But they need more catagories. How about Man-made Global Warming deniers vs acceptors, 70 year olds males vs 40 year old males, those invested in the stock market, those invested in real estate to those without any investments at all. The meter needle will plug up for those in the stock market, but drop for those who think they are paying to bail others out. Could get quite detailed.

Even if you put aside environmental concerns about storing nuclear waste, the fact remains that nuclear energy is enormously inefficient. Nuclear plants are incredibly expensive to set up, are enormous water hogs at a time of increasing water scarcity, and require incredibly costly security and safety measures. Every dollar we put into nuclear can be more profitably put into renewables - which is precisely why nuclear enthusiasts keep demanding bigger and bigger subsidies for nuclear power. Nuclear simply isn’t competitive with solar, wind, wave power, or pretty much anything else unless it comes with billions of dollars in corporate welfare. And for all that, we get saddled with a massive environmental and national security hazard for the next several thousand years.

I have some clear questions for you.

1) Per 1 GW of power generation capacity (including capacity factors, intermittency etc.) , how much land would nuclear power need ? What is the corresponding requirements for wind/ solar/ or any other power source ?

2) For that nuclear plant in question, how much water would be needed for operations ? What are the corresponding requirements for concentrated solar power ?

3) For that nuclear plant in question, how much construction material is needed (concrete/steel) ? What are the corresponding requirements for wind/ solar ?

4) What is the ratio of operation+maintanance (fuel+staff) for nuclear power in the total costs ? What are the corresponding numbers for wind/ solar ? (don’t just talk about “free” fuel, include all operation costs).

The truth of the matter is that nuclear power has lower construction costs + lower operational costs than renewable power. This is due to its extremely high power density.

Consequently, the environmental impact of nuclear power is also lower than that of any renewable source.

You are free to oppose nuclear power, but don’t oppose it out of stupidity. Your points should be valid.

About nuclear waste, please visit the website of Kirk. The kind of nuclear reactors that he proposes don’t produce waste. In fact, they eat existing piles of nuclear waste to produce power. How cool is that ?

The analysis indicates that even if we took on the risk of building 880 plants, the best t that would do is to help avoid no more than 10% of the increased emissions by 2050.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/ 2008/ 10/ 08/ debating-the-facts-on-oil-nukes-climate/

Mmm-kay, please point me to another US energy industry that can point to an operational record of zero deaths and whose wastes are entirely contained.

Hydro? No.
Coal? Hell no.
Oil? Gas? Solar? Wind? Geothermal?

No, no, no, no, and … no.

[JR: Cost, cost, cost, cost + an industry that wouldn’t exist without the taxpayer taking a liability for a major accident and the taxpayer taking 80% of the financial risk.]

As opposed to what? The subsidies given to solar and wind which cannot ever forseeably pay their own way? Nuclear is already competative with coal, and that’s before the environmental damge of coal is factored into its cost… and after nuclear has already paid for its full lifecycle treatment. the continued opposition of environmentalists (self-styled) to nuclear power is worse than insane.

[JR: Gimme a break Once there is a price for carbon dioxide that reflects its actual damage to humanity, wind and solar will do just fine, thank you. Right now, new nuclear plants get all of the subsidies that wind gets, plus this absurd 80% loan guarantee, full liability protection, and expedited licensing.

Why the heck do you obsess over the “continued opposition” of a group that doesn’t have the political power to do anything? What has killed nuclear power is its price. All of the environmentalists are I know would be happy to have a real carbon price, utility regulations that treated all forms of power equally (including efficiency) and no government subsidies whatsoever for any power source. Nuclear power would instantly wither on the vine.]

That’s fascinating, Joe. Can you detail the full extent of the subsidies recieved by wind, solar and nuclear power so we can see once and for all that what you say is indeed so?

I also imagine that because nuclear power is so heavily subsidised, there’s no possible way that the US government could have collected more from the industry in taxes than it ever paid to it in the first place. A detailed breakdown of the flow of money back and forth between the nuclear industry and the government will surely further strengthen your case. Go right ahead.

I do think we need Kirk’s crash program to develop a liquid fluoride thorium reactor and see how that works.

http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/gpr/gpr/publicationsE.htm

They are coming up with many new designs and we can be sure that they are patenting the ideas.

Once we were world leaders in technology , but soon we will have to buy our technology from foreign countries.

Come on America!! You were the first on the moon! sigh…..

The US should have a more ambitious programme, with several GW at least, no later than 2020.