For once I have to go with Steve on the hair thing. I’m a real believer in personal hygiene - long hair is fine, as long as it doesn’t look like a wildlife preserve.
OK so we trade global warming for radioactive waste with a half life longer than our civilization has been around?
The PROBLEM is that every time we start to think about alternatives to fossil fuels, the industry gets smart, and lowers the price to the point where alternatives don’t make sense financially …. and we are all terrible at thinking long-term when the short term is how we pay our bills.
They want to put up thousands of solar panels in a desert in California, but the environmentalists complain that it could upset the ecosystem.
Wind power is blamed for killing migrating birds and causing an explosion in the population of the small animals that would be their prey.
Hydro power is blamed for interferring in the natural spawning of fish and altering the feeding habits of the animals that prey on them.
Strip mining and mountaintop mining of coal for power plants produces millions of tons of waste and chokes the valleys of the mining states.
You could pick any form of energy and it has its own drawbacks. It’s how you manage them that makes them less harmful to the environment.
I seem to recall that reactors require lots of water for cooling, which when it is returned to its source is much hotter. The more nuclear power plants there are, the warmer the oceans will be, thus causing the same melting in the Arctic and Antarctic that is currently being caused by global warming (with the added “benefits” of radioactive waste, risk of meltdown, disease, etc). No, thank you.
cleokaya over 15 years ago
Just so we’re clear here Steve. Your image is so tarnished that a gallon of Brasso won’t do you any good.
ejcapulet over 15 years ago
For once I have to go with Steve on the hair thing. I’m a real believer in personal hygiene - long hair is fine, as long as it doesn’t look like a wildlife preserve.
papawhale over 15 years ago
too late, doc
Logicman over 15 years ago
OK so we trade global warming for radioactive waste with a half life longer than our civilization has been around?
The PROBLEM is that every time we start to think about alternatives to fossil fuels, the industry gets smart, and lowers the price to the point where alternatives don’t make sense financially …. and we are all terrible at thinking long-term when the short term is how we pay our bills.
Joe_Minotaur over 15 years ago
They want to put up thousands of solar panels in a desert in California, but the environmentalists complain that it could upset the ecosystem. Wind power is blamed for killing migrating birds and causing an explosion in the population of the small animals that would be their prey. Hydro power is blamed for interferring in the natural spawning of fish and altering the feeding habits of the animals that prey on them. Strip mining and mountaintop mining of coal for power plants produces millions of tons of waste and chokes the valleys of the mining states.
You could pick any form of energy and it has its own drawbacks. It’s how you manage them that makes them less harmful to the environment.C and O 2666 over 15 years ago
I seem to recall that reactors require lots of water for cooling, which when it is returned to its source is much hotter. The more nuclear power plants there are, the warmer the oceans will be, thus causing the same melting in the Arctic and Antarctic that is currently being caused by global warming (with the added “benefits” of radioactive waste, risk of meltdown, disease, etc). No, thank you.
KingRat over 15 years ago
@CandO2666 coal power plants also use water cooling, plus the amount of water warming would not very large (for an ocean).