Power grid in North America will have to be entirely
revamped into a network to connect together all of the
renewable and nuclear power stations many of which
to be built in remote locations in the near future. I don't see
any alternative if our society and our industrial infrastructure
are to be weaned off fossil fuel. Copper will be as valuable as
gold sooner or later.
Uh, yeah.
Nuclear is just a disaster waiting to happen. Plus everyone likes to ignore or forget or be blissfully ignorant of the big problem associated with nuclear power is , what do you do with all that nuclear waste that is generated? It's lethal stuff. In fact, it's lethal for tens of thousands of years. Yet we keep thinking that nuclear is the great panacea. Right now in Canada, we have no clue what to do with nuclear waste, so we store in giant pools to keep it cool. And well, it needs to be kept cool, um, forever. Put that into context. You need to keep it cool for 10,000 years. 2,000 years ago, JC went walking around in the middle east. Where was mankind 10,000 years ago? Um yeah, great idea.
As far as hydro goes (my personal favourite), all the best sites in Canada have been developed. As such, the only way to develop more hydro dams is massive flooding to create the necessary reservoirs. Then there's the costs of the installations. Hugely expensive. Just look at what is happening in Newfoundland associated with the new Muskrat Falls project. God Bless Newfoundland, I think it was a great decision and one that will truly pay off in the long run, however, it's been a NIGHTMARE for the province. The lesson from Muskrat falls is that it's HUGELY expensive and it will be mired in controversy. Without a doubt.
Believe it or not, the best way to generate electricity is by burning natural gas or coal (gasp). When you look at what the old coal plants put out in terms of Megawatts, it's astounding. Nanticoke for example put out 4,000 Megawatts of power. 4,000!!. And incredibly cheaply at that. And yes, it was burning coal, however, with the technologies they had, pollution, real pollution was effectively 0. But C02 was not 0 and depending on whether you believe that CO2 is a pollutant or not, it was or was not a problem. But, the province shut it down 10 years ago and replaced it with a solar farm that takes up a massive tract of land and generates, wait for it........
40 Megawatts.
Woo hoo.
40/4,000 = 1/100'th as much power from a massive solar farm as opposed to a thermal generation plant.
Bottom line, it's not so simple and physics can be so boring to people who prefer to dream.
