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POPS10 reasons to avoid nuclear energy This issue is also related to water shortage and drought-read the article on this relationship. Already, wind energy can produce electricity for less than five cents per kWh, and concentrated solar power can produce energy for 11-12 cents per kWh—even at night—and these costs are decreasing. Alternatives do not produce nuclear waste, and they do not face the same extensive safety, regulatory, and construction costs and delays that nuclear does.
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POPSUnderstanding the full cost of a nuclear power plan History has taught us that civilian nuclear programs can -- and do -- lead to the production of nuclear weapons as happened in India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. The presence of nuclear power plants has provoked acts of aggression, even war. Israel bombed nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. went to war in Iraq at least on the pretext that the country was developing nuclear weapons. The concerns surrounding Iran's nuclear intentions are indicative of the blurred line between civilian and military nuclear activities. Iran's uranium enrichment program has inspired 14 other Middle Eastern countries to express an interest in acquiring nuclear power programs, a poorly-disguised cover story for nuclear weapons posturing.
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POPSFrance the the beneficiary of nuclear growth... even though their construction projects aren't going so well. That great sucking sound you hear is proposed or in-the-works nuclear plants blowing their budgets everywhere. French company Areva's first EPR project, in Finland, is two years behind schedule and at least $1.5-billion over budget. Its second, in France's Normandy region, is headed in the same direction, after construction stalled for several weeks recently. It's not just the skyrocketing price of basic materials, such as concrete and steel, that's driving costs upward. So-called third generation reactors - such Areva's EPR and Atomic Energy's ACR-1000 - are still works in progress. And the two decades during which nuclear power faced desert-like prospects has left the industry grappling with a severe shortage of skilled workers.
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POPSA Giant Solar Tower Could Power the Future On a sunny day, the air at the top of the tower would be 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), whereas the air in the greenhouse could reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius). As this hot air escapes up the tower at 34 mph (15 meters per second), it spins 32 turbines that generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity. Even with all this power, the solar tower is less than one tenth as efficient as solar cells in converting the sun's energy into electricity. The advantage for a solar tower is that its materials are much less expensive.
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POPS495 million for Yucca Mountain Will completion of Yucca mean trains and trucks all over the U.S transporting radioactive nuclear waste there? (coming to a town near you?)
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POPSHow Parking Lots Can Beat the Heat & Gain Energy On hot, sunny days when air conditioners threaten to overload the power grid, solar power generation makes a lot of sense. Parking lots in asphalt-rich cities have great solar potential because the panels can be oriented to optimize power production during summer afternoons when electricity is most valuable. Google, for example, has installed solar canopies on its parking lots to satisfy 30 percent of its headquarters' power demand. Because the parking lots for most commercial buildings are bigger than the buildings themselves, economies of scale for large installations can further reduce the cost of the solar panels. We shouldn't wait until the next heat wave to think about getting solar power from our parking lots.
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POPS12 Ways to Build with a Smaller Carbon Footprint Buildings consume 76% of electricity generated & they create 48% of our greenhouse gases. Main Points: * Every brick in building required the burning of fossil fuel in its manufacture, every piece of lumber was cut and transported using energy * Aim for a complete ban of formaldehyde use in building products * Building demolitions account for 48% of the waste stream (65 million tons a year), renovations account for 44% and renovations account for 8% * A solar water heater can save $ 450 a year and keep a ton of CO2 emissions out of the air; multiply that by 80 million houses in the USA * While smaller is better almost every city has minimum floor area requirements * The losses are higher in AC than in DC because it grounds so easily * The average 1950’s house was 983 sq feet; by 1970 it was 1500 SF; last year it was 2350 SF * We can no longer afford to lose agricultural land close to our cities and towns
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POPSxtreme hybrid car 150 mpg.....This was a 2007 Saturn Vue Greenline, converted to an Extreme Hybrid™ by custom fitting it with Lithium Ion Batteries, Ultracapacitors, a Motor Generator, AFS Trinity patented Power Electronics and Controls, and other parts. Automakers do not have to wait for new battery developments in order to create plugin hybrids that can go 40 miles on an overnight plug in charge. They can do this today by utilizing current lithium batteries protected within an AFS Trinity Fast Energy™ system.
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POPSFiling of Yucca Mountain Application The Nuclear Energy Institute's president and chief executive officer, Frank L. (Skip) Bowman, made the following remarks today in response to the U.S. Department of Energy's filing of a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the planned repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., for used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste
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POPSIs nuclear energy good or bad? Things began to heat up for the industry within two weeks of President Bush taking office in January 2001. He formed the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPD), headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, which produced a National Energy Policy report by May of that year, recommending “the President support the expansion of nuclear energy in the United States as a major component of our national energy policy.” Following a long legal battle to force the release of NEPD documents to the public, environmental lawyers at Natural Resource Defense Council uncovered that industry lobbyists were integral in forming the president’s energy policy and his decision to launch a so-called ‘nuclear revival’. Over eight years the nuclear industry has received billions in government funds
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POPSSir Porrett on Nuclear The head of UK's Sustainable Development commission was asked: You are well known for your anti-nuclear energy views. What are your main arguments against it?
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POPSGovts around the world going nuclear I get google alerts on nuclear energy and what I'm seeing is that many countries are determined to move toward nuclear energy to solve their energy crisis. We the people, might want to get ourselves educated about this before it just happens to us.
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POPSDo you support nuclear energy? from 'The Nation': "This much seems clear: a handful of firms might soak up huge federal subsidies and build one or two overpriced plants. While a new administration might tighten regulations, public safety will continue to be menaced by problems at new as well as older plants. But there will be no massive nuclear renaissance. Talk of such a renaissance, however, helps keep people distracted, their minds off the real project of developing wind, solar, geothermal and tidal kinetics to build a green power grid."
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