^^ All real risks that must be taken. I saw Japan, waves look pretty dangerous, did everyone sell their beach side houses after that? no.. I also don't hold my breath every time I see a bird - in case I get Bird Flu..
Considering how much CO2 we are using now, and the population growth along with the rising middle class, our need for energy is going to sky rocket.. We will be using more fossil fuels in the future, but we will need nuclear as well..
I'm not saying Chernobyl was worth it , just showing the environmental damage at the scene of the Nuclear greatest disaster is minimal..
On the scale of man made things that screw up the environment - Nuclear hardly rates a mention..
Why is everyone so hysterical about it.. The alternatives are a lot worse
Probably the biggest and least asked or answered question in this whole energy debate is....What are the clean up procedures costs etc if and when there is an accident.?
If a windmill fails you cart the debris away..problem pretty much solved...same with solar,in fact most of the debris can be recycled into replacement parts.
Spill a ship load of oil and you can manually get out there and clean it up...huge job but it is possible.
Nuclear Plant goes bang...see ya...no clean up available at the moment.
So really until we have a way of successfully cleaning up the after math of mishaps Nuclear is a no go area for me.Even though it is a real energy producer that is cost effective over time the downside is just too big at present.
And what makes people think that you can continue to design poor energy efficient housing and then just crank up the Air Conditioning / Heating. And then scream "we need more energy resources"
How many houses are being built with no eaves, poor placement on the block, 2 storey houses with the sleeping upstairs (the hottest part).
Maybe we actually need to be creative and design our housing to uses minimal energy resources.
Curious argument that :
'wind and solar power is inefficient so we should abandon it'
could have said the same about nuclear in 1950, gasoline in 1850, coal in 1750, water in 1650 or camel **** in 1050.
Or for that matter windsurf sails in 1980.
**Edit : don't want to sound like I think they are a good idea, quite the opposite really, but not for the arguments I read here - just that there are better alternatives, unless you live in some sort of strange post-apocolystic technologically advanced-yet-retarded mad-max type world**
LOL good point above.
It's as if the nuclear industry had a vested interest ?...
Nooooo, it couldn't be.
Geothermal Energy . en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy Saw it explained on tele the other night , was very interesting. Im sure with technology getting better this could become a much better source of energy
Get real you lot, Coal, and its here to stay, (well until we run out that is) then there is coal seam gas, that's another good one we can use.
All those others mentioned are left wing commie crap
Here is a time lapse of all the Nuclear detonations since 1945.. I don't know the difference between a Reactor meltdown and an A-bomb but I think it's safe to say if we survived this, we can survive a few modern powerplants..
Who let the British set off nukes in Australia?
weel cisco , youve had a few days,
whats your solution to global warming , and providing electricity to the ever expanding populations
There is a catch-22 with educating women to lower the birth rate.. While it's highly effective and a fantastic goal. Educated populations no longer want to live in mud huts, they buy a car and a fridge and a N64..
Currently we are running at 130% of the Earths carrying capacity, it's a classic Biological overpopulation problem..
And there are plenty of Natural solutions to overpopulation, none of which are nice..
Cisco...
Don't take this the wrong way, but seriously, do some background reading and don't believe everything you read/copy/paste.
The flaws in those articles are multiple. Don't get excited - I'm not going to enter into a debate on them here. I'm not a solar or wind junkie either. What I am is a scientist, and I spend a LOT of time working within the energy industry.
The reason I am posting this is that unfortunately the Australian Press have a habit of just creating headline controversy articles out of nothing, and unfortunately we tend to take them at face value.
For anyone who really (and I mean REALLY) wants to understand this area a bit more and also to gain a bunch more information so they can have a mature discussion about this, I strongly suggest reading the following as a starting point:
www.withouthotair.com/download.html - this is a UK-centric book that (I believe) has a bunch of flaws in it but is well reasoned and makes some excellent points about the strengths, weaknesses and feasibility of various forms and combinations of energy sources.
This is a recent publication that applies the same concept to Australia:http://energy.unimelb.edu.au/uploads/Australian_Sustainable_Energy-by_the_numbers3.pdf - this is really good.
Please, anyone who is interested in this field, please please please read these publications so that you can have a rational debate with some of the facts in front of you, instead of doing what Cisco has done.
Please note, I'm not saying that these publications are perfect, but from an energy economics insider I think that this is a good starting point for anyone who wants to get beyond the headlines and the flimsy reporting that the Aussie press foists on us and actually get some sense of what is (and is not) possible with various forms and combinations of renewable energy sources.
There is no denying we have a problem of increasing population and dwindling resources.
There is another problem which is policy makers not being serious about it. Seems the only thing politicians are serious about is being re-elected and the beaurocrats just do the bidding of whichever mob happens to be in or who is offering the most money.
Waaaay too much egoism and self interest around the place.
@ FlickySpinny
I read the 10 page synopsis from the first link and it looks to be an objective view point. As a lay person I do not pretend to have the answers but from what I see, actions being taken by the legislators appear to only be "band aid" solutions.
Obviously radical changes globaly need to be made for the human race to survive.
The problems were apparent and correcting technology existant way back in the early '70s but no action was taken. Why!!!
Science holds the keys to our collective future. As I said before:-
"I think the focus should shift from the problems to the solutions and resources poured into the sciences and not the least of all social sciences."
I'm not remotely interested in debating any of your other points.
I'm pointing out that most of the articles you copied and pasted are inaccurate badly written sensationalist crap about the economics of renewable energy.
As such, there is a future for wind power and solar power, particularly in Australia.
There's also probably a case for nuclear power as well. But the idea that wind power is useless because it didn't blow for a few days is complete nonsense. The fact that the installed capacity is far greater than the power the wind farms generate is completely correct - and everyone knew that before they built the farms!
Australia's wind farms will only ever generate their installed capacity when the wind is blowing at the optimum speed at every turbine site in Australia....
.... is it really a news flash to you that this is a pretty unlikely thing to happen? Do you really think that the people who ordered / planned / built these turbines didn't stop to consider the fact that the conditions might not be optimal for every turbine all the time?
If you want some accurate numbers about what percentage of the installed capacity can be relied upon, read the publication I linked to previously - this spells it out.
It's only tabloid trash-talkers trying to stir up trouble who present that as a) News and b) a bad thing....
So my response should be taken as a response to your coping and pasting of a bunch of rubbish articles... not as a response to your global conspiracy thoughts.
^^^^
Yes, most of those articles have come out of the LaRouche organisation, a right wing political organization that one should scrutinise very closely before you decide you like or endorse the claims they make.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaRouche_Movement
Also worth looking up the Citizens Electoral Council, an Australian affiliate of LaRouche and from where a few of those articles were drawn.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Electoral_Council
Some zany stuff in there.
I'd not take even one piece of information from those articles on face value.
Always suspicious when one copy-pastes a large number of articles, all pointing in the same direction. It's a sales job rather than an objective study, it contributes to a pre-determined side, rather than to the debate at large.
IMO
IKW777 - nice one - that does make interesting reading. I was wondering where this stuff had come from.
I assume I'm not alone in not reading any of the copy pastes.. But the argument about wind, nuclear of solar can't be made simply on their current efficiency.. Technologies can take 50 years to become economically viable and only then will they supersede old technologies..
How viable was the car when it was 1st invented? useless.. And cars are still useless without major infrastructure..
Planes were also useless as a technology available to hoi polloi.. It takes time and scientific ingenuity, and that only comes with financial incentives.. Science is no longer done in backyards on a shoe string budget.. Plus side effects of new technologies can be hard to predict, CFC was hailed as a environmentally safe product, until we discovered it was destroying the Ozone..
Everyone saying we should stick to Coal is like the folk saying we should stay on horses.. Cars are just too expensive and slow...
Car, Plane or Horse?? which is the best mode of transport?? The answer can quickly change..
