Quote (Santara @ Dec 13 2009 06:45pm)

I've already gone on record about what steps should be taken, but to restate them; Nuclear energy, supported by installing both state of the art pebble bed nuclear reactors and a completely new power distribution system, clean coal & natural gas backup systems for peak usage, and ER-EV (extended range electric vehicle) like the products from Tesla motors or the Chevy Volt & Toyota Prius using power from the grid to provide transportation in place of gasoline.

These won't come cheaply, but impoverishing ourselves trying to do it how they're proposing in Copenhagen won't get it done either. The key, in my opinion, is promoting growth and economic prosperity to achieve these ends.

Edit: As for reforestation, there's little the US can do. We already have a large percentage of forest land amongst the world's countries, so on that point, we'd have to depend on other nations. Brazil, for example, cuts immense swathes of forest so they can grow sugarcane to feed their ethanol energy economy.

Quote (inkanddagger @ Dec 13 2009 05:08pm)

80% of the deforestation in Brazil is attributed to cattle farming from what I have seen(which is sold to the US and Australia, mostly).

Nuclear is expensive to get started up and creates a perpetual cycle of uranium mining that leeches cyanide and radioactive materials into the water table. I agree that we should recycle waste like they do in France, but we need to phase it out as much as we need to phase out fossil fuels. Nuclear and coal work on the same principle - they generate heat which boils water and turns a turbine. This can be achieved in many cleaner ways.

Quote (Santara @ Dec 13 2009 10:40pm)

I stand corrected on Brazil.

Of course it's expensive to get started. They have to go through miles of red tape because of lawsuits by environmental groups whose only purpose is the prolongation of the process so as to make it too expensive to build. Check out the link here>>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor  which discusses the safety of this design, but includes inert gas cooling rather than water cooling. It's far more stable and safe, generates far less waste, and though I can't seem to source it at the moment, I believe it can't be used to generate weapons grade fissile materials.

Quote (inkanddagger @ Dec 13 2009 08:46pm)

That would be an improvement. The most I support about nuclear right now is recycling waste. I think that government red tape has got to go. France has been doing it for as long as they have had a nuclear program. I have seen some pretty bad shit caused by hard rock mining though, let alone uranium hard rock mining (I am from Arizona, and I have quite a few friends from tribal lands, and trust me there is some serious shit in the water in the four corners region).

Quote (Santara @ Dec 13 2009 10:56pm)

We have to get our energy somewhere. If your biggest problem with the newest design ends up being the pollution from mining the uranium, then how about better mining techniques or better pollution safeguards? However, while energy can be achieved in cleaner ways, you have to take into account practicality and economic viability. Hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, and solar generation simply aren't viable everywhere. Massive windfarms can be built offshore where wind is much more constant, as well as uninterrupted, but would be next to useless in the southwest and the west. Hydroelectric, of course, needs rivers, which aren't available everywhere. Solar is only available at best, 14 hours a day. Simply put, some measure of traditional power generation is absolutely necessary, for the foreseeable future.