Lets talk about nuclear power

[needmorestrength]

I think the only future for solar power in north america and most parts of europe is as heating. But as a source for electricity it plain sux. We dont get enough sunlight or intense enough sunlight for it to be cost effective. Its also far to cloudy to often for it to be of any use. But as heating homes directly it would be great.

Direct solar power to electricity would only work in places like the middle east, africa, maby spain, florida.

Wind power can at most supply a few % of the total electricity production due to the unreliable nature of wind. There always have to be backup plants to wind power. Something that can kick in quickly when the wind generators arent producing what they should. This need for a backup dramaticly increases the price of wind power. IMO the best way to use wind power is to use it in order to save water in the hydro plants. When its windy just dont let any water through. Sweden and denmark is kind of cooperating like this. We buy wind from them when they produce alot and they buy hydro power from us when they are in need.

Wind power would not survive in any country today if they where not subsidises as heavily as they are. Its not price competitive and the money to subsidise that comes from our pockets. I would rather se that money go to new nuclear power plants.

As I said they all can and HAVE to be used hand in hand. Our main concern is eliminating energy sources that cause pollution, IE coal, diesel, N/G etc...
Electrical generation via Solar panels is still expensive, but it will decrease in cost in time. Saying it will only work in certain places where sun and solar radiance is strong not accurate though. On average where I live you can expect to gain about 1374watts/m^2 on a sunny day, and one of the best places is Antartica, Alaska etc, due to the Azumith angle and total solar radiance ( particles reflected off snow). Wind power is used as you said, and that is how wind farms are being built over here.. Simply when the wind is blowing, the plants have less demand, therefore emit less GHG's. But when wind is low the plants have to pick up the demand! Also wind farms are usually built in specifically engineered locations in reference to yearly wind charts so there is always (usually) a bit of power coming from them! I am not against nuclear, nor biased to renewables, but I think they all have to be used!

[goodcents]

Agreed, I'd vote for Johan as long as he legalized steroids too.

And he doesn't pass any gun laws
guns
steriods
nuclear power
Yeap, that's about all we need

[Kärnfysikern]

As I said they all can and HAVE to be used hand in hand. Our main concern is eliminating energy sources that cause pollution, IE coal, diesel, N/G etc...
Electrical generation via Solar panels is still expensive, but it will decrease in cost in time. Saying it will only work in certain places where sun and solar radiance is strong not accurate though. On average where I live you can expect to gain about 1374watts/m^2 on a sunny day, and one of the best places is Antartica, Alaska etc, due to the Azumith angle and total solar radiance ( particles reflected off snow). Wind power is used as you said, and that is how wind farms are being built over here.. Simply when the wind is blowing, the plants have less demand, therefore emit less GHG's. But when wind is low the plants have to pick up the demand! Also wind farms are usually built in specifically engineered locations in reference to yearly wind charts so there is always (usually) a bit of power coming from them! I am not against nuclear, nor biased to renewables, but I think they all have to be used!

I am not opposed to alternatives I just think the environmentalits are pushing it so hard that the avarage joe acctualy starts to belive it will be a alternative instead of a complement. As I se it in my country solar power is totaly out of the question. We are as high as sibiria. On the winter when we need power we have far to few hours of sunlight. Especialy in the northern parts of sweden. Wind power can work as a complement to our big hydro electric power production. But can not realisticly supply more than 4-5% of our electricity needs.

To me we are in a very dangerous situation now. If we want to get rid of oil dependancy we have two options.

Either go hydrogen and that will require immense electricity production.
or
Produce disel out of coal.

Obviously the second alternative is not wanted because of the polution, but since the world has huge coal reserves it will be used in emergency if we dont have another option. For the first option to be realistic we need to start a massive buildup of electricity production now. So if we dont start to build nuclear power now we are going to end up with the filthy coal->disel since it will be more convinient.

If I could call the shots I would invest heavily in.

Nuclear power.
Solar heating.
Tidal/wave power.
Geothermal heating.
Better heat isolation in buildings.
Hydrogen fuel cells.
Clean coal.

My first priority would be to eliminate heating buildings by electricity and fossile fuels. The excess heat produced by a nuclear power plant is enough to heat a city so the cities near the nuclear power plants would be taken care of.

I just read about a project in australia to build a a huge solar power station. The problem as I se it is that it costs 420 million and only produce 154 megawatt. A nuclear reactor that produce 1 gigawatt only cost twice that. 6,5 times the power for twice the cost.
So I will remain sceptical to solar power for a long time to come. But not solar heating that has alot of potential.

Just to give some insight into the madness of the current swedish minister of energy. She wants to build windpower in the swedish mountains. What she fails to recognise is how incredibly expensive and unrealistic that will be. The swedish mountains have temperatures down to -40 degres celsius in the winter, they are also very hard to get to and get alot of snow in the winter. Only the regions near dams have good roads year round. Its a very unforgiving environment and its just insane. A tremendous waste of cash in order to produce a few megawatt. Offcourse she is a anti nuclear fanatic like no other.

[Kärnfysikern]

On average where I live you can expect to gain about 1374watts/m^2 on a sunny day

Just curious about this. Sweden is roughly as high up north as canada.
Well a bit above, and we get on avarage 950kWh/m^2 sunshine each year and thats just around 110watts/m^2. Thats the yearly avarage offcourse so I guess peak on a sunny summer day would be close to or a bit above 1000watts/m^2.

[needmorestrength]

Just curious about this. Sweden is roughly as high up north as canada.
Well a bit above, and we get on avarage 950kWh/m^2 sunshine each year and thats just around 110watts/m^2. Thats the yearly avarage offcourse so I guess peak on a sunny summer day would be close to or a bit above 1000watts/m^2.

"Total"solar radiation or(input) is about 1300W/M^2. You have to remember that our winters include snow and a good amount of sunshine.. Snow and sun= more reflections so a higher overall wattage input!!

[Mike Dura]

Let's not and say we did.

What's your view on it? I think it would solve alot of polution problems and give energy at a lower cost.

[Kärnfysikern]

"Total"solar radiation or(input) is about 1300W/M^2. You have to remember that our winters include snow and a good amount of sunshine.. Snow and sun= more reflections so a higher overall wattage input!!

Hell yeah I know all about snow baby born and raised in northern sweden. Winter without snow sux.

We dont get any sunshine though. Up there the sun never raises above the horizon during the coldest months.