What is Digg?22 Comments
- KingMoses, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10What the green crowd calls "nuclear waste" is, in fact, not waste; 95% of the energy that was available in it when it was put into the reactor is still there after it's been used, it just has to be reprocessed. Luckily, the government recently lifted the bans that were in place (also originating under pressure from the environmental lobby) that prohibited the reprocessing of fuel and essentially turned something useful into waste.
- merm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I'm becoming more and more convinced that we need to utilize nuclear energy better. With some of the newer designs there's no possiblity for "meltdown" like with the old ones. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactors
- ericksoncn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Just goes to show that the free market will do more to save the environment than the government ever will.
- KingMoses, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The simple answer is no. The fingernail-sized sliver of uranium can give us the energy equivalent of many many tons of coal. Nuclear energy in not only the most environmentally attractive energy solution, but also the most economically attractive.
- KingMoses, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Anyone who's serious about zero-emission energy needs to look at the real world and see that we already have it; we spell it N-U-C-L-E-A-R. The only roadblocks standing in the way of a clean energy infrastructure is the bureaucratic ones originally established under pressure from the environmental lobby.
- DannoHung, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The Coastal communities can take one for the team; not like they don't get millions of dollars in disaster relief every time a bad storm happens. And the seabirds will, contrary to the opinion of Intelligent Designers, evolve very quickly to be wary of giant rotating things in the middle of the ocean.
- plaunie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Luckily we need uranium for most reactors
- MtnScott, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Smart Man
- quietcore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2not if you put them in the ocean as they did in holland (i believe it was)
- norris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1God. Your right. You should see how they decimated the forests of Iowa and North Dakota. You know that Keep America Beautiful commercial from 1971? It's kind of like that.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1*raises a fist full of cash* To Profit! (and cleaner energy)
Nuke-You-Lar is the way to go. I'm not sold on windmill farms since they require a lot of clear cutting of forests. Unless they allow loggers to do it. - Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I'm predicting an oil price crash within the next 5-10 years. Sure, OPEC is making a ton of money right now, but as the price of oil keeps climbing, more and more alternative sources of energy become economically feasible and start siphoning away business from them, ultimately hurting them. The only solution will be a dramatic drop in price that will wipe out the competition virtually overnight.
They did the same thing in the 70's and 80's. Oil prices skyrocketed to the point that a lot of domestic oil wells that had previously been too expensive to tap were now looking very cost competitive. The Louisiana economy boomed during this time because of all of the offshore drilling taking place there. Then the OPEC cartel fell apart, oil prices crashed, and a lot of domestic wells weren't economically viable any more. The Louisiana economy crashed along with it. I know a lot of people who were forced into bankruptcy as a result.
Mark my words, it happened before, it'll happen again. - oce222, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Check out PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW)... it tracks the WinderHill Clean Energy index, and the expense ratios are relatively low for something that has a lot of small cap stocks...
This is a decent pick for those of you who want to get into alternative energy investing but don't know which individual companies to buy.
Love,
George - nodream, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The problem with nuclear energy apart from environmental issues, is simply the fact that they represent huge single points of failure. Preferably you would want a more distributed network. Wind, wave, solar, almost all other 'green' energy types a preferable in that case (efficiency aside). A city where everybody has solar panels on their roves are a lot likely to suffer power failures and outages. The system is able to cope a lot better with a few panels missing, than having the whole d*mn plant shutdown...
Aside from that nuclear is the one existing technology that would allow us to drastically start reducing CO2 output in the short term. No other environmental action would have more effect than switching back to nuclear energy.
Nuclear waste is a problem, but it's a long term problem we have time to solve. CO2 is here and now, and switching to nuclear would simply buy us some time... - Teazo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I like Nuclear power as much as ya'll, but remember, It's a limited resource too, High grade plutonium doesn't grow on trees ya know.
- phatpat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Unfortunately, the common methods of reprocessing uranium fuel leave you with some plutonium sitting around, which doesn't make the national security crowd very happy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_reprocessing - MtnScott, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The Coastal Communities and sea birds do not like that idea
- scottmoss, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1This is one that wall street will end up loving if they go public... http://www.bixbyenergy.com/
- AlbinoRaven, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I smell a new Enron in everyone's future with a side of stock market bubble.
Hors D'Oeurve anyone? - ajifans, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4aren't you forgetting the little problem of what to do with nuclear waste?
I definately think nuclear power is the way forward, however the waste issue is a major stumbling block. - srini91, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Extracting Uranium requires a non-trivial amount of energy - energy often provided by fossil fuels. As the element gets rarer, will we end up putting in more energy extracting Uranium than we get out from using it?
Nuclear might still be the best bet, but before we go full-on nuclear, the costs should be fully analyzed. - dartmanx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Pronounced "nuc-u-luhr"?
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