[LMB] [OT:] May I do this?

[anmar mirza]

On 12/20/06, WILLIAM A WENRICH <wawenri at msn.com> wrote:
>
> queenortart wrote:
>
> >I'm worrying about Power Sources. Has something been done to dispose
> >of nuclear waste safely so that it can be used, or is everywhere
> >covered with solar panels and wind turbines.
>
> Nuclear waste is not nearly the problem it's made out to be. The
> volume/tonnage is not that great, so there is ample room. The biggest
> problem is that people are assuming that civilization will fall and people
> 10k years from now will be too dumb to realize that this stuff they're
> digging up is poison. IMNSHO people will be mining our nuclear waste dumps
> as power sources.
>
> The problem isn't energy. The problem is usable energy when and where you
> want it. What we really need is Heinlein's shipstones.


(FWIW, I generate all of my own power, much through solar and soon to be
more from hydro
and wind.  Biomass has been ongoing but is only in the tinkering stage)


What we really need is fusion.  On a large scale.  As a note, and not
wandering too far into political
discussion I hope, the US has currently spent about $500 billion prosecuting
a war in Iraq.
I calculate that given economy of scale, infrastructure, and the cost of
equipment itself, that
amount of money would be enough to cover about .1% of the rooftops in the US
with photovoltaics,
grid intertied (so no storage equipment is necessary).  It would provide
roughly 1/4 of the household
electrical usage the US has today.  More when reductions in cooling and
savings of roofing
materials are figured in (mine was just a back of the envelope
calculation).   Environmental damage
from generating this amount of electricity via PV versus the current coal
and oil would be at a SWAG,
about one tenth to one twentieth.

Anmar