Nuclear versus coal

Don't think solar or wind is the answer. I cant see coal burning power plants going away anytime soon. I work in the air pollution monitoring field and I've talked to the guys at the plant responsible for the windmills and they say that they're a maintenance nightmare and they're always breaking down. Also if there's not enough wind they don't work, too much wind and they have to lock them down. They have been known to catch on fire, people have been killed while performing maintenance and getting trapped by fire. There's also the animal rights people, birds are hitting into the blades and getting killed. The birds are also at risk with solar. Some of the solar farms use mirrors to direct sunlight into the cells. Birds flying through are bursting into flames mid air. Coal power plants are getting a bad rap from the environmental groups. What you see coming out of smoke stacks these days is mostly steam. The smoke from the boiler passes though electrostatic precipitators that trap a lot of the soot. It then goes through a scrubber where it is washed down with water (hence the steam). Also the plants use ammonia injection to reduce nox emissions. Its popular these days to do a public relations move and say "FOLKS FOLKS FOLKS, LOOK AT US, WE'RE SHUTTING DOWN DIRTY COAL FIRRED PLANTS!". What we are heading for here is rolling brownouts. Everyone wants to be environmentally conscious but at the same time we want the lights to come on when we turn on the switch.

67Dart273 said

Regardless, it is pretty difficult to argue against the tragedies in Japan and Russia...............Just imagine the chances if there were "that many more" nuke plants

I still think the long term solution some day will be solar and or wind, and water

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