entire time. Guess what? I would live next to the containment structure of a nuclear power plant and not even think about it.
But people don't want that, people are going to listen to the greenies who say and think that chinese built solar panels, and large, unsightly, unsafe (see infrasound and wind turbines) are the best way to go. Because they don't understand the economics of it. New, generation IV nuclear reactors are safe, reliable, and clean. And before people bring up nuclear waste, I want you to ask yourself how much waste is produced in china, by the people, and companies, manufacturing solar panels. A LOT. And most of it goes int he air and landfills.
But again, that isn't what the people who want "renewable" energy sources want. They say it's unsafe. They say that fukushima could happen anywhere. Again, same argument as Chernobyl. They don't understand WHY it happened. WHAT happened. They see news articles and think that they are smart and know all about it. When the truth is they only know how to regurgitate what the mass media tells them. They don't want to take the time to read for themselves. To learn about it. They are too lazy for that. They just want to act smart and talk the talk.
Let's be abundantly clear: Solar and wind on a large enough scale to completely replace fossil fuels and nuclear are NOT economically feasible. They are far too expensive, and take up far too much space, and are far too unreliable and unable to change quickly to meet rapidly shifting demand, as steam power plants are able to.
But that doesn't matter. What matters is that we are "hip" and do what the cool kids are doing, and complain about nuclear power when we don't understand it.
For this reason, I have no hope for the human race.
/end of rant
Good commentary.
I too am a Nuclear proponent and I have hope for the human race but we must do a better job of educating the public and weeding through the media bias and envirowhackism that pervades our society.
We have to give new nuclear technologies a chance.
