They aren't saying it isn't possible.
Like you said, they're just saying it isn't viable.
The U.S. is bigger and more demanding than Germany, so nationwide implementation of alternative energy is expensive and impractical. At best.
Rather than pushing nationwide change, why not just start with cities and smaller states?
@famousone, that comment makes no sense. "bigger and more demanding?", all the more reason to invest in renewables... it's a business. You have room for growth (Germany not so much) and you have the demand for power.
You must be under the misconception that renewable power sources replace (and not complement) the existing infrastructure instantly.
The reality is, the US is complex, as infrastructure and power generation are generally in the same hands and there is no federal mandate or goal-setting. Anywho... the next president has made assurances coal and oil remains the beating heart of 'Murica.
'Tis the way the world turns.
BTW: Afghanistan has 100% of its power from renewable sources.
Now the continuing issues with solar energy stems from the problem that they are not efficient enough to generate the same power we get from a power plant. So therefore in order for america to generate the same power as a nuclear power plant it would cost more to maintain. In a society like this it would never catch on because the cheaper the more happy the people are. Also unlike other countries our power plants dont blow up due to the american engineering and sweat that goes into them.
I live in a small city that is 100% energy self sufficient. Energy prices are super low and we even sell off our excess to other cities. For alternative energy to work on a nationwide scale we need better infrastructure and economic reasons to do it.
Sadly, even solar farms aren't the perfect solution. They fry birds. They're just a piece of the solution. A piece that oil companies and investors are trying to shut down because it threatens their feminazi-level-fattened incomes.
Directed to trustnthngmulder, he is referring to a strategy where an array of thousands of mirrors is directed at a central tower to create heat. The mirrors are angled quite precisely, and if a bird passes through, it will almost surely be blinded, never heard of them being cooked but I wouldn't be surprised. It shouldn't happen to planes be cause all the light from the mirrors is directed at the tower.
The best immediate solution, aside from lower level change as @famousone said, is Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs). Thorium is more plentiful than uranium, doesn't need to be enriched, produces far less waste that remains hazardous for a tenth of the time that current waste does, and the reactors cannot possibly melt down. (With current nuclear technology you are always fighting to keep it under control, with LFTRs you're fighting to keep it going. So in the case of catastrophic failure it simply cools down and stops.) Furthermore, you can't breed plutonium using an LFTR, which (truth be told) is the only reason uranium was chosen over thorium as fuel in the first place, namely so that weapon's grade plutonium could be manufactured.
This is the problem around the world. So-called renewable energy has been proven to work, sure enough, but nature just isn't reliable 24/7. Add to that the monetary and environmental costs of manufacturing, installation, and constant maintenance and it just isn't feasible to get rid of conventional energy sources.
And right now the cleanest and most reliable energy plants are nuclear. Suck it up snowflakes.
They buy it from Czech Republic for almost nothing and we have to pay so much for electricity from the solar panels. It's fucked up and they aren't as sufficient as you think. The only thing that this is good for is that if our nuclear power plant explodes it won't hurt them as much. Germany is great and all but the sucker that gets money out of this is just a horrible person.
ask that please again when you're near a nuclear bomb who is detonating in 10 seconds +
ask that please again when i send you back in the past + send you to fukushima 1 hour before the accident.
Nuclear energy is a tool, a very powerful tool, and you can use it in different ways. In the case of Fukushima and Nagasaki it was being used as a weapon, in nuclear reactors its being used to make electricity. Its not what it is or what it can do that makes something particularly good or bad, its how you use it.
P.S. "send you to Fukushima 1 hour before the accident" what happened at Fukushima was no accident.
it IS a tool, yes. but a dangerous tool who have lots of dangers. if you ask me.. it was the worst case that nuclear energy was even found. we have so much waste from this s*it that we don't know where to deposit..this waste will infect all water systems in range and other systems too. and we generate more and more waste, even if we don't know where we can deposit the old waste we already have. we make the situation more and more worse. and then you aks really "why it's bad?" - really?! you can make bombs who kill a whole ecosystem for 1000 of years, you have a lot of waste you can't just throw away.. we in germany here put thee waste from this in f*cking cavesystems because "what we can't see, don't exist".. thats horrible. i don't understand how you really don't understand why this is bad.
p.s: i didn't mean fukushima, that was my fault sorry. i wanted to say cherrnobyl but by accident wrote fukushima. sry for this misunderstanding.
first id like to point out that the vast majority of nuclear wast is not actually spent nuclear fuel, instead its mostly stuff that spent time around the fuel. think radiation suites or giant graphite blocks used as nuclear moderators. while some of this stuff is indeed dangerous most of it is just not needed or unusable anymore. furthermore some of the "wast" is actually quite valuable like the plutonium made by some reactors. Their is a device called a RTG (radio thermal-electric generators), they generate electric power over a VARY long time (depending on how much power you need they can last about 30 years). NASA uses them on spacecraft like voyager or rovers like curiosity. each RTG takes 96g of plutonium.
As for Chernobyl, not to sound insensitive, they where frankly asking for it. at the time the cold war was going on and the KGB would pressure the operators of reactors to make plutonium for a different reason, to build bombs. each reactor had a quota and if it was not met...
...then punishments would be handed down. nuclear reactors need external power to work and will likely insinuate the SCRAM procedure if they loos it. as part of this the reactors would be shut down and backup generators would start to keep the lights on and computers running in the reactor control room. the problem was that there was a good 10 or 20 or so seconds while the generators start that their was no power. at the time they where experimenting with using the residual rotational energy left in the turbines to power the whole plant. this involved throttling the reactor core in shush a way that it accidentally caused something called xenon poisoning (xenon is actually completely nontoxic but its bad for reactors). xenon poisoning causes the reactor to run at very low speeds for a long time (sometimes days). the people in charge of the reactor wanted to avoid this badly to avoid the wrath of the KGB. they cut of corners and did things like disable the the automatic SCRAM...
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· 7 years ago
it's good that there is a RTG, the problem is - we have too much waste. we don't have the need for such much RTG's.. i think RTG's a mostly used in military or like satelittes.. but this is not really that much needed that you can use all the waste we have.. and after like 30 years i think the waste material is not "safe"..or is it? the problem i see is.. we have more waste, than we can put somewhere. RTG's may exist, yes - but if they where needed this much, there would be no problem with the waste. and there is a problem with the waste.. here in germany we don't know where we should put the waste material from our atom-reactors.. we put it in old salt mines, in underground bases etc.. we put it there, and forget it. we even have caves & places where they put atomic waste, and FORGET it.. then kids got to this places by accident and got ill..just because we put this waste material everywhere we can and forget it.. because no one seems to care about it. we just generate more and more..
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· 7 years ago
a lot of places where they put atomic waste here in germany don't even have warning labels on it.. no one know "here is atomic waste, danger!" if they would walk in this places.. because..we just put it "random" in this places and don't care about it.. thats a huge problem & no one seems to care here in germany i think..
...procedure, removed extra neutron controllers (things that keep the reactor from going into a run-a-way reaction), and even draining some of the water from the core. exactly what happened next is not clear but somehow the core came in direct contact with the coolant causing to almost instantly boil, the rise in pressure ruptured all the pipes carrying the coolant and caused a steam explosion that sprayed parts of the core into the air where it dispersed and spread out over the near by area. what was left of the core was now no longer being actively cooled and quickly rose in temperature until it meted itself (this is whats called a meltdown). the molten core melted its way through and mixed with several layers of concrete until it got diluted and spread out enough that it backed away from criticality. the result is what we now call "the elephants foot". the point being that these things only happen when you get sloppy and cut corners. finally id like to say the reason your country...
put all that wast in a cave was not to hide it, rather the ground around it would absorb any radiation coming from it.
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· 7 years ago
yes, thats the idea behind it..the problem is.. no one knows exactly where they put the waste (not even the persons who did it, they forgot a lot of places..).. there are no warning labels or persons who save this places from intruders or other dangers.. and atleast..they do it because they don't know "what should we do with the waste?..just put it in a cave and forget it.." - thats the problem here..the waste is a problem, but they don't know how to solve this problem..so they just put the waste in caves.. what you can't see, is not a problem in their eyes.. we had childs play in some place where atomic waste was put in.. and this childs got ill because they played near the waste.. no warning labels, closed doors, nothing to save strangers from the waste.. everyone can walk in there (without knowing that there is atomic waste)..
Like you said, they're just saying it isn't viable.
The U.S. is bigger and more demanding than Germany, so nationwide implementation of alternative energy is expensive and impractical. At best.
Rather than pushing nationwide change, why not just start with cities and smaller states?
You must be under the misconception that renewable power sources replace (and not complement) the existing infrastructure instantly.
The reality is, the US is complex, as infrastructure and power generation are generally in the same hands and there is no federal mandate or goal-setting. Anywho... the next president has made assurances coal and oil remains the beating heart of 'Murica.
'Tis the way the world turns.
BTW: Afghanistan has 100% of its power from renewable sources.
They buy it from France.
And right now the cleanest and most reliable energy plants are nuclear. Suck it up snowflakes.
Yes nuclear is the cleanest.
nuclear is good, folks
ask that please again when i send you back in the past + send you to fukushima 1 hour before the accident.
P.S. "send you to Fukushima 1 hour before the accident" what happened at Fukushima was no accident.
p.s: i didn't mean fukushima, that was my fault sorry. i wanted to say cherrnobyl but by accident wrote fukushima. sry for this misunderstanding.
As for Chernobyl, not to sound insensitive, they where frankly asking for it. at the time the cold war was going on and the KGB would pressure the operators of reactors to make plutonium for a different reason, to build bombs. each reactor had a quota and if it was not met...
Also, 80% of their power is renewable