Which one do we need more, Nuclear or Windmills.

@gewcew23 (8007)
United States
July 22, 2008 7:45am CST
Both are clean, both create electricity without producing any co2. This is were they differ one is cheaper, reliable, and no one is talking about. Which of the two am I talking about, nuclear. Everyone and their mother is talking about building windmills, but our current infrastructure does not support windmills. Where windmills would have to be built no one live anywhere close to them, and still cannot be guaranteed how much electricity they will produce. If the wind is blowing fast more electricity will be made, but if the wind is blowing slower less will be made. There is a huge problem with fast gust of wind, it creates power surges. Nuclear first of all does not need new infrastucture, they can be built alone existing power lines. All nuclear needs is to be built along a river for the water. With nuclear you always know what you will be producing, no need to worry about power surges, or the lack there of. Let us understand that currently France, since we need to model ourselves after that country, gets 80% of all of its electricity from nuclear. If the French can why not us?
4 people like this
33 responses
• United States
22 Jul 08
I have heard there have been advances in nuclear energy production that make it cheaper and safer. However, none of these better plants have been built in the USA. I'm for building nuclear now.
2 people like this
• United States
22 Jul 08
Thanks gewcew23, for at least TRYing to educate people on this issue. As it stands Wind and solar combined provide for less than 1% of power in America, They are terribly inefficient. Just ask someone if they know of a solar Powered, Solar cell factory. The looks you get from that question are classic. Like a baby opening it's eyes for the first time. I heard a politician (B Boxer?)the other day say that "enough sun falls on earth in 40 minutes to power..." I don't know, something or other for a long time or some drivel. But what she failed to see is that this is a Huge Planet compared to the space humans occupy. 7/10s of it is covered by water. Of the remaining 3/10s, we only live on about 5%. so much for overpopulation. In Germany, they say that windmills "don't run on wind,they run on subsidies." They have been heavily subsidizing wind and solar, but they say that by 2020 alts will only be providing about 20% of power. And the cost for that power will be Enormous. Environmentalism Is the reason we are paying so much for gas right now. It has always been their goal.
1 person likes this
@gewcew23 (8007)
• United States
23 Jul 08
Trying and doing is two different thing. People have a problem understanding that what happen over in the Soviet Union will not happen over here. That was the Soviet Union, they could not build a car, so why would we think they could build a nuclear power plant. If France is using nuclear safely then why can we not?
1 person likes this
• United States
23 Jul 08
Thanks for the best response!!
1 person likes this
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
22 Jul 08
I would go with nuclear. We cannot use the land on which windmills stand, so that would be taking land out of production and I am sure that if we built them on waste land, the environmentalists wlll get mad that some of the animals and birds will lose their homes and the natural order of things would be destroyed. With nuclear plants, we have the plants already built so it is a simple matter to set up safe guards ids, finger print, and retina recognition, etc. for the employees so the bad guys do not get in. There are ways to get rid of the waste. We need to keep more land in production now that those ethanol people have taken so much of corn production out of food production.
@gewcew23 (8007)
• United States
22 Jul 08
Here in the State we have people talking about building windmills from Mexico to Canada. Nuclear is safe, I am not sure why so many think it is not.
• United States
22 Jul 08
I think windmills is the best choice. The last thing we need is anymore nuclear waste.
@gewcew23 (8007)
• United States
22 Jul 08
You do realize that a modern nuclear planet creates, after 20 years of use, waste the size of a trash can.
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
22 Jul 08
The amount of HLW (High Level Waste) produced (including spent fuel when this is considered a waste) is in fact small in relation to other industry sectors. HLW is currently increasing by about 12,000 tonnes worldwide every year, which is the equivalent of a two-storey structure built on a basketball court or about 100 double-decker buses and is modest compared with other industrial wastes. **************************** Today nearly 440 nuclear reactors produce electricity around the world. More than 15 countries rely on nuclear power for 25% or more of their electricity. In Europe and Japan, the nuclear share of electricity is over 30%. In the U.S., nuclear power creates 20% of electricity. Around the world, scientists in more than 50 countries use nearly 300 research reactors to investigate nuclear technologies and to produce radioisotopes for medical diagnosis and cancer therapy. Meanwhile, on the world's oceans, nuclear reactors have powered over 400 ships without harm to crews or the environment. [This is Civil Usage only (AFAIK) the site doesn't specify if the Ocean going reactors are in Military vessels or not.Military Nuclear applications are not included or considered] Info excerpts taken unedited from http://world-nuclear.org/ (Highlighted by Me)[Observation by Me]
• Philippines
23 Jul 08
why not use both? the one can compliment the other. We can't solely depend on windmill for all our energy needs for it is unpredictable and inconsistent. It depends on weather and as we know weather is something we can't control or predict. We can solely depend on nuclear but we must also consider the toxic waste it will produce. We should lessen it somehow so we can have more allowance or extend the use of nuclear facilities. the two can compliment each other. Two or more power sources are always better than one.
@gewcew23 (8007)
• United States
23 Jul 08
I have no problem with using all kinds of energy production, but currently the only form we hear about is wind.
• United States
22 Jul 08
Wait, I thought that power plants ran off nuclear energy, anyway. The wind is there to harness and use for free, so is solar energy. Natural gas and propane should and will become the tool for us instead of oil/ gas. T. Boone Pickens has an article on CNN today that is very intriguing. Why not us? Did we wait till things got really bad before we "pulled the cat out of the bag" that we have known about all along? It happens!
1 person likes this
• United States
22 Jul 08
Correction: Wind and Sun are free, Harnessing them is far from free. T.Boone has an area where a huge amount of Windgens can be installed and still be close enough to the end users to be efficient. There are not a lot of spaces like that. Also it is a huge enough area that at least some parts of it will be producing at all times. These machines are not cheap and maintenance is continuous. And it will only get more expensive the older they get. He also acknowledges that we are in this mess because of environmentalism. "Which is costing us four times the cost of the Iraq War."
1 person likes this
@rabi9634 (419)
• United States
23 Jul 08
Nuclear is an awesome route for energy, but the simple truth to it is that it's a very dangerous means of providing energy. We live in a world where too many people think blowing things up is the means to solve their disagreements. If we dot the planet with nuclear plants, we're creating targets. It's also creating waste. Wind on the other hand is never going to go away. If the world is suddenly devoid of wind, our energy requirements are going to be the least of our problem. Wind energy is a sure thing. You don't have a nuclear fallout when one of them malfunctions, and there's no reason why you can't locate them closer to the consumers. Free renewable energy is the future, and wind is certainly the leader of the pack. The biggest reason wind power is going to eventually be the leading source of power is the simplicity of getting them installed. If you want to put a nuclear power plant in a city, by the time it's built, staffed, secured, connected to the grid, and fully functional, there could have been DOZENS of large capacity wind turbines installed and producing. Now, should you ever decide to remove that plant, you're left with a massive shell of what is likely uninhabitable because of radiation. With wind turbines, you simply disconnect, take them down, and move them elsewhere. Wind is by far the best alternative we have, but compared to nuclear, it's an even bigger winner.
1 person likes this
• India
22 Jul 08
I would go for wind mill eventhough its production is limited, since I don't want any hazardous nuclear wastes to be dumped in Third world countries like India.we have all sorts wastes shipped to my country from developed countries. this is the last thing I want in my country.I would prefer anything clean and green .
@gewcew23 (8007)
• United States
22 Jul 08
I do not understand what people are thinking about. The waste of a modern nuclear plant produces after 20 years can be fit into a trash can. Why are so many people thinking that there is all of this waste being produced?
@zhaosonghan (1039)
• China
23 Jul 08
The windmills is the best choise,it's clear.We should use it more,maybe windmills catch up with our need,i think one day it will be.The nuclear is too dangerous,it has the radialization,although lots of main power was make by nuclear,when nuclear is leaking,it will be dangerous.
@buzzmaker (630)
• India
23 Jul 08
We need nuclear. Windmills need too much of space and infrastructure. It may also add up to the cost factor. Building, maintaining nuclear reactors would be cost effective solution than the windmill. We don't just need more and more power everyday, but we also need cheap power. windmills would prove expensive and won't stand the ever growing demand for power.
@magojordan (3252)
• Philippines
22 Jul 08
Well I still think that windmills are better because they don't produce dangerous nuclear waste also if ever that a windmill collapses or something the catastrophic events are not that much unlike in nuclear plants (remember Chernobyl?) Also nuclear plants are really very dangerous. Also if you have problems about windspeed windmills are always placed in places with constant winds. That's why I go with windmills for clean and renewable energy.
@heart4u (409)
• Philippines
23 Jul 08
windmills is what we need more
1 person likes this
@pujiku (10)
• Indonesia
22 Jul 08
nuclear is powerful energy for our living. it can take advantage and loss for our life. with high technology, I think nuclear can manage wisely. can you guarantee it?.... Nuclear is something terrible risky. alternative energy must discovered.
@boerema (60)
23 Jul 08
I believe nuclear energy is the best decision but I do not think we should leave out wind power. Wind power is good for cheap and moderately effective energy. Nuclear will provide much more energy overtime however and in the long run is a much better choice. The only problem with Nuclear is the nuclear waste as a side effect. Although not much waste is produced it is still there and hard to dispose of.
1 person likes this
@smacksman (6053)
22 Jul 08
Wind and solar for electricity generation are a joke and a sop to the Green parties. In practice, unless the wind turbine is in the Trade Wind belt where it blows Force 4 or better 24/7, the wind turbines will never produce enough power to offset the power used in their manufacture. We have a wind farm in the Thames Estuary off Whitstable and at any one time a good 10% of the mills are down for maintenance. Gearbox failures are a common problem. Solar panels are in negative power balance from day 1. Outside the tropics they will never produce more power than used to make them. And the gallium arsenide used in their manufacture is highly toxic and hugely expensive. Talk about nuclear waste? Just look no further than this toxic chemical! There is so much rubbish talked by people in this field it is unbelievable! Give me nuclear and coal power any day.
1 person likes this
@mccaw8 (22)
• South Africa
22 Jul 08
Windmills
1 person likes this
@dinohe (92)
22 Jul 08
Neither one is better or the best solution.Solar thermal is more promising,it's already competitive with coal-fired generation and it will only get cheaper.The only problem is storing power for dark hours,but since it's thermal the heat can be stored in a variety of mediums and later used to power a turbine. Nuclear could be done much more sensibly but the emphasis tends to be on massive facilities and that makes each one expensive.It also makes it easier to keep them secure and monitor them for safety.With new technology they're much more efficient and produce much less waste since it can now be recycled. Wind power is complementary to solar but it does kill a number of birds every year.If we committed to solar thermal,putting plants into an area half the size of Elko County Nevada would provide enough electricity to fulfill all current power demands in the US.Smaller plants are obviously better since power is lost over long tramsmission lines but it does give an idea of how efficint it is and it's still a fairly new technology.Wind is often available at night when solar is not being generated so combing the two makes sense. Nuclear seems to be a way to keep power generation in the hands of monopolies and monolithic utility companies but it may be required if LIEBERMAN-Warner forces us to move quickly off oil.But building a dozen new plants at current costs is going to be a major investmen!
@harishv (149)
• India
22 Jul 08
Both produce electricity. Nuclear produces more electricity than wind mills. But windmills is cheaper compared to Nuclear, its one time investment. Windmills are eco-friendly. Nuclear produces health hazards. The waste of nuclear after two hundred years produces radio active elements. The workers those who work in nuclear reactor are a victim of the diseases.
1 person likes this
@Jose92 (18)
• Portugal
22 Jul 08
nuclear is far away from clean!! it produces tons of radioactive trash that will probably be dispensed into the seas. Windmills, thats clean...but the landscape will be changed for sure.
1 person likes this
• China
22 Jul 08
Although the nuclear may pollute the sea near it, it must be admitted that the power produced by nuclear is large. What's more, compared with the sea, the amount of polluted superheated water is too little. The windmills way seems clear but it will take up more lands than the nuclear if the wind mills produce the same amount of power in the same time as nuclear. The land taken up the windmills can be used to do other buiness and improve the development of economy. In sum, i think nuclear is a better way compared with windmills.
1 person likes this