<story><title>Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122231-solar-panels-made-with-ion-cannon-are-cheap-enough-to-challenge-fossil-fuels</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greedo</author><text>The idea that solar, wind and geothermal energy can replace nuclear power for electricity generation in my lifetime (the next 35 years) ignores the reality of how much electricity we consume and how it is currently generated.&lt;p&gt;Here&apos;s a link to a graph created by the Lawrence Livermore Lab that quickly illustrates the miniscule impact of doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the three primary alternative energy sources.&lt;p&gt;I wish we could all live in a world powered by solar cells etc, but it just isn&apos;t going to happen.</text></item><item><author>nextparadigms</author><text>This is why I &lt;i&gt;welcomed&lt;/i&gt; the backlash and even some of the sensationalism regarding the nuclear explosion in Japan. Even if I realize that nuclear energy could be safe and it&apos;s good to have an alternative that is cheap enough to compete with coal, I&apos;d still wish we&apos;d spend all those billions switching from nuclear and putting most of them into renewable energy technologies, which should be the future.&lt;p&gt;The arguments against solar were that the tech is &quot;not there yet&quot;, so then it&apos;s better to just focus on nuclear. I disagree with that. I believe that if the energy industry changed focus to solar panels and other renewable energy technologies, we would get there a lot faster. We would have a lot more companies exploring different ideas that make them more efficient and cheaper.&lt;p&gt;Nuclear technology will probably never be gone, or at least not within the next century. But I just don&apos;t want it to be the holy grail of the energy industry and see the vast majority of investments go into that. I want renewable energy technologies to be that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>srdev</author><text>Maybe I&apos;m missing something, but I don&apos;t think you provided a link.</text></comment>
<story><title>Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122231-solar-panels-made-with-ion-cannon-are-cheap-enough-to-challenge-fossil-fuels</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greedo</author><text>The idea that solar, wind and geothermal energy can replace nuclear power for electricity generation in my lifetime (the next 35 years) ignores the reality of how much electricity we consume and how it is currently generated.&lt;p&gt;Here&apos;s a link to a graph created by the Lawrence Livermore Lab that quickly illustrates the miniscule impact of doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the three primary alternative energy sources.&lt;p&gt;I wish we could all live in a world powered by solar cells etc, but it just isn&apos;t going to happen.</text></item><item><author>nextparadigms</author><text>This is why I &lt;i&gt;welcomed&lt;/i&gt; the backlash and even some of the sensationalism regarding the nuclear explosion in Japan. Even if I realize that nuclear energy could be safe and it&apos;s good to have an alternative that is cheap enough to compete with coal, I&apos;d still wish we&apos;d spend all those billions switching from nuclear and putting most of them into renewable energy technologies, which should be the future.&lt;p&gt;The arguments against solar were that the tech is &quot;not there yet&quot;, so then it&apos;s better to just focus on nuclear. I disagree with that. I believe that if the energy industry changed focus to solar panels and other renewable energy technologies, we would get there a lot faster. We would have a lot more companies exploring different ideas that make them more efficient and cheaper.&lt;p&gt;Nuclear technology will probably never be gone, or at least not within the next century. But I just don&apos;t want it to be the holy grail of the energy industry and see the vast majority of investments go into that. I want renewable energy technologies to be that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>danmaz74</author><text>But renewable energies &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; replace nuclear (and other sources) for new plants that will be built in the future. Nuclear has a very high initial cost, and shutting down current plants while they&apos;re still efficient and safe enough wouldn&apos;t be a sound choice, but for replacements of ageing plants and for new constructions cheaper and cheaper renewable energies could realistically displace them in the next decades.</text></comment>