Pascal Schmidt wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 PS> Hi Roy! :-)

 RJT> I'm all for that (also was moderator of "HOMEPOWER" echo before I 
 RJT> let it lapse :-),  but hydro is pretty limited in terms of possible 
 RJT> sites,  and solar is only really effective in semitropical to 
 RJT> tropical areas,  not so much further north.

 PS> Yes, that's a problem, although it is still possible to use solar
 PS> power in northern areas. Not as the main supply, obviously. What
 PS> could be possible would be to use solar power (where it's
 PS> effective) to produce hydrogenium from water and then ship that
 PS> elsewhere for use in fuel cells. Pretty old idea, would require
 PS> some infrastructure to be in place.

Sure,  and it's seriously inefficient all over the place.  And hardly
economical.  I remember reading an article quite some time ago entitled
"The Hydrogen Economy" or something pretty close to that,  and
none of it has come to pass at all.

 RJT> I suspect wind needs better sites too,  at least to some extent.

 PS> We have quite a lot of that here, in northern Germany.

I saw some serious windmills in both Western PA and in West Virginia this
past summer on a couple of trips we took,  though I didn't get much info on
either of them.  Those things were *huge*,  and probably subsidized all to
heck.

 RJT> And the real problem with most of this stuff is the initial 
 RJT> investment, so "encourage" all too often means
"subsidize" because
 RJT> they don't make a whole lot of economic sense at the present time.

 PS> Yes, but it makes sense to do so from both a security (hey, a 
 PS> nuclear plant is even a "nice" target for a terrorist attack)

Tell me about it,  I'm not all that far from Three Mile Island.  :-)

 PS> and an ecological point of view. I personally wouldn't mind paying 
 PS> a few extra bucks. Most of the people around here probably wouldn't
 PS> like the idea too much, though.

It's not "a few" though,  it's a lot more than that.  If there
was some way to do this economically it would be happening on its own.  The
only way it seems to be happening now is when individuals choose to do it
(and pay for it out of their own pocket) on a small scale,  or when
government money is used to subsidize it on a somewhat bigger scale. 
Neither approach offers much longer term viability.

 RJT> That's the single biggest problem I have with nukes,  and it's lots 
 RJT> longer than hundreds of years,  though the hotter stuff is 
 RJT> relatively short-lived.

 PS> Yep, and there's no good solution yet. You can't even fire it into
 PS> the sun because you don't want to risk the rocket failing and waste
 PS> material getting dumped all over the place.

And it would actually cost quite a bit to do so,  most people who offer
that suggestion (which came up over and over again back when I used to read
the SPACE echo) don't understand the costs involved in that kind of a
maneuver.  Not to mention that nobody would want the launches to take place
anywhere near them!  They even got all fired up about NASA's RTGs
(Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) which are basically a bit of
plutonium or other isotope embedded in a solid block of ceramic material. 
Those things are designed to survive reentry and crash scenarios...

 RJT> Civilization is one,  and it's actually been considered what sort of 
 RJT> steps might be taken to ensure the integrity of storage if 
 RJT> civilization were to fall.

 PS> I somehow suspect those steps are expensive, expensive enough so
 PS> that they're not taken.

What I've read on it was more on the level of speculation,  ideas getting
tossed out and such,  nothing that was seriously considered to be
implemented.

 RJT> It's not the fuel supply as much as the byproducts that concern me.

 PS> Agreed.

 RJT> This is true,  though they probably got a good deal more expensive 
 RJT> in the process.

 PS> Yeah, likely, though there are (in Germany) huge fines that the
 PS> owner of the plant would have to pay if his facility were to 
 PS> produce more air pollution than allowed by government regulations -
 PS> huge enough so that buying and installing the necessary air filter
 PS> technology makes sense economically, too.

They seem to do things differently there in some respects like that.  I
remember hearing some years ago that when a company contracted to construct
roads like the Autobahn,  they were required to post a bond to ensure its
quality for something like 20 years.  I heard that and thought that it was
a good idea!  And around here I can remember brand new stretches of
interstate highways being built that required repairs either before or
right shortly after they were opened!  They seem barely able to keep up
with repairs never mind rebuilding when it's needed or new construction...

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