Interesting article debunking Ethanol

Not to mention CSP plants cant stand alone, they need a fossil fuel plant attached to them for when its cloudy, or its night time.


Instead of a fossil fuel plant why not a small nuclear plant? Also nuclear does nothing for our water needs which csp could if located near the ocean.
With experience all our technology's improve, what we need to do is experiment and improve what we have rather than settle for one method.
Besides, keeping nuclear small means less active waste that takes several hundred years to neutralize.
But you're right, we do need nuclear plants.
 
dbobo said:
Not to mention CSP plants cant stand alone, they need a fossil fuel plant attached to them for when its cloudy, or its night time.


Instead of a fossil fuel plant why not a small nuclear plant? Also nuclear does nothing for our water needs which csp could if located near the ocean.
With experience all our technology's improve, what we need to do is experiment and improve what we have rather than settle for one method.
Besides, keeping nuclear small means less active waste that takes several hundred years to neutralize.
But you're right, we do need nuclear plants.
Click to expand...

Fusion reactors produce no waste.

And since the only fuel required for a fusion reactor is heavy water, energy is relatively free. It could power a desalinization plant (or anything else) from 1000 miles away.
 
I haven't looked into fusion, but I agree that Nuclear power is promising as long as we can deal with the waste, which seems to be a problem with the stupid hippies and commie treehuggers. I've never heard of concentrated solar power, but it does sound promising. Maybe i'll do some research on it later. Regardless, there's no reason we can't generate all our domestic electricity cleanly, safely, and cheaply using nuclear power, cleaned-up coal fired plants, solar power, wind power, and water power. A good mix is a good idea, no need to rely heavily on one technology or another. The problem right now with electric cars is battery technology. A major breakthrough in battery technology will be needed in order to shift us away from the internal combustion engine. Battery technology hasn't seen the same advances that computers have, and we won't have viable electric cars until we can get batteries with many times the energy density of current batteries, at a fraction of the weight.

Another point i'd like to reply to is the issue of dependance on foriegn sources of oil and steel. We NEED to be able to sustain our military with NO foriegn sources of ANYTHING... PERIOD. We NEED a strong domestic steel industry and minimal or no dependance on foriegn countries for oil as a matter of national security, not as a matter of economics. Even if we're buying parts / supplies from neutral or friendly countries, that's no garauntee that we'll be able to get those parts / supplies from that country in the event of a war. Friendly countries can get taken over, or their own military demands might outstrip their production and cause them to cut off exports. Shipping can become problematic during wartime. Neutral countries (like switzerland) can invoke neutrality clauses and stop selling us parts (as switzerland did with a patriot missile part during gulf war 1). For these reasons, we need to be able to build, maintain, and fuel military equipment and military support equipment without any help from any foriegn country, friend or foe.
 
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