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http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/gg96rpt/chap7.htm l

Scroll about halfway down. There's a map showing the dramatic REforestation here in the united States.

Enviromentalists tend to 'overlook' these sorts of images.

In North America at least, the trend has been going largely in the opposite direction. We are seeing REforestation rather than DEforestation. This is in despite of an increasing population.

It can be a little tough to find good data given all the bullshit flying around but here's a map that shows the amount of forest land in the US from 1620 onwards:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/gg96rpt/chap7.htm l

The interesting things is that we are see a dramatic resurgence of forest land here in the US. A big part of the reason, apparently, is more efficient farming practices which have allowed us to restore a lot of farmland back to forests. Here's a map showing the trends from 1982 to 1997:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/LandUse/Gallery/m ap1.htm

A move to more densley packed cities is also a contributing factor to reforestation.

Article such as the one Zonk cited are a favorite of the hard left environmental movement. These 'studies' cherry pick data to paint an alarmist picture. The media usually swallow these article whole with little crtical thought. In the end, these distorted pictures don't do anything to help real environmental progress.

How about a car which:

* Uses absolutely no energy when stopped in heavy traffic

I don't think this is a realistic requirement. Real drivers will have their headlights on (daytime running lights are pretty much standard everywhere now), not to mention the radio, the Air Conditioning, and GPS navigation system. The A/C is the real killer there, but all of those things combined will suck the life out of any battery faster than you can say "zero emission baby!"

Also, I just want to point out that I don't think electric cars are the silver bullet panacea that they are being marketed as. It still takes x Newtons of energy to move y kilograms of mass over a distance of z kilometers. Utilising electric energy to perform the work isn't somehow "free." That electricity still has to come from somewhere. And if that source happens to be the existing power grid (i.e., you plug you car in while you're at home, or parked somewhere), then that power is still most likely coming from fossil fuels. It doesn't buy you anything.

I'm proud to live in a jurisdiction that is actually quite forward-thinking in this respect. Ontario derives less than half (42%) of its electricity from fossil fuel sources. But more than a quarter of our power is nuclear, and the US is still pretty resistant to dipping their toes back into that pool. California, for example, only uses nuclear for about 13% of their power, relying on fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) for almost 62% of their power (source).

For laughs, I looked up some info on Texas. I found that Texas derives only 7% of its electricity from "green" sources (I'm including nuclear in that number), with the remaining coming from coal, natural gas, petroleum (61%), and "dual fired" (what's that? Is that "green?") (32%). Source.

So until we address the root problems (most energy is still derived from fossil fuels, rampant overconsumption is a way of life in North America), all we're doing is moving the pollution from the highways to the power plants. We're not saving anything, it's not helping the environment, we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for buying an electric car... we should pat ourselves on the back for taking the bus, carpooling, telecommuniting, or just plain driving less.

Put it into perspective. In 2002, the world generated about 405 quadrillion BTUs. In Joules: 4.273*10^20 J. With a radius of 6378 km, the profile of the Earth absorbing sunlight with an intensity of 250 W/m^2 (adjusted from 1600 due to atmospheric reflection) will absorb 1.0075*10^24 J in a year. This means that humans currently generate only 0.04% of the energy that the Earth absorbs from the Sun. The Earth will also radiate the same energy keeping in relative equilibrium. Some of the 0.04% will also be radiated.

Overall, the amount of energy we generate is not really significant. The amount of energy the Earth absorbs from the Sun (which we can help out by generating CO2) is very significant.

Actually, coal is one of the things that the U.S. has in abundance. Look here for more info.

Quite lot.

"Canada sends over 99% of its crude oil exports to the U.S., and the country is one of the most important sources of U.S. oil imports." -http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/canada.html
,br> I guess a lot, then.

I don't think the dollar situation is all that dire. Consider the following:

1- Oil accounts for much less of our trade deficit than in the 70's.
2- Oil consumption accounts for less of our economic output (barrels/gdp lower now than during 70s) cite
3- Our current account deficit is small compared to the size of our economy.
4- Capital markets in the U.S. are quite fair & liquid and the gov's is stable, meaning holding your wealth in U.S. dollar-demoninated assets incurs minimal political risk.

In all, the U.S. Dollar serves as a good place to park your wealth, mostly for reason #4.

As far as a persistent trade deficit, one can't make a normative statement; it's not good or bad. Consider this: you run a persistent trade deficit with your local grocery store and gas station. Is that "good" or "bad"? And for whom? When the U.S. economy does well, the trade deficit increases because we're consuming resources, and presumably, putting them to better use than the next highest bidder.

coal-fired plants accounted for 53% of generation (source: US. DOE.)

18% isn't bad considering the logistics. The US is nearly 100x larger in area than South Korea...

South Korea - http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/skorea.html
Population 48m
Area 38k sq. miles (about the size of Indiana or Kentucky)

US - http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.s html
Population 293m
Area 3.5m sq. miles (2.9m continental)

I wonder what the percentage would be if we only accounted for metro areas like Seattle, New York, LA... while I'm sure it's nowhere near 73%, I bet it's well above 18%.

Yes evil idiot, try the correct table for statrers. http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/totimportsby_ country.htm

See, Canada #1?

See, we lead Saudi imports by 300,000 bpd. Do you think your economy would implode if your Saudi bitches stopped selling you oil?

Think about it. You are petroleum crack whores, and we have most of the crack, whore.

Have things changed recently? In 2003, Canada trailed Mexico by 20,000 barrels/day, which trailed Saudi Arabia by almost 200,000 barrels/day.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/crudebycountr y.htm

Energy sources do not have to generate electricity.

To get an idea where U.S. electricity comes from try this:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_s um.html

Linq

Back on the subject, the two processes are special because they would never have been discovered until someone played around with numbers in the theoretical domain. The processes are non-obvious. In fact, both only work inside of a very small envelope of conditions.

Someone didn't tinker with a device an BAM out came a refriderator. Someone actually looked at the equations and realized "hey wait a minute". And 50 years of R&D later people were installing the damn thing in their kitchen.

That's magic to me. And I DO grok the math.

Although I would enjoy not having to drive home in the dark, it hardly seems worth it from an energy standpoint. If you consider the savings over the year it is only 0.008%. On the other hand, I read that increasing fleet gas mileage just 3 mpg would save the U.S. about 1 million barrels of oil, or 5%, a day all year round.

Also worth noting is that most of the energy savings from changing DST are from electricity generation. The quoted figures are equivalent to 10,000 barrels of oil per day. Most of our energy is generated from coal (50.0%), nuclear (19.9%), and hydroelectric (6.6%). Only 17.7% comes from natural gas and 3.0% from petroleum.*

Coal energy costs are largely driven by petroleum energy costs as the two have independent supplies but are alternatives to each other. Burning coal still produces CO2 and other harmful emissions, but smaller petroleum powerplants, mainly cars and trucks, produce more harmful pollution per energy consumption. So reducing fleet fuel consumption and encouraging flex time and public transportation use will have a greater effect on both the environment and energy costs.

* Source: Department of Energy (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_ sum.html)

Auto use represents less than half the oil consumed, and SUV represent an even smaller persentage of that piece. The majority of oil is consumed for heating and generating electricity.

That's not correct. In the US over 2/3 the oil is used for transportation. Futhermore, the amount of oil used for heating has been dropping every year (in real quantities - barrels/day, not just percentage) since 1978, while the amount used for transportation is growing. source. It is relatively easy to convert stationary applications to use another fuel, but we don't (yet) have a suitable mobile fuel that is as economical as oil.

Sorry, but that statistic is way off the mark. According to the DOE, 46% is more like it.

The United States uses 20 million barrels of oil a day, so these 10,000 barrels a day would save .05% (.0005)

Can we please let the term "Bioinformatics" die already?!

I never understood why people think it's special. We used to call these run-time studys, search algorithms, etc "Computer Science", or maybe just "Informatics".

It seems that biologists decided to learn Perl, and discovered (on their own, maybe!) that you could use it to search these sequence files they generate. Suddenly, they decided they needed to create this entire new field, totally ignoring all of the CS research before them.

It shows in the software they use, too. A huge ammount of software that is considered "production", fails in ways you'd expect a fresman CS student to fail.

"Blast" doesn't have consistent return codes!

"cross_match"/"PXM" has no concept of memmap(), and will happly malloc() multi-GB spaces so it can slurp in entire files! ...sigh...

Ok, I'm bitter... Working here, and see this all the time. It's CS people! Grrr...

#include [std_disclamer.h]

The energy probably came from coal or nuclear.

FYI:

2003 Electricity usage Billions of KWH 3848
Coal 53%
Nuclear 21%
Natural Gas 15%
Hydro 7%
Oil 3%
Other 1%

Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html

RTFA

Or, at least the article's title:

"NNSA Supercomputer Breaks Computing Record: Exceeds 100 TERAFLOPS DOE/NNSA and IBM partnership on BlueGene/L, a tool for national security"

However, the price if gas includes taxes that go for the common good of society

If the roads need funding, they will be funded. I'm not worried about my state's ability to tax me.

I would argue,however, that contributing to our nation's dependence on oil (assuming you live in the US) is contributing to our nation's eventual downfall. What will happen when the arabian oil fields dry up (and they will)? Economic chaos that will make the great depression look like the 90's internet boom. Much of the problem is that no one really knows how much oil is under the ground over there. On the other hand, domestic sources of energy (coal, nuclear, etc) are known quantities, so we just might be able to avoid demise by using more of them. In short, electric cars and other alternative means of transit are essential to the future of this country, so don't give me any of that crap about buying gas for social good.

• it's a carbon sink
• it's quickly renewable... eg. doesn't need millions of years to form

Compared to solar energy, it's somewhat favorable also:

• it's a carbon sink
• solar is 10-30% efficient... although I can't find any similar statistics for grass, I can't imagine grass is any worse (even after including all the maintenance work)
• in terms of land use... humans MUST start devoting some land to renewable energy. The benefit of grass vs. things like windmills/dams/solar-panels is that grass can be grown on land that otherwise couldn't be used for other things. Also, because grass requires very little up-front investment compared to the other energy sources, it allows much more flexible use land... eg. growing grass in a housing development while construction is still going on in the first half of the section, for instance.

Last I checked, it was not limited to coal burning but is largely dominated by it currently.

Electricity source %
Coal__ __Nuclear_ _Gas__ __Hydro_ __Oil_ _Other
51___ ___20____ ___17___ __7___ ____3__ __3

Electricity info:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickelectr ic.htm

Some Coal info:
http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?BT_CODE=CO AL

I am all for preparing for the future, but my point is that currently this is the situation and although everybody is working hard at producing technology to cleanly and sustainably produce eletricity, it is naive to think that switching to electricity is any real solution now or will be any time soon.

Today I just submitted a research grant proposal to the US Department of Energy, in their "Multiscale Mathematics in Research and Education" program. If you look at their proposal guidelines, near the end under "The evaluation under item 2", they talk about making materials available to the public as open source. I was happy to see it, as I have made some software available from my previous research available in this way, and plan to do so again in the future on my new projects. I'll have to wait many months to see if they fund my current project proposal, though...

Oklo: Natural Nuclear Reactors

Better patent that idea before someone else makes use of it.

Just to get started, the vegetable oil costs 2.50$ a gallon. In bulk

That depends on what oil you are using pure vegetable and peanut oil are very expensive and are not the best choice for bio-diesel. Soy and rapeseed are far better choices and are cheaper that 2.50 in bulk. It averages in the $1 per gallon area in futures trading.

Add the costs of processing to turn it into bio-deisel and you've got a very expensive solution.

Methanol and lye are both very cheap and used in small amounts in the process as well most of the methanol is recovered to use again. Blending is a fairly automated process for the manufactures just pour in all the ingredients and out comes bio-diesel pretty much. Refining Diesel is as much if not more labor intensive.

And that's not taking into account of the skyrocketing price when large numbers of people start buying up the oil.

No actually there may be a small spike at first but what will happen is that farmers that are now sitting on crops that they cannot move will start to migrate to producing oil out of them not to mention that many farmers would love to have a new cash crop to grow. Right now the ability to produce far outweighs the demand for the product in fact as production ramps up you may actually see a decrease in the price as it does not require the farmers to grow a special crop for low demand. If the roles where reversed and bio-diesel where the main fuel source diesel would be very expensive as there would have to be special refineries to produce diesel for what would amount to a limited demand hence the refineries would have to charge a premium to cover the increased cost to produce a fuel with limited demand. Right now that is bio-diesel and that is the only reason that bio-diesel is expensive but with the current skyrocketing diesel prices there is now no reason to by diesel fuel. I currently purchase B100 at a local supplier for $2.10 a gallon well under the $2.30 a gallon that they are charging for diesel. The bio-diesel they are selling is soy and rapeseed derived and all virgin so they are not sucking out the local McDonalds vat to reduce their costs. The alternative fuel tax breaks have made it competitive with regular diesel.

Take a look at this it has some good info on cost to produce bio-diesel.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0102.html

which indicates 8.143 quadrillion BTU. By my calculation (correct me if I'm wrong on this) that works out as I stated.

"That's 2.38647772 × 10^12 kiloWatt hours per year to generate .."

In who's book... 2004 numbers indicate only 7.88x10^11 Kwh(table 7) were generated by Nuclear power plants. (Just a little bit above 2003 numbers)..

In other words your numbers are off by a factor of THREE !! What did you forget, are you using raw thermal power? Bad move, thermodynamics dictates that you'll be able to convert only a fraction of a Nuke's thermal output into Electrical power. The remaining 2/3's of the heat energy gets dumped into the environment.

not anymore

Because at some point we WILL run out of oil.

A "quick" summary of US energy use is available here. The 2003 mix was "coal-fired plants accounted for 53% of generation, nuclear 21%, natural gas 15%, hydroelectricity 7%, oil 3%, geothermal and "other" 1%." Total production was about 3.8 PWh, or about 13 quad out of about 100 quad total use.

So, it is worth noting that while the US electricity is still principally fossil based, it is also mainly coal based; our known coal reserves are the world's largest. Electric-based systems suggest a transition method. IMHO, the gripping hand is that electric powered cars don't seem as promising long-term as using biodiesel storage of solar power-- which makes electric development mostly a dead-end detour, aside from the chance of getting better laptop batteries.

And most of our electricity, of course, doesn't come from fossil fuels.

Really? Take a look at this chart and say that again. It looks like about 2/3 of the electricity generated in the US in 2004 was from fossil fuels (mostly coal).

Yes, you're probably thinking world-wide, but we are talking about a US car sold in the US. Still, even with places like France and Japan getting large amounts of power from nuke plants, it seems likely that the vast majority of the power generated in the world is coming from the burning of stored sunlight...

Ok, so maybe you'll update from the site of the US Department of Energy, wich I don't think is a random and obscure site.

here: http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/Carbon%20Sequestratio n/Core%20R&D/nonco2.html

The average price was about $1.30 a gallon in 01/05.

I would much rather buy at that price than my local price of around $1.70 a gallon. Especially if I was considering losing a few thousand pounds of it.

Here is a link to a DOE pdf of the prices.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_ publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/curren t/pdf/table15.pdf/

the article lists the size of 120 watt panel as 14 feet by 10 feet

Actually, TFA says: "Nanosolar SolarPly, is a 14 feet x 10 feet solar electricity module delivering 120 watts per square inch at 110V."

Better take that article with a grain of salt size of Uluru. 120 W per square inch is about 186 kW per square meter. This is pretty high, considering the solar constant is 1367 watts per square meter. Maybe the guys at Nanosolar illuminated their panel with one of these instead of plain old sunlight.

Even if N.N. Sachitanand confused square inches with square feet, that would still be almost 1.3 kW/m^2.

http://www.science.doe.gov/sbir/awards_abstracts/s bir/cycle16/phase1/041.htm

1990 Average 22,461
1991 Average 22,506
1992 Average 23,558
1993 Average 24,304
1994 Average 24,594
1995 Average 25,094
1996 Average 25,541
1997 Average 26,804
1998 Average 27,858
1999 Average 26,686
2000 Average 28,335
2001 Average 27,405
2002 Average 25,403
2003 Average 27,072
2004 11-Month Average 29,054

lowest to highest is a gain of 26%. This number will decrease over time. Chinas oil needs will soon be growing faster. The nation that holds the middle east holds onto industrialization that much longer.

I'm not sure if it'll happen this year, or 20 years from now, but it will happen. The interesting question is, will the price of oil skyrocket, leaving our entire economy stuck? Or will we manage to shift enough of our energy needs to renewable resources by then? Supply demands of as little as 5% (opec oil crises, cali) have led to price jumps of %200+. It used to take one barrel of oil to get 30 barrels out of the ground. We now get ~5. Some sources say 2. When we get < 1, no more oil will come out of the ground.

This isn't Bush's plan, although he is a perfect figurehead to see it through. Many people in many positions know this is coming, and have been planning for it. This has been known about since the '50s, and although the numbers might shift the equation a bit, no one is arguing it's fundementaly wrong.

exist and are safe.... for their intended use they are in use in both American and Russian satellites. Do some research on "Nuclear Batteries" http://www.ne.doe.gov/space/space-desc.html
I just don't think, in todays geo-political situation, I would want every Joe to have one in his car. Can you say easy dirty bomb, boys and girls?

I believe you can drive in the carpool lane in Californita if you own a Hybrid. Hybrid's aren't exactly THE answer for fossil fuel dependency and green house gasses but they sure make a lot more sense at the moment than driving gas guzzlers or trying to create a Hydrogen economy using fossil fuels to produce the Hydrogen and at great expense to tax payers. Hybrid's mostly just need to get the sticker price down.

If the Bush administration were actually serious about reducing dependence on fossil fuels they would just push Detroit to raise MPG rating on their vehicles. Adding a couple extra miles per gallon to all vehicles sold in the U.S. and the world is going to save more oil and pollution than any Hydrogen initiative is going to yield for decades. Why don't we? Well obviously because oil companies don't want more fuel efficient vehicles, and Detroit's profit margins are great on gas guzzlers, though high gas prices is putting a drag on their sales lately. The oil companies are making staggering amounts of money on the status quo at the moment, with oil tight enough that they can set gas prices at a level where they are making massive amounts of money, especially as long as all the oil companies collude to inflate prices. Exxon/Mobile is raking in record profits at the moment and just passed GE as the worlds biggest company with a market cap of $383 billion .vs. $379 billion.

You just need to look at Exxon's stock to see they are way happy with the status quo, short oil supplies, growing demand and no viable alternatives in sight.

"Second, natural gas is methane. It is worse to try and "crack" methane and convert it into carbon and hydrogen than it is to use other sources of hydrogen"

Not sure you are entirely on the mark either friend. There is a big down side to it but the Bush Hydrogen initiative is in fact completely dependent on fossil fuels, coal and natural gas to produce the Hydrogen in the near to mid term at least.

A pretty good paper on the methods of producing Hydrogen.

Here is a the DOE's own page which spells it out, Bush's plan is COMPLETELY focused on producing Hydrogen from fossil fuels in the near to mid term, in particular from natural gas and coal.

Producing Hydrogen from natural gas is, I believe the cheapest method possible, on anything resembling a large scale, at the moment though not sure how Hydrolysis compares.

$0.65 per kilo - Steam reforming(natural gas)
$0.80-$1.20 per kilo - Off gas clean up
$2.40-$3.60 per kilo - Electrolysis

Producing Hydrogen from natural gas is "worse" in the sense that it produces CO2, a green house gas we would rather not be producing, though its possible to bank the CO2, pump it underground, for example in to old oil fields where its already used at great expense to increase their yield. Carbon sequestration is the DOE's only rationale for using this method of Hydrogen production. If you don't bank the CO2 the fossil fuel based Hydrogen economy would be a massive contributor to greenhouse gases and it would never fly as environmentally friendly.

Hydrogen really isn't any kind of good solution unless its produced from Electrolysis AND then only if the electricity is coming from a non fossil fuel source like Hydro, Nuclear, Wind or Solar. It sure doesn't make sense to burn coal or natural gas to produce electricity to use in Electrolysis to make Hydrogen and pretend its a clean energy source.

At the moment I would be inclined so say the Hydrogen push IS a Bush administration scam to pump subsidies in to their rich friends in the fossil fuels business because that is where all most of the Hydrogen is coming from. In fact I suspect the major objective is to provide his friends in the coal industry an alternative market. If so then that would make Hydrogen produced from coal the centerpiece of the plan and the whole objective of it.

From the paper above:

Steam Reforming

Steam reforming is a chemical process that makes hydrogen from a mixture of water and a source of hydrocarbons; usually a fossil fuel. The most common source is natural gas, which consists primarily of methane. When steam and methane are combined at a high pressure and temperature, a chemical reaction converts them into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The potential energy content of the hydrogen produced is actually higher than that of the natural gas consumed. However, a significant amount of energy is required to operate the reformer, so the overall efficiency is typically only about 65 percent. Hydrogen produced by this technique can cost as little as $0.65 per kilogram. This process is not the best method for creating hydrogen because it uses a lot of energy to operate and the efficiency level is low. There is also another drawback to steam reforming, according to the Department of Energy. It has concluded that "substantial emissions can be generated when hydrogen is produced from certain energy sources", namely fossil fuels.

Off-Gas Clean Up

Another technique for producing hydrogen is off-gas clean up. Off-gas clean up is the process that utilizes the high concentrations of hydrogen in the waste streams of various industries. Collecting and purifying these gases is often cost-effective, with costs typically ranging between $0.80 and $1.20 per kilogram. Most off-gas hydrogen is used on-site by the industry that produces it. Industries that could utilize off-gas clean up include

Since people apparently called bullshit on my initial post, here is some evidence to support my claim that hydrogen DOES heat up as it expands:

Agilent - Hydrogen Safety Guide: "Hydrogen temperature increases as the gas expands. Hydrogen that is allowed to expand rapidly from high pressure can self ignite."

Ask a NETL Researcher Archive: "The safety concern here is if the impurity is oxygen. Hydrogen gas heats up on expansion and can self-ignite in a very powerful and nasty explosion."

Perhaps people need to do a little more research before moderating or replying...

As the report mentions, massive reforestation has occurred in America since 1920, as marginal agricultural land has been abandoned. Some parts of the eastern United States, such as southern Ohio, would unrecognizable today to an observer of a hundred years ago, because they are now almost completely covered with trees.

Oil doesn't just "come from the Middle East." Some of what we use comes from there, but it's certainly not the only source, or even the main source.
I agree there's a demand for better, cleaner energies, and a reduction of reliance on foreign energy sources. It's just better to be more self reliant.
But currently, the US produces 40% of the petroleum it uses (according to the API.) The remaining 60% of imported petroleum comes from these countries.

I'm sorry that your country is unable to build nuclear power plants, as they are very expensive. However, you have some of your facts wrong.

The US doesn't want Iran to have nuclear materials because they might build bombs with the material.

The main reason nuclear power plants have not been built is because of mass hysteria from the accident at the poorly designed Three Mile Island plant. PBS did a wonderful one-hour special on this accident. You can see info at their website. Also, the accident at the poorly operated Chernobyl plant didn't help things. Nuclear power plants take much care to operate correctly, but are much more enviromentally friendly than coal, oil, and gas.

The last constrution of a nuclear power plant in the US was completed in 1996. See US Dept. of Energy

Wind, waves, and solar are very expensive. Solar and wind power is more than $80/MWh compared with the average coal cost of $16/MWh (in US); this is not a good deal. A quick search on google for wind and solar costs will show you. Here is an example.

I know because of experience in the energy business that nuclear power is usually cheaper than power generated from other fuels, but this article has some good facts about that.

Yes, the USSR has many nuclear reactors (probably poorly maintained), but even without the USSR, there would be plenty more nuclear power plants in Europe than in the US. See this Dept. of Energy article.

I'm sorry that your country is unable to build nuclear power plants, as they are very expensive. However, you have some of your facts wrong.

The US doesn't want Iran to have nuclear materials because they might build bombs with the material.

The main reason nuclear power plants have not been built is because of mass hysteria from the accident at the poorly designed Three Mile Island plant. PBS did a wonderful one-hour special on this accident. You can see info at their website. Also, the accident at the poorly operated Chernobyl plant didn't help things. Nuclear power plants take much care to operate correctly, but are much more enviromentally friendly than coal, oil, and gas.

The last constrution of a nuclear power plant in the US was completed in 1996. See US Dept. of Energy

Wind, waves, and solar are very expensive. Solar and wind power is more than $80/MWh compared with the average coal cost of $16/MWh (in US); this is not a good deal. A quick search on google for wind and solar costs will show you. Here is an example.

I know because of experience in the energy business that nuclear power is usually cheaper than power generated from other fuels, but this article has some good facts about that.

Yes, the USSR has many nuclear reactors (probably poorly maintained), but even without the USSR, there would be plenty more nuclear power plants in Europe than in the US. See this Dept. of Energy article.

YOu got a magic wand that'll turn all of our current coal, gas, and oil generators into something else?

The DOE has a "magic wand" (called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) which effectively converts coal-fired plants to (synthetic) gas plants at about 3x the output and 20% greater efficiency. If we got an economical source of non-fossil hydrogen (like the "green algae" trick) gas-fired plants could be converted to burn it at minimal cost. And oil's share of electric power generation is minimal. It's about half the share of hydroelectric, and "other renewables" are going to overtake it shortly (they are already 20% ahead of oil's 1995 minimum)

If I wanted to do something personally and I had a plug-in hybrid, I could just put solar on my roof to offset the electricity used by the car. At 250 Wh/mile, a 20-mile commute would use about 5 kWH/day. A 1 kW solar system would feed this with some extra, and cost around $5000 at today's retail, uninstalled. Today's panels have 25-year warranties, so they'd be expiring about the time I replaced my current car... for the third time.

If it was really that simple, why isn't it done? Answer: it's not that simple. Our economy would crash right now if we all suddenly stopped driving our cars and walked to work.

Yeah, if America sent its Excursions, Durangos, Escalades and Hummers to the crusher and commuted in Priuses, Neons and Focuses instead, we'd all die.

Oh wait, no we wouldn't.

Nuke power (while I'm all over it, really, I am) is still relatively unstable. I'd rate it right at the level of stability of Windows XP.

Today's PWR's were built in the 1970's or earlier, but I don't see you comparing them to Windows 95. Strange... or maybe not.

Then wind. While there are some very nice designs, some excellent prototypes, and even some small-scale deployments that have worked well, wind still isn't up to production-level.

3.6 megawatt wind turbines are in production. The prototype of a 5 megawatt turbine is on the grid.

Solar failed already. It's not environmentally friendly, it's as simple as that.

Your evidence for this assertion is? Are you repeating the fallacy of associating the waste from chip-making processes with the roll-to-roll process used to make thin-film silicon cells? How about titanium dioxide cells, are you going to argue that TiO2 (used in paint, don't forget that) is an environmental hazard?

You're funny.

"Want to move away from oil" isn't the problem. We all want to.

The first step in moving away from oil is just to avoid wasting it, but I don't seem to see anyone holding a "sledgehammer the Hummer for charity" affair. Plenty of Hummers on the road around me (overgrown things, nobody ever parks one right), and I'd be happy to pay a couple bucks a swing with a ten-pounder, but nobody's volunteering their guzzler for the honors. I guess there are some people who just don't want to.

I bet another $2/gallon in gas taxes would get most of them to want to, though. It would barely affect me; the difference between today's $2/gallon and a hypothetical $4/gallon is about $100 for a fairly serious road trip. I couldn't get a hybrid this time around, but if I had the difference would have been even smaller.

Ask anybody on the street "If I had a better way for you to get around car that didn't require gas, would you do it?" Most would probably say "Yes, if I can be as free as I can with a car" or something to that affect.

They're called plug-in hybrids, and they are al

According to the oft quoted ORNL report, there is 0.00427 millicuries/ton of coal, and each ton releases 6150 kilowatt-hours(kWh)/ton. This is therefore 6.9431e-7 mCi/kWh. The DOE's Energy Information Agency gives the world total of energy production for 2002 as 4.0512e17 BTU or 1.18699e14 kWh. Since only 9.756e16 BTU or 24.08% of the world energy production is coal for 2002, we can come to a total of 19.85 MCi/yr. Some estimates for Chernobyl put the radiation released at 1.2e19 Bq or 320 MCi. It would take coal plants at the 2002 rate of production 16 years to equal the release from Chernobyl. On the 26th of April, it will be the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident! Is it really that intelligent to put the noose around the neck of our nuclear industry because a near bankrupt Cold War enemy with a poorly designed reactor had an accident that almost certainly could not happen with US reactors?

According to the oft quoted ORNL report, there is 0.00427 millicuries/ton of coal, and each ton releases 6150 kilowatt-hours(kWh)/ton. This is therefore 6.9431e-7 mCi/kWh. The DOE's Energy Information Agency gives the world total of energy production for 2002 as 4.0512e17 BTU or 1.18699e14 kWh. Since only 9.756e16 BTU or 24.08% of the world energy production is coal for 2002, we can come to a total of 19.85 MCi/yr. Some estimates for Chernobyl put the radiation released at 1.2e19 Bq or 320 MCi. It would take coal plants at the 2002 rate of production 16 years to equal the release from Chernobyl. On the 26th of April, it will be the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident! Is it really that intelligent to put the noose around the neck of our nuclear industry because a near bankrupt Cold War enemy with a poorly designed reactor had an accident that almost certainly could not happen with US reactors?

China is fully aware of Candu reactors, they already have two in operation. They're probably evaluating other technologies to compare it to what they already have, which is just due diligence when you think of the amount of money it costs to build one.