kmguru,
If nuclear plants are so economical, then we must stop subsidising them and their waste disposal problems. Make
them pay for Yacca Mountain, and all the other things.
Uranium has the advantage of being a highly concentrated source of energy which is easily and cheaply transportable. The quantities needed are very much less than for coal or oil.
As if fossil or nonrenewable fuels are our only option. Waves/tidal (these are of course only applicable along coasts), wind (good for off-shore as well as mountainous regions), solar (best in dry climates far inland), geothermal (any volcanically active region), hydroelectric (any place with rivers), temperature differential (any place with deep water). Just the viable alternatives I'm aware of. Note that for hydroelectric power we don't necessarily have to dam the rivers. We can have much greener and smaller facilities dotting the river banks and taking advantage of the river's intrinsic current. That's how water mills used to operate. Granted, the efficiency would be pretty low. But there'd be a virtually 0 environmental impact. Windmills take smaller footprint, become more efficient, and less of a hazard for birds when they are scaled up in size. 1-Megawatt peak single turbines are currently in operation.
Solar energy radiation in my area is 5 KWH per square meter per day that includes photonic energy and heat energy. Assuming, I can convert 100% to electricity, I need 20 square meters of area to meet my energy needs.
5 KWH
per day?? Where do you live, North Pole? Or in a cave? Last I heard, average daylight power from the sun at 40 degree latitude is 5 KWH
per hour. If your typical day consists of 6 hours of sunlight, then for each square meter you can collect 30 KWH. Assuming efficiency of, say 20% you'd be getting 6 KWH per square meter per day. Typical roof area is 10mx10m, giving 100 m<sup>2</sup>. That means if your whole roof was covered with solar shingles you'd get 600 KWH each day. You'd have plenty of energy left over to sell back into the grid!
The main issue is price of solar cells, which needs to be reduced dramatically. If our government had the inclination or the balls, they might have spent an extra 50 billion a year on an accelerated solar cell R&D program than as a boost to the Pentagon budget. Arguably, energy self-sufficiency and high environmental standards are just as important to national security (if not far more so) than maintaining and even enhancing the most expensive and most powerful military machine in the world. Plus, once such technology is developed imagine the worldwide export potential under patent protections!
As for convincing people to install solar cells on their roofs, there are plenty of ways. We could change building codes to requie all future builders to configure houses with solar cells preinstalled. We could offer people sizeable tax breaks. There is also the incentive that people would be able to sell excess power back to the grid, actually generating a monthly supplemental income and paying back some of the cost of solar cells over time. Of course, first we must work intensively to develop cheap and mass-producible solar cells for the masses. If I were the President, this would be at the top of my energy agenda.