Why aren't we building nuke plants and electric vehicles?

sjatkins · Guest

Given Peak Oil and its disasterous implications, why aren't the developed nations building (especially the new types of) nuclear power plants and electric vehicles just as fast as they possibly can? This is the biggest question left in my mind reading "Crossing the Rubicon". Nuclear power is likely the only other energy source dense enough and safe enough to replace oil for energy purposes and do so relatively quickly. But if we don't build out some critical electrical infrastructure such as fast charging stations and most especially build a LOT of electric vehicles, our decline will still be severe. So what is really in the way of doing this? Surely its costs aren't that terribly high compared to condemning some 4 billion people to almost certain death!

Cool Hand Linc · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:22 am Post subject: We need too

We need to be doing something about alternate forms of energy for sure.

I can't speak for other countries peoples but in the US. I believe we have an issue with the majority of the population not knowing or not really understanding the seriousness of what lies ahead.
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EnviroEngr · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 12:59 pm Post subject:

To whom would you like this question directed?
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mos6507 · Fission Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 2487

It's really naive to say "why aren't we doing xxx". Who is "we"? What is rational and a logical emergency procedure does not necessarily make good short-term business sense to the corporations.

Civilization as we know it in the west is largely dependent on a small number of key corporations. Whatever they decide to do is what we're stuck with.

The biggest changes required (like transforming transportation) take deeper pockets than any startup can muster. That's why small companies like Tesla have such an uphill battle.

Government really has little leverage, and what leverage it does have it is reluctant to use since politicians derive their money from corporate lobbyists.

Why do you think Russia, Venezuela, and others are nationalizing oil? It's because it's TOO RISKY to allow their citizenry to live or die on the whims of private industry.

I'd like to think that "the market" will work insofar as Peak Oil, but "the market" only looks ahead one quarter. "The market" is not capable of funding the Manhattan Project-grade endeavor required to avoid a die-off.

Eventually the government may need to intervene. For instance, during the depression, we built the Hoover Dam with subsidized labor. Many utilities in this country are already run by the local minicipality. There is a precedence for government controlling critical infrastructure elements.

I guess what I'm saying is I have no confidence in capitalism anymore at the mega-level to serve the needs of the public when the product in question is the very foundation of life as you know it.

gg3

And the answer is...

150 new nuclear reactors

and

100,000 utility-scale wind farms

and

five million solar roofs

all together add up to the money we have spent thus far in

Iraq.

It's all about priorities.

Impeach those bastards before they do any more damage!

gg3

And the answer is...

150 new nuclear reactors

and

100,000 utility-scale wind farms

and

five million solar roofs

all together add up to the money we have spent thus far in

Iraq.

It's all about priorities.

Impeach those bastards before they do any more damage!

Tanada

Why did this three year old thread pop up in my new messages search?
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Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov

mistel · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 20, 2005 Posts: 139

Because the American voters elected the oil industry to run the government (it really is quite obvious)

manu · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 26, 2006 Posts: 691

Because neither will get them out of the jam they are in. Blind leading the blind.

HorneyGeekBoi · Tar Sands Joined: Apr 28, 2007 Posts: 30

I think someone said it best when...

The idea governments use when deciding what course of action to take is to consider the wisest, more sensible decision, and do exactly the opposite of that...

benrk

Apart from conspiracy "theories", reality simply proves that in the majority or at least the most influential of the western countries there is no central will to address the problem seriously or we had changed policies for good in the 70s, nothing more than brief cure of symptoms has happened back then.

I would actually like to hear the definition of "safe" in the context of nuclear.
Public opposition to nuclear is still strong & I personally do consider that to be a good thing.

Change will only come from a local level, not from centralized government & corporatism, we have had the technology to establish a sustainable world economy, including energy supply, for decades.

If you want to address the problem, get solar for your house & small business now & buy electric vehicles from the micro-manufacturers that have always been out there with several projects since the beginning of mass-motorization, it's up to you, not the government or anybody else.

Tanada · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:27 am Post subject:

Narz

Why'd I see this is "New Posts' when the last post was 2004?

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BlisteredWhippet · Intermediate Crude Joined: Feb 08, 2005 Posts: 833

skyemoor

The original question can be answered by watching Who Killed the Electric Car?
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