Reader comments
Affordable energy vital, USU professor says

Farmers getting paid by electric companies for allowing them to install wind generators on their fields. Who'd a thunk it? It's already happening in places where constant winds make it practical (not most of Utah, unfortunately), and I predict that the Great Plains states will become a longterm wind energy producer. They will sell electricity to neighboring states.
As soon as Utah gets its act in gear and creates large geothermal plants in the West Desert, where conditions are very good, we can sell electricity to OUR neighboring states.

Affordable energy? Is that like "affordable housing"? Many of us can't afford to buy a house; it looks like many who bought houses can't afford it either. Would somebody please what it means to have affordable energy, affordable houses, etc?

Nuclear power is the only real option for replacing coal. Renewables with the exception of hydro and geothermal, which are geographically limited, require 100% back-up by fossil fuel, because the sun only shines during clear days and sometimes the wind doesn't blow. If we were to recycle our nuclear waste(which is a more expensive operation)and build another 100 plants to use it in, we wouldn't have to mine any more uranium(not as dangerous as a coal mine) than we do now. In fact if the older plants were retro-fitted to use MOX then we could eventually get rid of most of the waste, and the waste that was left would have a much shorter half life. Remember the accident at TMI didn't kill or seriously injure anyone. For those that fear nuclear power the number killed or seriously injured by a U.S. commercial or navy reactor is zero.

Obviously someone on the payroll of the nuke industry. Without badmouthing nuclear power, I must say that the writer is mistaken or lying. Solar and wind are NOT 100% dependent on fossil fuels, since we have the technology to STORE energy as well as generate it. For some places (Utah, maybe?), clear days are the norm; Arizona can generate electricity, store some and market the rest through the existing infrastructure of the electrical grid. Perpetually windy places can do the same. I have seen much smaller and poorer countries, such as Costa Rica, get increasing electricity this way.
And geothermal, while "geographically limited", is exactly what Utah has a lot of. Notice I haven't badmouthed nuclear at all; it's just obvious that the previous writer is a shill for that industry.

Read your Book of Mormon if you want to know how nations rise and fall. You are on the wrong track.

To quote the Geico caveman..."WHAT??????????"

I think both the guy talking about wind, solar and geothermal and the guy talking about nuclear are both right in that we should be using more of both. We need to cut our dependence on oil which really weakens us environmentally, economically and in our forien policy.

nuclear is the only REAL clean energy option in our near future. the amount of energy the world will need in the next 100 yrs will not be provided for by solar, wind, etc. all these "alternative" energy choices are good and should be implemented but they will not provide the QUANTITY of energy the global community requires. Nuclear should/ will provide a large part of that energy need.