Quote Originally Posted by Don Corleone View Post
Before we all sign on to bury our reactors in concrete, you all should figure out what it takes on an economy of scale magnitude to keep your Prius charged up and your Ipad glowing.

Do some order of magnitude calculations on the generation/liberation of energy. Ask yourself... would you rather live with broken mountains & sooty skies (coal), oil slicks and sooty skies (oil), an area the size of Texas covered in solar panels to power just Dallas (solar)... or show me how you would balance the demand/supply equation, and what you would do with the waste.

Nuclear power does a great job at much energy for little integrated negative effect. The problem is that the negative effects are highly concentrated. I'm not saying that's the answer, but tiling 2/3 of our land mass with cadmium isn't either (solar) me-thinks.
I've always though people were far, far, far, more scared of nuclear power then they should be. Many posts here (and the attitude that underlies it) are evidence enough of that. The problem with renewable energy sources is that they can't practically replace any of the fossil or nuclear energy generation. The wind and the waves will never be able to match the sundering of uranium for sheer Mega Wattage.