I'm starting to get angry. The article outlines what has been obvious for a long time: the true EROEI of renewables is in the low single digits and will remain there at least in the observable future. This makes it absolutely impossible for them to replace fossil fuels and nuclear, something they are being continuously advertised for.
We can experiment with wind and solar today, when fossils are cheap and we are not confronted yet with the necessety to store the renewable energy, but stubornly refusing to face the realities of tomorrow is a perfect recipe for disaster.
The reality is the following: either we start building nuclear power plants (EROEI ~ 50, potential reserves in the order of million years) or we decide to give up the industrial civilisation. The stubborn refusal of enviromentalists even to mention the word "nuclear" makes me think they want us to pick the second option. What they do not tell us is what their "bright, non-industrial future" will be like which tells me that they simply don't know. They don't know neither what it would look like, nor how we can get there without shooting ourselves along the way. They are pushing their vague daydreams to all of us and we are buying it, because we are the same daydreamers that like and even demand to be fooled.
One thing is sure - either thing happening - a massive die-off or a massive but hard switch to nuclear power, our kids will be looking at us and wondering what kind of idiots were living at the beginning of the 21st century.
Many environmentalists are supporting nuclear these days, because of global warming
True, but it is almost as far to becoming a MSM as the economists acknowledging PO as a serious problem. I'm sorry for generalising too much but it is the MSM that the public is getting the messages from.
As for the NIMBYsm - it is mostly function of the way the media presents things. While media is being a double whore (sorry for the expression) - serving both what the public wants to hear and what their sponsors want to be published, you can not rely on anything meaningful as a public opinion. IMO it is obvious there are situations it needs to be overriden - who supported USA going to war against Nazi Germany for example? For a reversal to happen it is the responsibility of those that ignited the NIMBYsm at the first place to admit they could have been wrong. I don't expect this to happen.
I am one of those environmentalists. I've had my share of marches and blockades, but I have done a 160 on this issue after 30 years (not quite 180).
The environment movement is split on this issue, but the pro-nuke wing is a minority wing. Same over the question of immigration as we witnessed with the election last year for the Board of the Sierra Club. The let us stop immigration minority wing was labeled as "racist" over wanting less people to illegally enter the USA.
There are many environmentalist (a minority) who want to go back to the Rousseau "noble savage" world too. They may get their opportunity, but it is interesting to note that those same noble savages killed off the mammoth, mastodon, etc.
"but it is interesting to note that those same noble savages killed off the mammoth, mastodon, etc.
"
Worth repeating. Making some past culture your latest and greatest mental refuge (religion) is silly. Our ancestors were just as cut-throat as us.
Otherwise The Mother of Nature would be looking on a group of Homo Saps doing something Other than making plans to gor at eachothers throat and ask questions later.
Most likely it was a combination of the two, but there are good arguments made on both sides. The so-called "savages" lived with the same pressures we do--finding enough resources to survive and reproduce. In an environment where there was an abundance of other game, I doubt there was much pressure to conserve one species. Mammoth and mastodon were preferred because there was a lot of return on your investment of energy. Once they were gone, people switched to other sources but probably not without difficulty. In general (there are always exceptions of course), tribal hunter/gatherers evolved ways of living sustainably in their environments, including keeping their population sizes stable through infanticide if necessary. While that statement might be construed as an argument for the validity of:
"Our ancestors were just as cut-throat as us" there are also examples of hunter/gatherer cultures that are much more cooperative and non-agressive than we are. Google the Kung people of the Kalahari, or the Mbuti people of the Forest in Africa. There are also the Yanomamo in the Amazon, however. My point is that it's not necessarily true that humans are by nature wasteful or "cut-throat". Culture has much more to do with it and that is something we can change. Given the dwindling supply of the resources that keep our culture going, IMO we are definitely going to have to change and adapt in order to survive.
I agree. The Titanic is going full-speed ahead, and we are about three nautical miles from that big bad berg. On TOD I've seen a fairly sharp division of opinion between:
1. Those who advocate immediate and big-time investment in nuclear energy.
versus
2. Those who apparently cannot do even simple algebra, maybe not even sixth-grade-level percentage-type computations.
Politics rules, and most politicians appear to be innumerate, or too scared about the next election to tell the truth. Or both.
Apparently the people in your first group can do algebra but can't do arithmetic, or they would know that a coal power plant is $1000/kw, a natural gas power plant is $500/kw, and the cheapest nuke is $2000/kw in investment. The people who actually control the investment money all seem to be in your second group.
...and wind is about $5000/kw (not counting energy storage costs), but I'm still not ruling it out. Why am I not? Because of the future.
We have oil that can power our civilisation for 10 year, NG for 20 years, coal for 100 years, uranium/thorium for many thousands of years, while wind could at least partioally power it indefinately (after you factor out the resources you need to build it). It is the availability and the impact of the resources we use that matter.
Even economicaly - just look 20 years ahead. Price of oil will probably be in the stratosphere, NG and coal will be somewhere above the clouds, while uranium will still be cheap. Because it is abundant, and we will not have to worry about it in the next several thousand years.
I'm for some nuclear. But thinking that it's being stopped by some innumerate conspiracy of environmentalists is nuts. There are no plants being built because they're too expensive. They're too expensive because they take too long to build (6 years vs 3), they take too much field construction, and nobody's done one for so long there's no experience in the U.S. Get a small, cheap, easily installed nuke and you won't have any problem selling it to utilities.
The irony is that "small, cheap, easily installed nuke" is not achievable without public support. The technical pieces are there and have always been. The economics has also always been there, and is improving drastically with time.
It's just like with wind - you need a public support to do it, because wind needs subsidies. In this case the subsidy required is "trust" plus "public control". It is simple - nobody will bury $2-3 billions if they are not sure that the next goverment will not just close down the project because of NIMBYsm. Public control is needed to ensure everything is built safely. I feel it is the need for public control that drives many people away - they prefer not to care. I think it is time to care.
VS the subsides oil gets (do you think the military isn't one?)
VS the subsides nuclear power gets (by law, the libality is limited)
VS the subsidies (of whatever) gets (insert tax law treatment, laws or whatever)
Is the 'propping up' of wind less than, say nuclear power? The occational failure of a wind turbine means something on the ground gets hit. What IS the downside when nuclear power fails?
VS the subsides oil gets (do you think the military isn't one?)
I'm not advocating oil. Using it and especially coal is probably the greatest liability we're leaving for the future.
VS the subsides nuclear power gets (by law, the libality is limited)
Where is the subsidy here? Make a research how much nuclear power plants are paying on insurance yearly. Many, many billions. How much is it paying to government in terms of license fees, fees for building that storage in Yuca Mountain, etc. etc? Even more. There is a reason why governments like nuclear - they are profitable and a cash cow at any stage of their operation. Unfortunatelly the fear from not being re-elected is stronger for any politician than the concern for budget balance (we can always print money, right?).
Usually governments give guarantees for financing of new plants, but this is because of the nature of the business and does not affect taxpayers in 99% of the cases.
Finally wind will also be developed by huge corporations seeking profits. I don't see any place for idealism here.
research how much nuclear power plants are paying on insurance yearly.
That would be the rates under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act?
Its a mighty BIG government handout.
But, go ahead. Figure out what the libality of operatioon of a nuclear plant would be WITHOUT that law,
they are profitable and a cash cow at any stage of their operation.
What an over-the-top statement. When they are being built, they are not operational and therefore tyou have choen to ignore the cost. When they are de-commissioned, they are not operational and therefore you have chosen to ignore the costs.
Most businesses have to pay for their waste liability. Yet, the nuclear power industry has the government take on that libality. (Yet another subsusidy)
How was Chynerboyl and Three Mile Island 'profitable' due to their operation? Lets concentrate on the last few days of operation, because they ARE profitable at ANY stage of operation, right?
Finally wind will also be developed by huge corporations seeking profits.
Better check you statements before posting. Everything is paid for, it is a capitalism you are living in.
Utilities pay interest on capital for the time they are constracting the plants. They have also accumulated close to 100 bln. in payments to the govt for that waste disposal site we still hope to see in our lifetime. Bad decision to rely on our govmnt to do that - it seem that former Soviets was much more effective, because it solved their problem decades ago and many times cheaper.
Chernobyl was in former USSR, where everything was payed by the government and utilities did not pay insurance. Don't start me on that topic for I'll be long.
First there is a question of arithmetic--adding up how much capacity is needed. I see no evidence that you have done this.
Second there is the question of whether coal and nuclear are complementary or competitive approaches. Clearly, they are complementary. Again, doing the simple column addition, how much added capacity is going to be needed (on reasonable demand projections) over the next ten two twenty years? After you have done this computation, please find me one knowledgeable coal person who claims that coal alone can do this.
Third: If coal is so great, why don't the French and Japanese use more of it? They have good ports and if it made any economic sense (which it does not) they could have opted to import huge quantitities of coal rather than going nuclear.
You're right. There is a third group that can do math, but can not do neither sociology nor psychology.
Because the same people that talk about "power down" and a return to the pastoral living of shepherds in the loans of ex-suburbia, will be the first that will start screaming when homo sapiens begins eating itself and the whole planet alongside, trying to protect what it has now.
Obviously, anyone who speaks of a pastoral living of sheperds has never actaully BEEN a farmer or had to deal with more than a cat or a dog.
Powerdown is GOING to happen. The overall energy used by machines and humans WILL fall. The only question is, what rates of fall, and if the watt/human ratio will fall also.
Importing energy from space into the envelope of the earth will result in heating. The use of fusion power at a level to support all of the humans now on the planet would also add heat to the atmospheric envelope.
Getting off planet and harvesting the other planets in an orgy of consumption would work...if the energy source like fusion were to become more harvestable than just collecting photons from fusion.
screaming when homo sapiens begins eating itself and the whole planet alongside, trying to protect what it has now.
Then education has no hope, does it? Because what it has in the recient past was cheap energy. That cheap energy is at an end. Nuke power isn't AS cheap/flexable as oil. Nor is wind, PV, or hydro. Biomass can be as flexable (bvecause oil is just old biomass...processed), but it will not be as cheap.
I'm far from being hopeless. There is a huge resource available in terms of efficienty, conservation even renewables will help.
The reason nuke power is not cheap is that it is not mass produced. It is not mass produced because of cheap fossils before and because of NIMBYsm now. And not to last extent because of not enough international cooperation in the sphere plus strong oil/coal industries receiving huge profits for relying on their dwindling and polluting resources. All of this can change if we start working for it. And - again - and of course - we must fire all guns. ALL of them.
Right. All of them. Even biofuel and powerdown and in microscopic way, even the poop in a bucket types, if the bucket is connected to a tank under the house so we can let it decay (generating low grade heat) while composting. Note, this is for nonflush toilets only!
But really, it's going to be nukes, coal, solar, and wind. Or maybe coal, nukes, wind, and solar.
Now if only we could get wave costs down to wind costs, there's so much slamming into the California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia every day...
Very good stuff. I think there is Absolutely NO HOPE... NOT even in Hades when it's hot or cold.
At least no hope for the Global Village Mass Delusion.
The one where Every Tom, Chen, or Ahmoud (sp??) can live in a First World Home Country. "Not gonna happen, uh-Ah, no sir, not gonna happen."
I think Fractured Fairy Tales is coming. Pockets of Civilization instead of Pockets of 3rd World-or-less poverty will become the norm for a while.
Religious nutz will hopefully voluntarily Remove themselves from the Gene Pool in the process thank their godzain'treal.
EEeeeeventually of course this will all be followed by a Tousind year Raign of Terror if the Religious Fanatics decide to use their Tool to Crush Skulls instead of Build Communities.
Or, maybe some Phantasm will come riding out of the clouds and usher in a thousand years of peices-of-8.
There is a division of opinion on nuclear energy, and if you care to get past your intellectual arrogance and take a look at the marketplace, private investors have weighed in against nuclear and for renewables. Politicians know that private industry won't foot the investment or insurance costs and have saddled us taxpayers with unlimited loan guarantees and insurance protection for new reactors. The opportunity costs alone should be enough to sink the nuclear Titanic.
Insurance do not matter for a society as a whole as long as accidents that do massive damages to the surroundings are uncommon and the economical gain from the electricity produced is very large. Think of it as a massive-earthquake every 1000 years in a very fertile area.
Insurance is not an especially effective way to handle very large and very uncommon accidents. How do you correctly size the insurance funds? How do you keep them liquid, where are they to be invested and what is to be done with the raw economical power those massive funds will have?
I use to advocate that a large number of nuclear power producers, preferably all of them, should agree to write contracts with a clause to all raise their prices with 0.1 cent after a major accident and use the massive money flow to compensate victims and work with decontamination etc. This would create a money flow that could pay for any reasonably sized relief effort for manny years.
As soon as there is someone out there that can convince me that nuclear energy is not utterly depending on an underlying fossilfuel infrastructure I will change my mind and become pro nuclear energy. Untill then, I will not.
I don't think that anyone can convince you that uranium hexaflouride isotope separation centrifuges aren't powered by high-test gasoline. Not even if you saw them connected to a power line to a nuclear reactor across the parking lot.
I don't think that anyone can convince you that cement kilns are powered by coal. Well, these days a lot of them run on oil. Specifically the used crankcase oil they get from Jiffylube and other oil change franchises. But they don't run on natural gas anymore, now that the price of natural gas has got so high.
You put an impossible requirement. Nobody can convince you that, because it is not possible to be true, at least not now or in the observable future.
The point is that nuclear is much less dependant on fossil fuel subsidy than the proposed alternatives.
Compare the numbers:
To review, nuclear power plants built in the 1970's used 40 metric tons of steel, and 190 cubic meters of concrete, for each megawatt of average capacity. For comparison, modern wind energy systems, with good wind conditions, take 460 metric tons of steel and 870 cubic meters of concrete per megawatt.
To replace US electricity generation system with wind turbines we are going to need some 4500 GW of capacity, correspondent to 3 mln.middle sized turbines (or 1 mln. offshore turbines). This would translate into some:
~ 2070 mln. tonnes of steel;
~ 3915 mln.m^3 of concrete (40 years of total US production!)
~ Enormous amounts of composites, wires, pavement for access roads etc.
~ Undefined amount of (yet to be invented/developed) energy storage
Even worse though, each year we will need to recycle 3 to 5% of them due to amortisation.
In comparison 700GW of nukes would require:
~ 28 mln tonnes of steel
~ 133 mln.m^3 of concrete (1.3 years of US production)
~ Much less additional infrastructure because we can place them wherever we want.
The numbers are 30 to 80 times lower! Do I need to comment?
My God, if these numbers are good, (ie, comparing modern nuclear plants to modern windmills, as distinct from comparing Calder Hall type nuclear power plants to old windmill designs), then it would take China an entire year to replace the entire US nuclear reactor capacity with windmills!
No, about five years to build one plant, by which time it will be necessary to build another four to replace the windmills built since then, by which time it will be necessary to build sixteen...
The reality is the following: either we start building nuclear power plants (EROEI ~ 50, potential reserves in the order of million years) or we decide to give up the industrial civilisation.
Not quite. The knowledge gained about the physical world won't go away, unless humanity destroys that knowledge. The abilities of modern metal making, ceramics, composites are not something anyone wants to give up on, and like the launching of satalites to watch the weather will find many people who'd sacrifice to keep that functionality.
a massive die-off
A die off would allow for the use of taking photons and fixing them as hydrocarbons, alcohols, directly to current, or moving conductors through magentic fields and the resulting harvest of energy to keep the ones alive at the level of existance they are used to.
The problem is overcoming human greed and corruption, not to mention their fondness for the past of cheap oil and an unwillingness to give up on that past.
Besides, don't you think that the "power elite" would be unwilling to have you killed just so they can keep their black SUV's?
40 years ago we sent people to the Moon. Now we don't know how, we don't have the infrastructure, the will and the energy. And we did not even experience a single cataclysm in the meantime.
Human knowledge is lost. We are all part of a complex system aimed to preserve it and to pass it on to the next generations. Remove any part of it and after 3-4 generations we are back to feodalism, if not worse.
I will risk angering you yet further. I would argue that our industrial civilization cannot be sustained as it is, not indefinitely into the future, in any case. So there will need to be a descent, and I would hope (probably in vain) for a gradual, civilized and rational descent, to a smaller global population that lives in a different way than we do now, rescuing as much as possible of science and international culture, as much as is affordable to a reduced and sustainable budget. I agree Kunstler and others in a general way on this matter.
Here's the problem with nuclear. I'll concede, at least for the sake of argument, that in theory a nuclear power plant can be operated safely. If all the procedures developed by the engineers are followed scrupulously and indefinitely out into the future, then all will be well. What no engineer can guarantee is that the procedures will be followed. That's because engineers cannot guarantee societal stability. They cannot guarantee that even just the profit motive might not lead to "shortcuts".
So what is proposed is a massive expansion of nuclear technology on an ever weaker industrial base, with the ever greater prospect of social turmoil and instability. So there are then at least two factors here which are greatly multiply the chances of disaster.
Well, if there were real hope that in spite of all this it would at least give us a chance to go on at least remotely like we are now, then one could entertain the thought. But it does not. Because there is not an infinite supply of uranium either. Aha! Breeders you say. And here the dangers escalate several orders of magnitude. And still there remains a horizon.
No matter how you slice it, technology alone is not going to save us this time. Science is going to have to be applied to the globe and our relation to it -- nothing short of that. And as of right now, I think science suggests that we may have overshot. How much? Science is mumbling on this one.
I don't believe in anything else: science and rationality. But they have to be applied to globe now. Don't get angry. Say where you differ.
I concur to the "power down" in terms of efficiency and one how can I say... less materialistic way of life.
But there are limits to efficiency and also below some level the line of material wellfare will threaten the basic needs of humans. This should be avoided - there is already enough starvation in the world. Here nuclear power will help, because fossils will be depleted much faster than our society will be able to transform.
I don't accept the die-off hipothesis, let alone propositions. It isn't natural and can not happen "peacfully" in any way. Even a natural decreasing population will result in enourmous pressure of one elderly world that can drive us to even lower end-point.
IMO the industrial civilisation is sustainable. The industries will change and adapt, after we (finally) learn to exercise a better control over the impact they have on environment.
The fate of capitalism is more questionable and I see it turning into something less-resembling cancer but I don't dare to predict what it will be.
Overall I tend to resist fiercely to revolutionistic ideas. They have never brought anybody any good.
I would expect a TMI accident or worse every 2-3 generations. Each one followed by a revision of procedures, training and equipment status on most nuclear powerplants since they are expensive capital assets and a loss of one is more intolerable then high running costs.
Nuclear reactors and their support infrastructure will be crown jewels in an energy poor society. Almost as valuble as good hydro dams.
Given global warming (oh, yeah, climate change) and the congestion of old reservoirs, the perspectives for hydro are not very bright. They will be more valuable for the water they hold, the energy usage will need to step back IMO.
Regarding nuclear safety - I think we are very close to producing a self regulating plant design. It can only get better there, unless we are headed for a nuclear rush build up, which to be worried about. Already incidents of the type the public fears (Chernobil type) are practically impossible in contemporary water moderated reactors - if the core gets overheated the water turns to steam and steam does not slow neutrons well; the result is that fission slows very fast and will finally stop even if the control rods or/and cooling system are out of order.
We can experiment with wind and solar today, when fossils are cheap and we are not confronted yet with the necessety to store the renewable energy, but stubornly refusing to face the realities of tomorrow is a perfect recipe for disaster.
The reality is the following: either we start building nuclear power plants (EROEI ~ 50, potential reserves in the order of million years) or we decide to give up the industrial civilisation. The stubborn refusal of enviromentalists even to mention the word "nuclear" makes me think they want us to pick the second option. What they do not tell us is what their "bright, non-industrial future" will be like which tells me that they simply don't know. They don't know neither what it would look like, nor how we can get there without shooting ourselves along the way. They are pushing their vague daydreams to all of us and we are buying it, because we are the same daydreamers that like and even demand to be fooled.
One thing is sure - either thing happening - a massive die-off or a massive but hard switch to nuclear power, our kids will be looking at us and wondering what kind of idiots were living at the beginning of the 21st century.
I don't think that's fair. Many environmentalists are supporting nuclear these days, because of global warming.
IME, it's local residents who don't want a nuclear plant in their backyward. Even in Japan.
True, but it is almost as far to becoming a MSM as the economists acknowledging PO as a serious problem. I'm sorry for generalising too much but it is the MSM that the public is getting the messages from.
As for the NIMBYsm - it is mostly function of the way the media presents things. While media is being a double whore (sorry for the expression) - serving both what the public wants to hear and what their sponsors want to be published, you can not rely on anything meaningful as a public opinion. IMO it is obvious there are situations it needs to be overriden - who supported USA going to war against Nazi Germany for example? For a reversal to happen it is the responsibility of those that ignited the NIMBYsm at the first place to admit they could have been wrong. I don't expect this to happen.
I am one of those environmentalists. I've had my share of marches and blockades, but I have done a 160 on this issue after 30 years (not quite 180).
The environment movement is split on this issue, but the pro-nuke wing is a minority wing. Same over the question of immigration as we witnessed with the election last year for the Board of the Sierra Club. The let us stop immigration minority wing was labeled as "racist" over wanting less people to illegally enter the USA.
There are many environmentalist (a minority) who want to go back to the Rousseau "noble savage" world too. They may get their opportunity, but it is interesting to note that those same noble savages killed off the mammoth, mastodon, etc.
"
Worth repeating. Making some past culture your latest and greatest mental refuge (religion) is silly. Our ancestors were just as cut-throat as us.
Otherwise The Mother of Nature would be looking on a group of Homo Saps doing something Other than making plans to gor at eachothers throat and ask questions later.
"it is interesting to note that those same noble savages killed off the mammoth, mastodon, etc."
There is still a debate going among archaeologists as to the proximate cause of the extinctions--climate change or overhunting. See one discussion: http://www.sfu.ca/archaeology/museum/mammoths/extinct.htm
Most likely it was a combination of the two, but there are good arguments made on both sides. The so-called "savages" lived with the same pressures we do--finding enough resources to survive and reproduce. In an environment where there was an abundance of other game, I doubt there was much pressure to conserve one species. Mammoth and mastodon were preferred because there was a lot of return on your investment of energy. Once they were gone, people switched to other sources but probably not without difficulty. In general (there are always exceptions of course), tribal hunter/gatherers evolved ways of living sustainably in their environments, including keeping their population sizes stable through infanticide if necessary. While that statement might be construed as an argument for the validity of:
"Our ancestors were just as cut-throat as us" there are also examples of hunter/gatherer cultures that are much more cooperative and non-agressive than we are. Google the Kung people of the Kalahari, or the Mbuti people of the Forest in Africa. There are also the Yanomamo in the Amazon, however. My point is that it's not necessarily true that humans are by nature wasteful or "cut-throat". Culture has much more to do with it and that is something we can change. Given the dwindling supply of the resources that keep our culture going, IMO we are definitely going to have to change and adapt in order to survive.
Would you PLEASE email the Midwest Renewable Energy Association at: info@the-mrea.org ???
(please just once though or they get quit owly at you - "pest" stone repelant they use (organic even)
PLEASE talk to them. Like the NewAge Repbulicans, myself and the EcoCulturally Correct, we have the SAME GOALS (goals - like in tag as a kid).
But I feel their (MREA) good intentions only serve to CLOUD the rode to HAdes we are now Paving In Progress...
1. Those who advocate immediate and big-time investment in nuclear energy.
versus
2. Those who apparently cannot do even simple algebra, maybe not even sixth-grade-level percentage-type computations.
Politics rules, and most politicians appear to be innumerate, or too scared about the next election to tell the truth. Or both.
We have oil that can power our civilisation for 10 year, NG for 20 years, coal for 100 years, uranium/thorium for many thousands of years, while wind could at least partioally power it indefinately (after you factor out the resources you need to build it). It is the availability and the impact of the resources we use that matter.
Even economicaly - just look 20 years ahead. Price of oil will probably be in the stratosphere, NG and coal will be somewhere above the clouds, while uranium will still be cheap. Because it is abundant, and we will not have to worry about it in the next several thousand years.
It's just like with wind - you need a public support to do it, because wind needs subsidies. In this case the subsidy required is "trust" plus "public control". It is simple - nobody will bury $2-3 billions if they are not sure that the next goverment will not just close down the project because of NIMBYsm. Public control is needed to ensure everything is built safely. I feel it is the need for public control that drives many people away - they prefer not to care. I think it is time to care.
VS the subsides oil gets (do you think the military isn't one?)
VS the subsides nuclear power gets (by law, the libality is limited)
VS the subsidies (of whatever) gets (insert tax law treatment, laws or whatever)
Is the 'propping up' of wind less than, say nuclear power? The occational failure of a wind turbine means something on the ground gets hit. What IS the downside when nuclear power fails?
I'm not advocating oil. Using it and especially coal is probably the greatest liability we're leaving for the future.
VS the subsides nuclear power gets (by law, the libality is limited)
Where is the subsidy here? Make a research how much nuclear power plants are paying on insurance yearly. Many, many billions. How much is it paying to government in terms of license fees, fees for building that storage in Yuca Mountain, etc. etc? Even more. There is a reason why governments like nuclear - they are profitable and a cash cow at any stage of their operation. Unfortunatelly the fear from not being re-elected is stronger for any politician than the concern for budget balance (we can always print money, right?).
Usually governments give guarantees for financing of new plants, but this is because of the nature of the business and does not affect taxpayers in 99% of the cases.
Finally wind will also be developed by huge corporations seeking profits. I don't see any place for idealism here.
That would be the rates under the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act?
Its a mighty BIG government handout.
But, go ahead. Figure out what the libality of operatioon of a nuclear plant would be WITHOUT that law,
they are profitable and a cash cow at any stage of their operation.
What an over-the-top statement. When they are being built, they are not operational and therefore tyou have choen to ignore the cost. When they are de-commissioned, they are not operational and therefore you have chosen to ignore the costs.
Most businesses have to pay for their waste liability. Yet, the nuclear power industry has the government take on that libality. (Yet another subsusidy)
How was Chynerboyl and Three Mile Island 'profitable' due to their operation? Lets concentrate on the last few days of operation, because they ARE profitable at ANY stage of operation, right?
Finally wind will also be developed by huge corporations seeking profits.
Yea, because if you have land, some skills, copper, magnets, steel and resin you too could be a wind turbine maker AND user.
http://www.otherpower.com/
http://www.otherpower.com/17page1.html
(Yup a wind turbine 3kw all home made)
Enjoy poking about at otherpower!
Utilities pay interest on capital for the time they are constracting the plants. They have also accumulated close to 100 bln. in payments to the govt for that waste disposal site we still hope to see in our lifetime. Bad decision to rely on our govmnt to do that - it seem that former Soviets was much more effective, because it solved their problem decades ago and many times cheaper.
Chernobyl was in former USSR, where everything was payed by the government and utilities did not pay insurance. Don't start me on that topic for I'll be long.
First there is a question of arithmetic--adding up how much capacity is needed. I see no evidence that you have done this.
Second there is the question of whether coal and nuclear are complementary or competitive approaches. Clearly, they are complementary. Again, doing the simple column addition, how much added capacity is going to be needed (on reasonable demand projections) over the next ten two twenty years? After you have done this computation, please find me one knowledgeable coal person who claims that coal alone can do this.
Third: If coal is so great, why don't the French and Japanese use more of it? They have good ports and if it made any economic sense (which it does not) they could have opted to import huge quantitities of coal rather than going nuclear.
I look forward to seeing your computations.
Wow. Now, I've asked you in the past to answer questions about the special laws which protect nuke plants and limit the legal libality in the US of A.
Yet I've not seen your response.
Why is that? Did I miss your response?
You also forget a 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th et la types like Monte Quest over at PO.com who advocate a powerdown or population reduction (or both).
Because the same people that talk about "power down" and a return to the pastoral living of shepherds in the loans of ex-suburbia, will be the first that will start screaming when homo sapiens begins eating itself and the whole planet alongside, trying to protect what it has now.
Obviously, anyone who speaks of a pastoral living of sheperds has never actaully BEEN a farmer or had to deal with more than a cat or a dog.
Powerdown is GOING to happen. The overall energy used by machines and humans WILL fall. The only question is, what rates of fall, and if the watt/human ratio will fall also.
Importing energy from space into the envelope of the earth will result in heating. The use of fusion power at a level to support all of the humans now on the planet would also add heat to the atmospheric envelope.
Getting off planet and harvesting the other planets in an orgy of consumption would work...if the energy source like fusion were to become more harvestable than just collecting photons from fusion.
screaming when homo sapiens begins eating itself and the whole planet alongside, trying to protect what it has now.
Then education has no hope, does it? Because what it has in the recient past was cheap energy. That cheap energy is at an end. Nuke power isn't AS cheap/flexable as oil. Nor is wind, PV, or hydro. Biomass can be as flexable (bvecause oil is just old biomass...processed), but it will not be as cheap.
I'm far from being hopeless. There is a huge resource available in terms of efficienty, conservation even renewables will help.
The reason nuke power is not cheap is that it is not mass produced. It is not mass produced because of cheap fossils before and because of NIMBYsm now. And not to last extent because of not enough international cooperation in the sphere plus strong oil/coal industries receiving huge profits for relying on their dwindling and polluting resources. All of this can change if we start working for it. And - again - and of course - we must fire all guns. ALL of them.
But really, it's going to be nukes, coal, solar, and wind. Or maybe coal, nukes, wind, and solar.
Now if only we could get wave costs down to wind costs, there's so much slamming into the California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia every day...
At least no hope for the Global Village Mass Delusion.
The one where Every Tom, Chen, or Ahmoud (sp??) can live in a First World Home Country. "Not gonna happen, uh-Ah, no sir, not gonna happen."
I think Fractured Fairy Tales is coming. Pockets of Civilization instead of Pockets of 3rd World-or-less poverty will become the norm for a while.
Religious nutz will hopefully voluntarily Remove themselves from the Gene Pool in the process thank their godzain'treal.
EEeeeeventually of course this will all be followed by a Tousind year Raign of Terror if the Religious Fanatics decide to use their Tool to Crush Skulls instead of Build Communities.
Or, maybe some Phantasm will come riding out of the clouds and usher in a thousand years of peices-of-8.
Mother says, "git ta bed and i mean it now."
Insurance is not an especially effective way to handle very large and very uncommon accidents. How do you correctly size the insurance funds? How do you keep them liquid, where are they to be invested and what is to be done with the raw economical power those massive funds will have?
I use to advocate that a large number of nuclear power producers, preferably all of them, should agree to write contracts with a clause to all raise their prices with 0.1 cent after a major accident and use the massive money flow to compensate victims and work with decontamination etc. This would create a money flow that could pay for any reasonably sized relief effort for manny years.
I don't think that anyone can convince you that cement kilns are powered by coal. Well, these days a lot of them run on oil. Specifically the used crankcase oil they get from Jiffylube and other oil change franchises. But they don't run on natural gas anymore, now that the price of natural gas has got so high.
The point is that nuclear is much less dependant on fossil fuel subsidy than the proposed alternatives.
Compare the numbers:
Source (pdf): http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/news/CEC/CEC_Nuclear_Workshop_PFP_8=051.pdf
To replace US electricity generation system with wind turbines we are going to need some 4500 GW of capacity, correspondent to 3 mln.middle sized turbines (or 1 mln. offshore turbines). This would translate into some:
~ 2070 mln. tonnes of steel;
~ 3915 mln.m^3 of concrete (40 years of total US production!)
~ Enormous amounts of composites, wires, pavement for access roads etc.
~ Undefined amount of (yet to be invented/developed) energy storage
Even worse though, each year we will need to recycle 3 to 5% of them due to amortisation.
In comparison 700GW of nukes would require:
~ 28 mln tonnes of steel
~ 133 mln.m^3 of concrete (1.3 years of US production)
~ Much less additional infrastructure because we can place them wherever we want.
The numbers are 30 to 80 times lower! Do I need to comment?
Not quite. The knowledge gained about the physical world won't go away, unless humanity destroys that knowledge. The abilities of modern metal making, ceramics, composites are not something anyone wants to give up on, and like the launching of satalites to watch the weather will find many people who'd sacrifice to keep that functionality.
a massive die-off
A die off would allow for the use of taking photons and fixing them as hydrocarbons, alcohols, directly to current, or moving conductors through magentic fields and the resulting harvest of energy to keep the ones alive at the level of existance they are used to.
The problem is overcoming human greed and corruption, not to mention their fondness for the past of cheap oil and an unwillingness to give up on that past.
Besides, don't you think that the "power elite" would be unwilling to have you killed just so they can keep their black SUV's?
Human knowledge is lost. We are all part of a complex system aimed to preserve it and to pass it on to the next generations. Remove any part of it and after 3-4 generations we are back to feodalism, if not worse.
Here's the problem with nuclear. I'll concede, at least for the sake of argument, that in theory a nuclear power plant can be operated safely. If all the procedures developed by the engineers are followed scrupulously and indefinitely out into the future, then all will be well. What no engineer can guarantee is that the procedures will be followed. That's because engineers cannot guarantee societal stability. They cannot guarantee that even just the profit motive might not lead to "shortcuts".
So what is proposed is a massive expansion of nuclear technology on an ever weaker industrial base, with the ever greater prospect of social turmoil and instability. So there are then at least two factors here which are greatly multiply the chances of disaster.
Well, if there were real hope that in spite of all this it would at least give us a chance to go on at least remotely like we are now, then one could entertain the thought. But it does not. Because there is not an infinite supply of uranium either. Aha! Breeders you say. And here the dangers escalate several orders of magnitude. And still there remains a horizon.
No matter how you slice it, technology alone is not going to save us this time. Science is going to have to be applied to the globe and our relation to it -- nothing short of that. And as of right now, I think science suggests that we may have overshot. How much? Science is mumbling on this one.
I don't believe in anything else: science and rationality. But they have to be applied to globe now. Don't get angry. Say where you differ.
But there are limits to efficiency and also below some level the line of material wellfare will threaten the basic needs of humans. This should be avoided - there is already enough starvation in the world. Here nuclear power will help, because fossils will be depleted much faster than our society will be able to transform.
I don't accept the die-off hipothesis, let alone propositions. It isn't natural and can not happen "peacfully" in any way. Even a natural decreasing population will result in enourmous pressure of one elderly world that can drive us to even lower end-point.
IMO the industrial civilisation is sustainable. The industries will change and adapt, after we (finally) learn to exercise a better control over the impact they have on environment.
The fate of capitalism is more questionable and I see it turning into something less-resembling cancer but I don't dare to predict what it will be.
Overall I tend to resist fiercely to revolutionistic ideas. They have never brought anybody any good.
Nuclear reactors and their support infrastructure will be crown jewels in an energy poor society. Almost as valuble as good hydro dams.
Regarding nuclear safety - I think we are very close to producing a self regulating plant design. It can only get better there, unless we are headed for a nuclear rush build up, which to be worried about. Already incidents of the type the public fears (Chernobil type) are practically impossible in contemporary water moderated reactors - if the core gets overheated the water turns to steam and steam does not slow neutrons well; the result is that fission slows very fast and will finally stop even if the control rods or/and cooling system are out of order.