@Vipros
Re the nuclear power plants. I don't know if that figure's correct, although it seems a bit unlikely. But even if it is, you then have to factor in the cost of running and subsequently decommissioning, the nuclear plant. To decommission a wind turbine, all you do is remove some bolts and take it to bits.

That said, I am in favour of nuclear power. It's safe (yes it is, honestly), and can provide a huge amount of reliable power compared with renewable sources. Of course, the uranium has to come from somewhere, and as demand increases, so will prices, and eventually the supply will run out.

There's no easy solution. Solar power would be near perfect, but it would require enormous investment because of the equipment costs and requirement for large area coverage. Also, you can't guarantee sunshine; in fact you can only guarantee that a solar power plant will not work at all for at least half of the time. But this could be overcome if we developed suitable energy storage, or constructed a worldwide power grid.

Tidal power is the one guaranteed renewable source, but it's fraught with problems - silting, blocking estuaries to sea traffic and fish, etc - so it's unlikely to be used much in the short term.

And nuclear fusion, which would actually be the best long term solution, is still a long term solution. They haven't even started to build ITER yet, so it's unlikely we'll see commercial fusion plants in the next 30 or 40 years.

And they said that 50 years ago...
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 12:40, Reply)