I'm talking using household organic wastes here, not copying Brazil's impossible-to-compete-with model. Besides, a mix of E85 can be used to reduce strain on oil today and reduce carbon emissions. I would put more faith in hydrogen in the longer term, once the niggles with storage and cell size etc. are sorted. Bio-fuels will remain a niche that some can do more than others. Certainly not the US.TheLemur wrote:
(laughs)
The orangutan is already being heavily pressured by habitat destruction due to biodiesel production, and the Mexicans are already getting mad due to ethanol production putting upward pressure on corn prices. And this is when biofuel accounts for how much of world oil production? 5%?
Woking shows otherwise. It's examples like that we go with, not that I'm saying this is going to be cheap or quick, but it will be future-proof.
This guy is the very first person in the US to live in entirely solar-hydrogen powered house. It cost him $500,000, which is a hell of a lot of money even compared to the several trillion it would take to expand nuclear/CTL by that extent. The percentage of hydropower in use in developed countries has steadily declined over the past twenty years, primarily due to lack of available sites. As for tidal power, only 3 TW (~25% of global energy consumption) is available in total, and only 1% of that is practical to exploit.
You'll notice I'm not endorsing either. Coal is an industry where people do not give a single solitary drop of shit over how many die or need respirators afterwards (just as they don't care to go carbon-free until the gov't forces them). So long as a coal fire doesn't happen or a slacking off of production, they're happy. I'm talking about the public perception here, which shows nuclear up to be more dangerous despite the radioactivity pumped out by burning black coal en masse which most certainyl does affect us being in the air and all. You have to look at public acceptance as well as the feasibility from a technical standpoint, and that's a hurdle that has already delayed a much needed look at nuclear here. By tne time anyone gets around to building one of the new unproven designs for the UK, we may not need the damn things. Coal will have been raking it in since (and the last vestiges of gas with far more adaptable combination turbines and all that).
As compared to the risks of coal power plants? The total number of direct fatalities (including children who died of thyroid cancer, which is the only disease to have a clear spike after Chernobyl) is 56. The total number of direct fatalities in the coal industry, just considering coal mining disasters, totals in the tens of thousands. As for waste, a standard nuclear power plant produces several metric tons a year; a coal power plant produces millions of metric tons, a good deal of which is toxic.
I know now. The supply of uranium was never a chief concern of mine, really, it's the associated repercussions that make it more a challenge. I'd much rather we put that cash into more research in fusion still, as useful as fission can still be. Though having said that, you do get people bullshitting on the dangers of fusion now.
Go back and read this thread; I linked to it directly in one of my posts.
But of course. The gov't needs to give more out for such research, though I feel the steadily rising prices of energy today may just clue in even the most terminally dense in the industry. Why no one listened to the likes of Zurich Re on this issue I don't know. It's not like taking care of your future finances is an evil socialist plot to ignore as scaremongering.I
Ideally, yes, but we don't live in Nevereverland; we live in a world where people do not start major industrial projects without major incentives.
Well, generally in the EU and Far East, public transport gets a lot more funding and was never neglected as much as the US' was. The US, remember, essentially had the oil and automotive industries buy out public transport markets and then ruined them to enable their products to grow. I've not been to the US, but from what I hear, most major cities pale in comparison to even the UK in areas (especially places like Detroit for obvious reasons). The UK has a shitty network today, which is being remedied by big investments from gov't, though it's always too little, too late. If you go to Germany, for instance, you'll find they didn't shun the bus and train for the car, nor vice versa. They actually went and improved both, to the point that LNG buses, trams, maglev trains and so on are appearing while here they're just token PR things to give the illusion of progress.
I'm not that familiar with passenger rail (living in the US, I've never ridden on it once); please explain both.
Frankly, it makes sense no matter how big or small savings are on fuel efficiency in the US today, simply because that fuel is doing more, and the US can't possibly do worse than the 20 MPG average you get with most cars on the roads today there. When people realise driving will finally cost them a pretty penny, they may wake up and demand public transport for the 21st century. The artificially high fuel prices over here made that a mandatory alternative anyway.