Wind or Nuclear?
Boone Pickens is calling for massive subsidization of the wind-power industry. As with ethanol and recycling and a host of other issues, you must ask yourself again, if these things are so efficient, why do they need to be subsidized? Answer: they're not so efficient. Energies that require massive subsidization benefit absolutely no one; the only reason they need to be subsidized is that they cannot compete on the open market. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (57)
Markus Stocker
Is anyone aware of a study that estimates the cost of nuclear energy with internalized costs for nuclear waste management? I'd like to know, how competitive nuclear energy is, if we factor into the equation the cost of (research, building, maintaining, insurance, etc.) nuclear waste management. I'm not sure, but I don't think, people using nuclear energy are currently paying for this cost element.
Published: July 8, 2009 9:41 AM
Larry
Maybe they need to be subsidized to be able to compete with the heavily subsidized oil industry. If we were to bill the oil companies just for the cost of defending the oil fields, what do you suppose the cost of a barrel of oil would be?
Published: July 8, 2009 9:49 AM
Keith
Nuclear is actually pretty heavily subsidized when we take into account Loan Guarantees for new plant construction and such by the government, as well as in immense levels of R&D paid for out of DOE money.
This is a small drop in the bucket compared to the REST of the money the government wastes, but it is still a subsidy.
On the other hand, assuming a free market in nuclear generation with no controls outside of Liability law and Insurance company mandates, there is n reason to assume that reactors would cost near as much as they do now.
It's really hard to say how the market for them would play out given the heavily regulated nature it had since it's inception.
Published: July 8, 2009 9:59 AM
Ben Ranson
This article is written in an usual style. It is rather disjointed. It lacks references, and some of the facts are sketchy.
One of the author's many mystifying statements is, "In terms of wind and raw solar energy, the flow is exceptionally diluted: solar is ten to fifty times less concentrated than fossil fuel." As I understand it, sunlight doesn't "flow." I also have never experienced any situation in which sunlight or wind could be described as "diluted."
It is impossible that, "Consumption of energy creates more energy, not less." This would violate the law of conservation of energy.
I don't see any "awesome logic" in, "The more we use of it, therefore, the better we become at finding it and calculating its quantity, extracting it and refining it. Thus, the more we use of a resource, the more of it we're able to find... The entire history of resource use and extraction has followed this pattern without deviation."
I doubt that "Over forty percent of medicine now is nuclear medicine." I can't imagine how "forty percent of medicine" could "be" anything at all, since medicine refers to a number of heterogeneous products and services.
Published: July 8, 2009 10:13 AM
Joe B
Pickens is an old horse thief of the Donald Trump, et al, ilk. No one pays much attention for some reason. Read below:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/T_Boone_Pickens_wants_your_water.html
Published: July 8, 2009 10:23 AM
gene
There isn't a form of energy that isn't subsidized by the Federal Government.
Right now, nuclear is by far the worst, in the sense that no nuclear plant has even been built dependent on private financing. The point about defending the oil fields is certainly a great point tho and oil is right up there.
No one, that is no one, will take the risks and undertake the costs of nuclear without massive government assistance and insurance. This is not even touching on disposal of nuclear waste.
When energy subsidies are removed, if ever, we may find out what the true costs are. there is also the element of pollution also, which is externalized or at least highly regulated instead of compensated for. Regulation of pollution is a "permit" granted by the State to pollute, not an internalization of the costs others incur from pollution.
Downgrading one subsidized form of energy and upgrading another subsidized form is thought much more in line with neo-conservatism and neo-mercantilism than anything else, certainly not libertarianism or Austrian economics.
When the government and corporate interests relinquish monopoly control of energy and resource, we will be living in a better and certainly more sustainable world, one truly based on economics. But, both know control of energy is control of the lifeblood of the economy. So, chances of free competition in the energy field are remote.
The power generation and grid system itself is one of the most 'socialized' programs ever undertaken in our country. You would be hard pressed to find anything "free market" about it, from start to finish. The "utility" control of this system is nothing short of government approved monopoly.
If nuclear plants are such a great form of energy and such a fine expression of the free market, build one, and find a place to store the "very useful" waste near your home.
Published: July 8, 2009 10:33 AM
Jay Sax
This claim troubles me "Coal is extraordinarily abundant — we'll never run out. . . "
I'm willing to be corrected, and I claim no specific expertise in this field, but I've never encountered anybody in my studies that claims that we'll never run out of coal.
The 2009 Statistical Review of World Energy gives some data, for example, on proven reserves, and you can even get historical data which shows that those values have been declining for some time. Sure, there may be more than proven reserves, or we may come up with better methods, etc.
Still, based on those reserves, and a non-increasing assumption of extraction, we are definitely left with a reasonably finite window for coal, after which we'll run out - probably in a century or two if I am reading the numbers properly.
Published: July 8, 2009 10:40 AM
Markus Stocker
Jay Sax,
I guess, you are right in assuming that coal and oil are finite. However, I suppose the argument that we will never run out of them - assumed the price reflects the scarcity of the resource - makes sense in that the last drop of oil would be unpayable, as would the last mine of coal. Does this make sense?
Published: July 8, 2009 10:50 AM
Byzantine
Ben Ranson,
Light is a wave function, hence 'flow.' It is also incredibly diluted. ("Diffused" may be a better term.) But we actually already have organic solar cells we can use to generate energy: they're called plants. When they decompose under subterranean pressure, we get coal, which concentrates the diffuse energy of sunlight. We release that energy when we burn the coal, heat water to steam, and spin a turbine. Acres and acres of solar cells do not come close to this level of efficiency and at extraordinary expense. I wonder, from the comments, how many people even understand the concept of energy generation.
Wind, same thing: we've got to spin a coil between two magnets, but capturing the extraordinarily diffuse energy of wind requires a Rube Goldberg-ian set of devices. Best just use it for motive power: sailboats.
Another point being missed: solar and wind are so bad they have to be subsidised above and beyond the level of subsidy already granted the energy industry.
Published: July 8, 2009 11:24 AM
gene
You are right Markus, we will never run out of anything!
By the author's logic then, we will never run out of coal or oil, although the price will reflect the relative scarcity.
By that same logic, since through time sunlight and wind are basically consistent, at least in relation to humans lives, we will never run out of 'cheap' sun and wind.
In fact, it will become cheaper and cheaper in comparison to all the "finite" sources. Therefore, the calculation of "payback" on solar and wind depends solely on the lifespan and maintainence of the equipment rather than the source of power. in fact, the source of power is a liability for non-renewable sources.
So, not promoting subsidies which are despicable, but a subsidy based in a "renewable" source should be a better, although still interventionist, investment as long as the equipment lifespan is comparable.
And, the only pollution concern as far as solar and wind, is that of "visual" pollution. So, there is quite an advantage there especially compare to coal.
There is also no "waste" product, as efficiency of the energy source is 100%.
These factors might even come into play in a truly free market.
Published: July 8, 2009 11:25 AM
Byzantine
And, the only pollution concern as far as solar and wind, is that of "visual" pollution. So, there is quite an advantage there especially compare to coal.
Nope. You need to mine ore and power refineries to make steel for the wind turbines and solar cell frames. Then there's the chemical manufacturing for the solar cells. And energy generation for the manufacturing processes. The reason wind and solar need such subsidy is they are net energy consuming processes. They can't pull their own weight because the energy is such a diluted flow. It's like methane from bio-mass: the energy needed to 'cook' the bio-mass is more than the bio-mass will produce.
Again, people seem unable to grasp the physics behind all this.
Published: July 8, 2009 11:38 AM
Michael A. Clem
The government is no better at generating energy than they are at stimulating the economy. Get the government out of the energy business and energy subsidies, and then the economic costs of generating energy will become quite apparent, and no silly arguments about energy "flows", energy density or any of that stuff will be necesary--consumers can decide for themselves, with their own pocketbooks, which energy sources they prefer, based upon their own values. The most important point is that energy generation is just as subject to economics as any other commodity.
Anything else is just static and politics. The problem is, if we don't get government out of energy, we may face some serious energy shortage problems in the future--we can't count on bribes and corruption to lead us towards the correct energy policy, especially with someone like Pickens mucking about.
Published: July 8, 2009 11:51 AM
Bogart
And the best part is there are 2million new jobs out there in "green energy". Assuming a complete switch from coal to green that means that we lose 270K jobs and "gain" (actually lose) 7 times that number in green jobs. So even with a free raw material the new energy will take 7 times the labor per unit of energy. There is not way coal or oil or methane could possibly cost that much. In other words, get read for the big increases in energy costs.
Published: July 8, 2009 12:21 PM
Walt D.
Very good article Ray.
To answer some of the question raised by others on the blog.
Markus - the DOE answer is $29 MWH. (Clean coal is $28MWH). For comparison wind is ~$90MWH an solor photovoltaic is ~$120+.
Ben - "As I understand it, sunlight doesn't "flow." Google "Solar Flux Constant". If you still don't understand , look up flux in Webster-Merriam online.
Gene -"The power generation and grid system itself is one of the most 'socialized' programs ever undertaken in our country. You would be hard pressed to find anything "free market" about it, from start to finish. ". Great point, Boone Pickens programs are dependent on building a new grid. (Wind blows in Wyoming and Montana. We get a lot of hot air from Washington DC, and Sacramento. All of this has to be transmitted. Even a 500kV DC line has significant line losses. BTW the sun does not shine at night, or in Boston in the winter!
Ben - "It is impossible that, "Consumption of energy creates more energy, not less." This would violate the law of conservation of energy. " Google "fast neutron breeder" and "fusion bomb".
Read Gary North's "It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted" on Monday's www.lewrockwell.com.
Joe said "Pickens is an old horse thief of the Donald Trump, et al, ilk. " So what is Boone Pickens angle here. He made his money by identifying oil companies that were badly run. Here, he has identified a US population that has been so dumbed down that they are unable to reason. (Which, incidentally is why most of the great stuff written or posted on this site falls on deaf ears.) Also he sees a very badly run company that is awash in money and ripe for the picking - the US Government. In Spain, they had the same fiasco - a subsidized wind industry that went belly up. However, the rich families in Spain who bought the 10% government guaranteed bonds made out pretty well. Here we have imbeciles like the California State Legislature and Governor Arnold who will force SCE, SDP and PG&E to buy the wind power at $90Mwh and solar power at $120Mwh and turn of the $30Mwh power. Boone Pickens is a master at identifying the sucker.
For anyone interested, try to find "The Health Hazards of not going Nuclear" by Petr Beckmann. Although it was written in 1980, it blows a hole in the notion of zero-emission electric vehicles, among other things.
Published: July 8, 2009 12:33 PM
Markus Stocker
Walt D.,
Very interesting. Do you have some references for those numbers?
Published: July 8, 2009 1:03 PM
hz
This article has to be candidate for some kind of poor-timing award, considering that today Pickens announced he's postponing the Pampa project indefinitely.
Published: July 8, 2009 1:21 PM
Walt D.
Markus
Interesting, the NRC has taken the study down. Here is another, which looks credible.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/costs.htm
In the UK, the decommissioning cost is about the same as the initial capital cost.
Published: July 8, 2009 1:22 PM
gene
byzantine,
that's a good point, building the power plant requires material and negative side products, but that is true to one degree or another of every power generation machine and system.
As far as net energy consuming processes, you are way off base. Methane is not "cooked", stick a bunch of cow pies in a container and it produces methane, you do have to "cook" methane to produce energy, just like natural gas. A well built wind generator will more than pay for itself, you can stick a $100 generator on a $50 propeller and generate electricity. If that can't be done on a large scale, someone isn't doing their homework. solar is more challenging.
The problem is competitiveness per kilowatt and we have no way of really determining that with the subsidies that pervade the industry.
We are gaining nothing by saying this is better or that is better. Remove ALL subsidies down to the resource, internalize the pollution costs, localize the grid and let the market have at it. We would get our answer in no time.
Published: July 8, 2009 1:47 PM
Nick Bradley
Nuclear power is heavily-subsidized, with low-cost loans to build plants, nearly all of the R&D performed by the Dept. of Energy, and the government on the hook for waste disposal.
The author does have a great point in that reprocessing would reduce the amount of waste dramatically, but it is expensive -- a 2,000 ton capacity reprocessing plant would cost $20B. On top of that, reprocessed fuel is more expensive than the original fuel -- just like recycled products.
But reprocessing does reduce political opposition to nuclear power -- if you don't have to worry about 55,000 tons of nuclear waste, its a lot easier to build new plants.
Published: July 8, 2009 1:51 PM
Byzantine
Gene - You have to have heat in order to distill the usable fuel from the bio-mass. If you look at those ethanol plants, you'll see lots of burners going full bore. And again, if wind pulled its own weight, it would already be going strong. Not even close to hydro-electric, and operates on the same principle: natural force to turn a coil between two magnets. And look at what they have to build to tap energy from the far, far denser water flow, and think how much less dense air is than water. Wind power is a hippie pipe dream.
This is an area where logic and grasp of the physical sciences just flies out the window.
Published: July 8, 2009 2:01 PM
J.R.
I am a proponent of nuclear energy, but this article needs to get some of its details straight and is probably a bit biased. Chernobyl actually melted down because the Russians were running an experiment and manually bypassed the safety shutdowns that were in place. Reprocessing and storage of spent nuclear material is nowhere near as trivial as he makes it sound. Yucca mountain and the WHIP site in NM are quite pricey endeavors to store various types of radioactive waste.
Published: July 8, 2009 2:13 PM
Larry
If wind power is a pipe dream, then Denmark is getting better than 20% of their electrical power from a hallucination.
Published: July 8, 2009 2:40 PM
Matt R.
@ Larry:
"Much has been written about Denmark's success as the world's wind power pioneer. But the regularly repeated claim – that Denmark generates 20 percent of its electricity demand from wind sources – is highly misleading. That 20 percent of electricity is not supplied continuously from wind power. Denmark’s wind supply is so variable that it relies heavily on neighbors Norway and Sweden, taking their excess production. In 2003 its export figure for wind power electricity production was as high as 84 percent, as Denmark found it could not absorb its own highly variable wind output capacity into its domestic system. The scale of Denmark’s subsidies was such that in 2006-07 the government increasingly came under scrutiny from the Danish media, which claimed the subsidies were out of control."
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=842
Published: July 8, 2009 2:53 PM
Walt D.
Windmills were used in Holland to power drainage pumps centuries before we had electricity. However, Holland and Denmark are windy. In California, we don't get much wind (except for hot air in Sacramento). Wind is not viable here for the same reason that solar would not be viable in Bergen Norway.
We should also bear in mind that all of the nuclear power plants in the US and UK were built using 1960's technology. Those is the USSR were built using the same technology that built the Yugo. The 21st century designs will be better. Even if we continued with the old designs, they still have a better track record for safety, than, to recycle an old cliche, Ted Kennedy's cars.
The Chinese are going ahead with Pebble Bed Nuclear. If they succeed they will blow by us in a very short space of time. We will simply not be able to compete if we have expensive and unreliable sources of energy.
Published: July 8, 2009 2:59 PM
matt at anarchyjapan.com
I worry about Nuclear Power Plants in Japan. But there's a clearly a blend of government-corporate forces operating, so it's hard to know who is to blame for these worries.
When the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant was struck by an earthquake, it was learned that according to standard government rules the plant should not have been built where it was. However a mixture of government/corporate forces managed to adjust the reports prior to construction making the area appear safer than it was.
I wonder if under a free market nuclear power really would be viable. I guess ... you buy the land, buy the materials and produce the energy. But say there was a massive accident and millions of people across Japan (high population density) suffered heavy radiation exposure. How could insurance ever cover that? Certainly humans are fallible and such an accident is not impossible.
Nevertheless, I have to admit under government (in Japan) people aren't getting adequate controls. It's fascinating that people never want these plants in their backyard and it is always very powerful forces that seem to push these plants upon the people. Perhaps people would refuse to sell their property thus trying to block the plants in some areas? Maybe in a free market coalitions of private property holders might attempt to block construction?
How nuclear power would fare in Japan under a free market is certainly an issue worth studying.
Published: July 8, 2009 3:18 PM
Walt D.
fundamentalist: For High Voltage DC lines, this article and its links are an easy read. The breakthough technology for DC lines was solid state rectification.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
Regards, Walt
Published: July 8, 2009 3:22 PM
Walt D.
Sorry, I meant solid state transformers.
Published: July 8, 2009 3:23 PM
Walt D.
Matt
Petr Beckmann's book explains this. The new pebble bed technology aims to address the problems at the design stage. Not all cars have to built like a Yugo. You can build a Lexus.
Published: July 8, 2009 3:32 PM
Markus Stocker
Walt D.,
Thanks for the link. However, I'm skeptical about those numbers, for I can't really follow how they are calculated. Further, in the references it says that "NRC costs do not reflect decommissioning, capital, waste costs." Moreover, all the links seem to be broken. So, I'm afraid, not very credible all this, as not really transparent. The challenge, at least to me, remains open. What are nuclear energy costs if we factor in waste management? If this is an open question, I'm afraid, the discussion here about whether nuclear is more "efficient" than wind seems to be questionable. With this, I don't want to say the author of the article didn't point out serious problems about the technologies.
Published: July 8, 2009 3:48 PM
Lee
Gene:"no nuclear plant has even been built dependent on private financing"
Well, there was one man who built a nuclear breeder reactor out of smoke detectors. Radioactive Boyscout
Granted, this man never sold any power generated from the reactor, but I'm sure if he could do it legally and openly without fear of being arrested he would have.
Published: July 8, 2009 5:07 PM
Jam
Let's not forget one highly important aspect of nuclear power generation. It requires LOTS of water for cooling. Nuke plants MUST be built next to rivers for this purpose. I rarely see this cost brought up during nuclear plant discussions.
Considering that the government claims that rivers and streams are "public goods" that cannot be privately owned it would be impossible to build a truly private nuke station without getting rid of a few other forms of government meddling than just subsidies. The same would hold true for private hydro dams as well.
Published: July 8, 2009 6:18 PM
Les
I am no economist, but I have often wondered if anyone has explored the alternative reason why nuclear is dead in the US? What I mean is just think how many jobs the coal industry requires to keep a coal-fired plants in operation, not to mention the trains/trucks for transporting the coal, etc. Once a nuclear plant is built, it requires very few people to operate it, and like the article points out, there is virtually no pollution. Just curious.
Published: July 8, 2009 7:10 PM
Byzantine
Jam,
The point to take away from this article is not, "How do we smash the State thereby allowing a truly free market for energy generation to arise?" Rather it is that the government refuses to allow development of a cheap, abundant, and safe energy source like nuclear power, and instead forces us to pay for expensive, inefficient, crackpot schemes like wind and solar.
I repeat again, the basic physics that the author elegantly illustrates in the article seem utterly beyond people's grasp. The energy of the sun at the source is extremely powerful, but by the time it gets to earth it is so diluted it requires many hundreds of square miles of photovoltaic cells to capture any useful amount. Same with wind: millions of cubic feet of air moving over the earth's surface generates a lot of energy, but it's so diluted we have to construct vast arrays of windmills with huge blades to capture any useful amount.
Think about all the energy over time stored in coal: millions of hours of sunlight captured by plants, subterranean pressure, heat of decomposition. That's what the author means about 'concentrated' as opposed to 'diluted' energy. The technology exists to safely tap concentrated sources like uranium but it is not used because of the government's junk science.
Published: July 8, 2009 7:40 PM
Yancey Ward
Ultimately, the human species will generate most of its energy via nuclear fission (unless, of course, we solve the fusion problem before fossil fuels begin to run out). Wind and solar will fill significant niches during the next 100 years, but their requirements for space and maintenance will quickly put a hard upper limit to their utilization, much like hydroelectric is now limited in the US.
Published: July 8, 2009 7:48 PM
Eric
We likely will never run out of coal, because before we even get close, we'll find something better.
Consider that 100 years ago we didn't even have an electrical grid at all. With exponential growth in technology, we might find that in 100 years we'll be mining the asteroid belt (remember O'neil's book on space colonies from the 80s). And every estimate of our coal resources were on the order of hundreds of years at least.
The only problem I see is that we seem to be also having exponential growth in parasitical government that destroys wealth and limits what we can do.
I believe that will be the deciding factor.
Published: July 8, 2009 8:37 PM
Walt D.
Eric said:
"The only problem I see is that we seem to be also having exponential growth in parasitical government that destroys wealth and limits what we can do"
How true. However, super exponential growth is indicative of a bubble, and what we may have here is a bubble in government. All bubbles are unsustainable. Sort of like the Liapunov fox and rabbits scenario - more rabbits = more food = more foxes. Too many foxes = less rabbits = less food = less foxes. I believe that we are rapidly approaching the situation where there are not enough productive people to support the unproductive government workers and government programs. It is a bad parasite that kills the organism that it feeds on. I think we are already past the point of no return in California and are headed off the end of the ruway.
Published: July 8, 2009 8:58 PM
newson
wasn't chernobyl the subject of a massive media beat-up? i recall seeing a documentary where epidemiologists could only attribute a small number of deaths/illness to the reactor meltdown.
many of the cases of infantile thyroid cancer could have been avoided by prompt administration of iodine; this was a failing of the soviet health administration.
the fauna around the site doesn't seem to have suffered genetic damage, and is florid.
the monstrous side of the accident was the forced abortion performed on pregnant women in the surrounding areas. very large numbers were performed, but the media seems happy to ignore this.
Published: July 8, 2009 9:43 PM
scott t
a previous post on mises blog claimed that there was enough wind every second over the blowing somewhere in the us to provide more than enough electricity...all that was needed was many-miles of new transmission and a whiz-bang grid management system.
so when texas and the southeast wind resources would dry up for a few hot summer days, electricity from divine surplus winds from north dakota and massachusettes could be directed to these areas.
because there is enough wind blowing every second somewhere.
i dont know if that is true or not.
is the storage of nuclear 'waste' more problematic the the additional thousands turbines and acres needed for say...60 or 70 percent wind generation?
is it that much dirtier?
can the true costs of each even be measured?
Published: July 8, 2009 10:12 PM
metalman
The inflationary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve distorts all decision making across all industries. This makes it difficult to evaluate or compare industries.
The nuclear research, weapons and power industries have been massively subsidized since the 1940s by the Federal Government. Politics rather than science often drives goals.
Nuclear materials are intrinsically bio-destructive whereas carbon dioxide is plant food that tends to increase plant growth.
Fossil fuel and nuclear plants both must exhaust 2 KW of waste heat for every KW electricity generated.
Cap and Trade will further distort the market by giving the profits of the fossil fuel driven power industry to the nuclear power industry.
The grid meets the desire for power on demand. Managing variability is a straightforward engineering problem of providing storage for normal use. A refrigerator or house with storage that can be cooled when the wind blows can absorb heat in doldrums. Water can be pumped for later use, batteries charged, flywheels energized. Without the myriad of political interventions clouding the costs, benefits and risks the scientific and pragmatic solutions are easier to discern.
A free market tends to evolve viable products.
Published: July 8, 2009 11:40 PM
Byzantine
Fossil fuel and nuclear plants both must exhaust 2 KW of waste heat for every KW electricity generated.
Wait a minute, what is the cost of this 'waste heat?' Energy production generates heat. The fact that solar and wind are so 'cool' (on a couple of different levels) indicates they are not generating much energy.
Published: July 8, 2009 11:46 PM
Walt D.
"Fossil fuel and nuclear plants both must exhaust 2 KW of waste heat for every KW electricity generated.".
This is 33% efficiency. This is good. Even ATP is only 38.3% efficient.
Published: July 9, 2009 12:07 AM
Gil
Gadzooks! If all forms of electricity generation subsidised then doesn't that the technologies look cheaper than they would otherwise be if it were left to the free market?
Published: July 9, 2009 12:23 AM
Gil
"Rather it is that the government refuses to allow development of a cheap, abundant, and safe energy source like nuclear power, and instead forces us to pay for expensive, inefficient, crackpot schemes like wind and solar." - Byzantine.
Wow, how did you automatically presume nuclear fission is the answer? It is estimated the world's current usage for nuclear will be good for another century or two (and that's at the current usage not 'what if the whole world went nuclear'!). Compare that to the 400 years or so for coal. Likewise you presume solar and wind power is automatically junk technology. Sure there's a problem with energy subsidies and so forth but that doesn't automatically mean solar and wind power won't find niche markets.
Published: July 9, 2009 2:08 AM
Duke Nukem
Gil,
Actually, because U238 cand produce fissile U239 in fast breeders, we have enough nuclear material to power the world eons upon eons upon eons.
Given that we also have thorium, add yet more and more eons ahead of us of abundant cheap power.
Published: July 9, 2009 11:31 AM
Windmail
Wind and solar don't generate energy, they HARVEST energy. In fact they absorb heat, making the surroundings cooler.
Actually, there is enough wind potential around Usuhaïa's parallel around the globe to power the entire human civilization. It would only require about 100 Million windmills. scattered around this parallel which is still several thousand miles long.
Published: July 9, 2009 12:01 PM
Walt D.
Here IMHO is a good example of what can be done -Amory Lovins house in Colorado
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10270909-52.html
However, the new motto for "Cap and Trade" should be "Cold Showers, Warm Beer".
Published: July 9, 2009 1:59 PM
Russ
"It would only require about 100 Million windmills."
Oh, is that all? *rolling eyes*
Published: July 9, 2009 2:05 PM
Abhilash Nambiar
What is this article claiming? Nuclear energy is good, oil is good, wind and solar are bad things being forced by the government? Was nuclear energy or Petro-energy the products of free markets? Would there be no room in a free market for wind mills or solar panels or ethanol? I do not know. Ray Harvey seems to think not. His opinion is noted, but we will not know till there is actually a free market will we.
Published: July 9, 2009 6:11 PM
P.M.Lawrence
"In fact, they're the densest store of carbon energy we've ever discovered. Pound-for-pound, gas [sic - presumably "gasoline", i.e. petrol] possesses four times as much energy as coal."
The latter sentence is correct, but the former sentence is wrong - because "dense" refers to per unit volume, not mass. High grade coal with little ash probably has a greater energy per unit volume than petrol - and definitely more than gas (diamonds probably have even more). However, even though the energy per unit mass is more important for our purposes and is probably what he meant, that's still wrong; acetylene, ethylene, and various other unsaturated hydrocarbons (more convenient because they are liquids at or near ordinary temperatures and pressures) definitely have a greater energy per unit mass than petrol. However, for that very reason they are a lot less safe.
Published: July 10, 2009 5:24 AM
P.M.Lawrence
I just did a little looking around, and it appears from wikipedia that dicyanoacetylene (a liquid at ordinary temperatures and pressures) has the hottest flame known. That makes it a good candidate for the "densest" store of carbon energy ever discovered, whether the measure is by volume or by mass.
Published: July 10, 2009 9:03 AM
KP
We are currently processing multiple nuclear plants across the country at this very moment. The paper work has been filed and been sent to the NRC for review. The idea that we are not building any plants is prosperous. There are two major reactor companies, Mishibishi and Areva. There are global partnerships right now to build not only the reactor but the containment unit(which is built by only one company, Japanese outfit that use to make Japanese swords). Furthermore, licensing takes time to grant and you will not see any groundbreaking until mid 2015-2020.
It is sad that the author did not take the time to see how long it takes to review a nuclear plant and the first groundbreaking and when it occurs. Nuclear power will be our future, no matter what people say. Wind, solar and coal can help supplement this but nuclear will be our future.
Published: July 10, 2009 9:58 AM
Windmill
Russ,
You get my point that Even though there is enough energy to power the world, this energy is diluted and difficult or should I say impossible to harvest in a satisfactory manner.
One 2 Megawatt windmill takes the place of one 2000 megawatt nuclear power plant.
Yes, it would require 100 Million windmills to power all the americas, and they would obviously have to be scattered all accross the ocean.
An impossible herculean task.
Yes, wind power can provide all our energy needs, provided you want to see an endless sea of windmills all over the world everywhere you look.
""It would only require about 100 Million windmills."
Oh, is that all? *rolling eyes*
"
Published: July 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Windmill
"wind and solar are bad things being forced by the government? "
Wind and solar are not "bad", they are heavy and cumbersome.
They take up a lot and a lot of space and materials.
If we were to only rely on wind to power the world, we would need 100 Million 2Megawatt windmills.
Try building 100 Million windmills instead of 150 nuclear power plants, LOL !
Published: July 10, 2009 1:02 PM
SailDog
"Coal will never run out" - this is a statement by someone who is uber-ignorant.
The phrase "run out" is rubbish for starters. We will never "run out" of coal.
What is happening is that coal is being dug out in greater volumes but its thermal content is declining because the best grades and most accessible deposits have already been burnt. It is thought that "peak coal" (in net joules) happened in the US some years ago.
Note the word "net". This is a key concept. We dig up coal for the energy it can deliver. As grades (slowly) degrade and as it consumes more energy to mine and deliver, coals value as an energy source will decline.
I suspect though that coals external costs (climate change) will halt its use long before its thermal value declines significantly. Things are moving apace and if warming continues to accelerate even the neanderthal deniers will be forced to pull their heads out of the sand.
Published: July 12, 2009 5:19 AM
Maciej Piechotka
As far as I remember in Chernobyl:
- There was old-design of buildings which haven't prevented spreading of fault.
- One security circuit was broken.
- Second one was turned off for some unknown (experiment?) reasons
We probably will never know as Central Committee of USSR get know about Chernobyl from Polish (possibly other as well - but I don't know) CC which get know from scientists who discovered highier radiation. At least I heard so from interview with scientist who discovered it.
As for method of getting energy - I'm indifferent as long I have to pay[1] the less.
[1] Pay not only in terms of money and "I" in meaning population. So I'm against getting cheaper enegergy if someone else is being exploited. This include polution (unless agreed with owner of polluted area).
Published: July 12, 2009 7:33 AM
Jon Roland
This artuicle is seriously flawed.
First, most nuclear waste is not spent fuel. It is components of the system which as a result of nuclear bombardment become radioactive. Neutrons create radioisotopes.
Second, it ignores some serious categories of risk, perhaps the most important of which is diversion of small amounts of nuclear fuel to terrorists, who can then refine it into weapons-grade and use it to nuke our cities. It is called the MUF (material unaccounted for) problem, and is the way Israel got much of the material for its first few nuclear weapons.
I used to be a proponent of nuclear energy until I learned more. It is far too dangerous.
But the way to get solar energy is to put the collectors in orbit, as solar power satellites. PG&E in California has recently contracted with a firm to put a solar power satellite in orbit for it.
Published: July 14, 2009 11:27 AM
Bryan Kelly
RE: In actuality, there's no such thing as "renewable energy": all energy, even the sun, is limited.
Tecnically correct, but realistically wrong. Incredibly wrong. Our working environment is the earth, and more correctly, the very top layers of the earth and its atmosphere. The sun is not under our control. Sunlight is streaming down upon us continuously and is “renewed” by the day and second. Fossil fuels are not. The sun is good for a few billion more years. With regard to human existence, it will indeed last forever.
RE: T. Boone Pickens's now-infamous plan would require 1,200 square miles for a single power plant.
A single wind generator can produce a megawatt of power. It can take less than a few dozen square yards of ground area and a few hundred yards of total space when considering the fan blades, that are quite high above the ground. Each watt of wind power is fossil fuel that is not burned.
RE: Coal is extraordinarily abundant — we'll never run out — and pound-for-pound contains twice as much energy as wood. Coal is a concentrated storehouse of energy.
The idea that we will never run out is blatantly absurd. Its almost as absurd as saying the power from the sun is limited. We will eventually run out of economically producible coal. The author completely disregards the very serious side effect of coal, particular matter in the air and pollutants spewed out such as mercury. He also disregards the pollution caused by mining the coal and finding something to do with the huge amount of by products of extracting the coal from rock, mountain, shale, and what ever material it is mixed with or covered with.
RE: Octane molecules in gasoline, however, are even more concentrated. In fact, they're the densest store of carbon energy we've ever discovered. Pound-for-pound, gas possesses four times as much energy as coal. There's a popular misconception today that gasoline is inefficient and wasteful. Nothing could be more inaccurate.
The biggest problem is not that gasoline is inefficient. The problem is that the predominant user of it is inefficient. Look at the radiator in your car. Even with an air flow of 30 mph over it, your car needs a radiator that big to get rid of the unusable (wasted) energy. The radiator is required because of the inability of the modern combustion engine to use the energy of gasoline. Every bit of heat dissipated by the radiator is wasted energy. The modern internal combustion can get no more than about 35% of the energy from gasoline. The other 65% is wasted.
RE: Nuclear, on the other hand, is something else entirely. The public hasn't even begun to grasp nuclear energy….
RE: The meltdown of the uranium core in 1979 at Three Mile Island was so overblown by antinuclear groups that it went virtually unnoticed that the containment vessel at Three Mile Island had done its job and prevented any significant release of radioactivity.
RE: Uranium is abundant, clean, and safe — in technological societies.
RE: The catastrophe at Chernobyl — which, once again, sent greens groups worldwide scurrying to their soapboxes — only happened because that state-run reactor was astonishingly unsafe: in the words of Peter Huber, "You couldn't have operated a toaster oven out of it."
The author does not understand nuclear energy. He is woefully ignorant of the facts of the Three Mile Island accident.
The catastrophe at Three Mile Island was, when it occurred, very much underplayed and hidden from the public. It was only later that the public learned that reactor was within 30 minutes of a full unmitigated core meltdown. That would have been a huge disaster, nationally and globally. The government and Metropolitan Edison outright lied to the public as to the severity of this accident. Indeed, when President Jimmy Carter visited the facility, the catastrophe was, at that moment, still in progress. Damage was being done while he visited. The ramifications of this event were so serious; it directly caused the halt of all construction of nuclear plants in this country. Please do you own research on this event. Here is a nice start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
Add this fragment found here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/three/filmmore/description.html
Three years after the accident, a robotic camera was lowered into the Unit 2 core, providing the first look at what really had happened. Roger Mattson, a senior NRC engineer, describes what was revealed: "We had a meltdown at Three Mile Island. Fifty percent of the core was destroyed or molten and something on the order of twenty tons of uranium found its way to the bottom head of the pressure vessel. That's a core meltdown. No question about it."
The damaged reactor has not and will never be restored to service. It cannot be economically cleaned up. It has been sealed off and effectively abandoned in place. It will be dangerous for thousands of years. Who will accept responsibility for taking care of this reactor one hundred years from now? The answer is you, the public. Think about that for a while.
Light water reactors have a fundamental flaw that we try to cover up with layer upon layer of backup protections. Select any light water reactor that has been running for a few months and shut it down. Make that, try to. It cannot be completely shut down. The emphasis is on the word cannot. If cooling water to the core of a shut down light water reactor is interrupted in the several months following its shut down, the reactor core will very quickly generate sufficient heat to melt itself down. Let me say this a bit differently. The power output of a light water reactor can be significantly reduced, but it CANNOT be turned off. Months and years are required to reduce the power output of a “shut down” light water reactor to safe levels. The nuclear fuel must be removed piece by piece to shut it down. Even then, the material that constitutes the core remains dangerous.
When we can build nuclear reactors of a style that is inherently safe, all the evaluations will be changed.
Regarding Chernobyl, the people conducting the operations at Chernobyl when it exploded thought they were safe. They thought they knew what they were doing. Yes, that type of reactor is inherently unsafe and dangerous, but they thought they had it under control. They were human, they were subject to error, and they were wrong. We must always consider human error. Human error played a major role in the Three Mile Island accident. The consequences of human error in regard to large nuclear power plants is absolutely huge. Human error can never be completely mitigated. This topic cannot be adequately discussed here.
The engineers and companies that build light water reactors are fully aware that they are inherently unsafe. Read about the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. It limits the responsibility of companies that build and operator nuclear reactors. There is no company in the United States, or the world, that would build reactors here in the U.S. without the protection of this act. This in itself, implicitly, if not explicitly, confirms their inherent dangers.
This topic greatly exceeds the scope of this discussion.
To continue:
RE: The most efficient solar panels currently in use (on the space station) are costly, and their conversion efficiency is about twenty percent, which is not very much.
The author neglects the point that everything in space is necessarily extraordinarily expensive because of the inaccessibility and the cost to just get there. Still, the efficiency of solar panels is quite low and does need significant improvement.
RE: Twelve miles of solar reflectors generate about 300 megawatts, a miniscule amount. Furthermore, those reflectors must be kept squeaky clean, maintained to the hilt, or they won't work.
The author exaggerates of the importance of efficiency. First, solar cells collect energy that arrives from the sun free of charge. In that respect, inefficiency is not a problem. Compare with the 35% efficiency obtained from gasoline by internal combustion engines. Gasoline engines have been undergoing refinement for more than 100 years. In comparison, solar energy is just getting started.
The total amount of energy from solar power is about 1000 watts per square meter and noon. Even in at 40 degrees latitude we can get 300 watts of usable engergy per square meter. A single story house of 1500 square feet has 166 square meters of roof space. Multiply that out and it gets about 50,000 watts of energy. Take 30% of that and you have 15,000 watts of energy. Far more than the typical house of that size will use. (San Francisco is below 38 degrees. Vancouver, north of Washington state is only 48 degrees.) As energy storage becomes better and cheaper, each individual house can be not only energy independent, they can provide energy to the grid.
By the way, as one moves north, the amount of solar energy is reduced, but the energy available from the winds of winter storms increases significantly. Home wind generators could supply a major part of energy needs during the winter months.
While solar energy collectors do need to be kept clean, squeaky clean is quite misleading. How difficult is it to wash a window? Machines, driven from the same solar power, can easily accomplish the task.
RE: At our current level of technology, no conceivable mix of solar, wind, or wave can meet even half the demand for energy.
While much improvement is indeed needed, it can be done. Yes, we are aware than sunlight is not always available (even during the day), but over weeks and months, the average amount available is very predictable. Although it will not meet all of our needs in the immediate future, using it now can dramatically reduce the amount of fossil and nuclear fuel that must be used. If, and when, energy storage methods improve significantly, then yes, solar and wind power and other renewable energy sources can indeed provide all of our energy needs. If we humans can get our heads around the importance of our future energy needs, then it is my opinion that we can say: When energy storage methods improve, renewable energy sources can provide all of our energy.
For example, solar and wind generators installed on your house can charge your electric car. You can go to work and run local errands without ever burning any fuel.
RE: That fact alone tells you everything you need to know about them: they're simply not good enough yet.
RE: When they are, the free market will adopt them naturally.
While the free market is the best method we have to allocate services and resources, it does have many problems. First, we the people, and consequently the free market, do not understand all the costs of energy production from fossil fuel and nuclear energy. We humans have shown that we are still not fully capable of understanding the impact our actions will have in the future. The free market responds to our immediate demands. Because it responds to human demands, because it is driven solely by human desire, and because we do not truly recognize and respond to future conditions, it is not good at representing our long term needs. This is far more important than I have space to describe here.
RE: The reason wind power still won't get us very far is that transmitting this power is such a huge difficulty.
The author is quite correct here. Our electric transmission grid is now old and quite inefficient. Huge investments are needed to improve it. But those investments are really needed regardless of the method of generation. The author is correct, but in the context of this essay, this is a red herring.
The inefficiency of transporting is a bonus for solar and wind generators. Up to half the power generated is lost in the transmission of power from the generator to your home. According to one web site, one ton of coal is burned to produce 2,500 kilowatt hours of electricity. A one megawatt wind generate creates this amount of energy in two and a half hours. Each large wind turbine saves the burning of one ton of coal every two and a half hours. If the output of the generator is used locally, the savings is two tons of coal every two and a half hours. It also saves the energy required to mine the coal, separate from the base rock, transport to the generating station and many other incidental costs that are beyond this scope of this essay.
RE: Wind is also unpredictable; it's therefore hard to integrate into an electrical grid, since grids have to maintain a voltage balance, or you'll get brownouts, blackouts, and power surges that destroy equipment by the ton.
In a short term basis, yes the wind and sun are unpredictable. But over weeks and months, it is very predictable. Just because it is not completely predictable in the short term does not render it without merit. Every kilowatt hour produced by wind, solar, and other such methods is more fossil fuel that is not burned. We have far to go before we can eliminate fossil fuel entirely, but we can get started and reduce its consumption right now. As our ability to store and retrieve energy storage improves, the short term unpredictability becomes less and less important.
RE: In fact, there's really no such thing as "nuclear waste": a nuclear reactor is refueled by its waste. In other words, almost all "waste" can be recycled.
…
RE: After twenty-five years, the French store all their so-called waste in one room, under La Hague, which is about the size of a basketball gymnasium.
…
RE: Nuclear energy is the cleanest, most efficient energy we have — by light years. Anyone who tells you differently, is flat-out wrong.
The author is flat out wrong. Nuclear waste can be divided into two categories, high level waste and low level. High level waste is the material that is directly radioactive such as spent fuel. Low level waste consists of items that become radioactive because of exposure to a radioactive environment, or contamination with small amounts of high level waste.
Regarding high level waste, the French are having difficulties. A rather unsophisticated google search on the phrase “nuclear waste in france” turns up these references:
http://energypriorities.com/entries/2005/03/france_nuke_was.php
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12837958
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml
A more detailed search will turn up much more.
Nuclear reactors, and the work and repairs necessary to maintain them generate significant amounts of what is called low level waste. Protective clothing that people wear becomes contaminated. Motors, valves, metals, liquids, broken and worn out parts, and other items become contaminated with radioactivity. This kind of radioactive material cannot be refined such that it can become a source of energy. It is and remains dangerous to human life for extraordinarily long periods of time. We already have large amounts of low level waste. So does France. It must be put somewhere.
When a nuclear reactor reaches the end of its economic lifetime, there are thousands of tons of material than cannot be recycled and cannot be re-used. The steel cannot be melted and turned into other products because it is radioactive. We can only abandon the old reactor in place and leave it for future generations to deal with. There are many major problems with nuclear power.
Do some research on our currently existing problem with nuclear waste. Read about the controversy over Yucca Mountain. The storage and control of nuclear wastes is a huge problem.
Personally, I think the cost of Yucca Mountain has been quite unnecessarily driven into the stratosphere by people that refuse to realize that we have huge amounts of nuclear waste spread about the country and oozing into our environment right now, as I write, and as you read. We can leave it where it is clearly unsafe and indeed quite dangerous, or we can store it where it, while not perfectly safe, is far safer that it is now. Despite all known flaws, putting the waste in Yucca Mountain would be much better than leaving it where it is now, but that’s another story.
In summary, nuclear power should be a major component of our power in the near and long term future, but it has very significant problems that must be overcome. Until them, nuclear power is a dangerous resource.
Wind and solar power can and should play a major role and can immediately be productive to the point that they can reduce our oil consumption. A problem with wind and solar power is that we, the general public, do not yet recognize the importance of reducing our oil consumption. Until them, petroleum and its products will remain significantly under valued because of its relative ease of acquisition.
It is sort of like the diamond water paradox. Water is so much more valuable and useful, but diamonds are difficult to acquire so the price, with respect to each other, is far out of proportion to their usefulness. This is a major problem and we have yet to recognize its significance.
Published: August 5, 2009 12:34 AM