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Barbara,

When you crank out the numbers it takes on hell of a lot of solar cell 
area to produce enough electricity to run a house. Solar cells are a lot 
more efficient in space than on the earth (our atmosphere absorbs a lot 
of sun energy). Then solar produces DC and we need AC the conversion 
efficiency is probably 50% at best. Our society was built to run on AC 
because AC can be sent down transmission lines.

I don't have the numbers at hand but a significant amount of electric 
power in the US comes from oil fired plants. Nuclear is not the total 
answer but it is one of them. If all electric power were produced by 
nuclear then the air would be a lot cleaner from not burning coal and we 
would free up oil for other uses.

The problem with nuclear in the US is spent fuel rods. Other countries - 
particularly France and Russia reprocess these to produce new fuel rods. 
Even Iran is getting into the picture to reprocess fuel rods. Although 
we invented the process (Oak Ridge National Labs developed this process) 
we do not reprocess for political reasons. By reprocess fuel rods - 
there would be a lot less nuclear waste to have to dispose of and 
disposal of nuclear waste is the biggest problem.

The newer reactors are very safe and very efficient. We need leadership 
in Washington to push a national energy strategy that makes sense. We 
don't seem to be able to find that leadership.

Truman

Barbara McCrary wrote:
> I can't blame anyone for not wanting a huge field of wind turbines.  
> They have to be the ugliest blight on the landscape that I have ever 
> seen.  Lud and I believe that nuclear is the answer.  I know a lot of 
> people are worried about safety, but there are two nuclear 
> power-generating plants in CA,  and no one seems to be very worried 
> about them.  It's just the idea of creating new ones that gets people 
> all in a stew.  Too bad...it's clean, it's effective, and it's 
> available.  It doesn't pollute the air and we don't have to sell our 
> souls to the middle eastern countries to have it.
> This does not, however, solve the problem of sending our cars and 
> trucks down the highways.
>
> Barbara


--

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how 
smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard 
Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics


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