"It's 150 W. 'Wh' is a measure of energy, not power. McCauley misspoke when he talked about 'watts per hour', but an engineering student should be able to recognize that."

 Lol my friend, lol. Appliances are rated in power consumption, energy as you said, because plants produce finite amounts of energy and need to adjust based on consumer consumption. How much energy something uses per unit time is irrelevant, as you cannot physically quantify rates; however, you can quantify energy (i.e. you need to burn x tonnes of fuel to make so many joules). GP was correct in his units.

"Uh, no. For one, 500kW is 3333 times as much power, not 22.2. Also, the average PC uses a 500 WATT power supply, not kilowatt. That's 3.33 times as much power."

 I agree with this, I have no idea what I was smoking when I crunched the numbers. I realized my mistake on my lunch break (lol, 500,000 / 150 is not 22.2, wth.). As for the last comment, you are once again correct; I must have been thinking major appliances. Those I know are rated in kWh. Its a good thing I'm not an Electrical Engineer, hmmm?

"Three things. One, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas released while creating the electricity we all use. Two, scientists agree that planting trees to offset CO2 production only works in tropical areas. Three, "displace the ozone"? I don't think you understand how greenhouse gases work. "

 CO2 is >the< gas that causes the greenhouse effect (look up Venus in Wiki or something, greenhouse effect x 1,000,000). All other components of exhaust gases, which are miniscule in volume %, do not effect the climate. They are however toxic in high quantities, but what isn't?

 The comment about trees only working in tropical areas doesn't make sense, unless you are trying to claim that large number of trees = great effect; seems kinda like common sense to me.

 Ozone is a highly reactive species of oxygen, when carbon monoxide comes into contact with it, it forms carbon dioxide and oxygen. Carbon dioxide traps heat, in the case of the greenhouse effect, all the solar radiation and slips through the hole the ozone in the first reaction use to occupy. Now, in terms of which carbon-oxide species is more important, it depends on if you're a glass half full or half empty kind of person. Monoxide is potentially more dangerous because it subdues the "radiation sentry" and lets the bad solar radiation in. Dioxide is just as dangerous because it holds said radiation down on the planet and lets it wreak havok instead of just radiating back into space.

Hey remember those rolling blackouts?  Apparently those assumed 55 aren't doing such a good job.

 to calculate from Watts to W-hr/year you don't just multiply by the number of hours in a year.  The values of watts is Joules/second, or (kg*m^2/s^2)/s, so you can't just arbitrarily multiply by the number of hours in a year.  To calculate the power rate, you need the actual quantifiable time the energy is released in.  Does it produce 590 MW per second?  per day?  per hour?  per 4 hours, 51 minutes and 23 seconds?  We don't know what the rate of power output is, so your claim is completely and utterly false and unjustified.

Maybe you missed out on the Cold War, but let me tell you about Russia in that era.  If someone from the Kremlin or the Komitet or the Sword and Shield says you're going to do something, you're either going to DO IT or you're going to be thrown out of the party and you'll have a lovely date at the power station nearest the Kremlin, which was where they tortured people who didn't jump when the Kremlin said to.

To overlook your personal insults would be a shame, but if you need to lower yourself to that level so be it.

Thomas and just about everyone but me who's posted so far has been doing this. I'm pretty damned sure that you're capable of it, but you couldn't just let it go. So, I'm going to be the Hypocrisy Fairy for this debate.

you smeck of hubris and have been corrected on several key issues

Personally, I find your lack of a verbose lexicon quite annoying. I suggest that you go to a thesaurus before using terms like "hubris" more then twice. As for being "corrected", really you haven't done anything to correct anyone, aside from provided very poor return arguments.

Admit to your mistakes, as I have with TMI and better yourself

Now, in an internet debate, it's in poor form to use yourself as an example of what's right and good, considering that obviously the other side of the debate thinks that you're wrong. Regardless of what really is truly correct, this is just a bad way of looking at it. And, if you were to actually read what you've said, you haven't "bettered" yourself in any way, beyond believing that you are somehow divinely right.

this discussion is simply mental masterbation

Give me a single debate on the internet that isn't.

"Load Universe into cannon. Aim at brain. Fire."

 I'm on my laptop, and the battery is almost out.  Expect to see something here in an hour or two, rebutting everything you have stated so far.  I go at you with logic, and you rebut with conjecture and think that proves me wrong.  Once this lab is concluded and I can get back to a computer without a battery to care about, then I'll lay out my arguments.

*edit - back.  Did you miss me?  Ok, I'll read through all of your arguments and refute them in a single post.

Ok, so I'm just going to work my way down your long list of arguments.

-Again, the definition used to quantify "safe" when it comes to the radioactive lifetime is the time it takes before the spent fuel rods emit radiation levels which are either equal to or less than ambient levels.  Between the lifetime of 40 years and 10000 years, the rods are perfectly safe to work around for certain periods of time.  The time that is deemed safe is reliant on how far along the rods have been in decay.  So, 40 years means you should probably only be around it for a few hours at a time, where as 10,000 years means that you can live with it your whole life and not see any radiation from it.  I've explained this before already.  I don't want to have to do it again.

-Your lack of knowledge on radiation is your downfall here.  There was no error in my argument on half-life and radiation exposure.  Were you to be correct, and that these spent rods were horrible for humans to be around at any point before the 10,000 year mark, then everyone who works at or near a nuclear dump site would have died of some rare form of cancer.  So far this hasn't happened, and real life proof stares at your face.

-"Yeah, because its nonsensical for things to double each year, but 2*(n years) makes perfect sense."  Actually, it does.  The mathematical definition of doubling is 2^n.  This means that after each iteration of n, the total value doubles from its n-1 value.  However, 2*n only doubles the first iterations (n=1,2), and everything after that is simply counting up by 2 (when n=4, y=2*n=8, where as y=10 when n=5).  And it it nonsensical for the amount to double each year.  For the amount of waste to double each year, our energy needs would need to follow suit.  Since our energy needs don't double each year (by the looks of it, the requirements go up by some function of y^x, where x is slightly over 1, but this is just from eyeballing it), our waste output doesn't double.  So, assuming that waste is instead produced at a constant rate, or the case of 2*n, is actually much more logical.

-Sources did give me the makeup of mixtures, but the makeup was a percentage range.  For example, the percentage range of methan in natural gas was rated from 70-90%.  With a range like that, assumptions did in fact have to be made.

-The prices you posted actually proves my argument for the fact that it's cheaper.  You're probably jumping up and down by the fact that I made that statement, seeing as you feel like I'm falling into a trap that you (intentionally or not) had set up and that I'm going against the bit about refinement afterwards because I'm so focused on proving you wrong that I didn't even read your whole post.  Well, that all is not the case at all.  You gave the price per GJ from U235.  You then went and said that it needed added costs for refinement.  That's not true.  U238 would need to be refined to U235.  So, the price you gave already includes the price of refinement, as U238 accounts for more than 99% of naturally occurring isotopes of Uranium.  So, you used that price to try and prove your point, when you just proved mine instead.  Thanks.

-You're right.  I have no background in cost estimation.  I leave that to other Engineers most of the time.  However, this didn't stop me from showing that Nuclear energy is still cheaper through the introduction of France's electric bills, which you unjustifiably wrote off.

-The site that you linked is horrible.  It took me less than 2 minutes for me to find the statement, "Nuclear Energy Information Service is a non-profit organization committed to ending nuclear power."  The site is a biased source of information, and thus anything quoted from that site is immediately suspect.  It's like pulling news about Obama from Fox News and saying that it's 100% true.  If you can find similar arguments from an unbiased source, then maybe I'll give it more thought.

-that 334 generations thing I've proven to be a grand overstatement already.  It doesn't need to be done again, or do you really want me to have to go over half lifes and radiation levels due to those again?  Seriously, if you do, then I'll have to start copy-pasting my own arguments till you actually read what I'm saying.

-The surface area of land on the Earth is 148,300,000 km^2.  So, 1000 km^2 is 6.74*10^-4% (that's .000674%) of the earths total land surface.  So, despite it already being a negligible fraction of a percent, I'll also add that nuclear disposal sites are typically located (at least in the US) in places that already are near uninhabitable.  Trust me, Yucca Mountain was not exactly prime real estate.  It's in the middle of one of the driest deserts in the states, under a mountain, hours away from civilization (or about 2 hours away from Las Vegas, but calling that civilization is open for debate).  Plus, the stuff isn't all that radioactive, as I have already tried to explain many times.  So it's not like these areas are some horrible blights on the land where people get mutated and die.  In fact, the radiation levels on the surface of Yucca Mountain haven't changed at all, despite nuclear waste being stored below.

-Again, while I have stated, though it was in passing near the end of my arguments, that Chernobyl was due to human error, I also heavily commented that it was solely due to the location and the technology.  The reason why I spent so much time on the technology aspect was simply because if the technology was different, if it was a NATO style reactor, then nothing horrible would have happened.  The reaction would have died, and no one would have been killed.  So yes, human error cause it, but had that human error happened in the US or in, say, France, nothing would have happened (nothing in this case being a meltdown).

-It is not foolish to suggest that the USSR was lax in its safety precautions when facts of history show that to be the case.  The reactor had safeties which could be disengaged.  Working conditions were poor throughout the country.  They would launch their rockets over civilized areas, which at times resulted in deaths.  It's not biggotry or hubris when I say that the USSR was not keen on safety.  They were keen on goals and the costs along the way, while safety took a backseat to the glory of the motherland.

-It's good you're commenting on the safety parameters of the Chernobyl reactor type.  The problem with this problem was that the safeties were disengaged.  On top of this, mechanical arm (the thing which raises/lowers rods into the reaction chamber) failure in the reactor would cause the rods to remain in the reaction chamber, where as the same kind of failure in NATO plants would cause the rods to be removed, thus ensuring the end of the reaction.  This isn't biggotry.  This is the facts of the systems.

-"I'm confused... are you arguing for or against safety here? 4000 people in 1986 is ~181 people per year from then until now. You however cite 68 people via coal-related deaths... Coal is still safer..."  You didn't read my post.  I said that 68 in the US alone.  Worldwide that same year the total deaths were over 6000 people.  I also mentioned that the 4000 was the "max possible" approximation.  Seeing how the Russian government prevented doctors from assigning radiation poisoning as a cause of death, it's impossible to know just how many people were killed in the Chernobyl accident.

-Again, I'm not showing hubris.  Our reactors are safer, and something like Chernobyl is impossible in the US.  But then again, our current generation of nuclear power plants is getting older and older, and people like you prevent newer, safer, more efficient ones from being built.

-I didn't lower myself when I went at you.  You are as culpable as your statements, and your statements are very suspect.  Plus, I was in part baiting for your response, as this here is one of my definitions of "fun."

-I never said nuclear energy was the future.  I also proved that it's not dirty, it's quite efficient, it has an extremely high power density, and it's among the safest forms of energy we have (for both people and the environment), and those statements have held up dispite your counter arguments.  My logic is neither lacking nor have my arguments been dismissed or proven wrong.  I'm using science as my modus operandi, where as the best numbers that you have put forth have been from a site which makes no attempts to hide its bias against nuclear energy.  You have yet to correct me on anything, and like I predicted earlier almost all of your attacks are against points in my argument where I could have gone into more detail but didn't.  The ones that don't go after the weaker chains go at some of the stronger ones, and you argue against scientific fact with pure conjecture.

" I'm getting tired of repeating myself, see above for appropriate counter arguements and corrections to your "facts"."

If you've gotten this far, good job.  I have read all of your arguments, and have told you how your are wrong in your assessments.  My "hubris" has done nothing but shown itself correct as your arguments played out almost as I had thought they would.  It has also given me the added benifit of insuring your respond.   To conclude, your arguments are lacking, your corrections are incorrect, and at one point you even went so far as to strenghten my claims.

So again, I will end with, "To conclude... Nuclear Energy rocks.  I would have it's babies if I could, but then that'd be fusion.  It's fission, so chances are high we'd simply break up."  This isn't bias.  If you can't see the joke here, then you don't belong in this argument.  Please don't make me have to explain this one too.

@Devorius

I really need to paste this response in Wiki under hubris

You see, unwitty responses such as this really only serve to ausage your already offended ego, instead of serving any real and, dare I say, progressive purpose. I could spend all day poking fun at your posts, but it would make no difference in the whole of the debate. Actually, this is exactly what I'm doing, except for the simple fact that I'm not trying to change the debate, so much as force you to re-read and defend your ridiculous positions through being offensive. The way to get the Hypocrisy Fairy to go away, is to actually start using reason and evidence, instead of trite and poorly worded insults.

a classic example of when opinion overrides evidence, and people see what they want to see.

It's incredibly easy for someone to accuse another person of being emotionally incapable of intellectually recognizing your view. What's not easy, is to actually realize that you are the one doing it. What you have presented, Derovius, is not a method by which you can impartially determine the truth or non-truth of a statement, but that your opinion, because it is your opinion, is completely infallable. Why? Because you can read Wikipedia. Oh yes, and you can (incorrectly) perform multiplication. These are not bases for truth or reason. Rather, they are, once again, an example of the fundamentally flawed human traits that you point out. The irony here, is that you're aware of the phenomenon, but not that you're a living, breathing, and (unfortunately) talking demonstration thereof.

Please atleast try and hide your bias...

Now, this statement I don't entirely get. Why should he hide his bias from you? Apparently you in all of your infallable wisdom have intuited that he is a mere mortal in his thinking. That you and your Science transcend these problems of "bias" and "emotional influence". Rather, wouldn't it be in the best interest of debate he not hide his bias so that others can see the immortal qualities of your wise words? No, really, this is once again your arrogance surfacing and accusing everybody else of being arrogant. Why don't you actually use real science? Why don't you use logic? You have exhibited a startling lack of these things, so far, and as such, the quality of the debate has suffered.

Oh yes, and before you start getting all excited and bent out of shape about how I myself am being hypcritical, I'm very aware that the arguments at which I'm making suffer from the same human traits of arrogance, ignorance, and willful disbelief. However, the difference between you and I is that I am aware of these things, and the point isn't that you are doing and I am not, but instead simply that you are doing them and not aware. In fact, because I am aware that I am doing them gives me more authority to accuse you of doing them, then you have of accusing me of the same thing, simply due to the assumption on your part that you are in some way "above" these qualities.

"Load Universe into cannon. Aim at brain. Fire."