Quote Originally Posted by saaya View Post
So, an offshore windfarm for 3gw costs 30bn more or less
According to some googling reactors cost 5bn plus for construction only, and the biggest reactors product 1gw, so offshore windparks cost twice as much as nuclear reactors, are 100% safe while nuclear reactors will NEVER be 100% safe, and that's not taking into account operational costs and fuel costs...

So yeah, we need nuclear! There's no way around it! There just aren't any alternatives...
One can only imagine the management/maintenance of large scale wind farms distributed over large areas. The more components there are to break, wear out, malfunction, cables and connections to go bad the less reliable something is going to be. Not to mention an entire wind farm is probably more likely to be taken out by severe weather than any conventional power plant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

Sure nuclear has its obvious draw backs but it's compact, reliable and cost effective and as long as there is no disaster has relatively small environmental foot print.

We don't "need" just nuclear, we need reliable power from any source and neither wind or solar alone can provide consistent power no more than you can depend on nature to give you a perfect day everyday of the year.

Disconnect your house from the grid and put up a wind mill and solar array and let us know how things go is what comes to my mind.