Nuclear Power

SeanW

So what's your alternative? Keep burning Natural Gas? Which do you think will leave the biggest problem for future generations:

A: The near total depletion of natural resources combined with major climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions
B: A couple of warehouses/geological burial stores of radioactive waste?

fishfoodie

Well actually Wind power does kill people, those lovely turbines dont just grow on trees. They're made of Aluminium & Steel which has to be mined & smelted & then cast or machined. Then you have to clear land & erect the buggers, which isnt easy, then you have to maintain them over a hopefully long lifespan.

Dont you remember the incident in Galway when a major Bog slide was the result of the construction of a footing for a turbine. That was a mighty close to a tragedy.

There are also several incidents where mechanical stress has led to blades shrearing off. I cant find the reference but I have a vague recollection of an incident of a fatality in California, but I may be mistaken.

Bottom line, if its manufactured by man, someone paid a price in blood
<EDIT> Should have looked harder http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/pages/accidentData.htm </EDIT>

oscarBravo

SeanW wrote:

2: Wind: Kills birds that fly into the blades. Actually quite a large problem.

Is it? Is there any data that show birds flying into wind turbines at a significantly higher rate than they fly into other things?

oscarBravo

piraka wrote:

Wind power may not kill people , but it certainly has a serious impact on environmental sensitive areas throughout country.

What is the impact, beyond visual?

bonkey

SeanW wrote:

So what's your alternative? Keep burning Natural Gas? Which do you think will leave the biggest problem for future generations:

A: The near total depletion of natural resources combined with major climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions
B: A couple of warehouses/geological burial stores of radioactive waste?

I'll go with B, given that no-one has managed to come up with an uncontentious, affordable plan which will safely manage these "couple of warehouses" for the next several thousand years.

Option A, on the other hand, is a carefully-chosen worst-case misrepresentation of the other options, and so shouldn't be considered as an answer unless in comparison to something like an equally worst-case nuclear analysis...more more Chernobyls, some storage leaks and so on and so forth than your "clean and rosy" description here.

jc

oscarBravo

fishfoodie wrote:

http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/pages/accidentData.htm

Hm. I'm going to take that page with a pinch of salt. Site wind farms 5km away from populated areas, because of noise concerns? I regularly work on a radio site that's a few hundred metres from a small windfarm, and yes: I can hear the turbines gently swishing - on particularly windy days, with the wind in the right direction. I have never, ever heard a wind turbine from 1km away.

fishfoodie

I think the concern is more the possibility of the neighbours having a large chunk of turbine blade slingshoted through their roof.

As a matter of interest, what diameter are the turbines close to your antenna ?

SeanW

bonkey wrote:

I'll go with B, given that no-one has managed to come up with an uncontentious, affordable plan which will safely manage these "couple of warehouses" for the next several thousand years.

Option A, on the other hand, is a carefully-chosen worst-case misrepresentation of the other options, and so shouldn't be considered as an answer unless in comparison to something like an equally worst-case nuclear analysis...more more Chernobyls, some storage leaks and so on and so forth than your "clean and rosy" description here.

jc

I'd love to know how all these "More and More Chernobyls" are going to happen considering what myself and bk have researched.

Talk of "More and More Chernobyls" is little more than FUD but Global Warming is here today. The ice sheets are thinning, disappearing in some cases, and sea levels are slowly rising. Oil over $70 a barrel, and the 1st world is fighting wars and knocking over governments and supporting dictators all over the place, democratic and otherwise, over the stuff. The Natural Gas is running out, Kinsale, the North Sea fields ... Add to that the Chinese generating 80% of their electricity from coal (providing power to 800M people, and a whole bunch of factories) with the filthiest substance on Earth) and its all going to get a hell of a lot worse.

You really think in 50-100 years time when some coastal cities are flooded, the oil and gas is scarce/gone and the climate vastly different to todays, the people of the future are going to say "Oh, gee, our selfish ******d ancestors left us these 2 warehouses full of nuclear waste" ...

I hope you're right because if that's all they'll have to worry about they won't be doing too badly.

Sponge Bob

oscarBravo wrote:

I can hear the turbines gently swishing - on particularly windy days, with the wind in the right direction. I have never, ever heard a wind turbine from 1km away.

Same here, large 30m vesta jobbies, you could hear the swish 300m away max. They are not noisy !!!! Dunno about the dicky birds OB

fishfoodie

I'd agree with you on the noise front, assuming their their RPM isnt nuts they sound shouldnt carry too far. Apparently you can get rotors up to 124m in diameter, generating 5MW, now that'd be impressive

On the bird slicing & dicing it looks like the data is confused to say the least. Put bird fatalities & wind turbine into google & you get a very mixed bag of results. I'd wonder if you get a kind of saw tooth where each generation of birds has to learn to be careful of the big white things, until eventually Mr. Darwin's predictions come to pass & the species learns or dies

oscarBravo

fishfoodie wrote:

I think the concern is more the possibility of the neighbours having a large chunk of turbine blade slingshoted through their roof.

Fair enough, but if I recall correctly the record for that type of incident is less than half a km, no?

fishfoodie wrote:

As a matter of interest, what diameter are the turbines close to your antenna ?

Och, I'd only be hazarding a guess, but they're not that big - 20m?

fishfoodie wrote:

I'd agree with you on the noise front, assuming their their RPM isnt nuts they sound shouldnt carry too far. Apparently you can get rotors up to 124m in diameter, generating 5MW, now that'd be impressive

My knowledge of the design factors of rotating airfoils is based mostly on studying airplane mechanics for a pilot's licence, but a key limiting factor will always be blade tip speed. The bigger the diameter, the more a factor this becomes, so I'd guess the 124m jobbies have a lower RPM and higher gennie gearing.

SeanW

Just to put this into context, the Eirgrid portal reports that, as of 00:15, it estimates Wind energy production nationwide to be 5 MW. It's been a very calm day. Demand, at that time, was 2738 MW.

Wind power generation requires ... well ... Wind! which isn't very reliable. Even if the government went clean el-nutso building wind plants tomorrow, we'd still need something to cover times like right now.

So what does the "no nuclear ever" brigade suggest as an alternative?

bk

Nuclear waste is the only valid problem that I can see with nuclear power. All the rest is FUB and NIMBYism.

However I saw one absolutely great idea for Nuclear waste. When you dig for Uranium, you get loads of left over (safe) soil. Basically they propose that they take the radioactive waste, mix it back in with the soil until it is diluted back to the same level that it occurred at naturally and they bury it back in the shaft that it was mined from.

Therefore it ends back at the exact same (natural) danger level that it started at.

Now that is one cool idea, the only problem is that it is very costly to do. But it is still a great idea.

BTW does anyone actually have an idea how they actually deal with Nuclear waste, it is actually pretty cool and not at all as dangerous as I had first imagined.

Before I researched this, I thought of Nuclear waste was like something out of a Austin Powers movie, you know, some barrel with the lid broken and with green glowing goo powering out of it :eek:

What they actually do is vitrification, where basically you take the waste and mix it with sugar and calcinate it. This basically means it forms a hard glass like substance with the waste bonded to the glass. The glass is extremely hard and it would take over 1 million years for just 10% of the glass to dissolve in water. The glass is then placed in a sealed steel barrel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_waste

bk

The objections to wind power are as follows:

1) About 2.5 times more expensive then coal/gas/oil/nuclear.
(Imagine your ESB bill going up by 2.5 times tomorrow).

2) You need to build an awful lot of turbines. In order to guarantee average power supply and remove the variance of wind, you need a very highly distributed network, with about 3 1MW turbines for every 1MW of power to be used.

You would need to build tens of thousands of turbines to meet Irelands current peak energy needs.

3) They can kill some birds.

4) They are a visual and noise pollution.

That is not to say that wind power is bad, it is good, it just will never come near to supplying all of our energy needs.

In power generation there is base power and peak power.

The renewable forms of energy are great at producing peak power, but they suck at producing base power.

In order to produce base power, you will always need either coal/gas/oil or nuclear power.

We can and certainly should use as much renewables as possible, but it will always be inconjuntion with one of the base power producers above.

So the question is which is the prefereable option coal/gas/oil or nuclear power?

Sponge Bob

bk wrote:

2) You need to build an awful lot of turbines. In order to guarantee average power supply and remove the variance of wind, you need a very highly distributed network, with about 3 1MW turbines for every 1MW of power to be used.

AND

2.1 All the turbines in Ireland can be taken out by one storm
2.2 therefore all the wind power in the EU needs its 'own' grid on the grounds that the wind is blowing 'somewhere' at any given time.
2.3 that could deal with the base load issue
2.4 The EU grid will cost €22Bn on top of the cost of the turbines but will save on turbines and reduce BK's 3x ratio to 2x or 2.5x
2.5 If the grid is built we can bring wind power in in the event of a storm but we need an interconnect capability equal to our wind commit , no country ever had a redundant interconnect equal to 60-70% of its entire consumption .


still an awful lot of turbines + interconnects

then again , global warming = no more Dublin 4 = 5000 x €1m houses under water = €5bn loss

piraka

So what's your alternative? Keep burning Natural Gas? Which do you think will leave the biggest problem for future generations:[?QUOTE}

Well yes. With the development CCGT technology, power generation is now far more efficient than fossil fuel fired stations.

Installation of domestic wind turbines.

Development of offshore wind farms.

Development of Hydrogen fuel (combined with wind)

Development of carbon sequestration and storage

Nuclear

What is the impact, beyond visual?

Most of the wind farms are located in mountain upland peat areas

The main impact is habitat loss. (Interesting to note that the skylarks are now found in upland bog, which is not their natural habitat, due to changes in farm practices. They have since being red listed by Bird Watch Ireland.)

These areas including the wildlife and flora are supposed to be protected under the EU habitat directive and Wildlife Act.

Nuclear waste is the only valid problem that I can see with nuclear power.

How much waste does a nuclear plant generate that requires storage? Is it 20 – 30 tonnes. It would not be a huge quantity to vitrify and bury.

oscarBravo

piraka wrote:

Most of the wind farms are located in mountain upland peat areas

The main impact is habitat loss.

Each turbine requires a footing that's maybe 10m in diameter, plus access roads. The surrounding bogland survives intact.

If you're going to build anything in a mountain bog, a wind turbine (or a radio tower!) is pretty much the lowest environmental impact.

Akrasia

bk wrote:

The objections to wind power are as follows:

1) About 2.5 times more expensive then coal/gas/oil/nuclear.
(Imagine your ESB bill going up by 2.5 times tomorrow).

How are coal gas and nuclear all about the same price? Is it because there are already developed industries that have economies of scale and improved technology?

2) You need to build an awful lot of turbines. In order to guarantee average power supply and remove the variance of wind, you need a very highly distributed network, with about 3 1MW turbines for every 1MW of power to be used.

If every suitable house and business premises in the country had their own mini turbine that suplemented their own electricity needs as well as solar heating or geothermal heating, then our electricity requirements from the national grid could fall by up to 30% with close to zero environmental impact. We could also have larger scale wind farms on-shore in suitable locations and offshore where there are massive sources of renewable energy

You would need to build tens of thousands of turbines to meet Irelands current peak energy needs.

Efficiency is always increasing, but combined with other sources of renewable energy (biomass, solar, wave, geothermal, hydroelectricity) we could go a very long way towards becoming energy self sufficient with a minimal environmental impact. The benefits of this would be enormous and would offset some of the increase in economic cost of energy production. (jobs, security, environmental benefits)

3) They can kill some birds.

If Global warming continues, hundreds of species of birds will become extinct very soon. We can build wind turbines with safeguards to protect birds. smaller turbines can have mesh guards and bigger turbines will be turning relatively slowly

4) They are a visual and noise pollution.

so are roads and traffic, if we are prepared to put up with them, then we should be prepared to put up with wind turbines. Besides, the turbines will loudest when the wind is blowing strongly, but when this happens, there will be lots of noise from the wind anyway. Should we protest against the noise of the wind as well?

That is not to say that wind power is bad, it is good, it just will never come near to supplying all of our energy needs.

not with that attitude it won't. The alternative to renewable is Nuclear. Nuclear power is at least 20 years away even if we start now. Why should be strongly pushing wind power now, even if it's just a stop gap until a Nuclear power station is built, what we absolutely should not do, wait until the nuclear debate is finished one way or another before we start planning for renewables.

In power generation there is base power and peak power.

The renewable forms of energy are great at producing peak power, but they suck at producing base power.

Modern wind turbines are efficient at producing electricity at as little as 5mph winds. Has there ever been a time in ireland where there was no wind anywhere?

Sponge Bob

Akrasia wrote:

Nuclear power is at least 20 years away even if we start now.

If we start now it can be done in 5 - 7 years. 20 years is simply a lie.

Modern wind turbines are efficient at producing electricity at as little as 5mph winds. Has there ever been a time in ireland where there was no wind anywhere?

Nobody questioned the lower end of the scale at all.

What you refuse to acknowledge is that they ALL cut out when wind speeds exceeed 80kph . Its possible for a storm to produce 80kph winds EVERYWHERE in Ireland which means that ALL our Wind Power systems are all shut down at the same time . So its useless in that case.

The problem is not 'no wind anywhere' the problem is 'TOO MUCH WIND EVERYWHERE' . Thats why we cannot RELY on wind in the absence of an interconnect which can bring that power in during such a shutdown. If we need 1000mw of wind for baseload we equally require 1000mw of interconnect capacity which needs pricing in too....I'd say €3Bn for that alone , part to France and part to Wales . Much of the power we will bring in across that Interconnect will be nuclear as well

Much of the time it will be exporting but its mainly needed to get imports as required.

bk

Akrasia wrote:

How are coal gas and nuclear all about the same price? Is it because there are already developed industries that have economies of scale and improved technology?

No, it was a report done in the UK in 2004 that looked at the total cost of building NEW power generating plants and included all costs including waste disposal and decommissioning:

A UK Royal Academy of Engineering report in 2004 looked at electricity generation costs from new plants in the UK. In particular it aimed to develop "a robust approach to compare directly the costs of intermittent generation with more dependable sources of generation". This meant adding the cost of standby capacity for wind, as well as carbon values up to £30 (€45.44) per tonne CO2 for coal and gas. Wind power was calculated to be more than twice as expensive as nuclear power. Without a carbon tax, the cost of production through coal, nuclear and gas ranged £0.022-0.026/kWh and coal gasification was £0.032/kWh. When carbon tax was added (up to £0.025) coal came close to onshore wind (including back-up power) at £0.054/kWh - offshore wind is £0.072/kWh.

Nuclear power remained at £0.023/kWh either way, as it produces negligible amounts of CO2. Nuclear figures included decommissioning costs.

Akrasia wrote:

If every suitable house and business premises in the country had their own mini turbine that suplemented their own electricity needs as well as solar heating or geothermal heating, then our electricity requirements from the national grid could fall by up to 30% with close to zero environmental impact. We could also have larger scale wind farms on-shore in suitable locations and offshore where there are massive sources of renewable energy

I'm sorry but that simply isn't realistic, just look around Cork, Dublin and Galway where the majority of the population live. Many people now live in apartments. Therefore producing their own energy simply isn't an option and would in fact be against planning laws.

Akrasia wrote:

Efficiency is always increasing, but combined with other sources of renewable energy (biomass, solar, wave, geothermal, hydroelectricity) we could go a very long way towards becoming energy self sufficient with a minimal environmental impact. The benefits of this would be enormous and would offset some of the increase in economic cost of energy production. (jobs, security, environmental benefits)

Unfortunately energy demands are also increasing at a very high rate and efficiency in renewables isn't keeping up with this. We will always need either coal/gas/oil or Nuclear to supply our base power needs.

Akrasia wrote:

If Global warming continues, hundreds of species of birds will become extinct very soon. We can build wind turbines with safeguards to protect birds. smaller turbines can have mesh guards and bigger turbines will be turning relatively slowly
so are roads and traffic, if we are prepared to put up with them, then we should be prepared to put up with wind turbines. Besides, the turbines will loudest when the wind is blowing strongly, but when this happens, there will be lots of noise from the wind anyway. Should we protest against the noise of the wind as well?

Oh I agree, I don';t have these objections to wind power, I was just pointing out what some peoples objections were.

Akrasia wrote:

not with that attitude it won't. The alternative to renewable is Nuclear.

I'm sorry but that is wrong, I thought the same in the past, but when I actually did some research, I found that renewables simply cannot supply our base energy needs. It is a pity, but there isn't anything we can do about it.

The only alternative to Nuclear for base power are coal/oil/gas and we all know the problems with that.

Akrasia wrote:

Nuclear power is at least 20 years away even if we start now. Why should be strongly pushing wind power now, even if it's just a stop gap until a Nuclear power station is built, what we absolutely should not do, wait until the nuclear debate is finished one way or another before we start planning for renewables.

20 years would be worst case scenario (very likely in Ireland) with lots of NIMBY objections, it could be done a lot faster.

However personally I believe the solution to our problems is Nuclear power with hydro and wind.

piraka

Each turbine requires a footing that's maybe 10m in diameter, plus access roads. The surrounding bogland survives intact.

A 2.0MW turbine 70m hub height with rotor diameter of 80m, typically requires a foundation of 12m x 12m x 4m, which is 567 cubic metres of excavated peat.

There can be up to 10km of excavated and constructed roadways,hardstands and turning areas, all requiring drainage, (this disturbance can have an effect on the hydrology in the developed and surrounding areas) for a 10-turbine wind farm

The development footprint is appox. 40 to 50 hectares for 10 turbines.

A communication tower is a one off. Developers would like to put up as many wind turbines as possible.

Modern wind turbines are efficient at producing electricity at as little as 5mph winds. Has there ever been a time in ireland where there was no wind anywhere?

Modern turbines have cut in speed typically of 4m/s or about 14km/hr and a cut out speed of about 25m/s or 90km/hr. Electricity is generated over that range. A 2.0 MW turbine would produce 0.0441MW of electricity at 4m/s to 2MW at 16m/s. Even if the wind is blowing the wind speed is extremely important in the amount of electricity produced

This variability in generation does not make wind a viable energy source.

If Global warming continues, hundreds of species of birds will become extinct very soon. We can build wind turbines with safeguards to protect birds. smaller turbines can have mesh guards and bigger turbines will be turning relatively slowly

The main concern worldwide on extinction is not global warming but global habitat loss.

Large wind turbines can have a rotor tip speed of over 200km/hr

bonkey

SeanW wrote:

I'd love to know how all these "More and More Chernobyls" are going to happen considering what myself and bk have researched.

By ignoring as many facts as your other option did.

jc

SeanW

I presented facts detailing how Chernobyl happened - it took a massive chain of errors, incompetence and recklessness in the extreme - and how it cannot happen in non-Soviet reactors outside the former Soviet Union.

On the other hand, you have presented nothing to indicate that oil and gas will never run out, that global warming is a myth. Nor have you posted anything that shows that coal mining doesn't kill thousands of people annually, or that wind power can provide stable outputs.

Anyways, here's something interesting: Apparently coal contains trace elements of Uranium and Thorium, and an Oak Ridge National Laboratory study claims that

Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doeses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations

Source. Read that study as its a real eye-opener.

Still think fossil-fuels are the way to go?

Sponge Bob

SeanW wrote:

Anyways, here's something interesting: Apparently coal contains trace elements of Uranium and Thorium

Most of the population of the state lives near a very large ball of Uranium and Thorium, its called the wickila mountains . Yet ye do not complain about it.

bonkey

SeanW wrote:

On the other hand, you have presented nothing to indicate that oil and gas will never run out, that global warming is a myth. Nor have you posted anything that shows that coal mining doesn't kill thousands of people annually, or that wind power can provide stable outputs.

But I've never argued that oil and gas are infinite, that global warming doesn't occur, or any of those.

I questioned your assertion that the alternative to nuclear is to continue unabated down the global-warming path, and to only stop when we run out or when disaster strikes.

This, as I pointed out, is nothing more than a worst case analysis of what not choosing nuclear would mean. The equivalent worst case for nuclear is to assume things like corners being cut, storage being mis-managed, alternate, cheaper, and more fault-prone designs being chosen over the new foolproof designs, etc.

Anyways, here's something interesting: Apparently coal contains trace elements of Uranium and Thorium, and an Oak Ridge National Laboratory study claims thatSource. Read that study as its a real eye-opener.

Eye-opener?

In this thread, or some other carbon-copy of it thats been running, I've already pointed out that a normally-running coal-station will release more radiation than an equivalent correctly functioning nuclear plant.

So whats eye-opening about old news?

Still think fossil-fuels are the way to go?

Where have I suggested that they are? I've suggested merely that people who are plugging one technology over another are invariably giving skewed pictures, and perhaps suggested that in the short-to-medium term some increase in fossil fuel useage will be unavoidable. It may even be the least-worst option...in the short-to-medium term.

Long term? I don't believe there is any proven technology today which is suitable for the long term - including nuclear fission.

jc

zuma

Sponge Bob wrote:

Most of the population of the state lives near a very large ball of Uranium and Thorium, its called the wickila mountains . Yet ye do not complain about it.

Have you any references?

I dont doubt you...its just I like to read about such things!

Sponge Bob

zuma wrote:

Have you any references?

Lots of Uranium/Thorium linkees for you Zuma, in the first post in this thread .

SeanW

Take a look the size of the average American car, or even closer to home, the way development has happened here - suburbs, cars, and Natural Gas electrcity. The world is hooked on fossil fuels and like a junkie on heroin, we're only going to stop when we cause our own destruction or run out of the stuff.

You really think this can be stopped before it is too late?

(Properly run) Nuclear power, and biodiesel etc. is like Methadone - gives the kick, keeps us going but without the energy security and global warming effects.

Where have I suggested that they are?

When you said "I oppose nuclear power." The electricity has to come from somewhere.

in the short-to-medium term some increase in fossil fuel useage will be unavoidable.

So you support fossil fuels? We've only got 2 potential large scale alternatives to fossil fuels, that is biofuels such as biodiesel, and nuclear electricity. You opppose either, you support fossil fuels. Of which coal is the only thing we're not likely to run out of any time soon.

Long term? I don't believe there is any proven technology today which is suitable for the long term - including nuclear fission.

Noones saying any of these technologies are perfect. So, if not Nuclear, where do we get our power from?

bonkey

SeanW wrote:

When you said "I oppose nuclear power."

I've just searched the forum for posts by me with the words "oppose" and "nuclear" in it. The first hit was from 2004.

So where, exactly, did I allegedly say that I oppose nuclear power?

The electricity has to come from somewhere.

So you support fossil fuels?

Possibly, in the short-to-medium term, as I just clarified.

We've only got 2 potential large scale alternatives to fossil fuels, that is biofuels such as biodiesel, and nuclear electricity. You opppose either, you support fossil fuels.

Actually, you can oppose all three, but then someone asks you - as you just did - where the electricity will come from (given that no-one apparently considers investing in increasing effeciency-of-use).

As I've already pointed out, its a case of the least-worst option.

None of the options are without problems and my major gripe is that no-one advocating any of the options appears capable of being objective in terms of being as forthright about the drawbacks of their chosen evil and/or the advantages of the evils they have elected to not choose.

Of which coal is the only thing we're not likely to run out of any time soon.

And coal can actually be used in zero-greenhouse-emission plants, if you're willing to pay the cost and use cutting-edge technology (about as cutting edge as those PBRs you keep mentioning), but - unsurprisingly - this doesn't even get mentioned either by the "anything but thermal" advocates.

Noones saying any of these technologies are perfect.

But thats about all that I've been saying - that and pointing out that proponents of technologies have been less than forthright and objective in acknowleding this very fact.

You've decided that because I've said as much I support thermal, and yet here you are now agreeing with the basic point I've been driving at.

Does this mean you're about to engage in a running battle with yourself, claiming you've said things you haven't, misrepresenting your own arguments, and concluding that you've been supporting thermal?

No...I didn't think so.

So, if not Nuclear, where do we get our power from?

Where have I said "not nuclear"?

I've simply criticised nuclear for not being as clean-cut a solution as its made out to be by its proponents. I've pointed out the flaws in other options that others are overlooking. I'm pointing out the not-so-terrible aspects of thermal that everyone is ignoring in their race to decide what comes next.


jc

SeanW

Look, I never said nuclear is perfect ... it has to be managed carefully, you can't be as reckless with it as the USSR was and excpect not to have ... Chernobyls.

Its PROPERLY DONE Nuclear power that I'm advocating.

Indeed, it may be a case of the least-evil, but even so, in my book, a safely-focused nuclear programme would come out tops in terms of efficiency, near carbon-neutrality, power generation volume, reliability, beating most if not all of the other options hands down. Nothing is ever cut-and-dry simplistic but nuclear vs fossil fuels, I'm starting to believe, is very close.

Oil/Coal/Gas power, in my view, will always be a filthy, dangerous, unsustainable game.