Mac everything that I have ever read would suggest, that in Australia at least, the cost for a private owner to completely convert to solar power is more expensive than buying electricity from an energy company.

Btw the way if that wasn't true, surely it would make economic sense for every new home builder to make their houses solar powered from the outset.

@spyman - mac was talking about solar panel use for heating water. Not complete conversion.

I'm personally not very technology-savvy when it comes to producing power. Is there anything really stopping someone from creating a series of 'solar-farms' over the Algerian desert to power Europe though? I saw someone on the BBC mention something along those lines and figured that it seemed to be an eco-friendly source that would provide immense amounts of power. Wouldn't this be something worth investing in or am I missing something and its simply not feesable?

@spyman, as Archonix mentioned already, I was talking about heating, not electricity.

About the "Btw the way if that wasn't true, surely it would make economic sense for every new home builder to make their houses solar powered from the outset" comment... the answer is "no, not necessarily", as the builders have to then SELL those houses, and if the prospective buyers have not enough money to invest...

This is where government regulations come into help: in many European countries this is already a reality: new houses MUST comply with certain features (like a decent degree of thermal insulation). While that kind of insulation was very expensive beforehand, now that it is compulsory the technology has become large-scale and thus much cheaper.

I have to admit i have only skimmed this thread and that is is about what fuel we can use for the future, but can i just bring the point up, that we have to limit the amount we are using at the moment, otherwise what ever way we go we will end up running out of that particualr fuel (or not being able to produce enough).But in my opinion i think renewable is the way to go, solar panels on every new build house and a program to put them on all other houses, wind farms in the north sea, and wave turbines all along the coast and streched across river mouths.if energy consumption world wide is reduced there should be no need for nucluar power stations. it is possible with our current technology to produce enough renewable energy for the whole world.

I'd just like to say that, if I recall correctly, 98% of the energy on the earth comes from the sun. The other two percent is broken down into geothermal energy (also takes into account radioactive elements), and tidal energy (from the moon). That's it, those are the only sources of energy we have. Wind? Comes from the sun heating the atmosphere. Hydro? Comes from the water cycle, which is driven by the sun. Fossil Fuels? Came from ancient plants which got their energy from, you guessed it, the sun.

It seems to me that more research must be done into effectively collecting solar energy. If random chance and natural selection can produce plants which have given humans most of their energy to this date(from ancient cook fires to modern fossil fuels), think about what we could do if we put our minds to it. I'm not talking about artificial photosynthesis, I'm talking about something better, which can capture even more energy from the sun. What is it? I don't know, that's for you to find out (I'm busy trying to get a man onto Mars). Once that's done, we're set for the next few billion years.

Maxwell's Demon will save us all!

But seriously, I think we need to do more research on practical hydrogen fusion. Increasing efficiency and lowering general consumption is always a good practice, but I think eventually we have to look at more powerful energy production capabilities than the championed renewable kinetic energy sources such as hydro, wind, and tidal. I'm not sure when viable nuclear fusion will be available, and until then, I would probably support more research into more efficient solar panels.

whalen and mac, you guys seem to have a lot to say. I might have missed it, but what energy sources exactly are you reccomending.

I think the bigger issue here should be energy consumption and efficiency. If we weren't so wasteful with our energy, we would have to worry less about where we are going to get more and more from.

Chris, the following is my "personal recipe" (personal = what I am convinced of, but they are not my original ideas of course!).

1) First and foremost: cutting on consumption. This can be achieved without sensibly impacting on lifestyle (meaning that you could still have the same amount of goods, the same amount of miles travelled per year, the same services...). Eco-friendly housing and transportation alone could allow for a massive cut on consumption (we are talking about figures close to 50%, in "developed" countries). The first cheap and easily accessible source of energy that I would recommend is therefore "energy currently wasted".

2) Secondly the paradigm of how energy is produced and distributed should be changed. Energy should be produced, stored and redistributed locally rather than centrally. This has a number of benefits (less cost for the infrastructure, more reliability of the system, more affordability, less environmental impact, possibility of a gradual conversion and upgrade). In relation to your question, a locally devised system can tap on locally abundant renewable resources (wind / photovoltaic / thermal panels / tidal / rivers / geothermal...) according to the place a community live in. So, the recommendation in this case is: go for what is abundant around you, but make sure is renewable! :)

3) Co-generation. This is somehow in relation to the previous point: at the moment most of the power plants burn fuel (fossil or nuclear) and generate electricity on one end and wasted heat on the other. Small plants (from those you can install in your basement to those stations able to power a small town) give you the possibility to recycle the otherwise wasted heat for industrial purposes or simply household heating. The recommendation here is similar to point #1: it is cheap and easy to use the energy you are currently already wasting.

4) Use the right form of energy for the right job: what do you need the energy for? A lot of energy is used in the western world simply to heat our houses in winter and cool them down in summer. This is mostly achieved by burning fuel locally or using electricity off the grid. If we had to produce the matching quantities of fuel with crop and electricity with wind or solar power, that would be a daunting task. But sun (even in winter) is very effective on thermal panels, geothermal heat pumps are very reliable in both heating and cooling, cooling towers can provide cool air in the hottest day even with a gentle breeze... So my recommendation is: use the energy source that can do the job best!

5) I left this last because I know this is going to be the most controversial of my ideas, yet I think that society (individual citizens first but also governing bodies at some ponit) should also consider reviewing our lifestyle: for example different policies could cut on the need for millions of people to commute daily, or could favour those products that have travelled less. I find difficult to accept that a pair of jeans made with cotton produced in India, sewed in China, and shipped across the planet cost a fraction of the jeans produced by the factory 10 k away from me that uses the cotton grew locally... especially given that I know the advantage is due to exploitation of other human beings, and that in the process, a lot of energy has been wasted just to move stuff around.

Anyhow, I am deeply convinced that without the right policies, even the most just and right of the choices is difficult to implement. I can't really see how the market of energy from renewable sources can take off if a government cut taxes to oil producers and sponsor a trillion-dollar-expensive war to get control of the oil production in Iraq, while freezing federal programmes on renewables "to re-assess their benefits"... :-(

Hope this help at least to foster new ideas and autonomous reflections! :)

The problem with individual power production is it's just too expensive. Some things are far more cheaply produced in bulk, and power is one of them.

Also I'm more interested in what people would go for today, not promising technologies on the horizon. I'm worried nuclear won't get taken up because people will still be waiting for an experimental technology to appear (like cheap solar/wind/clean coal/fusion)

I would say nuclear is relatively safe... the real problem is the waste.

I say we just round up all the brown people and get them to run in a giant hamster wheel.

@kestas. Your last post left me very surprised. On what basis do you base your evaluation that individual power production is just "too expensive"? This is not really correct for many reasons:

1) Local production and distribution does not necessarily mean "individual". Energy can be generated for a few households, for example. I know you are living in Austrlia, and having lived myself there, I can tell that the kind of demographical distribution you have there, would for example be perfect for such system. If you then would compare that distributed solution with the ecological and hydro-geological disaster that has been the Snowy River Scheme...

2) There is little point in saying that producing energy in bulk is cheaper, if you do not account for the costs related to the distribution and storage, the connected environmental and social costs and all the rest... Producing in bulk (for example with a giant wind farm) makes sense where there is a huge concentration of consumer in a single place (i.e. next to a major city). It does make progressively less and less sense with the increase of distance between the production site and the end users. BTW... i am not saying anything new! This is the same system used for distributing drinkable water: you do not deploy hundreds of km of pipes to go and serve 2 houses somewhere. You dig a new dwell and install a pump next to those two houses... It is ultimately a matter to scale production to the local needs, in order to reduce to the minimum waste, dispersion, transportation infrastructures, etc...

But also the tone underpinning the idea that "people is waiting for a miracle and will miss the real thing" disturbed me, in fact:

3) What I presented in my previous posts is not a "promising technology at the horizon". Is what many people are going for now in Europe. One famous example: http://www.ews-schoenau.de/ (if you do not speak German, you can get a 2 page presentation off the international section of the website).

4) "I'm worried nuclear won't get taken up because people will still be waiting..." is facing the problem from the wrong end. You should ask yourself: "is taking up nuclear power a real NEED?" The answer, to the best of my knowledge, is: "no" and therefore I do not see why one should wish to go for it, given the extraordinary costs of such enterprise and the incredibly high risks connected.

5) "people will still be waiting for an experimental technology to appear (like cheap solar/wind/clean coal/fusion)". Much confusion here. Firstly, the main distinction to be made is between "clean/renewable/safe" (you might well say: eco-friendly) and "non-renewable/polluting/dangerous". The only intelligent way forward is with eco-friendly sources of energy, and people look to these sort of energy because of these qualities, not because they are fashionable/experimental/trendy. "The same people who advocate for wind and solar will reject the idea of clean coal": clean coal is an oxymoron... Secondly, you put in the same category some widely deployed and cost-effective technology (like wind and solar) with some "work-in-progress" concept like nuclear fusion reactors. Denmark is not giving up on nuclear and fuels in the hope of the aliens bringing to us the Star-Trek dilithium crystals... they are going their way because they have made the math, and they are going - essentially - wind.

Final comment (not addressed at you in particular): there is now a strong heap on nuclear power world-wide. Part of the reason is that mainstream media and politicians are undocumented about alternative technologies and therefore fall in the "old answers to new problems" syndrome. The other one (and I saw with my very own eyes at the European Parliament) is lobby from the people/corporations having an interest in the nuclear business and energy brokerage.

In fact, solutions like the one I prospected in my posts but that millions of people are embracing around the world are not only "technological alternatives" are real "political changes". Just imagine what would it mean for citizens (or at least citizens' communities) to be energetically self-sufficient. It would mean that something like Enron could have never happened. It would mean that the reasons behind much of the wars in the middle east would have not been there. it would mean that the lifestyle of people's families would not depend from the OPEC decision on how many barrels to produce...

Network infrastructures (whether they are the internet or a power grid) means "structural democracy", and this is simply not convenient for big lobbies.

@ Chris. "I would say nuclear is relatively safe... the real problem is the waste." I might even agree with your statement, yet the sentence we both agree with is - logically speaking - the equivalent of:

"Playing the Russian roulette with a revolver with 100 slots in the drum is relatively safe". Yet... would you have a go at it?

> On what basis do you base your evaluation that individual power
> production is just "too expensive"?
Because if I wanted to go out and get a solar panel it would be much more expensive than buying power from the grid. We get energy for ~5c/kWh, if you're right that distributed power is cheaper please link me to a comparably priced distributed power source

> This is the same system used for distributing drinkable water:
> you do not deploy hundreds of km of pipes to go and serve 2
> houses somewhere. You dig a new dwell and install a pump next
> to those two houses...
That makes sense for two houses, but the vast majority of power (and water) is consumed in cities, and so the vast majority of power (and water) is transported from a large cheap source

> "Playing the Russian roulette with a revolver with 100 slots in the
> drum is relatively safe". Yet... would you have a go at it?
1% is a way higher accident rate than nuclear plants have seen, more people have been killed in coal mining accidents than from nuclear power (unless you consider everyone who died of cancer in europe and russia since the cold war to be a direct cause of Chernobyl)

Chrispminis is right that waste is a big concern, but nuclear waste dumps may be a less pressing concern than mass global flooding. Also the cost of nuclear power includes the cost of cleanup and storage, whereas the cost of coal power doesn't include the possible costs of handling global warming

> We get energy for ~5c/kWh, if you're right that distributed power is
> cheaper please link me to a comparably priced distributed power source
No worries mate. Would a USA governmental body be enough of a proof for you? Here is the link: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37657.pdf. In there you will find the following text: "Rates for electricity from wind plants being installed today are comparable to wholesale electric power prices of 2.5¢ to 3.5¢/kWh". Please keep in mind that these figures refers to 2001 (so now it will be even cheaper) and that this figure does not include distribution costs but only production costs (so if you add the saving of distributed production, the advantage will be even greater).

> That makes sense for two houses, but the vast majority of power (and
> water) is consumed in cities, and so the vast majority of power (and water)
> is transported from a large cheap source.
True, and in fact my point is that things should be scaled to the community they serve. If you re-read my previous post, here's what I wrote: "Producing in bulk (for example with a giant wind farm) makes sense where there is a huge concentration of consumer in a single place (i.e. next to a major city). It does make progressively less and less sense with the increase of distance between the production site and the end users." Additionally, you are considering only electric power in your example, but a huge amount of energy is actually used to generate heat. So - even in a metropolis - it is more cost effective if each building installs their own thermal solar panels (those heating water) to complement electricity, rather than using electricity only to warm up houses and water for showers...

> 1% is a way higher accident rate than nuclear plants have seen, more
> people have been killed in coal mining accidents than from nuclear power.
My example was not meant to give comparable figures, but comparable logic. A windmill that goes wrong, snaps to the ground and constitute an hazard for the time of the fall (5 seconds?). A nuclear power plant that goes wrong kills in the order of hundreds of thousands, contaminating a place for thousands of years. With this logic: wind turbine = monopoly, nuclear plant = Russian roulette.

Besides I actually doubt that 1% is way higher accident rate than nuclear plants have seen. Sure, there has been only 1 Chernobyl, but I can hardly think of any nuclear power that hasn't had a minor, low-intensity leak sometime.

Finally, the comparison with coal does not make any sense: it is like if I said "the number of people who have been killed in space programmes is far lower than the number of people who have been killed in a car crash, therefore travelling with a shuttle is safer than travelling with your car".

> nuclear waste dumps may be a less pressing concern than mass
> global flooding.
True, as it is true that being affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a less pressing concern than having an heart stroke in progress, though... :)

Again - though - the key point in shaping the energetic future of the planet is not finding ways to tackle the huge risks related to nuclear fission plants: the key point is finding out if nuclear fission power is a real need or not.

I shall repeat that - to the best of my knowledge - this is not the case.

Hope this clarify.

> and that this figure does not include distribution costs but only
> production costs
Actually it doesn't include any costs, you didn't give any figure whatsoever, neither did that document.. All it said was that it was "comparable" in price, with no clarification of exactly what that means. Is 5x "comparable"? Who knows?

And where is the solar panel/wind turbine that I can go out and buy to produce my own power? Wasn't this the whole point of your argument? Why are you now citing government documents if this is distributed power?

It also says ""Wind energy requires a production tax credit (PTC) to achieve these economics." True, but every energy source
receives significant federal subsidies; it is disingenuous to expect wind energy to compete in the marketplace without the incentives enjoyed by established technologies"
So is it "comparable" when it's receiving tax subsidies? How about without the subsidies?

> True, and in fact my point is that things should be scaled to the
> community they serve.
This is why large power plants serve large communities :-/ what's your point? How does your 2 house analogy work? Why is there no well and water pump next to my house?
I should also note the document you cite says wind is cheaper for the first 5-10% of power production, but nothing for after that. If you're talking about scaling up wind power you should be sure that wind power can scale; this is something nuclear has no problem doing

> A nuclear power plant that goes wrong kills in the order of
> hundreds of thousands, contaminating a place for thousands of
> years.
Next paragraph:
> I can hardly think of any nuclear power that hasn't had a minor,
> low-intensity leak sometime.

First off how can you say a nuclear plant can't go wrong without killing hundreds of thousands, then say you can't think of a nuclear plant that hasn't had a minor, low-intensity leak?

Second you can't think of a nuclear plant that hasn't had a problem because there's no other reason a plant would get mentioned. When you think nuclear plant you think "Chernobyl, Three Mile island, ..." you don't think of the hundreds of plants that operated and are operating successfully throughout their lifetimes without a single hiccup. And this is all based on 60's technology which is now obsolete (Chernobyl in particular was a terribly unsafe reactor by modern standards, run by Soviet Russia during its collapse)

Finally; if it's cheaper why aren't we using it? Generally people go for the cheapest option, so if you're seriously saying wind is cheaper then why aren't we using it?
(If your answer is "governments won't be able to control us", as it seems to be from your previous post, then I'll file this under the pointless Sicarius vs everyone arguments)

> it is like if I said "the number of people who have been killed in
> space programmes is far lower than the number of people who
> have been killed in a car crash, therefore travelling with a shuttle
> is safer than travelling with your car".
The ratio of nuclear power generated to coal power is far higher than the ratio of space journeys to car journeys, there are hundreds of plants across the world which have been operating for decades. Almost all developed countries have far more power from nuclear than wind, and some (e.g. France) have the vast majority generated by nuclear without experiencing any accidents at all

> the key point is finding out if nuclear fission power is a real need
> or not.
>
> I shall repeat that - to the best of my knowledge - this is not the
> case.
The world needs more and more energy every year. If you want more energy but less carbon emissions you have a problem

Dear Kestas, your last reply deserves a two-folded answer. On the side of debating style first, and on the content of it secondly.

I noticed that communication between us tends to go this way: 1) I make a point
2) you make a counter point
3) I bring in new elements (or most frequently clarifications/repetitions of ideas already expressed) confuting your points
4) Your next answer is a full-scale attack on anything that I said, mostly repeating points I already addressed with the addition of some attacks on the "form" I expressed my ideas (in brief accusing me of incoherency)
5) I answer more or less as for point #3
6) You make a conclusive remark sounding like "I remain on my ideas, anyhow and I am not available to discuss any further" and drop out of the process.

This is absolutely legitimate from your side, but I find it disfunctional towards the goal of a public debate, that is not about "proving a person right/wrong", but about "comparing ideas and points of view, and enrich one's perspective on a given issue".

I will not speculate on why you choose to act so defensively towards your convinctions. I would like to assure you - though -that the data and ideas I present are not intended either to diminish you, either to compete with you on who is "better" at something. My motivation in being specific and detailed is in spreading those ideas that - in my opinion - are good. I do not mind, really, if you remain convinced that the nuclear fission is the way to go, or if the D-points are the only scoring system you want on phpDiplomacy: but I care about presenting those ideas clearly enough for other people to have something to think about, as I love to find well articulated posts that help me in enriching my own ideas and convintions.

This is the reason - ultimately - why I do not like when your posts try to attack the coherency of the author rather than the content of the text. I hope this will change in the future.

As for the content of your reply:

>>> Actually it doesn't include any costs, you didn't give any figure whatsoever, neither did that document.. All it said was that it was "comparable" in price, with no clarification of exactly what that means. Is 5x "comparable"? Who knows? <<<

Well... little content here, just a formal attack on the semantics of "figure" and "comparable". The entire document is about "Wind Energy Myths" and the #1 Myth that is listed is "Wind energy is more expensive than conventional energy". If you read the sentence I quoted in the previous paragraph in this context it should be blatantly obvious that "comparable" means "about the same, possibly below".

>>> And where is the solar panel/wind turbine that I can go out and buy to produce my own power? <<<

Are you really asking for a reference of a dealer of small scale wind-turbines? If you wish I can google it for you... ?

>>> Wasn't this the whole point of your argument? <<<

No, it was not. If you re-read my original reply to Chris, you will see that you are insisting on part of one of five points of a global change in energy-policies (local production of energy). You are also blocked in thinking to energy as "electricity". As I already mentioned repeatedly, heat generation is an energy blackhole, and production of solar thermal power is economically and environmentally advantageous even in big cities.

>>> Why are you now citing government documents if this is distributed power? <<<

I am doing for various reasons:
1. Because a governmental site has more credibility that an activist blog.
2. Because you already referred to "people" as to those who will miss out on nuclear power because they will wait for Sci-Fi to become reality, so I thought that a governamental site would have specifically appeared more credible than an environmental organisation blog.
3. Because it is the USA government (not Denmark): possibly one of the government on the planet having the most pro-oil, pro-nuclear policies on the planet.

>>> So is it "comparable" when it's receiving tax subsidies? How about without the subsidies? <<<

Still comparable, at least in Europe cheaper than nuclear power and oil (especially since the start of the Iraq invasion).

Besides you seem to miss another important point: that a government is there exactly to support those policies who are rigth, even if they are unpopular or their implementation will be initially expensive.

>>> I should also note the document you cite says wind is cheaper for the first 5-10% of power production, but nothing for after that. <<<

If you are referring to paragraph 5, then you should re-read the text. The study mentioned there is referred to the New York state study, where the basic question was: "will having a windfarm IN ADDITION to traditional fuel power station increase the costs of the bills?". If you read the original study you will find stated right at the beginning that "evaluation of possible generator retirements was not included in the scope of this study".

In other words: windfarms are such an good ideas that even building them IN ADDITION (not instead) of fuel stations will make the bill payer to save money.

>>> If you're talking about scaling up wind power you should be sure that wind power can scale; this is something nuclear has no problem doing <<<

Again: re-read my original answer to Chris. Did I ever prospect a world dominated by windmills? Never. I contrarily said that production should take into consideration the aboundance of local renewable resources.

>>> First off how can you say a nuclear plant can't go wrong without killing hundreds of thousands, then say you can't think of a nuclear plant that hasn't had a minor, low-intensity leak? <<<

Please re-read: I never said the first bit, but the scenario I prospected is not fantasy. It already happened. It is stupid to leave a second chance open for that kind of possibility, unless strictly NEEDED. And this is - to the best of my knowledge - not the case.

>>> you don't think of the hundreds of plants that operated and are operating successfully throughout their lifetimes without a single hiccup <<<

I know only about European nuclear stations and yes - they have hiccups all the time (three in the last 8 months only for the French powerstation on the other side of the Alps...). By the way: we have in Europe a central Atomic Authority that classifies all the incidents, and defines standard of intervention. So these are data that should be easy to retrieve, should you like to verify by yourself.

I am not saying that each hiccup is a missed Chernobyl, but I am saying that there is not such a thing like bomb-proof technology, and given that consequences can be dramatic, we should really evaluate if there is a real NEED for taking that gamble, for as small as engeneers claim it to be.

I agree with you that modern technology is safer than 50 years old one, but this does not change the question about the real NEED.

>>> Finally; if it's cheaper why aren't we using it? Generally people go for the cheapest option, so if you're seriously saying wind is cheaper then why aren't we using it? <<<

First of all: we are happily and widely using it, at least in Europe and USA! I know New Zealand has massive plans for off-shore farms, but I do not know about Austrlia. What I know about OZ is that they are going to build a solar convective plant with a chimney of 1000 mts! :)

The reason for which we haven't converted totally yet are various. To name three of them:

1. Initial investments are high. So you need to have the necessary capital.
2. Wind power isn't THE solution. Is PART of the solution. In order for a total conversion to be effective, other points from my original answer to Chris need to be implemented as well. It's a complex system and changing its balance require time and gradual adjustments.
3. Transition period presents unique problems in terms of pricing policies. See the study from NY quoted above.

>>> (If your answer is "governments won't be able to control us", as it seems to be from your previous post, then I'll file this under the pointless Sicarius vs everyone arguments) <<<

You see? This is the kind of ad-personam attacks you perform that I find purposeless to the goal of sharing knowledge.

Sicarius might have a different lifestyle than yours or mine, and can propose ideas that are unpopular, but it is unfair to tag him as proposant of "pointless arguments".

However - beside any consideration on Sicarius - while believing to the "big brother" might be excessive, it is stupid not to recognise that economical lobbies do have a BIG saying in shaping government policies. Does it says anything to you the troika "Oil industry - George W. Bush - Enron"?

>>> The ratio of nuclear power generated to coal power is far higher than the ratio of space journeys to car journeys <<<

Man. It's like the Russian roulette example. It is not the actual figure that matters, but the logic of it. You can't compare two technologies that different. Nuclear is an high-tech, lab-intensive, safety-centered technology involving people with years of training. Coal mining is a low-tech business, involving mostly unskilled workers that learn "on the job", to start with. But also: how would you compare the figures? People/plant? People/Megawatt? People/Hour worked? People/operational life of a plant?

It is a purposeless comparison, and I simply wanted to point that out.

>>> Almost all developed countries have far more power from nuclear than wind <<<

True. And this should demonstrate...?

More of the nuclear plant have been build before people knew about the real risks behind that technology. Windturbines are an economically viable alternative only since very recently, while nuclear power is such since 1954. Environmental agendas from the governments are even more recent than wind turbines...

Again... Space shuttles and cars...

>>> some (e.g. France) have the vast majority generated by nuclear without experiencing any accidents at all <<<

This is simply untrue. Check your sources. France had A LOT of accidents, mostly minor ones.

>>> The world needs more and more energy every year. If you want more energy but less carbon emissions you have a problem <<<

Wrong assumption: the world does not need more and more energy each year. The world needs to learn how to use it better and not to waste it. In other words: the problem - at the moment - is not the availability of energy, but the fact that we waste it.

Wrong conclusion: I do not have a problem. I have a policy that I would like to be enforced. In Europe it is happening. In USA - hopefully - is going to happen soon. Sooner or later Australia will join too! :)

Looking forward for your thoughts and reactions,
Mac.

PS: Congratualations to those who arrived to read until here! ;)

Honeslty? The only real reasons as far as I know that people are not installing their own solar panels, wind turbines, etc to generate their own power is, either not realizing they can, or more often, the up front cost. Over the lifetime of the product they pay for themselves and then save money. There are many many people who have installed their own solar panels, and then start to have incredibly low, or even negative power bills. It may take them 10 or more years to have it pay for itself, but it is a cost saver in the long run. As this increases in popularity, new solar technology and economies of scale will help bring the prices down more and more, which will of course in turn make it easier for more and more people to do this.

But the up front cost is, at the moment a pretty big obstacle, even to people who could afford it. If you have to spend $15,000 or so to install something it's psychologically hard to make that investment, when it's so much easier to just pay your electric bill every month, even if you know that in the long run you'll be losing money, and contributing to societal costs that we all have to bare. I know I'd have trouble paying for 10 or 20 years of mobile phone service up front, even if I knew I'd use it, and I knew that it would save me money over just paying a regular monthly bill over the course of that time.

However, there are some communities that have started to look at this problem, and have come up with a pretty innovative way to help deal with the problem.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/31/163854/86?source=rss

This could of course be used for other power sources that make more sense in other communities.

Really the end of all of this is that there isn't any one power source that we will be using, or that will meet all of our needs. I do see a place for Nuclear power, but I don't think it's "the answer." The future of power generation is, and has to be, a hugely diverse set of power generation technologies, whatever is appropriate for the area it's in. Nuclear may still be necessary to provide a certain base level of power, or to service large cities that can't generate all of their own power. But even in big cities, there's no reason that the tops of buildings couldn't be outfitted with solar panels to help offset the power used by the building, or as Mac has pointed out a number of times to generate heat. Even if it can't provide all of the power for a building, it could still save the building owners/tenets money by lowering the amount of energy that is needed from the local Nuclear Plant, or whatever.

As Mac points out, we all also need to work harder to increase our efficiency, and to consider taking a look at our lifestyles and seeing if there are sacrifices we can make, it's going to take a mix of technologies and changes in how we live our lives to meet the future's energy needs and to avoid dramatically changing the climate.

There is simply no one solution to the problem. It's going to take a diverse mix of technologies, mostly renewables, and behavioral changes, and investments in infrastructure to beat this problem. Nuclear may have a place in that mix, but honestly I don't think in the long run it'll be the "primary" source of power for the world.

""Playing the Russian roulette with a revolver with 100 slots in the drum is relatively safe". Yet... would you have a go at it?"

I don't think that's a valid comparison. If you look at the fact that there are over 400 nuclear reactors and officially something like 30 people have died as a result of nuclear accidents, the probability of death by nuclear accident is lower than that of being struck by lightning. And the fact is, if there is one bullet in a barrel of 10 million, and pulling the trigger gives us energy... I'd pull the trigger. Every day people take their cars despite the fact that there is a 1 in 400 chance they'll be in an accident. The risk is deemed worth the reward of getting to work quicker every day.

@Chris. You probably had not the time to read through all the posts. So I quote myself from a previous post as for the Russian Roulette thing.

"My example was not meant to give comparable figures, but comparable logic. A windmill that goes wrong, snaps to the ground and constitute an hazard for the time of the fall (5 seconds?). A nuclear power plant that goes wrong kills in the order of hundreds of thousands, contaminating a place for thousands of years. With this logic: wind turbine = monopoly, nuclear plant = Russian roulette."

As for the figures you bring on nuclear incidents, I do not know the source but they are grossly wrong or refers to a subset of incidents. In fact the CONSERVATIVE estimate of Chernobyl deaths is 4000 dead people (The Chernobyl forum report).

Because of the way Ukraine, Russia and Belarus interfered with the activities of the forum and made impossible to get accurate figures, political forces of the European Parliament paid for an independent report wich is generally considered much more accurate. Here the approximate number of deaths caused by Chernobyl is 60.000.

Other studies indicated that between 1990 and 2004 the number of deaths due to Chernobyl has been close to 200.000.

To these death toll, you still have to add all the other non-lethal consequences like deformities (10.000 cases) thyroid cancer (60.000), permanent disabilities due to the exposure to the radiation during the "liquidators' work" (165.000), etc...

If it is not enough, you can also account for all the damage inflicted to other living things, water and ground, and economy.

So, I do not know where you got the "something like 30 people have died as a result of nuclear accidents" but that source of information is not credible.

However exact numbers are not the core of my argument. The core of it is that unless nuclear fission power is NEEDED (meaning that there is no other alternative) it is stupid to take those risks. They are simply too high and to dramatic to pay off for the benefit of nuclear power plants.

Getting back to the Russian roulette metaphor: the point is that the decision to play or not to play must not be taken on the basis of "how many empty slots are in the barrel", but must be taken on the basis on the existence (or non-existence) of non life-threatening alternatives.

Everything at scientific, economical and technical levels let us think that those alternatives do exist and that they are absolutely viable.

mac, sorry my something like 30 people was based on my back of the head memory on the subject. Officially 56 people have died from Chernobyl, 47 accident workers, and 9 children from thyroid cancer. The Chernobyl Forum 2005 report lists these direct deaths as well as a possible 4000 more extra cancer deaths. I don't think this is a conservative estimate... because it was not a nuclear explosion it was a hydrogen explosion. From what I remember, was it not the graphite moderator and zirconium coating reacting with the water coolant to produce H2 gas which promptly exploded? Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It was terrible unfortunate, but the chances of a second occurrence is astronomical.

All of the thyroid cancer deaths could have been prevented by saturating the irradiated population's thyroids with Iodine-127, especially since the radioactive iodine had a short half life.

All the fears of a gigantic nuclear explosion on the order of magnitude of nuclear weapons are not grounded, because the radioactive material used in nuclear fission is not nearly enriched enough to sustain a chain reaction. Weapon grade enriched radioactive material is on the order of 97% enriched, while the material used in fission in nuclear power plants is around 3%, or in some it's at it's natural level of around 1.5%.

It's not just about whether or not nuclear fission power is NEEDED, it's about whether it's better and more cost effective than the alternatives. The risk is tiny, the reward is great. Though like I said, I think nuclear fusion is the way to go, as it results in far less waste.

Getting back to the Russian roulette metaphor, there is always risk. The point is to balance risk and reward, mathematically. Risk doesn't exist just in direct possible deaths, there are many costs associated with all forms of proposed energy. Sometimes pointing a gun with a million empty slots at your head is worth it if you stand to win a lot more than you would if you aimed the gun at your leg.

Safe nuclear power is absolutely viable and should be considered an alternative, especially considering the relative land cost of wind and solar power, and the environmental effects of hydro and tidal power.

Perpetual motion.

Can we please remove fusion from the list of reasonable energy sources?

While I certainly think that Fusion would be great, and that research should continue. So far no one has managed to show any example of fusion that would be even remotely practical for power generation. There's always the chance that some genius will solve the problem tomorrow, but failing that it's still pretty far off, and we can't plan based on sources that we can't be sure will ever be viable for power generation.

Note: What I am saying in regards to fusion is not the same as someone (like me) saying we should start using solar, wind, geothermal etc, assuming that it will improve. Solar as it stands now, does work. You can in fact get electricity from it, and you can get more useful energy out a photovoltaic panel over it's lifetime than you spent to create it. Improvements are pretty safe to assume, as it's a matter at the moment of simply refining a proven technology, rather than simply hoping we can make something that doesn't work at all now into a useful technology in time for it to help us out.

All of that being said, I do still very much support continuing research into Fusion power generation, as well as many many other sources of power, but let's take fusion and other completely unproven technologies off of the list of reasonable sources of energy for the purposes of this discussion, otherwise we might as well also talk about Zebulon's (joke) suggestion of simply harnessing perpetual motion, or just say we'll get our power from magic. (Yes I realize fusion is quite different from perpetual motion or magic, but the point is it's simply not something we can reasonably plan around)

@ Chris

I think the "official deaths" you mention refers to the time of the accident only (the few weeks it took to secure the site initially), not to all the people that has died or got ill for the mid and long term effects of radiation poisoning or living in contaminated areas, for the past 22 years.

Additionally, the figures for 1986 were provided by CCCP government, that initially neither reported the accident and after that tried to minimise it (a minor leak of low-radioctive fumes, it was said at the time, it was Austrian to detect increased radioactivity and to discover what was going on, if my memories from 22 years ago do not fail me!)

The reconstruction you did of the accident is right in that it was not a nuclear explosion, but a steam explosion due to failing in the scram operation (shutting the reactor down very rapidly) and the subsequent overheating of the core, that turned the coolant (normally liquid) into steam. As you said, everything that could be wrong, went wrong (the most terrible thing, being that all of that was generated because they wanted to do "an experiment", not because of a failure in the routine operations of the central).

Chernobyl is on a scale several orders of magnitude beyond what happened - for example - at Three Miles Island. In TMI accident only coolant was released in the environment, while in Chernobyl the core was exposed and radioactive elements from it were released in the athmosphere and spread all over central and eastern Europe.

As for the nuclear explosion of a reactor, that is not a fear of mine, nor is commonly understood to be a risk factor. The bigger risks related to a nuclear power station are - to my knowlege - meltdowns and leaks (during the operational time) and waste storage (for the millennia after the power station has been closed).

More than to Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Chernobyl could be in fact compared to a dirty bomb (BTW: the fact USA government is so much freaking out about dirty bombs should by itself make one understand that we are not talking about killing a few dozens people (that can be achieved with conventional explosive easily) but about a much larger scale event...

Now, about the effects of Chernobyl I could write at length, but I found out that wikipedia has a rather complete page abouth that, and I therefore invite you to read that directly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects

My points are essentially two:
1. There is much more than the death toll to consider (which is however for sure in the order of the tens of thousands probably beyond).
2. We will be keeping on paying for that accident still for various centuries, and many of the long-term effects on the environment are still unknown to us.

So, back to choosing nuclear fission as a source of energy. Sure, everything comes down to evaluate risks and rewards and compare that with other possibilities. This is why I do not rule out nuclear "a priori" or on the basis of an ideological judgement of it.

Cost effectiveness as a criterion for choosing options comes in to the scene only at a second point for me: having slaves is more cost effective than paying a worker, but is is obviously wrong, so nobody seriously consider slavery as an option, nowadays. Using cost effectiveness as the SOLE criterion for choosing between two options is - as somebody else told in another post - "morally corrupt". As economics (at least the capitalistic model) tend to do exactly that (better shipping jobs oversea and let kids do that, rather than paying a US/EU citizen to do that, for example), I believe governments have an important role to play in enforcing the right policies by making them economically attractive.

I shall however disagree with you when you say that nuclear risks are "tiny". In risk assessment, the absolute risk is proportional to the product of likelyhood by severity of the consequences. So - roughly - one could reason like this:

A. Coal power: likelihood of CO2 emissions be at the base of global warming is practically certain. Severity of the consequences (rising oceans, desertification, extinctions...) is almost apocalyptic. Final risk assessment: EXTREMELY HIGH.

B. Nuclear power: likelihood of a second Chernobyl: small to very small. Severity of the consequences: extreme, affecting dozens of millions of people (death, illness, relocations, damage to economic activities, extension in time for hundreds if not thousands of years...). Final assessement: MEDIUM? HIGH? (Does not really matter as far as we agree is lower than the previous one and higher than the following).

C. Wind energy (but similar reasoning applies to solar and most of renewable sources of energy): likelihood of lasting damage to the environment: almost none (some bird smashed, some noise produced...). Severity of the damage: minimal and localised. Final assessment: EXTREMELY LOW.

Nuclear fission is on a totally different level of risk than wind energy (or solar, or biofuels...) and this is the reason for which I am convinced that we shall tap into that only if strictly NEEDED.

Final comment (how could we leave each other without getting back to the Russian roulette?) ;)

I understand what you mean by your scenario (head = risk more, win more + leg = risk less, win less). Sure, one can base his own decisions more on aversion of risks or on maximising possible gains and I have no ideological preference, nor I think one is necessarily better than the other.

The big difference between the metaphor and the real case - in this instance - is that if you blow your brain out ot your own skull next to my house, I will be sad to know, but I will move on. If you blow your nuclear reactor next to my house, I will be probably dead.

(Corollary: if you crack your solar panel on your roof I will neither now, most probably!)

This is a pretty detailed thread and a good (if looong) read. not sure what to say as i know little about the science involved in each energy generating method.

but i would say that the cost effectiveness of Nuclear is over rated. governments and society pay for the economic externalities caused by nuclear power.
i have to agree with Mac,
decentralized power generating systems (of various types , mainly solar and wind) are a great idea. Governments, big business and the bureaucracy are against them for obvious reasons and they get sidelined in the debate generally.

Obviously costs need to come down in solar and wind generation and it may be the nuclear power has a part to play in the bridge from non renewable resources like coal to renewable resource but i think people should be clear that nuclear is a bridge and not a long term answer.

@sean - "nuclear power has a part to play in the bridge from non renewable resources like coal to renewable resource but i think people should be clear that nuclear is a bridge and not a long term answer."

I feel the same way. Short term, it may be necessary, but long term I think there are better options.