odd request about electricity!

[Fitz]

ok this is a request for opinions on electricity generation so i can get data for my dissertation project. I have about 2 weeks to collect it.
So simple question: would you prefer a wind turbine within 4 miles of your home or a nuclear power plant within 25 miles?
Many thanks for any replies
Fitz

[Dallas-Dakota]

I'd go for wind turbine.

Though the potential superpowers are tempting.:smalltongue:

[billtodamax]

Power plant. Wind turbines tend to be really noisy.

[MoelVermillion]

Wind Turbine, for some reason I've always thought they were really cool.

[Thiel]

Wind turbine. There's no less than 36 of the buggers within two miles of my house already, so one more wouldn't change anything.

[Athaniar]

Wind turbine. They look pretty cool, and I just wouldn't feel safe with a nuclear plant nearby.

[Icewalker]

Nuclear plant. It could be conceivably possible that a wind turbine could be either noisy or visibly bothersome in some way, although I doubt either would be a problem. More or less, would be fine either way.

[Keld Denar]

Funny thing, I'd rather have a nuke plant 25 miles away than 125 miles away. If something goes wrong, I want to die RIGHT AWAY, not 10 years later in horrible pain as teh cancerz eat me alive from the inside.

As far as wind turbines, I actually did some maths on this in my engineering senior design class. The rate of return on a wind turbine is longer than its lifespan, which means that with current technology, it'll never pay for itself over coal or even natural gas. Plus, they are noisy and VERY destructive towards migratory birds and they look dumb.

If you want renewable energy, go tidal or solar. Or, if we can ever figure out the farking heat dissipation, hydrogen fuel cells.

[thubby]

nuclear power plant

[Mangles]

nuclear, wind just doesnt work well enough

[Trazoi]

A nuclear power plant, mainly because nowhere around here is consistently windy enough for a wind turbine to be viable. :smallsmile:

I'd feel safe enough with a nuclear power plant within my city. With today's safeguards, even if something went catastrophically wrong I doubt it would cause a disaster. It would rank very low on my list of things most likely to kill me, about at the same level as death by tripping over a shark while being simultaneously struck by lightning.

[V'icternus]

Personally, I'd be fine with a giant Nuclear Power Plant being right next door, as long as I got electricity out of it and it conformed to our laws regarding the safety of such things.

Besides, if somethings gonna kill me, "Died in a Nuclear Accident" is one of the coolest things to have on your gravestone. You know, if it's true.

Also, I'm almost certain to get superpowers!

And frankly, turbines are loud, they're ugly, and Homer Simpson doesn't work anywhere near one.

[Archonic Energy]

Nuclear Plant.

the cost/power ratio for building wind turbines is much less than that of a NPP. with a new generation of NPPs you could supply much of the country's* power at a reletivitly low cost.

*UK

[Fitz]

cheers for the responses so far,
Should be noted im in the uk so solar not a great option, but good to get all views nontheless.
Many thanks and hope to hear many more views
Fitz

[Thanatos 51-50]

Show me the math before I commit!
Likely answer rests with nuclear power, though.
/casts a wary glance towards the harbour where a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sits.

[Seonor]

Wind.

I prefer my energy renewable&safe, thankyouverymuch.
Additional in my opinion wind turbines have something majestic while nuclear plants are just ugly (cooling towers? ugh). But even if the nuclear plant would be more aesthetically pleasing, I still would prefer turbines.

[Weimann]

Off the top of my head, nuclear power plant. I have faith in modern saftey, and they produce way more energy than a wind power plant ever could.

[Zeb The Troll]

As far as wind turbines, I actually did some maths on this in my engineering senior design class. The rate of return on a wind turbine is longer than its lifespan, which means that with current technology, it'll never pay for itself over coal or even natural gas.
I'm curious, what are the ongoing costs of a wind turbine that make them so horribly cost ineffective? There are several folks in these parts (I'm east coast, near Baltimore) that have them on their private property and the claims are that they'll pay for themselves within ten years (over having to purchase electricity from the local power company).

Also, to the OP, I would choose wind. If a wind turbine fails, no matter how catastrophically, we don't condemn the surrounding community to centuries of uninhabitable land and people born with gills.

And I don't care what the safety standards and measures are today, I don't believe that there is any such thing as a 100% failsafe. I remember 3 Mile Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident) and I remember Chernobyl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster). No thanks.

[Nameless]

Power plant. More reliable, less noisy and it's far away.


Funny thing, I'd rather have a nuke plant 25 miles away than 125 miles away. If something goes wrong, I want to die RIGHT AWAY, not 10 years later in horrible pain as teh cancerz eat me alive from the inside.

As far as wind turbines, I actually did some maths on this in my engineering senior design class. The rate of return on a wind turbine is longer than its lifespan, which means that with current technology, it'll never pay for itself over coal or even natural gas. Plus, they are noisy and VERY destructive towards migratory birds and they look dumb.

If you want renewable energy, go tidal or solar. Or, if we can ever figure out the farking heat dissipation, hydrogen fuel cells.


I would actually go for the wind turbines over the solar panels. The birds will get the message after a few start dying and what-not. I somehow doubt they'll stick with the "Can't go over it, can't go around it, got to go through it" song. :smalltongue:

[Yarram]

I'd go with the Nuclear. I trust that the group that sets it up would be more than careful enough to keep me safe. I'd also do a little research into it first though if one was going to be built nearby.

[Kobold-Bard]

I'd have to say wind because I a paranoid lunatic who's watched too many Simpsons episodes.

[xPANCAKEx]

wind - i like them on an asthetic level, and i still don't trust the water pumped out of nuclear power stations to be 100 safe and free from additional radiation

[Tiger Duck]

I would go for wind. even though I have complete faith in modern safety of power plants. The problem I see is that even when everything goes 100% you still have nuclear waste that has to get stored somewhere.

also when the wind is blowing hard the trees in my yard make more noise that the last mill I was near.

[Klose_the_Sith]

Nuclear. Although then again I'm a little odd - the only protest song I'd be willing to play would be 'Give War a Chance'. :smallcool:

[Freshmeat]

ok this is a request for opinions on electricity generation so i can get data for my dissertation project. I have about 2 weeks to collect it.
So simple question: would you prefer a wind turbine within 4 miles of your home or a nuclear power plant within 25 miles?
Many thanks for any replies
Fitz

The question seems a bit biased towards wind turbines. I have faith in the general safety of nuclear power plants, I respect the amount of energy they can produce and all in all, I don't think they deserve the bad rep they sometimes get. But if I had the choice between living next to one (safety notwithstanding) or a completely risk-free wind turbine, I'd of course go with the latter.

[Archonic Energy]

I'm curious, what are the ongoing costs of a wind turbine that make them so horribly cost ineffective? There are several folks in these parts (I'm east coast, near Baltimore) that have them on their private property and the claims are that they'll pay for themselves within ten years (over having to purchase electricity from the local power company).


simply put the answer is "Economy of scale".
A smaller household generator is lighter and requires less wind to turn it's turbine, also it takes less raw materials in construction and so is cheaper.
As for the large industrial ones you see, although they are made from as light a material as possible still require the strength to hold them together in high winds. this makes the blades heavier, and less efficent. Also because they are larger they take much more material to build and are therefore more expensive.

so while a household unit can repay it's cost within it's operational lifespan the larger units which cost more aren't as economically viable (yet)

[Nameless]

Nuclear. Although then again I'm a little odd - the only protest song I'd be willing to play would be 'Give War a Chance'. :smallcool:

Now now, Sith. War never solved anything… Apart from all of the worlds problems.

:smallwink:

[Mando Knight]

I'd seriously rather have a nuclear plant nearby. Chernobyl was a mistake caused by bad design. That disaster can't happen with a modern nuclear reactor. Nuclear reactors are a proven, efficient source of electricity.

[dish]

Short answer: Wind turbine. Definitely the wind turbine.

Long answer: While I'm well aware that wind turbines have problems of their own (ok, I was aware of the problem they cause to migratory birds, but I didn't know about the cost-effectiveness issue until AE brought it up), I am a European of the same generation as Zeb, and Chernobyl was terrifying. The accident happened in the Ukraine, but the fall-out came raining down on Wales on the opposite side of Europe. (Welsh lamb was too contaminated to eat for a couple of years after.)

One of my colleagues was a Polish school student in 1986. Those students were forced to stand outside all day during the May Day parades just as the radioactive cloud was passing over the continent. He's described to me the years of medical checks and preventative medications that followed.

Also, as other posters have mentioned, even though safety standards have been tightened throughout the entire nuclear industry, there's the whole disposal of radioactive waste problem to be considered.

Fitz: I'd like to ask you two things:

1) Are you conducting this survey in a variety of different places? It's just that I feel those of us old enough to have been aware of the news during the 80s are less likely to be open to the nuclear power option than those who are younger.

2) Have you considered wave energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_energy)? The UK is a group of islands surrounded by an awful lot of waves, after all. (Ok, I'm biased - during my one year as an engineering major Professor Salter, inventor of Salter's Duck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salter_duck#Salter.27s_Duck), was my head of department, and he was a fantastic lecturer.

[charl]

Nuclear power plant. For several reasons, one of them being that I don't really live in a place that has the right weather for a wind turbine. The other that it would probably ruin the sky line around these parts, and the nuclear option would provide much much more power.

[Jack Squat]

And I don't care what the safety standards and measures are today, I don't believe that there is any such thing as a 100% failsafe. I remember 3 Mile Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident) and I remember Chernobyl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster). No thanks.

3 Mile Island wasn't a disaster, and really only caused panic because it was widely publicized by people not knowing what was going on. Sure, a valve failed and pressure built up, but the redundant safety features worked flawlessly. Very small amounts of radiation were released into the immediate atmosphere, and even smaller was harmful...basically you'd have had trouble killing a bird with the amount let out, let alone a human.

As far as Chernobyl, well Russia's safety standards were a little more lax (read: non-existant) and something like that could never happen in a maintained nuclear plant in the US.

I'd choose nuclear, and you know, I'd be fine with it being 4 miles away. I actually can think of a site nearby that'd be good for one.

[raitalin]

Wind Turbine, but not because I'm afraid of a nuclear accident that *might* happen, but nuclear waste that *will* happen and will stick around being extremely poisonous and dangerous for 10k-100k years. You think fossil fuels are bad, passing a problem along to your grandchildren, think about what your passing along to your great,great,great,great,great,great,great,great,gr eat,great,great grandchildren.

I'd also like to see this math that says wind turbines aren't cost effective, as every source I've seen actually says that the bigger and taller the turbine, the *more* effective it is, as it gets wind more often and generates more energy per rotation. They aren't very cost effective, hence why construction in large amounts needs to be prompted by government, but they aren't money holes either, and they can be improved upon later.

Also, their impact on migratory birds is overstated. Its simple enough to simply not put them in migratory paths, and most of the time the blades move slow enough that they're perfectly visible.

[Ilena]

I'd seriously rather have a nuclear plant nearby. Chernobyl was a mistake caused by bad design. That disaster can't happen with a modern nuclear reactor. Nuclear reactors are a proven, efficient source of electricity.

Never say something CANT happen ... its unlikely but its possible ... expecially in this world enviroment at the moment, but me personally id rather be near a wind turbine, simply put, if the human race dies off they wont explode and leave an area uninhabitable for a long long time. Its not like i expect the human race to not be around for much longer .... :P that and the uranium has to go somewhere .... wind just floats away on the .... well wind.

[Jack Squat]

Wind Turbine, but not because I'm afraid of a nuclear accident that *might* happen, but nuclear waste that *will* happen and will stick around being extremely poisonous and dangerous for 10k-100k years. You think fossil fuels are bad, passing a problem along to your grandchildren, think about what your passing along to your great,great,great,great,great,great,great,great,gr eat,great,great grandchildren.

There's actually research in this field involving being able to extract more energy from the "waste", getting more bang for the buck, as well as lowering the amount of radiation, thus making it safer.


I'd also like to see this math that says wind turbines aren't cost effective.... They aren't very cost effective, hence why construction in large amounts needs to be prompted by government...

:smallconfused:

[raitalin]

:smallconfused:

Note the difference between *not* cost effective and *not very* cost effective. A turbine will eventually pay for itself, it just takes a while.

[Holocron Coder]

Bring on the nukes! :smallcool:

Er... nuclear power plant please :smallredface:

[The Extinguisher]

Oddly enough, I do live withing 25 miles of a nuclear reactor. And go to school within five miles of one.

Maybe. I never could grok how long miles were. My point being a live/go to school close to one.

[Tiger Duck]

There's actually research in this field involving being able to extract more energy from the "waste", getting more bang for the buck, as well as lowering the amount of radiation, thus making it safer.

of course there is research being done to that effect. But are they anywhere near a solution? or even a partial one?.
Don't forget fusion energy has been 10 years from working for the last 20 year.
so sorry if I'm a bit sceptical.

[charl]

Oddly enough, I do live withing 25 miles of a nuclear reactor. And go to school within five miles of one.

Maybe. I never could grok how long miles were. My point being a live/go to school close to one.

25 miles is about 40 km.

As it turns out, I actually live about that far away from a nuclear power plant.

[LCR]

Jesus, guys, even if nothing whatsoever goes wrong with the plant itself, where are you going to put the nuclear waste? So far, we've been burying it in the ground. Now that's a great idea, isn't it. Except that the waste is going to be radioactive for thousands of years and no matter how safe you think your storage sites are, there is going to be leakage some day.
So while solar or wind energy might not be very cost efficient right now, everything is better than amassing nuclear waste. Everything. Even burning so much oil and coal that we suffocate on all the CO2.
Also, is this a scientifically viable way to collect data for your dissertation?

[Nameless]

Jesus, guys, even if nothing whatsoever goes wrong with the plant itself, where are you going to put the nuclear waste? So far,

Um, the universe. :smalltongue:

[charl]

Jesus, guys, even if nothing whatsoever goes wrong with the plant itself, where are you going to put the nuclear waste? So far, we've been burying it in the ground. Now that's a great idea, isn't it. Except that the waste is going to be radioactive for thousands of years and no matter how safe you think your storage sites are, there is going to be leakage some day.
So while solar or wind energy might not be very cost efficient right now, everything is better than amassing nuclear waste. Everything. Even burning so much oil and coal that we suffocate on all the CO2.
Also, is this a scientifically viable way to collect data for your dissertation?

If you consider global warming and the subsequent ice age this would allegedly cause, I think we are better of irradiating a few unpopulated areas than pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

EDIT: Also once we get reliable space flight and/or a space elevator I suggest we start dumping our nuclear waste in space. Send it into the Sun or bury it on the Moon or something, or why not use Venus as a dumping ground? It's not like there's life there or anything.

[J.Gellert]

First of all, I live in one of the best places in the world for wind/water generators.

Second, I'd prefer a wind turbine. Always. You people that seriously choose a nuclear power plant? Yeah, I think you are insane, and you scare me. All these years I thought "Well, renewable sources aren't working because they are expensive, and because governments don't upset the status quo". Now I have to just accept "People are nuts" as the primary reason?

Seriousness aside (yes, I'm serious, you are nuts), the possibility of superpowers really is tempting.

[Archonic Energy]

i've always wondered why we don't bury the waste on the edge of a subducting tectonic plate?

[Nameless]

First of all, I live in one of the best places in the world for wind/water generators.

Second, I'd prefer a wind turbine. Always. You people that seriously choose a nuclear power plant? Yeah, I think you are insane, and you scare me. All these years I thought "Well, renewable sources aren't working because they are expensive, and because governments don't upset the status quo". Now I have to just accept "People are nuts" as the primary reason?

Seriousness aside (yes, I'm serious, you are nuts), the possibility of superpowers really is tempting.

I don't think it's crazy at all. There's plenty of places around the world that can't generate electricity off wind turbines. What are they supposed to do?

[Autopsibiofeeder]

Wind Turbine. Over here they work fairly well and I am fairly sure the owners make a buck out of them. Next to that, while I am confident we can do the nuclear power plant thing safely, the issue of the waste is just too big. Immoral, hazardous and in general underestimated, in my opinion.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

i've always wondered why we don't bury the waste on the edge of a subducting tectonic plate?


Those areas are often associated with volcanism. You really dont want a 4,000 ft mountain playing radiocative fountain on earth :)

[LCR]

If you consider global warming and the subsequent ice age this would allegedly cause, I think we are better of irradiating a few unpopulated areas than pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

EDIT: Also once we get reliable space flight and/or a space elevator I suggest we start dumping our nuclear waste in space. Send it into the Sun or bury it on the Moon or something, or why not use Venus as a dumping ground? It's not like there's life there or anything.

While an upcoming ice age does not exactly thrill me, yes, I do prefer that. But hey, we can actually have neither! How awesome is that?
And the point is, we don't have reliable space flight or space elevators. And it will be a long time until we do (and even then, it might not be economically sound to shoot nuclear waste into space). And even if we did, I don't think moving our trash some place else is going to solve anything.
When we first began to build satellites, no one bothered about leaving his trash in orbit. Now it's a mine field of fast moving Sputnik shrapnel. So, how do we know it's a good idea to blast radioactive waste into space?


I don't think it's crazy at all. There's plenty of places around the world that can't generate electricity off wind turbines. What are they supposed to do?

Guess what, there are other regenerative energy sources, besides wind. Like solar energy. Or tidal differences. Or geothermal energy. Chances are, something will work in your vicinity.

[J.Gellert]

I don't think it's crazy at all. There's plenty of places around the world that can't generate electricity off wind turbines. What are they supposed to do?

Buy electricity from other countries, or burn coal. We're doing that here now and it works fine (sure, it destroys the atmosphere, but better than having to LARP Fallout...)

[charl]

First of all, I live in one of the best places in the world for wind/water generators.

Second, I'd prefer a wind turbine. Always. You people that seriously choose a nuclear power plant? Yeah, I think you are insane, and you scare me. All these years I thought "Well, renewable sources aren't working because they are expensive, and because governments don't upset the status quo". Now I have to just accept "People are nuts" as the primary reason?

Seriousness aside (yes, I'm serious, you are nuts), the possibility of superpowers really is tempting.

Who says governments don't upset the status quo? My government is in a 50 or so year plan to gradually close down all nuclear powers plants in our country. They also outlawed all nuclear research, but that is a whole other can of worms.

The problem is that to fill the power requirements we have instead resorted to importing power from Russia. Guess where that power comes from? Nuclear, and even worse, oil plants. There simply is no way to exchange it all with wind turbines.


When we first began to build satellites, no one bothered about leaving his trash in orbit. Now it's a mine field of fast moving Sputnik shrapnel. So, how do we know it's a good idea to blast radioactive waste into space?

So aim it into the sun then.

[Archonic Energy]

Those areas are often associated with volcanism. You really dont want a 4,000 ft mountain playing radiocative fountain on earth :)
...:smallredface:
...point taken.

Edit:
Even so it takes thousands of years for the plates to move that far & by then most of the radiation should have subsided.

also i think the bigger worry at the time would have to be the fountain of burning hot liquid rock... it being slightly radioactive shouldn't make it that different...

[Nameless]

While an upcoming ice age does not exactly thrill me, yes, I do prefer that. But hey, we can actually have neither! How awesome is that?

Actually, an ice age is inevitable. One way or another, even if we do have a huge amount to do with global warming and we do stop producing co2 all together, another ice age will come. Global warming/cooling is part of earth’s natural cycle.


Guess what, there are other regenerative energy sources, besides wind. Like solar energy. Or tidal differences. Or geothermal energy. Chances are, something will work in your vicinity.

Yes, but that wasn't the question, the question was "Wind or nuclear".

[LCR]

Who says governments don't upset the status quo? My government is in a 50 or so year plan to gradually close down all nuclear powers plants in our country. They also outlawed all nuclear research, but that is a whole other can of worms.

The problem is that to fill the power requirements we have instead resorted to importing power from Russia. Guess where that power comes from? Nuclear, and even worse, oil plants. There simply is no way to exchange it all with wind turbines.

Then don't use wind turbines exlusively. Sweden, with its long coast line might benefit from offshore wind turbines or maybe even tidal plants (though the Baltic sea is probably not perfect for that).

[Nameless]

Buy electricity from other countries, or burn coal. We're doing that here now and it works fine (sure, it destroys the atmosphere, but better than having to LARP Fallout...)

Once again; The question was "Nuclear or wind" not "Nuclear, wind, solar, fossil fuels etc"

[J.Gellert]

Who says governments don't upset the status quo? My government is in a 50 or so year plan to gradually close down all nuclear powers plants in our country. They also outlawed all nuclear research, but that is a whole other can of worms.

The problem is that to fill the power requirements we have instead resorted to importing power from Russia. Guess where that power comes from? Nuclear, and even worse, oil plants. There simply is no way to exchange it all with wind turbines.

I think the Germans have a plan for solar energy in the Sahara desert... You can exchange it, but it's expensive, and it takes time.

Then Russia has a lot of uninhabitable wasteland to place their plants away from... most people. We here, don't. If a power plant blows up in Turkey, or Bulgaria, my cancer risk goes up dramatically. So there goes a healthy lifestyle and lack of smoking, because some idiot pressed the wrong button.

Finally, I love your government, come conquer us so we don't have to put up with our guys (that, after all this talk, are designing a new coal power plant. Imbeciles.).

[charl]

Then don't use wind turbines exlusively. Sweden, with its long coast line might benefit from offshore wind turbines or maybe even tidal plants (though the Baltic sea is probably not perfect for that).

It certainly isn't. The Baltic is almost tide-less: there is no noticeable difference in water levels between low and high tide.

We do have wind power, mostly centred around the south and Scania in particular, but they simply aren't effective enough to cover our power needs (I saw a research paper once that came to the conclusion that we would have to cover all our land area with one wind turbine per 500 m2 or so to fill power needs, and that was in the ridiculous assumption that the wind was good enough to run them at full efficiency in the whole country). A more realistic solution would be hydro power, which we do practice on many rivers up in the North, but that has disastrous implications for the ecology of said rivers and as such is not a realistic solution either.


Then Russia has a lot of uninhabitable wasteland to place their plants away from... most people. We here, don't. If a power plant blows up in Turkey, or Bulgaria, my cancer risk goes up dramatically. So there goes a healthy lifestyle and lack of smoking, because some idiot pressed the wrong button.

Finally, I love your government, come conquer us so we don't have to put up with our guys (that, after all this talk, are designing a new coal power plant. Imbeciles.).

Nothing bad about Russians, but I think I would trust Greece or Sweden to run a more effective coal or nuclear plant than I would Russia, especially since some of those plants are still Soviet-era. And it is highly hypocritical for my government to say that we don't support nuclear energy because of the environmental damage, and then instead import oil and coal power which also causes huge environmental impact.

[LCR]

I think the Germans have a plan for solar energy in the Sahara desert... You can exchange it, but it's expensive, and it takes time.

Then Russia has a lot of uninhabitable wasteland to place their plants away from... most people. We here, don't. If a power plant blows up in Turkey, or Bulgaria, my cancer risk goes up dramatically. So there goes a healthy lifestyle and lack of smoking, because some idiot pressed the wrong button.

Finally, I love your government, come conquer us so we don't have to put up with our guys.

You better not say that aloud with Germans around. We might take you up on it.
Sure, it's expensive to replace nuclear energy and I'm not sure just how viable that solar plant in Africa is, but the point is, nuclear energy, especially new plants, are freaking expensive, too. No company could afford them, if they weren't subsidized by the government. So you might as well take that money and invest it in something that's not going to leave us with toxic waste for all of eternity*.


* slight hyperbole

[dish]

Guess what, there are other regenerative energy sources, besides wind. Like solar energy. Or tidal differences. Or geothermal energy. Chances are, something will work in your vicinity.

Or wave energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_energy).


The question was "Nuclear or wind" not "Nuclear, wind, solar, fossil fuels etc"

Or wave energy.

But, yeah. It would probably be best if we didn't discuss governmental energy policies. I think that's probably a bit too political, and Fitz has two weeks to do his research, so he probably doesn't want this thread to get locked.

[Douglas]

When we first began to build satellites, no one bothered about leaving his trash in orbit. Now it's a mine field of fast moving Sputnik shrapnel. So, how do we know it's a good idea to blast radioactive waste into space?
Which is why you send it somewhere specific rather than just blasting it out into "space". The sun, for instance, is hardly going to notice an extra .0000000000000000001% of radioactive mass, nobody's going to care about it, and it is most definitely not going to accidentally crash into a later space flight. Or rather, if it did I imagine the entire rest of the sun might be a bit more of a problem for the spacecraft involved.

[Archonic Energy]

Or wave energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_energy).



Or wave energy.

But, yeah. It would probably be best if we didn't discuss governmental energy policies. I think that's probably a bit too political, and Fitz has two weeks to do his research, so he probably doesn't want this thread to get locked.

pushing wave energy much? :smalltongue:

when i saw your post my first thought "was how many watts per KM of coastline?"

followed by "how long is our coastline?"

i must admit i had i long wall of text typed up earlier but i didn't post it because it looked a bit too preachy.

[dish]

pushing wave energy much? :smalltongue:

when i saw your post my first thought "was how many watts per KM of coastline?"

followed by "how long is our coastline?"

i must admit i had i long wall of text typed up earlier but i didn't post it because it looked a bit too preachy.

I've already owned (and owned up to (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6925691&postcount=29)) my bias. :smallwink: Would be interested in the wall of text, but maybe not in this thread?

[Autopsibiofeeder]

...:smallredface:
...point taken.

Edit:
Even so it takes thousands of years for the plates to move that far & by then most of the radiation should have subsided.

also i think the bigger worry at the time would have to be the fountain of burning hot liquid rock... it being slightly radioactive shouldn't make it that different...

Aye. The big problem, or two actually, is that those areas are very unstable and unpredictable. Noone can guarantee no new volcanoes will develop there. And if it does happen, the molten rock is destructive in the vicinity, a big volcano has the ability to disperse particles over half the globe. Can't say I ever read literature about the solution you proposed, but I can imagine the potential of covering an entire continent in slightly radioactive ashes/particles, or at least our inability to guarantee it won't happen, is holding us back from doing that :)


Actually, an ice age is inevitable. One way or another, even if we do have a huge amount to do with global warming and we do stop producing co2 all together, another ice age will come. Global warming/cooling is part of earth’s natural cycle.


I don't think this is necessarily true. If you rewind the earth's video a bit further than the 2.7 MA of the Pleistocene you will find a whole other mechanism (than the glacial/interglacial cycle) that does not involve glacials and is suspected by some to be driven (partly) by carbon dioxide and methane concentrations in the atmosphere.


Enough off-topic, though :)

[Keld Denar]

A turbine will eventually pay for itself, it just takes a while.

Thats just it...it DOESN'T. Like I said, I did a lot of maths on this back in college. I don't have the calcs any more, but a few things I remember.

You need a lot of them. Individually, the ones I was looking at (I don't remember the blade length, was something like ~70' though generate about 110 kW electricity each. A small-medium sized town will have an electricity draw of ~10 MW, with a metropolitan area having a draw of 10+ times that. Hundreds of the blighters are required, in some places, thousands.

Lightning happens. Drive across NW Iowa. I'd wager 1 in 10 of the turbines there have suffered lightning damage. Or excessive wind damage. Its easy to see, some are missing blades.

Then there is damage you can't see. Turbines are rotating equipment. Anywhere you have rotation, you have ball bearings. Ball bearings wear out. They require lubrication. Annual maintainence costs, last I researched this, were around $10,000 a year EACH!

Capital cost is also VERY inhibitive. Most large turbines cost ~$.5 million EACH in parts and labor to erect, commission, permit, and tie in to the grid. A BIG part of engineering is engineering finance and time value of money. If you took the capital cost to erect a turbine, invested that with ~3% annual interest rate and bought coal power at CONSUMER RATES equal to what that turbine would have produced each year, you'd NEVER break even, not with maintenance costs. Its not even a 30 year pay out, or a 50 year pay out. Its NEVER, well, as long as we don't run out of coal. Natural gas was better, but then again, natural gas power is ~20 times more expensive that that generated by coal. And thats provided your tower doesn't suffer a premature death to lightning or the environment. I didn't look into the cost of nuclear power, but I'd bet its somewhere between coal and natural gas in cost mostly due to higher construction costs.

Again, most of these numbers are from memory of a 400 level design of alternative energies mechanical engineering class I took about 5 years ago. Wind just isn't cost effective at the national scale.

[Nameless]

I don't think this is necessarily true. If you rewind the earth's video a bit further than the 2.7 MA of the Pleistocene you will find a whole other mechanism (than the glacial/interglacial cycle) that does not involve glacials and is suspected by some to be driven (partly) by carbon dioxide and methane concentrations in the atmosphere.


True, however carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are produced naturally in great quantities. We only need to look at the Earth's history to see this. The ice ages are a perfect example of global warming and cooling that have nothing to do with human activity.

[happyturtle]

I'm not opposed to having either near me, so I'd vote nuclear power for greater efficiency and reliability.

[Tirian]

I live within twenty-five miles of nuclear power plant, and it has been a virtual non-issue for decades now. They're reliable neighbors. So I'll vote for that. I imagine that I also wouldn't mind living within four miles of a wind farm, but pragmatically there wouldn't be any good sites within that range.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

True, however carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are produced naturally in great quantities. We only need to look at the Earth's history to see this. The ice ages are a perfect example of global warming and cooling that have nothing to do with human activity.

I was referring to your statement that another glaciation is inevitable. I am not so sure of that. There are scenarios possible where we won't see another glaciaton for a veeeeery long time. We may see another glaciation in a (couple of) thousand years, we may fling off into another equilibrium state of which glacials are no part. Scientists do not understand enough yet to predict what will happen with certainty.

[Archonic Energy]

Aye. The big problem, or two actually, is that those areas are very unstable and unpredictable. Noone can guarantee no new volcanoes will develop there. And if it does happen, the molten rock is destructive in the vicinity, a big volcano has the ability to disperse particles over half the globe. Can't say I ever read literature about the solution you proposed, but I can imagine the potential of covering an entire continent in slightly radioactive ashes/particles, or at least our inability to guarantee it won't happen, is holding us back from doing that :)


point conseded.

so we can't bury in in the earth... that leaves throwing it out into space.
which has it's own problems!


I've already owned (and owned up to (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6925691&postcount=29)) my bias. :smallwink: Would be interested in the wall of text, but maybe not in this thread?
yeah i saw earlier. i'm not saying that nuclear is the only answer just that until we find something more efficent it's what we have got.

Coal - too much pollution
Oil - too expensive (also we have better uses for oil)
Gas - not enough
Hydro - need more waterfalls/ dams
Geothermal - Prehaps
Nuclear (Fission) - Nearly indestructible waste.
Nuclear (Fusion) - needs to be invented
Solar - need smaller/more efficent cells... and somewhere to put them (Desserts)
Tidal - prehaps.
Hydrogen - from where?

[Erloas]

Well I did some research on nuclear power about 8 years ago in college. Nothing too extensive, but more then most people know I'm sure.

With Chernobyl the failure basically happened because the engineers there were trying to do some unusual things. They had to go well out of their way to disable several redundant fail-safe systems to even try their experiment and then when the experiment went bad it was able to make the issue as big as it was. Simply put, the Chernobyl disaster simply couldn't have happened in a normally operating power plant.

There are a lot of wind turbines around here, none that close to my house, but in most directions I might travel I can see a lot of them. I don't have much of an issue with them, but as others have said, they are not very efficient. It takes a LOT of them to make a reasonable amount of power. They simply aren't efficient enough to power most of the worlds power needs because there simply isn't enough free land with good wind flow to put up enough of them.

The newest nuclear power designs are even safer then what is in place now. When I was doing the research they were building the first prototype of the new design in Africa somewhere. They use a different fuel design, with the uranium cased inside of carbon shells (carbon being the substance control rods in existing nuclear power plants are made out of), so the fuel and control rods are combined. What that means is that if something fails in the system the fuel is already self-contained and the reaction can't get out of control. It also means the fuel is more controlled when stored too.


For the efficiency of wind power as well as the disposal/recycling of nuclear waste, both of those will come with more use of either system.
All turbines are getting more efficient as they go, the thing about that though is that it improves the power generation of every power system. Since every power source I know of* uses whatever form of energy to develop something to turn a turbine any major improvements in wind turbine production will also increase the power production of every other type of power.

*Solar power comes in two forms, one using giant mirrors to focus heat onto a centralized structure heat water to run a turbine, the other directly converts solar power to electricity. For large scale power production I think the first option is almost exclusively used. While there are a lot of solar panels that use the other method they are generally done so on a very small scale, to provide secondary power to individual builds. I know there are a few big areas of solar collectors, but I don't know if they are full production grid sorts of power plants or just prototypes and remote facilities without huge power requirements and too far away from the power grid.

Right now no one is going to spend the money to develop a nuclear recycling process because it would probably be almost impossible to get a state/county/city to give you land to build it on and the licenses to build, at least in the USA. Also in virtually every case nuclear power plants here are probably going to live out their lifespans and be shut down and no new ones are every going to be built, so it wouldn't be economically practical to spend the money to develop a system that needs nuclear waste to be useful. I think China is one of the few countries still actively looking into and building nuclear power plants.


So I wouldn't really have an issue with either of them. Wind is a great secondary power source but I really don't think it is going to drastically change the energy systems of the world. With wind turbines having to be spread out as far as they do to get good coverage and to get enough of them it also means a lot of overhead in cost and maintenance of subsystems and laying power lines to actually get that power put to use.
Where I live a nuclear power plant is also highly impractical and not economical either because we don't have nearly the energy requirements here to make use of a fraction of the power one can generate and I'm sure 95% of the power it generated would simply have to be move to other places like California and Nevada and would basically require huge upgrades to the power grid and substations for hundreds of miles around to put all that power to use.
*right now at work I'm about 50ft away from 2 coal fire boilers and a natural gas boiler that we use to generate steam and power. The power plant for town is I think about 50 miles away, also coal, but that is to be expected since I live in one of the richest areas of coal anywhere. Its definitely an energy state, lots of people working in the oil fields too.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

point conseded.

so we can't bury in in the earth... that leaves throwing it out into space.
which has it's own problems!

We can bury it in the earth (although I think that is an immoral act), just not in a subduction zone, but rather in a part of the earth's crust that is stable.

Maybe we have to expose random people to radiation long enough till someone gets the teleport and fire immunity superpowers so he can transport the remaining waists for us to the sun ;)

[Random832]

of course there is research being done to that effect. But are they anywhere near a solution? or even a partial one?.

Um, yeah. It's not just "research", there's an actual process. It's actually being done in Europe.

Without going into real-world politics, suffice to say the US has reasons for not doing it and those reasons are political rather than scientific.

[Fitz]

thank you again allwho have stated one or the other. I am finding lots of useful odds and ends, however could this be kept away from politics, i am trying to get an idea of preference away from national media and of people from a wide set of backgrounds.
If anyone does have relevant information please pm me and i can respond to each and properly attribute your contribution
Once again thank you to all indicating a preferance
Fitz

[LCR]

Which is why you send it somewhere specific rather than just blasting it out into "space". The sun, for instance, is hardly going to notice an extra .0000000000000000001% of radioactive mass, nobody's going to care about it, and it is most definitely not going to accidentally crash into a later space flight. Or rather, if it did I imagine the entire rest of the sun might be a bit more of a problem for the spacecraft involved.

Aaaaand that doesn't sound far off or expensive. Really, how good an energy source can nuclear plants be if they require you to build space ships to shoot the remains into the sun?
This is not going to be a feasable solution for a long, long, long time. We will probably have other alternatives by then.

[dish]

thank you again allwho have stated one or the other. I am finding lots of useful odds and ends, however could this be kept away from politics, i am trying to get an idea of preference away from national media and of people from a wide set of backgrounds.
If anyone does have relevant information please pm me and i can respond to each and properly attribute your contribution
Once again thank you to all indicating a preferance
Fitz

Just as long as you're doing research in other places and not just on gitp. I am very fond of this forum, but it's not exactly the most diverse of places.

[Erloas]

One other issue about the economics of wind energy is that you can only build wind turbines in places that are well designed for it. Hills, trees, large builds and all sorts of other things can cause turbulence which make it so that wind turbines won't work very well there because they don't have a good unbroken flow of wind. You also can't have wind turbines too close to each other because of that as well.

What that generally means is that the best places for wind turbines aren't all that close to developed areas which means you need more elaborate power transformers and the high cost of running power lines from the wind turbine field to a city for the power to be used. It also means maintenance costs are higher because it takes more time and money to find issues and get parts and people out there to replace them.

[Krrth]

Heh. I'd go with the Nuclear option. Seriously, we need more of those things.

[dish]

yeah i saw earlier. i'm not saying that nuclear is the only answer just that until we find something more efficent it's what we have got.

Coal - too much pollution
Oil - too expensive (also we have better uses for oil)
Gas - not enough
Hydro - need more waterfalls/ dams
Geothermal - Prehaps
Nuclear (Fission) - Nearly indestructible waste.
Nuclear (Fusion) - needs to be invented
Solar - need smaller/more efficent cells... and somewhere to put them (Desserts)
Tidal - prehaps.
Hydrogen - from where?

So, in brief, what is your opinion of wave power?
Untested? Too expensive? Impractical? Definite possibility?

(Sorry, but now I have a vision of a room full of solar cells coated in Angel Delight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Delight). Preferably butterscotch flavour.)

[Archonic Energy]

We can bury it in the earth (although I think that is an immoral act), just not in a subduction zone, but rather in a part of the earth's crust that is stable.

Maybe we have to expose random people to radiation long enough till someone gets the teleport and fire immunity superpowers so he can transport the remaining waists for us to the sun ;)

[Devil's Advocate]

the problem with just burying it somewhere is what happens in 2000+ years time when an arceologist digs his way into a sealed vault and reads a warning sign?

[Perenelle]

Wind Turbine. as much as nuclear power plants fascinate me, I'm too paranoid about accents.

[Telonius]

ok this is a request for opinions on electricity generation so i can get data for my dissertation project. I have about 2 weeks to collect it.
So simple question: would you prefer a wind turbine within 4 miles of your home or a nuclear power plant within 25 miles?
Many thanks for any replies
Fitz

If one of each isn't an option, I'd take the wind turbine, but only because we're in a particularly windy place.

I'm already in the DC area, so the risk of death due to nuclear explosion won't increase much if we put in a nuclear reactor.

[Violet Octopus]

Wind. Though I prefer solar-thermal, with awesome molten salt thermal batteries. MOLTEN SALT. Wind is probably more suited to where I live though.

My issues with nuclear power are less to do with fears of reactor meltdown (I honestly don't know enough to say whether modern reactors are sufficiently safe or not) and more to do with really dodgy mining practices. Australia has 40% of the world's uranium, so that's rather important here.

[Telonius]

[Devil's Advocate]

the problem with just burying it somewhere is what happens in 2000+ years time when an arceologist digs his way into a sealed vault and reads a warning sign?

Then a cottage industry springs up about the curse of the pharaohs presidents.

[thubby]

You need a lot of them. Individually, the ones I was looking at (I don't remember the blade length, was something like ~70' though generate about 110 kW electricity each. A small-medium sized town will have an electricity draw of ~10 MW, with a metropolitan area having a draw of 10+ times that. Hundreds of the blighters are required, in some places, thousands.

short version
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, ~800 acres, 619 mw capacity, single reactor

Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, ~47,000 acres, 736 mw capacity, 291 turbines

[Nameless]

The thing I don’t get is why everyone always focuses on using only one type of energy. Why not use several? An energy type which is most suitable for the environment. Some places can have wind turbines while others have geothermal plants. It would make a lot more sense then to spend years trying to find only one that will work for everyone. (although it may be more convenient)

[Dvil]

Nuclear. I firmly believe they do not deserve the bad rep they always get, and being English I often tend to side with the underdog.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

[Devil's Advocate]

the problem with just burying it somewhere is what happens in 2000+ years time when an arceologist digs his way into a sealed vault and reads a warning sign?

Aye, like I said in an earlier post, I oppose nuclear power because of the waste issue. In this case I merely mentioned that if you choose to bury it, it is possible (yet wrong), and preferably done in a stable part of the earth's crust.

There's a long time frame moral/ethical side to a lot of things we (want to) do most people choose to ignore. That's a shame really, but reality.

As for the archeologist: I assume those dumpsites would be well-recorded and he should have investigated and found out about it. Would be a tad dumb archeologist....so, in order to guarantee the quality of our future 'standing crop' of archeologists, I propose that if we bury nuclear waste we accompany it with a 'Cleopatra was buried here' sign, to make sure we weed out the dense archeologists ;P

[Nameless]

and being English I often tend to side with the underdog.

Like the BBC? :smalltongue:

[V'icternus]

Personally, I think that generating the energy is only one part of the plan for the future. We need to be able to send it long-distance without wires, effectively. If we can do that, we can build reactors on the Moon and just have it orbit around us, spreading the power!

And, you'd never be caught with a flat battery if you had a receiver to collect energy.

Now that would be an invention...

But I still side with Nuclear, because it's easier, it's relatively safe, and I want to be a supervillian, dammit!

[Jack Squat]

Australia has 40% of the world's uranium, so that's rather important here.

Didn't know that fact, but I'm not surprised.

Seems fit that even the land there is out to kill everyone :smalltongue:

[Archonic Energy]

So, in brief, what is your opinion of wave power?
Untested? Too expensive? Impractical? Definite possibility?

(Sorry, but now I have a vision of a room full of solar cells coated in Angel Delight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Delight). Preferably butterscotch flavour.)

if perfected i'd be thinkng south africa / south america to fully use the antarctic circumpolar, or more loaclly the west coast of the UK / ireland for the North Atlantic current (which would annoy the newquay surfers) it has merit but until fully tested it's staying in the realms of "definate possibility" along with Geothermal.

Damn i always do that.
mmmm Angel Delight.

also orbital solar generators... the problem would be getting the power back to earth.

[Dvil]

The BBC sides with whomever will gain it the most viewers. That said, I still prefer it to ITV news or GMTV...

[V'icternus]

Didn't know that fact, but I'm not surprised.

Seems fit that even the land there is out to kill everyone :smalltongue:

Ever been out in the Bush alone? Not only is the land trying to kill you, but the sun is too. It focusses on you and blasts you with 45 degrees of heat, attracting snakes, spiders and, just when you think you'd found a safe place under a tree... BAM! Drop Bear attack.

[Nameless]

The BBC sides with whomever will gain it the most viewers. That said, I still prefer it to ITV news or GMTV...

Yeah... So they side with the underdog. :smallbiggrin:

[Pika...]

ok this is a request for opinions on electricity generation so i can get data for my dissertation project. I have about 2 weeks to collect it.
So simple question: would you prefer a wind turbine within 4 miles of your home or a nuclear power plant within 25 miles?
Many thanks for any replies
Fitz

Wind. Easy answer for me.

No radioactive junk that will take 100K years to disappear, no risk of repeating what happened in that Russian city, no need for uranium, etc.

Wind is a renewable, and easily accessible (in most locations/areas), and causes no pollution.


*Looks for his childhood Planteers ring*

[charl]

No radioactive junk that will take 100K years to disappear, no risk of repeating what happened in that Ukrainian city, no need for uranium, etc.


Fixed it for you.

[Keld Denar]

Working in construction engineering and having worked with people who have built nukes, the biggest problem with building nukes in America is capitalism (economics, not politics). The model used in France and a few other places use a fixed design for all new nukes built. This makes them more efficient and streamlined to construct. In America, between competative bidding and a plethora of designs, its just too cost prohibitive, not to mention time consuming. Heck, getting a change order or RFI approved practically takes an act of congress. Thats why the last new plant was brought up '96, and with the exception of additional reactors built in existing plants, nothing has been built in America since.

Real shame too, construction of nukes pays incredibly well, if you can get the relatively minor security clearances you need.

The issue with wave generation is that shoreline is expensive. People want to build big fancy homes and communities and beaches and stuff along the shoreline in populated areas, and remote areas run into the economics of transmission and delivery. Its a really neat system though.

EDIT:


easily accessible (in most locations/areas), and causes no pollution.


Except not. Others have commented and I'll echo it. The places where generation is possible tend to have low demand, and the places with high demand have low potential. Not to mention the killing of birds and the obscene capital cost to develope large-scale to meet demands. Oh, and noise polution.

I'd wager that super-critical coal energy production with ash recycling and modern mining practices has less impact PER KILOWATT simply due to scale.

Wind looks good in an Al Gore pipedream, but when you actually sit down and look at ALL of the costs and impacts it has, its not much different than coal.

[raitalin]

Again, most of these numbers are from memory of a 400 level design of alternative energies mechanical engineering class I took about 5 years ago. Wind just isn't cost effective at the national scale.

There we go: 5 years ago. As the technology becomes more common the production, installation and maintenance of the turbines becomes cheaper, and research in efficiency increases. As well as the consistently rising cost of energy. That's why governments support alternative energy sources in their nascent stage, they have to prop them up until the technology becomes viable.

Is wind power the solution to every energy problem everywhere? Of course not. Some places would be better served by solar or hydro power. Japan has some very nice garbage incinerator plants (though the ash left over is some extremely nasty stuff). Clean coal has some potential, but what could we get out of renewables if the research for that went to them instead? I'd just rather not rely on a technology that is going to make some amount of poisonous material that will last 10X longer than all of recorded history.

[arguskos]

I'm still waiting for someone to make geothermal power viable. So far, hasn't happened, but one day, one day. :smallamused:

On the actually stated question, I'll go with the power plant any day of the week.

[Erloas]

There we go: 5 years ago. As the technology becomes more common the production, installation and maintenance of the turbines becomes cheaper, and research in efficiency increases. As well as the consistently rising cost of energy. That's why governments support alternative energy sources in their nascent stage, they have to prop them up until the technology becomes viable.
5 years isn't that long at all though. What is on the cutting edge of design and development today will be lucky to be in the field in big numbers in even 10-15 years, at least on projects like this. It takes years just to get the paper work filled out and approved, especially on large scale projects like this with potential environmental impacts* as well as public approval. It probably took a couple years before that to get designs worked out, pick out sites and develop a plan to get to the stage of filling out the forms. Then these projects take another 3-5 years to build.

*Environmental impacts don't just include things like birds getting hit, but also by all the roads needing to be build around an area to get heavy equipment to the site to set them up in the first place as well as maintaining those roads through the years so people can get in to do the general maintenance. When it comes to the winter time, especially areas like where I'm at (which has quite a few wind farms around) there is also a lot of issue with even being able to service them during the winter from simply being too cold to work to the more likely case of not being able to get to various turbines without snow plows. There is also thoughts that the roads and noisy turbines might cause issues for animals on the ground too like migratory large mammals as well as things like endangered sage grouse.

Maintenance costs can be really high too. If you have your field located 30 miles outside of town and lightning takes down a power line the field is useless until it gets repaired. Emergency response to a remote area with all that equipment and all those people is going to add up quickly, especially in poor weather conditions. You have a much smaller chance of that happening with power plants that can be located closer to well maintained roads and closer to towns.

Which is one of the main reasons large projects like power generation don't happen with new and every changing and evolving technologies. Since its clear any project started now will be old before they even start construction.
And although it gets into politics, I don't see why the government should try to prop up an industry that might never become economically viable. And especially not take part in projects that will never break even in cost. With big industry like this "major advances" might not be that big at all. They talk about major advances in solar power and it is going from 23% efficiency to 25% efficiency, and with wind turbines you are also looking at such modest changes as "major advances." If its not close to viable as it is right now its probably not going to get much more viable with a few % increase in efficiency. If it needs a full 20% increase in efficiency to become solvent that is very likely a situation that will never occure.

[Alleine]

I'm already surrounded by bajillions of wind turbines :smallannoyed:

Not that I have anything against them, they're great and presumably worth it or else the entire valley wouldn't be ringed with them, but I've always liked the idea of a nuclear power plant. As long as people aren't stupid* there won't be a problem with it during its lifetime. When that's over and there's waste left over, well, I'm sure we can think of something. The only problem is we actually have to TRY to think of something :P

*Chernobyl


Of course I am a horribly biased Sci-Fi lover so I get all the scientific "Nuclear = Win" propaganda. :smalltongue:

[Telonius]

Something? That's easy. Rocket ship aimed at the sun. (Just make sure no supervillain has access to it beforehand).

[Thajocoth]

Nuclear plant

They're both clean sources of energy, but nuclear creates more and is more reliable. Chernobyl happened because people reacted stupidly to the situation. Three Mile Island is a better example of what to expect if something goes wrong. The only problem with a nuclear power plant is that the waste product is weapon's grade uranium, which means more material to make bombs from. (And with their method of construction being fairly well known, and all the other parts fairly easy to come by, creating more weapon's grade uranium could be bad.)

But I still say go with the nuclear plant.

[Jack Squat]

The only problem with a nuclear power plant is that the waste product is weapon's grade uranium

umm...no. That's really not right at all. The waste could be used in a dirty bomb, but that's about it. It actually is significantly less enriched (and it's not weapons grade to begin with), though there's still a lot of uranium left over.

[charl]

The only problem with a nuclear power plant is that the waste product is weapon's grade uranium, which means more material to make bombs from. (And with their method of construction being fairly well known, and all the other parts fairly easy to come by, creating more weapon's grade uranium could be bad.)


Uhm... no. Just... no. Nuclear power plants do not enrich uranium. They spend enriched uranium. The waste product can not be used for nuclear weapons (though you can theoretically, if you have insane amounts of it lying about, extract the small amounts of enriched uranium left and further enrich it to make weapons-grade material, but the only people that can do that already have thousands of nukes).

[Thajocoth]

I'm pretty sure one isotope of enriched uranium is better for power plants and a different one for weapons and that one can be converted to the other... But didn't pay much attention to which way, so I assumed that direction.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Nuclear (Fusion) - needs to be invented

Slight correction: Fusion power actually has been invented and there are several working prototypes around the world, one of the most promising, if I recall correctly, being housed at MIT.
Or maybe I'm just saying that because it's the one I've - y'know, actually seen with my own two eyes.
The problem with Fusion power at present is it requires insane amount of energy to start up, and we have yet to refine the design to the point where energy generated exceeds energy nessecary for another "cycle." (Basically, they run two atoms around in large, magnetised donuts really really fast). Thermal energy output could be vetned - or better yet harnessed - to generate electricty as well.
It's a long way from "Needs to be invented", but still quite a ways from being ready to "hit the street".

[Istari]

Wind, the turbine might be a tad annoying but its much better then risk radiation exposure or the mental stress from me worrying about possibly imaginary radiation

[Jack Squat]

I'm pretty sure one isotope of enriched uranium is better for power plants and a different one for weapons and that one can be converted to the other... But didn't pay much attention to which way, so I assumed that direction.

Well, you can make atomic bombs from both U-235 and U-238, though 235 does give much better results, so it's pretty much the only one used.

Power plants also use U-235 for the most part, because it's more efficient. It still needs to be enriched for use, but not to "weapons grade" stuff.

here (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/intro.html)'s some basic information on how nuclear plants work if you're interested.

[scsimodem]

Nuclear

I've actually lived close to a nuclear power plant and even took a tour for a school field trip. Those things are wonderful. They're clean, efficient, and cheap. As for nuclear waste, I'm not buying the 'hundreds of thousands of years' hyperbole. The radiation is due to radioactive decay, and the more radioactive something is, the faster it decays and the sooner it stops being radioactive. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable and Chernobyl is on the way to recovery. As for Chernobyl being an example of what can go wrong, it's a pretty poor example. Soviet equipment is and always was crap. As far as America, more civilians have been killed by wind turbine maintenance accidents than from nuclear plant failures. In fact, more people have been killed by robot attacks than American nuclear plants.

Then there's the water paranoia. In order for anything to be radioactive, it must have radioactive material in it. Despite what movies will say, nothing is made radioactive by being irradiated unless the radiation somehow turns that material into something that is radioactive. The only radiation that would be present from the cooling towers is any water that came into direct contact with uranium or plutonium fuel rods, and the average human gets more radiation from 5 minutes outside than from the trace amounts found in a lake full of irradiated water. The real danger, if there was one, would be heavy metal poisoning.

Add to this the fact that it would take 2000 30 story turbines running an average of 90% capacity to replace a nuclear plant running at 30% capacity, and that 30 story turbines, when subjected to high winds, can catch fire and throw their blades up to a mile and a half away. I'll take the nuclear, and I tend to think the only reason most people do differently is because of how the two are largely portrayed.

[Jack Squat]

As for Chernobyl being an example of what can go wrong, it's a pretty poor example. Soviet equipment is and always was crap.

It's not so much that as the engineers there were poorly trained and turned off many redundant safety features in order to do whatever the were that caused the accident. If the plant had been correctly run (or even half-correctly), it never would have happened.

[Lupy]

Nuclear, I love my migratory birds.

[Trog]

First of all there is nothing to say that a nuclear power plant may not be decommissioned at some point in the future and begin burning coal instead (as the one I live within 25 miles of has already done). One turbine isn't much to dismantle and there is no nuclear waste to have to deal with for years afterward (mainly those radioactive cooling rod thingies).

Wind power (I'm assuming that I would be living in an area that the wind power was even feasible due to enough wind as otherwise it would not be an option available for choice here) on the other hand has very little lasting harmful environmental effects and the downside is noise. I've lived 100 ft. from a railroad track where they would lay on the horn as the trains slowly passed and the house would rumble so if I can put up with that I can probably put up with the wind noise of the thing just fine.

So my choice is wind turbine.

[Kalbron]

Nuclear easily.

Wind turbines have numerous issues:
- Take up too much space for too little return.
- Can't generate power when the wind isn't strong enough.
- Have to shut down when the wind is too strong.
- Can't provide baseline power due to intermittant generation.
- Have more potential for catastrophic failure (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbCs7ZQDKoM) than nuclear due to the fact that people go "GREEN IZ GOODS!" and don't put enough regulatory controls on their construction.
- Are insanely dangerous for maintenance crews to work on.

Nuclear material is easily storeable, and there's a big big spot where we could store almost all the world's waste... if the Australian government actually took the opportunity.

[Thatguyoverther]

Nuclear.

It's cheaper and easier. Safety is not even an issue, provided anything other than a two year old is left in charge, and even then you're fine unless every mechanical and computerized contingency fails simultaneously.

Also, radioactive zombies are fun.

[golentan]

Nuclear. Because I'm afraid of radiation. Yeah, it turns out that with the safety requirements on nuclear power, the plant is heavily shielded enough that it acts as a deadspace. So from the perspective from someone outside a plant is less radioactive than the environment around it. Factored with the costs of wind (already mentioned), I'll choose nuclear every time.

I'm silly, I know. I'd prefer solar any day (I'm investing myself, going to get a $350 monthly check from the power company when I get my own place next year. Will be nice.)

[Keld Denar]

Oh, yea, that reminds me of another statistic that I heard a long long long while back. You are exposed to more radiation by smoking a single cigarette than you are from living 25 miles from a nuke for many years. Here, a little something from the US Government (http://epa.gov/radtown/tobacco.html).

Mmmmm, tasty tasty Lead-210 and Polonium-210. If thats not good for you, I dunno what is!

[Thrawn183]

Nuclear all the way. Complain all you want about the waste, but at least it's waste that you get to deal with rather than waste that gets pumped into the atmosphere. Also, it's absurdly safe.

I hate to harp on about how little radiation was released by 3-mile-island, but it was less than you would get from standing outside in the sun all day.

Oh, and I think a lot more people need to be educated on how Chernobyl was in Ukraine not Russia. There was an intentional effort by the soviets to put things that were dangerous in areas that weren't "Russian." Of course, there also needs to be more education about how they sent people in knowing how bad the radiation was, they just didn't care.

Regardless, there are issues with nuclear. Fortunately they all are in these neat little packages that we actually get to decide what to do with.

[bibliophile]

Definitively the nuclear plant. Nuclear power is less of an eye sore and far more dependable than wind.

[Ikialev]

Nuclear, it's more efficient.
It'll never happen, though. People here are still afraid of this Chernobyl incident.

[Zeb The Troll]

That's because, despite all claims that it can't happen again, or shouldn't have happened, or wouldn't have happened if blah blah blah are meaningless when it DID happen. Just because we can point to an extreme set of failures, either mechanical or human, preventable or unlikely, doesn't mean that a similar catastrophic failure can't happen again. No amount of assurances from any source are going to convince me that the risk is absolutely 0%. And the price of failure is too high.

Despite rapid response and the limitation of only 5% of the radioactive reactor core material being released (that's 5% of nearly 200 metric tons, by the way[1 (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html)], which also means that the remaining 95% is still onsite, buried in a structure that is "neither strong, nor durable") and many assurances that the effects of the radiation are down to nearly normal levels today, the incidence of thyroid cancer in the region has seen an astronomical annual increase in the time since.[2 (http://www.chernobyl.info/index.php?userhash=361361&navID=21&lID=2#)] According to the source, prior to 1986, the incidence in children and adolescents was nearly zero. Ten years later the region is reporting more than 100 cases per year, and that's just in kids, remember. In adults, as of 2000, the rate of occurrence is approximately 8 times what it was prior to 1986.

1 - The World Nuclear Association, "Representing the people and organizations of the global nuclear profession" so downplaying the disaster is in their best interests.
2 - Chernobyl.info, I'm not sure who runs the site or why, but the linked article is well referenced.

[llamamushroom]

Nuclear powerplant. As much as I think wind would be good, I don't think it's the best source for harnessing the sun's energy - solar or tidal would be better (as I think a couple have already said).

Also, the thing about Chenobyl is that, although I can't say it will never happen again, the only reason it could is if somebody is actively trying to make it happen.

[charl]

Nuclear powerplant. As much as I think wind would be good, I don't think it's the best source for harnessing the sun's energy - solar or tidal would be better (as I think a couple have already said).

Tides are caused by the gravity of the Moon. The Sun has nothing to do with it.

[Erloas]

Tides are caused by the gravity of the Moon. The Sun has nothing to do with it.

Thats not right at all. The sun does have a lot to do with it, but not everything. I think the biggest contributor is the moon but the sun isn't that far behind in effect.
I tried to do a quick search of wikipedia and there is nothing concise to quote, but it is significantly more complicated then it is made out to be in school.


After I thought about it a bit, I think that if wind isn't viable now it really isn't going to get viable. Because while the wind turbine industry is fairly new all of the technology behind it is very old and well developed already. People have been using wind to move things for hundreds of years and the turbine has been around since electricity has been generated by people. They are both concepts well understood. You aren't going to get major advances in the design of the blades because they can be well simulated and designed now. You aren't going to get much better turbines because they have been around for a long time and really don't have many major advances left to make. The only advances to really be made are to get better material to make lighter blades and less friction on bearings and such. And that isn't a "huge changes" sort of area.

Any major advances in turbine design, probably a completely different device that does the same thing in a completely new way is about all that is left, is going to apply to virtually every form of power generation. If that new design happens it can just as easily be connected to a steam line to turn it as it can be hooked to some blades on a wind tower to turn. Once it is designed to work with steam it can work with waste burning plants, natural gas, coal, oil, nuclear, some solar, geothermal and probably tidal as well. In which case every technology that is currently economically viable will become more so and wind will not be able to gain any ground. The only way wind can really gain is if they simply don't allow many of the competing designs (nuclear, coal, natural gas mostly) to be built so the only other options are also very similar in cost effectiveness or practicality in some locations (geothermal, tidal, solar).

[Random832]

Thats not right at all. The sun does have a lot to do with it, but not everything. I think the biggest contributor is the moon but the sun isn't that far behind in effect.

The difference between the acceleration due to the sun's gravity at the near side of the earth (equatorial noon) vs the far side (midnight) is 101 µGal

The difference between the acceleration due to the moon's gravity at the near side of the earth vs the far side is 220 µGal.

(for comparison, the earth's gravity itself is about 980 Gal. So that's a combined variation of only about 0.33 ppm, to cause the tides.)

Since no energy is free, you may wonder where the energy for the tides comes from. It contributes to the gradual slowdown of the earth's rotation. It's not clear though that generating electricity from it would have any significant effect on how much energy is already "wasted" moving water around.

[zombie chick]

hmm a tough one.
if the windturbines were a lot further away ie in the middle of the sea then thats what i would go for. however, since they will be 4 miles within where i live and likely to cause problems with noise pollution, I would go nuclear.

definately gotta look into those alternative forms of energy, a little known one is thermal energy.

[Fitz]

thank you everyone who contributed, all proving very useful!
Fitz

[Random832]

I didn't register my actual "vote" yet, by the way - I'd go for nuclear if those are the only two options (you didn't mention other options - what about geothermal?)

[RS14]

Funny thing, I'd rather have a nuke plant 25 miles away than 125 miles away. If something goes wrong, I want to die RIGHT AWAY, not 10 years later in horrible pain as teh cancerz eat me alive from the inside.

It won't make much difference. Nuclear plants don't go off like bombs. If you want to die right away, you'd better work at the plant itself, and even then you'd better join every emergency crew you can.

At Chernobyl, for example, only two people died in the explosion. Of the remaining plant workers and rescue workers, 237 suffered acute radiation sickness, but only 31 died in the first month. I think only three others died immediately, opening the sluice gates directly beneath the reactor.

[Nomrom]

I'd definitely go for nuclear. Nuclear power is so much more efficient, and the plants are very safe now. They do an excellent job of making sure that accidents do not happen.

And, I live about 60 miles away from a nuclear plant right now anyways. The South Texas Project plant is about a 60 mile drive from south Houston where I live.

[Joran]

For me it's nuclear. It's proven technology, generates a lot of electricity, and I think the safety concerns for a meltdown at a plant are overblown.

The primary issue for plants is what to do with the waste. I think breeder reactors can generate electricity as well as reduce waste while generating fuel for other reactors, but that fuel happens to be weapons grade plutonium.