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Every analysis I've seen points out that we need all the sources of power to keep things going if we dump coal and oil.

Do you mean only global ones? For country or Europe-focused ones, I showed two projections for Germany in an earlier thread not like that, and there are others.

Nuclear won't be enough because we can't build it  fast enough.

The question is, where? The thing is that the rapid demand growth (even without efforts of demand reduction in the West) comes primarily from the Third World, while (renewables) development happens primarily in the First World. If the whole EU adopts a France-like production structure, that won't lead to a renewables mega-boom in place of coal in Asia.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Fri Jul 27th, 2007 at 04:58:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, we don't like China's Three Gorges Dam, so "renewables" must mean wind.

And wind, f I understand things correctly, has a similar financial structure to nuclear: high capital costs and low operating costs. Nuclear has a more expensive decommissioning. But, in addition, Nuclear power plants have higher decommisioning costs and take longer to put in place than wind farms. So I don't know why China couldn't be building wind farms to replace coal-fired plants. But right now they're building, not replacing, coal plants.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jul 27th, 2007 at 05:18:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Hey, I like mega-dams.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Fri Jul 27th, 2007 at 03:41:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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