The cost of being on-line

[Tony Scharf]

Coal, from an environmental standpoint, is much worse than Nuclear (if
the reactor doesnt blow up).

Coal is actually full of radioactive elements, and burning it puts
them into the air and water.  The ash is very nasty stuff (google
'tennessee coal ash spill' if you want to see what can happen).

Solar is good, but it has problems.  The main one is that battery
technology sucks, and is plenty bad for the environment.  There is
also the cost per watt that doesnt work out compared to gasoline yet.

Humans are driven by economics and fear.  Solar doesnt make economic
sense (yet).  As soon as Solar can beat the cost per watt that fossil
fuels enjoy, no one will build another coal plant. This is why we
don't use Kerosene or Whale oil anymore - as soon as cheaper
alternatives were discovered, the old were left behind.

One interesting thing about nuclear.  As currently deployed, it
actually doesnt work out to be that much cheaper than coal,
particularly since no one has found a cheap way to deal with the
leftovers.  Also, while you have few accidents, when you do have one,
it effects the whole world.  I think if we could find a way to do it
smaller and cheaper, where the scale of the most catastrophic disaster
were reduced, it may be worth deploying more of it, but I think that,
ultimately, solar is our best bet for the future.

Tony




On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 8:27 AM, Martin Naef <mnaef at navisto.ch> wrote:
> On 24.06.2011 15:06, Romain / rXg wrote:
>> Open question cause i m just curious about what think the barians :
>> What is worse for you Nuclear or Charcoal Energy ?
>
> You're opening a Pandora's box here...
>
> My personal answer to the question depends a lot on the trust I have in
> the operator. From a long term impact point of view, I still think
> charcoal is a very bad idea. Chernobyl may be a wasteland today, but it
> doesn't impact me in any way. You can't walk away from global warming,
> though.
>
> Both technologies have the great advantage of producing power
> continuously, regardless of weather. That makes them difficult to
> replace, even if we ignore cost for a moment.
>
> Martin
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>



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