https://earther.gizmodo.com/new-poll-shows-basically-everyone-likes-alexandria-ocas-1831158171
[YOUTUBE]v=3-4Bffxoevk[/YOUTUBE]
It would mean more jobs for non-wealthy people, it would mean cheaper energy in the future, and it would mean less economic damage from climate change in the far future. Even among
fascists conservatives, this idea is favored.
So, of course, all Republicans and most Democrats (namely the conservadems) will be against this. They aren't interested in doing what the people want, they only want to do what campaign donors want.
It is an online poll which you would expect to attract people interested in alternative power. That being said I don't doubt that it would be popular with the broader population, perhaps just behind an infrastructure program in popularity.
However, as I always caution, alternative power is not ready to be anything but an auxiliary carbon reducing power source. It can only reduce the carbon emissions for the six to eight hours that it runs. It can't replace base power generating, which currently is majority coal and minority nuclear. And it can't replace the large gas-fired peak generating stations either, because the power peak consumption is after the workday is over and PV solar panels and wind aren't producing anywhere near capacity. We still will need full capacity base power and peak power generation from natural gas, coal and nuclear.
And no, there is no miracle battery technology that will change this equation. The current best battery technology, LiFePO4, costs more than three times more than the PV solar panels over the lifetime of the system. And PV panels have only just reached cost parity with coal on a kW basis but they can only generate at full capacity for eight hours a day meaning you have to have 2.5 to 4 times the PV generated kW installed to replace coal and nuclear with power storage of 1.5 to 3 times the kWh of storage. These numbers have to be on the higher side to allow for cloudy days and at this, it wouldn't negate the need for a full fossil fuel back up and a dramatically beefed up power distribution for the US. This is frightfully expensive.
Once again, the only cost-effective alternative, carbon-free, base power generating technology that can be installed today is nuclear. It has problems that are largely the result of stepping on our own dicks. We have stopped effectively any research into new safer and more efficient generations of reactors. We have abandoned a perfectly viable storage system for nuclear waste because it is only 99.98% safe while tolerating coal-fired power plants that emit radioactive waste into the environment daily.
The construction of nuclear power plants in the US has huge cost overruns and delays. I can't help but believe that many of these problems are due to the way that we finance and build the plants. Our model of for-profit monopolies for generating power rewards companies for construction overruns and delays by allowing these costs into the rate base paying the company as much as ten percent a year for screwing up in the construction of the plant. The production of power should be by a non-profit government held entity.
We should have a standard reactor and power station designs that incorporate all possibilities of secure structural design for soil conditions and earthquake zone. That is building all of the plants as if they are in earthquake zone 5 and on a spread foundation with or without piles. Having a standard design and only one or two sizes of plants, say 600 and 1200 MW, means that we aren't re-inventing the whole plant every time, so the different plants can share operating experience with one another, and can provide a solid base for incremental improvements.
Reactors design research should be concentrated on inherently safe designs that don't require cooling water in normal or in emergencies, molten salt reactors for a start. Future reactors should be gas cooled, not the thermally inefficient water and steam cooled that requires the huge containment structure. A hot gas turbine's exhaust has enough extractable heat for secondary applications like cracking water for hydrogen production for powering automobiles, for example. The reactor design that is picked will be built and installed in all of the new plants no matter who builds the reactor with the reactor builders bidding on the same design.
