Japan quakes

[Sparky]

Why do you mention power density? For batteries it matters, for reactors I don't see what you mean.

megawatts vs land space used.

I'd argue that a high power density is a bad thing. If anything happens to a single high density source then suddenly you have a huge power deficit. Distributed power generation allows the risk to be spread across a larger number of power generation sites.

Well yeah I agree, but there are many cases where you need higher density. Small countries that don't have a lot of space to begin with, for example. Japan is a great example of such a place.

[Solus Corvus]

Well yeah I agree, but there are many cases where you need higher density. Small countries that don't have a lot of space to begin with, for example. Japan is a great example of such a place.

Point well taken. But Offshore wind, ocean thermal gradient, tidal, and wave power don't take up any land at all. Geothermal, solar, and biodigesters don't take up any more land per facility than nuclear/coal/etc. They have a lower power density, but wouldn't have to be especially numerous if part of a diversified energy strategy.

[Buckeye]

Point well taken. But Offshore wind, ocean thermal gradient, tidal, and wave power don't take up any land at all. Geothermal, solar, and biodigesters don't take up any more land per facility than nuclear/coal/etc. They have a lower power density, but wouldn't have to be especially numerous if part of a diversified energy strategy.

I really don't think that even if they used all that to the max they would even be close to the power output of that one plant alone with 6 reactors.

Back in the day when I worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab, 1970- late 1980's they had the Shiva/Nova systems running I thought this would be the answer. Turns out that it wasn't, to many problems getting the beams all hitting the target with the exact same amount of power, plus other problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_laser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(laser)

Now they have the National Ignition Facility which has a shakey start to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility

They also tried the Spheromak MFE Magnets that capped a long tube where plasma inside the tube would supply the heat. These were huge base ball like magnets that capped each end of the tube.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spheromak

And a new way of doing this, Spheromak Tokamak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_tokamak

So far none of these have been the golden goose of creating more energy that it takes to run them.