renewables compared to nuclear

William Tucker, The American Spectator, Apr 09

Sunup to sundown, the sun's rays shed about 400 watts per square meter of ground in the United States. By theoretical limits, only about 25% of this can be converted into electricity. This means that solar electricity can light one 100-watt bulb -- for every card table. Covering every square foot of every building in the country with solar panels would be enough to provide our indoor lighting -- about 4% of our total electrical consumption --during the daytime. Other forms of solar energy flows -- wind,hydroelectricity, or biofuels -- are more dilute. The only way to make up for the relatively low density of solar flow is to use more land in gathering it. Solar cells, windmills, and other forms of solar flow may be made cheaper -- which is where more of the research is going right now -- but land requirements will never be reduced. A 2007 essay calculated the amount of land would be required to equal the output from fossil fuels using so-
called "renewable" energy. Running a 1,000-megawatt electrical station -- the standard size -- for example, would require 1,000 square miles of forest. A hydroelectric dam generating 1,000 MW usually backs up a reservoir of about 250 square miles. T Boone Pickens' plan to generate 4,000 MW of electricity from wind in west Texas will cover around 1,200 square miles. In the January 2008 issue of Scientific American, three solar energy theorists presented a "grand plan for solar energy" that would involve powering the entire country by covering 30,000 square miles of Southwest desert with solar collectors. No amount of technical ingenuity or venture capital flowing out of Silicon Valley is ever going to change these parameters. Photosynthetic algae will convert the carbon exhausts from a coal plant into biofuel. But the algae pools for a single 1,000-MW coal plant will cover 40 square miles. So is there any other source of energy that can surpass these limitations? The greatest storehouse of energy in the universe is the nucleus of the atom. Nuclear power is
"terrestrial energy," because that is where we encounter it. As Einstein said "For the first time in history, mankind will be using energy not derived from the sun." A 1,000-MW coal plant will release three million tons of carbon dioxide exhausts into the atmosphere every year, while the reactor's emissions are zero. The only "waste" is the highly radioactive fuel rods that --- properly reprocessed -- can produce even more energy. France,
which has a complete nuclear cycle, gets 30% of its reactor fuel from spent fuel rods. All the remaining "waste" from 30 years of producing 75% of its electricity from nuclear power is stored beneath the floor in a single room at the La Hague plant in Normandy.

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