And speaking of China and power plants, there’s been a bit of news recently about China pushing forward with nuclear pebble bed reactors, which could potentially be cheap, safe (relatively), and simple nuclear reactors. Such reactors could dramaticallly reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and China is the only country making a huge push for them. (South Africa and Germany are working on them as well, but China can progress more quickly with nuclear reactors due to the fact that they can ignore the fears of the populace). Also, the Three Gorges Dam which should be finished in about 2010 and will produce roughly 18 million kilowatts ( = 18 gigawatts). That’s a lot of cheap, environmentally friendly (if you ignore the destruction of the Three Gorges region ecology) power. And unlike the US, where most of the rivers we can dam are dammed, I believe that China still has plenty that they’re working on.

I had a point in this somewhere. Ahh, yes! Even if China isn’t being restricted by the Kyoto Treaty, they’re taking dramatic steps to reduce reliance on oil, at least for energy production. The US, however, is looking everywhere other than where it should for new energy. Wind power - inconsistent, kills animals, causes local climate change. Solar power - inconsistent, inefficient, and environmentally unfriendly to produce the solar panels (lots of heavy metals and energy have to be used). Tidal power - consistent, but very disruptive to the environment. Geothermal power - insufficient by far for what we need. Where does that leave us? Fossil fuels - bad for environment. Fission - we should develop small pebble bed reactors. Right now it’s the best option. And if we were willing to put sufficient funds into it, I truly do believe that we could have workable fusion reactors before too long (I *did* spend two summers in the Fusion Energy Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, so I know a decent amount about the progress that has been made in the last decade).

Anyway, like I said, the US is looking everywhere other than where it should, which is to say, Nuclear Power (both fission and fusion), because of our irrational fear of anything with the word nuclear attached to it.

As far as the economy, I have even read an argument here that we should burn more fossil fuels now, to strengthen the economy more quickly, so that we have more capability to solve the problem later, when presumeably we’ll have some new technology. Seems like a risky strategy to me!