We're pretty lucky in the Pacific Northwest - lots of hydroelectric dams, growing wind farms, and where we live (not ! Seattle) lots of solar gain, at least from spring until fall. We also have nuclear energy and a high concentration of the few nuclear scientists and engineers left in the country. But these other energy sources have issues too. The hydroelectric dams may interfere with the salmon spawning runs - possibly leading to the extinction of species of salmon. As for nuclear, there's no question that the handling and storage of the spent  fuel that stays radioactive for thousands of years requires a lot of work. But there are other issues with nuclear power. Most of the existing reactors are approaching -- or beyond -- their designed operating life expectancy. They are getting old. And without other sources of power to take their place, when the old reactors need to be shut down, that will put even more strain on available energy supplies. We could build new ones but that brings up the other issue. Since we haven't built any new nuclear reactors in so long, there aren't very many nuclear scientists and engineers graduating from our colleges and universities. And the scientists and engineers who built the ones operating now, well, we don't want some of them driving anymore, much less building nuclear reactors! We don't have the body of expertise needed to sustain greater dependence on nuclear energy. And if there was a major disruption in the global oil supply on April 30 or any day soon, it would take a long time to train and educate the people we would need to build and safely operate any new nuclear reactors.

It is funny, though, how people's priorities change. Last year salmon, this year ...

Tags: arg, education, energy, nuclear, solar, wind, world without oil, wwo
Current Mood: pensive