Chris, did you see my blogs about the Power Towers? They use a wind/solar combo for generating electrical power. They work well day and night, but better during daylight.

One tower will supply the electrical needs for ten thousand homes. On a twenty square mile area, enough towers could supply the needs for ten million families and crack sea water to cheaply produce hydrogen fuel. We need all of the dfferent types and close down every nuker in the world and the coal fired ones also.

On another blog I mentioned a new type of solar tube which is better than the solar panels. I have to look up the websites for it.

She's Germany's Maggie Thatcher and a fraud on climate change, as she only wants to use the market, which is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Forget about her BS.

Makes sense. The amount of energy required for our modern way of life is so enormous that even conservation, efficiency and renewables are insufficient. Nuclear is the only real alternative to fossil fuel. The challenge is to make it safe.

Even though solar photovoltaics accounted for only 0.3% of electricity generation in Germany in 2006 it is increasing by over 50% per year, and at that rate by 2020 80% of demand could be provided by photovoltaics.

Photovoltaics have the potential to provide in one year more than all the energy available ever from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear combined. It is solar power that is the only viable alternative today, not nuclear.

Photovoltaics has the capacity to produce in one year all the energy available forever from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear combined. It is solar power that is the only viable alternative today, not nuclear.

We need to keep our eggs in many baskets, while pursuing renewables, we need to maintain or increase nuclear electricity generating capacity on the mid-term horizon.

There are a lot of things in the environment worse for you than than the radioactive materials produced by light-water reactors - including many far-less detectable chemicals in the environment, and the tip-over to a runaway greenhouse effect.

Chris,

What do we do to generate power at night, and when it is cloudy?

Now, I'm all for living frugally - I don't use air conditioning, but I do use fans on summer nights. Just the same, an electrical system relying on nearly no generation capacity at night or when large parts of the continent are cloudy would require draconian regulation of electricity usage - comparable to what Iraqis or Gazans are currently living with - and I just don't find that realistic.

Like I wrote, we can't put all the eggs in one basket.

Chris, good blog.

There is a new solar tube which has been developed and is currently in the final stages of perfection; it will be avaiabe for sale early next year. It is far less expensive to manufacture than current solar panels and produces more electrical power per square inch than the large panels do and it uses far less energy to produce them.

In addition, the solar/wind towers being built in Australia and China, may be the best answer for almost all of the world's energy needs. Those can also be used to crack sea water to produce hydrogen fuel at a very low cost per gallon. One tower will produce enough electrical power for 10,000 homes.

Atomic power would be wonderful, if it wasn't for the deadly atomic waste___ which will eventually [and possibly be much sooner than most would like to believe], be the end of all life on our planet.

There is absolutely no way to "safely" store millions of tons of deadly nuclear waste "forever". From now to perpituity we must safely store it.___ Impossible.

It is truly illogical that Ms. Merkel or any other Government leader entertains the idea that nuclear energy can be the answer to global warming. Does she not realize that a new reactor would need to be licensed and running every 4 months between now and half way through the century. This is not going to happen. Our "need" ( created by the energy companies) for the electricity must decrease. We must use less, drive less, develop efficiency measures, act to create a sane future not one based on the illusion that the atom will be our saviour...
In case you missed it, I found this article useful,

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/us/06cnd-nuke.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
also available here
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070607L.shtml

The fact that this was not made public is akin to the worldwide PR campaign that creates the illusion of nuclear as a response to global warming.

Nuclear is no safer today than it was in the days of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl- but today it represents a terrorist target.

Also see http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_60486.shtml

Let's see, $2 Billion without counting the fuel? And not counting storing the waste for a million years? Photovoltaics have come down from $30/watt 30 years ago to $3/watt and are expected to be 40% lower in three years, and another 60% below that, about $0.80/watt once large scale use begins. And by large scale use I mean more than 10% of electrical generation. Yes the sun only shines during the day, which is when peak loads occur, but for night what is used is pumped hydro storage, which is 78% efficient. While nuclear plants are also shut down occasionally for maintenance solar power shuts down once a day every day, so a 1,200 Megawatt peak solar plant produces on average 19% times that on an annual basis. Still the total available even in a cloudy country like Germany is many, many times total energy needs, not just electrical, but including all uses.

Storing it as hydrogen is a total waste of money, other than for unusual applications such as the space shuttle. Batteries are about 95% efficient, hydrogen maybe 30%.

By the way, as an example of large scale use of solar power, covering the sahara desert with photovoltaics would generate about 54 times the worlds total use of energy (of all types), and since they are made from sand, well does the Sahara have any sand? With that kind of energy to waste we may find hydrogen storage used, but for domestic use and in automobiles, transmission lines and batteries are far more practical.

You have your ducks lined up Chris. That's good because Billy__y4 works for or with nuclear power people. See his blogs on other sites. I think he is a nice person, but fully dedicated to his belief in nuclear energy.

The sun doesn't shine 24-7 but in some places of the world the wind blows almost 24-7 and the tides are constant as is geo-thermal. Imagine the jobs, if we began a full scale effort to build clean energy plants in the US. Imagine the fight to do so with the oil and mining industries.

Nuclear power is only able to survive here, because of government support and funding. Billy is absolutely correct on his statements about burning coal. It is the worst as far as polluting the atmosphere with smoke and causing the green house effet on the planet. Nuclear power is the worst for polluting the atmosphere with poison. I appreciate your comments Chris.___ Spread the word whenever you can.

Wind, tide and geo-thermal are great, wind is especially cheap to install right now, but all of those are very limited resources compared to solar. There is a map which shows how much of the earth needs to be covered with solar panels to generate all of our energy needs (but multiply that by 20 to bring the third world up to first world usage). The dots were drawn assuming 8% efficient panels, current panels are 20% efficient. http://www.ez2c.de/ml/solar_land_area/

I'm glad to see the discussion here focusing on comparative costs, risks and benefits. In a rational society, that's where the decision will ultimately be made. (Whether we have a rational society is a different question.)

But regarding the costs/benefits question, Chris should have included security costs in the mix. Nuclear energy producers cannot pay their insurance costs and still be competitive: governments have to provide the insurance (and, presumably, much of the anti-terrorist security measures as well.)

Also, the DoE says that the next generation of PV (or the generation following that) will produce electricity at about$1/watt; that a solar collecter will have a payback period of one year and produce 29 more years of "free" energy.

Finally, as of 1993 economist John Blackburn claimed that air conditioning and dehumidification systems (which did not involve storage)existed that were already competitive.
Blackburn's book is "Solar Florida:toward a sustainable future."

Germany should have voted for the Left party, and the country wouldn't be in this damn mess. The "Social Democrats" have become the "party on the right" under Gerhard Shroeder. He is another damn Tony Blair. The Social Democrats need to get rid of him and fast.

Burn plutonium? Billy, if we can get rid of plutonium by burning it, why in hell are we spending billions of dollars storing it. Why not burn all of the thousands of tons of it now? It is my understanding that plutonium is indestructable.

And personally I really don't care if wind/solar are not yet competitive, nuclear power is just to dangerous, it is not IF a nuclear accident will someday occur and steralize a huge area of land and kill millions, the question is__ WHEN?__We were just pure ass lucky with the accident at Three Mile Island, even our president showed up in person when that accident occurred. It was more than serious and very vey close to doomsday for the East Coast of the United States. Will something like that happen again? The answer is yes,___ just give it time.

Billy, thanks for that info. I finally get it. Nuclear power is perfectly safe and we will only have to store the deadly nuclear waste for a thousand years.

Dang, I was mis-informed! Well shut my mouth and those of all the real experts who have been concerned. You have made my day Bill, thanks again.

Gotta leave now and go feed the bird, see we have one out there today. Funny, last year we had hundreds of them. We used to spend a lot of money buying bird seed, now we have a lot more $ for gas, things usually work out for the best, just tell it to the lord, pray__ and it will all be Okay. That's what Bush does too, and he's a lot smarter than me.

This article is BS. This German chancellor is scrapping plans to get rid of nuclear power, because the big money interests prefer to use nuclear power, and they have a strangle hold over the hierarchy of the CDU/CSU gang, who are now in a unity government with the "Social Democrats," whose current boss is Gerhard Shroeder, and a complete closet case Christian Democrat and booty kisser for W and betrayer of all Social Democrats should stand for anywhere. He is almost as much in favor privatization as Merkel and her CDU/CSU gang.

Fortunately, a rebellion is brewing among Social Democrats against Shroeder and others who have betrayed their party and the working people. The main good thing about Shroeder and his kind among the Social Democrats is that even they don't want any part of nuclear power.