I have no particular objection to nuclear, but what makes me least enthusiastic is that it's often quite expensive. I'm happy with it having a role to play, but if we can generate power more cheaply, more safely and more cleanly with a load of windmills... shouldn't we prioritise windmills?
Energy generation should be broad spectrum. Nuclear. Geothermal. Tidal. Wind. Solar. Come one, come all.
I certainly don't appreciate the ramifications as interpreted by a partisan rightwing conservative catholic, no.
Depends... windmills are highly unreliable and would it still be cheaper if we also invest in massive battery capacity to compensate for the variations in output? In the end it's all about the mix and not relying on just one or two energy sources.
Windmills (& solar) are reliable enough as a frontline energy creator - as long the power grid is connected up over a large enough area, because the wind is blowing somewhere. Add to that other renewables, plus storage mechanisms. Finally, regular power stations (gas / nuclear) as a backup - in this context, I might view gas as clean enough on the basis that we just wouldn't use it that much.
I don't think you're going to make that argument again, so I'm pretty content with the result here.
What would especially make them clean enough is if we were employing carbon sequestration techniques, of with many have been discovered or invented but all with the same problem that they require the use of even more energy. A clean future does not require less energy, it requires more energy.
Yes, and unsurprisingly, we can generate that energy with clean energy... which is kind of the point. Energy efficiency in the meantime is simply sensible - I mean, it's sensible in any context, just because it's cheaper.
I agree with everything you say here, with the qualification that nuclear is clean.
Is it though? I heard one of the reason why electricity prices have risen is because of disappointing output from offshore windmills. Perhaps with a much more internationally connected grid than what we have we can assume poor performance in one place can be compensated by strong performances in another. But right now I feel like we'd need to aim at having an extremely high capacity just to be sure that during the winter we don't have blackouts during periods with low wind speeds. And than the question becomes; is it still that cheap when you need to aim at having a much higher production capacity just to cover problematic days/weeks?
I can't help but feel it has more to do with the fact that global oil and gas prices have increased 50-100% in the last half-year or so. Of course, if wind power is cheaper than oil/gas, if it underperforms it would drive more use of oil and gas and so push up electricity prices. But isn't that acutally a rationale for lots more wind power?
The reliability of renewables has been heavily looked into. Yes, it needs excess capacity (although so do power stations - one might note the recent problems Texas experienced). But renewables are reliable enough, especially with storage and backup capacity from a few conventional power stations. Again, I have no great objection to nuclear, although the way I envisage power stations drastically decreasing in importance I would be content with gas.
Yes off course, but the problem was that disappointing production lead to more reliance on gas powerplants which adds to the price pressure and obviously increased the average cost of electricity as gas prices skyrocketed.
