RMF5630 said:
ShooterTX said:
RMF5630 said:
ShooterTX said:
RMF5630 said:
whiterock said:
EatMoreSalmon said:
ATL Bear said:
RMF5630 said:
ATL Bear said:
nein51 said:
If your energy discussion does not include nuclear power then you're not having a real energy discussion. Rather you're having an energy wish.
Absolute truth. As far as the electric grid, nuclear would be the best option with the most capacity upside (raw power generation ability).
Yup. But that is considered off the table.
Funny, raping the earth scouring and strip mining for rare earth minerals is OK to get EVs.
Nuclear, not allowed.
Another factor is the land area required for wind farms to create an equivalent amount of energy as a nuclear power plant is 360 times greater than nuclear plant requirements. For solar its 75 times greater.
The US has significant Uranium reserves, but we import the majority used for reactors, including from Russia. Would need to work the economics out, but we could become more self sufficient there also.

Hinkley C is a nuclear plant being constructed in the UK.
listened to a presentation the other day - to run New York City with solar power would require a solar farm the size of Ohio.
Renewables only make sense as a very small percentage of a power grid powered primarily by fossil fuels.
I saw that graphic. You are dead-on! Renewables work in certain locations at certain levels, they cannot generate the whole load. And we cannot shift in the timeframes they are trying with today's technology.
The problem is even if a new technology came out today that COULD solve all our energy problems the time it takes to:
plan,
design,
test
implement pilots to ensure it works in the real world,
develop industrial/commercial grade products for distribution
manufacture at scale
deploy and incorporate into industry to make a difference
you are talking decades and that is if everyone agrees and determines this the way to go. If the free market determines, which will develop a better solution add a decade for innovative changes. Point of all this is that it is unrealistic to destroy our current energy industries at this point in time. This Green New Deal crap is a generation early to be doable.
People think that electric cars are the future... but they don't realize that we could never come close to replacing our current stock of cars with EVs. The batteries alone would make it impossible. Also, the load on the current electric grid would be impossible to manage. It's a pipe dream and a fantasy.
The greenies are just a bunch of ideological idiots. They have no idea what they are doing.
I agree with you, but they are leaving a lot of damage in their wake. People don't understand how electric grids work, it is more than what is coming out of your outlet. Every item plugged in impacts the stability of the system. Sometimes grid failures are not because there isn't enough power, but they can't stabilize the system due to the interference and resonance that each user adds. I am not an Electrical Engineer, but I know enough that you can't just plug in additional millions of devices in the short term and maintain the system.
yes... exactly right.
another interesting thing is that wind turbines do not create "clean" energy waves. It's highly technical, but there is an extreme oscillation in the energy produced, so only about 50%-60% of that energy can actually be transmitted through the lines to the grid.
People just don't understand the complexity of the grid or anything else about it. This is why we need more steady and reliable sources of energy like coal, nuclear, natural gas.... all of these can be manually altered to generate constant, steady flows of energy which is much closer to 100% usable/transmittable energy. They also give the option to ramp up or down, based upon demand & usage... you can't get that with wind & solar.
I have no problem with moving to using alternate fuels and giving consumers a choice of EVs vs ICE vehicles. But, it has to just what it is called ; "Alternate". It can't be the primary. Nuclear is a better option than what we are doing.
Yes.
And I don't think I articulated it well, but most people are unaware that current battery technology does not allow for all cars to be replaced with EVs... not even close.
We will need major break through in battery technology before we can even think about EVs becoming more than 50% of current road vehicles. Lithium is too rare and too expensive for mass use.
And we can't replace the long haul fleet of commercial trucks with EVs... so we will need diesel or something else for that role too.
I really think that big cities should be pushing CNG, as it does not contribute to pollution or air quality issues. Converting cars to dual fuel is rather easy and inexpensive, and the average city driver would burn the amount of CNG that an in-home device would generate overnight. So that would drastically reduce the amount of gasoline used for daily commuters.
The point is that there are realistic solutions available now, if people would just stop listening to the wackos like Biden and AOC.
ShooterTX