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Power

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Ben:
I agree that the current method of Nuclear power is the way forward, at least in the short to medium term. Clearly it has bad press attached - Chernobyl obviously leaves a very bad impression, and as has been said above, what the @@@@ do you do with x million tons of highly toxic spent fuel? Doesn't it take hundreds of years to become "safe"?

Somebody (that's NOT somebody "else" - we're all involved here somehow) needs to come up with a viable "green" alternative which isn't going to cost ridiculous amounts of money before this next generation of power stations have to be decommisioned. Gives us a few years to develop the hundreds of plans into something real and feasible. Not entirely sure what Greenpeace do other than disrupt stuff - perhaps they can invest their time in helping develop the solution rather than hanging ape-like from the rafters or engaging in s&m activities in Land Rover factories :shock: .
(Don't mean to cause offence by this statement - it's just the recent public face of Greenpeace appears to be disruptive rather than constructive. If I see that, then so must a lot of other people. I sure they do great stuff which isn't quite so newsworthy - blame the press, not me!).

Nuclear Fusion sounds like an interesting concept - I thought this was little more than a twinkle in the eye of a bunch of Doc Brown look-a-likes :wink:

On the subject of Wind Turbines, ISTR that there were a bunch of them on the coast near Sandwich in Kent which used more power than they generated so the turbines were disconnected from the windmill blades. I'm guessing they're a lot more efficient now...

Government grants for Solar panels anyone?

Cheers

Ben

thermidorthelobster:
One issue I have is that countless billions of research dollars have been spent on nuclear research over the last few dozen years, and they've still not really sorted out some of the fundamental issues, such as what to do with the spent fuel.

In contrast, a very small amount has been spent on wind / tide / solar energy research.  If they pumped the same amount of money into solar energy maybe we'd all have solar tiles on our roofs which were 95% efficient and cost no more than roof tiles.  You can make up your own conspiracy theories as to why the imbalance exists.

Having said that, I do think nuclear energy is the best short-term solution to some of the problems we're facing.  HOWEVER, we MUST make sure we continue to develop alternatives (and properly fund the process) rather than looking upon it as a panacea.

Manicminer:
Water was the main source of power 100 years and more ago.
Why not have waterwheels powering the drive for the electric motors(with the required gearing).

One thing that I have noticed over the last 10 years or so is the increase in the amount of electricity it takes to power our tools/gadgets etc.
A lot of them used to consume between 500W and 750W, now they NEED 1200W - 2500W.

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