Comments on: Obama, McCain: No New Coal, No New Nuclear

By: Michael Stuart

Michael Stuart — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:10:59 +0000

Your so-called “fact” sheet on nuclear power is rife with errors. Nuclear power provides over 70% of the emission-free energy in this country. And it does it safely and reliably, at a relatively low cost.

If you’re really worried about it “getting hot in here” then why should you levy unfounded, emotional attacks against the MVP in the fight against carbon emissions?

By: Rod Adams

Rod Adams — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:34:23 +0000

@Calvin:

I hope you understand that “demand side management” is a euphemism for turning off the power. Why should the electric power business be structured so that the response to a potential sales increase is to turn customers away and fail to serve their needs?

Do you have any idea just how limited and expensive currently available electricity storage systems are DESPITE more than 100 years of intense effort to find a break through?

If the much vaunted smart grid works as well as many large scale computing networks, leave me out. I like the five nines full capacity grid that we had with 1970s vintage technology and do not want the equivalent of countless spinning beachballs/hour glasses, failed to load, and server unavailable instances that are part of daily living on the Internet.

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:52:15 +0000

Smartgrid without baseload needs a lot of cheap energy storage. So far, it is more expensive to wrangle a group of intermittent sources together along with intermittently used energy storage. You will still need baseload even with smartgrid to keep electricity affordable.

By: calvin

calvin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:47:37 +0000

No comment on nuclear, no my area.

As for ‘base load’ who needs it? So last century…get with the smart grid.

We have so much inverese intermitant coal it’s unreal. Why do we keep all this plant going just incase we get a peak? How about demand side management, grid and domestic storage so we dont get a peak?

Diversity of generation by scale, better connectivity and better management. Thats what we need, not more ‘base load’.

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:08:26 +0000

The nuclear fact sheet did not provide references for the claim of increased cancer near nuclear plants. UNSCEAR, NCI, as well as various state epidemiology departments have studied these claims and show NO statistical increase in cancer near nuclear plants. Newer techniques (e.g., centrifuge enrichment, deep borehole burial, etc.) are available to further improve nuclear safety.

As for solar and wind, they are not baseload sources of electricity. If we need low carbon baseload, nuclear is likely part of the mix.