Nuclear plus Wind? Antarctica?. This is an interesting scheme. Nuclear power plus wind power as a means of producing low cost hydrogen fuel. Has anyone explored if this could be employed in Antarctica? From a quick review of the figures, the average wind speed of a coastal station is 40 KM an hour. Of course, there are freezing problems an a percentage of the system's output would likely need to be employed to deice the blades, but it seems workable (Enercon, a German manufacturer seems to have worked out a system that works). Storing the energy as Hydrogen would be efficient and safe (in tanks far from population centers). This is already being piloted but can it be expanded to provide large volumes of hydrogen? [John Robb's Weblog]
An interesting idea, but I doubt it would be feasible given the expense of shipping hydrogen from Antarctica to anywhere else--given the total lack of commercial ports, or the infrastructure to build them, on that continent. Also, one of those idiotic UN treaties bans anyone from doing anything useful with Antarctica besides small scientific research stations.
Even if those problems were overcome, the idea would not survive the political opposition from the ecofreaks. Those fanatics regard anything with the word "nuclear" in it as the Great Satan, and when you take into consideration the "unspoiled environment" (or "barren wasteland" to sane people) of Antarctica--there's just no way.
6:23:16 PM 
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