Why Renewables Can't Save the Planet

[TerryMiller]

TedX is somewhat of a liberal source of information. Many of the "Ted Talks" are interesting in different ways. Some time back, I think I posted a YouTube video of a General of the Netherlands speaking of why he "chose the gun" as his instrument in helping society and his country. Today, I ran across this talk about how solar power and wind power are not the sources of electricity that are really beneficial, either environmentally or economically. He spoke in this video of the difference between electricity costs in Germany, which relies a lot on wind and solar, and France, which relies more on nuclear for electrical power.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

People who truly seek science are apolitical. It's when you start getting politicians involved and rely on the aforementioned for your funding science becomes political.

 

[Louro]

Eye opener. Thanks for posting.

 

[RickN]

I feel that wind and solar are only good for back up. If I could I would build a small combined unit so if the power goes out I can at least run my O2. Sadly I think it would cost as much to build as buying a backup gen.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Think nuclear is the way to go. Modern reactor designs like pebble bed reactors are by their design much safer. Ones like 3 Mile Island and Fermi were old and tried to extract every last ounce of power from Uranium, sort of like putting a blower and/or nitrous on a Ford Flathead V8 (something will give, or the engine will overheat and stall.) Nuclear takes up much less space than wind or solar and the waste could actually be recycled. Besides, if we really want to make it into space, Isotopes are necessary for Radio Thermal Generators. You can't make isotopes with Wind or Solar. Nuclear Reactors can produce Hydrogen and Electricity to power vehicles, and power homes and businesses, and don't rely on the weather. Nuclear is also quieter and doesn't kill birds and bats, or take up inordinate amounts of landscape.

 

[TerryMiller]

I was surprised while doing our road survey job in Alabama. That state has both coal fired and nuclear generation facilities, and in addition, there are a pretty good number of dams on their rivers, most if not all that also have generation capability. Sadly, our survey job requires us to be moving a lot and their roads don't really have any shoulders to pull off on, so I couldn't get any pictures of any of the facilities that we saw.

Maybe I'll do some internet searching for pictures of some of the facilities.