Is coal burning and nuclear power really the answer to alternative energy?
Saturday, May 1st, 2010 at
5:22 pm
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Coal will never be an alternate energy source, because that is what we are trying to move away from. If is a fossil fuel and a gross polluter. Nuclear is a clean energy, but the drawback is the spent fuel. At this time we have no way to make it safe, so we have to store it forever. There is a lot of risk that at some point it could leak which would be fatal to anything it comes in contact with.
This is a great question, and I get asked all the time actually. Is Coal and Nuclear Clean.
Coal, while the old methods are extremely dirty and contain a lot of pollution and CO2, the new methods are relatively clean. Sequestration is not the most ideal scenario but it has a lot of potential. As another answer said, coal is a major source of our energy. It is not going to be replaced so easily.
Nuclear is a different situation. As many people in France know the energy is clean. In fact they have the cleanest air of any industrialized nation. I would much rather see more nuclear than coal. This may not be the most popular view, but it is reasonable. We are not going to go purely alternative overnight, not logical.
As you know, our electricity production comes from 50% coal, and 20% nuclear.
while they might not be the best or cleanest, there are what we have until a better infrastructure is in place.
And that is years down the road, but i do find it funny that with all of the Dams in this country almost none of them are producing electricity even though they are almost all equipped with the capacity to.
The truth is that Utility Companies can charge more money for manufactured electricity than for almost free alternative electricity.
The advantage of coal and nuclear energy is cheap fuel, proven technology, and ready to build.
The disadvantage is lots of people hate those options.
Well as you hinted, "clean energy" is subjective to one’s own definition. here’s a few of my own: clean energy is all or some of the following characteristics: it’s production, consumption, and disposal/reuse/recycling of is either more efficient than the current method or creates a smaller ecological footprint (less environmental damage). It can also mean that it is a sustainable solution, its use promotes further development of better technologies, or that it is one of the most efficient options readily available with current technologies.
Now 30 years ago, neither sources of energy meet these standards but today nuclear certainly does. Nuclear fission has only two fixed problems: the first is the mining of uranium, which also happens to be unsustainable. The second is the waste produced.
Fortunately we’ve developed less destructive methods of mining uranium and enrichment techniques and more economical reactor technologies have improved the efficiency of its consumption.
As for nuclear waste, the majority of it can be recycled into a second round of nuclear fuel. Fuel is also being burned for much longer periods of time. Now if the plants are in modern nations like the US or France, then the remaining waste is stored safely, but if its in China then I’m not so sure.
As for meltdowns, well you’re reading this from a n environmentalists who’s lived in the immediate danger zone of TMI for all of his life.
Coal is way too complex. I would rather reserve it as an immediate solution to the whole situation of importing fuels- the impact is about the same, but we should probably wait a decade to consume the most of it that way we’re using much much cleaner (and cheaper) technologies.
No.
Wind power & Solar power are far better options and if the governments actually spent money improving these areas instead of shoving it in their own pockets or continuing to fund dead end areas such as nuclear power than perhaps the planet would have a chance.
Have you seen how hard the coal miners work? And then all the health problems they get? It is not safe for them. Train them to work on wind farms and solar farms. It’s safer for them, for us, for the planet. That’s how I see it anyhow and I have looked into this myself.
You are better to try to live off the grid yourself if you can afford the initial start up. Get solar panels on your roof, get a little wind fan on your roof, solar hot water, grey water, rain water tanks, and then get green power for the small amounts of time you actually need to use power from the grid.
This way you are NOT actually contributing to any of the dirty energy and in the long run you end up saving money. This is what I’m trying to do also.