Hi Sylvia,

It's nice to know that there's at least one person on this thread that doesn't think I'm either senile, uninformed or just plain stupid...or hypocritical.

With respect to your ("uneconomic") comment about costs, etc., I must remind you of the situation in France. Not only do they rely on nuclear for almost all of their power, their electric bill is the smallest in the world and their overall environment is the cleanest in the world. Please go to my website and click on "videos" and select the 60 Minutes segment on French nuclear power. "Atom Annie," as she's known in France as CEO of Areva, makes some excellent points. Simply go to www.nucleargreen.org. Please let me know your reaction to the segment.....or anything else on the site. I think you'll enjoy it.

By the way to all of those who have assumed that I must have stock in Uranium or companies like Areva, let me assure you that I don't. I am not seeking profit with my activities in support of nuclear power. I am doing everything I can to convince people of the logic and common sense that proves the viability and necessity of nuclear power.

Ralph

I will continue to look forward to your posts and not bother with those posts that challenge my motives, ethics or my credibility.

Ralph, I do not question your motives, ethics or credibility. I am sure that you have spent a lot of time thinking about this. But what I see from your posts, I see no reason for me to buy your book. I see a nuclear fanboy that doesn't consider other technologies very much, and thinks all would be (or even would have been!) wonderful with a proliferation of nuclear power plants. It's not a new idea, I myself once thought so too, for the same reasons. But there's a dark side, waiting there in the dumps.

One of my main irks about this whole business is the rank double standard applied by both you and Sylvia when evaluating renewable technologies. They are pretty much summarily dismissed as being intermittent and won't work. period.

But all that's really needed is a method of power storage, which we already have in small scale. The technology doesn't exist yet you say? Well, fusion doesn't either but you're ready to talk that up. Researchers have already achieved 40% efficiency for solar cell technology, so output shouldn't be a problem. For economic liquid fuels there are are number of biotech technologies reseraching the use of algae to produce hydrogen or biodiesel (lipid) fuels.
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
These technologies are already proven in concept (unlike fusion), all that needs to be done is making production more efficient and economical for widespread use.

There aren't any silver bullets on energy, there are at best a number of solutions that will work or are inappropriate, depending on the environment, economics and risk.

Bugsy,

Sorry, but the only source of power that is not a sick joke is nuclear. When we have enough plants worldwide, the cost of electricity will be a very tiny fraction of what we now pay. Electricity will be so cheap that the cost of producing hydrogen (nuclear hydrogen) will be so low that driving a car will cost about what it cost 50 years ago (about 50 cents a gallon for premium.) By the way, I believe that nuclear power plants should be built by responsible corporations, like Areva, but I also believe the plants that distribute ALL electricity should be owned and operated by the government. Just as our nuclear powered naval ships are built by corporations but operated by the Navy. Their record is impeccable.

At the invitation of BMW, I went to their huge Engineering and Emission Test Center in Oxnard, California. There I drove the new BMW 7 sedan with a 12 cylinder engine. It looked and performed as good or better than any other car I have ever driven. The big, and I mean BIG, difference is that the car I was driving was running on pure hydrogen. All that came out of it exhaust pipe was pure water. I was thrilled, to say the least. That is the future I'm supporting. There are two main corporations that are presently at the forefront of nuclear/hydrogen technology. They are BMW of Germany and Shell Oil of Holland. Shell is already building or converting gas stations that dispense hydrogen. There are already parts of Europe where there are enough hydrogen gas stations to make driving a hydrogen powered car practical and sensible.

If you would like a copy of my book, I'll be happy to have the publisher send you a free copy....provided you agree to read it, cover to cover....and then comment on it (to me, not the The Forum unless you insist on it.)

Bugsy,

As regards storage technologies, I assume you mean the Vanadium Redox Battery, or VRB. This is actually not new, but was patented in 1986.

The technology is owned by VRB power systems. Let's take a quick look at their site.

http://www.vrbpower.com/technology/index.html

This page mentions a Vanadium density of 2 moles per litre. There is some ambiguity as to what effect "for each vanadium species" has, so my result below may be out by a factor of two. No matter. If we now turn to

http://www.vrbpower.com/technology/faqs.html#faq3

we discover that the energy density (upper practical limit) is 25Wh/litre. Since Vanadium has an atomic weight of about 50, this means that for each 100 grams of Vanadium we get 25Wh of capacity. That's 0.25Wh/gram, or 250kWh / tonne.

The total known world reserves of Vanadium are about 38 million tonnes. If all of this were converted into VRBs, the total energy capacity would be 9,500 GWh. That's about as much as NSW alone uses in ONE hour at peak times.

VRBs have their uses, but unless huge new reserves of Vanadium are found - reserves that dwarf the known reserves - then VRBs are not going to be able to provide stability for intermittent power generators on a useful level.

Sylvia.

Oops - I've got a factor of 1000 out there. NSW would use about 9 GWh in an hour at peak time. All the same, 9,500 GWh is still small compared with the world's energy consumption, and batteries that are backing up wind power would conceivably have to operate for days at a time. Batteries that are backing up solar power would certainly have to operate for 16 hours.

Sylvia.

Dear Ralph
John Howard would like a nuclear reactor as a neighbour because Ziggy assured him it was as safe as houses. Just tell us Ralph a suitable location where you would like to place the first nuclear reactor whether fission or fusion ? The second one will look splendid next door to Parliament House in Canberra dont you think. The third Nuclear Power Station would be a fantastic tourist attraction next to the Opera House in Sydney. As it is so safe the fourth Nuclear Reactor in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef the marine life would blossom as well as the marine life in the Irish Sea. I am stuck and would like a suggestion for the fifth Nuclear Reactor. Australia is a prime site for Nuclear Waste so many places where John Howard can bury it and then forget about it after all he may not be alive in forty years time we can then leave it up to our grand children to sort that out that would be their problem not ours. What Suburb do you live close to Troublemaker surely your local resident association will support you against these Greenies. Greenpeace certainly are a nusciance annoying the Japanese Whaling Companies and Pangea.