A good article comparing Wind Power and Nuclear Power.

http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2008/ ... _work.html

Oh, please, not Larouche stuff. It's got an ideological bias so thick you could spread it on your bread.

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Never let the best be the enemy of the good.

Ireland is fooling itself if it thinks that it can run the economy on intermittant power sources. I don't see why we have totally excluded ourselves from having nuclear power. Clearly a big plant like Comanche Peak would be inappropriate for this country but there are smaller nuclear generating options. I don't see/hear much discussion about Pebble Bed Reactors (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor) which can be quite small, easy to maintain and are inherently safe.

We are going to end up buying British nuclear powered energy at the end of the day anyway.

I wonder what the economics of using wind, wave and other intermittent electrity sources to produce gases such as hydrogen which could be stored? If the economics were good then we wouldn't have to worry about these sources being intermittent.

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Happy Christmas to everyone on Pie!

No, no. The Green parshy have assured the nation that we can run our evil capitalist society on posies and love. Meano nuclear power is nasty

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Liquidate labour, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.

I'm not anti-nuclear, but I wouldn't be as pessimistic about the prospects for wind. We have massive potential, and while wind is intermittent, it ends up churning out at about 20% of its total capacity. That's not too bad, but not sufficient to be the base energy supply - so that's where the nuclear can come in. But nuclear is still predicated on a finite resource - of which we have none, so it isn't ideal.

Ideological bias doesn't mean he is wrong on the facts!

Analyse his arithmetic and tell us where (if anywhere) he has got it wrong please...

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Mr Gormley described calls for the resignation of his cabinet colleague as "absolute nonsense". He said Mr Lenihan was doing "a very good job under exceptionally difficult circumstances".

The reactors in nuclear submarines must be small as well so I don't see why size is an issue for Ireland. We have, however, abundant supplies of natural energy so perhaps we shouldn't have to import much. I'm convinced wind and wave could supply a lot of our needs, coupled with the fossil fuel stations that we have. Some of these have been sold to Spanish company Endesa so maybe there is a competition laws restriction on us from building any more large plants once the one in Cork is done ... but I think we'd still fit in a nuclear station.

If we needed it which I doubt we do. The Guardian reported how hydrogen has become cheaper to produce from water too now with the development of a new catalyst which costs $9 per kilo as opposed to $9000 an ounce for the previous substance (rhodium/platinum) The Guardian.

Hydrogen can help deal with the intermittant problem of some alternative energy sources.

Lads, we're not going to have a Nuke in Ireland because it is not an economic way to produce electricity - never mind all the other reasons.

And that article about making hydrogen from Ethanol gave me the best laugh I've had all week.

How does this nonsense get published?

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"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Mark Twain

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoléon Bonaparte

Why bother, though? He's not talking about the costs or risks of generation, he's talking only about the land requirement. On that subject, one minor point would be that nobody is going to build an offshore nuclear station, and another is that he's not bothering to factor in any infrastructure for the nuclear plant.

However, my objection really is based on the inherent bias of Larouche publications, and "checking the maths" isn't going to catch that all the time. If you have a bias against wind, for example, you can choose the lowest estimate of the possible generation range, and the highest end of the separation necessary between turbines. Your maths is fine, but you'll get a completely different figure from someone with a pro-wind bias who chooses the highest generation estimate and the lowest separation.

I don't have an objection to nuclear plants, and I'd certainly prefer to see them than new fossil fuel plants - but it isn't a case of "renewables or nuclear", or at least it shouldn't be. It should simply be a case of "anything but fossil fuel".

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Never let the best be the enemy of the good.

I have'nt read the article but i presume this is about what would what happen if Wind Power got into a fight with Nuclear Power.....I reckon Nuclear Power would be defeated because Wind Power would have mother nature on its side and would have the support of the majority of the public....hope my contribution helps.