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A comment on Global Warming: For the record. Parent comment

Re:Global Warming: For the record by DaniFong on Saturday March 06, 2010 @06:20PM (#1172445)
Why is it an exercise in futility? Hydro power accounts for a huge amount of our power already, and there's enough in wind and solar for the rest of it. Nuclear is presently quite expensive and takes a very long time to build. There are new technologies being pursued, but there are new technologies being pursued in wind and solar, too.
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Re:Global Warming: For the record by AngryParsley on Saturday March 06, 2010 @07:16PM (#1172543)
6.1% is a huge amount of our power? The US generates 3x more electricity from nuclear than hydro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008_US_electricity_genera...

Most of the cost-effective places to build hydroelectric dams are already utilized. Also, the lakes created behind the dams displace people.

By choosing a more expensive form of power generation, the economy is impacted. This is an often-overlooked external cost of renewables.

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Re:Global Warming: For the record by DaniFong on Saturday March 06, 2010 @08:25PM (#1172668)
It's 19% of worldwide electricity generation.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wuhy.html

Furthermore, hydropower may be throttled up and down, such that the combination of hydro + wind and solar can hit penetrations near 50% before more energy storage is needed.

Also, wind power is less expensive on a kwhr delivered basis than coal. http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Ia.html

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Re:Global Warming: For the record by borism on Saturday March 06, 2010 @06:36PM (#1172474)
Indeed, we shouldn't forget economic side of this.

Nuclear fission is physically the most powerful power source we can control now, that's true. But it is very capital intensive.

Solution is not a single technology, it's a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, natural gas, nuclear etc.

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