Drudge linked to this. T. Boone Pickens is pimping a plan, but what he doesn't say is he's planning to make a poohload of money via subsidies that rate payers like me have to cough up the dough for.
If wind energy is cost effective, cool. But I think we should be concentrating our efforts on standardized cookie-cutter nuke plants instead. I think it's stupid to build a 600 mile transmission line from West Texas for a sporadic power source when we could build steady, reliable power sources down in Bay City.
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K, let's just leave all the nukes and offshore oil drilling in Texas where it belongs.
Uh, T Boone doesn't own a shitload of cookie cutter nuke plants but what he does own is a shitload of windmills. Plus, he doesn't have that many and is still looking for the cash to build the giant wind farm. It's an elaborate ad.
Funny how that quickly became the solution. I hate to say it but the Frogs, oops, French and Japanese have it right when it comes to power.
I hate to say it but the Frogs, oops, French and Japanese have it right when it comes to power.
I don't hate to say it. I have said it many times in the past. The French told the anti-nuke assholes to pound sand, and now the French get upwards of 70% of their electricity from nuke plants. Good for them, I wish we had done the same.
I just have a problem with saying the French are right about anything. Peugot, Alcatel, Minitel, and oh so many things only the French love. But, they do know how to make nuke power. I'll give them that.
Building nukes does this:
1: you need construction workers, welders, security, cement, steel, glassmakers. IE: you pay for people to work, often for quite extended periods.
2: After you have built them, you need people to run them. Mostly engineers, and others with a really good science education So you get more jobs for graduates
3: You need to have administrators, IT Staff, security etc.
4: Typically, you need a canteen for the workers. So you need cooks, food consumption. Better than sending them 5 KM down the road to a diner.
5: You need fuel. Heck. That means mining jobs. It means refining jobs.
6: you get guaranteed electricity.
I'm sure there are more benefits.
Meanwhile, down in OZ, we have a increasing demand for electricity. We sit on a huge portion of the worlds refinable Uranium.
What has out government done to allay fears of global warming?
A new Tax..........
We can't have Nukes, because it will make the greenies heads explode.
I like nuclear power but coal is still far cheaper. Plus you can make liquid fuel out of coal as a viable replacement for gasoline (unlike ethanol).
Personally, I want to see how this develops:
http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/#post-10
Dump a few plants in the depopulating midwest using these puppies.
What makes the French power system work is that they came up with one design and just kept rebuilding it. In the U.S., every plant is unique, driving up costs. BTW, the final design of the STP is very close to the French design. when I worked there in the late '80s, we did cross-training with the Frenchies, and some Brits, too.
Skip the big nuke plants. Go for this baby, that you can set up in your back yard. - http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html
Pickens gets a sh*tload of carbon credits to resell with his wind turbines.
And he's just convinced Texas to spend billions to build transmission lines to get that power to cities from empty west Texas.
The capacity factor of wind as generation source remains poor compared to coal or nuclear plants.
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