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...and to a larger extent, the mainstream environmentalist movement.
Here's an article on CNN.com, with one author being the founder of Earth Day and the other I can't identify (no bio provided for either):
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/opinion/hayes-denman-solar-power/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
The fraud is in the lie of omission on the power production statistics, which then drives the wrong conclusions. Here's a graph of power production by source in the US, both historical (through 2012) and projected future:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/images/figure_13es-lg.png
More specific data here:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm#generation
First and second spreadsheets -- note, "other renewables" such as solar get their own spreadsheet because they are too small to be shown in the main spreadsheet.
These sources show that from 2000 to 2012, the share of renewable power - mostly hydroelectric - went from 9% to 12% while nuclear was flat at 19% and natural gas power went from 16%-30%. Solar's share of that is currently 0.3%. Projections for the next 25 years have natural gas rising further, to 35% and renewables reaching 16%. In fact, price fluctuations in natural gas have resulted in usage fluctuations, but over the past 5 years natural gas has added an average of 46,000 GWH a year. That's right, natural gas has added more than 3x as much power as solar produces.
Our total usage has remained nearly flat for 8 years, as has our nuclear usage (the number of reactors dropped, but uptime increased, thus power production stayed the same). Solar is but a footnote (wind power is a far bigger share of "other renewables") and virtually all of the motion has been decreasing coal and increasing natural gas.
So:
Nuclear is dropping (by any significant fraction)? That's a lie.
Solar is replacing it? That's a lie.
Solar is at a dawn of a "solar age"? That's nonsense, at least looking at its history/stats.
Planned nuclear plants are being canceled because of solar? That's a lie (it's natural gas).
Don't mention natural gas at all? Lie of omission.
It gets worse. What if you actually do start reducing nuclear power? Can/does solar take its place?
And:
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-german-brown-coal-power-output-a-942216.html
So when you actually shutter your nuclear power, what you get is almost exclusively fossil fuels replacing it. Not solar.
Regardless of any lofty goals, I cannot support a movement based largely on fraud.
Here's an article on CNN.com, with one author being the founder of Earth Day and the other I can't identify (no bio provided for either):
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/opinion/hayes-denman-solar-power/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
This article - and this is reflective of the movement itself - is fraudulent.As nuclear power dies, solar rises
At long last, this Earth Day we celebrate the true dawn of the Solar Age. That sunrise is hastened, here and abroad, by the slow demise of the once-touted "too-cheap-to-meter" Atomic Age of nuclear power.
As utilities find nuclear power less and less cost effective, new solar photovoltaic installations in the United States are springing up. New solar installations in 2013 reached a record 4.2 gigawatts, bringing the total to 10 [or a production of 14,600 GWH]. On average, one gigawatt of solar photovoltaics powers 164,000 U.S. homes. That means power for 1.6 million homes...
Hastening this energy revolution is the nuclear industry's Achilles heel: an aging, dangerous reactor fleet that is increasingly uncompetitive and new reactor designs that are too expensive to build.
The fraud is in the lie of omission on the power production statistics, which then drives the wrong conclusions. Here's a graph of power production by source in the US, both historical (through 2012) and projected future:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/images/figure_13es-lg.png
More specific data here:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm#generation
First and second spreadsheets -- note, "other renewables" such as solar get their own spreadsheet because they are too small to be shown in the main spreadsheet.
These sources show that from 2000 to 2012, the share of renewable power - mostly hydroelectric - went from 9% to 12% while nuclear was flat at 19% and natural gas power went from 16%-30%. Solar's share of that is currently 0.3%. Projections for the next 25 years have natural gas rising further, to 35% and renewables reaching 16%. In fact, price fluctuations in natural gas have resulted in usage fluctuations, but over the past 5 years natural gas has added an average of 46,000 GWH a year. That's right, natural gas has added more than 3x as much power as solar produces.
Our total usage has remained nearly flat for 8 years, as has our nuclear usage (the number of reactors dropped, but uptime increased, thus power production stayed the same). Solar is but a footnote (wind power is a far bigger share of "other renewables") and virtually all of the motion has been decreasing coal and increasing natural gas.
So:
Nuclear is dropping (by any significant fraction)? That's a lie.
Solar is replacing it? That's a lie.
Solar is at a dawn of a "solar age"? That's nonsense, at least looking at its history/stats.
Planned nuclear plants are being canceled because of solar? That's a lie (it's natural gas).
Don't mention natural gas at all? Lie of omission.
It gets worse. What if you actually do start reducing nuclear power? Can/does solar take its place?
http://theenergycollective.com/robe...s-nuclear-phase-out-leading-more-coal-burningIn the aftermath of Fukushima, Germany prematurely shut 8 nuclear power plants. Respect for arithmetic and the intelligence of my readers dictates that I do not explain why this should lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. However, the relationship between Germany's nuclear phase out and the construction of new coal power plants deserves an explanation.
Between 2011 and 2015 Germany will open 10.7 GW of new coal fired power stations. This is more new coal coal capacity than was constructed in the entire two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The expected annual electricity production of these power stations will far exceed that of existing solar panels and will be approximately the same as that of Germany's existing solar panels and wind turbines combined.
And:
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-german-brown-coal-power-output-a-942216.html
So when you actually shutter your nuclear power, what you get is almost exclusively fossil fuels replacing it. Not solar.
Regardless of any lofty goals, I cannot support a movement based largely on fraud.
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