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Re: Basic Choices and Constraints on Long-Term Energy Supplies



MY MESSAGE WAS REJECTED WITH THE FOLLOWING NOTE:

Your posting to the PHYS-L list has been rejected because it contains
an attachment of type 'TEXT/ENRICHED'. The PHYS-L list has been
configured to reject such attachments; please contact the
list
owner at PHYS-L-request@LISTS.NAU.EDU for more information.

I HAD NO ATTACHMENT. AND THE MESSAGE TO WHICH I WAS
RESPONDING HAD NO ATTACHMENT. I TYPED EVERYTHING
IN MY MAILER, EXCEPT THE URL THAT WAS COPIED FROM
JOHN'S SECTION (BELOW MY REPLY) AND PASTED INTO MY
SECTION. THEN < > WERE TYPED AROUND THE URL.

IN TRYNG AGAIN I AM GOING TO PAST EVERYTHING INTO THE
BBEdit (pure text editor) and then cut and past it again into the
message to be sent. This is not a convenient way of dealing
with messages.

In the past I had such rejections only when messages copied
from word-processing documents were pasted into the mail
messages to be sent. But I did not do this. At what point did I
do something wrong in replying directly to John's message?
Does it mean my mailer is sick?

What follows is my original message.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

My information about the cost of solar panels
(as opposed to solar heaters) is very old. Solar
electricity would be better than U-235-nuclear,
unless U-239 and Th-232 become fuels.

2) By the way, I do not like the way conversion
factors are displayed at:

<http://www.av8n.com/physics/energy-reserves.html>

For example,

: hour = 3600 // seconds
hour= 3600

a) What is the // operator?
b) Would it not be better to have 1 hr = 3600 seconds ?
c) Why two lines for each " hour = " ?
Ludwik Kowalski

On Wednesday, Jul 28, 2004, at 14:55 America/New_York, John Denker
wrote:

Ludwik Kowalski wrote in part:

So far the only practical solution (in terms
of costs) is nuclear.

The word "only" makes that a two-way statement:
a) Nuclear is practical.
b) All other solutions are not practical.

I don't find either part of that to be self evident.

Evidence against part (a) includes the fact that (according
to the best estimates) there's not enough extractable U235
to make much of a difference to the overall energy supply.
Remember that less than 1% of natural uranium is U235.

That situation changes dramatically IF (big IF) we are
willing to deploy breeder reactors. But that is not
obviously cost-effective. How do you reckon the NPV (net
present value) of a risk of nuclear weapon proliferation?
As far as I know, the industry doesn't even have plans
for proposing a plan for building a single commercial
breeder, let alone deriving most of our energy from such.
Why is that?

As for part (b), the last time I did the calculations,
http://www.av8n.com/physics/energy-reserves.html
the cost of solar-generated electricity was already
very nearly competitive on the wholesale market, so if
fuel costs went up (and were expected to stay up) the
teeter-totter would flip rather dramatically toward
solar ... and would stay flipped forever more.