Nor do you as a software business make money by treating developers of your platform like shit.
Ha! Tell that to Apple.
That is a relatively new thing at Apple, one I disagree with. Years ago I joined as a member of Apple Developer Connection, however I don't think I'll ever pay for a membership again.
You don't make money by paying billions of dollars buying a company then dumping that company's products.
Unless you're killing competition or engaging in FUD campaign - "Imagine if your database company got bought out tomorrow!"
Both trying to kill competition and deploying FUD only works so long. People work for the competition, and as pointed out in the articles linked to at the top of this thread those employees who are quite capable can and will work somewhere else. That somewhere else may be your new competition. And FUD? MS is the king of FUD but it still hasn't been able to stop Linux, OpenOffice.org, or other FOSS projects from compeating against MS offerings. Sure MS may of slowed down their adoption but it hasn't stopped them. So now there are facilities and deployers who do not trust MS. And if you believe them MS uses third parties to attack their competition, look how many people accuse MS of using SCO to attack Linux.
The thing is, almost no one needs a massive database.
Nobody needs a database period. Actually nobody even needs to live, they may want to but they don't need to do so. Of course having and using a database makes things easier for those users. I don't need one but I've been thinking of building my own, a movie DB to start with. Doing so will add to my skill set and show others I can do the same for them, I'm on disability and don't work but I want to start working again as soon as I can.
I hope they find good and fulfilling work with a company that values them more highly. I'm scared they're going to start messing up VirtualBox next!
I wanted to use VirtualBox on my Mac, dual-booting Snow Leopard and Lucid Lynx, so I could run one OS in a VM while booted into the other. After spending a lot of tyme researching it though I decided I'd rather pay for VMWare Fusion.
Also, because OpenOffice does not come in a native Mac version I use the NeoOffice fork.
They got hardware which is what they've wanted for a long time. Sun has a wide range of great hardware and a very solid OS.
While Oracle got an OS, Solaris, Solaris like many other unices is losing marketshare to Linux, which may be why Oracle used Red Hat Linux as a basis for it's own distro.
I didn't say it was moral, good for you, or the route to improved community(s) relationships. It is what Oracle does: make money.
No, you're not listening, er reading. You don't make money by paying billions of dollars buying a company then dumping that company's products. Nor do you as a software business make money by treating developers of your platform like shit. Oracle is foolhardy doing so. Sure right now they're the 800 pound gorilla but there are other enterprise scale databases on the market. Microsoft will even help customers transition from Oracle to SQL Server. IBM has it's own offering, DB2 as does HP. Of course there are also open source based DBMSs such as ones based on PostgreSQL, Computer Associates spin-off Ingres, and Firebird.
I wonder why it's a different story in the UK, where this has just been published in their 'The Independent' - note the comment about there being no 'public subsidy':
It's one thing to talk about using technology X to generate all the electricity we need but electricity is only a small fraction of the energy consumed. Replacing fossil fuels will require massive amount of energy.
And where did I say anything about using one technology for all of our electricity? Hint, nowhere. I have consistently advocated using as an energy source whatever is available in any given location. And in making it smart as well as using DC current instead of AC for long distances while rebuilding the national grid. here's a post I made more than 2 1/2 years ago saying the same thing, posted in the same thread as the first link.
The reason I advocate nuclear power is because I believe it is the only one that can be ramped up quickly enough to replace fossil fuels at a reasonable cost and without significant disruption.
You already admitted nuclear and wind power cost the same, so let's look at speed. Hey, I already did. Erecting 10 5 megawatt wind turbines a month for 10 months adds 500 megawatts capacity in one year. You haven't disputed it taking 5 years to add 500 megawatts though. What you have done, every time I posted links backing what I have said, is change your attack. First you say LFTR is a different ballgame when I point out the French, who lead the world in nuclear power, haven't figured reprocessing yet. I then ask Then why aren't the French using them? So you say the French did what they did before LFTR, so I showed that in fact you right wrong about it. You then bring up hogwash about how my math fails. It goes on and on, so I guess you're trolling.
All this will take up a massive amount of space compared to LFTR and comes with problems of its own.
And we have plenty of space. The National Renewable Energy Lab's Wind Atlas details the wind potential of different regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind energy to supply all 48 contiguous states with electricity. However that's not all. On the Pacific Coast from British Colombia south through southern California then east to western Texas, there's more. Why during California's rolling blackouts in the early 2000s, there was an idle wind farm in the Mojave capable of generating 10 megawatts per hour. Over on the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Cape Hatteras off the North Carolina coast there are good sites for wind farms. As senator before his death Ed Kennedy was one of the NIMBYs opposing one such wind farm, on Cape Cod. On-shore through the Appalachian Mountains north from Georgia then into Pennsylvania's Poconos and New York's Catskills Mountains, hell all along the Appalachian Trail to Maine, there is good wind potential.
That's just wind, solar adds more. Again according to DOE, just 100 square miles of land in Nevada, that's an area of 10 miles by 10 miles, "could supply all U.S. electricity needs with current (~10%) commercial efficiency rates." But Nevada isn't the place with good solar potential. Now let's go back geothermal. According to an MIT led panel sponsored by DOE geothermal can be a "key U.S. energy source". Here's some info on geothermal in New York state, and more for Minnesota and Wisconsin. I've already mentioned California and Yellowstone, recently there was a discussion of how West Virginia Is Geothermically Active.
With today's technology solar and wind can provide the US's peak electricity, while geothermal and existing natural gas and nuclear power plants supply the baseload until more geothermal capacity and storage is developed.
How many geothermal plants would the US need to produce 100 exojoules?
I can ask the same about LFTR plants. It takes the same amount whether they're nuclear plants or wind farms if they are of the same size. If it takes 1000 wind farms then it takes 1000 LFTR plants. Exo? Do you mean exa, (peta X 1000)? I see Google returns both.
If we extracted geothermal energy at that rate how long would it take to deplete the extraction sites and how many new wells would we need to drill every year?
Well let's see... The Geysers Geothermal Resource Area in Napa and Sonoma Counties has been producing geothermal energy since the 1960s, between 40 and 50 years. The Department of Energy, DOE, says the oldest nuclear power plants in the US still operating was licensed in 1969. They are licensed for 40 years, and license renewals are for another 20 years. Now how long do geothermal energy plants last? The geothermal plant at Larderello, Italy has been operating since 1904. Or 1913 according to wiki. The Wairakei Power Station in New Zealand has been operating since 1958. That rounds up the top 3 oldest geothermal power plants. Each one is older than the oldest nuclear power plant still in operation.
Also let's look at Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone, it was named in 1870, so it must of been erupting regularly by then.
If there are any more objecting questions I don't know what to think, except maybe you object to geothermal. Maybe because you own shares in nuclear power but not geothermal. Me, I don't own any shares but if I were to buy energy shares I'd buy geothermal, solar, or wind but not coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. At that, I'd try to buy shares in Chinese manufacturers, maybe Brazilian, Indian, and or Russian. BRIC.
Oh, one more thing. If you want to use molten salts, which is what LFTR does, then those salts can be used to store energy. The power produced by wind turbines can be used to melt the salt, then when the power is needed the heated salt can be used to heat water to drive other turbines just like nuclear power does. But without the problems or waste.
Here's where your math fails: That 500 MW LFTR will produce it's nameplate rating all day, every day with over 98% uptime over the 5 or 6 decades that it operates.
Your 500 megawatts of wind towers won't even come close.
First, where did the 500 MW LFTR come from? I used 100MW as an example. I could have said 100 turbines a month. That would make 500 MW a year. You're right though, wind is not a baseload. But geothermal is. In 2007 geothermal produced 13,000 gigawatts in California. That is a lot more than your 500 MW. As is what's produced in Iceland, there geothermal produced 79.7 petajoules, a joule being how many watts are produced in a second and peta- being 10^15.
There are plenty of private companies who have tried to break into nuclear power but there's not a single government in a country with a large enough market to make the investment worthwhile that doesn't micromanage every aspect of the energy industry.
France is not big enough? China isn't either? How about India and Russia? How big does a nation have to be then? In all 4 nations the government decides what gets built not the market. And none of them have the US's regulations either. Hell France has dumped their waste in the ocean and Russia sent prisoners to work the mines.
Because they planned and started building out their reactors before we invented that technology.
So what, LFTR is more than 20 years old and France could have used it for new plants. But they did not.
Looking for the cost of LFTR I came across aimhigh - rethinkingnuclearpower, a pro nuclear power page, which says a 100 MW unit will cost $200 million. It then says it can be developed in 5 years. Someone on Metaefficient says wind turbines have an installed cost of $2000 per KW, the same price as LFTR. And if only 10 5 Megawatt wind turbines are erected a month, for 10 months, wind could add 100 megawatts in 2 years. In the 5 years for LFTR 500 megawatts could be added. Double that by doubling the number of turbines.
No, neither government nor the nuclear power industry wants full transparency. No matter who is running the government they don't want the public to know. And the industry is Hooked on Subsidies.
Oh, please note that that link is to a free market institute webpage not an anti-nuclear power group.
They need government guarantees that they won't be regulated or litigated out of existence after they commit their capital.
What do loan guaranties have to do with that? Or is it an attempt to distort facts? And the fact is the nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
First, from what you just said, it's was probably your monitor cable that was bad. You probably didn't send it when you warrantied the monitor and kept on using it. One cable, different computers, different graphics cards, different monitors, all with green tint. Cable.
If it was the cable then the repair center missed it, the cable does not unplug from the display. I would have tried another cable if it did, I have 2 or 3 laying around from other monitors. Although it's more than 10 years old I've plugged it into the laptop I typing this on now, mostly because it's a larger display, and it still has a greenish tint. I just don't use to for graphics editing.
If so then they don't need subsidies or other governmental interference and can get their own loans and insurance then right? No, they need government guaranties to get loans and the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act is their insurance.
A major cost of nuclear reactors is the bickering of the NIMBYs.
Pure Bullshit. With no local opposition the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland is 3 years behind schedule and $2.4 billion over-budget. Why do people keep repeating falsehoods? Lies repeated enough becomes true?
So does the Free Markets CATO Institute, Hooked on Subsidies:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Even with your supergrid we'll need to make hydrocarbons for the chemical and agricultural industries so we might as well get started bringing this capability online as soon as possible.
Even though I oppose his motives, which was all about water, T Boone Pickens had a plan that dealt with your concerns, the Picken's Plan. Essentially the plan was to replace natural gas fired power plants with wind turbines and use the natural gas as fuel for vehicles. Of course that would still require a rebuild of the grid, but wind turbines can continuously add capacity as the grid is built. Erect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month and you add 600 megawatts of electricity a year. The largest nuclear power plant in the US is Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station and it averaged 3.2 Gigawatts of power in 2003. It would take all of 5 years to replace the plant with wind, can another nuclear power plant that big be built in 5 years? As I linked to already the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland, built by the French government owned Areva, is already 3 years behind schedule, it was originally supposed to start operation last year but isn't scheduled to before 2012 now. It's cost overruns are about $2.4 Billion too.
So do those who support nuclear power. The nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. Notice that link is to CATO, an Individual Liberty and Free Market institute and the article was originally printed in "Forbes" magazine.
I'd feel much better about dumping nukewaste that we know will be harmless in a couple years, than dumping, say, heavy metals that we know will never, ever be harmless.
Nuclear Wasteland. "France's engineers tried harder than those in any other country to build and run breeder reactors reliably at a commercial scale, but ultimately they failed. The result is that even in France--the best real-world model of what reprocessing can accomplish--the technology remains a tantalizing but only partial solution to the problem of high-level nuclear waste."
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Nor do you as a software business make money by treating developers of your platform like shit.
Ha! Tell that to Apple.
That is a relatively new thing at Apple, one I disagree with. Years ago I joined as a member of Apple Developer Connection, however I don't think I'll ever pay for a membership again.
Falcon
You don't make money by paying billions of dollars buying a company then dumping that company's products.
Unless you're killing competition or engaging in FUD campaign - "Imagine if your database company got bought out tomorrow!"
Both trying to kill competition and deploying FUD only works so long. People work for the competition, and as pointed out in the articles linked to at the top of this thread those employees who are quite capable can and will work somewhere else. That somewhere else may be your new competition. And FUD? MS is the king of FUD but it still hasn't been able to stop Linux, OpenOffice.org, or other FOSS projects from compeating against MS offerings. Sure MS may of slowed down their adoption but it hasn't stopped them. So now there are facilities and deployers who do not trust MS. And if you believe them MS uses third parties to attack their competition, look how many people accuse MS of using SCO to attack Linux.
The thing is, almost no one needs a massive database.
Nobody needs a database period. Actually nobody even needs to live, they may want to but they don't need to do so. Of course having and using a database makes things easier for those users. I don't need one but I've been thinking of building my own, a movie DB to start with. Doing so will add to my skill set and show others I can do the same for them, I'm on disability and don't work but I want to start working again as soon as I can.
Falcon
I hope they find good and fulfilling work with a company that values them more highly. I'm scared they're going to start messing up VirtualBox next!
I wanted to use VirtualBox on my Mac, dual-booting Snow Leopard and Lucid Lynx, so I could run one OS in a VM while booted into the other. After spending a lot of tyme researching it though I decided I'd rather pay for VMWare Fusion.
Also, because OpenOffice does not come in a native Mac version I use the NeoOffice fork.
Falcon
They got hardware which is what they've wanted for a long time. Sun has a wide range of great hardware and a very solid OS.
While Oracle got an OS, Solaris, Solaris like many other unices is losing marketshare to Linux, which may be why Oracle used Red Hat Linux as a basis for it's own distro.
Falcon
I didn't say it was moral, good for you, or the route to improved community(s) relationships. It is what Oracle does: make money.
No, you're not listening, er reading. You don't make money by paying billions of dollars buying a company then dumping that company's products. Nor do you as a software business make money by treating developers of your platform like shit. Oracle is foolhardy doing so. Sure right now they're the 800 pound gorilla but there are other enterprise scale databases on the market. Microsoft will even help customers transition from Oracle to SQL Server. IBM has it's own offering, DB2 as does HP. Of course there are also open source based DBMSs such as ones based on PostgreSQL, Computer Associates spin-off Ingres, and Firebird.
Falcon
I wonder why it's a different story in the UK, where this has just been published in their 'The Independent' - note the comment about there being no 'public subsidy':
Where's the link to the story? Here's one of my own: British Energy. Notice how it says "It operated former UK state-owned nuclear power stations: eight nuclear power stations and a coal fired power station." Googling for British Energy Generation Limited profit I found this article from May 2008: British Energy profits hit by nuclear shutdowns. While it does say the company made profits, it says those profits were higher than expected because of higher prices. Another article, British Energy Plc Business Information, Profile, and History says British Energy was privatized in 1996. Considering the source, www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk is a big hint it's anti-nuclear power, but Nuclear Subsidies - how the market is rigged in favour of dangerous nuclear electricity [pdf] explains how nuclear power in the UK is subsidized. Also biased Greenpeace has the pdf Invest in a Clean Energy Future which also says nuclear power gets direct and indirect subsidies. Googling British Energy Generation Limited subsidies results in more links saying nuclear power does get subsidies. As does British nuclear power subsidies.
"The Government today dropped plans to build a 10-mile barrage across the Severn estuary to generate "green" electricity from tides.
Okay, the UK dropped plans to subsidize a tidal energy project.
But the Department of Energ
I mean 100 exojoules.
Try Google sometime.
It's one thing to talk about using technology X to generate all the electricity we need but electricity is only a small fraction of the energy consumed. Replacing fossil fuels will require massive amount of energy.
And where did I say anything about using one technology for all of our electricity? Hint, nowhere. I have consistently advocated using as an energy source whatever is available in any given location. And in making it smart as well as using DC current instead of AC for long distances while rebuilding the national grid. here's a post I made more than 2 1/2 years ago saying the same thing, posted in the same thread as the first link.
The reason I advocate nuclear power is because I believe it is the only one that can be ramped up quickly enough to replace fossil fuels at a reasonable cost and without significant disruption.
You already admitted nuclear and wind power cost the same, so let's look at speed. Hey, I already did. Erecting 10 5 megawatt wind turbines a month for 10 months adds 500 megawatts capacity in one year. You haven't disputed it taking 5 years to add 500 megawatts though. What you have done, every time I posted links backing what I have said, is change your attack. First you say LFTR is a different ballgame when I point out the French, who lead the world in nuclear power, haven't figured reprocessing yet. I then ask Then why aren't the French using them? So you say the French did what they did before LFTR, so I showed that in fact you right wrong about it. You then bring up hogwash about how my math fails. It goes on and on, so I guess you're trolling.
Falcon
All this will take up a massive amount of space compared to LFTR and comes with problems of its own.
And we have plenty of space. The National Renewable Energy Lab's Wind Atlas details the wind potential of different regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind energy to supply all 48 contiguous states with electricity. However that's not all. On the Pacific Coast from British Colombia south through southern California then east to western Texas, there's more. Why during California's rolling blackouts in the early 2000s, there was an idle wind farm in the Mojave capable of generating 10 megawatts per hour. Over on the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Cape Hatteras off the North Carolina coast there are good sites for wind farms. As senator before his death Ed Kennedy was one of the NIMBYs opposing one such wind farm, on Cape Cod. On-shore through the Appalachian Mountains north from Georgia then into Pennsylvania's Poconos and New York's Catskills Mountains, hell all along the Appalachian Trail to Maine, there is good wind potential.
That's just wind, solar adds more. Again according to DOE, just 100 square miles of land in Nevada, that's an area of 10 miles by 10 miles, "could supply all U.S. electricity needs with current (~10%) commercial efficiency rates." But Nevada isn't the place with good solar potential. Now let's go back geothermal. According to an MIT led panel sponsored by DOE geothermal can be a "key U.S. energy source". Here's some info on geothermal in New York state, and more for Minnesota and Wisconsin. I've already mentioned California and Yellowstone, recently there was a discussion of how West Virginia Is Geothermically Active.
With today's technology solar and wind can provide the US's peak electricity, while geothermal and existing natural gas and nuclear power plants supply the baseload until more geothermal capacity and storage is developed.
Falcon
How many geothermal plants would the US need to produce 100 exojoules?
I can ask the same about LFTR plants. It takes the same amount whether they're nuclear plants or wind farms if they are of the same size. If it takes 1000 wind farms then it takes 1000 LFTR plants. Exo? Do you mean exa, (peta X 1000)? I see Google returns both.
If we extracted geothermal energy at that rate how long would it take to deplete the extraction sites and how many new wells would we need to drill every year?
Well let's see... The Geysers Geothermal Resource Area in Napa and Sonoma Counties has been producing geothermal energy since the 1960s, between 40 and 50 years. The Department of Energy, DOE, says the oldest nuclear power plants in the US still operating was licensed in 1969. They are licensed for 40 years, and license renewals are for another 20 years. Now how long do geothermal energy plants last? The geothermal plant at Larderello, Italy has been operating since 1904. Or 1913 according to wiki. The Wairakei Power Station in New Zealand has been operating since 1958. That rounds up the top 3 oldest geothermal power plants. Each one is older than the oldest nuclear power plant still in operation.
Also let's look at Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone, it was named in 1870, so it must of been erupting regularly by then.
If there are any more objecting questions I don't know what to think, except maybe you object to geothermal. Maybe because you own shares in nuclear power but not geothermal. Me, I don't own any shares but if I were to buy energy shares I'd buy geothermal, solar, or wind but not coal, natural gas, or nuclear power. At that, I'd try to buy shares in Chinese manufacturers, maybe Brazilian, Indian, and or Russian. BRIC.
Falcon
Oh, one more thing. If you want to use molten salts, which is what LFTR does, then those salts can be used to store energy. The power produced by wind turbines can be used to melt the salt, then when the power is needed the heated salt can be used to heat water to drive other turbines just like nuclear power does. But without the problems or waste.
Falcon
Here's where your math fails: That 500 MW LFTR will produce it's nameplate rating all day, every day with over 98% uptime over the 5 or 6 decades that it operates.
Your 500 megawatts of wind towers won't even come close.
First, where did the 500 MW LFTR come from? I used 100MW as an example. I could have said 100 turbines a month. That would make 500 MW a year. You're right though, wind is not a baseload. But geothermal is. In 2007 geothermal produced 13,000 gigawatts in California. That is a lot more than your 500 MW. As is what's produced in Iceland, there geothermal produced 79.7 petajoules, a joule being how many watts are produced in a second and peta- being 10^15.
Falcon
There are plenty of private companies who have tried to break into nuclear power but there's not a single government in a country with a large enough market to make the investment worthwhile that doesn't micromanage every aspect of the energy industry.
France is not big enough? China isn't either? How about India and Russia? How big does a nation have to be then? In all 4 nations the government decides what gets built not the market. And none of them have the US's regulations either. Hell France has dumped their waste in the ocean and Russia sent prisoners to work the mines.
Falcon
Because they planned and started building out their reactors before we invented that technology.
So what, LFTR is more than 20 years old and France could have used it for new plants. But they did not.
Looking for the cost of LFTR I came across aimhigh - rethinkingnuclearpower, a pro nuclear power page, which says a 100 MW unit will cost $200 million. It then says it can be developed in 5 years. Someone on Metaefficient says wind turbines have an installed cost of $2000 per KW, the same price as LFTR. And if only 10 5 Megawatt wind turbines are erected a month, for 10 months, wind could add 100 megawatts in 2 years. In the 5 years for LFTR 500 megawatts could be added. Double that by doubling the number of turbines.
Falcon
No, neither government nor the nuclear power industry wants full transparency. No matter who is running the government they don't want the public to know. And the industry is Hooked on Subsidies.
Oh, please note that that link is to a free market institute webpage not an anti-nuclear power group.
Falcon
They need government guarantees that they won't be regulated or litigated out of existence after they commit their capital.
What do loan guaranties have to do with that? Or is it an attempt to distort facts? And the fact is the nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Falcon
A liquid-fueled design such as LFTR is a completely different ballgame.
Then why aren't the French using them?
Falcon
First, from what you just said, it's was probably your monitor cable that was bad. You probably didn't send it when you warrantied the monitor and kept on using it. One cable, different computers, different graphics cards, different monitors, all with green tint. Cable.
If it was the cable then the repair center missed it, the cable does not unplug from the display. I would have tried another cable if it did, I have 2 or 3 laying around from other monitors. Although it's more than 10 years old I've plugged it into the laptop I typing this on now, mostly because it's a larger display, and it still has a greenish tint. I just don't use to for graphics editing.
Falcon
I bet the economics would be much better if you used advanced designs like thorium reactors or travelling wave reactors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_wave_reactor
If so then they don't need subsidies or other governmental interference and can get their own loans and insurance then right? No, they need government guaranties to get loans and the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act is their insurance.
Falcon
Nuclear is base load, Wind can do peak.
Geothermal can do baseload too. As can natural gas.
Wind is starting to feel the regulation and lawsuit issues Nuclear has, not to the same extent. It will, there are enough loons to oppose anything.
Unfortunately you're right. Ted Kennedy opposed Cape Wind, a plan to put wind turbines off of Cape Cod.
Look up how many "studies" are needed to put up a new reactor,
Look at Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland, it is 3 years behind schedule and $2.4 billion over-budget.
Falcon
A major cost of nuclear reactors is the bickering of the NIMBYs.
Pure Bullshit. With no local opposition the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland is 3 years behind schedule and $2.4 billion over-budget. Why do people keep repeating falsehoods? Lies repeated enough becomes true?
Wikipedia has a page on the economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
So does the Free Markets CATO Institute, Hooked on Subsidies:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Falcon
It's much harder (note I said harder, not impossible) to create base load generation for a grid from solar/wind than from nuclear.
Natural gas provides a baseload. Geothermal can also provide it.
Falcon
Rebuilding the electrical grid would be faster, as well as allowing more generation to be added easily.
You think so?
Go to the DOE web site and look up just how much fossil fuel energy we use compared to electrical energy.
What does using more fossil fuels have to do with how fast the grid can be rebuilt?
No matter where energy comes from the grid has to be rebuilt, making it smart as well will allow the payoff to be sooner. Understanding the Cost of Power Interruptions to U.S. Electricity Consumers [pdf] estimates "the annual cost for power interruptions to U.S. electricity consumers is $79 billion." It goes on saying it can be as high as $135 billion or as low as $22 billion. In shorter form, Berkeley Lab Study Estimates $80 Billion Annual Cost of Power Interruptions.
Even with your supergrid we'll need to make hydrocarbons for the chemical and agricultural industries so we might as well get started bringing this capability online as soon as possible.
Even though I oppose his motives, which was all about water, T Boone Pickens had a plan that dealt with your concerns, the Picken's Plan. Essentially the plan was to replace natural gas fired power plants with wind turbines and use the natural gas as fuel for vehicles. Of course that would still require a rebuild of the grid, but wind turbines can continuously add capacity as the grid is built. Erect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month and you add 600 megawatts of electricity a year. The largest nuclear power plant in the US is Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station and it averaged 3.2 Gigawatts of power in 2003. It would take all of 5 years to replace the plant with wind, can another nuclear power plant that big be built in 5 years? As I linked to already the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland, built by the French government owned Areva, is already 3 years behind schedule, it was originally supposed to start operation last year but isn't scheduled to before 2012 now. It's cost overruns are about $2.4 Billion too.
Falcon
So do those who support nuclear power. The nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. Notice that link is to CATO, an Individual Liberty and Free Market institute and the article was originally printed in "Forbes" magazine.
Falcon
I'd feel much better about dumping nukewaste that we know will be harmless in a couple years, than dumping, say, heavy metals that we know will never, ever be harmless.
Nuclear Wasteland. "France's engineers tried harder than those in any other country to build and run breeder reactors reliably at a commercial scale, but ultimately they failed. The result is that even in France--the best real-world model of what reprocessing can accomplish--the technology remains a tantalizing but only partial solution to the problem of high-level nuclear waste."
Falcon
If coal is so cheap then why does it get more subsidies than other energy sources?
Falcon