Page 2 - Nuclear Power

Right. The natural and unconventional ways of producing energy are the best options if you have plenty of them. There aren't too many natural locations for building hydro-power stations....not even for artificially creating it.

Same with wind as Ice stated. Even at the best windy locations, it is not constantly blowing at full speed. So, check that off.

Capacity of a Power station is divided in two parts - Base capacity which is the minimum demand a station is supposed to supply all around the year and Float capacity which is the fluctuating part above the base demand. This goes high at pick hours and low at night time....

The best practices include having a nuclear power station or thermal power station for the base capacity, because of their reliability. Now, thermal power station has lots of problems regarding pollution and efficiency being lower than 50%. So, what's left is the option to choose nuclear.....

Despite having high risk and very high capital required, the odds of a nuclear plant failing are pretty low. Infact, they advantages like efficiency, handling etc completely outweigh the disadvantages, if you don't consider something going seriously wrong.

Nuclear power is here to stay...it is just too good to go away. Although, natural ways of getting power look very attractive, their lack of feasibility just keeps them away..atleast for now.

Yep.....until something better comes along its the best we currently have available.

Not to mention the negative environmental effects of producing all of those mills. All that pollution from manufacturing. And then you want to put them in the wilderness, in natural animal habitat?

You are kidding right?! O_o
The only negative effect of a wind mill is danger to wild birds' population. Normally they will be placed in planes so not so many animals linger there...and at that height definitely monkeys don't try to climb.

If the sight isn't an eyecandy for some, then it is a different matter altogether.

I rather think wind power plants are good looking. Now I'm all for nuclear, but looking into some things with men such as tesla, you wonder if nuclear really is the best way to go.

Actually, I heard a statistic that if the same amount of money that is spent on oil drilling/refinement was put into solar development, within 5 years solar energy would bring twice the power return of oil based power....

Another problem with hydroelectric is that the barrages often get clogged up and it is quite costly and inefficient having to clean these out once or twice a year.

On a side note, i think this thread could be moved to the Science section

See, when there is a research going on, pumping more and more money doesn't guarantee the definite returns. And it is not too hard to think/understand for even a school going kid.

Have you seen solar panels? Small solar panels that could run a street light are expensive. You cannot recover your money even after 15 years. Would you call that a good investment? Okay, if you're saying 'yes' for example of a street light, but would you invest such huge amount of money even for running a regular house? Most sanely, NO.

When I was in 3rd year of my undergrad, a team developed a solar refrigerator. They had aid from some orgs and in the end the entire project remained only a successful experiment which was not feasible for practical purposes.

Whatever medium sized experiments on solar energy are being done today, are actually done on panels crapped out of old satellites. Satellites somehow get priorities in using the most recent solar energy resources.

Unfortunately, our jounalism sometimes has a tendency to overrate what doesn't exist, just with a purpose of criticizing whatever is there. And when it is not possible that everyone knows the technical aspects of such things very well, it is even easier to throw in some heavy technical terms to fool them.

Edit: I agree with proposal of moving this thread to Science section. It is a matter of time when Mrs Hey takes a look at it.

I know that's steam and it's used for cooling. I meant it seems inefficient to go from the amazing power in a single atom to... converting it to water THEN converting it to rotary power to turn a turbine to use magenet to make electricity? I might not know much about physics, but transferring energy around like that makes you lose a whole lot. So to refutre your disagree, yes I do know what that stuff is - it's steam used for cooling. The fat tower is not the reactor - it's a cooling tower. (reactor is in a smaller bunker off to the side, protected by many feet of concrete)

Not really, the majority of energy is lost through heat. However; in the case of power plants, heat is used to create kinetic energy which in turn produces electricity (bit rusty on this ATM, gave up physics last yr), taking into account all fossil fueled Power plants create heat. So in reality, the efficiency argument you're making is already defeated.

Electricity is created by magnetics, (can't go into detail can't remember accurately enough to post), basically, spinning the magnet around a staionary magnet creates an AC power supply (alternating current) which is what is created by all power plants. Power plants bar wind,sea,hydro use steam to turn the turbines, hence why power supplies are usually quite near a water supply. In very vague terms, the only difference between nuclear power and fossil fueled power is the source of heat.

Because the amount of energy produced by a nuclear reaction is significantly greater than that of burning off fossil fuels, it is in fact more efficient.

--note to others; I will not dispute the validity of this post, any amendments will not be viewed as inflammatory. (unless your an asshole about it)

I suppose with that argument looking at it that way you are right. I know how a turbine works, that's basically all we did in my high school physics class is look at coils of wire and magenets and electricity.

Wind and Solar may not be able to work many places around the world...but look at the places where they (solar especially) CAN:

Brazil and most of South America: I was in Brazil last summer, it is one of the best places in the world to generate solar power.

Many parts of Africa (there's nothing in the whole Sahara desert, why not put up a bunch of solar towers along the fringes?)

It would probably be twenty years or more before either of these would be capable of producing the quantities of energy that comes from fossil fuels, but if more money/research was put into their application they would certainly become feasible.

Whatever the alternative is, oil is on its way out. Most estimates say approx. 50 or so years left of it, I don't think those count the increased future demands of China/India. That would give oil even less time--which is why we should start focusing on how to transition society NOW rather than THEN and avert a rather big problem, maybe bordering on crisis.

Whether it be more Nuclear energy, or the other alternatives, it is due time for a shift away from fossil fuels (especially here in the good 'ol US of A, where we really could start that transition, but instead choose to drive 8mpg Hummers...*my apologies if anyone here drives a Hummer*).

...my spiel

That's what I am saying. The current technology for solar panels blows. If more research was done on improving what we have done so far, we could find ways of making panels that are much cheaper, smaller, and more effective than they are today.

By the way, if you throw enough money at a problem, it will ALWAYS be fixed...

You underestimate the power of sand as a corrosive body (case study: egyptian pyramids, the sphinx etc..).
a) The winds that bring up sandstorms would damage the solar panels beyond repair, the expense would be huge.
b) sand dunes move around a hell of a lot, and theres nothing to stop one forming over the solar panels, which would also damage the panels.

Although it seems like a good idea, those drawbacks are significant. the problem is that at the moment, using non-renewable sources of energy is still cheaper than using renewable ones.

Hydro is good, it is renewable. Nuclear is good, it produces a lot of energy and has a fairly low operating cost. Solar is not good, it's terribly expensive and ineficient, though if the efficiencies of panels could be increased it may very well be worthwhile, as the sun is a renewable energy source, wind energy is a crappy idea, it's not always going to be windy...

The thing is, if you are not burning things to release the energy, then what are you paying to get it? I've heard of houses with heating circuits that use the heat stored in the ground, deep down, even in fairly cold countries. I've heard a few stories that some people had to cut out entire circuits because they pulled too much energy from the ground and it froze, causing problems with pipes, etc. If we get energy out of the air, what are the side-effects on weather patterns? We are converting the kinetic energy of the wind into an electrical current, and the wind is caused by changes in weather, so what will happen? These are things that need to be considered before we start implementing them on a mass scale as well.

Then there is fossil fuels. I just can't wait for there to be none left so we can stop bitching about it and start burning hydrogen. Relying on other countries for such important ressources is stupid, both politically and economically, not to mention the environmental effects that it has. Hydrogen in oxygen makes water. Carbon chains in oxygen makes water and CO2 and other bad acidic crap. Really, just burn hydrogen and all our problems would go away... Besides, it's probably best served making plastics anyways.