About Duncan_Kunz

Duncan_Kunz

TANSTAAFL

Location:

United States (85208, USA)

Joined on:

02/10/08

Occupation:

Aerospace Engineering Proposal Manager

Contact:

duncankunz@cox.net

• not yet rated

  Environment

  response to  RemyC's post GOOD Goes Pro-Nuke

  LEDs are a good thing, but...

  While I certainly like the idea of LEDs and other conservation measures, using LEDs will not cook my food, cool my house, smelt aluminum, or propel my Prius Hybrid.

  I believe a University of California Santa Barbara study said that LEDs have to potential of cutting LIGHTING costs by half, but LEDs aren't going to stop the burning of petroleum products which power the rest of the needs people have.

  And, of course, the cost of switching all our lighting appliances to LEDs and the costs involved in scaling LEDs up to the same production rates as incandescent and fluorescent bulbs will be quite high, too.

  Again, there's simply no perfect answer to the Earth's energy problems, all we can do is pick the "best worst" one.

  LEDs will certainly help, but they're NOT the answer.

  Comments (0)

  Commented on February 10, 2008 by - Duncan_Kunz

• not yet rated

  Environment

  response to  GOOD magazine and Johanna Goodman's post Nuclear Energy Goes Green

  Nuclear certainly can be green...

  As a former systems engineer for a now-defunct photovoltaics house, my bias is certainly toward renewables. But I can also do a cost-benefit analysis, and I know that the only way right now to generate enough power to keep our world going without strangling ourselves on burning petroleum is nuclear fission.

  Of course waste storage and storage is a difficulty with nuclear power, but it pales in comparison to the damage caused to Earth by drilling, transporting, storing, and burning fossil fuels. Engineers know that there is no perfect answer to any engineering problem; our job is to take the "least worst" and run with it until something better comes along.

  I'd like to point out, not what nuclear power will do, but what it WON'T do:

  It WON'T release megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change;

  It WON'T damage old-growth forest vegetation with acid rain;

  It WON'T destroy a major marine ecosystem if a ship carrying uranium ore goes aground; and most importantly...

  It WON'T force us to choose between destroying our own northland by drilling -- and buying oil from people who don't like us very much, pushing our balance of trade deficit sky-high, and being the underpinning of our unfortunate and dangerous foreign policies and military adventures in the Mideasst and elsewhere.

  Nuclear energy has its problems, but most of them can be met and overcome with sound engineering and careful planning. The same cannot be said of our continued addiction to petroleum.

  Comments (0)

  Commented on February 10, 2008 by - Duncan_Kunz