Without diving into the politics of nuclear, all I will say is that nuclear has a place and reactors are already built. There's no need to shut down nuclear reactors that have been operating safely for many years. It just places more stress on the generation system. Nuclear energy isn't "clean" but its better than dumping tons of global warming gases and toxins into the atmosphere. Drawback - obviously - is that if there is a mistake, its a toxic radioactive blow that could kill thousands or potentially millions of people. So nuclear should only be generated under the tightest regulations and most stringent quality checks and only operated with the latest in technology. And yes, new nuclear generation should be highly scrutinized and debated before even considered as a possibility. But the good news is that mistakes of grand magnitude are increasingly rare, Japan's crisis came about from a huge tsunami. None of Ontario's generation plants are threatened by the types of natural disasters that make them at serious risk.
The push toward renewable energy has to have government incentives, the private market doesn't seem to have incentive to invest into expensive new technology and the only effective organization that can is government until the market finally starts to see more green (as in profit) from renewables. Maybe the execution could have been better, but the investments in green energy in the last 10 years have been well worth it.
Coal isn't clean, no matter how "clean" they try to advertise it. Coal is mined dirty, it burns dirty, and only a fraction of the CO2 is captured when you take into consideration how much effort goes into mining the crap, how much carbon it takes to burn it during transport, and the fact that you still get emissions that are far beyond CO2 even with the best scrubber technology we have today. Natural Gas is a 10x better solution and coal should be shut down at every chance we get. Coal is outdated and natural gas is more abundant than ever before due to fracking. Maybe fracking isn't great, but its better than mining coal and transporting it via carbon burning trucks and trains. Natural Gas can at least be sent through a pipeline as opposed to through trains and trucks, and when its burned it burns very clean relative to coal even with scrubbers and so-called "clean coal" technology.
Coal also has an after effect. Coal is a solid or semi-solid substance, when it burns it leaves a toxic afterburn substance we call coal ash. So coal isn't just horrible before, unlike natural gas which burns clean, coal ash becomes a toxic substance that must be stored after burning. Anyone ever heard of the horrific toxic coal ash spill in Kingston, TN? Read up on it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsto...h_slurry_spill
Coal should forever be ended and it should never be brought back. It is a hundreds year old technology and should be done away with ASAP. The danger coal ash presents is 100x more dangerous than the fluids they pump underground for fracking purposes and coal ash is a danger almost never talked about. There's nothing clean about "clean" coal technology.
Some of the toxins stored in coal ash will be around for thousands of years before it even starts to break down organically, the only thing more dangerous is nuclear fallout. The best "clean" coal technology to sequester emissions during burning will never, ever make the toxic coal ash problem go away. Coal is the best technology the 1200's or 1500's could provide, it has no place in the modern world.
One thing is clear: deregulated energy is a disaster when it comes to hydro generation. Its failed in virtually every circumstance its been tried in. New York State has been experimenting with private energy supplier choices for almost 20 years now, the experiment has resulted in higher consumer energy costs than there was before.
California was a disaster, enough said. Ontario needs to regulate energy again and take back the power it wasted away on private operators that only see green in terms of profits to be made by strangling supply, not balancing supply.
Lastly, to anyone who whines and moans and complains about wind energy, they don't deserve a seat at the table for debate. If you are going to whine, moan, and complain about how aesthetically unpleasing a windmill is, or harp on the "dangers" of wind turbine noise or the fact that birds may fly into them, then you really are someone who should give up electricity altogether and go buy a cabin in the woods and live without hydro. I have no respect for anyone who is in opposition to wind or solar farms, they simply don't deserve to live in the 21st century and should admit they would be better served by going back to pre-electric days if they really want to have no impact on the environment. There isn't a less invasive way to generate electricity than to do it via hydroelectric or wind or solar, no one opposing these forms should be taken seriously.
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