New Year's Predictions Thread (2011)

Kevin

As we did last year, use this thread to make predictions for the next year and next decade, with probabilities attached when practical.

Happy New Year, Less Wrong!

As we did last year, use this thread to make predictions for the next year and next decade, with probabilities attached when practical.

Happy New Year, Less Wrong!

Wind power will provide more actual electricity than nuclear power by 2021, 80%, and I'd willing to put actual money behind this if it wasn't for high transaction costs of such a long term bet.

EDIT: Recent events in Fukushima power plant make me slightly more certain about my prediction. Magnitude of the effect will depend on severity of the failure, but it will undoubtedly make safe renewables like wind look more attractive than nuclear power, decreasing chances of the supposed "nuclear renaissance".

2orthonormal15y

I was about to take the other side because of Chinese expansion of nuclear power, but apparently they're boosting their wind energy capacity even more (in the next decade, at least). By 2020 they expect 80 GWe of nuclear and 100 GWe of wind. (Link stolen from last year's energy predictions, but the article was updated last month.) ETA: Ah, as sketerpot pointed out last year, the figures for peak wind capacity are misleading, as actual production is 20-30% of peak capacity. (You won't usually have optimal windspeed.) Nuclear plants run at 90%+ of capacity. So upon second thought, I would take the nuclear side at those odds.

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New Year's Predictions Thread (2011)

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New Year's Predictions Thread (2011)

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