[PLUG-TALK] Risk of earthquake based nuclear problems in USA

Paul Heinlein heinlein at madboa.com
Sun Mar 20 20:55:53 UTC 2011


On Sun, 20 Mar 2011, John Jason Jordan wrote:

> While I don't disagree with the major premises that solar cannot 
> replace all of our current power generation, and that trying to do 
> so would have a detrimental ecological effect, I would like to point 
> out that we don't need to use solar as our sole source of energy.

The danger is allowing *anything* to become our sole source of energy. 
Leaving aside the issue of cost, all working forms of large-scale 
electrical generation have at least some downside: damaging fish runs, 
endangering migratory birds, polluting the atmosphere, using highly 
toxic manufacturing materials, generating highly toxic residue, 
radioactivity, depriving local ecosystems of their sunlight, ...

In other words, the generation of electricity has a cost not only for 
our pocketbooks, but also for our earth. The eco-cost will need to be 
spread: fossil fuels, hydro power, solar, nuclear, wind, tides, and 
renewable fuels. Relying too much on one or a few much of them will be 
as disasterous for the ecology (at least locally) as relying too much 
on Microsoft Windows has been for personal computing.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/



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