The parts of a boat have funny names to a landsman. Many of the names go back hundreds of years and their origins are often lost. Some make sense only if you know something of sailing ship construction in the 16th century.
Cheap dreams, expensive realities. In the dawn of the nuclear era, cost was expected to be one of the technology's advantages, not one of its drawbacks. The first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, predicted in a 1954 speech that nuclear power would someday make electricity âtoo cheap to meter.â.
In 2011 power from wind turbines could be already cheaper than fossil or nuclear plants; it is also expected that wind power will be the cheapest form of energy generation in the future. The presence of wind energy, even when subsidised, can reduce costs for consumers (â¬5 billion/yr in Germany) by reducing the marginal price, by minimising the use of expensive peaking power plants.