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[Duke 2.0]

 I'm just saying building reactors often brings up international talk of safety, and we all know how China is with that.

 *Cough*

 Edit: Then again, likely anybody skimping on their nuclear reactors would be executed by being thrown into it.

[Aqizzar]

Edit: Then again, likely anybody skimping on their nuclear reactors would be executed by being thrown into it.

Indeed, they don't screw around with safety regulations anymore, now that they can afford to not cut corners.

Besides, if something went wrong, it would be going wrong in China, and there's plenty of those guys to spare.

[sneakey pete]

USA doesn't have 30 years to wean itself off oil.

I'd just like to point out that we haven't hit peak coal yet. Power generation doesn't really have much to do with oil. There's no reason that the US has to get its nuclear reactors all up and running within 10 years. An easier 30 or even 50 year target could be set, i'd imagine.
Its also worth noting that the USA actually has more nuclear power stations that France does.

As for transportation... yes, your screwed there. Less road trips and big v8's i'd imagine.

[Anfold]

I'd just like to point out that we haven't hit peak coal yet. Power generation doesn't really have much to do with oil.

The vast majority of electricity comes from the burning of oil, coal and natural gas.  Like say about 95% (feel free to correct me.)

The problem people aren't seeing for the trees involving the high costs of alternative energy sources is that we don;t really have a choice in the matter.  As yes, there is a quantifiable amount of global warming going on, and yes it has made massive ecological effects on the entire planet that most of us fat and happy Americans are unaware of.  Regardless of the causes.  Please don't try and refute this, as the evidence I can't mount up will smack you down harder than the Democrats going after Rove.

A couple things about solar energy and plastics.

1) There have been rather recent major advancements in solar energy that most people don't know about.  Mainly photovoltaic inks.  Here's a you tube link that probably blows it out of proportion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ltETpyBK0
and a wiki link to the company making them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar

In reality, this is a cost effective method of generating solar energy. But still more expensive than just burning whatever we have. 

2) Bio-plastics are a reality, in fact, you've probably ate off of some as they are being used in food containers (not all of them mind you).  They run into the problems of all bio technology, we need to farm the plants to make them.  I'm confident that genetic engineering will make us a grass that we can harvest quite easily (imagine paying kids to mow your'e lawn with the clippings... though probably not).

Oh, the main reasons that we don't have an all nuclear power supply in the us? Oil lobbists.  In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and blame lobbyists for all of the major political problems here in the US.  Lobbyists and the general stupidity of out populace. 

Other cool stuff blocked mostly through lobbyist pressures?

Miracle Fruit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Fruit
UHC
and Al Gore getting the presidency in 2000.

[Il Palazzo]

Having no money has never really ever been an incentive for peace. Look at Africa.

Hehe, but that's the beauty of it - economical collapse in the US would make their wars internal.

Also, the recyclability of spent fuel is a common misinterpretation, as it'd been stated before in this thread.

[sneakey pete]

I'd just like to point out that we haven't hit peak coal yet. Power generation doesn't really have much to do with oil.

The vast majority of electricity comes from the burning of oil, coal and natural gas.  Like say about 95% (feel free to correct me.)

No, your right, the vast majority does (though not 95%, in the USA, because of their large nuclear program), however, i'm saying: we already have a cheap, acceptable (well, clean coal) power technology that can be used to take over from the oil and gas part of the power spectrum now that we have peak oil, but before we develop the rest of the renewable technologies enough to be practical at global powering levels, or until we can build a large amount of nuclear power plants.

My comment was mainly in response to the person who was saying that "we don't have the time to change, its to late, we've already hit peak oil"

[DJ]

Switching to coal has it's problems, see this article: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr08/peak-coal.html

Anyway, USA's many nuclear powerplants provide just 19.4% of your electricity, according to Wikipedia. Renewable resources provide 9.7%.

[Il Palazzo]

peak oil

peak coal

I can imagine some distant-future discussion:
-Guys, we've reached peak hydrogen. Soon enough, we have nearly used up all the hydrogen in the Universe. Our fusion-dependent economy is in dire peril. We need to think about some alternatives.
-how about swithing to wood?

[Duke 2.0]

peak oil

peak coal

I can imagine some distant-future discussion:
-Guys, we've reached peak hydrogen. Soon enough, we have nearly used up all the hydrogen in the Universe. Our fusion-dependent economy is in dire peril. We need to think about some alternatives.
-how about switching to wood?

-Stop wood burning! We have hit peak-wood!
 -What of the wood we grew on Mars?
 -We have not discovered a new source of wood in a few weeks! We have reached peak wood! We must switch to another power source!
 -But what can we use now that oil, coal, gas, small animals, Hydrogen and wood have been exhausted?
 -Human batteries!
 Then a couple-hundred years later:
 -We have reached peak human!

[JoshuaFH]

peak oil

peak coal

I can imagine some distant-future discussion:
-Guys, we've reached peak hydrogen. Soon enough, we have nearly used up all the hydrogen in the Universe. Our fusion-dependent economy is in dire peril. We need to think about some alternatives.
-how about switching to wood?

-Stop wood burning! We have hit peak-wood!
 -What of the wood we grew on Mars?
 -We have not discovered a new source of wood in a few weeks! We have reached peak wood! We must switch to another power source!
 -But what can we use now that oil, coal, gas, small animals, Hydrogen and wood have been exhausted?
 -Human batteries!
 Then a couple-hundred years later:
 -We have reached peak human!

and then we switch to sun lasers...

the perfect plan.

[Duke 2.0]

 -We have reached peak Sun!
 *Death by Red Giant*

 It really is.

[Rysith]

Nuclear wastes might last a while(Not thousands of years, which would be too much, but just long enough to have it decay to levels of naturally-occurring uranium deposits), but there really isn't that much of it in comparison to other waste products. Heck, bury it deep enough and the problem will solve itself. We would bury it in geologically thick areas unstable for geothermal, with layers of concrete as a cap deep underground with multiple layers of rebar and warnings showing humans dieing to things below. We would also show models of atons and radiation, thus solving two of the following possibilities:

 If primitive people find this cap somehow(Assuming everything has gone to crap thanks to sun-lasers killing most major civilizations), they won't be able to penetrate the concrete and rebar. If an advanced civilization finds it, they will recognize the dieing humans and nuclear models and know to avoid it. Of course, this assumes humans find it. If another lifeform grows intelligence, then screw them. They might be a part of our downfall.

Somehow, that entire sequence seems reminiscent of Dwarves discovering Adamantine. Ancient, buried Hidden Fun Stuff deep under mountains with a cap made of god-material that is stronger than anything else in the world, and warnings of horrible death for any that try to open it.

.... What?

[Duke 2.0]

 How else are you going to seal away a material that can kill you be bearing near you, is invisible, unrecognizable unless you have a special counter or observe the series of mysterious diseases and can possibly be used as weapons that can make large swaths of land uninhabitable if used by the wrong people?

 I propose burying it under a pyramid. No WAY the Indiana Jones of the future will find it there!

[Qmarx]

 How else are you going to seal away a material that can kill you be bearing near you, is invisible, unrecognizable unless you have a special counter or observe the series of mysterious diseases and can possibly be used as weapons that can make large swaths of land uninhabitable if used by the wrong people?

 I propose burying it under a pyramid. No WAY the Indiana Jones of the future will find it there!

Stick it back in the uranium mines.  Seal it up in concrete and rebar, then cover the mountain in rubble.

[Duke 2.0]

 How else are you going to seal away a material that can kill you be bearing near you, is invisible, unrecognizable unless you have a special counter or observe the series of mysterious diseases and can possibly be used as weapons that can make large swaths of land uninhabitable if used by the wrong people?

 I propose burying it under a pyramid. No WAY the Indiana Jones of the future will find it there!

Stick it back in the uranium mines.  Seal it up in concrete and rebar, then cover the mountain in rubble.

 Then salt it so nothing will ever grow there. Then spread nuclear waste over it so the salt can never be used. Then spread more rubble to keep the waste from being used, then a fine layer of CD's filled with The Pussycat Dolls songs. THAT should make it so nobody goes near the place again.