I've been around for most of the show re nuclear power to date. When I was a high-schooler, the number of nuclear plants on line could be counted on your fingers, but one, PP&L's Susquehanna double-reactor, was on the drawing board for a site only about two miles from the farm where I grew up. In those days, pop-science textbooks all extolled the vrtues of recycling spent nuclear fuel through the use of "breeder reators", but this technology seems to have fallen into disrepute.
By the time I was fnishing my undergraduate studies, the popular work on nuclear power was Poisoned Power by John and Arthur Tamplin. Most of the science majors I palled around with in those years were involved in the life sciences rather than tecnological fields, so their embrace of the authors' skepticism may be a bit biased. The book was re-written in the wake of the Three Mile Island fiasco by John Gofman, and I readily admit i have not had the opportunity to peruse the refinements on both sides of the issue.
But to return to the primary subject of this thread, one of the more interesting reads I've found is The Oil Factor, first published in 2000 by Steven and Donna Leeb. It's worth notin that at that point in time, the likeliehood of a new surge in oil prices driven by the industrializing nations was acknowledged within the industry, but the squeeze "at the pump" was just getting under way, and was temporarily interrupted by factors related to the events of 9-11-01. The Leebs predicted a series of rises in oil prices followed by short-term re-stabilization (the book is intended primarily as an investment-strategy guide), but I don't think they anticipated either the magnitude or the rapid pace of the price surge post-Katrina.
Of the alternative energy sources roposed, the Leebs are most bulllish on wind power; they agree with many of the anti-nuclear criticisms, geothermal is hard to harness due to the constant shifting of the sources, and solar power, while popular with the greenest of the Greens, is waiting on technological breakthroughs that may never come to pass.
Which brings me to the point: All of the Western transcontinental lines pass through the "empty quarter" -- areas that are both flat and thinly-settled; ideal locations for "wind farms" feeding catenary.
As with so many of the energy/transportation/infrastructural issues which have arisen in the last few years, this one involves an industry which has now been undergoing a slow-but strong revival for a number of years, but remains solely responsible for the development of a very expensive and immovable fixed plant, and is confronted by a public which, due to changing demographics, has a much less realistic concept of the realities of both operations and economics involved than it would have had two generations ago, voicing its opinions through media which hold only a slightly better grasp of the issues and constraints previously cited, and elected representatives focused almost exclusively upon the short term.
Clearly, we all have a lot of work to do.
Last edited by 2nd trick op on Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:28 am, edited 3 times in total.
What a revoltin' development this is! (William Bendix)