<The Oil Drum Celebrates 3M unique visits and 8M page views The Oil Drum ASPO-USA: Support for Global Energy Flow modelling and a Net Energy database>
<DrumBeat: October 31, 2006 DrumBeat DrumBeat: November 2, 2006>

272 comments on DrumBeat: November 1, 2006

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Show without comments | PDF version

InfinitePossibilities on November 1, 2006 - 4:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for the rundown.

Nuclear is an alternative - with extemely heavy political brakes on. Until people can agree on what to do with the waste and that Pu is not evil if managed properly and fuel recycling is established (which would be economically devastating for Uranium mining...) nuclear is not a viable option.

And now we factor in the growth and projected price slump of PV... by the time nuclear lifts a leg, PV and conservation have run circles around the block.

In a year or two PV will deliver the equivalent of one nuclear reactor a year. At a 30% growth rate that looks like follows:

  1. 1.0 reactor, cumulative 2.0 reactors
  2. 1.3 reactors, cumulative 3.3 reactors
  3. 1.7 reactors, cumulative 5.0 reactors
  4. 2.2 reactors, cumulative 7.2 reactors
  5. 2.9 reactors, cumulative 10.1 reactors
  6. 3.7 reactors, cumulative 13.8 reactors
  7. 4.8 reactors, cumulative 18.6 reactors
  8. 6.2 reactors, cumulative 24.8 reactors
  9. 3.3 reactors, cumulative 28.1 reactors
  10. 8.2 reactors, cumulative 36.3 reactors
  11. 10.6 reactors, cumulative 46.9 reactors
  12. 13.8 reactors, cumulative 60.7 reactors
  13. 17.9 reactors, cumulative 78.6 reactors

Now add another 50 reactors saved by conservation measures.
Is the world going to build 130 new reactors until 2020?
And replacing the old ones is not even factored in, yet.

Which politician wants to run on the nucleat ticket?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
LevinK on November 1, 2006 - 5:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Two years back I was earning 10K/year, last year it was 20K and today I'm making 40. I find it self-evindent that in just 10 years I will be making $4.096 mln/year, which in 20 years will grow to well above 4 billion a year.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
plucky underdog on November 2, 2006 - 2:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Can you give a source for those numbers? This table...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#Worldwide_installed_photovoltaic_totals

...shows what looks like about 1GWE (peak power) installed wordwide in 2005. That's about 1 reactor at peak, or maybe 30% of a reactor allowing for daily cycles and seasonality.

Are you numbers peak output or annual average?

Note that this source http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/electricity.html gives world electricity consumption of 14800E9 kWh in 2003. There are about 8000 hours in a year, so let's say a nice round CONSTANT 24/7/365 load of 2000 gigawatts. So by 2020, on your projections, solar PV could be producing 4% of the 2003 average demand (or 2% of 2020 demand on the EIA's estimate). Assuming the solar cells never age, of course. And assuming the supply chain doesn't get bottlenecked somewhere.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

272 comments on DrumBeat: November 1, 2006

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Show without comments | PDF version