Made good progress on Cawdor today. 2200 words closer to the end. All that’s left is the big fight and resolution afterwards. I have decided to hold back a little information from the final version of the ending. Hopefully it will still be satisfying without being a cliff-hanger.
Here’s an interesting and short debate on if the Green movement should embrace nuclear power.
I am pro-nuclear power and remained so after the debate. I do not think the anti-nuke debater presented a very strong case. he played to fear not reason, and I thought he was very disingenuous about the construction times (treating them like constants not subject to political will.) or the footprint issue for wind.
Both side distorted the footprint of wind power, but I think the anti-nuke side distorted more by only counting the actual size of the towers. Please.
But here, watch for yourself.
Interesting work.
I am pro-nuclear. I live near a nuclear plant (Near two, really) and I have worked at one as a temp. in document control.
Having said that, I think there were some important points that were not discussed.
1) Uranium is a limited resource in a similar manner to petroleum products. In spite of the (somewhat throw-away) comment towards the end about using today’s nuclear waste for the nuext generation plants, there is an end to the fuel. Then what? This is a really important question for all “fuel-based” power production, regardless of the source of the fuel. Whether you use coal, uranium, oil, natural gas, or wood YOU WILL RUN OUT. This was not adequately addressed and it should be part of the discussion.
2) My big problem with this discussion is that it is still based on the concept of a power grid or a large system solution. When examining wind, solar, and geothermal, you must examine the ability to produce region by region and you must evaluate the ability of the individual to contribute. In Florida, individual solar on houses (with some back-up from the grid) makes a great deal of sense, after the initial expense. I would not do this in North Dakota. The grid matters but there must be individual response as well.