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First of all, I did not read the entire thread because it’s pretty large (and I have just 20 minutes) so I took a quick look. My apologies if I write something that has already been said or so.
Now, the situation here in Belgium is funny. Our politicians want to shut down every nuclear power plant before 2025 (if possible before 2015) but almost 60% of our own produced energy is generated by 2 big facilities plants (one with 4 cores is less then 10km from my place). The rest is generated by gas or coal plants. The amount of energy generated by wind or sun is less then 2%. In total we produce 22% of our energy; the rest is imported from France and Germany. Ironically France produces 75% of their energy in …… nuclear power plants.
Still, Groen! (the greenies in Belgium) want them away. I agree that nuclear energy is dangerous for us and our environment but we Belgians are not capable of replacing the energy of the nuclear power plants by windmills or solar panels. But if we don’t want to become completely dependent from other countries we must do something.
According to dr. Joris Soens we only have place for 350 midsize turbines (if we build them on the land). Enough for 200.000 inhabitants, or 2% of all the Belgians). If we really try we could build 700 turbines but then we would have to build them almost everywhere. Still that’s only enough for 400.000 Belgians. Luckily we have a coastline of 60km and some territorial waters which we can use for windmills if not for the people who live there. Most of them don’t want those things to be their since it’ll pollute their views. Anyway, if we would build them anyway we would be able to feed another 1 or 2%, so in total if we would build them no matter what we would be able to feed 5 or 6% of all Belgians.
Another option would be solar energy. The maximum to produce in Belgium would be 450GWh but in 2003 we had to produce 78.1TWh to have enough. So basically we need to find something else.
If you ask me we have to build more or at least keep these plants up and running. We have very good storage facilities some 600 feet under the ground (again not far from me but hey, Belgium is not big) and I think in the future we will be able to reuse what the produce or find ways to get rid of them in a better way + if we want to help Kyoto and ourselves we cant build gas and/or oil plants.
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