Responding to an email: How can I be so fast to dismiss wind and solar?
August 30th, 2008
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I’ve been asked this many many times before but I recently got a long email which basically asked one question: How can you always dismiss wind and solar? How can you know it will not improve? How can you be so sure? How do you know before you even review a new system?
Okay, that’s four questions, but they amount to the same thing. I’ve tried to explain this before, but I’ll try to make this as simple as possible. There are two reasons I can reject wind and two I can reject solar as ever being able to be a major power source for more than some special applications.
Wind:
1. Air does not weigh very much
2. Air does not move very fast (aside from in a tornado)
Solar:
1. There is a finite amount of energy per a given area under a given amount of illumination for a given period of time.
2. On the surface of the earth, it’s not very much.
That’s it. That’s all you need to know. That is enough to be absolutely certain that no scheme for wind or solar energy will be anything more than a niche source of energy… EVER.
If you know the first thing about physics you should realize that these very simple and unchangeable factors are where the buck stops. That’s it. That is all there is to it and no matter how much technology you throw at it those will never change, or at least not until the sun enters its “red giant” phase. This is not actually a bad thing though. Really, despite the fact that it might sound discouraging we should be thankful that the sun and wind don’t impart that kind of energy in any reasonable amount of space. If the wind were powerful enough to give plenty of energy then you’d have a hard time staying on the ground and not being blown away. If the sun were powerful enough to provide that much energy on earth’s surface, then life on earth would be like the illustration to the right, if it were possible at all!
There are a few other factors that come into play, but most of them seem like they should be fairly obvious, even self-evident. These include the following:
- Low density energy sources require large collection mechanisms
Really big things need a lot of material to built. They also need a lot of effort just for the fabrication and construction. - Really big things take up a lot of space – as in real estate
- Any time energy is stored, converted from one form to another or transmitted, there is some loss
- Reducing loss generally requires more precise and high quality engineering and fabrication (precision low friction bearings, light weight balanced turbines, precise multi-junction semiconductors etc)
- Making things that are really precise and have extreme tolerances and material qualities is difficult and therefore expensive
- All technology requires some maintenance and will occasionally malfunction. Really big systems need proportionately more and have more failure points.
This should all make sense, right? There is not that much energy there and if you want to collect it you need your collectors to be HUGE. If they are HUGE then they’re expensive. If you want to squeeze every ounce of energy out with precision bearings, compost blades, extremely high quality semiconductors and optics, then it will be all the more so.
Finally, the email attached this image which the individual got from Wikipedia in order to justify the claim that “it makes sense to use the energy that is free there for the taking.”
*sigh* I’ve Just seen this way too many times. Therefore, I’ll suggest this: if you don’t have any issues with a resource that is dilute and spread out very thinly, then why are you here? If you think that it’s recoverable you should be at the beach becoming the most wealthy entity on the face of the planet. I mean there’s gold there that’s just free for the taking!
I know. Somebody is not going to get the analogy. This graphic was created based on data from here, here and here.
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 12:28 am and is filed under Bad Science, Education, Enviornment, Good Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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September 2nd, 2008 at 6:54 am
DV82XL said:
Hiya DV8,
Tokenism, perhaps. Here in the UK, the recent 20 -40% increase in energy utility bills is turning trendy tokenism into real, self-audited individual pushes for efficiency and conservation, household by household, as we all gag on the eye-watering increases in our domestic costs. And of course individuals auditing their own consumption can add to overall solutions – “no snowflake thinks it’s part of the avalanche” (Voltaire, again).
As for the waste and decommissioning, and the economic implications. Well, we all look to others for our information, and it’s difficult to know what to believe, given the involvement of engaged, self-serving vested interests. As far as it goes, my position is indistinguishable from that of the Scottish Government.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/10/Nuclear
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September 2nd, 2008 at 7:30 am
McGlashan said:
While household use is the most obvious place where people see cost rise in energy, the fat is that it is the tip of your energy use profile, and while nobody is saying you should leave every light in the house burning, there is not much that can be done on that front to cure a nations energy ills.
When ever the issue of nuclear waste comes up, I usually ask the person to point at the problems that the French and Canadian nuclear industry are having with nuclear waste. The fact is is that nether country has an issue, because the have it under control, despite the fact that per capita, we are two of the largest users of nuclear energy in the world. The Scottish Government should perhaps look beyond their own noses and see what others are doing. And again I reiterate the fact that coal plants are not held to the same decommissioning standards as nuclear plants, and were they the cost would be higher.
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September 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
DV82XL said:
When the oil shocks of the 70’s struck Europe, and led to the North Sea oil boom, the French said “the British may have oil, but we have the ideas!”. Fair enough. On the surface, French energy policy looks sound. I’m a BIG fan of their 200 mph nuclear-powered trains and use them whenever I get the chance. However, do they have their nuclear waste issue “under control”?
France has not yet finalised any site choices for permanent repository and management. In 1990 a law was established that by 2006 at the latest, France had to identify a geological site appropriate for a radioactive waste depository. Despite hundreds of tests on numerous sites throughout the country, in January 2008 the National Assembly voted to extend the search deadline to 2016. In 2005, parliament issued a white paper in support of a status-quo situation – storage and research into decontamination.
In the meantime, some spent fuel rods are stored above ground at Marcoule on the Rhone and lower level waste, (again, above ground) at Soulaines-Dhuys in the Ardennes. France also exports a significant proportion of its nuclear waste, some spent fuel rods to Den Haag in Holland and some (allegedly) to Savannah River in the US. France also exports spent fuel to Russia for reprocessing.
Claud Mandi, General Director for Energy and Raw Materials at the French Ministry of Industry says: “If France is unable to solve this issue, then I do not see how we can continue our nuclear programme.”
My understanding of the Canadian situation is less detailed, but is it not the case that the NWMO is only in the initial stages of implementing the Adaptive Phased Management approach? It seems more like a road-map than a final solution. Perhaps you can enlighten me…
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September 2nd, 2008 at 9:17 am
Adaptive Phased Management is happening. Canada hasn’t got to the final stage yet mostly because it is too early in the disposal cycle as we have designed it. The point is that we have a solution, as do several other nuclear energy using States, and we are not writhing in political agony over it. But in the end look at the volumes: they are tiny compared to waste streams from coal, and easier to isolate from the environment.
It really is an artificial issue you know – start comparing it to coal and you will be surprised how much that industry gets away with; then think of a level playing field, and tell me that nuclear waste is an issue.
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September 3rd, 2008 at 5:33 am
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/capital-closer-on-massive-solar-site/1261116.aspx
GRRR…
If they do go ahead and double the size of the project, I calculate that the facility, if laid out in a square, will be 1.5km x 1.5 km. How in the world is that supposed to be built for a few hundred million dollars? I’d think the true price somewhere north of a billion.
For 44MWs. oh well. It’ll probably never be built anyway.
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September 3rd, 2008 at 6:58 am
DV82XL said:
Firstly, let me agree with you on the coal issue. It’s certainly a problem here in Scotland where we have some areas, particularly in and around Glasgow, where the industrial revolution legacy has left significant toxicity in the environment. This has undoubtedly contributed to that city’s appalling health record – life expectancy for males is as low as 56 years in some areas, the lowest in the developed world. I agree with you that the technical problems of nuclear waste are tiny in comparison with this legacy. However, the political problems are a different issue.
Indulge my cynicism with regard to APM. The NWMO itself states that APM is both a technical approach AND a management system. One must ask just what it is that’s being managed…
Contributions to The Values in Decisions on Risk conference 2006 in Stockholm were critical of APM, suggesting that the approach ran the risk of co-opting social factors and public expectations in favour of technical preferences which have already been decided. See this paper given at the conference:
http://www.congrex.com/valdor2006/papers/9_Durant.pdf
One might suspect that the political agony in Canada might yet be to come. For Canada 2007 read France 1990…
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September 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
McGlashan said:
Hi McGlashan
While I’ll admit I am not on top of the situation in France, I can say with some assurance that the Canadian situation is not bad at all. We do not have much in the way of public concern in the matter, and historically the antinuclear forces here are very weak. We have instituted the first stages of our APM protocols without any serious negative feedback, nor is any expected.
We do have several things going for us that helps: we do not have to deal with the detritus of a weapons program, waste from enrichment, or reprocessing, and we are blessed with a considerable amount of vastness such that the final repository can be well out of sight. Taking these into account, I don’t see any real issues on the horizon. Keep in mind that we are also dealing with mine and refinery tailing anyway.
The whole point of APM is to maintain high flexibility, because it is a given that the situation (especially reprocessing) may change over the time lines that are involved here. The attitude here is that it is hubris to the extreme to believe that we are charged with making disposal decisions for the next 10,000 years.
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September 4th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
If you really care about the numbers, you can do all the calculations yourself. I refer you to the book of the physicist David Mackay about the requirements on land etc . His book is objective and treats the renewable technologies fairly and squarely.
The principal conclusion is that our energy demand can be met by renewable technologies, but a pure solar+wind energy production would gobble up large tracts of land. For example, producing sufficient energy for the USA through concentrated solar power (CSP) needs 40,000 sq km of land.
Whether this is a smart thing to do or not is debatable
But what we can agree on is that wind and solar power can provide a substantial portion of our energy needs. There are places where they can be profitably deployed with minimal environmental damage.
For example, solar PV can be tiled over the roofs of buildings and it provides a decent chunk of electricity.
Wind mills can be lined up within agricultural land, and they can provide another chunk.
These won’t be sufficient though, and we would need nuclear power to fill up the rest of the demand. I support nuclear power with breeder reactors such as LFTRs.
Nuclear power and renewable power are not antagonistic. They can co-exist happily in a future economy.
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September 4th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
vakibs said:
Then real question then is: So what? What is gained by pissing in the ocean with renewables when nuclear can carry the load by itself.
The only place where current Nuclear power is weak is peaking, which wind and solar can’t carry anyway. Every cent that’s invested in baseload renewables is taken from nuclear., and not returning value.
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September 11th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
DV82XL said:
I wouldn’t call this “pissing in the ocean”.
http://www.worldofrenewables.com/index.php?do=viewarticle&artid=2360&title=power-firms-can-lease-sea-bed
nor indeed this:
http://www.maritimetidal.com/index.html
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September 11th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
“The available tidal energy potential for the Minas Passage, Nova Scotia is over 1 GW. The AP1000, based on the proven performance of Westinghouse-designed PWRs, is an advanced 1.154 GWe nuclear power plant.
How many Bay of Fundys are there? How many AP1000s can we build?
There is also a vast amount of untapped hydro in the Canadian and Alaskan North. In all of these cases they come with huge environmental impacts. You can’t mess with the hydrology of the Bay of Fundy or a river system without paying a huge price in damage to the area.
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September 11th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Tidal Energy is not Renewable. For something to be Renewable there needs to be an unlimited supply to replenish all that is taken regardless of whether it is taken or not.
When you suck additional energy out of the tides and imped their free flow by doing so, you degrade the orbit of the moon and the rotation of the earth.
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September 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
What is gained by pissing in the ocean with renewables when nuclear can carry the load by itself.
A completely renewable economy will have its costs – very high construction costs and a significant environmental costs.
But the important thing to remember is – renewable technologies do not need nuclear to carry the load by themselves. It is possible, even with the enormous levels of energy wastage that is being done in our society, purely renewable technologies can power the entire human population at industrial society standards. If you are not convinced, I refer you again to the book of Dr David Mackay.
When we need to take is an optimal decision – to make our investments in the best way possible, and to make optimal choices for the environment.
Even though nuclear power is cheap and smart, nuclear fuel needs to be mined. This mining will have an environmental impact, and this should be minimized. Assuming that you care for the environment and you enlist all the required parameters in a smart computer program, the optimal solution will contain a chunk of renewable power and a chunk of nuclear power.
In general, nuclear can provide baseload and renewables can be used for peak demand.
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September 16th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Tidal Energy is not Renewable.
Such a comment on a supposedly a blog which tries to expose bad-science !!
Please refer to the chapter 14 on Tides in the online book Sustainable Energy : without hot air by Dr David McKay. Specifically, refer to the page 90 to have your argument debunked.
Tidal power is renewable, and guess what more.. Unlike wind or solar power, it is completely predictable.
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September 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
vakibs said:
Of all the reasons to reject or criticize nuclear energy, this is the most moronic. Where do you think the steel and aluminum and other metals that are used to fabricate renewables comes from? Mines.
vakibs said:
No they cannot, and that is the big issue. Peek load and peak production rarely coincide, and certainly not dependably.
vakibs said:
Apparently you don’t know a tongue-in cheek bit of humor when you see it.
vakibs said:
So what? If it is not there when you need it, it’s still a lose. Also the damage that will be done to very sensitive intertidal zones by this type of system cannot be ignored.
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September 16th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I would not be so fast to dismiss nuclear’s ability to load follow. In general most plants are run at a constant full capacity because in a system where you have multiple types of electric generation, nuclear is most economical to run at full load whenever possible so you would only really be prone to use it for load following if you had nearly 100% nuclear. The French have looked into this because they’re the one country that has enough nuclear that it becomes an issue. They’re at 80%+ nuclear for capacity, but much of the rest is hydro which is excellent for load following.
That being said, the EPR does have some load following capacity and boiling water reactors are natively capable of load following within a few percent. The ESBWR has greater load following than previous ones and the AP1000 is supposed to be able to have some load following. Of course, next generation reactors like the PBMR are 100% capable of not just minor load following but full fledged peaking.
One of the ideas I like for adding better load following capacity to existing nuclear plants involves using thermal mass – basically a big well insulated tank of lead or bismuth or molten salt or something. When the reactor is running at a nominal load, a small portion of the energy is used to warm the tank to a very high temperature. During times of extreme load, the plant can use the thermal mass for additional steam generation.
The one catch with this is that even though it does work with light water reactors, to get it to work really well and have good effeciency with a minimal sized mass requires temperatures higher than those of light water reactors.
The concept would be natural for a molten salt reactor. You’d just need to make the molten salt tanks a bit larger than you normally need and that acts as your thermal reserve right there.
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September 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Bottom line is that it is easier to design and build load-following in to nuclear, than it is to use ‘renewables’ for peaking.
I’m getting very dreary of ‘we need both’ argument that is floating around in some quarters these days. We don’t. Every Watt of intermittent power the grid has to deal with makes it just that less efficient, and the idea that this is going to happen just so some Greens can see a few turbines flapping in the wind makes me sick.
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September 16th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
DV82XL said:
Well, renewables can’t load follow OR provide baseload. The only time they can load follow is if they have built in storage, which would be the case with solar thermal. Solar thermal can load follow, but it’s still ridiculously large and expensive for a piddly amount of energy return.
The one big exception of course is hydro. Hydro is still the best thing going for peaking, reserve and load following. You can keep a hydro turbine spinning under minimal load as a reserve with only a tiny fraction of the water flow needed for full power and then with modern turbine governors and gates, you can take it up to full power in less than a minute. Nothing else can go from reserve to gigawatts out in that kind of time without much loss during reserve operation maintaining head.
Which is why it’s curious that greens don’t ever mention hydro. Granted, there’s a limited amount of good hydro reserve left in the Industrial world, but IMHO, anywhere that there is hydro reserve that is untapped and has reasonable enviornmental footprtint, it should be encouraged strongly. This is of course with existing dams that do not have hydro. Nothing bothers me quite like a massive 50-year-old dam that was built for flood control and at a time when the area around it didn’t have much need for electricity. Those kind of structures (and there are a good few of them in the Western US) are practically begging to have turbines installed.
Where are the greens on that one?
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September 17th, 2008 at 4:50 am
DV82XL said:
Mining for steel and aluminium is a one-time investment where as nuclear fuel needs to be mined continuously. Mind you, I am aware of how less of fuel we need to mine. But there exists this downside nonetheless.
The steel and aluminium required for solar plant construction can also be obtained from recycling existing material.
DV82XL said:
We should not be discussing renewable technologies without energy storage. And it is possible to have demand management suited with energy production. For example, extra energy can be channelled towards charging electric vehicles or producing Hydrogen for fuel cells. Please read the chapter 26 “Fluctuations and Storage” from the book of Dr. Mackay.
Nuclear can load-follow on its own. A pure enuclear economy can exist. It doesn’t “need” any help from renewables. But the opposite is also equally true.
The relative merits of a pure nuclear economy and a pure renewable economy are less convincing than a those of a mixed economy.
DV82XL said:
Some of the fears from renewable production are real (such as ecosystems being uprooted due to concentrated solar power stations) where as others are imaginary (such as windmills kill bats and birds).
We can quantify environmental risk from each and every mode of power production. We should make our choice on power sources based on the principle of minimizing risk.
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September 17th, 2008 at 6:31 am
vakibs said:
If one does an Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI) assessment and a full end-to-end environmental impact assessment on all the different methods of generating electric energy, nuclear wins hands down.
vakibs said:
We can discuss energy storage when practical, economic means are available. Despite the hand waving of people like Mackay such technologies are far from ready to be deployed at the scale they would need to be for this service. And the costs would be crippling.
Look, we have hashed the numbers out here, please do the same. Do not trust sources from the popular press; go to primary data that can get at manufactures and industry web pages, and government publications. You will find that none of these renewable systems (bar hydro) can carry the load. Not only that,but they can’t contribute to the solution at all.
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September 17th, 2008 at 11:18 am
With due respect DV82XL, what you have been doing can be best described as hand-waving.
Dr. Mackay is a reputed professor of physics and informatics. He knows his numbers – all the calculations are available in his book. You can contact him on his blog if you notice any errors. His book also cites the relevant primary data that can be got at manufactures and industry web pages.
The current costs of any new technology will be high. Economies of scale will make them cheaper in the future. But of course, not as cheap as we might wish for, but definitely less than “crippling costs” that we see currently.
Energy storage is tried and tested, it is not something out of science fiction.
Make no mistake, I completely support nuclear power and it is my favorite source of producing energy. But I think a smart energy policy will also utilize different methods of solar energy, wherever it makes sense.
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September 17th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
vakibs said:
You know your not the first person to show up here to tell us how it is with these technologies; and invariably they have no real technical background and are quoting some book or website that is claiming that these things can happen. You have to learn the basics before you can judge these matters, and if you do you will see that it is not as rosy as these people make it out to be.
First these systems are not cost effective and no amount of scale will help because of material issues, like platinum in fuel cells. (to mention one you might be aware of). There are other considerations that have yet to be addressed (and are never mentioned by supporters) MTBF, ULE (mean time before failure, ultimate life expectancy) cycle timing and several other important issues that make these storage systems unsuitable for grid-wide deployment. Not at the sort of Wattage and coverage that will make a difference. You have to look at the numbers to understand the dimensions of this issue
These storage systems cannot be scaled up, no matter how much you think they can, and if you don’t believe me, start looking deeper into the underlying physics and chemistry, and engineering issues, and stop reading press releases from manufactures and other biased sources.
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September 18th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Hi DV82XL
I am a doctoral student in computer science and applied math. That means I already have a degree in engineering and a masters in research. So you cannot complain that I don’t have any tech background.
I have spent enough time doing all the calculations on the grist website in front a lot of hostile greens, to convince them that solar power takes a lot of land space. I indeed managed to convince a lot of them about the truth behind the argument. You can check out my comments on this page (code name vakibs).
I am serious about all the technologies that can ease our way out of this looming energy crisis, and I made my bit of effort to understand the basics behind them. I found the book of Dr Mackay to be extremely useful, and it is no way at the same level as a green propaganda book.
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September 18th, 2008 at 6:34 am
vakibs said:
And I’ve spent +35 years in industry where one of my recurring tasks was to evaluate new processes and technologies before the company I worked for invested money. I am also currently working under contract to a firm that designs and manufactures controllers for very large scale UPS systems, so I can draw on deeper expertise in these matters should I need to.
So now I want you to sell me on your contention that there exists storage systems (which you’ll agree is a key technology for the practical deployment of renewables) that are ready for grid wide service. I don’t mean a bunch of links to corporate web pages selling these things; I want you to show me that this can be done, cost effectively and reliably with off the shelf tech. Also consider issues like the capacity of current manufacturing methods to meet demand, and raw material issues, and if there were more than one source for the units.
In other words: show me.
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September 18th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I am neither an accountant nor someone with economics background. If you ask me about “cost effectively”, I cannot give you the right reply.
However, I can prove that large scale energy storage is theoretically justified. One such technology is already in vogue to store excess power produced by nuclear plants – barraged lakes in the mountains. I live in France, and we have several such lakes around here in the Alps. The same technology can be used to store renewable power as well. We just need to ship the excess electricity over a strong electric grid, and ship it back when demand peaks. Do we have lakes big enough to carry this pumped storage ? Dr Mackay has no trouble identifying such lakes in the UK, which can easily store upto 100 GWh or even 400 GWh of electricity. In the USA, it will be easier to locate such lakes.
This energy storage mechanism will increase the costs of renewable electricity. Renewable cheerleaders hide such costs (along with the cost of infrastructure upgrades to electric grid) when discussing their plans. Their plans may not be cost effective, but they are definitely “feasible”.
I contend we should use the right language in the debate.
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September 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am
vakibs said:
My intention was to illustrate that when we move from ‘theoretically justified’ to ‘deployed in service’ you have to get past someone like me who will ask these sorts of questions because they are pertinent to those who will be asked to invest in these projects.
We have been through pumped storage before, and yes it is the only currently viable system for energy storage, but it also suffers from all the issues that surround exploiting more hydro – huge investments, ecological damage and location. As it stands its just not cost effective, as should you wish to go this route, building straight hydro is a better return on investment.
Financial issues are just as important as technical ones, like it or not, and have to be addressed.
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September 18th, 2008 at 10:55 am
As it stands its just not cost effective, as should you wish to go this route, building straight hydro is a better return on investment.
Hydroelectric needs to have a continuous stream of water. Whereas, pumped storage works on stagnant lakes. Its ecological damage is also smaller than big dams.
There is a lot of capacity for pumped storage and this has to be realized. The investments are huge, yes. But this is a policy decision, and sometimes huge investments pay.
Secondly, there is a lot of capacity of growth for renewable power. It currently produces a miniscule 0.5% of the electricity, it can go a lot higher to 20%, without too much investment in extra storage. By realizing storage, its share can climb to as much as 40%.
It is a shame that nuclear industry is competing against a light-weights such as renewables. Future growth in electric demand can be met by renewables. But, the task of nuclear is much higher, it is to shut down “existing” coal plants.Only nuclear is capable of doing this. And it will replace all the share of coal and natural gas fired electricity in the future economy. So the real enemies for nuclear are coal and natural gas. It is these people who are killing all the interest in nuclear. This is the enemy that nuclear should be aware of.
Why I say all this is because both dirty coal and (to some extent) natural gas are cheaper than current nuclear power.
Financial issues are just as important as technical ones, like it or not, and have to be addressed.
Yes, but sometimes we need to think beyond finances and look upon more important things, such as environment.
Wind and solar power fans don’t have much politial or economic voice. Instead of intimidating these people, nuclear power should make friends with them. It pays in the long run, on the task of shutting down coal plants and replacing them with nuclear power.
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September 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
vakibs said:
Stop trying to blow smoke up my back end. You can’t just make this up as you go along. Have these sites had the geological and hydrological surveys done, are they near transmission, has the water been earmarked for other uses? What do you base your claim of good returns on, if the project needs policy support ?
vakibs said:
Show me. This is straight BS that you cannot support by any means.
vakibs said:
Now I know (as does everybody else here) that you have no idea what you are talking about. Wind and solar have a massive amount of political support, enough to run roughshod over local councils and power companies and they garner vast amounts of money from the governments in North America and Europe to do so.
Energy growth cannot be met by renewables – even the renewable industry doesn’t make that claim.
Please stop wasting my time, if you want a discussion, get your facts straight before writing.
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September 19th, 2008 at 5:53 am
you cannot support by any means
Both the numbers 20% and 40%, I stand by. Even 100% renewable power is “feasible”, but I don’t believe it will be a wise thing to do so. I don’t know what you mean by support. Didn’t I cite you a textbook with a rigorous analysis on all types of requirements ? Do you want me to cut and paste.. ?
.. straight BS
Please stop wasting my time, if you want a discussion, get your facts straight before writing.
More importantly, I am wasting my time as well.. I have no time for people who cannot have a civilized discussion. Goodbye.
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September 19th, 2008 at 6:02 am
vakibs said:
A ‘textbook’ now is it, you offer up a single source as evidence and expect to be taken seriously.
Don’t let the door hit you in the back on the way out.
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September 19th, 2008 at 7:16 am
DV82XL said:
Quite unfortunately for you DV82XL, after decades of working as a bean counter, you seem to have lost the knack of how scientific debate proceeds. When somebody cites you an article or a paper, you look it up, and dissect the numbers.
You don’t scream “straight BS.. show me”. It is your job to see, not my responsibility to show you.
And as long as YOU don’t give me numbers, I cannot criticize your argument as well. And this is exactly why I resigned myself off the debate.
A text-book is a compilation of material from different sources, and a way of organizing the middle grounds for academic debate. This exactly what Dr Mackay’s book is about.
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September 19th, 2008 at 7:31 am
And you apparently don’t know the onus is the one making claims to provide proof. You are claiming that renewables can assume 20% 40% and 100% of base load – don’t expect that anyone will buy it without more support than on book.
You came here making unsupported statements; I don’t have to prove you wrong. And that ,my friend, IS how science works.
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