dmdhashw:

Very interesting article. Particularly on the nuclear and solar myths.

On nuclear’s safety risks:

Power sources such as coal and petroleum might seem safer than nuclear, but statistically they’re a lot deadlier. Coal mining kills several hundred people annually—mainly from heart damage and black lung disease, but also through devastating accidents like the April mine explosion in West Virginia. The sublethal effects of coal-power generation are also greater. “The amount of radiation put out by a coal plant far exceeds that of a nuclear power plant, even if you use scrubbers,” says Gerald E. Marsh, a retired nuclear physicist who worked at Argonne National Laboratory. Particulate pollution from coal plants causes nearly 24,000 people a year to die prematurely from diseases such as lung cancer. Petroleum production also has safety and environmental risks, as demonstrated by the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

On solar’s costs:

“The shortest payback with new thin-film cells is less than a year,” says Burr Zimmerman, a chemical engineer and co-founder of the Kairos Institute, which ushers new technologies into the marketplace. Thanks to ramped-up production and cheaper materials, up-front costs continue to plummet as well; the price of solar cells has fallen fifteenfold since 1980.

After a solar array’s initial payback period, you start to reap some serious financial benefits. Assuming solar cells have an average life expectancy of 30 years, more than 50 percent of the power solar cells generate ends up being free. “There are maintenance issues,” Zimmerman says, but over time, “solar cells are definitely making you money.”