Wind and Sun Beat Other Energy Alternatives

iandoh passes along the news that researchers at Stanford University have completed the first quantitative, scientific comparison of alternative energy solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability, and sustainability. Based on their model, they found that the best sources of alternative energy are wind, concentrated solar, and geothermal energy. The worst are nuclear, clean coal, and ethanol-based fuels. In other words, "the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options."

Comments

Re:Well of course

[Gat0r30y]

Concentrated solar doesn't necessarily require cells, you can use the sun to heat up oil or water which drives a traditional turbine.

Re:Nuclear

[MarkusQ]

Storing that nuclear waste for the next million years is the problem. Who wants that stored in their backyard?

The only reason most of it "needs" to be stored is regulatory. 99% of the so-called primary wastes are perfectly usable as fuel for future cycles. If reprocessing were permitted (like in France, etc.) most of our "nuclear wastes" would become "nuclear fuel reserves."

Almost all of what's left is either commercially valuable / recyclable or harmless.

The nuclear waste "problem" is a creation of our fossil fuel industry driven political system.

--MarkusQ