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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2006-07-10, 19:41

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Beardsley
Give me cheap nuclear produced electricity!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave
I agree. US nuclear power plants are *very* safe.
"Safe" and "cheap" have not gone together in the history of nuclear power. Forty years ago nuclear energy was seen as the future, but governments are now very cautious about allowing new plants to be built because of the huge costs and public backlash. In fact, since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, no new nuclear power plants have been constructed in the USA.

The International Energy Agency forecasts a 5-10% decline in worldwide nuclear energy market-share by 2025, as countries such as Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden phase out nuclear power. Of course, many countries are building new nuclear power-plants, including Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, India, Iran, Japan, North Korea, Romania, Russia and Taiwan, so nuclear will continue to be a large source of energy worldwide for a long time to come. For example, France gets fully 80% of its energy from nuclear power (from 60 nuclear power-plants) and has no plans to cut back.

But for half a century nuclear power has been too expensive to become our dominant source of energy. Perhaps increasing oil prices will finally make nuclear power very attractive from an economic standpoint, but political opposition to nuclear power-plants is higher than at any point in the past.

PS. Quoting Henry Ford on civilisation (or anything other than mass production) is a bit rich. He was a complete asshole in every way, certainly not qualified to pontificate on civilisation, and additionally made his comments in a bygone era when we didn't know the dangers of excessive energy consumption.
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