Energy options

Numerate environmentalists like myself need to wise-up and start looking at re-emerging nuclear technologies with an open mind

Geoff Leet hits the nail on the head when he asks for a graphical comparison of energy storage costs. The cost of wind turbine generators is dwarfed by the cost of the energy storage required to manage typical periods of low wind. I read one estimate taking the true cost of wind energy to 70 times that of coal (using cheapest battery technology). Even if we had an existing hydrogen economy with already paid for piping and storage facilities, the conversion costs and inefficiencies are likely to more than double the cost of renewable energy usually quoted.

Frankly, numerate environmentalists like myself need to wise-up and start looking at re-emerging nuclear technologies with an open mind. The best of these use liquid Thorium fuel. Liquid fuel allows almost complete fission of long-half-life products virtually eliminating long term nuclear waste.

For a very good summary of energy options and costs (including renewables), I highly recommend Robert Hargraves' book “Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal”.

Jon Michaelis, Buxton, Derbyshire