<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><div><span>I have been interested in various energy <span id="misspell-0"><span>possibilities</span></span></span></div><div><span>for over 30 years and have seen two generations</span></div><div><span>of money being wasted on solar development with</span></div><div><span>virtually nothing to show for it. Wind and solar</span></div><div><span>both have niche location applications but I see</span></div><div><span>no possibility either will ever move beyond that</span></div><div><span>scale. Subsidizing either only means reducing</span></div><div><span>other economic opportunities to support a losing</span></div><div><span>proposition.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Geothermal, tide, ocean currents, hydroelectric,</span></div><div><span>and most other alternatives suffer from the
same</span></div><div><span>niche application problems of solar and wind.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Various carbon fuels will continue to be used </span></div><div><span>for the foreseeable future because of energy</span></div><div><span>density, portability, cost and the ready existence</span></div><div><span>of technology. </span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span><span id="misspell-1" class="mark">Biofuels</span> are also a niche application - a losing</span></div><div><span>proposition in most applications done today. </span></div><div><span>Though </span><span>nuclear energy could be converted to </span></div><div><span>more usable </span><span>forms by cycling it through <span id="misspell-2" class="mark">biofuels</span>.</span></div><div><span>As much as possible input power for planting,</span></div><div><span>harvesting, and processing </span><span>of <span id="misspell-3"
class="mark">biofuels</span> coming </span></div><div><span>from nuclear sources rather </span><span>than carbon fuels </span></div><div><span>and the <span id="misspell-4" class="mark">biofuel</span> itself.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>The sheer energy density of nuclear power means</span></div><div><span>it dwarfs all other options. Much of the time</span></div><div><span>delay for implementation of nuclear power</span></div><div><span>plants can be reduced by going to <span id="misspell-5"><span>standardized<var id="yui-ie-cursor"></var></span></span></span></div><div><span>designs.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>As far as big solar projects go - I see them as</span></div><div><span>being of interest in industrializing space</span></div><div><span>not moving space nuclear energy [sun] to</span></div><div><span>the Earth when there are plenty of Earth</span></div><div><span>based nuclear energy
possibilities with much</span></div><div><span>less capital risk.</span></div><div><span></span> </div><div><span>Dennis May</span><br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2" face="Arial"><div style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); height: 0px; line-height: 0; font-size: 0px;" class="hr" contentEditable="false" readonly="true"></div><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Keith Henson <hkeithhenson@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, September 17, 2011 5:46 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [ExI] Nukes was less expensive energy<br></font><br>On Fri, <span id="misspell-7"
class="mark">Sep</span> 16, 2011 at 8:06 PM, Dennis May <<a href="mailto:dennislmay@yahoo.com" ymailto="mailto:dennislmay@yahoo.com">dennislmay@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>> The projections of what will happen economically<br>> without massive nuclear energy development is<br>> not pretty.? Even if that effort began immediately<br>> it is not clear it could happen fast enough.<br><br>The length of time it takes to build nuclear plants is a big reason to<br>look at other approaches. I am not at all sure even what is the best<br>approach or mix of approaches to get really inexpensive energy. I can<br>state that it need to be down in the 1-2 cents per kWh. That's $800<br>to $1600 per kW based on return of capital in ten years and it needs<br>to scale to 15-20 <span id="misspell-8" class="mark">TW</span> over 20 years.<br><br>That's building around a 1000 1 <span id="misspell-9" class="mark">GW</span> reactors per
year.<br><br>I have not looked into this in detail. I have looked into <span id="misspell-10" class="mark">SBSP</span> and<br><span id="misspell-11" class="mark">StratoSolar</span> and they look possible. Perhaps you know about reactors?<br><br>It seems better to me at this stage to state what is needed in broad<br>terms rather than being too specific about how to accomplish the task.<br><br>Keith<br>_______________________________________________<br>extropy-chat mailing list<br><a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" ymailto="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a><br><br><br></div></div></div></body></html>