Hi Tom! :-)

 TW> Wind also has provem to be a dismal Failure except i nvery limited
 TW> areas. First there is not enough Average Wind Power is most places 
 TW> for and Large generating units. 
Experiments with large units have failed here in Germany, but "wind
farms" of groups of smaller units are very successful.

 TW> They are also a VERY high maintenance units and would require HUGE
 TW> taxpayer subsidities to privide Affordable power. 
No idea about the maintenance involved. I know that farmers (probably rich
ones) around here are putting up groups of 2-4 units on their land for the
extra money they get from selling the extra power they generate to larger
providers.

 TW> And lastly for Solar. It is Rally not scalable up to any degeee 
 TW> except to provide Minmual power to remore mountian Cabins. The conversio
 TW> nefficency is abismilaly low.
That doesn't really matter in this case since we get a lot of sunlight.
It's not like we absolutely need a high conversion ratio for it to work
out. Plus a solar energy cell is mostly maintenance-free.

 TW> That would requre more Land araa that is
 TW> really avaialble for anytonh of any size .
Well, put it up in the Sahara desert, on the border of it somewhere, use it
to seperate out hydrogen from ordinary water, then sell the hydrogen for
use in fuel cells. Probably uneconomical to do so, but there would be no
pollution except for production of the equipment needed.

 TW> Since we are running out of Fossil Fuels we have to face up to it. 
Sure.

 TW> IT is NUCLEAR power or a Massive Reduction, back to Third World 
 TW> conditions, of the Living Standards of the Industrial Nations.
A lot of the stuff we use just plainly wastes energy. There have been
experiments to show that you can build a house that can heat itself to
acceptable temperatures inside, even in winter, without requiring external
power.

We're just used to wasting energy, myself not excluded. Do I really turn
off the stuff in here when I leave the house? Nope, it's mostly on standby,
wasting energy for nothing. And with some modern equipment, you don't even
get the choice - it's either standby or you have to unplug the thing,
possibly losing settings and such.

But of course, you don't hear that from the people who run nuclear power plants. ;)

I still think nuclear is a bad idea as long as there is no known-good way
to handle the waste material. There's no way to predict the future, and I
won't believe any "expert" claiming that their method of storage
is guaranteed to work out for thousand years. Too much can happen in such a
timeframe.

There are alternatives. They may not be economically perfect right now, but
remember that economics is not driven by long-term concerns in any way.
What we consider an acceptable cost is entirely up to us, all the values in
that field are made up by humans and not laws of nature.

Ciao
Pascal

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.1