We Have To Go Nuclear

In South Africa, like the USA, where we not only have no capacity but also decrepit infrastructure, we don't have much of a choice but to go Nuclear.

The other option would be coal, and unless you're Ivo Vegter or Thabo Mbeki or President Bush, or some other Denialist, you might be concerned about the toxicity of the coal route.

You hear about the arguments that nuclear waste lasts millions of years, and of course, that's relevant. Nuclear though is like MacDonald's. It's now a franchise, it's not the healthiest food out there, but it can feed (sustain) millions, while we try to work out something better in the meantime.

The waste product is actually compact; it can be housed in a small garage. This beats the sort of waste, tons and tons, that coal would fire in the atmosphere.

The renewables are nice, but they really don't bring much power to the table. Unless you want 70% of South Africa's landmass Uglified with windmills. Not sure how many people would go for that, and I doubt it would be enough anyway.

Denmark has experimented with underwater windmills, and this is an interesting option where tidal waters turn turbines through narrow channels. It's invisible, but I am not sure if we have this sort of underwater geology to make use of.

Another point to make is that start up costs for nuclear are very high, but it is amongst the cleanest and most efficient energy option we have, if not THE cleanest. That's taking into consideration energy OUTPUT.

The minority of people who have spent time figuring out that hydrogen is a hoaz, biofuels amounts to bullshit (although plowing up cheap African land remains a long shot), and electric cars are not solutions, will realise that as far as nuclear goes, it is the only option for keeping the lights on. Unfortunately you can't pour nuclear energy into thirsty motor vehicles. I believe we're long past the sell by date for that solution. We are simply not going to run the world's highway systems the way we are running them now on any combination of 'alternatives'.

We can however move towards rail, and start building walkable communities in the style of the New Urbanists.