[NilesJo]

"we must fully exploit our own coal reserves..."

Energy from a coal plant that totally pays for the cost of it's fuel, emissions control and waste cleanup will cost more than nuclear. It will also put out much more CO2 than gas or oil (higher carbon concentration) and will emit more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a nuclear plant.

[AdamSelene235]

Energy from a coal plant that totally pays for the cost of it's fuel, emissions control and waste cleanup will cost more than nuclear. It will also put out much more CO2 than gas or oil (higher carbon concentration) and will emit more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a nuclear plant.

Additionally, there are ppm of uranium, thorium and halfnium in coal. If you burn a billion tons of coal (and we do), you throw thousands of tons of radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

Incidentally, there is more energy in the trace radioactive materials in coal, than there is in the coal itself.

So we have a choice between burying (or in the case of a breeder recycling waste into fuel) radioactive waste or breathing it. And we have chosen to breathe radioactive waste rather than bury or recycle it

Thank you, environmentalists.

[Rebel_Ace]

I did not mean to imply that Hydrogen Fusion reactors were "just around the corner". The technical hurdles are indeed staggering. I am simply stating that it needs to be a goal, since it offers the multiple advantages of nearly limitless energy from ordinary water, very little in the way of toxic residue, and the chance to tell all the third world dictators with oil wells to "shove it".

As far as our own U.S. coal reserves...

Is coal a fairly dirty power source? It sure can be, look at how it is used in China. There are cleaner and more efficient ways to burn and process it. It will still release scads of junk in the air, though. My point here is that it's OURS, on OUR soil, under OUR control, and we need to exercise the leverage that gives us, if for nothing else, the short term while other technologies are developed and deployed.