Watching Boston legal tonight, the arguement was over a person NOT wanting a Nuculear reactor in their back yards.
The arguements on both side were fantastic, and honestly the show can be liberal at times, but they do a good job IMO of giving both sides of the issue.
There are alot of proposals to the solution for energy but alot of it IMO is driven by agendas and money.
So what is the solution?
Solar?
Wind?
hydroelectric?
nuculear?
Would love to hear everyone's opinions.
...Innovation...we can't afford to keep repeating the past...whether you believe in global climate change or not, you have to agree that having all that sout in the air isn't healthy....We've had some good conversations here in the past about nano-technology and giant solar panels in space...
Wind is really getting big and conservation is important.
But, if you were around here in the 1970's you recall an energy shortage we had because of a natural gas crook we were doing business with. At night the lights of freeways were turned off, a lot of signs were off, parking lots dark, etc. Real spooky.
I am not saying we need a return to that. But why is the city lit up like Times Square from say 2:00am to 6:00am? Might 50% of the lights in shopping center parking lots be programmed to turn off or be dimmed down? The same with our freeway lighting.
If we just cut our electrical useage by 50% in that time slot, how much less coal do we burn?
Last edited by Twisted_Dawg; 02-13-2008 at 09:02 AM.
Pure and simple. Oil is the energy of the future, along with
natural gas and coal. The global warming thing, even though
many politicians have just got on the wagon, has been proven
to be a hoax. Oil, Gas and Coal is what made this nation and
will continue to energize it in the foreseeable future. There is
nothing else out there. And conservation is a joke too. We
cannot conserve our way out of our so called energy crisis. The
world is floating in oil and the U.S. has plenty of it's own, if
the wacko's and politician's would just get out of the way and
let us go get it.
Why not all of the above?
Depending on the area of the country you could use varying methods of at least supplementing energy needs.
Southwestern states have Sun and wind, northern states have geothermal, etc.
Nuclear. It's far from perfect, but nuclear gets the US the most away from subservience to the Saudis and adding to air pollution and global warming.
Solution? A free market, little to no regulation, enforce property rights (re: pollution), low taxes, etc...
The problem currently is that certain businesses (ie nuclear power generation) are tied up by a few people who find it easy to scare the public into believing they will end up with a Chernobyl in their city while other businesses manage to curry enough favor with state and federal legislators to get certain anticompe ive benefits from state and federal governments (grandfathering coal-fired power plants in Texas to keep them from being subject to the Texas Clean Air Act(?)comes to mind). In short, there is not a free market. And usually what passes for "deregulation" is not so, but merely a mask for a some kind of handout to certain large political donors.
I think what is key is that the government get out of the business of trying to micromanage what particular technologies it wants to support due to whoever will bribe them the most and stick to ensuring that the government does what it's supposed to and support free and open compe ion, while enforcing the rights of the citizenry to not see their property as well as the air and waterways polluted because a certain firm doesn't want to pay for the true cost of their pollution.
There's not one right now. Solar and Wind are too inefficient to handle large scale supply. Their great for supplemental addons right now, but that's about it.
It's very unlikely hydroelectric, at least in the form of dams, is untenable environmental wise. Other forms like tidal, etc, are again not efficient enough to be introduced on a large scale.
And then there's the problems with nuclear energy that everyone knows about.
Bio fuels, etc, is a solution for fuel supply, but not for environmental cost.
Really, we should move towards nuclear energy, which is the most efficient and clean of the large scale possibilities, and work to supplement with solar energy panel and wind farms while contributing mass quan ies of research money for other methods.
Agree that businesses are way too limited by government regulation and that the free market should rule that.
My only question about nuke power is, the waste. Isn't there a problem with the waste?
personally out in west texas where theres absolutely nothing and gusts of wind that would stop an 18 wheeler, that would be a good spot for the wind generators.
Also, didn't Ted Kennedy stop a move to have the wind generators put in the ocean outside of mass??
I feel that government regulations are necessary to avoid further polution. You do realize that without some govt regulations factories would still be dumping all kinds of waste into our rivers and lakes. Call it a necessary evil.
I'd also say nuclear but I also questions and concerns about the waste.
There is a massive wind farm in West Texas. I believe it's currently the biggest in the Nation.
Environmentalists don't like wind farms because of concerns (unfounded as far as I can tell) about migratory birds with them.
Yes on the Kennedy reference, btw.
Isn't nuclear power doing great over in France?
#1 - Oil and Coal
#2 - Nuclear
#3 - Pie in the sky, maybe it will maybe it wont, environmentally friendly brown outs
No two ways about it.
, I forgot....
#4 - Fission
#5 - Perpetual Motion
I think you meant #4 Fusion. Current nuclear power is Fission.
I love the myth of perpetual motion
Lance Armstrong.
Damnit, I did. Nice catch.I think you meant #4 Fusion. Current nuclear power is Fission.
I love the myth of perpetual motion
Yeah if the EPA could be reigned in a bit, build some nuculear plants, that could fix things.
Would you have any issues building one in Texas? The EPA is not always the evil one. It was created out of a necessity.
The answer is nuclear. The waste should be a non-issue as it can be reprocessed for *gasp* more fuel. Unfortunately, Carter made a bone-headed move in the '70s when he said that reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel could not be done for fear of the mythical nuclear proliferation boogie-man. Proper security can handle that. Russia is a bigger threat to proliferation than reprocessing from power plants.
If reprocessed, the amount of nuclear waste goes down drastically (to things like old clothes possibly contaminated by radioactive isotopes). These can be handled easily.
Yeah, I thought that was a stupid question since there are currently 4 active reactors in Texas (South Texas and Comanche Peak), and the only current application is for 2 more at South Texas. The South Texas ones are some of the largest commercial reactors in the US...
The One Nut Wonder!!!!!!!!!
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