Dodo. I am planning a new diary on nuclear and wind. I am reallly worried that all these diaries on energy turn into a nuclear is bad / no wind, is not so good debate that ends up favoring only coal or gas.

My take is simple: the best energy source are, in order:

• conservation / savings
  
• renewables
  
• nuclear
  
• hydrocarbons.

(for practical purposes, there is very little hydro that can be added in the Western world, so i have neglected that)

The fact is, we don't start from scratch, so we need to take into account what we already have, and there are some technical constraints that do play as well (base load needs, peaking capacity, short term reactivity, etc...), which means that we won't do with some of the worst sources immediately.

But wind fans and nuclear fans should attack coal all the time instead of attacking each other so much.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes