& you know how many yachties, who have actually been to sea, rstuart? I know dozens who have had the perfect system, provided they never take it out into the big nasty ocean. However I know none who have still got the stuff after a couple of years, & a few thousand miles of real ocean sailing. About 12 months is the limit.

I had 2 of my mates, electrical engineers at Sydney uni, put some time into the wind generator, hoping to improve the thing to being practical. They never got there either.

Still I must try a few of those solar lights. I wonder how much they like salt. An experimental exercise, that cost millions is just a toy. There is always some fool with too much money.

Aquarius, you can't harvest what is not there. That is why I went into some detail. I did hope some alternative enthusiasts would think about the facts, rather than squirt out some more bullsh1t, but I should have realised it was a forlorn hope.

Now while you're at it, how about you tell me how you will solve the storage problem, then we can all wander down the garden path hand in hand singing hallelujah.

Lexi,

As far as I was aware, Japan is starting up its reactors at other plants, and is still intending to build more, as is Russia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Bombvschernobyldoserateinopenair.png/800px-Bombvschernobyldoserateinopenair.png

As for the radiation levels, they are about 1% of what they were just after the accident 25 years ago, and about 37 times the normal levels. The exclusion zones have shrunk by 95%, and in 3 to 4 decades the radiation will be close to normal background levels and nearly all the land will be habitable.

In spite of all the scare campaigns being run by Greenpeace, and other anti nuke campaigns, the actual figures of deformities and deaths are only a tiny fraction of what was predicted, and small potatoes compared to for example the Bhopal disaster in an Indian Union Carbide plant that killed 10 000 immediately and contaminated a huge area.

If labor had the guts to build Nuclear power stations at the sites of these large brown coal generators, they would could meet their emission targets by 2020 with minimal disruptions and increase in power costs.

@Hasbeen: & you know how many yachties, who have actually been to sea, rstuart?

Yes. I was a keen sailor decades ago. But not ocean going. All those I know are happy with their solar setups, if their panels didn't corrode. That meant not using cheap panels. And there is no reason it shouldn't be like that. Solar panels are passive things without joints or moving parts that can be permanently sealed that last at least 20 years, and when you are talking 20 years the corrosion requirements of coastal land and the sea aren't that different. Some yatchies brag the solar panels they bought 25 years ago are still going strong.

@Hasbeen: I had 2 of my mates, electrical engineers at Sydney uni, put some time into the wind generator, hoping to improve the thing to being practical.

Yes, well that's a bit different isn't it? Here you were bagging both solar and wind. Lots of the yachties complain about about the little wind turbines they have had over the years. They have icky moving high tolerance mechanical bits that have to withstand high stress. I am sure it's possible to design a reliable marine grade wind turbine, but it would come at a marine grade price. I'll bet yours wasn't made out of stainless, unlike most of the other fittings on your boat.

All that aside, your experience tells you nothing about how well or otherwise the turbines used for commercial generation work, any more than how a horrid little Chinese petrol generator tells you how well a commercial diesel generator works. As far as I am aware maintenance issues aren't a huge problem for large scale wind turbines. Their Achilles heel lies elsewhere.

I should have expected red herrings, shouldn't I. Typical greenie tactic, when you have no answer, try another question.

Regardless, there is no blood in a stone. No amount of technological wizardry will ever find a way of harvesting that which is not there.

Wind & solar generation are both suitable for isolated settlements, but will never become mainstream.

My daughter had more sense than you lot at 5 years of age. When we moved into a near town property she asked if out new house was going to have real "electric", or just that Mickey mouse stuff like the boat. Says it all really, out of the mouth of babes, but never a greenie.

Hmmm. I see we have got this far without one person giving a hint of how the Germans might be planning to proceed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec

It definitely is starry eye'ed, rather like the moon landing. But it's not totally implausible either. And if anybody is going to pull it off, it could well be one the richest nations on the planet who have had the misfortune to have one of their main energy supplies, gas, cut off by the Russian's a few years ago. They also had the misfortune of developing developing one of nuclear's get hopes, the pebble bed reactor, only to find when they dismantled the test reactor the supposedly fail safe design had leached strontium and by tritium into the surrounding soil and groundwater. To quote the wikipedia article on the subject:

"the AVR is the most beta-contaminated (Strontium) nuclear installation worldwide and that this contamination is present in the worst form, as dust."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor#AVR

Ick.

So Fukushima is not the only reason they are going down this path. It's just the most recent reason.

SM,

This is for your information:

http://newmatilda.com/2011/07/05/living-edge-fukushima
Living on the Edge of Fukushima by Rick Tanaka.

It's current.