Coal burned in the ISONE (New England minus a tiny bit of northern Maine) comes almost exclusively from South America -- Columbia and Venezuela. It turns out that shipping it by barge is easier than getting it past the railway congested New York City area.

That written, given the current prices of delivered gas and coal, gas is on the margin, not coal. That means additional wind generation likely displaces natural gas generation for most hours of the year. However, given that natural gas prices continue to fall, the dispatch order may switch within the next few years or sooner, especially in non-winter months, relegating coal to peak hours during the week in summer and winter regardless of the wind projects.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for installing wind and displacing fossil fuel generation in New England, New York, and (more importantly) PJM (DC to Newark to Chicago triangle, roughly). However, understand that at this point, wind isn't likely to displace coal in New England.

> 1: It is energy dense, so it doesn't take up valued land. Solar and wind farms are great, but energy losses through wires cause those to become not feasible.

Sorta kinda. Firstly, because modern nuclear power plants are so large (~1 GW) and not located very close to cities, there are tremendous losses in transmission. This can also be true with wind, but not so much solar. In fact, the real elegance of solar is when placed rooftop, both residential and commercial. Transmission losses quickly approach zero, as does use of so-called valued land. Also, nuclear does take up a bunch of land -- Vogtle is 3100 acres. At 5 acres/MW PV, you could do over 600 MW of PV there... not as much as Vogtle, but not as tremendous a difference as many believe. Plus, Vogtle requires 3100 contiguous acres of land... whereas renewables can be built as "in-fill" in underused patches of land or on marginally valuable land.

> 2: A reprocessing, "breeder" reactor can reduce the need for high level waste dumps.

Irrelevant to the nuclear plants approved in the article, and given tUSA's foreign policy situation, this is a long way off.

> 3: Reactor fuel is relatively cheap and abundant. When uranium becomes an issue, there is always thorium (although that is still a research leap ahead.)

The sun and wind and rain are cheaper, and more abundant. Plus it is delivered straight to the US, not requiring trade agreements or transportation. The challenge with both nuclear and renewables isn't the fuel cost, it's the capital cost and, in the case of nuclear, off-shore wind, and concentrated solar thermal, very long lead times (planning, permitting, and construction).

> 4: Safety. The deaths per terawatt figures completely show this.

Relative to what? Relative to fossil plants, sure. Relative to hydro built 50+ years ago, sure. Relative to modern renewables? No data. And no, the one blog post which /. loves to post about it doesn't count -- it's full of holes and is not even reviewed by an editor, no less experts in the field or in academia.

--

Nuclear has some real advantages, but don't whitewash the disadvantages. There is no current long term waste storage strategy, and no evidence that tUSA is moving toward solving this problem. There is no short term hope of breeder reactors or nuclear fuel reprocessing due to foreign policy considerations. Additionally, the cost of building a nuclear plant is enormous on a $/kW level, especially when the cost of financing and risk of default is baked in. This is a real killer -- given relatively flat future electricity demand curves, tremendous potential for electrical energy efficiency projects [at a much lower cost per kW (and kWh)], and the reality that there are loads of renewable generation project opportunities today with costs lower on a kW capacity rating and on a kWh basis, there's very little argument for new nuclear right now so long as we're leaving EE and renewable stones unturned.

P.S. The idea that nuclear generators will get cheaper with practice is an attractive idea. It was espoused in the first nuclear power era too. Didn't happen though. On a real dollars per kW basis, prices increased over time. What makes you think the future won't emulate the past?

P.P.S. The "baseload" argument is bunk too. The US grid has plenty of peaking capacity. What we want is cheap energy, not additional capacity for 3am. Besides, guess when load is highest? In almost all of tUSA, its on weekday non-holiday afternoons when it's hot outside. It turns out that the sun tends to shine rather brightly at that exact time, which makes PV particularly valuable -- it generates electricity precisely when the demand for electricity is highest, thereby helping us to avoid using plants with higher operating costs like CT gas plants and oil plants.

prostitution: consent possible, and it is legal in parts of tUSA
adultery: consent possible, and it is de facto legal in all parts of tUSA
necrophilia: consent not possible, and a corpse isn't a sock.
bestiality: consent not possible, and an animal, like a corpse, isn't a sock.
pedophilia: consent not possible, as minors can't give consent.
possession of child pornography: not a direct consent issue, but it is inextricably linked to the crime, much like ivory is to killing elephants.
incest: if not a minor, this is a funny one. Consent is possible, but heterosexual incest amongst adults can have some pretty awful results.

Half of his position isn't particularly controversial, and the other half a part of his statement ("as long as no one is coerced") eliminates most of the other half. The only two controversial remaining items which RMS seems to allow for are possession of child pornography and incest amongst adults. Controversial and extreme points? Sure. But only two of 'em methinks *shrugs*

Nuclear operating costs are far lower than fossil fuel plants... but they are higher than solar photovoltaic, wind, and hydro in almost all cases.

As for the "nuclear is always on" claims, that's true for the most part. The thing is, not every hour of electricity is worth the same. The Southeast (and most of tUSA) has surplus capacity even after the GWs of coal retirement hit 2016-2018. What we need in order to keep the price low is inexpensive *peaking* capacity. Guess when load is highest? Yip. When the sun is shining; more precisely, summer months on clear days at around 3pm M-F non-holidays. Guess when the cost of generating electricity with fossil fuel is the highest? Yip, during peak hours [thanks to economic dispatch, a good thing].

As for me, I'm not opposed to nuclear power, and I do believe that carbon emissions are the most important challenge of our generation. Nuclear waste is a real problem /. tends to gloss over [by either ignoring it in absolute terms or ignoring the foreign policy and transportation implications of reprocessing]. I'm opposed to the cost. Nuclear is far more expensive than renewables, we don't need the nighttime capacity, and if the First Nuclear Age is any indication, cost per MW will go up over time, not down.

The Equal Opportunity clause of the FCC rules for Political *Candidates* is quite clear. Network television may not refuse a political ad from a candidate, nor can they "overcharge".

Unlike the continental US, Hawai'i doesn't benefit from a geographically diverse grid. When it's cloudy, it's cloudy over all of Hawai'i. When it's not windy, it's not windy anywhere. An oversimplification to be sure, but fundamentally the continental US has much more diverse weather at any given time [plus many more total hours of sunlight], which means that it's not subject to the wild swings of non-dispatchable weather-impacted renewables that Hawai'i is.

Hawai'i can and should get lots of it's energy needs from renewables. However, they need to be able to dispatch, so either storage or fossil or a boat load of biomass or concentrated solar thermal, as the fixed costs of geothermal generally make it inappropriate for anything but base load.

The EU nations import 8.5 million barrels a day. USA: 13.5. Japan: 5.5. China: 4.5. South Korea: 2.5. Get *all* of those nations to ban Iran crude and you'll substantially affect Iranian prices for the worse (and prices within the embargoing nations for the worse, too). Just EU? Meh. EU plus USA? Still meh since in fact most of the current USA's imports come from the Americas. But EU, USA, Japan, SKorea? Now we're talking. As Iran goes further and further down the list of importing nations they start having to deal with shipping into smaller ports, into ports which can't take as much oil as quickly, etc. Less efficient transactions and less efficient shipping, and potentially for a lower base price because the countries agreeing to buy Iranian oil will have negotiating leverage.

In the mean time, it wouldn't be the worst thing for each of the potentially embargoing nations to figure out how to reduce the oil required for each unit of GDP, health, or any other metric of "goodness" that the nation uses. After all, an oil embargo hurts both trade partners, but reducing demand hurts the seller and improves conditions for the (former) buyer.

It's the cheapest route, but it really isn't as necessary as Iran would have you believe. There's enough surplus pipeline capacity through Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, even Israel to offset about half of the closure [although admittedly not all of that capacity is ready to go immediately, as some of it has been mothballed]. That means world oil supply is reduced by 10% in the near term. A supply shock? Sure. However, the combination of fuel switching for electricity generation and oil already being stored elsewhere, plus the potential increase in production elsewhere (OPEC and otherwise) to grab extra profits suggests this isn't going to be terribly disruptive, and certainly not something worth going to war over.

In the mean time, it's worth noting that a sudden increase in petrol-energy-efficiency could shave off that last 10% in just a few years. Help avoid war: ride a bicycle | ride a bus | ride a subway | walk | telecommute | carpool.

If I owned a car, I'd likely drive it to work every day. I'd also drive it home from work every day. Quality statistics aside, that's 50 car tips every 25 days, not every 50.

According to the law*, a yellow light is to be treated as a red light *if* the vehicle can safely stop. Only if you can't safely stop at a yellow are you to proceed.

Naturally, if folks are driving the posted speed limit, it's far easier to stop at a yellow, because stopping distance increases quite a bit when your speed goes from 30 mph to 35 to 40 to 45. We can bicker about speed limits on the interstate all day long, but local road speed limits are much more important to get right, because you've got pedestrians, cyclists, autos pulling in and out of driveways, right on red at intersections, etc. Stopping distance is really important. Do a better job enforcing local speed limits, and you'll find that folks are less likely to drive through a yellow (or "orange") light, improving safety for everyone.

The other part is this. Plenty of folks treat a yellow as green. Always. Lengthen the yellow, and folks get a feel for the longer length... and will continue to just plough through it as if it were green. Once folks re-calibrate, you've got a worse situation, because people will see a yellow and be even more inclined to accelerate.

There's no need to lengthen the yellow. We need to enforce local speed limit laws.

  * all vary state to state, but this is generally speaking the case

"And as for healthcare, no one goes without treatment, even if they don't pay for it themselves, like myself and most of us do."

Dead wrong. Nobody goes without urgent care if they show up to an ER. Anything short of that... unless you're (a) very poor, (b) over 65, (c) a veteran, (d) under 18 and poor but not very poor, or (e) have a job which provides health insurance, or (f) married to or the (25 year old) child of someone in category e.

That sounds like everybody, but its far from it. This is just for "body" care -- dentistry and health care coverage gaps in America are massive, often even for the so-called insured. Even if you are in one of those categories, you're not guaranteed care... it all depends on what ails you, who declares it a pre-existing condition, whether or not the best treatment is the lowest cost treatment, whether or not you want a second opinion or a specialist, if you can afford the co-pays for therapeutic treatment or medication which pile up week after week, etc. etc.

but the claim that it's merely a revenue collection aid is bogus.

ALPR does a remarkable job of finding autos for which the owner has an outstanding warrant. It's usually pretty minor stuff, but not always. ALPR flags an auto with a warrant, the police officer takes notice. Obviously not every ALPR is located on a police vehicle and not every car flagged is being driven by the person for which there is an outstanding warrant.

Still, some of the time, it is used to find persons with outstanding warrants, and that is a very real, positive public safety and justice tool. We can argue if the benefits are worth the general loss of privacy (including tracking of location), but to claim that it does "nothing to promote safety" is flat wrong.

For urban-to-urban commuting, the 25 mph top speed is sufficient. Urban roadways have a speed limit of 30 mph and, during rush hour, rarely hit that speed due to the congestion. For suburban-to-urban commuting, 25 mph ain't going to cut it.

In my case, I try to. My family doesn't own a car -- but my used bike, the bus, and an occasional carpool has done a wonderful job getting me to and from daycare, work, and local activities. Yes, I live near good transit, but I don't "happen to", I choose to, and pay extra for the privilege. I live in a small condo in a large building, resulting in much lower need for heating or cooling. My electric bill is about 130 kWh a month except summer, when it's more like 170 kWh. I try to eat local food [though I don't try too hard], and I limit my meat consumption to perhaps 1-2 pounds per week.

I'm not perfect -- I fly 1-3 times a year, and my family is flying from Eastern USA to India (and back) early next year. Between work and home, my family probably acquires one new computer each year.

Still, mix a little environmental awareness, a little health concern, a bit of stinginess, and the ability to plan long term, and it's actually quite easy to reduce one's negative impact on the Earth substantially while improving both health and enjoyment. May I humbly suggest you make a single lifestyle change which will be better for your Earth, your wallet, and your body. Once you've got that one incorporated, consider repeating.

According to wikipedia, Belgium has 6000 MW of nuclear power, generating a hair over 50% of their electricity. It seems unlikely that they could replace 6000 MW with fossil fuels within a decade and still be sensitive to local issues, emissions and pollution, fuel transportation, and transmission needs. For renewables, 6000 MW is certainly theoretically possible within a decade, but again unlikely. Beligium has some number of dispatchable MW which aren't nuclear. It's *conceptually possible* [I don't have easy access to the numbers] that the existing (dispatchable) fossil fuel plants aren't all running at night, and that they could make up some of the night time slack caused by reducing nuclear. The daytime could be made up with photovoltaics. It might require some more natural gas to handle cloudy days with higher demand [hotter? colder? darker due to being near daylight savings? dunno], although Belgium does have a fairly large natural gas capacity.

My point: Belgium may well end up reducing but not eliminating their nuclear power generation. They could easily make a big push on photovoltaics, taking public policy lessons from Germany [and borrowing their business practices, now that Germany is ramping down]. Belgium could also build a few SC or CC natural gas plants to help bridge the gap. Keep in mind that about 860 MW of Belgium's nuclear power is nearly 40 years old, and that although nuclear fuel is very cheap, the plants will need capital additions and face higher O&M costs, and fuel disposal is not cheap. If you start adding those costs in, it may be the case that the additional renewables and natural gas production [at existing facilities or building a new one] may not come at a substantially higher price than the full cost of keeping Belgium's first generation nuclear power stations operational and safe.

Personally, I wish Belgium was focused on replacing the roughly 9% of electricity generated from coal with renewables first, but it's their choice, not mine.