What could possibly go wrong?

[XemaSab]

9. I am one of the eeeeebil so-called pro-nukes.

I used to be against nuclear energy under any circumstances, but after a few years here it became clear that renewable energy has significant problems that will keep us from going 100% renewable any time in the foreseeable future.

According to the wikipedia, this is where energy in the US came from in 2009:



Note well that solar, wind, and geothermal together were 3.6% of our electrical generation, and nuclear was 20.3%. Conventional hydro was 6.9%.

I think we should make it a priority to get off that 44.9% from coal ASAP, and right after that we should try to cut way, way, way down on that 23.4% from natural gas. (And I'm not even talking about oil, just electrical generation.)

Between coal and natural gas, we would have to replace up to 68.3% of our existing generation. If we throw nuclear out of the mix, that number goes up to 88.6%. No amount of light-bulb changing or window-replacing is going to get us there.

Meanwhile, although there have been many significant advances made in renewable technology, there are serious limitations to the existing technologies.

Wind energy is very irregular, and needs to be buffered out with hydro power or natural gas. I think there are many places that are great for wind energy, but I am very uncomfortable with the thought of putting heavy machinery in our forests and other wild places. Of the wind farms that I have seen in California (Altamont, Hatchet Ridge, Bird Landing, Tehachapi, that one up above San Luis, and that one south of Joshua Tree, the one south of Joshua Tree is the only one that isn't smack in the middle of a wide area of good open habitat. The others are in the middle of grasslands, woodlands, and forests that don't currently have a large human footprint.

Similarly, solar energy does not provide a steady source of power either. That being said, I am a huge fan of solar panels, and I think we should put panels on houses, municipal buildings, parking lots, and brownfields as quickly as possible. It costs money, yes, but it creates jobs, saves the planet, provides shade, and generates energy right where it is needed.

I don't think huge solar farms out in the desert make any sense other than from a capitalist standpoint. These solar farms are built out there because it's public land. I think there's a lot of sleaziness that goes along with these projects, and the point of a lot of the projects isn't to generate clean energy but rather to generate venture capital. Because it's supposedly "clean" and because nobody gives a shit about the desert, there isn't a lot of scrutiny of these projects, but again, why are we so willing to put industrial equipment out in wild areas? Even the supporters of these projects say that we would need 10,000 square miles of desert covered in solar panels to power the US (though I don't remember whether this is for 24 hours of energy or for just peak usage). Why is it acceptable to take 10,000 square miles of open space and pave it over so that we can run our flat screen TVs and keep our McMansions at 68 degrees all summer? If we were talking about paving over ONE square mile of ANWR or Yellowstone or the Everglades or the Amazon rainforest there would be riots in the streets, but because it's the desert it's ok to trash it.

Geothermal is great. I can see two massive active volcanoes from my house, so why should I get any of my energy from fossil fuels at all? It's good for baseload, it's totally clean, and it never runs out.

I don't see our large dams all going away any time soon, so we may as well get as much energy from them as possible for now.

In summary, I think the future looks good for renewable energy, but I am worried that we will destroy more of our open space in the name of saving the planet. I think we need to keep our nuclear plants running while we are figuring out how to scale up our renewables. Right now if we got rid of nuclear energy, it would just mean burning more fossil fuels, and that is a step backwards.

This perspective, of course, makes me the bastard offspring of Sarah Palin and Hitler here in the E/E.

Now cue the screeching from the usual suspects telling me that everything I said is a Koch brothers talking point and I am wrong about every single thing I said here including but not limited to the number of active volcanoes visible from my house, rooftop solar creating jobs, and the future looking good for renewable energy.