[bzbarsky]

The reason people build power stations is that density of energy matters, not just quantity.

Sure, we can replace our current energy sources with solar + wind + wave.

What fraction of coastline needs to be covered with wave-driven generators, and what fraction of Earth's land area needs to be covered with solar or wind farms to get to our current energy generation levels? Last I saw the numbers for the US they weren't pretty.

Just to run the numbers for the US, average insolation for the Earth is 250W/m^2 according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation>. That's for the whole spectrum, not just whatever solar cells can actually use.

The land area of the US according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>; is a shade under 1e13m^2. That gives us a total of about 2.5e15W for solar power for the continental US, assuming your solar cells are amazing and have 100% efficiency across the full electromagnetic spectrum (as in, you've done an "Apollo Program" for solar cells and had amazing results).

Energy consumption in the US 5 years ago was about 29e15PWh/year, so about 3.3e12W.

So we'd need to entirely cover about .13% of the land area of the US in solar cells to get the amount of power we were using 5 years ago. We're using more now, of course.

That's about the area of Connecticut.

Now what's the useful life of solar cells? How high can we sensible expect to get it? How do we plan to handle the fact that the generation is ... very variable? How close to 100% efficiency do we think we can actually get solar cells? How noxious is the production process for these solar cells you'll have to be cranking out continuously to replace the failing ones, and where do you plan to locate it?

> Does anyone seriously believe that a "shoot for the moon" > style campaign like the one we held to create nuclear > power plants, would not result in workable alternative > energy programs?

Yes. I don't think such a campaign would get us to the point where we could use any combination of wind, solar, wave for baseline power.

> Nuclear energy is inherently dangerous.

So are solar cell production facilities. So is swimming, for that matter; the question is one of probabilities.

> the penalty last 25,000+ years.

How long does the "penalty" for a serious chemical spill last?

> No amount of carefully considered analysis changes the > science of this issue.

This much we agree on. ;)

[catfish]

2/3rds of the earth is covered with water, Nothing would prevent putting solar on the oceans surface. And why would we cover land with panels, when we have rooftops that cover triple the area required to generate the base line you cite? Already, flexible rooftop material exist that serves a dual purpose of protecting the home, and producing power.

Every problem you cite can be solved readily. Put even a 100th of the resources expended to develop nuclear energy into alternate energies and we can be rid of the suicidal methodology of nuclear energy on the planets surface. Why anyone would defend something as poisonous as nuclear energy is beyond understanding. It is a continuous threat to the future of the species and supported only by those who stand to profit greatly from its deployment.

I don't think you actually understand the science at all.

[jerf]

"Every problem you cite can be solved readily."

... by the simple technique of ignoring our limited resources and engineering skill, yes, sure. Solving them for real is somewhat more challenging. Your ideas are so far-out (a polite way of saying "stupid") that based on experience an explanation of why they won't work will simply be ignored by you. You are off by orders of magnitude, plural.

[bzbarsky]

How much has been spent on nuclear energy in the way of resources, exactly? I'd like to see a citation here. And a comparison to spending on solar.

I note that you carefully ignored the issues of baseline power generation needs (e.g. the sun does not shine all the time) issues of power transmission from the middle of the ocean in your ocean proposal, the fact that putting solar in the ocean will significantly reduce the panel's useful life, and a host of other issues.

I'm quite prepared to believe I don't understand the science, but please don't pretend like you do. Handwaving serious problems away with "oh, if we just throw lots of money at them they'll disappear" is not "science".

[adrianN]

Suppose you could engineer structures large enough to float enough solar panels on the ocean. How do you transport the energy to where it's needed? How do you clean the panels from bird shit?