Depends if they demand $15/hr !!

The guys who keep the window washer robots going will get at least $20/hr.
Minimum plus full health would be equivalent of $15/hr or close to it.

The cost of renewable power plants is mostly up front, and they get cheaper and cheaper over time - because they burn no fuel. And there is no decommissioning costs, either as there is with nuclear. And no pollution costs - and no climate change costs.

All in all, renewables are an excellent value.

Thermal solar isn't going to get cheaper over time.
Give me one example of something that isn't computer or consumer electronics based that has gotten cheaper over the years?
That plant is all material and labor cost which are not going to go down in price.
A 2 billion dollar power plant that is only able to produce power some of the day, until a cloud passes over is an unbelievable waste of money.

Decommissioning costs are not a problem so long as they are built into a nuclear plants financial design. Wind farms have decommissioning costs build into them so you don't end up like western California where there are some 5000 abandoned wind turbines.
All the wind farms I have been to have a decommissioning escrow.

Decommissioning costs for wind turbines may not even be an issue so long as the land owner agrees to renew the lease. GE wind turbines may be able to be economically repaired indefinitely and the less durable mitsus may be gutted and have new equipment installed on top of the monopole.

Running that plant will get cheaper over time. It gets built, and that is the biggest expense. Any fossil fuel plant, or a nuclear plant has to pay for fuel, and so they get more expensive over time. A renewable energy plant has no fuel expense.

And they pollute - that is a huge cost that is not included. And fossil fuel plants contribute a lot to climate change - and this is an enormous cost that will be borne by all future generations, and all life on the planet.

They don't have to pay for fuel but they have to rely on fossil fuels when ever a cloud blocks the sun and when the sun goes away at the end of every day.

If you are worried so much about CO2 then the obvious answer is nuclear power since it can produce power 24 hours a day, rain or shine, 7 days a week for roughly 350 days a year, a feat that will always allude solar and wind power.

Geothermal would be a direction to explore if you want 24-7 service in a safe manor rather then nuclear power with its obvious pitfalls.


From Wiki:

Estimates of the electricity generating potential of geothermal energy vary from 35 to 2000 GW depending on the scale of investments.
This does not include non-electric heat recovered by co-generation, geothermal heat pumps and other direct use. A 2006 report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), that included the potential of enhanced geothermal systems, estimated that investing 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years would allow the creation of 100 GW of electrical generating capacity by 2050 in the United States alone.

The whole page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_electricity

No, they are huge an a single cloud doesn't block the whole thing, and where they are located has a lot of sun, most of the time. We can use molten salt thermal storage to extend the time they can generate power. Combined with wind power and solar PV, and biomass, and wave power, and tidal, and geothermal - we can easily generate more than enough electricity.

Nuclear power is a terrible idea. We still do not have a way to safely store the waste.

No safe storage. After 60+ years.

They shut down for weeks every 18 months or so, to refuel -- and we have to mine and refine and transport and enrich the uranium - and then we have to pay money for decades after they shut down to decommission them. We have a limited uranium supply, and making concrete is a very big greenhouse gas emitter.

They have problems when the temperatures around the plant get too high, and the cooling doesn't work well enough. They have power issues in the plant itself, and flooding or earthquakes or other disasters cause them to have to be shut down. Pilgrim here in Massachusetts has had numerous problems.

No thanks.

This would address most of those concerns. It also addresses problems with other ways of producing electrical power (wind, solar, etc).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLk46BZfEMs


>

If they are going to use Nuclear Power this New method sounds like the way to go.

I did notice the program had a fair amount of sensationalism and slight of hand , for instances it was claimed that wind power only generates wind 15% of the time .. hogwash I think most of us understand that they put windmills in windy places and likewise solar in sunny places.