Comments on: Wind Energy Could Meet Global Demand 20–100 Times Over, New Study Finds

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 00:36:00 +0000

yeah, reddit’s much better, but always depends on the subreddit. a subreddit can definitely be taken over like that.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 22:29:00 +0000

I quit trying to use digg long ago because the site got taken over by a bunch of libertarians and they destroyed usefulness by promoting their stuff and killing news they didn’t like.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:57:00 +0000

we’re stupid about some things and we ‘get’ some things.

why does nuclear have so many safety requirements? really, are even the experts fooled?

why is nuclear so expensive? why do the costs consistently double, triple or worse from the original quotes?

why will private industry not put their money into them? why must government do the heavy lifting to get a nuke built?

why would we not use the wind and the sun when they do the job better?

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:51:00 +0000

Ha. believe me, i know what you mean, they get old.

and seems like every time we get even a mild reddit wave, they quadruple. seems the crew over there is a converted team of nukies. what a shame.

By: When it Comes to Creating Jobs, It’s Hard to Beat a Wind Farm

When it Comes to Creating Jobs, It’s Hard to Beat a Wind Farm — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:09:21 +0000

[…] or without the Production Tax Credit, wind-powered energy looks to stay central to America’s energy policy in the years to come. The combination of a […]

By: predrag raos

predrag raos — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:16:00 +0000

That only proves that people are idiots and that Queen Anne is dead. Going to streets, what an argument! In Russia serfs mutined against introduction of potato. It’s not in Bible, it’s Satan’s work, they will lost their immortal souls. They adore Madonna, they watch soap operas, they lynch, they bomb Hanoy, they cry over Lennon, they burn witches, they protest against nukes. Yes, we the people! Wise as ever.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:10:00 +0000

Sorry, predrag, but you are poorly informed and apparently filled with anti-facts.

Can you simply acknowledge that nuclear energy does bring with
it significant safety issues? If it didn’t then you wouldn’t need to twist stuff around in an attempt to deny it.

Are you aware that the US now gets 4% of its electricity from wind and the percentage coming from nuclear has not increased in over 20 years?

And why is that? Simple. Wind is extremely cheaper than is new nuclear and wind does not have the siting problems of nuclear. People have no objection to living a few miles away from a wind farm. They are willing to go to the streets to keep a nuclear reactor out of their neighborhood.

By: dcard88

dcard88 — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:59:00 +0000

OK, so 150 million km available so we need to use .2 % of land space for solar. Subtract moutains leaves about 100 million so around .4% of land needed, or 2% of deserts (21 million km2). Most of the weight of current panels is sand so only about 2kg per panel of metal so about 400 million tons of steel so nucs use twice as much steel and will increase in cost by a factor of 100% per decade. Solar panels will be less expensive as time goes on. Yes EASILY. Wont happen overnight but we just need to get on a path to get it done by 2050ish.

By: predrag raos

predrag raos — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:57:00 +0000

What radiation? I followed the numbers, not hype. Pure fiction. In all nuclear “disasters” (in reality minor second page industrial accidents) for each one or none killed by radiation, hundreds were killed by panic-mongers. Who is criminal, the one who strikes a match in full theater, or the one who starts screaming “Fire!”?
For the rest, I wish you good luck with you homespun electricity. Start sewing you clothes, growing your vegetables, milking your cow, shoeing your horse, hunting your game and gathering your food.

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:57:00 +0000

I’m sorry, but did you just completely skip over the whole Chernobyl & Fukushima thing?

By: predrag raos

predrag raos — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:18:00 +0000

Easily? To generate 20 TW at 20% efficiency, you must cover about 400.000 km2 with PV. It’s the whole Germany and then some. At only 10 kg/m2 it’s 4 billions of tons.
Alternatively, you could build 10 000 big nukes covering 400 km2 and using 5x less steel. This holds for Gen III. Gen IV and V could reduce this figures by whole order of magnitude.

By: predrag raos

predrag raos — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:18:00 +0000

Lapsus calami, I meant zero deaths in the West. If nukes were strangled in the US, they simply shared the fate of eCar and tramcars, courtesy of Big Oil. In China they are expected to beat advanced coal plants even in terms of capital investment. China plans to install about 100 GW in the next 10y, equal to total US nuc capacity. Chinese are not fools, they listen to experts, not to crazed media controlled by advertisers. The popularity of the whole green nonsense is not hard to explain: it’s very efficient in blocking of the only technology that could realisticaly replace fossils.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:44:00 +0000

That’s a dishonest claim, predrag. No one died at Chernobyl? Immediate death is the only safety measure that should be considered?

What you apparently cannot see is that new nuclear plants are so expensive to build and finance that they cannot produce electricity at a price which is competitive in the free market.

Nuclear plants are not being built because there are cheaper, faster and safer ways to generate electricity. “Idiots” with “obsolete” minds can do simple arithmetic. Can you?

By: predrag raos

predrag raos — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:33:00 +0000

It works. It works in China, in France, in Korea. With zero deaths in 50+ y. Only idiots couldn’t see the obvious, with their obsolete minds.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:08:00 +0000

Anne – I do not understand this comment. My comment uses the word “energy”, not “electricity”.

Jacobson and Delucchi address the world’s need for energy, including heat and transportation along with electricity. They lay out a more complete sourcing of where we can harvest that energy, where we could obtain it and roughly what it would cost to do so.

The source article talks about energy and power. In my reading of the source article I do not see the word “electricity” except in referring to the form of energy turbines output.

Did you misread “power” as “electricity”?

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:51:00 +0000

@Bob_Wallace:disqus
Bob, your are feeding the confusion and doing the development of renewable energy not any favours.

Using TW makes people think you are talking about ELECTRICITY and that we need to generate 18 TW of ELECTRICITY, which by no means is true. This confusion is widely exploited by the pro-fossil lobbyists to ‘prove’ the hopelessness of renewable energy.

It is not hopeless, Bob.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Oh, but it does!

I saw a video on U-Boob!!!!

By: Luke

Luke — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:14:00 +0000

Why oh why, whenever I peruse comments on energy sites, does some idiot always try and play up the benefits of some new unproven, unrealistic, expensive, apparently magical and revolutionary nuclear power plant design.

You wanna’ know F*ing why these nuclear power plants aren’t being built or developed? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T WORK!

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 05:30:00 +0000

And let the winds freely blow radiation from the next reactor that Homer drives onto the rocks?

I’ve got a better idea.

Renewable energy. Cheaper, faster to install, and safer.

By: predrag raos

predrag raos — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 05:12:00 +0000

About 8000 t of uranium per year could be extracted as byproduct of processing of phosphates. This alone translates into about 25 TW of primary power if used in breeders.
Use of highly efficient Gen V gas-core reactors could make this into equivalent of 50 TW by present technology. And let the winds freely blow.