Forum Overview :: Biohazard: Code Veronica :: Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post

[quote name="Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post"]I was having this conversation with my wife yesterday, actually, and one of the points I made is that nuclear power (fission) needs to be seen as just one step on a chain of power sources that give increasing amounts of power per reactant as well as increasing amounts of power per pollutant. 1. Coal 2. Oil 3. Fission 4. Fusion 5. Antimatter Fission is not the end-all and be-all of power production, but in nations where there are mostly-ecology-free wastelands (the US has Nevada, China has it's western third) to use for safe storage, it's a step up in both the aforementioned performance indicators - a useful halfway point between where we are now and fusion, which produces 3 times the power per reactant molecule (IIRC from highschool physics) with no pollution to speak of. As far as solar, tidal, and wind energy go, I have two concerns: a) especially in the case of solar, what is the *pollution* cost of production of the infrastructure, and b) is taking all this energy from our weather and tidal systems necessarily safe from a climatology viewpoint? I realize the energy we take is conserved, but how easily would it reenter those systems again? posted by Ryvar at 8:37 AM PST on September 4 [/quote]