Nuclear Power

[Blackmage]

Hmm exploding bats. So we have

--Dams - decreases fish population
--Wind turbines - decreases bat and bird population.
--Biomass - needs to be burnt with coal otherwise it sludge everything up rendering turbines useless
--Biofuel - requires more corn than grown if supported widescale and still releases greenhouse gases
--Tidal - has sever ecological impacts

That leaves us with

--Solar - It's expensive and requires a lot of land but has no impact other than the land it's built on
--Geothermal - It's expensive too and over a period of time the thermal output of the ground decreases but can be replenished with a decreased water flow to reheat the hot rocks

[Al the DLOE]

[BWS-1]

So basically... why rushing for fission when fusion is almost here, incomparably better and healthier then fission for all things that live and that doesn't?

It feels like the world is going all ''fuck, I'm hungry... I'M GONNA SNACK ON MAPLE SYRUP AND LOAD MYSELF WITH COOKIES'' and no one's there to let the world know ''uh dear, dinner's gonna be served in half an hour.'' But hell, IF ONLY ''dinner'' was going to be that better and healthy then ''the snack''... it'd be worth the wait. But if you ask me, I'd rather ''starve myself'' for the time being then either resort to ''having a snack'' or ''wait for dinner''.

As much as fusion is safer then fission, still... You better hope nothing disturbs the very foundation of a fusion reactor, for a tritium leak would be quite a catastrophe and well - I guess it's just for now seeing as they haven't figured a way out of this - induced radioactivity would probably not be good for the reactor structure either, say, a couple years of operation.

I mean - it's probably a completely different topic but - nuclear subs aren't the coolest things to take care of AFTER they ''expire'' (read: after between 20-25 years). It's not like you can just ''turn the thing off''. And it's just a lil tiny nuclear engine that is in there. The required measures to ''secure'' them are expensive, and well, they don't involve ''100% reuse of the nice lil core''. THEN AGAIN, you are talking about a sub that will be able to do quite a lot of underwater mileage... so I guess it's worth it when compared to how expensive it would be to do the same with uh, a diesel sub. Alas, that just brings me to ponder ''why bother with those bulky floating metal casing we call subs in the first place...'' but that is... totally off topic.

And now! Back on topic! Take us just a mere 40 years from now... think any of these reactors (fusion or fission whichever) we'd build today be of any use, won't be falling apart in the future or will simply be ''shut down, clean and clear''? Even the oldest reactor in England (which recently closed after 47 years of operation - mind you, it had several upgrades in the process, which to me, just means they build a new one over the old one ;p) because, really, the years of exposure to radiation screwed up the safe loading and extraction of fuel rods. To take the time - and money - to repair them would be uneconomical.

There is currently quite a controversy around the ''reprocessing work'' (not to down right flag this as ''waste disposal'') seeing as the resulting waste from the aforementioned process ends up being dumped in the sea. That's a 9 year ongoing process that SHOULD end around 2012. So says the government.

O and it should only be about 100 years before the site sees green grass again... not too bad I guess...

And that is just for one reactor.

My suggestion?

Build a solar panel the size of a third of Africa. And let's feast from this beauty for the rest of our wicked lives, allowing limitless generations to benefit from this. (who cares about sand if it's not on a beach anyway?)

...

O but I guess that's ''unrealistic'' seeing I don't think people would be inclined to spend ''3 to 4 generations'' to build this... o well, I guess the time of the Cathedrals IS dead... and so is its spirit. Not to mention I'm sure with how ''sane'' we are right now, and ''united'' some sick fcuk would drop a bomb half way through its completion.

Gawdamit... is there a way out of this mess that doesn't involve a lot of people dieing in a time frame of 100 years?

[Blackmage]

LoL, commercial fusion power is still a minimum of 50 years off. Hell it'll probably be around 100 the way research has been on fusion.

So your solution is a solar panel over Africa... it'd be like being under the "Big Pizza" in FF7.

Just remember there is no 100% environmentally or ecologically safe power source. Building a Solar Farm is like building a city, it's gonna disturb something.

[BWS-1]

I'm sure it will disturb something. Sand. Wind. Sand people. Scorpions. More sand.

But yeah, in dimension, it wouldn't even require that great of land to sacrifice for all of us to be powered by it. In fact, I think there are probably other areas that could be more fit to welcome a huge solar panel.

Let's just hope some stupid asteroid doesn't fall on us making a huge-but-not-that-threatening layer of dust that would end up JUST being enough to disable our panels. Cutting us from our precious power. Leaving us in anarchy. Quite dusty anarchy.