The laws of physics are holding back energy innovation. Solar and and wind are simply not dense enough to harvest economically. They are niche sources at best and will never power a modern industrial society. You would have to cover an area the size of Massachusetts with solar panels to provide the energy to marginally power a city of 100,000. Obama and his EPA ideologues are by fiat and regulation implementing the Kyoto treaty and the Copenhagen accords without Congressional approval. This is contracting the American economy. If Obama was serious about lessening carbon emissions, he would have found a solution for the disposal of nuclear waste and then promoted nuclear energy. The reality is that the EPA ideologues are not real environmentalists but neo pagan earth worshipers who are doing their best to dismantle modern culture.
Not QUITE correct. Solar is not dense enough to harvest economically on the Earth’s surface.
Even back in the 1970s, the concept of Solar Power Satellites showed you could generate electricity economically with a roughly 20-year payback on the initial investment, and once you build one, it’s pretty much just labor costs after that for more.
But if you think NUCLEAR drives the Lefties batty, imagine how they’d react to power beamed down via microwaves or infrared laser. . . . (math, of course, defeats the NIMBYs, but when did mere facts ever dissuade tree-hugging lefties. . .)
We have them. There are several. If you want to stick with once-through fuel cycle (inefficient, but the market price of nuclear fuel currently favors it), simply dump used fuel (used, not "spent") in geologically stable formations where it will decay away undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years. If you want more efficient use of the material, then go with reprocessing that includes both partitioning and actinide recycle. That recovers fissile material and reduces unusable waste volume by factors of thousands. The most efficient fuel cycle of all was dveloped right here at the Idaho National Lab in the 1990s. It is the IFR concept. There would have fresh fuel coming in the front door, a few tablet-sized waste pellets coming out the back door once a year, and thousands of GW-hrs going out over the power lines. But Clinton (Hillary) killed the IFR just as it was being readied for demo using the EBR-II as a test vehicle. Couldn't have anything beneficial to nuclear coming out during Clinton's term in office (the NIMTO syndrome).
So we have the solutions to the "waste" problem. We just have to have the will to make the decision to use them. That has always been the problem. Easier for the lazy politicians (I wonder who that could be?) to form a "Blue Ribbon Commission" to "study" the problem and come up with their own "solution", which is to kick the can down the road.
I agree with your general point. But I think this example may be a tad hyperbolic.
According to this site, it would take 2907 acres of panels.
http://www.boemre.gov/omm/pacific/kids/Power-Your-City/bookmark-1-page%20side-by-side.pdf
I don't know that's right either, but I believe MA has a lot more acres than that.
If you have an actual number for the power consumed by this imaginary city of 100,000 we can do some calculations.