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How on earth did nuclear and coal get in that list:

As De Jong puts it:"`Current competitive markets offer insufficient guarantees for long-term investments in large-scale alternative energy sources, such as nuclear power stations, offshore wind parks and CCS projects'.

Reminds me of Desproges' joke:

Which of the following does not belong with the others:
Metastasis, Schwartzenberg, cancer, future.

Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine

by UnEstranAvecVueSurMer (holopherne ahem gmail) on Wed Apr 21st, 2010 at 07:56:17 AM EST
How will one stop the black market in coal? With a large skew in price between coal and sustainable energy, and with coal easily available in lots of places, will we have armed guards around all the places you can dig it up?
by asdf on Wed Apr 21st, 2010 at 08:06:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm talking about the surprising use of the word "alternative" to describe the fuel of the first industrial revolution and nuclear power.

As for whether we can effectively put aside coal when energy scarcity increases, the answer, in the abstract, is no. But we're certainly not in the abstract. To reuse the article's classification, coal goes against Kyoto and Moscow (iirc there isn't that much competitive coal in Europe) and thus is a tough technology to promote.

Rien n'est gratuit en ce bas monde. Tout s'expie, le bien comme le mal, se paie tot ou tard. Le bien c'est beaucoup plus cher, forcement. Celine

by UnEstranAvecVueSurMer (holopherne ahem gmail) on Wed Apr 21st, 2010 at 09:23:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
cute, ain't it?

here in Italy we have dioxin-spewing trash incinerators classed as 'renewables' too.

as for coal, it's CCS! so relax...

/snark

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Apr 22nd, 2010 at 03:39:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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