Re: A voluntary Blackout?

From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Tue May 22 2001 - 13:45:20 MDT

At 11:19 AM 5/22/01, Eliezer wrote:
I think the Onion got this one absolutely right.  We should build another
200 nuclear power plants and move on to real issues.  France did it, so
can we.

I think there is a place for new energy sources, and I like the idea of a more distributed system using microturbines and fuel cells, when they are economical. However, I also favor more nuclear power and have done so for a long time. Since I last really looked into the field a decade or so ago, plenty of advancements have come on line. Here's a summary of a recent update on the topic:

06/01/01 The France Syndrome
eCompany by David Freedman

The author argues that nuclear power is due for a comeback in the United States, and that we can look to France (where 75% of electricity comes from nuclear plants) to know what to expect. Nuclear power has benefited from technological advances. It has become cheaper and safer. This article surveys improved designs for reactors and better control and monitoring systems. Thanks to less downtime (and concurrent safety improvements), nuclear power is now the lowest cost major method of generating electricity. Apart from cost, non-Soviet nuclear power’s environmental performance over the last 20 years is almost spotless. Several economic, political, and social forces are combining to make it likely that nuclear power will expand over time in the U.S. This article is a good source of information on this future trend. (6 pages)

http://www.ecompany.com/articles/mag/0,1640,11644,00.html

Onward!

Max

_______________________________________________________

Max More, Ph.D.
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
President, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org
Senior Content Architect, ManyWorlds Inc.: http://www.manyworlds.com
Chair, Extro-5: Shaping Things to Come, http://www.extropy.org/ex5/extro5.htm
_______________________________________________________

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