Energy is one of the very few places where Republicans have the actual science on their side, in theory but not in practice. The science is very clear that nuclear power is the best way to get off fossil fuels, is the cleanest, safest and most sustainable energy we're capable of producing at scale (particularly the 4th gen reactors), and physicists have calculated the world could be off fossil fuels and cut emissions by like 80% by 2035... Democrats oppose it for no plausible reason other than Republicans support it.
I love 99% of your posts, Mikester, but I truly cannot understand why you think that Sanders (or the "left") is anti-science.
By definition, anything that uses non-renewable resources on a human time scale can never be sustainable. Yes, you said "most sustainable" but that doesn't work either. Fourth gen reactors can't be on the table, and certainly cannot be used as a weapon against any group, simply because there is no 4th gen reactor licensed and ready to plant in someone's back yard. One might as well say "Democrats suck because they didn't use Green Lantern powers to defeat Trump."
This environmentalist doesn't oppose nuclear power generation per se - I think we should use nukes on cargo ships and replace bunker fuel. I oppose swapping fossils for nukes because the only nuke designs we have available to plant RIGHT NOW (when we need them) need uranium. We don't have enough engineers or trained techs to make all the reactors we need. Also, we only have enough fuel to supply the energy needs of the first 1 1/2 20 year fuel cycles. After that, all those nukes we squandered our last bits of usable fossil fuels on are 'out of gas' and have to be scrapped. We don't have enough uranium on the planet to keep us in nukes long enough to fix our carbon problem. Maybe there's a place for 4th gen nukes - heaven knows we have enough material sitting around that can be consumed in them. But first, we need a reactor design that works, can be licensed, built, installed, and maintained.
We have enough available wind energy in the middle of the US to supply the entire country - from lights to transportation to industrial heat - about 2 1/2 times over. We have enough solar capability (including solar thermal) to do the same. Geothermal, wave/tidal is also a piece. Heaven knows we've got metric ton of room for efficiency improvements. No fewer than three independent organizations - The Rocky Mountain Institute (Reinventing Fire), The Solutions Project, and Jeremy Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution - show us that we have all the wind, water, and solar energy, we need (and more than enough storage) to completely transition the world off fossils and nukes (ALL of the non-renewable sources) by 2050 if we want to get started. To do it, we don't need any new laws, no new tech, no R&D hail Marys, and not a single thing from Washington DC. Hell - Germany started on their TIR plan in about 2004 and already they're about 15 years ahead of schedule and approaching 50% renewable energy on their grid. That's almost 50% renewable in 12 years while also taking their nukes off-line. There's some science happening there. (And check Reinventing Fire - the transition can be complete by 2050 using trillions with a T fewer dollars than we already have allocated to simply maintain our current energy infrastructure. We're going to spend it anyway...)
http://www.rmi.org/reinventingfire
http://thesolutionsproject.org/
http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bANPXjN9mOA
ETA...another factor jumped back into my memory. In the 5 or so years it takes to license a 5MW nuclear power plant, we can (and have...) installed more than 5MW of solar PV. In the next 10 years it takes to actually build the nuke plant, we can install another 10 MW of PV and about as much wind. If we need it 'now' in order to help reset our climate, nukes are not an option.Statistics: Posted by AndyH — Tue Dec 27, 2016 4:17 pm
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