Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence

[mheslep]

I don't think we can jump strait into renewable energy, but over the coarse of 20 years we should be able to make a dramatic shift. I also believe whole heartedly that drilling off coast in the U.S. isn't going to make a dent in oil prices.

The way I view it, America is at war with Big oil, because Big oil has our economy hijacked. The way to win the war is for our economy to claim independence from Big oil.

Ok I claim independence from Big oil. Did we win?

 

[vanesch]

There is no "single perfect" solution, since the energy future will most probably contain a very diverse mixture of several alternatives.
In the mean time we can ALREADY built those almost economical viable solar installations (CSP and those that are economically comparable) in many locations.
I think that are better alternatives then simply call for "more drillings/more refineries".

They don't solve the same problem, and BTW, solar is still very expensive. I don't have anything against experimenting, I said this already several times. I have a lot against proposing dream solutions in an argument to do away with existing solutions. As I look upon things right now, I think that nuclear is by far an under-used, excellent solution. That shouldn't exclude looking for other solutions, but when someone argues that one SHOULDN'T increase nuclear right now, because, if we invest a lot, we MIGHT find solutions with renewables TOMORROW, then I think that these people are playing a very dangerous game. When those solutions, through experimenting, have shown that they can solve the problem in a different way which is more optimal, then I really don't mind putting nuclear aside. But as long as they haven't shown that, they cannot be used as an argument AGAINST nuclear. Nuclear has advantages and disadvantages, but the problem is that for some or other reason, it is the focus of a political pressure group which wants it away, because it gets in their way of imposing a changing attitude and life style of people.

But again, I have nothing against experimenting with wind, solar, etc... I only point out that the argument that they CAN for the moment solve the problem of CO2 free electricity generation is technologically and economically simply not true today - contrary to what is claimed, in an argument to set nuclear aside. And the price to pay is huge. The price to pay is that one ends up using more coal and gas. I have seen that happening in Germany. The rule shouldn't have been there to phase out nuclear, but to phase out coal, and later, gas. But that's not what the Greens wanted. They were to afraid that in Germany, one would do the same thing as in France: go all nuclear, and not have any problem anymore. So they voted to phase out nuclear, which represents 36% of electicity in Germany. The did build some solar arrays, and they did build some wind farms. Then they had blackouts. So they started building 27 new brown coal plants (that's about the dirtiest way to make electricity). And regularly, they buy electricity in France.
I have more respect for the Danes. They really tried to go for wind. They have spectacular offshore installations. 15 years now, they went for wind, and they hit a grid wall around 20%. They need the Swedish with a lot of hydro and nuclear, to buffer. I call that testing a technology to its limits.

Well that is just the lesson to be learned. Before scaling up our renewables, we should investigate how they fit to varying demand/supply balances. So, best would be to spend some money on styding that.
And a likely outcome would be is that you can better use 2 or more independend renewable sources then just 1, as the likelihood that AND there is no solar AND there is no WIND and there is no <other> is off course less. Also, we need to investigate means for buffering energy and/or how conventional power units can be made economical even in cases where their only use is to meet peak demands.

Absolutely. As I said, I think one should invest in research, and experimenting. But one shouldn't make it part of a real-world energy plan unless there are hard results on the table. You don't experiment with your country. You first experiment with regions, and you try to give them "electrical autonomy", but with the possibility in the case of failure to back up with a solid grid. The Danes were happy that Sweden was there. Happily their wind policy wasn't taken over by all the Baltic countries, or they would have been in deep poopoo.

Also spreading the risk by developing a more capable grid is some solution. If using DC electric power lines, you can distribute electricity over thousands of kilometers with little loss (~ 15%), which is of course better then dumping peak production for which there is no demand, and better then even the most efficient storage mechanisms. If there is a very wide grid, this will most certainly provide a more stable rate of production (for example in a range of some thousands kilometers, the change that there is no wind in the whole region is far less as in the case of a grid of only some hundred kilometers).

Of course. But that also means that very remote regions are very tightly coupled, which means that the probability for a total blackout are much higher. Also, those lines are very costly. It would mean for instance, that you have to provide the west coast of the US fully with electricity generated at the east coast and vice versa. All that has to be taken into account.

Honestly, I think solar and wind are not really good sources as long as there is no reliable, compact and cheap form of storage of electricity. Hydrogen could become such a storage. Maybe there will be a breakthrough in superconductors. I don't know. But it isn't for tomorrow. One day, I think we will be running on solar.

Look at the different threads on algae as biofuel. Now, THAT looks promising. It is an unexpected way of using solar. If that works, all that investment in DC lines, and expensive PV farms, and batteries, and I don't know what, just goes in the bin! The country that ruined itself sticking half of its surface full of PV panels, then just feels silly. It was sufficient to grow algae in the sea. This is the danger with all that "renewables-wind-solar" propaganda, that has only one purpose: get nuclear out the way, falsely leads people into believing in non existent technology, and then falls back on coal and gas. Now, algae, that's the same: let's first find out in some more detail. It will take some time. But at least, there isn't an obvious technological problem that is big as a mountain that stares at us, as is the case with wind and solar: what if there ain't any ?

So there are a number of ways, and combinations of them to tackle this problem. Just create some large computer simulation on this (fed in with actual resource and demand data), use probabilistic scenario's,etc. to find an optimum solution to this, minimizing the risk of a major grid failure.

Yes. And find out whether it is worth it in the end.

That is why such features need to be studied more. So, the money should not just go to improving technologies to produce renewable energy, but also to make it a more reliable source. See my comments above.

A lot of money already goes into it. The funny thing is that it are often the countries that have a nuclear program, that also look a lot into this. They are maybe not those that build the most PV and wind farms. But that study it scientifically. For instance, the French CEA (the nuclear energy agency) has recently opened a campus with more than 300 researchers on applications of solar power. But most of the time, solar and wind are just Green anti-nuclear propaganda, and in propaganda, you don't do things scientifically and seriously. You might otherwise find out that your dream solution has a few difficulties.

It would be just fair to say that any general study in new technologies which are not yet mature, should be places as general costs for the society as a whole, and only count specific studies of technologies in real economical applications as (more or less) direct costs for such technologies.

The funny thing is that if this applies to improving nuclear, that's politically not acceptable. Nevertheless, in the coming decades, I repeat it, it looks by far the most promising solution, which can buy us time to REALLY develop something better, and not just pretend to know how to do it and fail.

Well, there are of course a couple of technological challenges to be overcome. They need to be overcome one day. They existed for oil industry also, as well as for nuclear. I don't think it would be wise to keep avoiding the technological challenges, as that would keep us too much dependent on oil, gas and nuclear, and in the end, how longer we wait, the more difficult the transition would be (as meanwhile the population grows, and energy pro capita grows too). This would make the problem more difficult as it already is.
As I see it, a transition from (mostly) fossil and some nuclear and only marginally renewable to dominantly reneweable is not an issue of years, but will take several decades.

It will take a century, at least. And I don't know WHY we should switch to renewables. I can understand that we should switch away from CO2 producing fossils, that get depleted, and which have to be imported. But I don't understand why this must be replaced by a technology that is "renewable" but that won't be renewed. People 3 centuries from now are NOT going to use the same technology than we. They are not going to use our solar panels, or our wind turbines. If they use oil, it will be for another application than driving cars of flying airplanes.

This makes it also urgent since for example oil production will be going to decline within a decade,at most two. To be able to meet the challege then, we better be prepared.
The whole issue is that postponing the inevitable is NOT a good strategy. Developing all the necessary technologies and difficulties that come with using renewables is not doable in some years.
Technological problems don't get solved by themselves. They need people and budgets and an economic/societal reason, and the latter are already fulfilled, we just need more people and budget working on it.

Usually, there is the market. The research has to be prepared, but it is the market pressure that should push this or that way. As oil will get more expensive, automatically one will find new solutions.

There are political issues involved in going nuclear (like proliferation) and the general risk on any such limited resources that political conflicts may arise from them (not every country has uranium, and some countries see them being blocked access to such technologies, because of the risk that they may produce nuclear weapons).

I'm certainly not for a world-wide boom of nuclear, there are indeed countries where you better don't. But I think that countries that have a nuclear tradition, would do better to use it more, and if the Chinese could go nuclear instead of building a coal fired plant a week, that would be all the better. I think a nuclear phase out is about the most stupid thing one can do right at this moment. Especially because they could use up all that wasted energy that is still stored in their current used fuel.

Some countries DO have plans already to be practically independend of fossil fuels as soon as 2020 or so.

Well, concerning electricity, France and Sweden ARE already independent of fossil fuels for a few decades... There are no obvious problems, everything runs smoothly. It is ironic that these are exactly the two countries that come to help to two champions of renewables (on paper): Germany and Denmark!

But there's a serious difficulty. Electricity can be made independent of fossil fuels by using nuclear. But not transport, yet. Another solution will have to be found there. I think algae biofuel looks by far the most promising solution there. And who knows, in the long run it can maybe even take over electricity production.

Perhaps the steel factory should be placed where there is an abundance of available cheap renewable energy. For example there is a huge resource in geothermal energy, which has no problem in meeting the demand (in case of a steel factory the demand is near constant, and geothermal can easily be scaled up to meet a constand demand).

Or should it be placed where its customers are ? Or should it be placed where its ore is ? Usually, these tradeoffs are made by the market.

If that is not possible (or would not be economical feasible) and depending on what resource is available, there are diverse options. Like stated before, some solar technologies already can meet near constant energy production demand.

In winter, at night, after a cloudy week ?

For meeting peak loads you could have backup power units, fueled on bio fuels.

And why don't we use those backup units then all the time ? And do away with that solar stuff ?

The 18-th century did not bring an energy crisis, since they used considerable less energy as we, and almost all discoveries of large deposits of fossil fuels were in the 20-th century.

In fact, they did. The industrial revolution that was in the making, had exhausted the standard biofuel one was used to use: wood. It was an ecological disaster. Happily, one found a solution: coal !

People in the 18-th century had a different perspective on the problems then we have now, for instance it was considered that Paris would be suffering from horse poop because of increasing traffic.
This was before the invention of the automobile.Of course that changed the whole problem all together.

Exactly. Fear mongering has always been a bad idea. They used the working solutions of the day, and when a new solution imposed itself as better, they used it.

The reason WE (this generation) needs to solve the energy problem is just because we are facing the depletion of the most common fuels. We are almost half-way the (calculated) oil , and although there will still be some deposits left undiscovered, the chances of still finding very large deposits are minimal. The oil discovery already peaked, and the only oil we find is more difficult to exploit (shale and deep sea oil mainly).

So, yes there is a reason to think NOW about how in the future we can replace those depleting energy resources, since we are nearing the depletion of some of the major energy resources already.
The situation in that respect is very difficult in that respect then that in the 18-th century.

It's not more difficult. We will find solutions, on the condition that we are not taking away solutions that present themselves in an obvious way. We already have some solutions in our hands.

 

[vanesch]

A nuclear plant deserves an order of magnitude more attention to decommission since it is a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive to do than some wind farm. If a given utility or municipality has reached end of life on its wind warm but happens to be be a little short on capital this year, so what? It feathers the blades and walks away for awhile, no high security to remain in place, no rigorous inspections required. No such luck with an end of life nuclear plant.

Why not ? Once the core is removed, there remains only low active material inside: some activated reactor vessel and some piping. The steam generators are not radioactive, and the activity of the vessel itself is pretty low. The main problem in decommissioning a nuclear power plant is the breaking up of that extremely solid confinement building.

So you don't need any guarding, you don't need any inspections, nothing. It is just a big concrete bunker in which you have a big steel vessel, that has been somewhat activated. It has been designed to contain far worse than that.

And my question is: what good is it to destroy that containment building, to chop up that vessel and other stuff inside, and to bring all that to a low-activity waste dump somewhere else, where it takes up as much place, and is much less confined now than it was inside the building in the first place ? Why not simply keep the building ? The Egyptians also didn't decommission their piramids, did they ?

Really, an old reactor building doesn't mean any threat to anything what so ever. It is a far far better confinement than any waste dump that will receive low activity waste. Moreover, one has in any case to wait a long time before decommissioning a plant, because one wants the activity of the steel to be low enough to be below certain standards of "very low activity". In France, one wants to introduce waste dumps of very low activity, which are in fact *normal* waste dumps, but with a perimeter of detection apparatus that verify whether the escaping contamination remains below certain levels. That's where one wants to put all the decommissioned stuff. Isn't it much better to keep it in the existing building ? "Forever" ?

As of 2006 in France no full scale commercial plant has ever been dismantled.
www.nea.fr/html/rwm/wpdd/france.pdf[/URL]. The small 70MWe Brennislis reactor began decommissioning in 1985, still ongoing 2007.
[PLAIN]http://www.francenuc.org/en_sites/brit_brenn_e.htm

Yes, but that's not because one doesn't know what to do, it is because the longer one waits, the lower is the activity of the material and the more can be declassified as "normal" and as "very low activity" waste. But again, why destroy that building ? Is it to regain that few acres the building was on ? That's a very expense few acres, then !

 

[sketchtrack]

Ok I claim independence from Big oil. Did we win?

If you are the economy

 

[vanesch]

Previous post got too long for ellaborating on this.

It is not a logic fallacy, since wether or not and to what extend those resources (fossil and nuclear) will be sources that future generations can use, depend on the efforts we make now on replacing them with renewables.
The point is then, if we do not replace them soon enough, this decissions WILL be a burden for future generations, since they need to solve then an even bigger energy problem as we already have, and if technological advancement is postponed if short-term economic policy making is put in place, we in fact loose critical time.

If we have for a few centuries fuel left, sure we can take our time, no ? Future generations will IN ANY CASE use different technologies than ours. We are not responsible for developing them, they are. People from the 18th century did not develop our current power plants, they didn't invent our cars, they didn't do all this. We should first of all solve OUR OWN problems, and try not to cause a catastrophe in the near future. Now, the problems we are facing is potentially a serious problem with CO2 exhaust if the AGW hypothesis turns out to be true in about a century, and more currently the end of cheap oil and the pollution by coal.
Coal is not yet a problem of provision, there's enough for several centuries. That can give us time to develop something really great, like fusion reactors, or compact and powerful batteries, or cheap solar cells that are 90% efficient, or biofuels that don't put a burden on agriculture, or a hydrogen economy or I don't know what. There is a huge difference between "technology for the next few decades" and "technology for in 2 centuries". The first is our business. The second, we wouldn't even know what it is about. The only thing we can do there, is some basic research.

Time is critical, since it would be already now a major challenge to replace a major portion of our energy needs with renewables, and that is exactly your point of discussion, which I do not contest.
The only point I bring in is that the longer we wait or procrast the decissions to become independent of fossil and nuclear, the bigger the problem gets.

I really don't see why fossil and nuclear are associated here. The two problems we face: end of cheap oil, and eventually AGW because of CO2, are fossil fuel problems. Nuclear has nothing to do with that, and can provide a partial answer.

The possible scenario is then that only a portion of humanity (a few countries) can provide their energy needs, based on military domination, and other people/countries,stay much less developed, offering less chances of economic development for their inhabitants.

Not everybody has to adapt the same solutions. And hey, life's a struggle, right ?

My scenario would be that if we put enough economic resources into developing a majorly renewable form of economy, this can provide anybody a reasonable amount of economic development.
And the technology can be put in anybodies hands without security risk or pollution risks.

Look, if it is going to take, say, 40 or 50 years (and I'm optimistic) to be able to bring renewables to a 100% energy coverage, why shouldn't the BIG USERS who are also usually those that can use nuclear without a problem, have to continue to use fossil fuels, with all its difficulties, until we have also a solution that is applicable in Botswana ?

The disadvantage is that we can not have exponential growth in renewables. Exponential growth in the end will be catastrophal, since not only energy but also food supplies simply can not match up exponential growth.

Energy usage is not growing exponentially in developed countries. It has the tendency to stabilize more or less, with a very slight slope.

It would place certain limits on using resources. But those limits will be there for anyone, and is not discriminating anyone. Basic things like housing, fresh drinking water,education, healthcare, food, clothing and other resources needed to stay alive and have well being should be available to anyone.
But some luxory things (like 3 times a year traveling by plane, or excessive mobil transport, etc) simply can not be provided for all of humanity, without causing major problems.
Nobody dies if those luxory things would be restricted, but not having food, fresh water or other primary needs, IS live threatening, and so we should direct the economic means to satisfy firstly those basic needs for everyone.

That's a whole political agenda. I think it is perfectly possible for a certain part of the world to live in luxury, and we should try to invent technology and solutions so that more and more people can share that luxury. We simply have to find ways to do so without causing too much problems, and the market helps in that, but regulation is needed too.

For most people though the availability of nuclear power in anybodies hand would be a night mare.
So, that is basically what we have to choose between. Do we want to be controlled by the nuclear industry, which will put rigorous security measures in place to avoid that just anybody has access to nuclear facilities, or do we want to avoid this to be an issue.
(btw. this does not mean that all nuclear energy usage or technology usage needs to be abandoned, just that we need to be fairly independent of it).

"the nuclear industry", ah, that "industrial-military complex" story ! It is not the "nuclear industry", but the public regulator that dictates the laws, inspections and all that. I think the perfect mix is that of Sweden, with 50% hydro, and 50% nuclear. But not everybody has the luck to live in a country where so much hydro is possible. If you look at France, about 80% nuclear, I don't have the impression that "the nuclear industry is dictating its rules". It's mostly in the hands of the state. The problem is that with the European liberalisation of the electricity market, there are now some small utilities which want their own power generation, and they systematically opt for coal powered plants, which are the lowest on capital investment. Not precisely the kind of diversification which goes in the right direction.

 

[sketchtrack]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/king.qanda/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Here is a debate between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the CEO of Chevron, it is pretty interesting. The ceo of Chevron is the slime of slime if you ask me.

 

[mheslep]

...The small 70MWe Brennislis reactor began decommissioning in 1985, still ongoing 2007.
http://www.francenuc.org/en_sites/brit_brenn_e.htm

...Yes, but that's not because one doesn't know what to do, it is because the longer one waits, the lower is the activity of the material and the more can be declassified as "normal" and as "very low activity" waste.

No, its clearly stated in the link material why, and it is not because the French are sitting around wait for the radioactivity levels to decay. Its because of complex regulatory compliance, a lack of funds (throughout the EU), and the lack of a permanent storage facility.

However, 7 June 2007 the Conseil d'Etat, acting on a request from the organization Sortir du Nucléaire, annulled the decree authorizing complete dismantlement, on the basis that the environmental impact statement in regard to that action was not released to the public before the authorization was granted. Sortir du Nucléaire explained that it is not opposed to dismantling according to the original plan but is opposed to complete dismantling at this time due to the increased risk to workers, the public, and the environment, and the lack of a site for permanent disposal of the waste with long-lived radioactivity in the reactor itself.

But again, why destroy that building ? Is it to regain that few acres the building was on ? That's a very expense few acres, then !

Expensive because its nuclear vs some other power source.

I'm inclined to believe from these discussions that given the nuclear plant proposals with colossal budgets on the table and referenced in these PF threads, and in response some hand waving without any references, that the nuclear life cycle is no cheaper than solar for non-baseload power as of 2008. And solar is going to keep improving.

You'll forgive me I hope if I do not acquiesce to making all world wide nuclear power plants as permanent as the Egyptian pyramids.

 

[mheslep]

...I 30% is ambitious, though.

30% wind power is already already there several in Northern German states.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Wind/2008.htm
36% in Schleswig-Holstein, the state adjacent Denmark.

 

[mheslep]

... Solar doesn't work on its own. A town cannot run on solar ALONE.

Yes it can, at least as reliably and probably more so than a single coal/nuclear plant. As robheus pointed out above, thermal CSP plants already exist that can store energy to run overnight. Solar Tres in Spain for instance - storing 6,250 T of molten nitrate salt (16 hours, 600 MWh)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Tres_Power_Tower
Certainly it's probably not wise to make any small town dependent on anyone power source, coal, nuclear or anything else. I can sight examples where the latter fail. There was a rail bridge failure in my area that stopped coal shipments to a small plant for six weeks. Regulatory agencies in the US and Europe have forced reactor shutdowns for non-catastrophic accidents and safety reasons. No train derailment is going to kill Solar Tres.

 

[mheslep]

...EDIT: to illustrate the above, let us consider that Ivan's algae work out fantastically, and that we have a lot of algadiesel from it. Let us suppose that we set up wind farms and solar cell farms for 30% of production, and that, by lack of a suitable buffer, we count on the capacity of the rest, the algadiesel generators. So, we have now 300 GW of solar/wind effective installed. Let us now suppose that the rest, 70%, 700 GW, comes from algadiesel. In fact, we need 1000 GW of algadiesel installed, because the 300 GW are sometimes not there. And in fact much more, because the algadiesel capacity needs to be designed not for average, but for maximum capacity. So, let us say that we have 2000 GW algadiesel installed, of which we use on average 700 GW, and 300 GW come from solar/wind. Let us imagine that, as it will probably be the case, that algadiesel is cheaper (way cheaper) than solar/wind.
Now, why on Earth would we do that ? Why on Earth don't we JUST keep the algadiesels, and use it for 50% (1000 GW effective on 2000 W installed because of load following), instead of using it for 35% and the rest solar/wind ?

What would we win ? The entire price of the solar/wind installation, plus a lot of grid interconnect and regulation. The algadiesel installation is in any case sufficient (it has to). The thing that we will win with the solar/wind, is that we can do with 30% less algadiesel fuel.

This peak & buffer argument above makes two unrealistic assumptions (otherwise its not logical): that demand approximates capacity in the current central power based system, and that the demand is constant (or at least white noise random over time). Neither are true. US available generation capacity exceeds summer peak demand by ~16%. US summer peak demand is 790 GW, and the Winter peak falls 17% to 641GW. Add to that US Hydroelectic (70GW available, 140GW nameplate, generation only, not pump storage) runs on average at ~ half capacity because of water level variance, so that nearly all of US hydro naturally can act as in part as buffer, immediately, for other variable sources such as wind/solar.
This is a description of system that is perfectly suited IMO for at least 20-30% solar/wind as a source, and very economically, as it would not require any new fossil plants to back up only 30% solar/wind.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html

 

[vanesch]

You'll forgive me I hope if I do not acquiesce to making all world wide nuclear power plants as permanent as the Egyptian pyramids.

I really wonder why. Honestly. It is, IMO, a totally useless operation to dismount a nuclear power plant. What does one win with it, and how much does it cost ? Is it the abstract idea of "renewable ground use" ? But that can be said of the Egyptian pyramids too. Nuclear power plant buildings might be the only constructions of our time that might survive a few millennia. They would be the cathedrals of our epoch. After a century or so, in any case, the material wouldn't be active anymore at all, and one could even open them to the public. Why not dismount Mont-Martre ?

The point is that the specific investment needed to dismantle a nuclear power plant doesn't bring almost any gain. EVEN if we have the money set aside, even if there are no technical or regulator difficulties etc.. why on Earth would one spend the money on doing something that doesn't bring in much more than a few acres of land, and will use up some space elsewhere ?

 

[vanesch]

30% wind power is already already there several in Northern German states.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Wind/2008.htm
36% in Schleswig-Holstein, the state adjacent Denmark.

Installed power, not average delivered power (or, see previous discussion, average available power).
They are at about 7% in Germany. Also, you have to average over the effective sources of the grid. Of course, you could say that the village where the wind farm is installed, is about 100% installed wind power. But it is buffered by a much larger grid. If you take these numbers as a proof of feasibility for large, independent grids, then you have to take the average over a small, relatively independent grid.

Call me when an independent region has 30% of its electricity consumption from wind. Not that it is impossible, but I'd like to see how they manage the grid! Because that's my claim. If these intermittent renewables are supposed to count for 30% or even more in TOTAL electricity provision, there's no "big buffer next door" to count on. So we should demonstrate this on a smaller scale in similar conditions. Now, I will agree that there will be some smoothing out in a larger grid, but then there will also be worse problems of stability. So first demonstrate that a small, independent grid can cope with 30% average renewable power. Only then, I would accept that one can consider this as a general policy.

 

[vanesch]

Yes it can, at least as reliably and probably more so than a single coal/nuclear plant. As robheus pointed out above, thermal CSP plants already exist that can store energy to run overnight. Solar Tres in Spain for instance - storing 6,250 T of molten nitrate salt (16 hours, 600 MWh)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Tres_Power_Tower

Ok, but now you are dependent on direct sunlight. Cloudy days, it doesn't work.

Certainly it's probably not wise to make any small town dependent on anyone power source, coal, nuclear or anything else. I can sight examples where the latter fail.

I didn't say one installation. I said "solar". If you have 3 coal power plants, then the town can function. Even if one has a problem, or is in maintenance. If you have 3 solar arrays, no. If you have 3 wind turbine parks, no. If you have 3 nuclear power plants, yes. If you have 3 gas turbine plants, yes. If you have 3 wind parks, and 3 solar arrays, still no. If you have 2 hydro stations, yes.

There was a rail bridge failure in my area that stopped coal shipments to a small plant for six weeks. Regulatory agencies in the US and Europe have forced reactor shutdowns for non-catastrophic accidents and safety reasons. No train derailment is going to kill Solar Tres.

But a cloudy week is.

 

[vanesch]

This peak & buffer argument above makes two unrealistic assumptions (otherwise its not logical): that demand approximates capacity in the current central power based system, and that the demand is constant (or at least white noise random over time). Neither are true. US available generation capacity exceeds summer peak demand by ~16%. US summer peak demand is 790 GW, and the Winter peak falls 17% to 641GW. Add to that US Hydroelectic (70GW available, 140GW nameplate, generation only, not pump storage) runs on average at ~ half capacity because of water level variance, so that nearly all of US hydro naturally can act as in part as buffer, immediately, for other variable sources such as wind/solar.
This is a description of system that is perfectly suited IMO for at least 20-30% solar/wind as a source, and very economically, as it would not require any new fossil plants to back up only 30% solar/wind.

My numbers of total capacity and average consumption were off, but they were just there to illustrate the point. The point is that intermittent sources are sometimes at 0%. I'm not talking about peak demand by these sources, I'm saying that peak demand can coincide with them delivering 0%. So you have to be able to cope with peak demand exactly at the moment when your renewables are at 0%, in other words, you have to have a fully operational grid that can work without the renewables, concerning capacity. If you have in your grid enough buffer capacity to take over peak demand with 0% from renewables, then that means that that network can work entirely without renewables. It can maybe accept input from these renewables, but it can work without. Moreover, even with renewables, it WILL still take over the majority production. So my question is now, why would we then annoy ourselves with these renewables ? If we have a clean way (say, with biofuel) to have an entire grid functioning without it - and as we have seen, that's necessary - why don't we simply stop there ? Why go bother with intermittent things ? The only thing they will contribute is a lowering of the average load factor of the rest of the network, and a lowering of the consumption of biofuel, but it will still be a minority contribution. So why go through the investment, and the pain of regulating, those renewables in that case ?

The only serious argument can be when the fuel consumption by the majority network is somehow expensive or damaging (as is the case with fossil fuels). But that's not the case with biofuel. And even if it is the case, it will only diminish the problem with a minority fraction. So why bother ?

 

[WarPhalange]

I didn't say one installation. I said "solar". If you have 3 coal power plants, then the town can function. Even if one has a problem, or is in maintenance. If you have 3 solar arrays, no. If you have 3 wind turbine parks, no. If you have 3 nuclear power plants, yes. If you have 3 gas turbine plants, yes. If you have 3 wind parks, and 3 solar arrays, still no. If you have 2 hydro stations, yes.

This is of course assuming that you can get a steady supply of fuel for the coal/nuclear/gas plants. I know that pretty much always it's the case that it's available, even if the prices shoot up, but I'm just saying if there is a coal shortage and you just don't get any, 3 plants still won't save you.

 

[sketchtrack]

All the extra energy could go into making hydrogen, and natural gas turbines could burn the hydrogen as a supplement. Natural gas turbines are a good way to back up and supplement alternative energy. In the midwest there is so much energy that even if hydrogen production isn't very efficient, we could still make a ton of it because of the massive amounts of wind energy there. Sure wind energy grids can get complicated, but what is to stop us from making hydrogen which we could use in our vehicles.

 

[vanesch]

This is of course assuming that you can get a steady supply of fuel for the coal/nuclear/gas plants. I know that pretty much always it's the case that it's available, even if the prices shoot up, but I'm just saying if there is a coal shortage and you just don't get any, 3 plants still won't save you.

Of course, any fuel-driven plant must have a local store of fuel. Now, I think that for a coal fired plant, that turns around a few days or a week ; for a nuclear power plant, that turns around 3 years or 5 years ahead, and it would not be a problem to do 20 years ahead. A 1 GW electric nuclear power plant is refueled about once every 18 months, and at that moment, about 20 tons of fuel are exchanged. So to be 5 years ahead, you need to have 60 tons of fuel aside. Not a big deal. For coal, to be 5 years ahead, you'd be around 15 million tons of coal.

You are right that in order to have some higher level of logistic security, you might need a backup of some type, but the last type of backup you want is one that is intermittent! Solar/wind as backup is about the silliest backup you can have: unpredictable, intermittent, and high capital/low working cost. You want exactly the opposite for a backup: reliable, 100% available, low capital cost (and you don't mind high consumption).

 

[vanesch]

All the extra energy could go into making hydrogen, and natural gas turbines could burn the hydrogen as a supplement. Natural gas turbines are a good way to back up and supplement alternative energy. In the midwest there is so much energy that even if hydrogen production isn't very efficient, we could still make a ton of it because of the massive amounts of wind energy there. Sure wind energy grids can get complicated, but what is to stop us from making hydrogen which we could use in our vehicles.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel. If the exercise is to get away from fossil fuels, then that's not acceptable, is it ? If the exercise is not to get away from fossil fuels, then what's the problem with coal ? Now, of course, if you'd only need natural gas for say, 5% or 10% of the time, I wouldn't mind. If you need natural gas 50% of the time, then there is a problem: you have designed a system that relies for a serious part on fossil fuels. You only diminished its consumption, but you didn't solve the issue.

As to making hydrogen and using it in gas turbines, you will then see that this lowers seriously the overall efficiency of the alternatives (so that you have to install more of it), increases also the cost (you have to have your hydrogen factory, and your turbines).

I don't think we already have a lot of cars that can run on hydrogen. It's a pretty dangerous fuel, you know.

 

[robheus]

If we have for a few centuries fuel left, sure we can take our time, no ?

We don't know what a few centuries from now will be bring. But I do think that current oil price development is not something that drops down shortly, and will perhaps rise to even double the current price of what it is now.
Any idea on what that will do for price of living, food, etc?
In that respect, finding alternatives, is something that can not be postponed.
A worldwide recession is - given staggering oil prices, and no ways of replacing oil on the short term, something which could very well be the result of this.
In that respect I think we already rather late in developing real alternatives.
And like I said, developing RELIABLE alternatives for all kind of (fossil) based energy usage, is (although complex and envolving many and partly unforseeable factors) not staggering difficult.
I mean we are talking here about technology that mostly deals with efficient usage of storage conversions of energy sources like heat, mechanical or direct sun-light, efficient methods of buffering and distributing them, and it ain't that technological complex as nuclear energy or rocket science, just that the field of application is very broad and very diverse.

Let's look at something simple like household energy (which in the hemisphere in which I live is mostly used for heating) which is in this country around 15% of total use of energy.

The techniques for building or adjusting a house in such a way that it's energy needs can be reduced by 40% or more (using EPC or other isolators) and for the rest can be almost completely supplied by capturing the heat from the sun in the summer and store it underground and use that in winter for heating, and vice versa store the cold in winter, and use that for cooling the house in summer, can save you perhaps 70-80% of your total energy usage. Could be supplemented with solar PVC panels for direct electricity needs.
If implemented on a large scale, and built into the house during building, these kind of techniques would pay itself back in perhaps less then 10 years.
These alternatives have the advantage that the amount of energy that is used within a household can drop down significantly. So less energy that needs to be replaced with other alternatives.
Since oil and gas prices rise tremendously, such technologies will get a boost, and could even get a little extra boost with some government aid (tax reduction or something).
For cars/transportation, I would suggest that an electic car is a good substitute. 3/4 of all your transportation is within short distance range (100 km or so), so for those situations, an electric car and current battery technique will fit. For longer transport: the alternatives are bus/train or hire a car (perhaps bio fueled).
Seems to me a reasonable alternative, and the chinese are already making progres in that area (electric scooter for instance). Unfortunately the electric car which emerged in California couple of year ago, was prematurely killed.

I do think electric cars have an advantage (no direct output of any pollutant, can use green energy, a powerfull engine, and large enough radius for short distances) and is a technology that has potential to replace most fossil fuel for transportation. The only disadvantage would be that current battery technology would not allow for longer travels, but then, changing your battery at the fuelpump could be an option (no wait for loading, just change the battery with a fully loaded one, and off you go), so I don't see a compelling reason why electric car transportation would be undoable.
For long distance travels, the alternatives are using biofuels or hybrids as well as trains.
Super fast electric train systems could replace most continental flights, which just leaves the intercontinental flights that uses fossil fuels.

Future generations will IN ANY CASE use different technologies than ours. We are not responsible for developing them, they are. People from the 18th century did not develop our current power plants, they didn't invent our cars, they didn't do all this. We should first of all solve OUR OWN problems, and try not to cause a catastrophe in the near future. Now, the problems we are facing is potentially a serious problem with CO2 exhaust if the AGW hypothesis turns out to be true in about a century, and more currently the end of cheap oil and the pollution by coal.

In my opinion the real danger are economically and is the danger that less fortunate people are not able to keep up with rising prices for basic consumer goods, as oil prices will cause a rise of about any product.
That is the real threat. I don't think the CO2 problem and rising sea water level is of any real concern, since for that, one just needs to look at Bangladesh where each year drown thousands of people because of floods already. Where I live, the Netherlands, such problems are all solved, and even a 1 meter sea level rise wouldn't hurt us, we could just built higher dykes. So the global warming (although to some extend also a concern) is not the most important, I would guess replacing fossils and avoiding total dependence on less-wanted energy resources like coal/nuclear, is the most important one (and in doing so also contributes to lower CO2 levels).

So the real problem is an economic one, and is basically between either people in poor countries can afford to eat, or we can drive a car, putting it extremely.
And it is not just about energy, as like said, availability of fresh drink water and food are even more important issues. And to my opinion, certain solar alternatives (like CSP) come with the additonal benefit that can tackle those issues too (provide fresh drink water from sea water, and using dry un-used farm land for bio-fuels/jathropa and later agriculture).

Coal is not yet a problem of provision, there's enough for several centuries. That can give us time to develop something really great, like fusion reactors, or compact and powerful batteries, or cheap solar cells that are 90% efficient, or biofuels that don't put a burden on agriculture, or a hydrogen economy or I don't know what. There is a huge difference between "technology for the next few decades" and "technology for in 2 centuries". The first is our business. The second, we wouldn't even know what it is about. The only thing we can do there, is some basic research.

Of course we do not need to build technology for centuries ahead, not implied that, but what IS important is that we need to provide the right direction. If we decide to do more on using real renewables, later generations will get a head start in utilizing that even more efficiently. If on the other hand we choose nuclear, future generations will likely follow that same path.
So it is not just what about is available then, but also based on decissions now.
Renewables can be as easy and cheap as nuclear and has advantages that nuclear doesn't have (i.e. could be used on really small scales, the size of a household), if we decide to go that way, and invest money in tackling the technical issues and make it more economic feasible. Neither economically nor technically are there any real obstacles. Building a reliable nuclear fussion reactor would seem to me far more complex and challenging.

In a market economy, the outcomes are not always what is best, but is mostly based on who can profit the most and who has the most domination. Large scale technologies are easier to exploit and dominate as small scale technologies.
I.e. nuclear would be in the interest of large enterprises. The interest of the consumer are not what counts unfortunately.
Renewables have a far wider range of alternatives, and offer consumer wise a more diverse market. So it's not either coal or nuclear, but available choises are photovoltaic, solar roof, bio-gas, extra thermal isolation, sometimes even windturbine, and for cars, electric, biofuel for small scale use, and an even broader range of alternatives on large scale use. And for each technique a whole range of suppliers to choose from, which is to say that most likely no market domination of just one or small amount of suppliers.
There won't be much choice when using nuclear to choose between, and which will create dependence some way or the other, which will in turn set back other viable alternatives.

I really don't see why fossil and nuclear are associated here. The two problems we face: end of cheap oil, and eventually AGW because of CO2, are fossil fuel problems. Nuclear has nothing to do with that, and can provide a partial answer.

The disadvantages of nuclear are of a different kind, which I already explained.
This at least would mean avoiding that nuclear would become the "only best" alternative. Since it isn't.
There is a hidden price tag there (need some kind of a totalitarian control structure). I am skeptical about the proponents of nuclear energy for shifting forward a different kind of agenda on humanity.

And I am not against nuclear. Absolutely not! The sun is all nuclear, but within a safe distance range and with proven reliability of over 4 billion years. We should go for that, no competition there, really!

Not everybody has to adapt the same solutions. And hey, life's a struggle, right ?

Not contested, but struggling and fair playing should be not mutual exclusive forms of behaviour.
This is not a struggle between different species, we are all the same species!

Look, if it is going to take, say, 40 or 50 years (and I'm optimistic) to be able to bring renewables to a 100% energy coverage, why shouldn't the BIG USERS who are also usually those that can use nuclear without a problem, have to continue to use fossil fuels, with all its difficulties, until we have also a solution that is applicable in Botswana ?

To have alternative energies the most dominant energy source (which is > 50%) within approx. 40-50 years would seem to me a large and difficult enough task, and doable if we really go for that.

Energy usage is not growing exponentially in developed countries. It has the tendency to stabilize more or less, with a very slight slope.

China?
India?

That's a whole political agenda. I think it is perfectly possible for a certain part of the world to live in luxury, and we should try to invent technology and solutions so that more and more people can share that luxury. We simply have to find ways to do so without causing too much problems, and the market helps in that, but regulation is needed too.

To raise the standard of living of all human beings would be my primary goal too, given if possible based on the natural resources we have. But when one needs to decide between either food for the poor or being able to use biofuels for cars, what should be decided?? At least, such decissions involve ethics.
I would think anyone deserves the 'luxory' of having a daily meal, fresh water, healthcare etc. . But not anybody needs to - say - go on holidays in a different continent twice a year.
If the production of luxory items would not hurt anything or anybody, this would not be an issue, but unfortunately that happens to be the case. Which is why we have a science about scarcity, called economics.
Not being able to fly to your favourite vacation spot at the other side of the globe is not going to hurt (it can be replaced with other vacation destinations, with the same amount of fun), but not having access to food does hurt. So, the most economical decission would be to decide what hurts the least. I doubt if (blind) market capitalism takes into account such bare facts, and if not, prob. some intervention from governments might be needed.
And I am not being an totalitarian utiliarianist which would want to set the incomes of all people exactly equal, if you work hard, you can earn more money, but there is a sensible bandwith in which income stimulation are reasonable and bandwiths which far exceed that and become pervertish.

"the nuclear industry", ah, that "industrial-military complex" story ! It is not the "nuclear industry", but the public regulator that dictates the laws, inspections and all that. I think the perfect mix is that of Sweden, with 50% hydro, and 50% nuclear. But not everybody has the luck to live in a country where so much hydro is possible. If you look at France, about 80% nuclear, I don't have the impression that "the nuclear industry is dictating its rules". It's mostly in the hands of the state. The problem is that with the European liberalisation of the electricity market, there are now some small utilities which want their own power generation, and they systematically opt for coal powered plants, which are the lowest on capital investment. Not precisely the kind of diversification which goes in the right direction.

[/quote]

Not all countries are like Sweden or France.

Nuclear installation in N Korea and Iran already invoke much resistence.
Would you welcome N Korea and Iran to built more nuclear installations?

 

[robheus]

I don't think we already have a lot of cars that can run on hydrogen. It's a pretty dangerous fuel, you know.

Nearly no market yet for hydrogen.
Storing hydrogen is more complex as it may seem. You can not use it like you would use natural gas.
To some extent it is dangerous but not that extremely dangerous. H2 can explode, but also evaporates quickly if your storage tanks crashes. Benzine can do more damage in such cases.
Because H2 is the smalles molecule, it diffuses through almost anything, and certainly commonly used equipment for natural gas can not handle H2.
Heard about some experiment to store it in a metal, but is probably far from commercially viable.

But this is just to outline that there are still enormous challenges to make a H2 economy a viable concept.

Maybe you could just use it as a energy store (for buffering excess electricity), to be used only for buffering? To store it in liquid / compressed form?

 

[vanesch]

I wrote a long reply to this, and then lost it. So I'll try again...

We don't know what a few centuries from now will be bring. But I do think that current oil price development is not something that drops down shortly, and will perhaps rise to even double the current price of what it is now.

What is sure, is that oil will sooner or later end, but what's nice is that the price is rising already now, so there will be a strong market incentive to find replacements. Look at the discussions about algae for instance. That surely looks promising on paper. Much more so than land-grown biofuels, or electricity, especially electricity from unreliable and expensive alternatives like wind and PV solar, which imply on top of that a totally different transport system (electrical cars and distribution).

Any idea on what that will do for price of living, food, etc?
In that respect, finding alternatives, is something that can not be postponed.
A worldwide recession is - given staggering oil prices, and no ways of replacing oil on the short term, something which could very well be the result of this.
In that respect I think we already rather late in developing real alternatives.

Finding replacements because of a scarce resource doesn't give me any worries: the market will take care of that. It will even be a new economical opportunity, which might stimulate economic growth in a new area. And again, the classical renewables like PV and wind really don't seem very suited to replace oil for transport, because in any case, you have to go through electricity. Once you have coupled (which isn't the case today, and which is a serious difficulty) the oil consumption with the electricity market then we have to look at the possibilities for electricity production in the coming decades. But again, the major difficulty with oil is that electricity cannot immediately help.

I mean we are talking here about technology that mostly deals with efficient usage of storage conversions of energy sources like heat, mechanical or direct sun-light, efficient methods of buffering and distributing them, and it ain't that technological complex as nuclear energy or rocket science, just that the field of application is very broad and very diverse.

There is for the moment, apart from of course fossil fuel (not oil! Coal and gas), only one existing technology which can deliver electricity in large quantities, unrestricted, when we want it, and that is nuclear. Wind and solar are in any case limited: they will not provide for unlimited electricity whenever we want it. You really seem to underestimate that problem.

Let's look at something simple like household energy (which in the hemisphere in which I live is mostly used for heating) which is in this country around 15% of total use of energy.

The techniques for building or adjusting a house in such a way that it's energy needs can be reduced by 40% or more (using EPC or other isolators) and for the rest can be almost completely supplied by capturing the heat from the sun in the summer and store it underground and use that in winter for heating, and vice versa store the cold in winter, and use that for cooling the house in summer, can save you perhaps 70-80% of your total energy usage. Could be supplemented with solar PVC panels for direct electricity needs.
If implemented on a large scale, and built into the house during building, these kind of techniques would pay itself back in perhaps less then 10 years.

This is in fact not true. It might be for new constructions, but it is very difficult to rework existing housing in a cost-effective way for lowering energy consumption. Moreover, I really don't think that we should look for economies of energy usage: we should have electricity flow in large and cheap quantities. It shouldn't be a scarce resource, which will become expensive by definition. Electricity must flow, and be almost too cheap to meter. Then we can take out all the confort it can give us. Of course, if there are cost-effective ways to diminish consumption, that really pay back, then they are a good idea, but they should automatically happen, by market forces. There shouldn't be any need to plan for it. It is sufficient that companies invent and market cheap techniques to save you a significant amount of money, and of course they will be bought. If there is sufficient economic incentive, no need to plan for it: it will happen on its own.

These alternatives have the advantage that the amount of energy that is used within a household can drop down significantly. So less energy that needs to be replaced with other alternatives.
Since oil and gas prices rise tremendously, such technologies will get a boost, and could even get a little extra boost with some government aid (tax reduction or something).

There is absolutely no reason to have government aids for something that has an economic incentive - it would only scew the market and avoid having the best solution.

For cars/transportation, I would suggest that an electic car is a good substitute. 3/4 of all your transportation is within short distance range (100 km or so), so for those situations, an electric car and current battery technique will fit. For longer transport: the alternatives are bus/train or hire a car (perhaps bio fueled).
Seems to me a reasonable alternative, and the chinese are already making progres in that area (electric scooter for instance). Unfortunately the electric car which emerged in California couple of year ago, was prematurely killed.

Again, it might be possible to couple the transport sector and the electricity market, but it is far from obvious that this will happen or even can happen soon, and it is absolutely not said that it is the best solution: what do you do when you have invested an enormous quantity of money and resources in electric cars, and then a cheap solution with biofuel (from algae) comes along ? Wouldn't you feel very silly ?

I do think electric cars have an advantage (no direct output of any pollutant, can use green energy, a powerfull engine, and large enough radius for short distances) and is a technology that has potential to replace most fossil fuel for transportation. The only disadvantage would be that current battery technology would not allow for longer travels, but then, changing your battery at the fuelpump could be an option (no wait for loading, just change the battery with a fully loaded one, and off you go), so I don't see a compelling reason why electric car transportation would be undoable.

It is not undoable, but is it the best way to allocate resources ? In any case, if oil becomes expensive (I think it is a very good thing that oil starts already to become expensive) there will be a serious economic incentive to find solutions. They will happen "by themselves". However, we already see here that it would be stupid to LIMIT electricity production, and make it a scarce resource: it would STOP you from looking at electric cars!

For long distance travels, the alternatives are using biofuels or hybrids as well as trains.
Super fast electric train systems could replace most continental flights, which just leaves the intercontinental flights that uses fossil fuels.

Trains are already in place, and they are not the main form of transportation. In fact, our current train network couldn't cope with the flow of traffic that is now taken care of by cars. There's a factor of about 10 missing at least. This means that people have seen the economic and practical advantage of cars over trains. One shouldn't go against the choice of the market. One shouldn't dictate how people should live, but one should provide the means so that people can live the best the way they want themselves.

In my opinion the real danger are economically and is the danger that less fortunate people are not able to keep up with rising prices for basic consumer goods, as oil prices will cause a rise of about any product.

If you are worried about the less economically powerful, then the thing that shouldn't happen is that a resource such as electricity or as transportation, which is a main resource of comfort of living, becomes scarce and hence expensive. You should provide it in large quantities, unrestricted.

So the global warming (although to some extend also a concern) is not the most important, I would guess replacing fossils and avoiding total dependence on less-wanted energy resources like coal/nuclear, is the most important one (and in doing so also contributes to lower CO2 levels).

I really don't see why you associate coal and nuclear here. If CO2 is no problem, then electricity is no problem with coal (except for some extra pollution, but that seems to be socially accepted). It is also possible to turn coal into fuel which can replace oil. So again, there's no issue there. The only reason to worry is if we have to restrict CO2 emissions. If not, really, there is no problem for the next few centuries.

If CO2 is a problem, then that's still not a problem for nuclear. Again, there is absolutely no scarcity in resources for nuclear, given that we already HAVE the stuff that can provide us with plenty of electricity for 600 years at least. So the "fuel" argument really doesn't work for nuclear. It doesn't work for most of coal either, but coal has the CO2 problem.

So the real problem is an economic one, and is basically between either people in poor countries can afford to eat, or we can drive a car, putting it extremely.

That's only a problem with land-grown biofuels. Nor the use of coal-fired plants, but especially not the use of nuclear power plants, stops people far away from eating.

And it is not just about energy, as like said, availability of fresh drink water and food are even more important issues. And to my opinion, certain solar alternatives (like CSP) come with the additonal benefit that can tackle those issues too (provide fresh drink water from sea water, and using dry un-used farm land for bio-fuels/jathropa and later agriculture).

I didn't say that everything has to be nuclear. I say that it is a very good solution to provide us in the foreseeable future (and beyond) with loads of electricity, as much as we want. That wouldn't stop to have specific applications of solar such as desalination, but I really have my doubts about the technological, and economic sense of wind and PV solar. At this point in time, it really doesn't make any sense beyond research and prototyping (which is ALWAYS a good idea), simply because it is confronted with an as of yet unsolved technical difficulty. Proposing it in the place of a reliable source such as nuclear simply doesn't make any sense.

Of course we do not need to build technology for centuries ahead, not implied that, but what IS important is that we need to provide the right direction. If we decide to do more on using real renewables, later generations will get a head start in utilizing that even more efficiently. If on the other hand we choose nuclear, future generations will likely follow that same path.

That is absolutely not certain. But then, nuclear DOES have a path that gives an eternal solution to the (electricity) energy problem: we have current thermal fission, which is up and running since decades, which has an extremely good record of performance, which doesn't have any serious ecological problems, etc... so which is a mature technology. We have fast breeder fission, which has shown technologically workable, and which needs to be prototyped a bit further but which can come online massively in, say 2 decades, and which solves the "uranium fuel provision" for centuries if not millennia, using what was the "waste" of the thermal reactors as new fuel out of which still a hunderdfold more energy can be extracted than was already extracted. This buys us several centuries/millennia to finally put fusion to work. Although I have my doubts in the coming 50 years of the economic and technological feasibility of fusion as a power source, there is absolutely no doubt that one day, it will work. If I give you a millennium, that should be sufficient time to solve the issue. Once fusion is working, we have definitely solved the electricity energy problem, for good. So the nuclear path is not a dead alley at all, on the contrary.

That doesn't mean that there cannot be other paths, and even better paths, but at least, this is an entirely possible way, with a short-term solution based on robust, existing technology, a mid-term (centuries) solution with demonstrated prototypes, but not yet commercially available, and a long term solution of which the principles are known, but no technical demonstration has yet been provided, which has the potential to solve the issues at eternam.

So it is not just what about is available then, but also based on decissions now.
Renewables can be as easy and cheap as nuclear and has advantages that nuclear doesn't have (i.e. could be used on really small scales, the size of a household), if we decide to go that way, and invest money in tackling the technical issues and make it more economic feasible. Neither economically nor technically are there any real obstacles. Building a reliable nuclear fussion reactor would seem to me far more complex and challenging.

If a competing technology is easy, can be done on small scale, is economically more performant etc... then that technology WILL be developed by market forces alone. There's no reason to plan it, there's no reason to subvention it, apart from basic research. It will manifest itself without any problem.

In a market economy, the outcomes are not always what is best, but is mostly based on who can profit the most and who has the most domination. Large scale technologies are easier to exploit and dominate as small scale technologies.

This is absolutely not true. In a free market economy, small scale finds its way much easier than large scale. That is BTW the main disadvantage of nuclear: it cannot scale down, it is huge capital investment. Really, if a genuinely performant small scale solution comes along, in a free market, there's not the slightest bit of doubt that it will rise.

I.e. nuclear would be in the interest of large enterprises. The interest of the consumer are not what counts unfortunately.
Renewables have a far wider range of alternatives, and offer consumer wise a more diverse market. So it's not either coal or nuclear, but available choises are photovoltaic, solar roof, bio-gas, extra thermal isolation, sometimes even windturbine, and for cars, electric, biofuel for small scale use, and an even broader range of alternatives on large scale use. And for each technique a whole range of suppliers to choose from, which is to say that most likely no market domination of just one or small amount of suppliers.

But that is market-wise already possible. It doesn't happen, simply because these technologies, no matter the propaganda around it, are not genuine solutions. One needs huge, unfair subventions to incite people to put a PV panel on their roofs, which then results in more difficulties of regulation for the utilities. Utilities are forced to buy electricity at high prices from these unreliable sources, when they don't need it, and have to provide those same customers with reliable electricity when there's no sunshine. That's a scheme that is absolutely not expandable to large scale.

There won't be much choice when using nuclear to choose between, and which will create dependence some way or the other, which will in turn set back other viable alternatives.

I don't think so. If you have a really cheap and reliable way to provide electricity to your neighborhood, much cheaper than the main utility, then you can set up your utility company, and you will become rich in no time, because you will be able to sell electricity way under the main utility's price and still make a lot of profit. Only, you will have to ensure reliability. If ever such a small scale technology develops, and the market remains free, it will find its way, trust me.

The disadvantages of nuclear are of a different kind, which I already explained.
This at least would mean avoiding that nuclear would become the "only best" alternative. Since it isn't.
There is a hidden price tag there (need some kind of a totalitarian control structure). I am skeptical about the proponents of nuclear energy for shifting forward a different kind of agenda on humanity.

I really don't see what's totalitarian to a very severe regulator agency. These are again those silly ideas of the military industrial complex, and all the green political propaganda, while one doesn't see the green propaganda working towards its own agenda itself: the pseudo-ecological tyranny where only the pseudo-ecological green political correct is allowed, and where one gets intrusions in one's very private sphere, of how one lives, how one travels, what are one's favorite passtimes, how one eats etc..., a far worse form of totalitarianism. The former Belgian green party was "AGALEV" ("anders gaan leven", going to live differently). It was a clear agenda to change the way people had to live, not to protect the environment. Forcing you to change your way of life was the main agenda, and ecology was only the enforcing argument.

And I am not against nuclear. Absolutely not! The sun is all nuclear, but within a safe distance range and with proven reliability of over 4 billion years. We should go for that, no competition there, really!

Exactly: fusion: sun on earth!

This is not a struggle between different species, we are all the same species!

This is off-topic, but struggle for the fittest is exactly intra-species: the fittest get to the next generation

 

[vanesch]

Continuation:

To have alternative energies the most dominant energy source (which is > 50%) within approx. 40-50 years would seem to me a large and difficult enough task, and doable if we really go for that.

As I said, I really don't see why we HAVE TO. There's another path, the nuclear path. I don't STOP you, it might work out. But there's no obvious reason that this is the right path. In fact, for all we see right now, it is NOT the right path in the short term (10-20 years).

China?
India?

Yes, those are the big growing poles, which will probably level off too once they get to our life style, or a similar one. They would be the primary useful users of nuclear, and that's no problem, as both are already nuclear arms states, so there's no proliferation issue. In the same way that there is no proliferation issue in the USA, or in Europe, as there, most countries are or already nuclear weapon states, or really don't have the intention to become one.

To raise the standard of living of all human beings would be my primary goal too, given if possible based on the natural resources we have. But when one needs to decide between either food for the poor or being able to use biofuels for cars, what should be decided?? At least, such decissions involve ethics.

Biofuels shouldn't compete with food, I agree. That's why I didn't like it either, until I saw the stuff on sea-grown algae. But again, in what way does using nuclear power in the West stop people in, say, subsaharian Africa to eat ?

I would think anyone deserves the 'luxory' of having a daily meal, fresh water, healthcare etc. . But not anybody needs to - say - go on holidays in a different continent twice a year.
If the production of luxory items would not hurt anything or anybody, this would not be an issue, but unfortunately that happens to be the case. Which is why we have a science about scarcity, called economics.
Not being able to fly to your favourite vacation spot at the other side of the globe is not going to hurt (it can be replaced with other vacation destinations, with the same amount of fun), but not having access to food does hurt. So, the most economical decission would be to decide what hurts the least.

That's not how economics in a free market works. Economics works in this way: if I produce enough stuff, through my labor or my capital, so that I can afford the means to go twice on a holiday, then I go twice on a holiday. I didn't steal anything that way. I gave stuff, people paid me for it, and I did with that what I wanted. If you don't produce enough to be able to afford to buy food, then you don't buy food. If I would have to give you food, that would mean that you take something you didn't earn, and I didn't get something I earned. This might make me desire less to produce more, and it wouldn't incite you to do much more. It's more important that I produce, as at least I produce a lot of value (otherwise I wouldn't have that money to go on a holiday). I produce value because I want to go on a holiday. If I have to produce stuff, so that YOU can eat, I'm not interested, and overall production goes back. Overall living standard goes behind. In the end, we will both not produce enough to eat, but that's no issue, we'll find a third person from which to take what he earned... and that was then the end of the Soviet Union.
Of course, there needs to be some solidarity. I don't mind that one takes *a little bit* from my stuff to help a *little bit* others. But I don't want them to take away a major part. I earned it. It's mine. I'm only prepared to bear the solidarity that one day I might need myself - see it as a kind of welfare insurance. We're not one big organism. We're individuals, in constant struggle for a better life. Some win, some lose.

I doubt if (blind) market capitalism takes into account such bare facts, and if not, prob. some intervention from governments might be needed.
And I am not being an totalitarian utiliarianist which would want to set the incomes of all people exactly equal, if you work hard, you can earn more money, but there is a sensible bandwith in which income stimulation are reasonable and bandwiths which far exceed that and become pervertish.

Well, I guess you understood I'm only willing so much to share. I do think that I shouldn't take away the food of a poor guy in Somalia. But I don't think I owe him a meal, either. I don't mind some solidarity. But not my two holidays a year!

See it this way: if now, some people can go on two holidays a year, and others don't have food, should we: have all people eat enough, but nobody go on a holiday anymore ? Or should we try to create more wealth, such that in the future, some people can go 5 times on a holiday, more people than today can go two times on a holiday, and, well, some will still not have enough to eat ? I definitely go for the second option. Because the first won't lead anybody, anymore to go on a holiday, ever. It isn't even guaranteed that we will have food for everybody in the long term, either. Because nobody will be motivated at all to create more wealth.

Not all countries are like Sweden or France.

Nuclear installation in N Korea and Iran already invoke much resistence.
Would you welcome N Korea and Iran to built more nuclear installations?

No. I agree that nuclear power is only a solution in several countries, which, BTW, are exactly those that consume most. I think nuclear is a very good option for the US, for Europe, for Russia, for China, for India. Those places which are problematic can use other means, like coal, oil, whatever. There will be more than enough if they remain the only users, until the political problem is solved.

BTW, it would be entirely possible to have nuclear power in Iran without even any proliferation issue, if the fuel were to be provided and taken back by a more reliable nation, or an international group. That was BTW one of the propositions done to Iran.

Summary of the points I want to defend:
- nuclear is a good option for electricity production. It might not be the only one in the future, or even the best, but only the future will tell. At least there's an entirely feasible path from short term / middle term / long term for energy provision through nuclear, so at least this is not a dead alley.
- electricity should be provided in large, cheap, reliable quantities, without any restriction on use. People should be able to use cheap energy in every way they like. One shouldn't force them into any form of ecolo-tyranny.
- if small scale, cheap, reliable energy provision becomes possible in one or other way, the market will act in such a way that this will be used.
- the last kind of techniques might come from renewables, and maybe not. There is no a priori reason why we should go to renewables, but if they devellop efficiently under market forces, then that's fine.
- for the moment, oil consumption and electricity production are separated.
- it is only in the case of CO2 worries that we have a problem with fossil fuels such as coal, because there's no scarcity of it for the moment. Oil is a different matter. In any case, there's no problem of scarcity with nuclear.

 

[mheslep]

...It's a pretty dangerous fuel, you know.

So is gasoline.

 

[vanesch]

So is gasoline.

I thought, I can be wrong, but that hydrogen is much more detonation-prone than gasoline.

 

[russ_watters]

So is gasoline.

Gasoline is nowhere close to hydrogen in terms of danger level.

 

[sketchtrack]

Only because hydrogen is so bad ***. Shouldn't we be upgrading our future energy to something more powerful rather than downgrading to weak electric cars that can't even come close to performing near as good as what we already have?

 

[mheslep]

I thought, I can be wrong, but that hydrogen is much more detonation-prone than gasoline.

Gasoline is nowhere close to hydrogen in terms of danger level.

There's a good argument that H is safer than gas though the risks are different.
Gas/H fuel leak comparison
Swain: "Fuel Leak Simulation"
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/30535be.pdf
Skip to the pics at the end.

Yes H2 has a comparitively low energy of detonation (14x less than natural gass), however, it is difficult to concentrate H2 at levels high enough to detonate. H2 ignition requires 4x higher concentration than gasoline vapor, otherwise H2 won't explode at all.
Also:
H 14x lighter than air, natural gas only 1.7x lighter
H 4x more diffusive than natural gas, 12x more than gasoline fumes
Thus leaking H disperses rapidly up and away from its source.
H2 emiits 1/10 radiant heat of an HC fire and burns 7% cooler than gasoline.
H2 emits no CO2 or smoke.
Explosive power 22x weaker per unit volume, H2 vs gasoline fumes

 

[B. Elliott]

IMO, I don't believe the vehicle test they conducted was a good comparison. The Hydrogen vehicle on the left obviously didn't catch fire due to the 'leaking line' being aimed directly up and away from the vehicle. The vehicle with the gasoline leak was obviously intended to catch fire due to where the people that were conducting the test, chose to spring the leak.

What if the hydrogen powered vehicle had a leak in the exact same spot as the gasoline powered vehicle? Since hydrogen burns upward, it would have also caused the vehicle to burn to the ground.

 

[tmc]

The hydrogen leak was put in the single most dangerous spot, as said in the article. The effect you see (hydrogen leaking such that it leaves the vehicle, whereas fuel stays under the middle of the vehicle) seems to simply be due to good design in building a hydrogen car.

 

[sketchtrack]

Natural gas is a fossil fuel. If the exercise is to get away from fossil fuels, then that's not acceptable, is it ? If the exercise is not to get away from fossil fuels, then what's the problem with coal ? Now, of course, if you'd only need natural gas for say, 5% or 10% of the time, I wouldn't mind. If you need natural gas 50% of the time, then there is a problem: you have designed a system that relies for a serious part on fossil fuels. You only diminished its consumption, but you didn't solve the issue.

As to making hydrogen and using it in gas turbines, you will then see that this lowers seriously the overall efficiency of the alternatives (so that you have to install more of it), increases also the cost (you have to have your hydrogen factory, and your turbines).

I don't think we already have a lot of cars that can run on hydrogen. It's a pretty dangerous fuel, you know.

Natural Gas Turbines are much much cleaner than coal, and they are the most efficient way to convert fossil fuel into energy. Add to that the fact that we have here in the U.S. much much more natural gas than oil, and it seams to me that Natural Gas is going to be the stuff until we get our hydrogen technology advanced enough.

 

[sketchtrack]

As to making hydrogen and using it in gas turbines, you will then see that this lowers seriously the overall efficiency of the alternatives (so that you have to install more of it), increases also the cost (you have to have your hydrogen factory, and your turbines).

Their is so much wind in the mid west, that a very large amount of hydrogen could be generated just out of waste energy. Since there is so much wind energy, more than the mid west needs, why not use the extra to generate hydrogen, then with the massive stores, gas turbines could run on it just to stabilize the flow through the grid.

 

[mheslep]

Natural gas is a fossil fuel. If the exercise is to get away from fossil fuels, then that's not acceptable, is it ? If the exercise is not to get away from fossil fuels, then what's the problem with coal ? Now, of course, if you'd only need natural gas for say, 5% or 10% of the time, I wouldn't mind. If you need natural gas 50% of the time, then there is a problem: you have designed a system that relies for a serious part on fossil fuels. You only diminished its consumption, but you didn't solve the issue...

I think the exercise is to a) lessen energy dependence on bad actors and b) keep some reasonable lid on the pollutants from fossil fuels until technology provides something better. Neither of these goals requires the elimination of fossil fuel use in the near future. In the meantime, per unit of energy natural gas used in CCGT is much more efficient that coal, releases much less carbon, and is much cleaner (mercury, radioactivity, etc).

 

[vanesch]

I think the exercise is to a) lessen energy dependence on bad actors and b) keep some reasonable lid on the pollutants from fossil fuels until technology provides something better. Neither of these goals requires the elimination of fossil fuel use in the near future. In the meantime, per unit of energy natural gas used in CCGT is much more efficient that coal, releases much less carbon, and is much cleaner (mercury, radioactivity, etc).

It is true that natural gas is not polluting. On the contrary, the CO2 exhaust per KWh is about half of the CO2 exhaust per KWh for coal.

Problem in Europe: the gas comes from Russia, and it is sometimes used as a political lever. Gasprom is not immediately your most attractive business partner.

 

[WarPhalange]

Can't you just do what we did and invade Russia? I mean, in their case, they really have WMD!

 

[mheslep]

Just getting back to this ...

My numbers of total capacity and average consumption were off, but they were just there to illustrate the point. The point is that intermittent sources are sometimes at 0%. I'm not talking about peak demand by these sources, I'm saying that peak demand can coincide with them delivering 0%. So you have to be able to cope with peak demand exactly at the moment when your renewables are at 0%, in other words, you have to have a fully operational grid that can work without the renewables, concerning capacity. If you have in your grid enough buffer capacity to take over peak demand with 0% from renewables, then that means that that network can work entirely without renewables. It can maybe accept input from these renewables, but it can work without.

At the large network scale were discussing here it never goes to zero. Denmark's wind never goes to zero. Denmark's wind w/ Scandanavian hydro (both renewables) never goes anywhere near. The larger the network and the more diverse (different renewables) the less variable is the entire system.

Moreover, even with renewables, it WILL still take over the majority production.

Thats counter to the trends. Small, diverse renewable is growing faster than big centralized anything else.

So my question is now, why would we then annoy ourselves with these renewables ? If we have a clean way (say, with biofuel) to have an entire grid functioning without it - and as we have seen, that's necessary - why don't we simply stop there ? Why go bother with intermittent things ? The only thing they will contribute is a lowering of the average load factor of the rest of the network, and a lowering of the consumption of biofuel, but it will still be a minority contribution. So why go through the investment, and the pain of regulating, those renewables in that case ?

Because its cheaper. The cost of firming up a renewable like wind by contracting with other suppliers like hydro or idle gas turbine is known, it adds 10-20% to the overall cost of wind per kWhr. The firmed up wind is still cheaper than fossil + carbon tax, and in the US in 2008 its a lot cheaper than nuclear if one has the wind:

In October, Moody's Investor Service estimated total overnight costs of a new nuclear plant, including interest, would be between $5,000 and $6,000 per kilowatt

from here
http://www.energycentral.com/centers/energybiz/ebi_detail.cfm?id=525
and many other places quote the Moody's report.

These nuclear costs may indeed be needlessly inflated by US regulation. If someone can show a viable political path for getting the cost of US nuclear competitive, I'm all for at least some percentage increase in nuclear capacity. For now, the costs are what they are and dismissing them is hand waving.