92 comments on Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)
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92 comments on Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)
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This article seems very balanced and informative and I would highly recommend it as a great starting point.
What is interesting is that while it attempts to include GHG's (CO2) and life cycle costs (very good so far) it is silent on the costs of NOx, SOx, Mercury, Particulate Matter or VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) and so still tremendously UNDER-estimates the ACTUAL Total Cost of Energy which would in fact increase the cost of alternatives and make wind look far less expensive than it is already showing.
Also, nuclear decommissioning costs and taxpayer assumed insurance for catastrophic events have NOT been factored into the cost of nuclear. Recent costs for decommissioning in New Jersey (Constellation Energy) that are being paid by the local ratepayers is approximated at US$5Billion however I do not know at this moment how many MW are generated at this facility. It would seem that the calculation of Decommissioning Cost($)/MW should be relatively simple to undertake.
Also costs of water depletion are also not indicated for either fossil fuel generation types nor for nuclear. A recent IEA report showed that for each MW-Year of nuclear generation 1.4M gallons of water are consumed. This has a cost that is not charged to the nuclear company but is a significant cost to ecosystems and the economy. This should be charged at full industrial rates and then compared to what it would be at residential rates.
Furthermore, onshore wind has a cost of land and in many cases is on flat arable land and there are studies that show that wind farms on land can possibly create drier areas behind the windfarms that may lead to lower crop yields if there are crops or perhaps less vegetation for wildlife. No breakout has been made to differentiate offshore wind from onshore or near-shore or even aggregating onshore and near-shore together.
My guess is that if the above-noted adjustments were made that the comparative costs of fossil fuel and nuclear would be substantially higher than windpower and that offshore windpower would have the lowest costs of all energy forms.
I think the water is a bit of a nonissue; if you're sourcing it from the ocean it's effectively limitless and uses 2/3rds the surface of the Earth as the heatsink. Inland, build cooling towers, or larger artificial lakes, and run a closed loop.
You can't put seawater through a coal, nuclear etc plant, the salt stuffs everything up. You need fresh water.
You can of course use the plant's power to desalinate seawater to then use in the plant itself, but then you're getting less net energy from the thing.
Fresh water's a big issue for power plants. Here in Victoria we've had power prices rises largely because of that. Most of our power comes from hydroelectric and coal, both of which use a lot of water.
Actually it is possible to use seawater to cool nuclear powerplants (and I would assume other types as well).
I've visited Seabrook before - http://www.answers.com/topic/seabrook-station-nuclear-power-plant?cat=te...
So it can be done. It's not common, but Seabrook has a safe record now of 18 years of operation...
The Millstone nuclear powerplant in Waterford, CT, USA uses sea water as coolant. It's been in operation since 1970 without incident, although it was shut down for a year for a safety evaluation in the nineties. But the safety issues raised were not related to sea water as far as I know. My roommate in college worked there in the eighties and said that safety protocols were very lax (so he quit, returned to college, and became my roommate). It's currently in operation.
Here's an article in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millstone_Nuclear_Power_Plant
You can use seawater; it just doubles the investment because of the required materials. Also increases the required maintenance by a lot.
Cooling towers are not closed loop. A cooling tower system typically requires 5% of the water circulation as makeup. In a lot of areas even this amount of freshwater is unavailable; let alone a once-through system.
A true closed system is possible. Fin-fan units, ususally using a glycol mixture. It will cost a fortune though, which is why no one wants to do it.
Completely dry cooling systems that essentialy are large water to air heat exchangers are off-the-shelf systems and are for instance used for combined cycle gas turbine plants in deserts.
Also, nuclear decommissioning costs and taxpayer assumed insurance for catastrophic events have NOT been factored into the cost of nuclear. - Yosh Schmenge
Yosh, at present US utilities collect 0.1 to 0.2 cents/kWh to fund decommissioning. This funding is probably excessive since US reactors are now going through processes that extend their lives to 60 years, and research is underway aimed at extending their lives to 80 years. In the near term at least, it is probably cheaper to recondition old reactors to extend their lives than to replace them with new reactors. As for insurance, new reactor designs are extremely safe. The GE ESBWR will suffer a core meltdown once in every 29 million years of operation. If that once in every 29 million years accident takes place, safety back ups that are far superior to those in the Three Mile Island Reactor are in place. If you will recall, the Three Mile Island Reactor accident did not cause any deaths or injuries, and was not linked to any illnesses. In a rational world reactors should be insurable for catastrophic losses, and the premiums should not be expensive. If Insurance companies do not wish to offer risk coverage at a cost that is based on rational risk assessment, then it is in the interest of the government that insurance coverage be offered. Who ever offers insurance should have the right to charge a reasonable premium based on risk. The insurance premium would not be large in any case.
And computer hard drives have been consistently rated in millions of hours btw failures. However, I find that mine die after a couple of years of intermittent use.
When I hear such long term claims as that, I'm skeptical.
Reactors have numerous built in safety features. Reactor safety engineering is very sophisticated. Researchers have spent decades figuring out how reactors can break, and ways to prevent them breaking. This includes fool procedures, lit the automatic reactor shutdown in florida last week. At the same time researchers have figured it better ways to contain leaks in case an accident does happen. Before you describe yourself a skeptic, you should inform yourself about nuclear safety. If you proclaim yourself skeptical without having information, then you reveal yourself to be an ignoramus.
You'll be comforted in the fact that the hard drive manufacturers say the same thing.
They can say whatever they want, they dont go through the same safety regimen that nuclear engineering does. Thats bourne out in the safety record of nuclear power plants, which even including Chernobyl has the lowest death or injury count per GW/hr.
This 'well, my hard drive failed and they promised me reliability too' argument is specious nonsense.