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Powering Utah in the future

So, does this mean Des News stands behind Tilton's proposal?

Nuclear power is clean, but the waste is not. With all the people in Utah suffering from radiation induced illnesses in themselves or their families (I am a daughter of a down-winder), I cannot support nuclear power. Where is the support for solar powered panels on every home, a sustainable way to remove individual families and homes from the dependency of huge corporations.

I find it ironic that the main argument in this editorial for nuclear power is that coal power is going to get more expensive- isn't nuclear power the LEAST cost-efficient power source out there? It costs tons of money to subsidize those things

So many people that have never produced any electricity and never will, have the answere to how it should be done. The free market system will work if we let it.

Dave;
The free market system gave us the massive stripmining of coal in the East, which I witnessed first hand. Smiling corn fields were turned into a fair rendition of the surface of the moon, clean water supplies were permanently corrupted, and it was all done legally. Before those bad ol' guys in the gummint started regulating things. People who have a complete, mystical faith in ANY human system, whether communism or "the free market", are worshipping false gods. Give us an idea, not empty rhetoric.

NONE of the posters up to 4 pm has their facts straight.
1. Nuclear power had nothing to do with the problems of the "downwinders." Generating electricity has a fabulous safety record in the US, Europe, and Japan.
2. All large energy-related companies in the US have cleaned up their acts on their own in recent decades, often beyond gov'mnt requirements.
3. Nuclear-generated electricity costs less than every other source but coal. The reason is simple--small fuel costs, long life of fuel.
4. Disposing of or storing spent nuclear fuel is rather simple, but politicians and special interest groups are standing in the way of the Yucca Mtn repository. There is no credible scientific study that shows the repository would not be safe. Transporting nuclear materials already has a 50-plus year safety record, so is not really a safety issue.

Once you know the facts about energy, the answers for the future are clear. And they don't include large-scale use of solar panels--the most expensive, least efficient method of generating electricity.

The state of Utah should prepare for the future and begin building a couple of nuclear power plants. And yes, I'll volunteer to have them in my town.

The free market system works well when buyer and seller pay the full cost of the product. When someone else has to pay part of the cost (i.e. society) there is suboptimal resource allocation. If the buyers of coal-fired power were forced to pay
its hidden costs, they may well decide on an alternative source of power with higher INITIAL cost but lower long-term cost.

Coal appears to be the cheapest power source because those who produce and use it do not pay the "externalities" or hidden costs. If coal-fired power raises the rate of respiratory problems even a few percentage points, the costs are huge when spread over the entire population. And we all end up with higher medical insurance costs.

I can see it coming. During the winter we will all freeze to death because, like lemmings, we jump over the cliff of global warming. You self styled intellectuals will be the death of us all. Even our "conservative" governor has fallen prey to the "sky is falling" madness called global warming. By the way there is a proven technology available right now to utilize the coal we have in an environmentally sound way. It is coal gasification used in an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant. It removes the pollutants before the hydrocarbons are burned. But because it uses coal the environmentalist will cry out against it.

For the poster who says nuclear is safe -- what about what happened in Japan just last year that has contaminated the local fisheries? And don't for get that if we railroad all that waste to Yucca Mountain, we'll need to bring all our military home to guard/monitor all the nuclear waste being hauled across the country, across Utah to Yucca Mountain. Salt Lake City will see seven train loads a day of nuclear waste coming through the city -- and Las Vegas will have even more. All we need is one terrorist or human error to derail a nuke train to create panic and economic shock waves. Nuclear requires such significant subsidies to insure the industry and have the gov't take control of waste. If the free market were to "work" so that nuclear power's true cost were paid by consumers, no one would buy it!

If there is an electricity shortage it will be caused by nuclear paranoia, and global warming alarmists that don't have a clue where the laws of supply and demand are concerned. Not factored into this story is the fact that during the next 10 years many of our new cars will be plug-in hybrids that will suck up huge amounts of electricity in order to replace our dependency on oil.

Much of the electricity shortfall in the next few years will be produced with natural gas which will drive up the cost of home heating, and then we will freeze. Remember the laws of supply and demand cannot be broken. In other words there is no free lunch, even if subsidies and other silly government actions make it appear so.

We could easily increase the efficiency of our power grid over seven-fold by simply moving power generation closer to the demand. The national power grid currently operates at 13% (!) efficiency whereas localized power generation can get upwards of 85%+ efficiency. The amount of power lost in transmission is simply staggering.

So how about it? Let's move one of the coal plants closer to Salt Lake and reduce our coal need substantially.

Nuclear power is one of the MOST expensive power sources. See previous Desertet News articles for reference. Nuclear also uses massive amounts of water, which with global warming reducing the snow pack in Utah, will become progresively more scarce.
Building a nuclear plant, even if desireabl, takes 10-15 years.
Coal gasification and squestration may work, but us 10 years away.
Utah has immense potential for wind and solar development right now. New wind and utility scale solar plants can be built in 3-5 years We need to all get behind sustainable, renwable energy development now.
Tell your legislators that the first step is setting a MANDATORY Renwable Portfolio(energy) standard for Utah. Also we should push for electrical deregulation that allows the grid operators to take all sources of power.

One of the major gases causing the greenhouse effect is Methane. Methane is far worse than carbon dioxide in causing global warming. A large portion of methane comes from cows. You'd be amazed at the amount of methane gas a cow can produce in one day. Scientists have now developed a way to harvest the methane in manure and convert it to methane which is shipped and burned for power. All the cows in California could power 120,000 homes annually. Why don't we make use of the poop that lies on the ground, gives more wages to our shrinking farmers, and make use of one of the major contributors of global warming instead of letting it rise into the atmosphere?

It's time for everyone to wake up to the fact that even if all politcal resistance to coal and nuclear power generation vanished tomorrow, we are still facing a future of dramatically lower per capita electricity use. We will not be able to build coal or nuclear plants quickly enough or mine the fuel quickly enough from our diminishing reserves to prevent this.
Make sure your plans for the future include strategies for coping with painfully expensive and unreliable electricity. Don't bet your life on the continued uninterrupted service of your air conditioner or refrigerator.
google "Olduvai Theory"