301 comments on Is Nuclear Power a Viable Option for Our Energy Needs?
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k Nation (Jim Kunstler)
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Wind turbines + pumped storage are competitive with nuclear + less pumped storage in many locations today. The future trends seem to favor wind. Nuke will be useful in low wind resource areas.
Alan
Just on account of geography, I don't understand where we could possibly put the vast quantity of pumped storage that would be needed to sustain the USA during a relatively windless July when the unmoving high just parks and sits over much of the country, as happens every now and then. And that's before we even consider the vast powers we've foolishly ceded to the small handful of NIMBY and BANANA Luddites, who have been blocking wind power along with every other conceivable power source.
It seems inconceivable that this could work on a scale large enough to make a substantial dent in overall energy supply.
Cheapest solution is to manage Great Lakes within natural ranges and lower them during calm spell (as well as Lake Winnipeg, build out 5 more GW of hydro in Manitoba). Also drain reserviors on Columbia River, etc.
Geothermal could be made into peaking & emergency power rather than baseload. Drill 4x more wells, add turbines and use resource 25% of the time, including during calms.
I can easily design limited pumped storage that can run for one month. Long tunnel with several thousand feet differential. Large upper reservior.
No high/calm hits the entire continent. Perhaps a majority of population but not majority of land area. Sea breezes peak in summer for example and there is no stopping them.
More in my incomplete plans (53% wind, 23% nuke, 20% hydro, -19% & +15% pumped storage, etc. when I post them here.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Ontario is looking at using disused mines.
Alan:
As a native Floridian, I wonder where you plan to find a "several thousand feet differential" in my home state? (The highest point in the whole state - which had a population of nearly 16 Million people in 2000 - is less than 400 feet above sea level.)
I also wonder how the people who live and work on the Great Lakes feel about your plans to make their levels fluctuate even more than they do currently.
Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights
Personally, if we react as a civilization in time, I would expect a mix of wind and nuclear with nuclear providing a guaranteed minimum base generating capacity and wind/solar providing everything over that. This would buy additional time to refine or develop new technologies to address the episodic nature of wind/solar power generation.
Timing is everything. I think the alternatives are there. The question, per the Hirsch Report, is did we start ramping them up soon enough?