Yes, your plan is more workable.
I suspect a lot of what the fossil fuel industry is doing is just delaying things to try to buy them some time. Investments in wind and solar by those in the fossil fuel industry seem to be largely about making people think they care about the environment (and a lot of the people who work for those companies probably do) while also giving the public the idea that they can somehow solve global warming without nuclear power (which keeps the coal and gas industries in existance since most of the power used still comes from them).
Clean Coal is a possibility but I wouldn't expect to see many fossil fuel companies jumping up and down to build them (except in their TV ads and other PR bullshit) since they are almost certain to be more expensive than a dirty coal plant (though increased efficiency is something I think we can expect to see them embracing).
Of course in areas where people are starting to think it's nuclear or nothing clean coal will probably be promoted a lot (in fact that's probably going to be what it'll take to force the coal industry to really start cleaning up its act).
Though I did find references to charging for CO_2 to be suprising coming from someone at BP. At least in that venue they aren't being denialists. Charging for externalities (except in an irrational manner like in the UK) seemed to be one of the things the anti-nuke forces were trying to avoid (because it would treat their windmills and solar panels the same as a superior power source).
Things could turn out differently than anyone is predicting today. Check out the new book "Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy" by Nobel prize winning chemist George Olah.
Links to his book and ideas along the same line by General Atomics are at the start of my web page.
BP expects the return of the nuclear and they happen to have to no problem with it specifically. The fact that they don't mention it shows they can't argue against it. It's just that they aren't involved. The reason is clear:
There isn't room in the industry for these newbies to get involved. Nuclear power is too technical and they don't have the experience within their ranks to support a competitive business unit to compete with GE, Areva, AECL, not to mention all the operators. The nuclear industry, by its nature, offers no room for bit players.
By contrast, how hard is to build a windmill?
Josh:
If you have BP's profits, how hard is it to buy into the nuclear industry?
BP actually would have a problem with nuclear because it would render most of their investments in wind and solar a waste of money (why would anyone bother investing in a windmill when they already have nuclear power?).
Clean Coal whilst it would probably work and actually manage to be ecofriendly is likely to be uncompetitive with nuclear power economically so at least for fixed power production the fossil fuel industry does have a lot to fear from nuclear. For transportation they probably don't have as much to fear as we really don't have a replacement for petrol and diesel ready to go now except in some niche applications (nuclear should be able to handle large shipping and electricity could be used for rail transport (and in fact often is)).
If BP had wanted to get into the nuclear industry we'd have probably seen them bidding for Westinghouse but to my knowledge they didn't bid.
I also think Rod would hope that there is room for newbies in the industry.
"If you have BP's profits, how hard is it to buy into the nuclear industry?"
Because they couldn't compete with the already established industry. Let's look at it another way. If buying into nuclear was such a bad idea in general, why not say so? As you pointed out, they ignored it. They can't get in and they're hoping to sweep it under the carpet.
"(why would anyone bother investing in a windmill when they already have nuclear power?)."
Ask GE. They're doing it.
Well it is a good way of getting money from the government(s) (which instead of leveling the playing field to ensure that competition between power sources took account of environmental and public health costs gives money to politically correct sources).
It doesn't make sense to actually build the things but it's government that pays for them and since when do the things they do make sense?
There is a semi-interesting discussion on clean coal at the peak-oil-debunked forum at this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/
P...2837e4b3d45966d
An engineer over there posted an assertion that a dozen or so coal power plants produce so much co2 that pumping it into the ground would take up as much pumping capacity as is required to pump the majority of the natural gas we use in the US. Funny.
The assumption that nuclear fusion is some way off is dead wrong. BP is well aware of this fact and is not ready to enter into conflicts with established energy companys to promote fusion energy over established infrastructure and markets just yet. Politics still controls both the licensing and funding of nuclear utilities. Corporations, at the present time, can not get around government control of public utility issues.
There is a simple method and device that small energy buffs will soon begin building for an "end run" around all of this. Way less than 50 MW in scope and more like 20 - 30 KW for "personal" energy plants.
Africa, India and rural China are places where this is happening. The demand for portable sustainable small power generation will drive this type of development. A kind of fusion underground in the guise of "toy manufacturing". Stocking stuffers for the worlds poor.
Michael R. Himes
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