Yes. People say "how can you be sure this won't spontaneously turn into a nuclear weapon." That's kind of insulting to nuclear weapons engineers to suggest anything nuclear can turn into a weapon with no design effort.

If your non-mooch biofuels-to-energy or chemicals company got wiped out because a significant number of its customers moved with BHO (The president IS like a browser hijacker object.) to solar because it was politically the thing to do, you would also be against renewables because of the government subsidies. Biofuels and hydrogen are about breakeven businesses without the subsidies after around 15 years, by which time competition will have developed that substantially cuts into the profit of the business. The payout period for solar energy without subsidies, assuming that existing technology doesn't get replaced by something better, is >> 50 years unless you make the solar cells in China or similarly low wage country, in which case the payout period goes down into the 30 year range. The capital costs are just too high.

Moreover, have you noticed how every several years that the "environmentally friendly energy of choice" changes, no business can survive that constant major technology switch on such a frequent basis.

Is it that we're so against renewables because of government subsidies, really? Every bit and part of America's power system is subsidized by the government and has been since the 30's.
The construction of dams
The REA
The nationwide GRID
Favored tax treatments'
Community monopoly
Etc, etc.

The real solution to our power system, efficiencies, and economics is the eventual development of decentralized power generation with minimal transmission and privatization to the individual level with no subsidies for any portion.

The development path of battery and capacitor technology is headed toward that decentralization. There will still exist a need for generating plants for large industry users, i.e.. Aluminum smelting, etc. but industries such as refineries generate enough waste in off gases and thermal losses to provide a large portion of their own power.

A good example is what the cell phone has done to hardwire telephone utility companies.

Laissez-faire Free Market.

The left/greens have redefined "renewable" to mean either non-fossil fuel or non-combustion based.

That definition is not accurate of course.

A good start would be modern reactor designs rather than light water designs from the 60s. And while you are at it use more than a single cycle/type of fuel.

The radioactive "waste" is only waste if you choose not to use it...it too is fissionable, just not useful in a current design reactor.

As for safety, you can have fatalities and explosions at any power plant.

Defining acceptable risk determines whether or not something is considered safe. You can generally design and engineer for lower risk, but particularly in the case of nuclear power, the fear of nuclear weapons gets projected onto nuclear power for no good reason.

Well said! People naively think that putting a hydroelectric dam in place will rid the earth of those evil nuclear and coal powered plants. The problem is energy density... Nuclear and coal can't be beat for that.

The potential energy differences between solar / wind / coal / nuclear are so vast many can't comprehend it. One of the best articles I’ve read on the subject was an essay by William Tucker “Understanding E = mc2”. In it he explains the inadequacies of hydroelectric, solar, wind and even coal power sources. Chemical energy in the form of nuclear is the most efficient means we know. Where else can you transform 6 ounces of matter into enough electricity to power San Francisco for 5 years?
Read the essay here:
http://www.energytribune.com/2771/unders...

Germany and Poland have some of the largest deposits of brown coal and both generate heaps of power from brown coal. They are not stupid enough to curtail it until they have a reliable replacement (unlike the brainless power mongers in DC.)

These green energy sources produce electricity that is very expensive and unreliable. Apart from the direct subsidies of tax-stolen money given to the looters- there are hidden costs which are borne by power users. An example is the requirement that the networks must take all the power from solar and wind generators, however much and whenever provided. (I am not sure but I think this is a rule everywhere) Solar, and especially wind power, generation is notoriously fickle, this imposes variability on supply on top of variability of demand. The networks handle this by reducing base load coal generation which is the cheapest but not flexible in favor of flexible but higher cost gas generation. Another 'problem' arises, this enforced variability, even in gas powered generation is less efficient so CO2 emissions are higher than if the forced take was not imposed -more CO2 is actually a good thing but note the hypocrisy.
Warren Buffet has explained why he invests in 'renewables', government money as subsidies, government rules which hobble the competition thus putting more costs on consumers, cronyism at work.

This article is complete misinformation on the state of affairs in Germany. Here is better information:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germ...
I was just in the country this month visiting people that actually used to work at power plants (they're now retired). The fact of the matter is the Fukushima incident has accelerated Germany's push to get rid of their nuclear plants, but the inefficiencies and inconsistent power output of solar and wind will NEVER allow them to become proper replacements for the on-demand power generation that nuclear and coal can provide. It's real simple: coal/oil/natural gas/nuclear. That's it. If you're not going to do nuclear and you're importing oil from an unstable region of the world and importing natural gas means giving support to the would-be empire rebuilder, and you happen to already have a lot of coal sitting in your country...guess what's going to happen?

I should have read this before I posted.. ..
You are quite correct, this solar and wind push is specious, the adding up of nameplate power (kW) does not translate to significant energy generation (kWh). It is a method of assuaging the environmentalistas and transferring money to looters. Germany would become seriously dependent on Russian gas but for the on-the-quiet increased use of brown coal. If Spiegel is correct, they usually are, Germany is not making the same mistake the UK (and US?) is making by handicapping their manufacturing industry.