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[Erkki]

One of the greatest issues with electricity is that the need for it is not constant. Windmills, solar panels etc. do not produce power constantly even in large masses, so other, more adjustable energy sources are needed any way to cover good part of the full need. The only quick to adjust renewable one available at all times that isn't burning something is water power.

Indeed, I'm surprised how little love hydro plants get around here. Water power is 1) one of the cleanest and 2) can actually be accumulated as a reserve.

Now truth be told, in order for it to be really clean, the most important part is preparation of accumulation lake. Biggest problem these days is companies/countries just flooding a valley after the damn is built, turning any plant that grew there into a nice years-lasting rotting source of all kinds of wonderful greenhouse gasses. On other hand, properly cleaning the area before flooding it burns resources in it's own right... Not to mention permanently transforming the surroundings. But yeah, nuclear power is cool and all, but water is way cooler. >:7

Yeah, absolutely. Finland is a large country with tiny population and lots of rain, and basically almost every river and lake are put into use for hydro energy (and then theres the huge artificial lakes in Lapland) but it still isnt enough. Bio, oil and even coal plants(many are produce combined electricity and heat) and are needed. The situation must be several times worse in the rest of the world. As far as I know, the only nation with enough hydroelectricity is Norway.

[smjjames]

There's also geothermal, however, that is only available in a very limited number of locations.

[mainiac]

One of the greatest issues with electricity is that the need for it is not constant. Windmills, solar panels etc. do not produce power constantly even in large masses, so other, more adjustable energy sources are needed any way to cover good part of the full need.

What's amazing about this meme is people think "stands to reason" and then just turn off their brains.  They never actually think about the difficulty of managing an energy portfolio.  They just adopt some ridiculous metric of oh gee there are clouds every place some of the time so the simplest possible way to think about it doesn't work.

And as for thinking about how the cost effectiveness of peak substitution methods over a short to medium turn timeframe...

Theres been some excellent research into energy storage, but there will always be a need for on demand energy production to even out irregularities from renewables.

Redundancy is currently and will continue to be the most effective way of dealing with changing demand.  In the short term we already have redundancy in the form of "legacy" generation (which is to say natural gas).  In the long term, solar is going to be so cheap that making redundant solar generation will be the most logical way of meeting peak demand.  Hard to know exactly what baseload demand is going to be but it sure as heck aint gonna be batteries.

[MonkeyHead]

Her performance was generally assessed as positive. This however seems to have had little effect due to the already discussed massive preclusion to Labour in the south, the Tories in their safe seats of Conwy/Pembrokeshire/Marches and pre-existing Plaid support in the North West. It will be interesting to see if some of the swing seats (Cardiff North, Ceredigion (though that seat is in the middle of a slur row due to 10 year old comments from the Plaid candidate surfacing)) show a Plaid trend. I doubt it though, as I expect the LibDem voters in those 2 seats who keep it interesting to either not turn up to vote or to vote Lab/Tory/UKIP.

I wonder why Cardiff North and Ceredigion are swing seats. Ceredigion has always interested me. Does it have a lot of Welsh speakers or something? Is that why Plaid target it? I can understand Llanelli is often targeted due to its high Welsh-speaking population.

I know Plaid are the party of all Wales, not just the Welsh-speaking areas, but in terms of realistic targets they would surely target areas with high numbers of Welsh speakers. In that case maybe non-Welsh speaking swing seats like Cardiff North could be a good barometer for Plaid's success in the future?

Cardiff North and Ceredigion are swing seats as they have a disproportionately high number of stereotypically fickle student voters (Cardiff North houses a large %age of both Cardiff and Cardiff Met students, and Ceredigion contains both Aberystwyth university and a high number of local Welsh speakers who vote either PC or LibDem). Students often traditionally vote LibDem (who target the uni Campus strongly - having studied there I know this only too well), which causes a VERY narrow gap between the top one or two in a FPTP vote, making it easy to change hands with a small swing - even more so if you can get the easy to swing students to side with you. Ceredigion would be a poor barometer for success, as if PC win it it just shows a small swing away from LibDem, what with the large number of Welsh speakers. Anglesea is a better example - it is a bunfight between PC (rural Welsh vote) and Labour (poor urban areas of Holyhead). Cardiff North could be a free for all. My own seat of Arfon is a safe PC seat, despite a large student population from Bangor Uni as the local populace is pretty much 95% PC voters, unlike in Ceredigion where there is a bit more of a spead.

A real acid test for PC would be to try and win seats in and around Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot. Unlike Llanelli, there is not as great a number of Welsh speakers, nor Welsh "natives". All 3 are old industrial towns with a Labour tradition, but very politically disenfranchised and relatively poor. UKIP have had difficulty there due to the general left leaning nature of the populace that has kept them away from the Tories over the years, and a runaway Labour majority despite a low turn out would be a real challenge to make a dent in.

[Descan]

I'm a fair fan of molten salts and solar towers, myself.

As am I, but I thought we were talking about power generation here?

Hah. Funny. You are joking, yes?

Also, aren't breeder reactors how you solve the whole waste issue? Well, I think there still is some waste, but not a lot.

Then there's thorium. :v

[mainiac]

Then there's thorium. :v

You know what they say "A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand."

[Owlbread]

The nice thing about the Greens though is they won't get enough seats to implement any crazy ideas. Until they get a better leader and change/professionalise their policies to be more that of a party of government, Green MPs are going to be preoccupied with backing the SNP's motions and voting against Labour austerity measures.

[Helgoland]

I'm a fair fan of molten salts and solar towers, myself.

As am I, but I thought we were talking about power generation here?

Hah. Funny. You are joking, yes?

Also, aren't breeder reactors how you solve the whole waste issue? Well, I think there still is some waste, but not a lot.

Descan, you should look into hybrid fission/fusion schemes. Fusion generates fast neutrons, which can a) turn long-lived isotopes into short-lived ones, reducing the time the nuclear waste is dangerous, and b) split U-238 atoms, which usually are useless for fission. Combining fusion and fission would provide enormous synergy effects and reduce or eliminate much of the problems with nuclear waste.

[Erkki]

Yes, what is basically wanted is a Teller-Ulam device two-stage thermonuclear bomb that is a bit more... lasting and controllable?

[Graknorke]

You raise a good point. Enough to maybe have a small amount of influence, but not enough to go and send our economy into a trainwreck.

I think that's basically the best reasonable scenario. Labour doesn't get enough seats for a majority on their own, so they end up in a coalition with the SNP, Greens and Plaid, who will be able to keep Labour on-task of actually doing lefty things.

[martinuzz]

So does every other energy source. Many of them wouldn't even exist without a centralized security-state.

The point is, nuclear power requires a centralized security state to be stable enough to exist for the next 20,000 years it takes for the nuclear waste to become somewhat less dangerous, while for other power sources there only needs to be a centralized government in the here and now for it to be safe.

Since there has never been a centralized government on earth that managed to exist for even 1000 years, let alone 20,000, it would be hubris for any nation to assume it will be able to fulfill that requirement.

That being said, even with the nuclear waste issue, nuclear power might just be crucial to meeting our ever growing energy needs. Let's just hope research on fusion reactors progresses to a stage where reactors with feasible efficiency can be built before too long. That would reduce the amount of nuclear waste greatly (although not fully).

[Helgoland]

Since there has never been a centralized government on earth that managed to exist for even 1000 years

Objection! Ancient Egypt and Imperial China managed that, I think. So let's just chuck that waste into the pyramids and give those curse warnings a real meaning

[mainiac]

You raise a good point. Enough to maybe have a small amount of influence, but not enough to go and send our economy into a trainwreck.

Wasn't that what we thought about the Lib-Dems?

[Graknorke]

But back then we didn't know about Clegg's secret austerity fetish.

[10ebbor10]

Descan, you should look into hybrid fission/fusion schemes. Fusion generates fast neutrons, which can a) turn long-lived isotopes into short-lived ones, reducing the time the nuclear waste is dangerous, and b) split U-238 atoms, which usually are useless for fission. Combining fusion and fission would provide enormous synergy effects and reduce or eliminate much of the problems with nuclear waste.

Any breeder reactor can do that as well though. Or you have even the particle accelerator-driven reactors. And both of those systems are actually being considered (and build/operated) unlike the fusion/fission hybrid which is a discontinued spin-off of a technology that isn't even being pursued anymore.

So does every other energy source. Many of them wouldn't even exist without a centralized security-state.

The point is, nuclear power requires a centralized security state to be stable enough to exist for the next 20,000 years it takes for the nuclear waste to become somewhat less dangerous, while for other power sources there only needs to be a centralized government in the here and now for it to be safe.

Except that you know, if you run the numbers, you find that the supposedly safe power sources operated now kill more people and do much more damage than the nuclear waste ever would.

In comparison with waste streams of any competing technology, nuclear waste is almost negligible. (And let's not forget that unlike nuclear waste, that stuff will not break down on it's own.)

Besides, it's not like you need to personally watch over the waste for all that time. Permanent Deep Geological Storage is a thing.