18 comments on Electricity: How Much? From Where? What Fuel?
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18 comments on Electricity: How Much? From Where? What Fuel?
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So it is not a poll, but a poll with argumentation. I appreciate that of course, but my experience in arguments tells me that you can defend any thesis if you accept a given set of assumptions. I definately could not accept the assumptions layed out in the initial post and even in the question asked and I don't think it is correct or fair to continue on that basis.
That's why I used the exaggerated figure of "ten thousand miles away", because the instictive desire of everybody is to pick the option that least affects him/her and benefits him/her mostly, without balancing it with the consequences or even with the reality in general.
If I had to make a questionarie to Joe Everyone (whom I personally do not separate from) I would ask:
- Would you rather live by a nuclear plant and accept the minimal risk (hundred times lower than you to die in your car or from nose bleeding) for it to fail and emit radiation. The risks from radiation are... (btw much lower than it is percieved)... the waste will need to be stored which will cost... ta da ta da
- Live by wind mill farms, and accept with almost certainty that you will have to face power shortages in the near future, becoming ever worse with time going by. 99%-100% certainty of drastically increased energy costs (ok, now you will have to pay double or triple what you pay today, possibly rising with time). 90-95% certainty you will be subject to rationing or other forms of restrictions... A very great certainty your children will live worse than you etc. etc... (btw personally I dismiss the sound/landscape argument, as being too evaporative in face of shortages)
- Coal... also becoming more expensive... carbon dioxide... global warming... ruined landscapes... radioactive and other heavy metals emitted in the atmosphere, water and soils etc. etc.
An informed choice, that's what I'd try to offer. Anything else are half truths which are much worse than a complete lie. Like the good journalists very well know - answers are not that important, it is the question that matters.A) Conservation and efficiency gains can't reset our demand at a much lower level.
B) Taken together, a number of alternative energy projects (wind, solar, tidal, unconventional hydro, biomass, etc) can't get us past 20% of our needs and handle peak capacity issues.
C) Re-localizing energy production through distributed energy systems / batteries can't smooth out peak demand and reduce waste over the transmission lines.
Until we try these ideas in earnest, it's hard for me to support building additional supply. Specific to Nuclear, NY already gets about 30% of it's supply from that. Adding in conventional hydro and other renewables gets you to just about 50% from non-carbon sources. If we can reduce demand significantly and ramp up renewables, we could lower NY's dependence on fossil fuels from 50% to 20-25%. That's a much better place to start an analysis of how we would switch the remainder over to non-fossil fuels.