If possible I'm going to try to stay out of the politics of the proposal and limit the discussion as practicable to whether it will work. Here is the basic idea:

We can and should base our electric generation needs on nuclear power. If we built 50 nuclear power stations, each with 10 1.2 megawatt reactor/generators that would allow us to be at roughly 100% of our grid needs today. If we build some of the reactors as breeders and reprocess the fuel as we can, then we should have enough fuel to last us roughly 1,000 years. The cost would be roughly $1 trillion. That used to seem like a lot of money. At least you could see something that you paid for.

Now for the kicker. We build another 50 facilities of the same size and use the heat energy to process coal to liquid fuel - gasoline/diesel, etc. Each reactor, using today's technology could create 38,000 barrels of fuel per day. The whole take would be about 7 billion barrels per year, which is our current consumption of oil. We have enough proven coal reserves to last us 200 years at this level of production. We could chose to use our domestic oil reserves as we want to. We wouldn't have to. At $60 per barrel it's supposed to work financially. I haven't had time to research all the numbers. I'd prefer if this was put together by the private sector. The Feds already have their fingers in enough pies.

Big bonus: We would not have to buy a single barrel of oil from anyone. I can't help but wonder how that would change our foreign policy. The holy grail of total energy independence.

Big bonus two: We would put a lot of people to work in relatively good paying jobs.

Buys us a couple of hundred years to figure out dilethium crystals.

 

it'll probably end up in politics, so might as well buy your membership now..

 

Probably the politics forum

 

andd for your $20 we will even throw in the Hotties forum for free

 

Ha ha. Of course nuclear power would work. With enough cheap electric power our fossil fuel (your converted coal) use would drop. The issue is almost entirely political, given the safety record of newer reactor designs.

 

That's a lot of little generators and reactors. A typicl nuclear plant produces one gigawatt +.

 

The problem is the waste not the cost with nukes, with that said, I believe nukes and coal are the way to go. Nat Gas should be used for long haul trucks and electric should be the choice for local transportation. Diesel and gasoline should be for highway use vehicles in the 100+ mile range.

But I don't know where that leaves my big-block corvette, s2000 acura TL and Honda CBR600.

I guess I need a bicycle too for local trips.

 

 

hotties eh???
I may have to pony up...

 

Or you could just put that trillion dollars into natural and limitless energy types like Wind, Wave, Tidal, Solar, and Geothermal...

But of course...where would the profit be in that.

ps- how good is this so called "Hotties" section?