Just to break a little from Oblivion and talk about something more social, i just saw some stuff about these "in-development" wave power contracts in the US and Europe. Basically, at the moment one device can generate about 100kw and occupies approximately 1.5m*1.5m on the water surface with a height of about 2m from the water surface. It is linked to the water-bed.

Would you vote "yes" for a huge government project to supply about 15% of the total countries power by hooking up these devices all along your entire coastline (out of sight from the shore)?

maybe, if its out of sight and is 'clean'. Would sure beat those bloody awful wind turbines they insist on sticking all over the place. "oh look, a pretty idyllic countryside scene" *turn corner to see giant ugly white thing*. Those things are hideous and need burning.

For myself, im dont think they look "hideous", they look rather fascinating. HOWEVER, if theres a toss-up between a view with/without a wind turbine, i'd choose 'without'.

And yes, i suppose those wave power things are "clean".

yea, they're clean, they just use tides to make power. There's something similar that uses the temperature differences in water to make power. Equally clean. I'd be totally for a huge system of these types of devices... something that combined the two woudl be neat too. :p 100kW isn't all that impressive though... a nuclear power plant seems to generate between 600 and 1200 megawatts....so, it'd take 6,000 - 12,000 of these to match a single nuclear power plant. Doesn't seem very cost effective.

Agree. Theyre supposed to be used en-masse.

Well-maintained nuclear plants are (much) preferrable over inefficient methods of generating energy. Until we come up with a cleaner and safer way of generating a similar amount of energy, that is.

Tho I fear that the chances that we'll find a safer way are slim.

nuclear power is amazingly safe and efficient, especially with pebble bed reactors. The funny thing is, despite using a nuclear reaction to produce heat, we're still using steam turbines to actually produce power. So the same tech is used to actually make electricity as it used in coal power plants. :p We're long overdue for a brand new type of energy generation... solar energy was, I believe, the last energy -> eletricity generation technique invented, and that was in the middle of the 19th century.

I'm looking forward to either nuclear fusion or antimatter power.

I believe that with the fourth generation of nuclear reactions the temperatures become so high that you can use it to split water to form hydrogen... paving the way for a real hydrogen economy.

ah, now that's cool. We just need someone to invent a cheap and safe way to store hydrogen. I'm betting some sort of cell system will end up getting being it (like fuel cells).

What happens to nuclear waste?

You store it in empty mines for example. Nuclear waste has to cool down above ground for a while, because it still generates a lot of heat, then you can put it away for good. Since the earth's uranium supply isn't infinite, a large amount will have to be enriched again and reused.
The big problem with storing the waste is that you don't want terrorists to be able to get near.

A international nuclear waste organisation would do us well then. A totally centralised complex of super high security and huge size funded by all countries that sign up.

Myeah, that probably won't work anyway...there's always some country that thinks they're better off playing sole knight. cough*America*cough

Maybe keep it a European Union thing to start with.

Havent you played enough computer games? Big super organisations always get corrupted at some point and then a la deus ex happens, and then theres consequenses to pay.