I have some reservations about nuclear that haven't been mentioned. (Many of these facts and figures are taken from the book "Take the Rich off Welfare" by Mark Zepezauer, copyright 1996, and published by Odonian Press --later merged with Common Courage Press).
- Nuclear power plants are licensed to operate for 40 years, but only one has made it past 30.
- In 1996, the owner of the Yankee Rowe plant in Massachusetts (the first commercial nuclear power plant in the US) estimated that cost of decommissioning the plant would be $375 million, ten times what it cost to build the plant. Other estimates went as high as $500 million.
- Although the utilities maintain trust funds to cover the cost of closing their old plants, there are invariably huge shortfalls. Chicago's Commonwealth Edison had a %73 shortfall to close six old nukes. What the utilities can't cover, the public has to. To help the industry, Congress lowered the income tax on these trust funds from 34 to 20 percent, further putting the burden on the taxpayers.
- Most nuclear plants are near large bodies of water for coolng purposes. With rising sea levels likely, the possibility of contamination becomes even more likely if more plants are built. Contamination is inevitable if an accident occurs, even without any rising sea levels.
- The area in Nevada near Yucca mountain has 33 known earthquake faults, the highest known number in the US. Why was Nevada chosen, then? Because they have the lowest population density, and thus the lowest Congressional clout to vote against being the dumping ground of everyone's nuclear waste. While it is true that the "majority rule" in a democracy, there is the correlate of "minority rights" being preserved at the same time -- which are not being observed at all.
- Quote from the book, "Yucca mountain is supposed to be financed by the Nuclear Waste Fund, which is generated by charging utility customers a fee of 1/10 cent per kilowatt hour for nuclear generated power. But in the thirteen years [in 1996] of [its] existence, the fund has never been adjusted for inflation, which has cut its purchasing power by %45."
- Since its inception, nuclear power plants were granted a limit on any financial liability an accident would cause. In 1959, this limit was $560 million per accident, later raised to $7 billion.
Where are the utilties going to get the $7 billion (in the event of a contaminating accident) when they can't even pay for the decommisioning of their plants, or for the storage of nuclear waste, or for the reprocessing of their spent fuel rods (which taxpayers also foot the bill for -- at 390 million a year)?
Like its many other subsidies, nuclear is hardly (in my mind, anyway) a "cost effective" answer to anything, much less global warming.
Denmark currently gets %20-30 of their nation's energy needs from offshore wind. And it is thought that with half as many turbines as they currently have (but with higher
towers and bigger blades), they can raise that figure to %50 percent in the next few years.
A study in the 1991 by the Dept. of Energy concluded that we could get all our electricity from wind by just using the wind resources in three states (Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas). See http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Ote7_5.htm
And think -- there would be no need to limit the liability of falling wind turbines, or store any waste product for thousands of years, or to grant endlessly mounting subsidies that amount to at least 7.1 billion dollars a year, as we now do for nuclear. Compared to nuclear, wind is CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!
In regards to terrorism, nuclear plants actually are needed to create the end products used in nuclear bombs. Leaving uranium in the ground helps prevent terrorists from using it, especially since most of them hardly have access to the huge mining operations necessary to extract it.
Going back to the subject of Denmark . . . if a small country like that, with a lot less resources than the USA, can get so much of their power from wind, what is our problem?
From the linked article above: "By 2020, just 16 years from now, projections show that wind-generated electricity will be able to satisfy the residential needs of 195 million Europeans, half of the region's population."
Since that article was written, several major European countries have already surpassed their targeted goals of greenhouse-gas-emmission-reductions prematurely. If the socialist-democrats (or like-minded politicians) return to power in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, this accelerated alternative power generation is only likely to accelerate further.
Even the in the nineteen sixites, Europe was far ahead of America in regard to auto efficiency. The late Mercedes Benz engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut, once commented humorously in an interview about how 'his' 300SEL 6.3 could go 140 miles per hour with only 300 horsepower, get 18 mpg ( on average), while an American bemoth like a Caddilac or Lincoln wasn't anywhere as fast, nor as economical.
And the same was true of Citroen of France -- and so many others.
Likewise, if anyone was watching "Living with Ed" the other night, you could see Jay Leno showing his early 20th century hybrid car with Ed Begley Jr. I don't remember the defunct company name, but I think Begley mentioned that it got 50 mpg (?).
So come on, folks, let's not deceive ourselves about what is possible (at least technically).
What is possible on the psychological level, on the other hand, may be indeed a much harder blockage. If folks are now so cynical or brainwashed into believing that running our world on alternative energy isn't possible, well, that is a challenge that may indeed be insurmountable. But to assume that this is so is to make certain that nothing will ever change.