Posted on 08/24/2009 8:31:37 PM PDT by neverdem
Edited on 08/24/2009 8:36:17 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Two years ago, I interviewed Vaclav Smil, the prolific author and energy thinker. I asked Smil, a distinguished professor at the University of Manitoba, why Americans are so easily swayed by politicians and others when it comes to energy matters. His response: scientific illiteracy and innumeracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at energytribune.com ...
And no one leads the blind off a cliff faster than the well meaning idiot Communist sympathizing liberal.
It's all about "social justice", and touchy feely crap like that!
Grand Coulee is big, massive really. Easily the biggest in the US, and one of the biggest in the world, but I think that statement is either a profound exaggeration, or a misunderstanding.
The biggest (and it is gigantic) dam in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China. When it is completed, it will be producing north of 18K megawatts of electricity, which is at least three times the potential of Grand Coulee. That's total. California alone has peak consumption exceeding 30K megawatts - another way to look at it is 1K megawatts for every 750K people - (on average for Californians alone). So, as you can see, Grand Coulee couldn't come close to satisfying the electric consumption for most of the west coast, even if it was built out to it's potential.
You'd have to see Three Gorges to believe it, but it really is at least three times the size of Grand Coulee. And, the Chinese are getting ever kilowatt of potential that they can get out of it, as they don't have any rabid environmental concerns to satisfy.
Yes, I agree. It's really the only thing that bugs me about Limbaugh, and some others in the conservative movement. Science should be our friend. And, it does no good to have a reactionary disbelief of everything scientific.
It's truly shameful how scientifically illiterate (and economically illiterate) so many Americans have become. And, it's doubly painful to see many in the Republican base embrace scientific illiteracy.
For much of Europe, that is true. The fact of the matter is they have much fewer natural energy resources than America - it complicates their problems.
France, OTOH, does VERY well with nuclear energy production - almost 90% of their total electrical consumption is satisfied by nuclear energy. They are the biggest exporter of electricity in the world. They get most things wrong, but that they got right. While we ran from nuclear in the 70's and 80's, they embraced - and are much better off because of it.
That, I think, is because the French leadership has been inclined to act in its nation’s self interest. In the US, that is considered a sin.
Where are you getting this idea Rush is anti science?... he is anti junk science...anti bad science...good science is based in logic and rational thinking that will reproduce the same results in independent trials.....science is not politically correct conscience and group think
Are you getting frustrated because Obama never does anything jackbooted that you agree with?
Also they don’t “dump” its waste, they recycle.
You present a false dilemma. There are any number of alternatives; e.g, the US government could recognize that free enterprise and competition are in the nation’s best interest, and nuclear power plants, or something better, would be a consequence of that.
You're right, nobody is as smart as they think they are.
Amazing how many here has bought off on the climate warming scam, and believe that the oil industry solely controls what the price of oil is. Many intelligent Freepers here, but also a couple "sheeple" too.
“Scientifically literate” was probably the 28% who knew the earth goes around the sun.
Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has powered California in emergencies. I don’t think they use anywhere near the full capacity.
But we’ll have windmills! And the sun!
We can put windmills on top of our cars, and the air will power them!
-—<>-—<>-—<>-—<>-—<>-—
Yeah! And if there’s not enough wind blowing, we can just mount a solar powered fan on the back of the car facing the front and let it power the windmill!
“Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has powered California in emergencies. I don’t think they use anywhere near the full capacity.”
It might have powered much of northern California, but the southern part still has San Onofre. If I recall correctly, SO still has 2 of 3 of its reactors still operational. There’s also a lot of hydropower here in CA as well. I can’t recall any emergency that was handled by Diablo alone. I’m not sure the ratty power grid here could deal with that. I still think we need more nuke power in this state, though. The excess power from Diablo is shunted to pump water uphill in the Helms peak-hydro project, among other things.
I think it occurred in the aftermath of one of the bigger quakes, but I can’t remember any details any more. It’s been too long.
Diablo Canyon is operating at 101.2 percent at Unit One. At Unit Two it is operating 88.2 percent of capacity.Together, the twin 1,100 megawatt reactors produce about 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually. They throttle back at 80 percent during stormy weather to prevent clogging in the cooling water intake.
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