There is sometimes a fine line between opposing something and not supporting it; between believing that something should be advocated against and believing it should not be advocated for; between believing that something is bad and believing that there are several better options.
Two examples come to mind. One is adaptation, as opposed to mitigation, in response to climate change. (Much more on that soon.) The other is nuclear power.
Readers of this blog probably think I oppose both adaptation and nuclear power, because they just don't get me, man my writing has been focused on how, in both cases, we ought to be advocating for other things (mitigation in the first case, R&E in the second). In neither case, at risk of pure semantics, would I call my position simple opposition. It's more a matter of choosing where best to apply effort and advocacy.
All of which is navel-gazing preface to saying that I basically agree with a Jerome a Paris view he characterizes as "favorable to nuclear":
With all that [pro-nuclear stuff] said, I'll restate here the order in which things would be done, in an ideal world:
- first, conservation and energy efficiency. "Negawatts" are the cheapest and most underexploited resource we have;
- second, renewable energies, starting with wind. They are proven technologies, are scalable and wind is already competitive, price wise;
- third, nuclear. it's the least bad way to provide the base load capacity we'll need in the foreseeable future;
- fourth, gas-fired plants. Gas is less polluting than coal, gas turbines are very flexible to use. Such plants will probably be needed (in places that do not have sufficient hydro) to manage the permanent adjustment of supply to demand that electricity requires;
- last, coal should be dismantled as quickly as possible from its current high levels of use - and new construction should be stopped.
I might quibble with the relative placement of gas-fired plants and nuclear, but I'd more or less sign on to that agenda. Whatever you think about nuclear power, it's certainly preferable to coal, which as you may have heard is the enemy of the human race. Does that make me "favorable to nuclear" or "opposed to nuclear"? I guess it's all a matter of emphasis.
Perhaps the distinction is that Jerome seems to have only two considerations in mind: a true accounting of the facts and a careful accounting of his ideal-world policy.
I share those considerations, but I'm also trying to drag in a third: what's the current political scene, and given that, what area most needs our advocacy? Right now, I see several powerful forces aligning behind nuclear power, and I see support for R&E scattered, unorganized, and inefficient. So I choose to highlight the drawbacks of nuclear power and highlight the advantages of R&E. This is not blue-sky policy musing, but a response to the actually existing cultural and political situation on the ground.
I suppose it's the distinction between being a pure journalist, or a pure wonk, and an advocate. It's a complicated, fraught issue for New Media© folks like myself.
Thoughts?
Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets
Making buildings more efficient: looking beyond price
Merkley wants Senate jobs bill to help finance building efficiency retrofits
Comments
View as Flat
ebaerren Posted 4:21 am
14 Mar 2007
Idiocy.
I place nuclear before natural gas for a couple of reasons -- here in Michigan, our three plants already account for about one-quarter of the state's electricity; and using too much natural gas to generate electricity drives up the prices of home heating during our long Michigan winters.
I don't enthusiastically advocate for nuclear, but in this state, renewables and efficiency has to be bundled with something else to keep the lights on.
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Nucbuddy Posted 4:23 am
14 Mar 2007
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David Roberts Posted 4:24 am
14 Mar 2007
www.grist.org
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JMG Posted 6:35 am
14 Mar 2007
Which is not to say that I spend much time advocating for nuclear plants--there are far too many things we should be doing first.
But, as you put your finger on it, the issue isn't nuclear or nirvana -- it's nuclear vs. coal.
A few years ago a former co-worker alerted me to the complex of issues now grouped under the rubric of "peak oil." What we soon figured out was that this isn't just a liquid fuels problem because, given America's insane belief in a Constitutional right to unfettered mobility in private autos, we could expect rising oil prices to prompt a massive rush of people shifting to coal, which is coming true, either directly (coal to liquids projects) and indirectly (laundering coal emissions through ethanol plants).
In other words, peak oil is the burning fuse on the climate disruption bomb because it presages, if we are unwise and allow the advocates of continued population and economic growth to prevail, a massive reemphasis on coal for all purposes. And that simply means game over for the world as we know it or can even make rational predictions about. As McKibben said a long time ago, we're running a massive uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we've got.
The job of the aware person today is to try and put out the fuse and keep the climate bomb from exploding by doing everything possible to first arrest and then to reverse greenhouse gas emissions. Trying to do that in isolation--treating global heating as a separate issue from energy sources and consequences--is doomed to fail.
The comment from Michigan is apt--there, the utilities are hungry to build gigantic coal plants, although primarily to beef up their rate base (and grab some emissions trading allowances), despite having done laughably little in the way of conservation (including having one of the absolute worst residential building codes in the nation) and having dragged their feet, kicking and screaming to avoid having to do any renewables --- in a state with massive offshore wind availability.
So, first we need radical conservation and efficiency gains and a constantly rising fossil-fuel efficiency standard for utilities, but we also need hard caps on emissions, with a goal of 80% overall reduction by 2050 (it's only about 3.5% a year--it's doable).
That means, in the meantime, that it is much better to relicense Palisades and build additional nukes at existing sites (such as Fermi) than it is to allow some more big coal burners to get built or to allow the existing filthy plants to continue.
As for doing gas before nukes, well, the problem is not only that gas plants produce a lot more CO2 than nukes, but tying your future to a clearly vanishing resource that has scads of other, much more valuable uses is simply crazy. Future generations will be aghast (and probably furious) that we squandered so much natural gas on making electricity, space heating, and so on.
So we should be building gas turbines only as part of a program to satisfy a fossil-fuel efficiency standard (cogen plants and trigen plants), but we have to recognize that North America has already peaked on natural gas and that most of the rest comes with the same problems that oil does (it's all in the Middle East or Russia). That means that we have to recognize natural gas as a kind of methadone, not as a cure for carbon addiction. It's better than coal, but, just as it's no picnic to be hooked on methadone, you don't want to simply trade one drug for another.
We should be treating natural gas as the precious chemical/plastics/fertilizer feedstock that it is, and do as much possible to reduce its use for space heating and electric production (consistent, of course, with displacing coal as fast as possible).
None of this is possible--and that would mean that the climate bomb will explode-- if nuclear is ruled out a priori.
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ataremove Posted 6:45 am
14 Mar 2007
Then Jimmy Carter killed the fast-breader reactor program.
Recently, I've been reading Freeman Dyson's "Disturbing the Universe". In there, he bemoans the early nuclear reactor design research was truncated early on, never giving reactor design even half a chance of coming up with good and efficient nuclear power plants.
at a remove
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:56 am
14 Mar 2007
Trying to get fastbreeder reactors to work.
So far, the past 50 years, they've failed.
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sunflower Posted 7:06 am
14 Mar 2007
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:10 am
14 Mar 2007
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/12/63111/0928
My position is that a combination of efficiency and renewables can replace all fossil fuels faster than nukes. I'm not for shutting down existing nukes prematurely (before the end of their lifespan). Most of the money cost has already been incurred, construction, the need for decommissioning. Even the supply of nuclear fuel is normally in place years before it is burned.
But any money that would be put into new nuclear plants should be directed toward more efficiency and renewables instead. You will phase out fossil fuels a lot faster that way.
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:11 am
14 Mar 2007
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sunflower Posted 7:25 am
14 Mar 2007
The most cost effective Swedish retrofits were for high density housing. Isolated rural homes are difficult to reach and would be better candidates for on-site solar thermal and biomass pellet stoves.
My advice: Import mature Swedish district heating technology and to learn though deployment growth.
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Karen Street Posted 7:27 am
14 Mar 2007
It isn't necessary to favor one over another unless your target audience has preconceptions that are important to address.
The International Energy Agency is predicting that wind power will supply 3.4% of world electricity by 2030 under business as usual, but with an aggressive policies advocating renewables, this can be increased to 4.8%.
Meanwhile, from the Washington Post,
the Energy Department says as many as 150 new coal-fired plants could be built by 2030
just in the US.
"A lot of congressmen ask me, 'Dave, why are you building that coal plant?' " says MidAmerican's (chief executive David) Sokol. "And I say, 'What are my options?' "...Electricity demand in Iowa is growing at a rate of 1.25 percent a year, and Sokol says that until new technologies become commercial or nuclear power becomes more accepted, coal is the way to meet that demand.
So if your readers believe that we can get by without massive investment in nuclear power, and their objections to nuclear power are part of what is encouraging the coal rush, they need to know that.
Re natural gas, I agree with JMG's comments, but would add that natural gas wells are running into problems in the Republican hunter states because of their footprint -- they take up a lot of room and affect water quality. Natural gas is exported from fossil fuel rich countries such as Russia, and some of these countries are wielding natural gas as a weapon -- and we will need to import natural gas if we are going to continue to increase our reliance on natural gas.
Natural gas has one major advantage over nuclear power, it is easier to ramp up and down, so makes a better peak load plant, backup for wind, etc. Only natural gas and hydro (and geothermal??) make good peak load plants.
It doesn't hurt to remind everyone a gajillion times that we must fund research, and consider mandates such as high efficiency bulbs and appliances and cars (does Detroit really think they will benefit from a lack of mandates?)
Policy people might put conservation and efficiency first, all low-GHG emissions sources second, and natural gas with its dangers and its greenhouse gas emissions -- both carbon dioxide and methane -- third.
A windmill can be built rapidly. But to build the equivalent of a nuclear power plant in windmills takes a while, and often requires more transmission lines. Wind will always require backup, either hydro or natural gas.
Karen Street
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:35 am
14 Mar 2007
With fuelcells, turbines, or IC engines, though, it's possible to operate cogeneration systems on a per-building basis -- essentially district heating on a small scale. That eliminates the need to install long piping under the whole town, and also reduced thermal transmission losses.
Utility instrangience is one of the biggest barriers to cogeneration, at least in my next of the woods, which is PG&E-land the SF Bay Area. For example, PG&E has convinced the California Public Utilities Commission that, since their rates are regulated and their capital costs need to be recovered somehow, it is reasonable to charge folks who are generating their own power on site a fee for every kWh they produce. That's right, you have to pay PG&E to generate your own power! At $0.01-0.03/kWh, this has a big impact on the economics of cogeneration. (Solar PV, fortunately, has an exception to this rule. But it's a dumb rule to begin with.)
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:37 am
14 Mar 2007
Or storage, or a sufficiently robust distribution system to avoid stranding generation capacity.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:37 am
14 Mar 2007
Nuclear versus Coal however is a false dichotomy.
Thats just choosing between the two worst options.
_
The reason this is perpetuated is because reliable renewables like Geothermal, Hydro, and Undersea Current Energy get almost no federal funding.
_
But also because it's assumed that "on demand" power generation is the only way things can be done.
Meanwhile you have quite a few emerging high density energy storage devices coming out.
But what appears to be the most promising is inexpensive high density storage Ultracapacitors.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/03/digitat ...
_
The short of it, you have a capacitor with 10,000x the surface area, separated by a nanopore mesh. But in order not to short the tiny capacitors, low voltage is used.
And to ramp up that voltage, the capacitors are linked in series, and combined together using parallel wiring.
EEStor claims that they can deliver this technology at a price comparable to lead acid batteries.
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:51 am
14 Mar 2007
Pumped storage is inexpensive and we know how to build it now. We could back up intermittent source for the U.S. with about 50 square miles of pumped storage, not an intolerable environmental cost for getting rid of coal, gas and oil.
And yes you have to put up a lot of transmission lines and a lot of wind generators to match nuclear. Still megawatt for megawatt (or be more accurate three wind megawatts for each nuclear megawatt) you still put up wind capacity more quickly.
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:52 am
14 Mar 2007
I remember there was a fuss about this a while ago. I thought that rule was defeated? It passed?
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Sam Wells Posted 8:59 am
14 Mar 2007
As a kid who was born in Oak Ridge, TN and raised neat Yankee Power Plant and Milestone Reactors 1-2, having grandparants in Harrisburg near Three Mile Island, living next to the UT resreach nuke at Balcones Research Center (with a leaky bottom), and then living within a few hundred miles of the South Texas Nuclear Project (STNP), I view all this attention on "nookies" with extreme trepedation.
Perhaps my ill feelings are warrantless. I just don't trust the bastards. Consider me a Luddite, I consider anything about re-arranging atoms to be quite far away from being "green." To me it is inherently evil. They all leak folks, some worse than others. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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GreenEngineer Posted 9:16 am
14 Mar 2007
As I understand it, the concept of departing load (and the associated fees) have been around for some time. The fuss was about PG&E's attempt to apply it to PV systems, which would have absolutely killed the state solar program (both for the financial hit, and for the complexity hit). Fortunately, they lost that fight. But departing load fees still apply if you are generating power onsite through non-renewable means (even if your on-site generation is 3x as efficient as PG&E's, which arguably makes it environmentally superior to solar, even if it burns fossil fuels).
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GreenEngineer Posted 9:20 am
14 Mar 2007
Sam's right, and not just about nukes. This is an important point to bear in mind when considering any technological project, whether for power generation, manufacturing, waste disposal, whatever.
Anything built by humans is inherently imperfect. It will leak, fail, or break with some frequency. That frequency can be reduced by application of effort and money, but it cannot be reduced to zero. And the amount of effort/money required to achieve each incremental improvement goes up exponentially -- you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns.
This is, as far as I can tell, a meta-rule that applies across all engineering disciplines. And it's one of the main reason that I think nukes are a bad idea. (I admit they may be necessary for the next 100 years or so, but they're still a bad idea, and should be phased out as quickly as possible.) Also, landfills, centralized sewage treatment, or any other system that involves concentrating badness in one place and then trying to keep it out of general circulation.
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:21 am
14 Mar 2007
But now that you have the University of Arizona, and their description sounds pretty solid
http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/26/wa/SRS ...
Here's another explaination that involves cheese sandwiches:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/eestore_ultra_c.p ...
Furthermore, the barium-titanate dielectric that EEStor says they are using is proven to be fantastic.
http://www.research.ucdavis.edu/NCD.cfm?ncdid=658
You also have Maxwell Technologies getting into the game
http://www.maxwell.com/ultracapacitors/news-events/releas ...
Although technically I guess EEStor is doing Barium-Nitrate now. But thats even more common, and since the Barium-Titanate gained 40% better dialectricness by nanoscaling it, here's guessing that Barium-Nitrate is the same.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=2 ...
However hell, they say they are going to have it inside a car in 2007. Couple months is quick enough for me.
_
Back on the battery side, A123 Systems looks like a solid performer using a much cheaper iron-phosphate catalyst instead of cobalt-oxide or barium-titanate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/business/yourmoney/11st ...
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GreenEngineer Posted 9:30 am
14 Mar 2007
Any given system X can potentially be engineered well enough to reduce the frequency of serious failure to a very small number, albeit (usually) at a greater cost. However, scale is critical here, because even with a very low failure rate, if there are enough copies of system X, then that fact alone guarantees that there will be regular failures on a worldwide basis. With systems (like nukes) that have potentially disaterous regional impacts, this is all the more important.
The second point is that once you realize and embrace the reality that regular failure is inevitable, really changes your design approach. McDonough's admonishen to put the toxicity filters in the designers' brains rather than on the end of the pipe takes on a whole new life when you realize that that is the only way to engineer systems that are truly safe.
Again, I'm not taking an anti-nuke position here. I'm simply saying that we need to consider coal, nukes, wind, and all our other alternatives with this perspective firmly in mind. If we are not doing this, we're likely to leap from the frying pan into the fire.
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JMG Posted 9:43 am
14 Mar 2007
1. MOORE SPIN: OR, HOW REPORTERS LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE NUCLEAR FRONT GROUPS
by Diane Farsetta
"We just find it maddening that Hill & Knowlton, which has an $8 million account with the nuclear industry, should have such an easy time working the press," concluded the Columbia Journalism Review in an editorial in its July / August 2006 issue.
The magazine was rightly bemoaning the tendency of news
outlets to present former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore and former EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman as environmentalists who support nuclear power, without noting that both are paid spokespeople for a group bankrolled by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). NEI represents nuclear power plant operators, plant designers, fuel suppliers and other sectors of the nuclear power industry. Hill & Knowlton is NEI's public relations firm, though it's not the only firm working to build support for nuclear power.
Thanks in part to an ongoing, multifaceted PR push -- along with very real concerns about energy prices, rising energy demand, aging infrastructure, sustainability and global warming -- nuclear power is attracting serious attention from reporters and policymakers alike. The question is whether a vital public debate over energy choices is being skewed by deep-pocketed interests with a dog in the fight.
The dangers of such distortions are especially acute at the
state and local levels. That's where efforts to extend the licenses of existing nuclear power plants, to maintain or expand nuclear waste storage facilities, and to site new proposed nuclear power plants, are made or broken. And that's where pro-nuclear campaigners appear to be focusing, adopting the mantle and tactics of community groups while steadfastly refusing to provide details on their operations.
To read the rest of this item, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5833
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Gar Lipow Posted 9:47 am
14 Mar 2007
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:01 am
14 Mar 2007
A google search on the subject returns mostly, but not exclusively, hits on California. this site has a bit more information about departing load in other states. It's interesting that the section on California says that the fee only applies to non-CHP applications. That may be true, but if so, it's not at all obvious from reading the PG&E rules on the subject.
If you're interested in other regulatory/institutional barriers to DG and CHP:
PG&E rules require that each residence have its own energy meter, and specifically forbids master-metering. This is a problem because if you want to install PV on your apartment complex, you have to install multiple small systems (and multiple small inverters, which cost more per kW). With master metering, you can install a single large system, which is cheaper and also balances differential consumption between residences (e.g. the little old lady who uses no power and the electronics junkie balance each other out). Note that it is, apparently, possible to circumvent this rule (i.e. it's been done in at least one case I know of) but it's a big hassle.
In California (and, as far as I know, everywhere else), net metering does not allow you to actually make money for surplus power. The best you can do is break even at zero on a net annual basis. Any additional power you generate goes to the utility for free.
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:09 am
14 Mar 2007
The utility not only accepts excess homepower but also dumps it, which -- given that it is garbage-power -- is a service to the customer. (See waste management and tipping fees.) Without that service, the customer might otherwise pay to route it to a resistive shunt.
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GreenEngineer Posted 1:29 pm
14 Mar 2007
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Nucbuddy Posted 1:57 pm
14 Mar 2007
...Unscheduled power.
phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter14.html
We often hear stories about individuals with windmills or solar cells using a regular utility line for back-up power and selling the excess power they generate at various times back to the utility -- utilities are required by law to purchase it. This does little harm as long as only a few individuals are involved, but it wouldn't work if a large fraction of customers did it. The utility would not only have to build and maintain back-up power plants without selling much of their product, but they would have to buy a lot of power they don't need when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. The utility could survive only by raising the price of the electricity it does sell sky high.
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:59 pm
14 Mar 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:15 pm
14 Mar 2007
Even though the author does like nuclear.
He points out how the common arguements for nuclear are mostly half-truths and lies.
Well atleast those coming from Patrick Moore.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060417&s=levi041806
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amazingdrx Posted 4:22 pm
14 Mar 2007
Natural gas in fuel cell/turbines from coal and oil deposits should be after wind, solar, and water.
Combustion of anything should not be on the list. And fission of anything should not be on the list either.
Don't give in to the Brands and Lovelocks at this late date.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 4:23 pm
14 Mar 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Nucbuddy Posted 5:43 pm
14 Mar 2007
The article says: The pools containing spent nuclear fuel, which sit outside the concrete containment domes, may be vulnerable to attack.
How would you go about attacking a spent-fuel pool? Please be specific.
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Nucbuddy Posted 6:24 pm
14 Mar 2007
Given that methane can be created by heavy-metal-fission power (and given that natural-gas is essentially methane), how could it be called precious?
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GreenEngineer Posted 2:30 am
15 Mar 2007
This does little harm as long as only a few individuals are involved, but it wouldn't work if a large fraction of customers did it. The utility would not only have to build and maintain back-up power plants without selling much of their product, but they would have to buy a lot of power they don't need when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
And this is one of those statements that is true some of the time, under some circumstances. But when stated broadly, as this author does, it's a load of crap.
There are several arguements against this:
Large-scale storage: pumped storage, compressed air, flow batteries, thermal storage (load-shifting, actually)
Improved distribution: current grid topology is built around the few-large-central-plant model. That grid design does not suit distributed generation (whether from solar or fossil-based CHP). But the grid could be revamped to support DG, and it should be: the result would be significant improvements in system efficiency and much greater reliability, in addition to supporting renewables more effectively.
The most solar power is produced on sunny summer days. This is also the time of greatest electrical demand in moderate-to-hot climates. The peaks don't match up perfectly, but they're pretty good (and this is why west-facing arrays can be a good thing).
Shifting to a DG-based, renewable-based energy system will require some amount of conventional capacity to be built and then idled much of the time. Not as much as central-plant proponents like the above author claims, but certainly some. However, in a carbon-constrained, fossil-fuel-constrained world, it's a good thing if your natural gas power plant is shut down most of the time. So power gets a bit more expensive. Welcome to the future. Live with it (and learn to design more efficiently, for cripes sake!).
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Engineer Posted 4:10 am
15 Mar 2007
Apparently, similar to the discusions of corn ethanol, the amount of energy required to refine most uranium ores to the point where they can be used as fuel can exceed the amount of power generated by the nuclear plant.
In fact, the paper suggests that a nuclear power plant being fueled by uranium of an ore purity of 1% or more (which represents only 10% of the world's uranium) would require 10 full years of operation until it becomes a net energy contributor to society. Officially, nuclear power provides 7% of the world's energy. When including the energy required for the uranium fuel cycle, it contributes just 0.4-0.7%.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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GRLCowan Posted 4:51 am
15 Mar 2007
Regulators typically routinely monitor releases at the boundaries of nuclear power stations. Any exposure to a fence-leaner on the scale of what a radium-dialled watch might give would cause a quick shutdown. (I think it would be especially quick when the regulators are in a high-fossil-fuel-tax country and so are independent of nuclear energy but not independent of its competitor.)
One's internal 40-K, IIRC, causes one to self-irradiate at a rate of 0.4 millisievert per year. The measured ~0.004 mSv per year at the Pickering fence is in line with the dose one would get from the radiopotassium of some other nearby animal, a cat on one's lap or on the floor near one's chair, for instance.
I seem to recall foresightful regulators in the USA in the 60s or thereabouts established baseline natural-radiation surveys at sites where nuclear power stations would eventually be built, effectively forestalling the deceptive tactic of waiting for the plant to be built and then going there with a Geiger counter and showing that it clicks, insinuating that this is a result of the plant's operation. Can anyone point to a good site substantiating this?
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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GRLCowan Posted 5:01 am
15 Mar 2007
At this week's US$91/(lb U3O8) price, uranium costs four percent as much as petroleum. Even very low-grade ores have a net-energy fraction very near to unity. More.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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Engineer Posted 5:07 am
15 Mar 2007
Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report (2006)
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Backgrounder (Spent fuel transportation security is most of the way down...)
Or...GAO Hanford Spent Fuel Report no attack required!
This fuel is currently stored in water basins a about 1,400 feet from the Columbia River, where the deterioration of some of the fuel and the water basins has raised health and safety concerns. The basins were constructed in 1951, are well beyond their useful life of 20 years and are vulnerable to leaks and earthquake damage. Any rupture of the basins, such as from an earthquake or accident, could release large quantities of contaminated water to the soil and to the Columbia River. In fact, it is likely that radioactive materials carried in water leaking from one of the basins have reached the river at least twice in the past.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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Nucbuddy Posted 12:55 am
16 Mar 2007
Did you read Graham Cowen's link in his second post above?
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Engineer Posted 4:11 am
16 Mar 2007
The 'About Us' link on that site brings up:
nuclearinfo.net
Everything you want to know about Nuclear Power.
This website explains all the issues surrounding Nuclear Power including...
In another recent thread you said:
AWEA is an advocacy organization. Advocacy organizations are in the business of making things they are advocating look good...How did you come to the conclusion that...a(n) advocacy organization, does not have an incentive to lie about the true...costs?
Change AWEA to nuclearinfo.net and guess what?
I'm not sure who provides oversight on the linked report...but, according to non-industry advocate sites:
The capacity of enrichment plants is measured in terms of 'separative work units' or SWU. About 100-120,000 SWU is required to enrich the annual fuel loading for a typical 1000 MWe light water reactor. Enrichment costs are substantially related to electrical energy used. The gaseous diffusion process consumes about 2500 kWh per SWU...
If you do the math with those numbers and factor in the plant in the report is over 3,000 MW, you come up with a figure of roughly .9 TWh, compared to the annual output they list of 23 TWh. This is almost a 4% net loss in the output of the plant just for the enrichment process, not counting construction of the facility or any of the other life cycle costs.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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Gar Lipow Posted 4:42 am
16 Mar 2007
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dezakin Posted 7:15 am
16 Mar 2007
And its nearly inconsequential. You could make up for that loss just by raising the temperature a hundred degrees or switching to centrifuge enrichment. All modern enrichment facilities under construction are centrifuge plants for this very reason.
Even still with diffusion enrichment it only represents half the cost of the fuel.
Modern gas centrifuge plants require only about 50 kWh per SWU, and provide 65% of the enriched uranium globally today anyways.
The notion that nuclear power is in any way an energy sink is profoundly flawed.
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Engineer Posted 8:55 am
16 Mar 2007
So it's just under a 1% loss instead of just under 4% (for +/- 65% of the fuel...my numbers are still valid for the rest!). That's still 18,000 MWh per year to enrich the fuel for the one Swedish nuke mentioned.
That's 514,285 CFL's!
And, if the enrichment facilities are not located where they use nuclear, hydro or other non-GHG fuel resources, there is an associated 'hit' on the CO2-free claim for nuclear for those MWh consumed during the enrichment as well.
I re-read my posts and don't see where I ever said it was a net energy sink, just that the net output was possibly less than claimed.
And, if the loss could be offset "just by raising the temperature a hundred degrees or switching to centrifuge enrichment", I'm curious why that isn't already being done?
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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Nucbuddy Posted 12:17 pm
16 Mar 2007
Your statement to that effect is in post #35:
gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/14/111831/169#35
Apparently, similar to the discusions of corn ethanol, the amount of energy required to refine most uranium ores to the point where they can be used as fuel can exceed the amount of power generated by the nuclear plant.
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Engineer Posted 2:10 am
19 Mar 2007
"Apparently..."
"Most uranium ores..."
"can exceed"
So, you and others have now provided additonal information that the fuel enrichment cycle only consumes 1 to 4% of the net output.
And they're going to solve that whole disposal thing Real Soon Now, right?
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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GRLCowan Posted 4:55 am
19 Mar 2007
The same question can be approached another way. We all know government makes huge revenues by taxing the consumption of fossil fuels. Theoretically, then, they might have solved that whole nuclear-waste disposal thing 20 years ago, and be keeping this a secret so as to protect their future fossil fuel revenues.
What's an obvious clue, or what are the two or three most obvious clues, that this has not happened? (If it involves an authority, it would have to be someone not on any public nor fossil-fuel-industry payroll, and therefore without the financial incentive to go along with the charade.)
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:58 am
19 Mar 2007
What's an obvious clue, or what are the two or three most obvious clues, that this has not happened?
And while you're at it, please provide evidence that His Noddliness does not in fact exist.
Logic, people...
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dezakin Posted 8:20 am
19 Mar 2007
This half truth is incredibly misleading, especially when all the diffusion plants are due to be decomissioned within the next ten years.
As for the nuclear waste issue: This has been solved years ago. Its as simple as sealing it in a concrete cask in an above ground lot. Theres no shortage of space for it and discounting does wonders for the storage cost. In 100 to 200 years we revisit the storage casks, reseal or recycle the material depending on the market conditions of the future.
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GRLCowan Posted 9:42 am
19 Mar 2007
What's an obvious clue, or what are the two or three most obvious clues, that this has not happened?
And while you're at it, please provide evidence that His Noddliness does not in fact exist.
Logic, people...
What makes us believe, if we believe, that the problem of carbon monoxide poisoning due to fossil fuel use was not secretly solved 20 years ago, and all the talk about it since hasn't been a sham? The thoroughness of the sham, if it is one, I'd say, and the lack of any apparent conflict-of-interest tendency in those figuring in the stories of harm.
So in seeking evidence that either of these very closely analogous problems was not secretly and finally solved 20 years ago, we're actually seeking evidence of a positive.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around monoxide-free B fire, car goes
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GreenEngineer Posted 2:48 pm
19 Mar 2007
CO either kills you, or not. Sublethal radiation exposure, on the other hand, can make you sick years later.
CO does not poison groundwater. Nuclear waste does.
I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. There's no analogy here.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:47 pm
19 Mar 2007
Buddy, you are a just few neutrons short of critical mass for sure. Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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dezakin Posted 5:51 am
20 Mar 2007
True enough. CO kills millions every year while spent fuel hasn't killed anyone.
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GRLCowan Posted 6:10 am
20 Mar 2007
Sublethal CO harmless? Of course, it brings in tax money, so there is a presumption of innocence. As Akin says, no-one has been harmed by spent power reactor fuel, but in that case, the dollar-driven presumption is one of guilt.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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JMG Posted 6:28 am
20 Mar 2007
http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/ ...
With Yucca life cycle costs headed for 70B$, this would amount to around an extra 1B$/nuclear plant, since Yucca is only for 2/3 of our total nuclear waste from 100 plants. We used to think the total nuclear fuel cycle including disposal was around 5% of total nuclear cost - now it's looking like 1/3-1/2 just for the waste. Not good - this is a monstrous subsidy, and at this point in time not even in the can.
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:21 am
20 Mar 2007
$1 billion is not the same as $1 billion if the former appears nearer in time, and the latter appears later in time. The principle is Discounting of the Future, and it is the same reason why reactor decommissioning costs are lower than they might appear in non-discounted analyses. Indeed, "failure to discount the future costs in economic evaluations can give misleading results."
This info-piece gives numbers regarding the effects of discounting on both decommissioning and spent-fuel dispositioning:
world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
Decommissioning costs are about 9-15% of the initial capital cost of a nuclear power plant. But when discounted, they contribute only a few percent to the investment cost and even less to the generation cost. In the USA they account for 0.1-0.2 cent/kWh, which is no more than 5% of the cost of the electricity produced.
The back-end of the fuel cycle, including spent fuel storage or disposal in a waste repository, contributes up to another 10% to the overall costs per kWh, - less if there is direct disposal of spent fuel rather than reprocessing. The $26 billion US spent fuel program is funded by a 0.1 cent/kWh levy..
Dezakin made essentially the same please-don't forget-to-discount-the-future observation a few posts above (Post #48), in this very thread:
As for the nuclear waste issue: This has been solved years ago. Its as simple as sealing it in a concrete cask in an above ground lot. Theres no shortage of space for it and discounting does wonders for the storage cost..
Yucca can be expanded, by the way:
gristmill.grist.org/comments/2007/3/1/15260/38576#26
"EPRI is confident that at least four times this legislative limit (~260,000 MTU) can be emplaced in the Yucca Mountain system..." And EPRI believes that with additional site characterization this minimum factor of 4 could well be a factor 9.
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amazingdrx Posted 9:49 am
20 Mar 2007
I guesstimated 3 billion. 6 billion initial cost and 3 for waste and decommisioning. Don't forget decommisioning!
For around 25 cents per kwh. Total cost for nuclear power. Way way above everything else.
So far decommisioning has been acomplished by dumping the mess in unlined. leaking landfill trenches. That will all need re-cleanup. Huge cleanup contracts to big contractors decade after decade, century after century. Guarding the waste, testing the waste, cleaning the waste, combing the waste, on and on. Hehey. Halliburton style.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:18 am
20 Mar 2007
Discounting is valid, to a point. But our entire economy is based on it, and it's not clear that it's a valid basis for representing actual value.
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:56 am
20 Mar 2007
"EPRI is confident that at least four times this legislative limit (~260,000 MTU) can be emplaced in the Yucca Mountain system..." And EPRI believes that with additional site characterization this minimum factor of 4 could well be a factor 9."
I was wondering about that.
Obviously we know there is twice the legislative limit in area. We've known that since the 70's.
And vitrification (i.e. concentration of the waste, and letting it sit aboveground for 90+ years) Would allow for ~4.5x the storage.
I'm wondering, are they getting that 9x figure from 2 * 4.5 ?
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Nucbuddy Posted 1:00 pm
20 Mar 2007
They are not referring to vitrification (which has nothing to do with "concentrating" waste, by the way). They are referring to the digging of more tunnels. (The latter is what the phrase "Yucca is a big mountain" refers to.)
nei.org/documents/YuccaResourceBinder/index.html
Fact Sheet: Frequently Asked Questions: Yucca Mountain and Used Nuclear Fuel Management
Independent scientific studies concluded that the repository could be expanded to contain an even greater volume.
Concentrating the waste would not make sense, since "it is heat production, not volume, that limits the amount of waste that can be put into Yucca Mountain."
google.com/search?q=garwin+volume+yucca+thermal
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JMG Posted 2:23 pm
20 Mar 2007
Even leaving aside the generational equity questions (all future expenses to grandkids look small to me now, thanks to discounting!), there are good reasons to doubt that, in fact, the complex web of transactions loosely termed "the economy" will continue to grow. A few observations:
The ocean fisheries are collapsing in every sea;
Climate disruption is creating drought over arable lands on every continent;
We are well into diminishing returns with agricultural practices--crops using extraordinary amounts of petrochemical fuels and fertilizers are requiring ever greater amounts of those chemicals to produce the same yield; meanwhile, pests continue to enjoy the Darwinian advantage of a short cycle time to evolve resistance to a wider and wider array of treatments;
Global oil and natural gas supplies are or have peaked and will soon clearly be seen to have done so; this energy wealth, more than any other factor, has been the underpinning of the explosive growth in consumption and use of material resources;
Even the optimists expect another 2.5 billion heads on earth soon--equal to the entire 1950 population.
Every insurance and reinsurance firm is setting aside significantly higher reserves in the strong belief that they will experience greater climate-driven losses; these losses are, in many ways, the greatest engines of wealth destruction the world has ever seen, even greater than war (past wars anyway). A few more Katrinas (Houston, Tampa/St. Pete, Miami, etc.) and we are going to see a financial calamity of unparalleled scope. And that's just focusing on the US which, as Joe Romm points out in "Hell and High Water" has a LOT of wealth on the coastlines. But there are plenty of other wealthy nations with vulnerabilities.
Thus, not only are there good reasons to doubt that the world's actual wealth can even be maintained at present levels, there is zero chance of keeping the world's real per-capita wealth at current levels.
So future generations are unlikely to thank us for making expenditures where the apparent affordabililty is based on discounting.
Just a thought. I don't have kids, thank goodness, but those of you who are sending your children into the future might want to think very carefully about how we ought to make decisions for the world that they will inherit. I bet if they got to have a voice in the decision they would ask that we adopt a more "pay as you go" strategy ...
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:02 pm
20 Mar 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 9:33 pm
20 Mar 2007
Keep buddy talking, by all means, but don't actually believe anything he says. I guess that's the danger of encouraging these fellers, some are taken in by them.
Read GRL's boron link for a wakeup call. Too much radiation to the brain pan? That's my guess.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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dezakin Posted 8:23 am
21 Mar 2007
If you try to plan for jan 17th 2571 before planning for tomarrow, theres no hope for you.
As for the rest of these doomsday scenarios of immenent population decline and economic collapse; Well some people beleive the darndest things.
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JMG Posted 10:34 am
23 Mar 2007
Further, one questions the wisdom of pretending to plan for tomorrow without thinking about the long term future, whether in 2571 or 2071, or 2051 ....
As to whether "economic growth is here to stay," how do you know?
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JMG Posted 10:40 am
23 Mar 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:05 pm
23 Mar 2007
There's a whole host of long term assumptions which come into play with nuclear.
Since pro-nuke people tend to sell the best-case-scenario for those assumptions
Nuclear is pretty notorious for coming in way overbudget.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:14 pm
23 Mar 2007
Link?
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dezakin Posted 4:18 am
27 Mar 2007
On a side note for the mark versus the dollar... Such a currency collapse is impossible. The Weimar republic owed their debts not in marks but in foreign denominated currency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discount
Here we could also do it this way. Build a lot for storing nuclear waste. Put some cash in an account that pays interest on paying the upkeep for it.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:22 pm
27 Jun 2007
Trust nuclear power industry/government to do anything right? A huge mistake.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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