I would like to expand on what Al Gore wrote in his letter:

"I do not support any increased reliance on nuclear energy."

My view is that you can run the nuclear plants that we have now and decommission them when the time comes to do so. You can replace those decommissioned nuclear plants with new designs that are safer, if we do not have a renewable source to take its place.

I do not like nuclear plants and the waste that they produce, but they do provide strong base load power production. I think that we can eventually replace that power production with renewable energy sources. But until we have those resources online, we will need nuclear.

I'm sure that those who support nuclear power will be able to diminish the importance of a large scale accident in their minds...not if, but when it happens here. Like the Russians who support nuclear power do now. Don't climb higher than you are willing to fall.

~JSTEVENS~is absolutely correct. It's the coal burning that is the real serious problem on a daily basis. It also it the problem we MUST attack because of hte Co2 emmissions.

So we have those that say build nuclear and solve that serious problem. And so many agree because nuclear is actually a clean energy compared to coal, much cleaner.

What I almost fail to understand, is why can't we say the same thing about clean and SAFE energy and put the money we'd use for nuclear into developing SAFE energy. Wind, solar, geo-thremal etc.

Actually I do understand it, the reason of course is, (the powers who be) own uranium mines. They also "own" or control many politicians and the press. Money talks and they have tons of money,___ we don't.

The science and technology is currently available to have clean, SAFE energy and faster than we could have more nuclear plants, IF we'd put our money and energy into it.

I fear another problem is, men like Obama and Gore actually consider nuclear "clean energy" because it doesn't pollute the atmosphere with Co2 and they are willing to risk the dangers, as are so many decent and intelligent people who blog here at CD on the subject.

I have regularly posted comments questioning the wisdom of nuclear power generation, but a recent installment of the PBS series "e2" has given me pause.

www.pbs.org/e2/episodes/teacher_206.html (Sorry there appears to be no transcript available.)

The program talked about the "pebble bed" technology where the nuclear fuel pellets are encased in waterproof graphite which facilitates disposal. The technology allows power plants to be modular, and manufactured in a plant. The plants are small and can be up and running in 2-3 years. Since they're modular, new additions can be built right alongside the older facilities without any downtime. It sounds promising.

On the other hand, if what rtdrury says applies (". . .in 2008 FPL estimated the two new proposed nuclear plants at Turkey Pt. to cost $16k/kW"), then it wouldn't seem to make economic sense unless the new technology could production at, say, one-eighth the projected cost.

To halt and reverse the reality of global warming we must STOP using fossil fuels. Not reduce, but STOP. Period!

The replacements for fossil fuels are well known; solar, wind, tidal and nuclear. Captured energy from these processes is easily turned into the only two forms of "energy currency" we needs; electricity for communications, and hydrogen for transportation. No new technologies are required, only improvements in efficiency and safety. What is required is the willingness for all 6,500,000,000 of us to elect governments that will do as we demand.

For those who say that this change will make communications and transportation more expensive; so what?

The choice is an easy one. We continue to use cheap oil and gas, pollute our atmosphere, and our children and grandchildren will fry, or we and they pay more. It's not rocket science.

You are correct ~Wood-Boot~.

I always knew deep down, that Billy__y4 was wrong about nuclear power. Now it's out in the open. He'd be a wonderful teacher and wish he'd do that and get away from the "nuker" gangs.

I am really getting tired of Mr. Wasserman's fanatical shrillness and demagogery-substituting for analysis ("apocalyptic catastorphe") regarding nuclear power. He has absolutely no scientific or technical knwoledge or training that would make his arguments credible. Aside from the lead-time issue, his claims about nuclear power generation - especially the one about it not reducing greenhouse gas emissons - are nonsense.

Well, that's your biased opinion ~USAn~, as you advocate nuclear power. Of course you would be tired of his comments.

I'll say, I agree that all of his opinions and comments are not always correct, but sifting the good from the bad, he's far more sensible on the nuclear power issue than you are. ___ That's my biased opinion.

Neither Wasserman or anybody else needs "scientific or technical knowledge or training" to objectively evaluate the history of nuclear power. Common sense leads to one conclusion:

Nuclear power has not worked without massive taxpayer subsidies anywhere on the face of the earth. Although nuclear produces less greenhouse gas than a coal-fired power plant, it produces more greenhouse gas than many other alternatives, that if they received the same taxpayer subsidies as nuclear, would produce power without creating waste that will be hazardous for centuries and would not provide material that terrorists and other enemies could use to create weapons.

Perfectly said ~Andersdl~.

All you Obama backers need to check this reasoning against Obama's energy policy statements. He supports nuclear, as well as corn ethanol and clean coal (Illinois' two most abundant resources), all of which are false and dangerous technologies in the effort to halt climate change.

If you agree with Wasserman, you need to suport one of the candidates who is speaking truth to power on alternative energy issues ... Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney.

Except they don't have a prayer you forgot to mention., no matter what true progressives think of them.

What's Hillary's position on nuclear and on clean energy?

"As for France, its atomic industry is a form of national socialism" -- was the Nazi reference accidental?

1. where is a study which shows that alternative energy sources are adequate to support decent living standards?

2. what major technology has ever become useful without an extended period of use and related engineering?

3. does the author know anything about breeder reactors?

Mr. Wassermann has made his mind up on nuclear power, but that does not excuse his perpetual lack of objectivity.
Mr. Wassermann states that nuclear energy "probably" emits less greenhouse gas than fossil fuels. Even without the probably, that is gross understatement of a huge benefit of nuclear power.

He also downplays the possibility of a "standardized design" by saying there is no standardized design yet.
Furthermore, he ignores the fact that the expense of nuclear power is exacerbated by people of his ilk, and by that I mean fear-mongers.
Why doesn't Harvey mention that nuclear energy not only is less carbon intensive, it results in much less air pollution?
Disingenuous as always.

According to Harvey's NIRS, the nuke industry has been claiming the cost of construction of nuke plants to be from $1k to $2k/kW but in 2007 Moody's finance company projected $6k/kW, then in 2008 FPL estimated the two new proposed plants at Turkey Pt. to cost $16k/kW.

According to cosmos.ucdavis.edu, most large scale wind farms cost about $1k/kW. Maintenance and recycling should be a lot lower than for nuke plants as well. And this doesn't even count nuke fuel costs, nuke waste disposal/containment costs, or the safety/health risks.

Local scale renewable energy adds to this the benefit of economic/political autonomy for the general population, providing protection against the oppression by concentrated economic/political power that is paralyzing Americans today.

To Kem Patrick who asked in response to an earlier comment shown in quotes below:

Except they don't have a prayer you forgot to mention., no matter what true progressives think of them.

What's Hillary's position on nuclear and on clean energy?

"All you Obama backers need to check this reasoning against Obama's energy policy statements. He supports nuclear, as well as corn ethanol and clean coal (Illinois' two most abundant resources), all of which are false and dangerous technologies in the effort to halt climate change.

If you agree with Wasserman, you need to support one of the candidates who is speaking truth to power on alternative energy issues … Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney."

My take: I read that Hillary's position is in sync, per her voting record and speeches, with Al Gore's position. I also read that Obama who is funded
by Excelon and such is a proponent of nuclear, etc. as stated above.

Hellary and O'Bama will both support "business as usual" globalization which will take the concentrations of economic/political power that have long dominated the American people further out into the netherworld of global capital.

Westinghouse and peers AT&T, General Electric, IBM, etc, have long dominated the electric, electronic, and computer industries in the USA and by extension dominated the American people, politically, economically and technologically.

Westinghouse has provided the great majority of US central power plant turbines/generators. It was Westinghouse more than any other corporation pushing coal-fired power plants with 75% of the coal's energy casually dumped into the air and water, completely wasted, for decades.

And now, Westinghouse has been captured by Toshiba, so the central command/control over your electric energy production has been transferred to a greater pinnacle of world domination, 10,000 miles away in Tokyo. God Bless The United States of America! The answer, of course, is locally owned and operated energy production.

I just got done debating Hayden and his nuclear cronies over on "Progressives for Obama" thread, where they were making the case of how wonderful nuclear is and Obama the Second Coming for endorsing it. Nuclear like Bio Fuels are two contributing factors to our problems and a solution to nothing. Obama's environmental plan was written on behalf of Lobbyists. Hopefully Hayden and his friends read the "real" progressive voices on this site, other than their pseudo tripe.

By the way ole Kem was singing a different tune a few months ago in his or her effort on behalf of Edwards while trashing Obama. I guess he or she has seen the light and is now a born again! If Hillary wrests the nomination thanks to the super delegates ole Kem will be hoping on that horse. The true believers are all the same. Shrill and obnoxious.

The longer we wait to reduce CO2 emissions, the harder we are going to have to slam the brakes. Nuclear power is expensive, can be unhealthy or even dangerous, and may leave a legacy of waste.

But it isn't as bad as Mr. Wasserman's spins and exaggerations, it is available now, and new nuclear power technologies will improve safety, reduce cost and quite possibly some day eliminate the long term waste problem.

The US needs a program to reduce our CO2 balance to almost zero. It will take: Conservation through retrofitting homes, buldings, restaurants, factories with improved insulation, low energy appliances and equipment. Replacement of oil and gasoline with electricity. Home solar power. Wind farms, solar farms, tidal... Whatever fits best. The coal plants have to go, but possibly some could be replaced with higher efficiency (double?)coal fuel cell technology.

To do this, we are going to need a hard cap on fossil fuel use with a serious reduction plan, and lots and lots of low GHG electricity for trains, steel mills, pumping water, city lights, elevators, supermarkets, hospitals, dockyards, factories, home heating, charging the plug-in hybrids, cracking water to make hydrogen... on and on.

Nuclear power has a place here. Fifty 2400 MWe nuclear power stations would have an initial investment of hundreds of billions of dollars and some GHG emissions during construction, but with 60 year plus lives they would provide much of the power we need and bridge the gap between fossil fuels and the power sources of the future. Lets keep our pencils (and computers)sharp, control the hysteria, and do what is best to keep our world running while we eliminate GHG production.

You can call Obama names if you like, but he might be the guy to lead this. It certainly isn't Dubya, Cheney or McCain!

Actually, I slightly favor Hillary over Obama ~Jeannekhan~. But, Obama said today, that he will have Al Gore on his cabinet if possible and will certainly have him as a Presidential advisor for clean energy alternatives.

Of course Obama says a lot of things now that's he's campaigning for the presidency, but his votes as a US Senator do not agree with what he often claims or says. And if any criticize him on that important disparity, someone like a Jesse Jackson raises the race issue. What a shame that is. Will that trend continue if he is our next president?

Hi ~KLORO~ there have been enough studies on clean energy to fill a library with books. Clean energy is viable, affordable and can and must be used and is capable of supplying all of the energy required, if enough plants are constructed using any or all of the desirables, geo-thermal, wind, solar, wave, tidal and the present hydro-electric combined.

If we don't do it fairly soon and reduce the use of fossil fuels and burning oil, the "methane gas" in the Arctic, will permanently end all arguments and debates.

Here is a three minute read, one of several hundred on the subject. Some are written by paid governments or oil company "scientists", most are written by scientists who have no political agenda. This one is non political and very timely and important.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

How does wind power generate Co2 Bill? How much Co2 would be generated by geo-thermal, tidal or wave power, if more than already generated naturally?

Then too, with clean energy, other than nuclear, we won't have to worry about melt-downs and the other radiation hazards, or store deadly nuclear waste forever, or mine uranium. All in all, I like the idea of TRULY clean and SAFER electrical generation. __ Don't you? Nuclear energy is less than a swell idea.

"The reactor pushers admit that they can't proceed without massive taxpayer handouts."

The market has spoken.

It would be great if nuclear power became part of a true solution to energy and CO2 problems, but there are fundamental problems that haven't been solved. The first is waste, the second human error, and the third is catastrophe.

In the You Tube Democratic debate several months ago, when asked about nuclear power, Edwards said it was too dangerous and too expensive, and we'd been down that road before. Obama said he thought it was 'part of our energy future', and Hillary smiled and said "I'm an agnostic on nuclear power... if our scientists can find a safe way to dispose of the wastes, it could be great". Which struck me as another sleazy and dishonest way to take an apparently 'centrist' point of view between 2 extremes-- when she knows that scientists are not likely to come up with a 'solution' to the nuclear waste issue.

At least Obama cops to where he stands. I disagree with him on nuclear power and other things, but i think he has some integrity. I don't believe anything Hillary says, ever.

Harvey Wasserman gets his extra paychecks from government of Israel. Israelis have more than 200 nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons. Harvey Wasserman does not write about that.

Israelis want to use up world's fossil fuel (i.e., coal, natural gas, petroleum, etc.) first.

When world's natural resources will be gone in the next 150 years, then Harvey Wasserman will look into nuclear power generators. Not before that.

Yes, nuclear power generators have problems with human error and radioactive waste disposal. Scientists will have to find ways to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate them.

Scientists haven't found a way for the past 60 some years and scientists don't usually delve into human error, or possible sabatoge, or a number 8 earthquake, except they they often err themselves ___ being human. When humans err in a nuclear power plant, or when transporting or storing nuclear waste, it can be a very serious issue.

Thanks for the reply ~Bill~, I do think they can drive around the wind machines in an electrical powered cart however. As to Co2 emmitted from conrete is concerned, I do believe we should call that a rather moot issue for nuclear or wind power, as for example the concrete for Boulder dam was still setting up and cooling 60 years after it was first poured.

All these arguments, pro and con, pale into insignificance when one considers this issue in one of the above posts:

[we may] "quite possibly some day eliminate the long term waste problem." No one on Earth has figured out HOW AND WHERE to store the existing radioactive waste for 50,000-100,000 years. Let's not ADD any more of it.

And why build more nuclear plants to add to the 103 terrorist targets we're already stuck with?

How many terrorist strikes took place on American nuclear power or weapons storage facilities in the past 60 years?

Since there's a potential for sabotage, government must take actions to prevent them.

France has been producing electricity from nuclear power for many years now.

The past 60 years of inability to find the solution for waste disposal catastrophe does not imply not discovering anything in the next 60 years.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

Now, American government can loot other nations' wealth to run its economy. Once the looting potential evaporates in the coming decades or so, government will go into nuclear power generators anyway.

Right now or for the argument's sake next 150 years, it may not be necessary for Americans to think about alternate energy production.

But, at some point in the future, choice has to be made for nuclear power generators.

Here we have an illustration of a flaw in blog technology. Whenever a certain group scans the word, say, "nuclear", and they discover that anyone can login and post, they descend on that blog. Then they pull out their now-stale sermon and preach, and argue, and either ignore or hate anyone who makes an intelligent counterargument, and generally pollute up the blog area.

That's why I propose a blog where
1. all messages are rated by other participants,

2. summing these ratings, anonymous participants are rated on their long-time dependability by other participants.

3. participants are ranked disproportionally on their hurtful flames. Even ten good messages plus one outrageous flame makes that participant a real jerk.

4. rank newbies with low scores (and jerks who can't seem to build up their low scores) can be read by long-timers with good scores, and messages that initially score well can then be read by low-scoring newbies, but newbies can't post to other newbies.

5. The newbie and jerk vote is limited to, say, a maximum of 20% of the total vote. This means that a hacker can't log in as 1000 newbies and vote 1000 votes against one message. All 1000 votes would be packed into that 20% bloc of voting strength.

Hi ~UNKNOWN~ What I meant by, we haven't been able to SAFELY take care of nuclear waste for the past 60 years, is because there have been numerous serious accidents at both nuclear plants and with nuclear waste, both here and in other countries. On top of that our government and 29 others use depleted uranium from nuclear plants in weapons. Safely storing it?

As to sabatoge, that is most unlikely but not impossible and such an attack by a terrorist group could result in a disaster of forever steralizing an araa of land the size of New York, or Texas, or Rhode Island. They have discovered an illegal alien working as a US border patrol agent. look how easy it was for 19 terrorists to do the damage they did on 9-11. They made it look easy ___ and it was.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions, I agree. we'd better start developing clean energy already invented and forget about nuclear energy and phase it out just as soon as possible and practicle, because it is a necessity.

It would not be that horribly difficult for a sabatour to gain entrance to a nuclear plant, or for a trusted worker to become insane and decide to kill himself and a few million others. Not likely, such never is until it happens. With 'truley' clean energy, that would not be a worry.

And 150 years in the future? we'd better be thinking seriously about twenty years into the future at the rate the Arctic tundra is thawing, maybe less than ten according to some highly qualified scientists. If that (400 gigatons) of methane gas blooms out into our atmosphere, we're history. It's happened twice before in Earth's history and it's about to happen again if we humans don't start working to prevent it.

Any who believe we can 'safely' store nuclear waste for 500 years, or even a 100 years, are delusional and not being realistic or honest about the subject.

Google nuclear accidents and get educated on the subject. It's amazing and they list just the ones that were reported.

you know, I can't help but think nuclear power is just such an obvious scam in so many ways. to start with it costs many, many times more per K/Wh as compared with very clean green alternates such as PVs or wind turbines ect & so on.
In plain unsophisticated economics, it's just a bad investment. It takes decades to be brought online & then decades more to pay back, if ever, assuming we whistle past the endless leaks, outright catastrophes, & the so far only theoretical final resting places of its incredibly toxic spent fuel & stream of left over contaminated components. thus the massive subsidies & wavers of its uninsurability provided by our tax dollars & congresscritters (in other words admission of its absolutely known & recognized hazard to human/environmental safety). Each proposed reactor is like its own little iraq war. Monies lost, designs endlessly tinkered with, predicted outcomes always smearing a little this way or that, yet sunny futures always being surmised at an ever escalating cost to all of us who aren't in on the cost plus, or 12 year gravey train to buld the damned thing. an all that that entails...

about those life cycle emissions though,

how's it figured that wind is lower than PVs?
PVs basically last until they're broken. A small decline in output after the first couple of years does seem a reasonable assumption, although I've not seen that myself for my first 10 years of use of our PVs (2 different types).

& yet there are solar panels in orbit that have worked for decades undergoing several hundred degrees of temperature change every few hours for all that time & still operate flawlessly.
windmills, hydro, wave motion all involve moving parts & thus would naturally need more maintenance & have a higher lifecycle cost.
It also occurs to me whomever put that list together did very little in the way of considering the 'cost' lifecycle or otherwise in quarantining all the parts of the 'worn out' nuke reactors. Breeders are even worse, more dangerous & expensive to operate & much more radioactive.

I remember reading a few years back about a nuclear reactor that was being decommissioned & struck by the fact that even the concrete blocks of the containment dome were so radioactive that even that outermost layer had to be sent to a high level waste treatment (read storage, not like its the flu, I geuss they'll just keep shuffling or whatever they do until something uncoverupable finally happens).
I seriously wonder just whose idea of a life cycle that is & exactly what its based upon....

kinda makes one wonder

I am pleased to learn of Al Gore's letter. He has not been very vocal in his opposition to nuke plants.

We would be foolish to count on main stream Dems to shut down these dangerous dinosaurs or to stop new ones.

The selling point for nukes has always been that they provide an opportunity for investors to squeeze money from consumers while externalizing real costs (requiring consumers/taxpayers to bear those burdens)

Back in the '70's the public was far more aware of the dangers inherent in this foolish technology. 5000 people were willing to be arrested in Seabrook NH and that stopped a second nuke there. That sort of action is exactly what is required now. Protesters then used the defense of necessity at their trials, with mixed results, but now we have the legal opinion of former Bush Mob lawyer, now law professor John Yoo to bolster that defense.

"Finally, even if the criminal prohibitions outlined above applied, and an interrogation method might violate those prohibitions, necessity or self-defense could provide justifications for any criminal liability." (Prof. Yoo, from infamous torture memo)

If necessity is an adequate defense for torture and murder, it must surely be an adequate defense for non-violent civil disobedience!

5000 people showed up to protest a nuclear power plant in New Hampshire. Hundreds of new coal plants are going up in the US alone with, at best, a few vapid protests.
Thirty thousand people die from coal plant pollution every year. That figure is based on air quality and does not even take into account CO-2 which is the biggest threat.
The burning of coal also spews huge quantities of radioactive waste into the air with absolutely no containment, regulation, or notice.
Regarding nuclear power, the protesters say "This could happen."
With coal---This IS happening. (Climate destabilization, death, soaring asthma rates, etc. etc.)

Kem Patrick:
Like you, I would like the safest cleanest energy possible. But until we get there, I think it is necessary to accurately prioritize our choices.

It is easy for someone like Harvey, here,or sometimes Ralph Nader, to say that nuclear power is bad. He has instant support. It is easy to feed the fire of fear about nuclear power because of its complexity. Although I believe that Harvey is an environmentalist, I think he has his story and he's sticking to it. It is the easiest route for him. To me, the lack of objectivity is glaring, because Harvey and those like him do not like to talk about our main energy source: coal. Nuclear power does not release all of the pollutants into the atmosphere. It only uses fossil fuels in ancillary ways and therefore releases much less CO-2.

I get so upset when people bring up Chernobyl as a reason to abandon nuclear power. The problems of Chernobyl would have been averted with a containment dome. All US reactors have containment domes.

How ironic, how tragic, that by squashing nuclear power, environmentalists are inadvertently promoting coal, while it is coal (and oil) that will ruin the planet first.
I have met some of those executives (of coal plants) and they are just smirking at all of this.

We could do IGCC with coal and sequester the CO2, but Bush said no. He allowed the coal power plants to expand without upgrading. This is horrible. The coal fired power plant companies are making a ton of money and they could afford to upgrade with no problems. They would rather buy politicians and rake in the huge dirty profits with business as usual.

The next President as GOT to get to cleaner coal. It would show China that we are doing our part and tell the corporations that they must be responsible world citizens once again. We have lot of coal, but that does not mean that we should burn it like mad in an inefficient way and blow our futures out the smokestacks.

duh, how many wind farms & sun farms can one build w/ 30 billion (plus cost overruns 10 bilion, plus cost of mining, transport, maintenance, and spent fuel transport an storage 20 billion) = at least 60 billion and only the few get richer........if it was such a good deal, let them do it w/ their own $$$$'.....why do they need tax payer dollar and guarantees???????

Far more than enough to supply our needs ~TEE J~.

Can anyone identify a SINGLE corporate candidate who's against nuclear power? Here in Minnesota we're getting Al Franken rammed down our throats as a Democratic challenger to Norm Coleman. But the media has totally ignored the more progressive Democratic candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. I conducted some search queries on the Minneapolis Star Tribune web site and got like a 10:1 or 20:1 ratio of headlines for Franken (nuclear supporter) over Nelson-Pallmeyer.

Big-money talks. The media listens. There are no big-money politicians against nuclear. I wonder how the kickback mechanism works.

Okay Bill, I know you are against coal fired plants also, besides you're a very nice man and give some very good good opinions and valuable information here, _____ usually.

So let us play a game here. ___Here are the five easy to understand game rules.

(1) We have $70 Billion dollars to spend to develop clean energy and stop using coal for power plants. Another $50 billion in reserve for any possible cost over-runs.

(2) We will have ten years as the goal to accomplish that, with a MASSIVE war time effort to do so and in the process, gain millions of good paying jobs.

(3) We have the current technology to go with either, (1) safe clean energy, solar, wind, geo-thermal, tidal and wave generated electrical power, or (2) go with clean nuclear.

(4) Now either way, we can eleminate coal fired power plants and even have the necesary power to crack sea water and develop hydrogen fuel at an affordable cost.

(5) We have to choose ONLY ONE of the two alternatives. Which ONE would be the best?? Money and or, for the first ten years, cost per KWH is not the issue, as either way, cost per KWH will be comparrable. After SAFE and clean plants are operational, there is NO cost for fuel or any necessity to mine fuel to power them.

In the long run, which is safer and more friendly for the enviroment? ___ Vote for only ONE.

This is my game and MY rules.

But if any pick nuclear, they are a dirty, stinking, money hungry, rat-fink, sheep-herder ___ and they don't love Jesus.

They hate their father too.

How many Chernobyl-scale nuclear disasters would it take to equal the damage to the biosphere we have already done (or set in motion) by our use of fossil fuels?

One thousand? One million? Ten million?

Someone once implied that it is distributed versus central power generation. With central you have control and revenue every day. With distributed, you have upfront cost financed and you power you own home and business.

It has taken a long time to get net metering laws into effect where you can offset your power bill by having solar and wind. If we can get lower cost solar panels, we may see more on rooftops and fewer power plants. People do not like power plants near them. They do not like high power transmission line near them. So we have macro and micro grids where people can generate their own clean power.

sjc_1: I think the only real reform will come when more individuals have their own system for as much of their energy needs as possible.
i disagree with the promise of IGCC. The technology is unproven and improbable. I think it is a mistake to promote the notion of "clean coal". It is never clean.

Why do you hate your father ?

Billy,
How about some calculations for Geo-thermal, or tidal? I'd like to see what you come up with there. While you got your pencil busy think about what the cost is of replacing oil with ethanol, ok?

The 800 pound gorilla in the room few people discuss is not power generation, but transmission. With improved transmission capability it would be possible to minimalize environmental impact, by having huge miles square wind & PV 'farms' far removed from life forms (human or animal), with no spoilage of aesthetic beauty (personally, I think windmills more sightly than nuke plants, but that's just my bias speaking I guess). Solve the problem of energy loss over great transmission distance and the 'clean green' vs. 'dirty black' (or nuke) debate becomes a moot issue, right? What do you know about energy loss with fiber optic transmission, Billy? Any possible solution there you think?

Billy,
Thanks for the research. The Isrealis recently came up with a wave power system that is pretty effective on a cost/benefit ratio. Might want to look at that.

San Francisco came up with a tidal project not involving dams. Basically it's a tube, and creates suction that's transferred through piping out of the water to run turbines. Funding is the problem, and this goes back to the argument I've repeatedly made that we need to shift our investment dollars from nuclear, 'supposedly, but not really' clean coal, and ethanol (which is absurd for the reasons you mention & corrupt already...check out the scam known as 'splash & dash').

Now I see the oil companies are bitching about losing their $18 billion in subsidies or tax breaks. Screw them! They can't keep holding us by the balls forever. Let them spend their own dime on exploration or face the alternative...nationalization & consideration as a 'public utility'. What rationalization is there for them to be considered anything else but? Power supplies are also a national security issue, so the trillions spent on defense of these sources should be benefitting ALL Americans, not just a few elite individuals or corporations, right? This applies to investments in nuclear as well, although I believe (as previously stated numerous times) we get a bigger bang for our buck (with less danger of catastrophic incident) by funding truly green renewables.

Right now we need a concerted effort to shut down & replace the coal industry, our greatest threat. Eventually the same with nuclear. Through increased efficiency & conservation measures oil will not be needed from foreign sources at all, freeing up hundreds of billions from the military budget. That money will take us finally into a truly 'green', self sufficient, & sustainable energy system in this country. We can't afford to let robber barons & politicians get in the way. If they aren't part of the solution they are the problem, and must go the way of the fossil fuel dinosaurs they are!

If an industrialised country like Germany can pledge to phase out nuclear energy and implement a plan for 100% renewables, all countries can.

In 2002 there were about 30 000 people employed in the nuke industry in Germany, currently there are about 32 000 coal miners, and 240 000 people employed in the renewable energy sector.

It appears coal and nukes are both on their way out, especially since the number of jobs going to renewables is increasing daily.

Coal can be made cleaner. The all or nothing at all approach will not get problem solving constructive action to take place. We have to go with what can be done to help solve the problem. IGCC can be done now, it is the sequestration that is being developed. We need now and will continue to need base load power.

With pumped hydro, renewable energy can be stored for use 24/7. Renewable energy can be used on a larger scale that it is now. We have decision makers that want the situation to continue the way things have been in a changing world. People do not decide what power plants are built and they really have few practical choices on what kinds of power they use.

In California, the power regulations were changed to allow more independent producers. Enron and other companies were behind getting those laws passed for their own self interest. They knew few would fund renewable energy development and the phase in of the laws had no conditional provisions for that development before continued phasing in of deregulation. In short, we ended up with little renewable energy and the power industry dominated by a few companies that gamed the system, leading to huge price increases and blackouts.

It was not a lack of permitting power plants to be constructed in California that was the problem. There were plenty of plants permitted, but they were not built because they knew Enron and others would come in and dominate the market. The next time you hear the propaganda machine go into high gear, start thinking for yourselves and investigate further.