Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, David MacKay

[Michael]

Title: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air
ISBN: ISBN 978-0-9544529-3-3
Author: David JC MacKay, Professor of Natural Philosophy, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
Published: 2008-12-02 (latest edition)
Availability: Downloadable, from withouthotair.com
Distribution: Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales

Summary: In this work Prof. MacKay uses simple numbers to add up the energy needs of the United Kingdom, comparing energy production and energy usage. He lets easy-to-understand numbers speak for themselves, and tell that renewables such as wind and photovoltiacs, even if we cover as much as 10% of the UK with wind farms, plus all the house roofs with photovoltiacs, it will still not be enough. He also devotes an entire chapter to nuclear fission and nuclear fusion where his numbers speak clearly in favour of using nuclear power. He concludes that "Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to be pro-nuclear. I’m just pro-arithmetic".

Reference code: David J.C. MacKay. Sustainable Energy – without the hot air. UIT Cambridge, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9544529-3-3. Available free online from http://www.withouthotair.com.

/Michael

[NuclearSpeak]

Nice post.

Sustainable Energy is changing the way the world installs solar power, with innovative solutions to enhance energy output from solar power systems. I think this is quite useful information on sustainable energy. Thanks for sharing. Let your voice be heard as you talk about whether you feel nuclear energy is useful and safe. Give your opinion freely

[nortski]

I think this is pretty conclusive material. Of course; the more nuclear reactors the more chance of things going wrong but it is the cleanest form of energy with the exception of solar energy so it will be the way forward.

[luigiehoffman]

There are many sustainable resources they can add for that innovation so it can be more productive when it comes to energy resources. Biofuel, methane gas from landfill, where they just need anaerobic digester to extract it, waste are always converted to energy that we can say it is sustainable.

[Kismet80]

I think wind power is wonderful, and so is solar power, but that doesnt mean we dont need nuclear power. I try to explain this to some people, that it is sort of impossible to ever use only wind and solar, that baseload power is functionally necessary. Its the side salad of power, but you still need an entree.

[KitemanSA]

There are many sustainable resources they can add for that innovation so it can be more productive when it comes to energy resources. Biofuel, methane gas from landfill, where they just need anaerobic digester to extract it, waste are always converted to energy that we can say it is sustainable.

A tid-bit of info you may find interesting. More people die each and every year from use of renewable sources than have died from radiation poisoning in the entire history of nuclear technology... including the bombs!

Code: Select all

Nuclear (worst case)
Bombs . . . . ~700k (includes blast effects, but what the hey!)
Chernobyl . . ~950k (yes, I know, absurd... but published)
Fukushima . . ~100k (yes, I know, absurd... but lets go with it.
All others . . .~1k
Total. . . .~1.751M

Bio-fuel . . .~1.8M/y.
How bout we save these lives first?

[Kismet80]

Hydro power killed 200 000 people when the Banqiao dam collapsed....