Now, how to keep them all shut down....

and think about this. The sun always helps me to think. But this one is a toughy. Clean energy. One that we couldn't have wars over. One that we couldn't use to control wealth distribution. What could it be? What could it be? Oh, Mr. Sun, please give me the answer.

4 hours a day sunshine for half the year?

http://www.climatedata.eu/climate.php?loc=szxx0013&lang=en

Yes, 42 hours of sunshine in December (on average). That's about an hour and 20 minutes a day.

Yeah, solar is totally the best option there...

About how he hadn't seen the sun in weeks and felt so good when it finally came out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blue_Sky

Than Miami does

Solar is definitely part of the energy puzzle in Switzerland

26,000 GWh worth of solar and wind is a hell of an investment...

of one average nuke (1000MW lets say). Ponder that. Just 200 wind turbines similar to the ones they're installing off Block Island at this very moment. Compare the utter simplicity of Just 200 windmills with the unbelievable complexity, expense and danger of a nuke.

because wind isn't always available, but I fully agree that green energy is the way to go.

Goes straight into the grid. Consider Block Island or Vinalhaven Maine - the cable connecting the windmills is bidirectional- when they need juice, they draw from the grid, when the wind turbines provide more juice than they need- they sell the excess to the grid via the same cable.

That's how much juice the nuke plants pump out a year in Switzerland. The project you're talking about is about 5 percent of that, according to its Wikipedia page.

To get that, at the rate US turbines generate, is about 9 GW worth of turbines. So more like 1,500 turbines.

And that's assuming Switzerland -- which has no shore to put them off of -- can use the big 6MW off-shore turbines. So more likely the 2-2.5 MW turbines used on-shore in the U.S.

So it's now 3,600-4,500 turbines.

Does Switzerland have enough good, windy hilltops -- near modern sections of the power grid that can handle the extra power -- for 4,500 turbines?

Switzerland has zillions of hilltops, thousands and thousands of which are windy. They also have expertise in high mountain construction and power line installation. 4500 turbines is nothing.

4500 turbines is nothing. Easy peasy, piece-of-cake level of civil construction. We'll be building far more than 4500 of these in the coming years.

Total offshore wind capacity installed to date is about 10 GW.

You're talking about producing well over twice that amount per year as though it's easy.

Save some of what you're smoking for the rest of the group.

Closer to 3-4 times that many.

Just 200 wind turbines similar to the ones they're installing off Block Island at this very moment

That would be the one that's expected to cost $300 Million for five turbines?

Even if we assumes that it would only take 200 of them (essentially assuming that wind will blow 90% of the time), that would be $12 Billion to replace that one nuclear unit... and then they have to do it again 20 years later... and then again 20 years after that.

It's also ridiculous to talk about the "utter simplicity" of offshore wind generation. It's actually a pretty challenging environment

30%, to offset the 30% that nuclear supplied. In the past, they actually exported electricity due to massive hydroelectric dam projects.

The question is, who are they importing electricity from? France generates electricity primarily with nuclear; while Germany to the north uses a mix of wind, solar and coal.