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337 comments on Energy from Wind: A Discussion of the EROI Research
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337 comments on Energy from Wind: A Discussion of the EROI Research
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So I'm not sure what kind of solution you are looking for. How large a population do you think can be supported on wind power?
We've got our work cut out for us, for sure. But I see wind as a very hopeful part of that work. Solar, too, of course. I hope tidal has some breakthroughs, too. It's basically a massive form of 'pumped storage'. All these natural sources that are periodic have the rep of being 'inconsistent', but I think that their patterns will start looking a lot more reliable to us, when the curve is clearly on the downslope.
The train issue will be some serious teeth-pulling in the US, which has developed such a strong idea of 'doing it on my own', anything as collective as rail transport threatens a lot of people's sense of 'privacy', I think.
Bob
The short answer, in that Im in Logan Airport, is 'more than I had before'. The longer answer has to do with the electrification of transportation system and a larger baseload for communities from combination wind/solar
I think the confluence of water, energy, and environmental events will one day show that we are near the peak in human population. I will make no predictions of how much smaller it will be in 20-30 years, but irrespective of the number, wind will be a larger part of the energy mix for those people than I originally envisioned.
In a sense, society has been using a one-time subsidy in the form of oil - we now need to wisely use whats left to create systems able to regularly harness a repeating subsidy of solar energy - wind will play the largest part of that. I agree with you that storage tech and backup are issues - at this stage of development if Peak Liquid Fuels is within 5 years then wind wont make much of a difference -if its 10 years out, wind could be huge. The high EROIs of wind basically mean that a hungry society has found a bounty of renewable cows, but as yet does not have milkers, milking machines, buckets or butchers.
And for the record, I have been reasonably freaked out by what I see on the horizon for several years, so please allow me some hopeful angles...:)
It's available in most places, and in the US it's available in all parts of the US. See http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/may25/wind-052505.html
"energy can't be transported long distances very efficiently"
It can be transported pretty far: a quick search found references to 700 mile long transmission lines to California, and 800 km long lines in this discussion: http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/em/transmission/technology_abb.pdf
Anyone have more info on transmission distance, esp HVDC?
"don't have good storage technology"
You don't need storage under roughly 15% market share. OTOH, there are some very good storage methods. Alanfrombigeasy has calculated that wind could provide up to 51% of the grid. Alan, could you share the calc's?
"a large network of electric trains"
Electric vehicles are about 8 times more efficient than your average gasoline vehicle (1,600 watt-hours/mile vs 200 whrs/mile), and actually more efficient than electric trains (though electric trains have other benefits, like supporting urban living).
" the little problem of food production when fossil fuels decline"
Tractors can be electric. Fertilizer is a small % of FF use, and could come from biomass.
"How large a population do you think can be supported on wind power?"
All of it. See the first reference above. OTOH, that would be an expensive way to go. Much better would be a mix of wind, solar, hydro, biomass, wave, etc.
What are the 'very good storage methods'?
I seem to remember pumped storage being about $50/kwh in today's dollars for the Racoon Mountain system, and flow batteries costing around 3-4x that in large installations (though they aren't site-limited).
HVDC seems to be an evolutionary improvement, rather than a disruptive technology, over HVAC - around 5% loss per 1000km rather than around 8%. Land use is much lower, but the loss improvements are nothing compared to, say, HTSC lines. HVDC is naturally suited to large-capacity dynamic load balancing (as slow transformers don't need to be involved) and DC power sources like solar.
IMO, even removing a 20% loss to the farthest parts of the country won't suddenly make a particular technology viable - We CAN move power long distances efficiently with current technology. Though being able to pack 3x the conductors into the same right of way in urban areas (without ELF health nuts) might help.
The question I was answering was: could the grid support the replacement of all light duty (cars, SUV's, pickups) gasoline vehicles with EV's? I used efficient EV's (Tesla) and HEV's (Prius) and compared them to the current fleet average. The comparison helps answer the intuitive question: "isn't that a lot of energy for the grid to supply?" The answer is that it's not really as much energy as you might expect. OTOH, if you compared within the same class of aerodynamics chassis the ratio might be 4-6:1.
The Tesla uses 215 wh/mile, outlet to wheel, and it's optimized for speed, not efficiency.
"What are the 'very good storage methods'?"
I'm mostly thinking of the same things: off-setting hydro, pumped storage, flow batteries, EV planned charging and Vehicle to Grid. "very good" might have been a little strong - "good enough" is probably better, though Alan feels very strongly about the effectiveness of hydro & pumped storage, and I think PHEV & EV's will be very, very useful.
If I understand you, you feel that if wind is otherwise viable that transmission won't be a barrier to it's use. Is that right?
That sending your solar produced in Texas to Los Angeles probably has less of of an energy footprint than storing it in pumped storage in Texas for later use in Dallas is helpful.
A good portion of industrial use can be tempered to low-usage times. Smelters don't have to operate at 4:30pm when everyone at once turns on their AC. That and EV planned seem like they'd have a lot bigger effect than vehicle to grid, which is hopelessly decentralized + inconveniant IMO.
OTOH, these days cars are pretty much computers that happen to have wheels, and communication & control through intelligent meters might not be difficult to do in the long run. Things will change a great deal in the next couple of decades, I think.
I meant household demand management & time shifting. Though I have seen somebody use a Prius as a household UPS....
Actually, many industrial processes require continuous control. Thermal cycling of the insulation in a smelter is bad; blast furnaces are often rebuilt after each shutdown.
Many commentators consider decentralization a virtue.
Shifting charging demand over to certain times is much, much easier. It's trivial and self-regulating to setup a wifi or wimax network and send out an expected power price over time chart, then have a locally smart charger fill that up with the cheapest juice.
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I wasn't really talking about short-term demand, though I guess I'm a bit out of my league here. Would changing the standard electricity-intensive heavy industry worker over to a night shift be possible as a means of deflecting demand from peak periods?
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Sorry I was rather vague in the first statement - I should have stuck to wind capacity. A ~10% or so average hit in transmission costs from the nearest rural area populated with wind turbines is nothing, compared to the many thousands of percent that would be needed to shift most of our energy production over to wind turbines.
It means that yes, if we wanted to we could built an underwater nuclear complex in the center of the south pacific thousands of miles from the nearest human, and shift over all the energy to our homes at a cost of increasing the complex size by a paltry 50% or so over what we could build right here.
hi
why is the synchronization at 60 Hz with system wide phase coherence difficult ?
i'm worked on R&D teams where phase locked loops were up in the 200 MHz ballpark.
there's got to be a way to synchronize phase at 60 Hz.
wwswimming
at
yahoo.com
Your cost estimates are WAY off. With no economic value attached to GW today, the zero GHG grid that I proposed would likely raise rates 50% to 75% (which would happen anyway).
A steady rise in carbon taxes would push us towards that sort of grid anyway (nukes need pumped storage as well to neet anything more than peak load). Depending on costs associated with nukes (remember costs of the last dozen finished in the US, and the new Finnish one seems in trouble early) and just how steep the decline is in WTs and other renewable costs (WT electricity will be cheaper in 2012 than today, Not so for nuke) the mix will be somewhere between 23% nuke and ~/2.3rds nuke on strictly economics alone.
More than 2/3rds nuke begins to run into significant problems. France is able to get up to 90% nuke becasue they sell power all night long to ALL of their neighbors. Swiss utilites buy night power from several French nukes and save their water for selling back to the French, Germans, Italians at peak (at 3 to 5 times the price). Perhaps we can do the same with Canada.
Also nuke is VERY risky to build a society on because of common design flaws. Any design can have a hidden flaw, which, when discovered, requires shutting down ALL reactors of that type for months tp years. It has happened several times already and will happen again. No one reactor type should IMHO supply more than 4% of national power. Unexpectedly losing 4% of your generation is a blow, but it can be worked around with luck. More than 4% ? Nope.
EP, I'm surprised at your emphasis here. A LOT of industrial power is shifted to the night to take advantage of lower rates. Heck, I have a steel mill a mile from my home that shifts into overdrive at night...
You are talking about a major societal transformation here for wind power to make any impact on mitigating the fossil fuel crisis. And peak oil is within five years?
It's too late for this.
We're there now. Wind is supplying 43% of planned new generation in 2007 in the US. It can easily ramp up to supply all new demand growth (2% per year) within 5 years. Wind can handle demand growth replacement of existing plants that are planned for replacement, and substitution for depleting nat gas if we made a modest societal commitment to using it to the exclusion of coal. Actually replacing existing power plants before their planned end-of-life, and replacing existing coal usage are more difficult questions: those would be expensive, and require a major societal commitment that we're not yet close to.
"How many years and how much money would that take? "
Keep in mind that we don't have to replace all 210M vehicles: newer vehicles get much higher useage (something Hirsch didn't take into account), and there are only 100M households. Probably 5 years US vehicle production (85M vehicles) could replace 60% of miles driven.
There are two different questions: is there enough power for the grid, and is there enough portable power for transportation. I think unquestionably the grid will be ok with only relatively modest investments in infrastructure. Transportation? That could be painful. There will certainly be enough for key needs such as transporting wind turbines, but visiting mom in Florida, or commuting to distant low wage jobs, may get expensive.
To me that says wind has "arrived". What do you think?
Wind at 100% of power generation in 40 years? No way. Remember, in the US wind competes against baseload coal, gas, hydro and nuclear. System operators look at the *relative* value and cost when they dispatch power. Coal is abundant and cheap. Gas is less abundant but also pretty cheap. Wind is also cheap in terms of operating cost, but it is a not under operator control and is variable based on weather conditions. From the system opeators this reduces the value of wind energy, it reduces its contribution to reserve margins that are dictated by regulations, and it reduces the
value to wind plant owners in surplus generation that occurs when wind power saturates the flexible dispatch portion of grid operations.
These are not insurmountable prolems, but they are formidable barriers.
The EIA wind experts told me that if the 1.9 cent production tax credit goes away, wind energy goes into a deep stasis in the US. What does that say about its viability?
I suppose it really would make more sense to figure the EROI of a 'black box' which delivers the amounts of energy we want when it is needed. Within the 'black box' would be a mix of wind, solar, nuclear, etc. It may be useful for starters to have the figures for individual sources, but real world applications need more complex analyses.
Cutler, you have been in this business for a while. Do you know of anyone who has done, even on an abstract level, this type of 'composite' EROI analysis? I suspect it might surprise us that the mix could be far better than the individual sources. Whole greater than the sum and all that.
In 1992 such a wind farm would cost 200 million dollars, which doesn't include labor and maintenance costs, and would serve less than one percent of the United States population. It would cost over $200,000,000,000 to build enough windmills to generate electrical power for everyone (though of course, you couldn't, since not all areas have enough wind). With energy prices many times higher now than in 1992, the cost would be far more expensive.
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Summary of Sergio Pacca and Darpa Horvath 2002 Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Building and Operating Electric Power Plants in the Upper Colorado River Basin
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / VOL. 36, NO. 14 pp. 3194-3200
There is a large area of research devoted to figuring out how much material, energy, and cost is required to build various types of power plants. To estimate the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the life cycle of a plant, Pacca and Horvath used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a method that calculates materials extraction, manufacturing and production, operations, and the disposal of the materials at the end of the life of the power plant.
As you can imagine, this isn't easy. There are two main LCA models -- Pacca and Horvath chose the EIOLCA approach, which uses a large commodity matrix that tries to identify the entire chain of suppliers of the raw materials, and then this matrix is multiplied by another one containing emissions and energy use per dollar.
Because dollars fluctuate in value, a better method would be to calculate the energy used at every step of the chain, but still, these dollar amounts give a rough idea of the embedded energy.
The study compares the Glen Canyon dam with four other types of power plants, all figures are scaled to each plant producing 5.55 TWh of energy per year.
This kind of study could help decide which direction a future energy Manhattan project should. This study rules out a Photovoltaic power plant, which is not possible now -- it requires 4118 MW of power, but the total world production of PV modules up to 1997 was only 125 MW, less than 3% of what's required for just this one plant. The PV plant also displaces an enormous ecosystem, about 20 square miles.
This study does not cover nuclear power plants. Another study states "nuclear fission energy requires small inputs of natural resources compared to most other fossil and non-fossil energy technologies. When we consider net electricity generation (e.g., net electricity after subtracting consumption by internal plant loads and by uranium enrichment plants), the life-cycle resource inputs for non-fossil power sources are dominated by construction materials, most notably steel and concrete. The construction of existing 1970-vintage U.S. nuclear power plants required 40 metric tons (MT) of steel and 190 cubic meters (m3) of concrete per average megawatt of electricity (MW(e)) generating capacity. For comparison, a typical wind energy system operating with 6.5 meters-per-second average wind speed requires construction inputs of 460 MT of steel and 870 m3 of concrete per average MW(e). Coal uses 98 MT of steel and 160 m3 of concrete per average MW(e); & natural-gas combined cycle plants use 3.3 MT steel and 27 m3 concrete" (1).
Below are two tables summarizing the data.
GWE: Global Warming Effect is the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in MegaTons of CO2 equivalent, which is calculated by adding CO2 + CH4 +N2O together
MT = MegaTon = 1,000,000 Metric tons. 1 MT = 2,204.62262 pounds
Here's just wind since it didn't format properly below:
Wind
Construction Farm
Input Total MT
--------------- ---------
aluminum.............6,275
cement
concrete.........1,266,172
copper.............. 1,569
electricity MWh..1,691,678
excavation m3
glass................4,930
oil....................448
plastics............20,169
sand.................9,412
steel..............289,987
(1) Peterson, P. F. Will the United States Need a Second Geologic Repository? The Bridge 2003, 33 (3), 26-32.
TABLE 1: COMPARISON OF INPUTS
Hydro PV Wind Coal Nat Gas
Construction Plant Plant Farm Plant Plant
Input Total MT Total MT Total MT Total MT TOTAL MT
--------------- --------- --------- -------- -------- --------
aluminum 67 177,788 6,275 624 230
cement 2,222,356
concrete 9.906.809 1,266,172 178,320 71,270
copper 90 480,029 1,569
electricity MWh 7,556,010 1,691,678
excavation m3 4,711,405
glass 1,066,731 4,930
oil 448
plastics 20,169
sand 9,412
steel 32,183 4,600,276 289,987 62,200 51,130
Operational Inputs
------------------
coal combustion 2,336,000
coal extraction 2,336,000
transportation by railroad 2,336,000
natural gas combustion 1,560,300,000 m3
natural gas transportation 1,560,300,000 m3
natural gas extraction 1,560,300,000 m3
TABLE 2: COST, GWE (Global Warming Effect), and Area required
Total Cost Area
(1992 $) GWE required
----------- ------- --------------
Coal Power Plant 149,772,446 90,000,000 n/a
Wind Farm 206,881,416 800,000 489,580,000 m2
Natural Gas Plant 374,033,481 50,000,000 n/a
Hydroelectric Dam 503,240,216 500,000 651,141,400 m2
Photovoltaic Plant 3,578,457,990 10,000,000 51,386,400 m2
NOTE: the cost in 1992 dollars doesn't include labor, installation, or maintenance costs.
Photovoltaic Plant 100-W panels of dimensions 1.316 x 0.66 m with array units of 3 x 10 panels, each having its own concrete foundation, for a surface area of 3.9 x 6.6 m, sited at 30° latitude, at a 30-deg tilt (approximately 1.2 m of additional width is needed to account for shading by the array due to the sun's angle). There is 0.9 m between each of these array units for personnel access. Each adjacent unit covers a land area of 37.44 m2 and has a capacity rating of 3 kW. Some 1,372,500 of these 3 kW units are required.
Wind Farm location: Southern Utah, at 7,000 feet. average windspeed 6.5 m/s turbine: 600 kW in 4480 turbines
Hydropower: As the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has suggested, "upgrading hydroelectric generator and turbine units at existing power plants is one of the most immediate, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable means for developing additional electrical power".
Modern turbines are c. 1MW (1000kw).
4480 turbines of 660KW.
I had trouble with the units in what you posted, but 2.8 trillion pounds of contcrete is
2.8X10EE12 pounds of concrete
or 1.27 X 10EE12 kgs of concrete
or 1.27 X 10EE9 tonnes of concrete
or 283,482 tonnes of concrete per turbine?
That is basically as much concrete, per turbine, as you would use to build a substantial skyscraper.
That number looks really wrong. Similar for all the other raw materials numbers quoted.
Just on Load Factor, for any power plant it means the per cent. of the rated capacity you will achieve.
So for a wind turbine, 30% means 30% of the time it will blow at 100% of rated capacity, or 100% of the time it will produce at 30% of rated capacity.
Nukes typically run in the low 80s (distorted a bit by the fact that every few years they have a complete maintenance shutdown). All other power stations run below that level (because nuclear and hydro produce most of the baseload).
My own calculations from the problem set above
5.500 TWhr = 0.1% ish of US power consumption
5500 GWhr requires 6278MW of capacity at 100% Load Factor (divide by 8760 hrs pa)
So therefore at 0.3 LF 20,926 1 MW turbines (actually 1.2-1.4MW/ turbine is more like it).
Cost would be about $20bn.
Cost to do that in nuclear would be about $16bn (assuming 3rd Gen technology ie 4X1650MW units at $4bn each) + whatever price you care to put on waste disposal and long term decommissioning. Gas or coal would be less than $10bn but you would then have fuel cost.
So if you did that 800 times you would cover the entire US power consumption. For $1.6 trillion. Which is about 15% of US GDP now, or about equal to what the US spends on fixed commercial assets every year (capital spending by companies).
So over 20 years, 5% of US capital spending to cover the entire US energy consumption.
The estimated total cost of the war in Iraq is between 1 and $2 trillion (that was actually a 2004 estimate, so I am assuming the current costs of $15bn a month or so are offset by no rise in future costs).
Now there are a few other factors: depreciation (but that affects the turbines much more than the structures), growth in power demand (however GDP would also grow), the fact that you wouldn't use wind for all that capacity (because of grid issues).
But it's a measure of what one can achieve.
http://www.progressiveengineer.com/PEWebBackissues2002/PEWeb%2028%20Jul%2002-2/Wind.htm
If concrete weighs about 100 pounds/cubic foot * 27
= 2700 lbs/cubic yard
200 cubic yards times 2700 pounds = 540,000 lbs
540,000 / 2,000 = 270 tons per windmill foundation
270 tons times 4480 windmills = 1,209,600 tons for this windmill farm, which is within 5% of what Pacca and Horvath use (1,266,172)
Here is what their paper had to say about windmills:
A wind farm producing 5.55 TWh of electricity per year was assumed to be in southern Utah, at an elevation of 2134 m (7000 ft), close to the Escalante Desert where the average wind speed is 6.5 m/s (35). A turbine of 600 kW (36) was used as the unit for the farm's total of 4480 turbines that would occupy an area of 489 580 000 m2 (37). The total cost of materials and construction of the facility would amount to $206,881,000 (in 1992 dollars) without labor/installation and maintenance costs. Given a range of prices between $250 and $1200 per ha, the required land would add an additional $12,000,000-59,000,000 to the cost. Given the large area, land between the turbines could be used for other activities such as agriculture. No NEP loss was anticipated. The contribution of construction materials and energy to theGWE of the wind farm after 20 yr of operation (800 000 MT of CO2 equiv) is shown in Table 3.
It was assumed that after 20 yr of operation all turbines had to be replaced (but not the concrete foundations) and that the required construction energy was 30% of the original electricity and 100% of petroleum used. The electricity output of the facility remained constant. The refurbishment resulted in 900,000 MT of CO2 emissions, two-thirds of the original emissions from manufacturing and constructing the plant (1,300,000 MT of CO2).
Any 1992 wind turbine data is of historical interest only. Simply not relevant to today or, even more, tomorrow.
Alan
Second, either something is seriously wrong with this study, or wind was already a lot cheaper in 1992 than any other source of electricity: 5.55 TWhr per year, at $.10/kwhr, is worth $555 million. If this windfarm costs $200 million, then that's a 4 month payback and a return on investment of about 300% per year. In other words, this windfarm would have generated electricity at a cost of about a half penny per kwhr.
It's called a negative externality in economics.
Essentially we allow polluters to pollute without restriction, the most dangerous industrial pollutant of all-- the one that could trigger the end of human life on this planet (or, more likely, make our current civilisation unsustainable).
If you charge $100/tonne for Carbon emissions ($28 per tonne of CO2) the economics of coal look very different. European permit prices under the emissions trading scheme have reached those kinds of levels.
There is actually no economic case for allowing coal fired power, without carbon sequestration, given the potential damage of those CO2 emissions.
The fossil fuel industry, world wide, is a major recipient of government subsidies, implicit or explicit. From the destruction of natural habitats for which there are tax allowances for any restorative work (or the work is just not done) through to the high human cost of an industry with a very high mortality rate. (I won't mention lung cancer from particulates emission).
The nuclear industry is itself the recipient of massive government subsidies. The Price Anderson Act provides insurance which would not be available in private markets, limiting the liability in the case of an accident. The R&D was paid for by governments. The future waste storage liability is undertaken by governments when we have a solution.
No nuclear utility operates in a pure 'merchant power' context. British Energy tried, selling into the pool, and when the pool price crashed, it went broke and the government had to stump up £3.5bn to refinance it (to prevent a renationalisation).
Nuclear utilities across the world are either state controlled or have arrangements with the regulators that allow their cost of production to be loaded onto the consumer (effectively a guaranteed floor price).
The Bush Energy Act and the proposed British nuclear restart both provide for explicit price subsidies for new nuclear facilities.
The UK decommissioning liability for existing nuclear plants is £70bn present value.
The EIA wind experts told me that if the 1.9 cent production tax credit goes away, wind energy goes into a deep stasis in the US. What does that say about its viability
Golly Geee. What happens to Nuclear fission if Price -Anderson were to "go away"?
Looks like one of your 'base loads' is not viable without that government handout.
If there was no 'protection' like with Price-Anderson , there would be no commericial fission power generation. Given how well the saftey net of government has re-build the WTC complex and helpped the people of New Orleans .....would the government help the people who would be effected by a fission failure, or just say 'too bad'?
What is the EROEI of fission failure? What is the EROEI on the failure of a wind machine?
Now certainly this might be construed as an insurance subsidy, but we cant conclude that commercial fission power wouldn't exist in the US without it. Specifically:
"According to the United States Public Interest Research Group the subsidy to the nuclear industry has been estimated at between $366 million and $3.5 billion annually, or $3.5 million to $33 million per reactor per year"
Which is certainly affordable on the lower end. Even without this protection, the risk to an individual reactor of a major accident is so low, it might simply be prudent to run naked of insurance.
At best, this is in the realm of specualtion, unless you have citations that indicate no insurance provider will cover nuclear power plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Act
"At the time of the Act's passing, it was considered necessary as an incentive for the private production of nuclear energy. This was because investors were unwilling to accept the then-unknown risks of nuclear energy without limitations on their liability."
After all, in most countries, the government owns the utilities, or they are so tightly regulated as to be de facto government entities.
The government also guarantees the price the nuclear generator receives-- when the Pool price plummeted in the UK, British Energy, the privatised nuclear operator, defaulted on its loans. The government had to step in and bail it out to the tune of £3.5bn.
No insurer would sign on to an unlimited liability for nuclear power. It would be another asbestos death spiral.
Remember the liability for nuclear power will run to hundreds of years.
Nuke owners maintain private liability insurance plus have a big risk pool arrangement. These two private pools covered the public liabilities for the Three Mile Island neighbors and those were exclusively for evacuation costs and some "mental anguish" cases. Owners also have some "comprehensive" coverage for their own assets.
If you do not maintain insurance coverage, the NRC will lift your license and you will be shutdown.
For as long as I can remember, the nukes I've worked at have gotten full premium refunds - with interest.
See http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/funds-fs.html
Price-Anderson says, to me, more about the economic inefficiencies of American tort law than about nuclear safety. Any company doing any nuclear work demands some limitation on private liability since without it, a contract is "you bet your company."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act
"Since Price-Anderson was enacted, nuclear insurance pools have paid out some $151 million"
Price-Anderson says, to me, more about the economic inefficiencies of American tort law than about nuclear safety.
And yet, if the cost of the failure modes were not so high, the law would not be in place.
If oyu feel the fission industry is so safe, then by all means ask for Price-Anderson to be repealed.
http://www.greenscissors.org/energy/price-anderson.htm
In fact, have the fission industry pay for its protection from the terrorists that the citizens are being told lurk around every corner and are waiting to attack a plant. Surly, if fission is so safe, the payments to the military and other security measures should still keep fission power cheap....right?
Paying to protect from terror, paying the full insurance rates, AND paying for long-term dispoasl of waste should be cheaper than the payments to The Government....and be more effective....right?
Oh, and be sure to include the cost of moving the 'entombed disposal' to dry land when sea waters rise due to global warming.
The fact remains that NO member of the public in the US has EVER been over-exposed from a civilian nuclear power plant.
Please, let's keep our facts straight.
Taxes paid by all citizens provide for the common defense. That remains the Federal government's responsibility to ALL citizens.
Individual nuclear plants employ extensive armed guards and security equipment. Meeting Federal regulations are the responsibility of the owners. That is a cost of doing business.
I'm no lawyer but American tort law infamously reaches into the deepest pocket for any portion of shared liability.
The notion of how catastrophic a nuclear accident might be was first estimated in the late 50's and it was intended to be bounding. Fifty years of research into severe accidents have shown that off-site consequences are much, much less severe than previously thought.
Relatively small enhancements have made huge reductions in risk. For example, the concrete under the TMI reactor vessel was made of crushed limestone as the aggregates. "Core on the floor" scenarios (beyond the TMI event) would cause its decomposition into non-condensable gases which overpressurize and fail containment.
My new reactor has a 5 foot thick layer of alumina refractory under the core so that a meltdown would be contained and stopped - no more China Syndrome and no containment failure. No containment failure means no off-site consequences.
There have been calls to reform tort law but the trial lawyers have successfully block them. Make the general reforms and we can rethink Price Anderson. Besides, once Congress confers a benefit, it is really hard to take it away.
So you are claiming that these payouts were not under the Price-Anderson and follow-up laws?
Exactly HOW is that possible, given the law is what influences the policies that exist.
If there are no payouts underthe law, then why have the law?
The fact remains that NO member of the public in the US has EVER been over-exposed from a civilian nuclear power plant.
This is your answer to the question about the risks of having a fission reactor? Why are you limiting the DEMONSTRATED downside ERORI costs of fission to just the US of A?
Is your next position going to be to bring the US of A government, regulation and engineering to other lands so this safty you are claiming can be everyones?
Taxes paid by all citizens provide for the common defense. That remains the Federal government's responsibility to ALL citizens.
Interesting position. Corporations are citizens. And if some citizen creates more risk, ENYERONE has to pay VS that citizen paying for the risk they are creating.
Looks like taking money from the common good to benefit the 'citzen' with the fission reactor.
Meeting Federal regulations are the responsibility of the owners.
Don't the regs exist to provide safety? If so, why do all these 'safe' places keep paying fines for not following the fed regs?
Make the general reforms and we can rethink Price Anderson.
Price Anderson exists because fission is risky. You are claiming there is no risk - so trying to claim 'tort reform' makes it look like you don't really believe in your safety message.
Besides, as you've stated "I'm no lawyer " and you ARE claiming you know all about how safe fission is.
My new reactor has a 5 foot thick layer of alumina refractory under the core so that a meltdown would be contained and stopped - no more China Syndrome and no containment failure. No containment failure means no off-site consequences.
And hows that design gonna work on the coasts and the coasts go underwater with sea level rising? I noticed how you ignored the EROEI of taking the entombed reactors along the coast and moving them to high ground if the water rises.
You're going off the deep end in your post about rising sea levels.
To clarify the insurance issue, nuke owners maintain private insurance, much like automobile comprehensive, that covers public liability and their own equipment. The amount of liability is capped at some big number, maybe $500,000,000 - I don't have that figure at my fingertips. This is because insurance pools want to limit any on-time hit. There is just not a much bigger market of liquid capital for insurance. The payouts in wikipedia you linked to came from this private insurance pool.
The payouts for the evacuees at TMI for temporary housing and "mental distress" came from the private insurers and hence from the premiums paid by the owners.
Above and beyond the capacity of the private insurance pools comes government insurance for liability in the form of Price-Anderson. There have been no claims against the government Price-Anderson coverage. There would be private liability insurance for some level of coverage whether or not Price-Anderson was in effect.
Put it another way, it is a put held by the nuclear industry against the government.
It has infinite time value. If you look at any option pricing textbook, even an out of the money put has a monetary value.
Would Warren Buffet issue a 'cat' bond (a bond which only pays out on a certain, low probability event) against the nuclear industry? I don't think so. He is very averse to open ended risks.
On sea levels and nuclear reactors the problem has already come up.
The UK wants to license new reactors on existing sites where there were operating stations, however the Department of the Environment has pointed out to the Government that many of those sites may be underwater by 2050.
The other GW impact on nuclear has been the super hot summers we have been having. The French have had to shut units down, because there was not enough cooling water in the rivers. tant pis, as they say.
If a jury finds that a company is 10% liable for an accident (of any kind), the"deep pockets" can wind up paying 100% of the damages plus "pain and suffering" plus attorneys' fees.
I won't say that Price-Anderson is essential to the continued health of the nuclear industry but I don't expect it to go away since arguments otherwise are not compelling.
It's not an unknown principle, for example the UK government insures major art exhibits. Without such insurance, there is no way Old Master paintings (of the quality of a major art museum) would ever be exhibited in the UK (the cost of a theft or a fire could easily be £500m+).
But it's wrong to say it is not a cost. It is a Put Option, held by the future claimants in a nuclear accident, against the UK (or US) taxpayer.
That Put Option has value, because it has infinite time value (the volatility is unknown). Even though it is 'out of the money' (not exercisable).
In addition, markets have made it clear they will not finance new nuclear facilities unless the power price is guaranteed. No utility would build such capacity (the Finnish government negotiated long term power contracts wiht big industrial users):
You say its required, I say it isn't. Open your company as an LLC and be done with it. Bet your company and you'll be fine.
Given the thousands of reactor years of experience, its a safe bet. And stop erecting the strawman of implying Price-Anderson as a subsidy without cost.
It does offer some perceived shareholder value and its retirement would probably cause some slight downward pressure on stock prices.
Would the nuclear industry go on without it? Probably but I'm a bit of a traitor to say so.
BTW, that's about 10,000 reactor-years of experience for LWRs.
hmm. I'm not sure if anybody is suggesting that - certainly not me. Alan, I and other posters have been suggesting that the optimal mix for wind in the longterm is likely between around 20% and 55%.
"The EIA wind experts told me that if the 1.9 cent production tax credit goes away, wind energy goes into a deep stasis in the US"
Are they really wind experts? It's easy to take a superficial look at the relationship between wind investment and the credit in recent years and assume that the credit is necessary.
I would argue that even if wind was competitive price-wise that any sane developer would delay construction if the PTC had expired in the current year, and there was a reasonable expectation of it being revived in the next year - why get a modest ROI if you can wait 6 months and get a greate ROI?
Finally, would you agree that it's likely that natural gas prices will continue to rise, and there is a pretty good chance of some sort of carbon tax or trading system that will reward wind and penalize coal?
What would you estimate as current costs for coal and wind as a rough average?
Let me take a different approach. What I'm saying is that I think that even without subsidies wind was cheaper than natural gas generation for a while this last year, and it's likely be cheaper again for the longterm as gas production declines, and prices rise again. Further, carbon taxes and/or CO2 sequestration, combined with continued declines in wind costs will (if GW is the threat it seems to be) in the long term likely make wind cheaper than coal.
What do you think?
I am sorry, but ... give a subsidy and they will come.
"Another issue confronting wind energy is the uncertainty of future government subsidies. Much of the recent growth on wind energy around the world has been made possible by government subsidies such as the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) in the United States and feed-in tariffs and renewable portfolio standards in Europe. While there is strong support in many nations for such support, shifting political winds can create uncertainty for manufacturers and utilities."
If you believe in Peak Oil, then you believe in Peak Gas, and you believe that US gas prices won't fall below some threshold, long run.
(at the very least, given the depletion curves for US and Canadian gas, US gas prices long term won't fall below the $6/mcf entry price for LNG if the LNG facilities can get built in time. At that point, wind is not cheaper than gas, but certainly within spitting range, or rather some wind is cheaper than some CCGT).
The case for wind is the same one as the case for nuclear, which is
- the capital cost is high
- with lower real interest rates, the capital cost falls (more dramatic effect for nuclear since they take much longer to build)
- the fuel cost is very low (free in the case of wind) and the operating costs should be low (they've never quite made it in nuclear)
- the CO2 output is negligible (again a little more tendentious for nukes, because of the mining and reprocessing cycle)
We can't feasibly run an entire grid on wind without some new departures in energy storage technology.Conversely we can certainly supply 20% of our Terrawatt Hrs from wind (US or UK) and if we practice active demand management to smooth the load curve, significantly reduce the CO2 emissions from our electric power system.
No. You can't "run the grid" the way people have been USED TO. The level of service you are used to (throw the switch and stuff works) and the pricing (same rate no matter if it the middle of the night or in 120 deg F heat, or if the wind is blowing brisk and the grid has excessive load) will change.
A 'wind doesn't work' position is looking from the lens of 'we have to keep what we are used to'. Guess what? There's gonna be some changes made....
I think Alan, I and other posters have been suggesting that the optimal mix for wind in the longterm is likely between around 20% and 55%, and that other renewables, and only a moderate amount of storage, would be needed.
beyond that is hard. On current grid requirements, you need 1GW of fossil fueled backup for every 5GW of wind.
Once you are over 20% wind, you might need more.
And obviously, if you are at 33% wind, say, you are also retaining 27% (5/6ths) of the fossil fuel, so you are building a much bigger reserve margin. The cost of that starts to rise very fast at those levels.
With new storage technologies, more long distance power transmission and more aggressive demand management, who knows? 40 or 50% wind might be possible.
That's too high - in effect you seem to be assuming that wind provides no capacity credit at all. Even the British Isles are big enough that there is a great deal of leveling of output due to geographical diversity. See this analysis for Ireland:
http://www.sei.ie/index.asp?locID=330&docID=-1
"This study indicates that the growth in wind generation will require additional operating reserve, but that this increase may not be substantial. "
There are an enormous range of strategies for balancing, which have been barely touched. The most important is probably geographical diversity, followed by new offshore mounting technologies which would take advantage of much more consistent off-shore wind. My personal favorite is dynamic charging of EV's, because that's one the average person could get involved in. It reminds me of people I've heard saying that watching their net-metering meters run backwards was more fun than watching tv...
however I am quoting to you what Transco, a privatised company that owns the National Grid, (and in the States, Niagara Mohawk Power) has replied to the government as the capacity credit it will award wind generation.
http://www.npower-renewables.co.uk/pdfs/windpoweruk.pdf
The Royal Academy of Engineering did a study, of which this is the executive summary:
http://213.130.42.236/wna_pdfs/rae-summary.pdf
I was struck by the very low price of gas assumed, and the very high cost of backup generation for wind. I noticed that the RAE is only 32 years old - do you know how reputable it is?
Wasn't there a recent study that found that in the UK there was remarkable overall stability of wind levels? Why do you think Transco is so negative about wind?
The RAE study is simply old (2003) and so uses 2002 gas prices.
AFAIK, any Royally accredited body is credible/reputable but of course they have axes to grind. A lot of the old power engineering types I have met (including one of the UK's senior venture capitalists) told me that wind is just an economic nonsense.
Which is itself completely inaccurate. It's like when I meet a lot of scientifically trained people who now work in business who tell me 'global warming is a problem for your grandchildren'. They just haven't kept in touch with the latest scientific developments since they did their masters and doctorates 10,15,25 years ago.
On the anti wind brigade they inevitably want more nuclear power. The historic problems of nukes (3-5 times cost overrun, radioactive release at Dounreay, Windscale/Sellafield etc.) are put down to the history (or not mentioned). Nuclear power provides the bright new future, just as it did in the 1960s. But it always has, and it has never delivered on that promise. And it won't be built without significant state subsidies-- that has been accepted implicitly by the British government, and explicitly by President Bush in his Energy Act.
(I'm always fascinated to see UK capitalists, who despise France in just about every way, talk in glowing (pun ;-) terms about French nuclear power-- ie a big arrogant statist bureaucracy called EDF imposing a solution on consumers ;-).
Whereas wind is now, works now, is built on now technology (which is steadily improving), and is only subsidised because carbon emissions are currently (almost) free.
Paradigm shifts are never easy. In the case of wind, because of the visual impact, it will be fought every step of the way in local planning applications, public inquiries etc.
"Paradigm shifts are never easy. In the case of wind, because of the visual impact, it will be fought every step of the way in local planning applications, public inquiries etc. "
The UK seems to have more local opposition due to visual impacts. I'm hopeful that floating offshore wind platforms will allow invisible installations that will help solve that problem.
I should have explained about that. The key thing here is the planning window: wind's window is short, and so this kind of table, which shows only current plans (rather than some kind of projection) is going to be misleading if you're not aware of it's limitations. You can see that every form of generation has a peak, and that the peak varies depending on the planning window which depends on the time for planning and construction.
As noted elsewhere by Professor Cleveland, every form of energy has it's subsidies (direct and indirect - direct pollution, GW, security, occupational hazard, etc). He suggests that nuclear has the highest of all. I would argue that those for wind are the lowest, and that wind's costs are the lowest when ALL costs are taken into account.
Wind costs less than nuclear per MW? You have to be an Enron accountant to prove that one.
They include the Price-Anderson liability limit, the enormous military and DOE investment in R&D, and possibly the security costs of proliferation and decommissioning costs.
Price-Anderson is the clearest: the insurance industry considers the possible costs of a nuclear accidents as too high for them to afford. Nuclear advocates like to point out that the liability shield has never been used. Of course, the US FDIC could have made a somewhat similar argument before the S&L meltdown of the 80's.
Finally, currently the next 7 (?) new US nuclear plants will get exactly the same subsidy as wind - that's a pretty clear subsidy.
Of course, he can explain himself most clearly. Professor, any comments?
The development of civilian nuclear power by and in the US has been a great example of a successful industrial policy. True that it piggybacked on military applications but the taxpayer allocations for development and spread of the technology have been repaid many times over. If I ever get a PH.D in economics, I'd do my dissertation on the subject.
We Republicans frown on "industrial policies" because they too often get politized in ways that are wasteful and misdirected. Our current industrial policy toward wind and solar are just such examples of stupid ideas corruptly executed.
I'm hard put to defend the nuclear production tax credit except that the remaining risk is political and this credit is putting the government's money where its mouth is.
And if Price-Anderson is such a huge subsidy, how come it has had a price tag to the taxpayers over the last 50 years of exactly ZERO? Remember that the owners of nuclear power plants have BILLIONS of dollars at risk in each plant that is not covered by Price-Anderson. They are motivated to keep their plants safe.
Any estimate of what those military and DOE investment in R&D have been, and how one would allocate them to the civilian industry?
Any thoughts about Iranian and Korean proliferation?
What about decommissioning costs?
It is wrong to say the P-A act has had zero cost. What it is in an infinite put option on the nuclear sector, never exercised.
There is no way that the subsidy required by nuclear power is just for political risk.
What the financial markets are saying is: 'you have completely loused this up before in the 70s and 80s, why should we trust you now?'.
These are massive unit risks, even for the largest utilities-- $4-5bn a pop. One of these goes wrong on the scale that previous nuclear projects went wrong in terms of cost overrun, licensing, etc. and the utility goes bust.
The very low cost of nuclear power is exactly equivalent to writing off the capital cost of a windfarm, and announcing the power is free, except for maintenance.
Except of course there is the nuclear waste liability. Which is, for practical purposes, infinite (since it will be an issue 1000 years from now).
If the US has a second nuclear renaissance, it will be because of government action, and I can see it getting to 20% of consumption (say 60 new reactors, vs. the 84 now they will replace). Beyond that? You could make a case for 25 or 30%.
It's not a low cost solution, but in a world where Carbon is a taxed pollutant, it is a competitive solution.
I put it into the category of Carbon Capture and Sequestration-- it doesn't solve the problem of global warming, but it buys us time.
New nuclear stations will get the same subsidy as wind stations.
Wind costs are certainly proximate with nuclear. The technology is massively less complex, no containment vessel, etc.
That's on a per MW basis. Of course you need 2.67 MWs of wind capacity for 1 MW of nuclear capacity (roughly). The argument is wind Load Factors are much less than nuclear but whilst current nuclear LFs are 80%+, there are 2 wrinkles:
- LFs are taken per annum. Historically what happens with nuclear stations is they get taken down for major maintenance over their lifetimes. This is often unplanned: 7 /8 of British Energy's stations are working below capacity due to cracks in the pumps. Japan has had similar problems. Some designs of reactor also cannot be refueled during operation-- more downtime.
- historically LFs for nuclear stations have been far, far worse. We've never built a 3rd Generation reactor, so we don't know yet what the LF will be.
Comparing existing nuclear power to wind now is like comparing your existing car to a new car. Your existing car will always be cheaper (because you are not counting depreciation cost)-- you are just looking at the operating cost. And the new car (a new wind farm) will always look more expensive, because you are looking at the total cost of ownership.The real killer on nuclear power is the cost of decomissioning and long term waste disposal. Of which no one has a figure, but in the case of the UK the estimate (present value) is £70bn. At which point, nuclear is not cheap on any measure.
The argument for nuclear has to be a low carbon one. In a low or zero carbon generation portfolio, a nuclear baseload is useful (given that 4.30am power demand is typically about 1/3rd of 5.00pm power demand, that suggests a nuclear baseload of around 30% in a well balanced portfolio).
It is not a cost argument. Fully costed, nuclear power is the most expensive energy there is. (assuming no cost for CO2 emission).
Has it to do with the ordinary heavy maintainance of light water reactors giving the industry knowledge usefull scrapping a powerplant? I rember the wow factor of reading about workers doing inspections and repairs inside the Oskarshamn 1 BWR reactor vessel.
Btw, Studsvik AB in Sweden has started series dismantling of used steam generators from PWR:s where the radioactive part of the steel is removed and the rest is reused as ordinary scrap.
except
it was a runaway technology, sloppily managed since the 1950s.
At each stage, the Official Secrets Act was used to hush it up. The Windscale fire in the 1950s, disposal of atomic waste by pipeline into the Irish Sea, etc.
(if you sign the OSA as a government worker, you are liable to long stretches in prison for revealing anything the government deems secret for as long as you live).
So Britain has (24?) reactors sitting in various stages of operator, phase out, dormancy, plus the mess at Windscale (Sellafield).
£70bn is the estimate given to Parliament by the nuclear industry.
When the 1985 coal miner's strike was on, and the country was days away from power cuts (power cuts had brought down the government in the previous strike in 1973), the nuclear workers were told to 'not worry about cataloguing the waste, just get on with producing power'.
The result is there are these pits, full of radioactive something but we don't have any exact notion of what that something is.
Everything was focused on keeping the reactors on 100% of the time.
http://www.psiru.org/reports/2004-12-E-NDA.doc
In 2000 wind generated 0.14% of the electricity in the US. In 2004, it generated 0.31% of electricity in the US. So a 252% increase in actual wind output, produced an increase of 221% in its proportion of all electicity generated.
It's an impressive growth, but it still hasn't made much inroads into the generated electricity. It would have to maintain the high level of growth, to start to make a significant impression. It would take 6 to 10 years to reach 1% of electricity generation, at current growth rates, in relation to the growth in all electricity generation. Someone mentioned 4 decades to replace all electricity generation. That seems a tad optimistic. It could do it, if it maintained the growth seen between 200 and 2004, but the chances of having the land and resources to do that for 4 decades seem small.
Tony
I'm not convinced in the long run wind power means electricity prices are higher.
In terms of the necessary materials:
Land - trivial. The US is a huge country (the world's 4th largest I believe). Since farmland with wind on it is still farmland, there isn't a conflict of use.
Probably long run half the world's wind power capacity will be offshore in any case. The centres of demand are cities, which tend to be on the coast. For example London is building a 1000MW unit at the mouth of the Thames.
Resources:
- steel? The world produces 101m tonnes per month of steel. A wind turbine is less than 10 tonnes of steel? So 2 million wind turbines would be 20% of one month's production of steel.
- turbines? it's a well proven technology, there is no magic about who can build this stuff-- the Chinese have indeed already started, and so have the Indians. 2 million wind turbines of 1 MW each is hardly going to stress the world's manufacturing systems, long run.
grid capacity etc. most of it has to be built anyway.There's actually far more complexity and challenge in producing 1,000 passenger airlines pa, and Boeing and Airbus manage that.
2 million turbines at 1MW each (the latest offshore are going to be 5MW). 40,000 such turbines a year (pace something like 10k now).
Cost $2 trillion. About 4% of world GDP so 0.16% pa over 25 years. Something like 1% of world fixed capital investment in that time period.
The real story in wind is out there in the rest of the world: notably Germany, Spain, India.
China is starting to move. So is the UK.
roughly 5000 TWhr pa
10GW of capacity
10 X 365 X 24 = 87,600 GWhr
X .27 Load Factor = 23.652 TWHhr (0.28 is the UK load factor for sites that have had a full year of operation)
= 0.47% of US electricity consumption.
In a steady state, that is what you would expect US wind power to produce in 2008 (actually the US will have somewhat more than that capacity, from memory about 12GW at that point).
If the US adds 6GW pa after that, by 2010 it would have 24GW, so comfortably over 1% of total consumption.
Where did that come from? My understanding is that it's about 3,860 TWhr pa, or an average of 440TW.
I believe that the US has a higher wind capacity factor, around 30%.
I believe US capacity will be about 12.3 at the end of 2006 (which is pretty near): 9.1 at end of 2005 plus 3.2 in 2006.
That gives .84% of US electricity consumption. Given that there's 11.8GW of wind planned for 2007, I think we can expect to hit 1% within the year.
There's a pretty good chance we'll hit 2.5% by 2010, and with a serious (but realistically possible) effort we could hit 5%.
US is about 800GW of capacity, I think, and 4,000TW of consumption (ie 3,860).
Load Factor will fall, as the best sites are used up, but I was being deliberately conservative.
Load Factor for offshore sites might be as high as 35%.
The US is a different animal from Europe: we have so much wind potential, that we're very far from starting to use marginal sites. In fact, we have very little off-shore and turbines are getting bigger, so the average is more likely to rise than fall.
Alan
Worldwide wind capacity is doubling every 2 years, roughly.
After the USA, the number 2 or 3 wind installer is actually India.
In 10 years time, wind is going to be a significant chunk of change.
Currently US citizens consume something like 100,000 trillion BTU annually. If I am not mistaken that is a continuous use of 5kW per capita. We can safely assume that we really only need half of this and that we also have a thermal to electrical/mechanical power conversion factor of 0.4 in there, so that means, we can get away with a constant 1-2kW electrical source to power all of our needs.
The US probably owns the prime real estate for PV. So how much solar area do we need for that? We can get approx. 20Wc (continuous) out of one square meter of PV with 15% conversion efficiency. To get to the required amount of continuous power, with today's technology, all it takes are 50-100m^2 of solar cells per person.
And that is not such a big deal, considering the fact that close to 40% efficiency has been demonstrated in the lab and will easily be achievable within a few decades in residential installations. In which case we can satisfy all our energy needs with not much more than PV on the roof of our homes.
Not to mention that we will continue to have hydro, wind, some coal, some gas and some nuclear energy at our disposal.
I don't see a bleak future at all. I see a bright one. Cornucopia? Yes, but without today's waste.
I am a gadget inventor (thermal machines) and see plenty of possibilities for more and more fun making better machines that do more for less.
BUT- nothing works if population keeps doubling every x years, no matter what x is. Right now in the US x is 70 for going to 2N from N. All we have to do is to turn it to 1/2N in 70 instead of 2N in 70 and we can take it easy, and my grandkids might be able to go fishing in Tennessee creeks the way I did when I was 6 years old.
So, what invention do we do to make that happen? I have already suggested super sexy sterile robots, but people didn't like that idea for some reason. OK, so suggest something.
1 billion Indians burn 1/10th the resources of 300m Americans.
The problem is the standard of living, and particularly the way in which we choose to consume energy and produce environmental pollutants, in particular CO2.
The US population is doubling every 70 years, but it is the only industrialised country that is growing that fast. Some, such as Japan and Italy, are actually shrinking. So is Russia.
A significant chunk of that growth is the direct (or indirect) effects of migration. Basically, Hispanics move to the US from points south, and have large families for a generation or two, before they drop to the US average.
But in Mexico, the birth rate is in turn plummeting, Mexico is fast acquiring a 'developed world' population growth rate, as well as a burgeoning middle class.
And, sure, IF we had no immigration, then---. But we do have it. A lot of it. And all my friends say that's great. And when I ask them how much is enough, they have no answer except those stupid ponzi scheme vaporizings about needing more young people to support us old geezers.
So I say, at maybe age 20, you sign a contract to live at a certain income to maybe 80. And at that age, you suddenly find yourself not here any more, and so much for that. Me? I'm gettin mighty close. There's a plenty of people around as good or better than I ever was, so no loss.
hmmm. I'd rather make the commitment to drive an EV, eat a sustainably produced vegetarian diet, live in an urban condo, and otherwise live lightly on the land. Seems a lot easier and more enjoyable!!
They don't commute, they downsize their housing. They may travel, but certainly 80+ is not a big age for travel.
The big burn of money is health care and long term residential care. Which is a societal issue, but certainly not a big environmental issue.
That is approximately what 40 nuclear reactor units would cost (with a capacity of c. 64GW but higher production because they would run 80% of the time).
In terms of US consumption, at a 27% load factor that 200GW would produce
200 X 0.27 X 24hrs X 365 days = 473,040 GWhrs ie 473 terrawatt hours.
Which would be about 12% of current US energy production.
Right now the US is installing about 6GW per annum (and stretching world capacity to do it). So increasing that to say 12GW pa and installing that over 16 years is certainly feasible.
There is nothing inherently difficult from an engineering point of view.
If we find ways to manage it easily, it's time to expand our sights again. "Some people push the envelope, some just lick it, and some can't even find the flap!" Let's bust all the way out of that envelope.
2020 that is what I think is (eminently) doable.
Renewables could certainly be 20-30% of the US power demand (not including hydro). If good storage options become available, much much more.
If nuclear is another 20-30% (which requires a build programme that I think stretches the politically possible) then you still have 40% fossil fueled-- without sequestration I don't see how we can allow that.
The real problem is the likes of TXU applying for 10 coal fired plants.
That is going to create a massive CO2 increment, which will be very hard to unpick.
Arguably they are doing it so they will have the plants in place, when restrictions on CO2 emissions come.
Assume a continent wide HV DC network and demand 80% of today (conservation, far fewer electric water heaters, etc.) Add 5 GW hydro in Manitoba, finish James Bay in Quebec, many small run-of-river schemes, etc.
Geothermal is reengineered from base load to peaker by drilling many more wells and adding more turbines.
I keep changing numbers by a few %.
I think the following is doable for US & Canada. All measured by annual energy contribution to electrical grid.
53% wind
12% hydro (small tidal % ?)
-19% Pumped Storage
+15% Pumped Storage
23% nuke
16% other renewable
That 16% other renewable could/might be
4% geothermal (including some "hot rock" w/o natural steam)
3% biomass (much in CHP).
5% solar thermal in desert SW
4% solar PV
Nameplate % would be widely different.
The 4 hour time delta from East to West coast would work in favor of leveling the load. Geographic differences in climate would help as well.
A small fossil fuel (sequestered coal ? CCGT ?) backup would be kept in mothballs for extremes of climate or shortfalls in renewables (drought for hydro, calm for wind, cloudy for solar). Nameplate perhaps 8% of peak load ?
I think that this system could work and match load with generation. I cannot see how to do it without nuclear providing a good % of baseload demand.
I keep looking at seasonal shifting via pumped air storage (~60% cycle efficiency). Only pumped air into depleted NG reserviors and similar would have the capacity to shift meaningful amounts seasonally.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Let me list the nameplate for each type as a % of peak + required reserve (required reserve are units to available but not producing. They are there "just in case"). % of annual energy in brackets.
Assume summer peak, but with increased use of geothermal heat pumps that may be wrong. On a seasonal average, average daily peak is maybe 80% of seasonal peak. Daily minimum 2/3rds of daily peak, average load 4/5ths of daily peak (remember 4 time zones/5 in Canada "smear" the peak).
4% Interruptable Power (mainly industry that agrees to be shut down when supplies are tight) [0%]
~210% wind (discussion below) [53%]
~38% hydro (not all available upon demand) Add turbines to existing plants for more peak power [12%]
45% Pumped Storage (discussion below) [15%]
21% nuke (refueling & maintenance scheduled for off peak months) Positioning of nukes helps weak renewable areas like South Florida [23%]
14% Geothermal (rebuilt as peakers from baseload today. Add more wells & turbines, on average 1/3.5th of the time). Mainly West Coast & Rocky Mountains [4%]
8% Backup Fossil Fuels for unusual years (building extra capacity for drought years, unusual wind calms, cloudy days is uneconomic per tonne carbon saved). [0% in average years]
38% Solar PV & Thermal (need to check ratio of nameplate to actual, any help ?) Thermal only in desert SW, PV mainly in southern areas but some "everywhere" but NW.
8% Biomass Used mainly for peaking or for central heat & power plants (winter mainly).
I am operating under the assumption that wind is the cheapest (all factors) power source and that, in some respects, the solution to low summer winds is more WTs. Wide geographic distribution, even in areas with marginal wind resources if they help balance the load. The result is overbuilt winter generation (is pumped air the solution for seasonal shifting, or just build more WTs ?) The advantages of surplus winter power (promote geothermal heat pumps) make more WTs better than pumped air storage.
Pumped Hydro Storage has two capacities. One is the common MW peak generation, determined by # of generators and tunnel diameter. The other is MWh, determined by the size of the upper & lower reserviors. Some geographically restricted pumped storage projects (see Texas) may have a lot of MW for limited MWh. However, the overall average should be about 120 MWh for every MW. This is a LOT of pumped storage !
Three more units can be added next to Raccoon Mountain near Chattanooga TN, etc. but the Upper Penisula of Michigan may be the best center for massive pumped storage (Lake Superior & Michigan as lower reserviors). Manipulating the Great Lake levels (within natural bounds), sacrificing Niagara Falls tourist potential (in part) and turning Niagara Falls into a peaking plant with as much as 20 GW (more in St Lawrence downriver).
In some ways, very active pumped storage units (over half the time either pumping or generating at part load) are, with HV DC transmission, the key to this system. Fortunately, pumped storage projects are multi-century investments (rebuild generators every 40-50 years unless technology improves).
Properly done this will require an extraordinarily complex computer simulation. What I have done is to use my knowledge of MANY "bits & pieces" and stitch them together using my judgment and much reflection. The goals are minimal carbon emissions from electrical generation, lowest economic costs, and grid stability slightly worse than today (which I consider acceptable). Any blackouts will be short due to the large # of pumped storage units (ideal for black start).
Best Hopes,
Alan
I was thinking South Florida could be good for renewables-- because offshore wind works well?
The real problem is that you have storms and hurricanes, and you have to shut down. Indeed, as we found with Katrina, you might be seriously damaged.
This is going to become an issue, and since off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas is a great place for wind power, a serious one. Unfortunately with a dovetail with global warming (higher surface temperature of water => worse storms).
Wind 55% (up from 53%)
going to
-2% Pumped Air Storage
This is long term storage in depleted natural gas reserviors. In an "average year", this stored energy will not be tapped. basicly winter surplus wind power (perhaps no new turbines for this extra 2%) is stored in pumped air (cycle efficiency ~60$).
Best Hopes,
Alan
This is probably an illusion created by comparing moderate-speed EVs with ultra-high speed rail. Moderate-speed rail (around 100 mph or so) is inherently more efficient than personal passenger vehicles or even buses, by a factor of at least 2, even if we compare diesel automobiles with diesel rail. With electric rail we have the advantage of not having to drag around the stored energy and being able to reinsert the kinetic energy to the grid with regenerative braking. I believe that modern moderate-speed electric passenger rail is the most efficient land-based mode of passenger traffic.
Ultra-high speed rail does not compete against personal vehicles, it competes against airline traffic and thus is a winner if it can outperform air traffic efficiency-wise while not losing too much on time.
Electric vehicles are much more efficient than diesel vehicles, by a factor of roughly 4 to 1. Ultra-high speed rail does indeed use more energy than moderate speed rail, but urban rail (light or heavy) also uses more than EV's:
APTA's 2006 Public Transportation Fact Book, Table 55, "Bus and Trolleybus National Totals, Fiscal Year 2004", that Heavy Rail (e.g. New York subway, Washington Metro, BART -- Table 81) carried 14,354,281,000 passenger miles or 3,683,674,000 kWh, for a whrs/mile of 257 (light rail and trolleys were higher, but accounted for only 11% of "rail" miles).
257 whrs/miles is about (or a little higher than) what the Prius and Tesla use, and doesn't account for the ratio of # of passengers to vehicle, which would lower the energy use per passenger mile for EV's. That's what I'm thinking about.
I agree that transit-oriented development, growing usage, lighter chassis's, better scheduling etc, will increase efficiency. OTOH, EV/PHEV efficiency is also a moving target: Toyota intends to make the next Prius roughly 25% more efficient, with more efficient batteries and other stuff. The Tesla is optimized for acceleration, not efficiency.
Finally, I see marginal electrical efficiency as not that big a deal, as I don't see an electricity shortage. Peak oil is really just a liquid fuels problem, at least in the US. GW is a factor, but EV/PHEV's work really well with wind, in fact they support wind with a multiplier effect, so that as you add more EV/PHEV's you decrease BOTH liquid fuel usage AND coal usage.
I just don't see an energy efficiency rationale for promoting rail over EV/PHEV's. Now, I see a lot of other reasons: congestion, speed & convenience (for SOME uses, though definitely not for some others), promotion of urban lifestyle (though to me rail seems to work almost as well with suburbia as it does with urban life), safety, lower stress, etc. are all good reasons to like rail over personal electric vehicles. Just not energy efficiency.
If you don't think the goal is to tear down suburbia, you need to see a shrink.
'Permaculturist', and by that I mean TOD brand of permaculturist', aren't willing to accept that we just might not have to tear down suburbia at all, and that we can actually live within our means with minimal modifications to our current lifestyles.
I wonder if any of them ever bothered to investigate how much energy/resources/money it would take to accomplish their goal of undoing what 50 years of progress has done when compared to massive Solar/Wind generator buildup and converting our auto fleet to EVs and PEHVs. Remember: to meet Heinberg and Collins goal of sustainable farming via 50-70% of the US population, we HAVE to tear down suburbia and use that land for farming again!! I'd be willing to wager it would take far less to do the later then the former! :P
And the side effect of massive Global Warming.
Offical US Gov't policies succeeded in destroying almost every downotwn in the nation and "trashing" much of our pre-existing housing from 1950 to 1970.
Peak Oil (with assistance from the housing bubble) can do even more than VA loans "small print", Insterstate highways and white flight to transform our urban form.
We did it once, we shoudl do it again.
Absent taxing the viable parts of our cities to subside suburbs and exurbs (for example building one new road is a subsidy for the suburbs sinc esome city taxes are involved), the suburbs will fall of their own weight. Boards will cover suburban windows and doors as they once did inner city homes 40 years ago.
How many "For Sale" signs do you see in your neighborhood as you walk (oops) drive around ?
I use 6 gallons of diesel per month. I can easily cut down to 4 gallons/month, perhaps 3 gallons without major strain. What about you ?
Best Hopes (but not for suburbia)
Alan Drake
"Peak Oil (with assistance from the housing bubble) can do even more than VA loans "small print", Insterstate highways and white flight to transform our urban form."
Your right. We can all learn to use our energy more efficiently and finally kick our ICE habit and change over to EVs and PEHVs. We're doooooooooomed!
Not "we". Just suburbia (absent subsidies to prop them up from the viable sections).
The rate of change is quite likely to prevent a 15 year changeover (starting in, say, 2012) to widespread EVs and PIHVs with associated improvements in the electrical grid & generation (don't raise MY bill to subsidize suburban EVs !)
Yes, there will be a housing bust in suburbia. We made a bad investment of several trillion $, subsidized it heavily. Now is the time to "pull the plug" on subsidies for suburbia and let economics take it's toll.
Let us create (and let suburbia subsidize it :-) and better (in all ways) urban form for former suburbanites to escape to.
Nothing overt like VA loans for suburban houses but NOT for pre-WW II housing. (although adding a "risk premium" of 0.5% onto every new mortgage for a suburban house sounds good ! Turn about is fair play after all).
Best Hopes (but not for post WW II Suburbia)
Alan Drake
BTW, you will be perfectly free to stay in your suburban house between the boarded up ones.
Interest on any mortgage issued after 1/1/8 cannot be deducted from the taxpayer's federal income taxes. Interest on existing mortgages in force as of 12/31/7 can still be deducted until paid off. Any refinancing of a qualifying mortgage will remove the qualification unless the refinancing reduces the principal by at least 5% or shortens the term by at least 3 years.
i) Interest on mortgages issued on primary residences after 1/1/8 can still be deducted if the tax payer can show that the front door or 3/4 of the property mortgaged is within 1 mile of an electrified Urban Rail stop or station (measured from the closest loading platform).
Change the date to 1/1/01 or even 1/1/15. The effect will be the same :-)
Alan
The average suburban commute is less than 30 miles round trip. A plug-in hybrid with a 50 mile range would handle that, and anything beyond that is long-distance travel that is the same for urbanites. PHIV's would need only minor modifications to current hybrids. The only barrier is that batteries are currently sufficiently expensive that they can't compete with cheap gas. OTOH, right now they only add $.10 per mile to travel costs (over current cheap gas), and in 5 years they almost certainly will be cheap enough to add less than 5 cents per mile. Is $1.50-$3.00 per day additional cost going to push people to the city?
You only need to convert about 50% of the vehicles to capture 75% of miles traveled (there are 210M vehicles, and only 100K households - there are a lot of vehicles getting very little use). You're talking probably only 105M vehicles, or 6 years production. As noted above the engineering is trivial - it's really a matter of retooling factories and ramping up battery production, which could be done in less than 5 years.
It seems to me that 11 years is fast enough.
Don't mistake me. I like the city, and rail. I live in the city, and take rail every day. But, I don't really see expensive gas coercing people to move to the city.
What do you think of the foregoing analsis?
Location, location, location.
Living in Iowa we have great wind many days of the year, but not every day. We also have good solar gain many days, but not all, particularly in fall and winter. Interestingly a lot of overcast days in Iowa are very windy. And calm hot days in the summer are clear with 15 hour solar gain vs less than 8 in winter. Biomass is useful because it is independant of both wind and solar to some extent, but is very seasonal with respect to harvest and yields. And the EROI is a bit suspect sometimes.
So in aggregate all these approaches can compliment each other if designed to do so. They all have their place and should be considered and optimized, for the particular location. Solar doesn't work real well in Seattle for instance (300+ days with overcast if memory is correct). And for Iowa, hydro-electric isn't even considered. We are too flat without enough fall or stream flow to make the economics work.
But in aggregate none of these systems is going to replace all of the energy we currently derive from burning fossil fuels (at least I can't make the numbers add up). So the key is what structures can we put up that will last a long time and provide acceptable power over their lifetime? And that might improve the ecosystem rather than destroy it? And paying close attention to what works, where, rather than what works everywhere is key. Fossil fuels work everywhere, 24/7. Not so with renewable sources. We have to re-learn to capture and store some excess energy when Mother Nature gives us a chance. And we have to re-learn that we can't always have unlimited power at our finger tips 24/7.
I see 72 TW from wind, and 100,000 TW from solar, versus about 4.5 TW in human consumption world-wide.
What are your numbers?
Nick,
I'm all for Solar and Wind, et al, but I think supply and demand are going to end up meeting in the middle somewhere. I don't believe we can expect a supply of renewables that will outstrip the kind of power we consume today. I think we'll see the population follow the oil curve, but I don't insist that it will all be bloody revolutions.. prob. a bunch like the sad misadventures we're watching now, between things like Iraq, Katrina and the Tsunami, where great loss of life may not be replaced as briskly (if at all) as it was a couple decades ago. We'll fight it over there, we'll fight it here.. regardless of rhetoric or campaign promises.
That said, I think we should be installing just prodigious numbers of solar water heating systems at this point. The tech can be dead simple, (you don't have to have evac tube collectors, for instance) at which point we'd be collecting a fine amount of our calories, freeing up grid power, nat gas and #2 oil.. (and by extension, a whole bunch of coal and carbon emissions).. it's just not sexy and urgent enough yet.. sad to say.
Bob
Apologies for not responding yesterday. The job calls.
The problem with your numbers is that they are planet wide distributed energy. But the energy consumption is not uniformly distributed. The U.S. uses 1/4 of all the oil alone. That means individuals and households consume more energy than can be generated on site, or even near site, for most of the U.S.. I have tried to figure out how to capture enough energy from renewable sources to replace my own energy footprint. I can't put up enough solar and wind capture to do that on my 1/4 acre lot.
It isn't about how much energy I can get from the sun and wind, it is about how much energy I (and my family) consume. Transportation and heating are the big killers. In the summer, if I don't need to go anywhere, I could capture enough watts to run all the appliances, electronics and lights. Driving anywhere though requires a huge excess of electricity going into batterries for a plug in hybrid.
Winter is a whole other issue. I can't generate enough electricity on site to feed my demand, and I am pretty energy efficient compared to the average American. So I extrapolate that daily energy capture through wind and solar in the U.S. is not going to be enough to replace current energy usage for electricty, heat, and transportation. Most of the high energy consuming people are not where most of the energy can be captured.
The world has moved away from 'on site' energy since at least Thomas Edison.
(arguably before: gas lighting, coal for heating etc.).
I think a big part of the answer is that solar PV is still much more expensive than the alternatives: greater efficiency, the grid, etc.
There's more than enough sunlight on your lot: a 1/4 acre is about 10,000 square feet. By the most conservative calculations that would produce 100,000 kwhrs per year, far more than you would ever need. The problem is that all that PV would cost a million dollars right now.
Also, you're not likely to have optimal wind, and a tiny wind installation isn't particularly cost-effective.
So, it's less a question of adequacy of supply, and more of cost and location (which are solveable). Does that answer your question? I can give more info on cost, if you want.
Whatsamatter with you guys, thinking all in a herd all the time, hey?
(duck!)
Not maybe the ideal solution (what is?) but certain to be a big feature of coal fired and gas fired generation post 2020.
The problem is we may need it sooner.