WORLD REASSESSES NUCLEAR ENERGY
While this article is old, it is timely:
Renewable Energy Prospects Rise with Nuclear Unease
What it interesting here is that those nations - China, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, and one could name many others - that have relied on nuclear (fission) power to feed their growing voracious appetites for energy are reassessing their commitment to fission-based nuclear power.
Rightly so. If anything is brought home by the disaster in Japan it is that even under the best of circumstances and all the ingenuity that man can muster, fission-based nuclear power is to invite disaster, for obvious reasons. China and Europe both are planning increases of budget and research and expansion into renewable energy, including solar.
Solar I regard as one very important, very under-utilized source of energy. But let's face it, we need diverse sources of renewable energy as well, and it is high time for those hidden technologies to come to light. And if they're not there, it is high time for this nation to embark on the kind of project that the Manhattan Project was; we need serious funding, and serious research, not only into solar, geothermal, wind, and fusion energy, but also a government, and scientific community, that will begin seriously to examine the claims for other technology.
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Yes, Fritz I agree.
We also need to decide what we really need energy for. In other words (as an example) are the x-ray machines at the hospital, that use electricity, really the best use of that electricity in determining what is wrong with someone for the amount of radiation put in someone’s body. Or, is the use of the x-ray and accumulation factor with related illness something to keep people returning for more treatments$. Is there something better?
Does the culture need to change to another view of itself with this energy issue? Can those that insist on making money over and above what they can use in their lifetime (or what their children can use) keep the culture/civilization(s) in the ‘rut’ we are in or can ‘we’ somehow climb out despite their insistence that things don’t change to a new level.
By new level I mean – take the steam boat in the 1800’s it moved a country, the ‘new’ automobile and tractor moved a country. We don’t have anything new – are we finished with all the inventions or is status quo as far as we can go?
This Japan issue has brought this culture/lifestyle as an open topic all around the world — it could be an ‘elevator’ if people peak over the wall of the box just like the first steamboat captain, etc.
It’s that better mousetrap thing.
I agree, this is a very good point. Steam technology, while it used to have
explosions and horrible scalding incidents, can be conducted and was
conducted well, and there is some fellow who is reviving this, even making
a little steam powered boat. John Moore mentions him in his video on
“Global Warming What the Government Isn’t Telling You” and maybe on
his page somewhere. here’s one page with steam technology, works off
a small boiler like a household pressure cooker, of course next question
is, where do you get the power to heat the water, but the better design
the smaller boiler, and less wood or electricity to do it.
http://www.greensteamengine.com/
I’m very skeptical/dubious that any public sector project of this type will yield any useful or honest results. We need private firms, entrepreneurs, renegade innovators to take matters intp their own hands, less the government officials in charge of any such “Manhattan Project-esque” venture set the agenda…
if I remember my history correctly back during the 15th century a big chunk of the world’s economy was controlled by the Muslim world because all the trade routs ran through the Middle East. This enriched the leaders of those Muslim countries and emboldened them to make incursions into Europe. This led to the crusades and a great deal of fighting and killing. It all ended (at least in the middle east) when we figured out how to get to the east by sailing west to America and South around Africa to get to Asia.
Fast foreword to today. A big part of the world’s economy is controlled by the Muslim world because so much of the world’s supply of oil is in the middle east. This has led to a great deal of fighting and killing in that part of the world.
We need to find a way to get around the middle east again this time by finding alternative sources of energy.