And the profits grow

[kandrathe]

"I already explained why this is the case." No, you didn't, but you have now. So, it's because you expect electrical warming to become cheaper as other means. Apparently you don't mind having to spend 4 times as much energy, just to make a bit of (presumed) profit.

The point is... I don't spend more energy. My household has 4 people in it, and we spend less per person than you do apparently. My heating consumption measured in "Therms" is below average for people living in the Midwest. My energy just comes from one source, and for now a source that is %20 carbon free. As my power company moves to Wind, Solar, and Nuclear I will only get greener.

"We need heating, and cooling here or people die." Weren't you the one who said people shouldn't live in 'dangerous' places like New Orleans, after the events with Katrina? Maybe you should take your own advice, if you can't stand the 'heat'.

Winter and Summer are annual events. When you live below sea level, know your levy is rated for only a minor hurricane, and decide to stay in the city when a major hurricane comes is suicide. I said that people should be prepared for the negative consequences of where they live. You are telling me where to live (and most everyone in the world who lives above 40° N latitude.

"Since beginning operations in 1976, France’s La Hague plant has safely processed over 23,000 tones of used fuel" ... Now, how exactly is this reactor type helping to reduce the amount of nuclear waste in the USA?

The waste hasn't been destroyed has it? It's still there, ready for reprocessing. Albeit, some of the older stuff has lost some of it's kick by now. The only thing that stops development in the USA, is political pressure by people who don't want anything nuclear developed. It comes down to this, your reason to not develop nuclear power is that nuclear power is not developed in the US.

"Tell me about your solar panel and all green things you are doing for the rest of us." I don't need a solar panel, because my energy bill is already only 10% of yours (through isolation and conservation).

Ok. Me too. I don't need a solar panel, because I use less energy than most people in my state. Besides, this is probably one of the worst places in the world for solar power.

"But, could it be done with green energy sources? Of course." Right. To reduce the problems of nuclear energy, you want to use 'green' energy sources. I thought nuclear power was already 'green' in your opinion.

Yes, we could use nuclear power to supply the energy to reprocess the fuel, and electric vehicles to transport the ore. Maybe we could give truckers a break, and let them use bio-diesel and emit a little CO2.

"How about the coal and oil needed to make and ship solar panels" -- Yeah, everyone knows that nuclear reactors and enrichment centrifuges grow on trees.

Um, what I was saying was a tit for tat argument. Reactors and centrifuges don't grow on trees, but neither to the facilities for manufacturing solar panels. Solar panels, just as nuclear facilities, have a limited life span, and so they will eventually need to be replaced. Solar panels don't grow on trees either, although trees are natures solar panels. :)

"There is simply no viable way to collect the vast majority of that energy" Why would you need that much? A total space as small as 2% of the uninhabited areas in the Sahara would be enough to fulfill all current energy demand. And that's without any improvement to existing techniques.

You were the one saying that the sun hits the Earth with caboodles of energy every day. He was merely pointing out that much of the surface of the planet is not feasible. So, we throw out 70%-90% of the surface... Now you are saying if we used some of the Sahara, that 2% would do it. The Sahara is 9,000,000 km².

Since you don't do any math to back up your crack-potted-ness... Let me do some. Surface area of the earth is 510,072,000 km², land is 148,940,000 km² (29.2%), we skipped forests, fields, mountains, etc. Now we are limited to deserts, which are wonderful places to live and work by the way. The Sahara is 9,000,000 km², or about 6% of the land area of the earth. So you would like to cover 1/3 of the Sahara with solar panels. Let's work backwards using 1.5 x 10^13 Watts as the power generation we need. Using "existing techniques" we are seeing about 165 watts/ square meter, so how much surface area would we need to generate the needed wattage? The good news is that you really only need 90,909 square kilometers of solar panels. So, not 3 million square kilometers, 91 thousand square kilometers. But wait... This area only has good sunlight for say 8 hours a day, so in order to supply the whole world you would need to triple the area, and store 16 hours of power in batteries. That would be a battery array in the Sahara holding 5×10^12 Joules of energy, or 1.38888889 × 10^9 watt hours. Here is an article
discussing the largest array of batteries in the world so far. Which cost $30 million dollars, and can deliver 27 MW for 15 minutes. Your battery array will need to be 3,292,181,073 times larger. More bad news is that batteries need to be kept cool, so you would need to supply some AC for your storage array or it will melt down.

More bad news is that at a modest $1,400/square meter it would cost about $125,636,363,600,000, and that is trillions of dollars. For cost estimates, I figured that the panels would be about half the cost, with the remainder in consolidation, storage and transmission. It might be more.

The US national debt is 9 trillion. Were you planning on borrowing the money?

Here is a description of the Sahara; "The Sahara occupies approximately 10 percent of the African Continent and is one of the hottest regions in the world, with mean annual temperatures exceeding 30°C. In the hottest months, temperatures can rise over 50°C, and temperatures can fall below freezing in the winter. A single daily variation of -0.5°C to 37.5°C has been recorded. The Sahara is also extremely windy. Hot, dust-filled winds create dust devils, which can make the temperatures seem even hotter."

Let's talk about maintenance... And, one last question. How would you get this power to New York? Oh, yeah. They live above the 40° N latitude mark. We abandoned that place.

"You seem to have this place confused with 'Moron Lounge'. Please go back." Never heard of it. Is that where you usually post, Pete?

The moron lounge would be where you would propose covering 1/3 of the Sahara desert with solar panels and everyone would call you a genius.