Care to elaborate as to why the U.S. will not go to nuclear energy?

I mentioned it in my earlier posts. The US is politically "equal" due to the pluralist theory. However, because so much influence is controlled by lobbyists and their respective Political Action Committees, non government based organizations are able to shape political agenda. Pluralist theory holds only when factions are opposed because for every new PAC that is created, one of the opposite spectrum is created as well. When a PAC, like the Sierra Club, is so overwhelmingly supported because of the recent rise in pro-green organizations, they control relatively all of the power in a single lobbying category. The Sierra Club has successfully prevented the US from furthering nuclear technology and installing new nuclear power plants for decades. Other major pro-green lobbying PACs will support them and go for other techs.

I'm just diving into this argument, but you point that 1 in every 768 pieces of Earth's surface would need solar cells to have all of our energy to come from solar. Obviously, 100% reliance on solar energy is not going to be possible, but I would make the argument that large amounts of the Earth's surface can feasibly be covered in solar cells, especially the tops of buildings. I realize buildings don't cover 1/768 of the Earth's surface, but I think that they cover a significant enough amount that we could make a large percentage of our energy from solar, if we had the money to build such solar cells.

But I have to agree with a lot of people here - the future is nuclear, whether or not the United States will be able to accept it. Chernobyl can clearly be shown to be the result of extremely poor operational management, and it remains the only nuclear-power related accident in the history of nuclear energy to claim lives.

The nuclear meltdown on chernobyl happened because some stupid scientist thought it would be fun to shut the reactors down in the middle of operation. We don't have those idiots now that we know thats a no go. And covering ~0.13% of Earth's Surface with solar panels is ridiculously expensive even compared to 1000 modern nuclear reactors. The nuclear reactors literally make their money back in a few years and be sustainable for thousands of years to come. The solar panels will generate way less energy compared to nuclear reactors, and will be needing REPLACEMENTS EVERY ONCE A WHILE. GRRRRRRR. Which one is seriously more loveable?

I believe so, too. It's just that the US is a big player in the world powers and it will require several of the major nations to go nuclear before the US will even consider it.

There are several deserts on Earth. Most notable perhaps is the Sahara desert. (There are even deserts in the US, so you can try to apply these points to them...)

Is it not a feasible option to simply build the nuclear power plants away from life, and in these vast deserts instead? I can see many possible errors with this thought, although I am simply putting it out. I would imagine that points of argument would be lack of stable ground, too hard to get resources to and from, and lack of water in the area to be used for whatever water would be needed for. Or, you could build the things in space. Although, again, I see problems with that.

As for tidal power, I would entrust it to help alleviate pressure from fossil fuels. Solar power is supplemental, and wind power is mediocre until we get better ideas for it.

And that's why in Idaho they have Atomic City??

Sorry, but the US DOES have Nuclear Power plants, we just don't rely on them for our main source of power.. That's what Coal/Gas is for.

Of course we have Nuclear Power plants. There's one outside of my city. Sorry, but you should read my other comments if you actually want the whole argument.

I disagree. You're forgetting the other parts of the carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide isn't only released, it is also absorbed by plants and protists. A large amount of the carbon that could be in the atmosphere is actually at the bottom of the ocean thanks to deep sea life. Any amount of emmission reduction would help.

There's also the more potent greenhouse gases, but those are a different matter.

That's not how carbon dioxide works. If that were true the carbon dioxide levels would have been decreasing pre man, they were not, they fluctuated and stayed relatively stable. If we're going to dig up trillions of tons of carbon based fossils and burn them, the fossils aren't going to rebury themselves.

If anything is helping counteract global warming its carbon being sequestered in the form of landfills.

Their effect really is negligible.

I dare say the ozone layer's effect is not negligable.

I just saw a tv show called Ecoplanet and they totally pwned you guys.

They said with the solar technology that's been developed in Australia, it has a 100% chance of decreasing carbon dioxide output.

The only problem is we don't have the storage capabilities to store the mass amounts of energy they can get.

The professor that they have on it even agrees that if we were to focus our research on better storage for Solar Energy, it would be the best alternate energy available to us.

Sodium sulphur batteries can store gigawatts, as can vanadium redox batteries.

And it's not very hard for Australia to decrease it's carbon dioxide output, what with all the lignite they produce and all.

The series is about a large city of the future called Ecopolis, not Australia dude.

Go watch it and learn something, all of you

P.S. I'm going to trust a scientist whose specialized in what the series is about, over anything you say ;P

Also... "The series is about a large city of the future called Ecopolis [...] Go watch it and learn something"

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.


And, lastly, argumentum ad verecundiam is a pretty amature mistake in debate, Kelly.

More so, a show isn't necessarily going to provide room to critically think, they're going to do whatever they can to persuade the viewer into believing their argument whatever it may be.

Uh, that's why they gave four different ideas including "Clean Coal Emissions"?

That's persuading the viewer into their argument?

Wow you guys are pretty close minded, that's all good though.

Why so? Because it brings up a point of 'super-cities' of the near future?

Word man. Let's not debate about something cause it talks about the future, right on

Let's not debate about it because it's fantasy. No actual plans have been put forward, or designs for these megastructures. In fact, technology doesn't even exist to build them. Learn to fly before we can walk, anyone?

Let's worry about the problems of today, before we start discussing fantasy.

Also, there is no such thing as clean coal emission.

Close minded means I'm completely intolerant to the beliefs and opinions of others. I would love to hear about ways that would make our energy future better, but I want to know all sides to a situation and usually a show will not provide that. So it's not that I'm close minded, I'm simply listening to things very cautiously. Please provide their four different ideas and how they do achieve these ideas.

As for the "persuading the viewer into their argument", what I mean is that they highlight all the benefits of whatever their idea is and hardly showing the negatives (if they do that at all). Therefore, it isn't allowing room for the viewer to think about their idea and approach without independent researching.

Clean Coal Emission is a process of capturing CO2 and putting it into the ground instead of the air. Did the show mention that this process costs about $30 million a year and that a single one of these clean coal plants costs nearly a billion to make? In fact, read this article. Why even bother with coal when we have nuclear power?