Relying on Renewables Alone Significantly Inflates the Cost of Overhauling Energy (technologyreview.com) 248
A growing number of US cities and states have proposed or even passed legislation that would require producing all electricity from renewable energy sources like solar and wind within a few decades. That might sound like a great idea. But a growing body of evidence shows it's not. From a report: It increasingly appears that insisting on 100 percent renewable sources -- and disdaining others that don't produce greenhouse gases, such as nuclear power and fossil-fuel plants with carbon-capture technology -- is wastefully expensive and needlessly difficult. In the latest piece of evidence, a study published in Energy & Environmental Science determined that solar and wind energy alone could reliably meet about 80 percent of recent US annual electricity demand, but massive investments in energy storage and transmission would be needed to avoid major blackouts. Pushing to meet 100 percent of demand with these resources would require building a huge number of additional wind and solar farms -- or expanding electricity storage to an extent that would be prohibitively expensive at current prices. Or some of both.
Long term (Score:5, Interesting)
Renewables are always cheaper. The price of fuel for fossil fuels will go up. The price of decomishing a nuclear site will double again in the next 10 years.
What makes renewables bad is that we don't have reliable storage.
Long term is every home can cover 75% of their bas usage with solar and batteries then the need for large grid scale systems shrinks. The large grid is fragile and a mistake in Ohio, can wipe out new York City for 12 hours. (2003 blackout)
More distributed renewables and smaller but numerous storage. Would strengthen the grid with excess.
Solar on every roof (Score:2, Interesting)
What makes renewables bad is that we don't have reliable storage.
We have reliable storage, or at least the technology to make it. Tesla and others have seen to that. What we don't have is cheap and plentiful storage. Part of that is because we haven't ramped up battery production to full scale and part of it is that we're still trying to reduce cost in the face of subsidized fossil fuels which makes clean options seem more expensive than they actually are.
Long term is every home can cover 75% of their bas usage with solar and batteries then the need for large grid scale systems shrinks.
Yes, exactly. Every rooftop that can have solar should have solar. It would make the grid more reliable, cleaner
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Possibly, but that maxes out at around 40 percent of our current electical power needs [arstechnica.com] (not including HVAC and transportation, even). So what else do we do?
I sincerely ho
Re:Solar on every roof (Score:4, Interesting)
Possibly, but that maxes [arstechnica.com]
out at around 40 percent of our current electical power
needs (not including HVAC and transportation, even). So what else do we do?
The second step is to cover the parking lot, especially where I work. As an added source of revenue, I would PAY to park my car in the shade of the panel.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Renewables are always cheaper. The price of fuel for fossil fuels will go up.
People have been saying this (since forever [wikipedia.org]). On the rare occasion when you can get a proponent of the theory to commit themselves to a particular testable prediction about the real world, their track record [gizmodo.com] is quite dismal.
Now, as a scientifically-minded person, if the proponents of a theory continue to make incorrect predications about the real world (or walk their predictions back saying 'next decade' for 50 years straight), at some point we have to conclude their theory is just not very good. This is th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
once more EVs are sold and charged at home, they can become part of the grid backup plan. same as once more homes have solar with battery backup, they also become part of the grid
Wait, so leaving my EV plugged in overnight would no longer guarantee it would be fully charged when I need to use it, and indeed it actually could be largely discharged depending on other people's consumption patterns that I have no control over? That sounds about as workable as making everyone's pantry part of the grocery store.
Re: Long term (Score:5, Informative)
I did something anethema for Slashdot... I actually read the study. And while most of it was fairly reasonably done, the cost aspect seems to be handled as an afterthought tacked onto the end. There was no estimation of the costs of using HVDC links at all (I've seen studies that did so, and they came to a much more favourable conclusion). As for their battery storage they state that large batteries currently cost $500/kWh. No, they don't. Over a year ago, the price on power-focused Powerpack systems was about $350/kWh. Energy-focused systems will be even cheaper per kWh. And that's old pricing, let alone current pricing, let alone future pricing. Gigafactory was established to bring costs down to under $100/kWh - and Semi appears to be priced on batteries under $100/kWh. A price that the paper mentions as a target but doesn't appear to believe that it will happen in the next couple decades. Next couple decades? Try "next couple years". They also assume a 10 year service life. Power-focused, frequently cycling powerpacks last 15 years; energy-focused systems should last longer due to how less frequently they go through cycles.
In short, the paper is assuming that the future - even the fairly far future - will have worse energy storage tech than we have today.
They also make claims like "For context, storage totaling 12 hours of U.S. mean demand, 5.4 TW h of energy capacity, is 150 years of the annual production capacity of the Tesla Gigafactory (35 GW h)". No, it's not. Gigafactory 1 (note: not "The Tesla Gigafactory", it's called Gigafactory 1, as it's a first generation which they tend to replicate around the world) has a projected output this year of 50 GWh. Design projection at completion is 150 GWh/year. Again: the paper is treating decades in the future as if they won't have what we already have today.
Colour me unimpressed. I've read much more impressive research, where they actually laid out smart grids and did detailed cost calculations on it.
Experimental data does not support that (Score:3)
Because some countries over here in Europe have already switched to renewables long ago, starting with hydro power for instance, wtf is this about solar and wind? Every major river has a dam. They are necessary for agriculture, not just electricity. And yeah some days per year we hit 100% renewable energy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in the US, particularly Washington state, where most of our electricity is derived from hydro. It's used because it's readily available but it does have its side effects. Just like where I live solar is used with a diminished effect. (I live on the western side of the state with tall trees and cloud cover) If I lived in Arizona, I could bank a very good output of solar, but not so much on the hydro. Shouldn't this be the way we look at our energy? A combination of all power types would be good
Re: (Score:3)
the argument gets polarised, the fossil supporters use the argument that the transition from fossil to renewable can't happen overnight so that means it won't work. e.g. what happens when the sun doesn't shone or the wind doesn't blow. They just don't realise it'll take years for renewables to become the major power source even though the pace seems to be getting faster and faster, they seem to forget how l
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Hydro is renewable, but limited. "All the good sites are taken." Except Yosemite Valley, but that is (and should be) off limits.
It's also dependent on the amount of rainfall you get, which isn't necessarily constant from year to year.
Re: (Score:2)
There's been a few plans floated here to dam a large lake and pump water in, or dam a portion of the North Sea and pump wate
Re: (Score:2)
NEWSFLASH: WATER IS WET (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, it's as if overhauling an infrastructure which was built predominantly on oil might cost a lot of money to retrofit to handle solar, wind, water, and nuclear!
No fucking duh. However, once you've got the renewable energy sources in place and harvested, the cost will die out, quickly. It's called ROI, and the smart people have obtained almost insane ROI (on the order of 3 months in some related techs like LEDs powered by renewable resources up to 5 years for full solar+wind-powered farms) so they really don't have to worry about this.
Which means Americans have this problem, and not many other people.
Re:NEWSFLASH: WATER IS WET (Score:5, Informative)
TFA is nonsense anyway. The actual paper appears to be this one: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content... [rsc.org]
The abstract says:
We analyze 36 years of global, hourly weather data (1980â"2015) to quantify the covariability of solar and wind resources as a function of time and location, over multi-decadal time scales and up to continental length scales. Assuming minimal excess generation, lossless transmission, and no other generation sources, the analysis indicates that wind-heavy or solar-heavy U.S.-scale power generation portfolios could in principle provide â¼80% of recent total annual U.S. electricity demand. However, to reliably meet 100% of total annual electricity demand, seasonal cycles and unpredictable weather events require several weeksâ(TM) worth of energy storage and/or the installation of much more capacity of solar and wind power than is routinely necessary to meet peak demand. To obtain â¼80% reliability, solar-heavy wind/solar generation mixes require sufficient energy storage to overcome the daily solar cycle, whereas wind-heavy wind/solar generation mixes require continental-scale transmission to exploit the geographic diversity of wind. Policy and planning aimed at providing a reliable electricity supply must therefore rigorously consider constraints associated with the geophysical variability of the solar and wind resourceâ"even over continental scales.
Which contradicts what is said in the summary and TFA. In fact it seems like the author of TFA is illiterate and can't understand clear, simple English statements.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I don't see any contradiction at all, and you skipped various other links in this piece such as: Deep Decarbonization of the Electric Power Sector [innovationreform.org] from March 2017
Re:NEWSFLASH: WATER IS WET (Score:4, Funny)
TFA first states that
Pushing to meet 100 percent of demand with these resources would require building a huge number of additional wind and solar farmsâ"or expanding electricity storage to an extent that would be prohibitively expensive at current prices. Or some of both.
Translation: it gets expensive if you do it the stupidest possible way.
It then doubles down on the stupid by investigating the stupid way in more depth:
Just getting to 80 percent of demand reliably with only wind and solar would require either a US-wide high-speed transmission system or 12 hours of electricity storage. A storage system of that size across the US would cost more than $2.5 trillion for a battery system.
Yeah, a giant battery would be expensive, but fortunately you already gave us the solution and Europe has demonstrated that it works just fine. But nah, let's ignore that because look, $2,500,000,000,000 battery!
The summary is even worse, leaving out the obvious, tried and tested solution completely and instead trying to give the impression that it's just really really expensive and there is no alternative except non-renewable sources.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
However, once you've got the renewable energy sources in place and harvested, the cost will die out, quickly. It's called ROI, and the smart people have obtained almost insane ROI (on the order of 3 months in some related techs like LEDs powered by renewable resources up to 5 years for full solar+wind-powered farms) so they really don't have to worry about this.
Obviously you have no idea what you're talking about, since all returns must happen by the end of the next quarter.
Re:NEWSFLASH: WATER IS WET (Score:5, Informative)
ROI with subsidization isn't really ROI. Be generous with your figures.
Which form of energy is not subsidized by the government? If you look at fossil fuels and renewal energy, fossil fuels produce about 4 times more energy but enjoy 7 times more subsidies. It takes a lot of government money to keep coal and oil prices so low, almost twice as much money per unit of energy produced than is spent making renewable energy cheaper.
Subsidy comparison [vox.com]
Energy Production comparison [eia.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
We don't need zero carbon emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm about as much of a greenie as you are likely to run across. I'm strongly of the opinion that we cannot get solar and wind power to be major parts of the grid fast enough. We also need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels (which we do globally to the tune of about $5 Trillion annually) and force them to cost the full economic value of the pollution they cause. That said, the notion that we can rely solely on wind and solar (and hydro where available) in the near future is preposterous. Doing that in a rational way would take a century just due to the cost alone. Fossil fuels simply aren't going away for many decades at minimum no matter what. Fortunately we don't need to get carbon emitting energy sources to zero. We need to get them to a level that the ecosystem can handle which is obviously much lower than it is today. Use nuclear to replace fossil fuels where possible and solar and wind for most of the rest. Yes we will need batteries too. The grid WILL need to be updated no matter what so I don't see that as a bad thing. But if we need to spend the money to keep the planet habitable then no real benefit to waiting.
One beef with the summary is that there currently is no such thing as fossil fuels with carbon capture technology. There is NO industrial scale carbon capture or carbon sequestration technology available nor any reasonable prospect of such technology in the near future. So take that off the table as an option until such time as it becomes a real thing.
Re: (Score:2)
There you have it. That's step one for any kind of green energy future, nuclear or not. It's the one thing you'd think we should all agree on and be pushing for.
Instead the renewables-enthusiasts are telling themselves solar is going to take off like cellphones if only they can cheer for it loudly enough.
Re: (Score:2)
True, it remains a speculative, experimental idea, and myself I don't hold out much hope that it's workable.
Nevertheless, the policy recommendations of the last IPCC report recommend trying to develop CCS (along with wind, solar and nuclear)-- they make the point that if we did get it working, burning biomass would go from a carbon-neutral power source to a carbon absorbing power source.
Re: (Score:2)
One beef with the summary is that there currently is no such thing as fossil fuels with carbon capture technology. There is NO industrial scale carbon capture or carbon sequestration technology available nor any reasonable prospect of such technology in the near future. So take that off the table as an option until such time as it becomes a real thing.
True, but since it is only needed to cover that last 20%, when we are already have 80% wind and solar, it is not needed now. We are currently at 15%, and at a reasonable 4.5% annual growth rate in production we will get to 80% in about 40 years. We can cut it to about 30 years at 6% a year, but in any case we are few decades off of needing this technology to be ready.
It is normal for a technology that is not yet needed not to be already deployed.
Fossil-fuel plants with carbon-capture technology (Score:3)
The costs get inflated only if you ignore cost externalization (subsidies for one, but medical costs due to dirty air are pretty massive too). Nuclear would be fine if we could trust it to stay safe. But until you can convince Americans to stop privatizing everything or make a nuke plant that's cheaper to run safely than to run dangerously then nuke's a non-starter. Sooner or later we'll privatize it to save money and those savings will come at the cost of safety like they did over in Fukushima. Meanwhile the folks responsible for the inevitable disaster get off scott free.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, and even their premise that nuclear is carbon free is flawed. Nuclear plants take a ridiculous amount of concrete to make, and concrete production is one of our most CO2 intensive activities. Uranium mining, refining, and transport is also very carbon heavy. Net energy production compared to fossil fuel use? Definitely much less carbon intensive, but it's not zero by a long shot.
Re: (Score:3)
Definitely much less carbon intensive, but it's not zero by a long shot.
Nuclear power is as close to zero emissions as solar, wind, and hydro.
Nuclear: 28 tonnes CO2/GWh
Wind: 26
Hydro: 26
Solar PV: 85
I'm not a fan of solar PV because it produces three times the CO2 per energy produced than wind, hydro, or nuclear. Solar is also expensive, and unreliable. Still far better than natural gas at 500 tonnes of CO2/GWh, or coal which can vary from 700 to over 1000 depending on the coal quality and the plant efficiency. Using solar when better options exist is nonsensical.
I see nothing
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you can make a zero emission coal or gas fired plant.
Multiple companies have tried, and all have so far failed. Clean coal was pushed in Europe long before the orange monkey ran for president. Currently most of the projects are being sued by their respective states for reimbursement of the government incentives that often failed to produce even a single kg of sequestered carbon.
Coal is dying, clean coal on the other hand has gone through multiple stillbirths and abortions.
Depends on what you can do with the demand curve (Score:3)
The demand curve is really the important part of the equation; to make renewables effective you really need to minimize load when the sources are not available. That is a challenge with current technology in the winter, because you intrinsically have a large demand block between sunset and 9PM. In the summer you can have plenty of excess capacity from PV, but hot late-autumn days are a challenge.
So, what can you do?
It isn't that hard to make things work on renewables only if you have plenty of wind energy, but you need to reduce expectations of central grid reliability. Inter-connected microgrids have a lot of promise for being the prime source of end-user reliability and economic viability.
And, if you don't have the wind resources and have high heat and electric loads in the winter, what the hell... put in some gas recip engines with district heating.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be assuming that there is never a need to run the A/C 24-7. Which is normal about seven months of the year down here in N'Awlins. Lows above 27C at night, highs above 35C in daylight. Every day except winter....
Re: (Score:2)
At 27C at night my AC would ne off, and most likely at 35C during daytime, too.
Can't be so hard to have a building that stays around 27C - 30C without need for AC.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not at all; you just need to build a thermal mass during the daylight hours and discharge it at night. It can be passive like a stone fireplace and floor, or an active system such as an ice tank. Your primary obstacles are humidity control and solar heat gain, which can generally be done with a separate dehumidifier (assuming you are using radiant surfaces), and a proper radiant barrier and overhangs.
You can also gain thermal efficiency by using a ground-source heat pump to provide the cooling, so you don
Re: (Score:2)
Once the grid gets stingy and/or unreliable, people/corps with resources will just start abandoning it in favor of their own local capacity. They won't be told they can't have air conditioning.
"Managing the grid" will just boil down to middle class and lower classes being blacked out because they don't have their own power sources or can't afford super-peak rates.
I predict the desire to enforce conservation (blackouts, brownouts, high cost rates) to meet renewable power goals will be a major political issu
Re: (Score:2)
There is an economic benefit to being connected to the grid-- most of the time. It gives you a marketplace to sell your excess capacity, and a buffer for instantaneous peaks.
While I am not a fan of real-time pricing, it can effectively compensate or incentivize good behavior.
Pretend a company could year-round exactly match their load to the real-time output of their solar panels. That means they need to have more people working in the summer than winter, and need to operate 365 days per year-- with much s
Wait, what? (Score:2)
"fossil-fuel plants with carbon-capture technology"
Which plants like that have been built or are in operation?
How efficient are they? I've heard of one project where CCS consumed ~25% of total plant power.
Coalwashing may soon put greenwashing to shame.
Inflates the cost or just front loads it... (Score:3, Insightful)
The alternatives are just kicking-the-can-down-the-road... How much will it cost to retrofit or decommission that nuclear plant in 15 or 20 years? How much will it cost to get the carbon out of the atmosphere after it messes up our weather to the point where the growing season is unstable and it's hard to grow crops reliably?
There's an old saying... You can pay now or you can pay later, but it usually costs more later.
Re: (Score:3)
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about nuclear power.
And no one actually does a very good job of making sure the price of photovaltaics pays for the environmental damage done in manufacturing them (let alone of disposing of them).
Re: (Score:3)
Disposing PV panels does no environmentsl damage.
They are mostly glass amd the metal is recycled, or would you throw away metal that you don't have to refine but can just melt?
Production has no real environmental damage either. The dirty chemicals are recycled and reused and the raw materials are basically: sand.
Re: (Score:3)
Even if you're using purely silicon solar cells, you still need to refine the oxide and grow the crystals, the electrical leads are made of metal, and in general manufacturing any sort of thin-film electronics involves using some pretty crazy solvents (look up "hydrofluoric acid" some time) and if you're going to crank out enough PV cells fast enough to make a dent in global warming you're talking about doing this at a phenomenal scale, larger than anything ever done for IT gadgets.
You're completely m
Re: (Score:2)
All the stuf you consider hazzardouse stays in the plant. ... what was your point?
So
And silicon PV cells are not thin film PV cells.
Get a clue about the topic or stay out of it.
That's the thing (Score:3)
"that would be prohibitively expensive at current prices."
That's one of the good things of 'the future'. I doesn't have to pay 'current' prices.
Also, wind energy doesn't need any subsidies anymore, unlike coal, gas, oil and nukes.
Nothing to see here (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
robot256 wrote:
The author did not actually say that (and I just lost all respect for you, and to tell you the truth I didn't care who you have respect for to start with). Here it is again:
Simon says (Score:3)
The need for renewable is a separate issue from the need for green energy.
The former is about the running out of fossil fuels, and the latter, pollution, and, specifically, greenhouse gases.
The latter has value, but the former not so much anymore as Julian Simon's undefeated predictive capability [juliansimon.com] has shown a relatively free economic society can adapt to shortage stressors faster then they become the prognosticated problem, and prices continue to drop.
This is counter-intuitive, but makes successful predictions again and again and again since the shortage scares of the 1970s. Peak Oil, a reskin of such fears, predictably fell.
The Green Virtue Signaling / Politics (Score:4, Insightful)
Ten years ago we solved a lot of the problems with renewables, it was called variable pricing for electricity. People and their appliances can be incentivized to use electricity when it is produced by changing less when the wind blows or the sun is shinning and charging over $0.70/kwh when it isn't. This saved consumers money and saved the utilities even more. Unfortunately the utilities that took a risk and tried this got fucked over by their public utility commissions. (Oklahoma public utility commission almost single handedly set back renewable energy by 5 years)
Last it will never make sense for urban homes to have battery back up. It is always better to share your capacity among several houses, or several thousand houses. Like maybe make it a public utility to store and deliver electricity
Also get white roof shingles!!!
These are all easy things, things that could have already done with a little leadership and maybe getting some of these Green groups to actually think instead of parade around trying to get attention for themselves.
Lastly fuck the pro-rail crude oil transportation advocates. They often go by the anti pipeline crusade.
Re: (Score:2)
You might have just disproved your own point. Under a plan that would allow me to buy electricity for $0.12/kwh (the current national average) on-peak vs $0.70/kwh off-peak, I could very quickly pay for a powerwall just to shift my demand.
Also get white roof shingles!!!
Ventilation plays a much bigger factor than shingle color. Since I spend much more to heat than cool my house, in my part of the country black makes more sense. Too bad it costs so much to repaint the roof twice per year for optimal efficiency.
Re: (Score:3)
Since the late 1970s exhaust of coal plants are scrubbed. So they exhaust no radioactivvity at all.
Amd we basically nevver knew how to dispose of nuclear waste from nuclesr plants. But if you know a way, publish it and farm in a Nobel Prize.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So, after coal plant exhaust is scrubbed, what is done with all that fly ash? The radioactivity that coal plants used to emit is all in the coal ash.
We do know how to dispose of waste from nuclear plants. The omni-obstructionists just will not permit it. They want the waste to stay right where it is, in cooling ponds a nuclear power plants, where they can get filmed for the evening news wringing their hands over it and wailing "The horror, oooo, the horror!"
As for a disposal site, go to Google Earth and
Re: (Score:3)
When the exhaust of a coal plant is scrubbed, it has no fly ash.
It still has ash. Ash that contains radioactive material. Radioactive material that can dissolve in water or blow away in the wind if not contained. Right now coal ash is usually just dumped into open pits. Some times we'll see it used instead of sand in the concrete used to pave roads. This seems like a logical way to dispose of radioactive material from nuclear power plants as well, mix it in with concrete to keep it from blowing or washing away and to shield people from any radioactive emissions.
but also no idea why you want to produce nuclear waste and deposit it there when you can have clean renewables.
Bec
Re: (Score:3)
The main reason for reprocessing at the moment is to deal with decommissioning nuclear weapons. Plutonium and high-enriched uranium warheads are broken down and diluted to create either uranium fuel assemblies or "MOX" fuel which combines uranium and plutonium.
Thanks to mismanagement by Obama and his Democrat friends the USA has gone backwards in its ability to reprocess nuclear waste. For decades Democrats have held up efforts to reprocess old warheads and spent nuclear fuel. They prefer "downblending" over reprocessing. Downblending is just mixing the plutonium and other valuable isotopes with enough other crap to make it difficult to extract it again. This is not only dumping a bunch of valuable fuel into a hole in the ground but also does not destroy it a
Re: (Score:3)
Also get white roof shingles!!!
Sure if you want to royally piss of the neighbours. Better still get black roof shingles that double as solar panels.
80% Is Pretty Darn Good (Score:2)
This is the study I have been looking/waiting for that gives a realistic assessment of what the future power grid for North America (and Eurasia) should look like.
The summary cites the two different options for dealing with the intermittent nature of wind and solar -- power storage (which is the go-to assumption everyone makes as the only option), and having a low loss national power grid to distribute power efficiently, but inevitably it only cites the cost of the more expensive of the two -- power storage
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Absolutism has a cost? (Score:2, Interesting)
SJW world cannot exist on logic and reasoning.
Solution - adapt devices to power output. Use them only when electricity is available.
Re: Absolutism has a cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
...adapt devices to power output. Use them only when electricity is available.
What are the odds that a whole town would decide to run their AC on the same day?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Externalized Costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Do modern nuclear plants *really* melt down that often or at all? CA is ~20% nuke powered and it has, to my knowledge, never experienced a meltdown. The only meltdowns that have happened are due to negligence and a natural disaster happening all at once.
And really, if you're that NIMBY about it, just put the plant in the middle of nowhere and run a giant superconductor to the nearest power hub.
I think too many people played Sim City and thought it was a reality simulator.
Re: (Score:3)
played Sim City and thought it was a reality simulator.
Aliens won't come and destroy my lovely city? My whole life is a lie.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, we dumped nuclear too soon. But there's still a problem with used nuclear fuel. We still don't know what to do with it. The decomissioned reactor at San Onofre, is burying their cooled rods in the gound at their site (in containers of course). Except that this is essentially a few steps away from the beach. What happens in a hundred years? 200? That's going to erode or be underwater, people will forget what's buried there, civilization might even have collapsed.
The problem with nuclear is that it
Re: (Score:3)
>What to do with spent fuel
We solved that almost immediately, we just abandoned it in the face of more cost-effective options: reprocessing.
Basically you have two kinds of "leftovers" from a reactor - unspent fuel (not appreciably radioactive) and fission byproducts (very radioactive). The beauty is that the byproducts, being very radioactive, will decay quite rapidly and mostly stop being dangerously radioactive within a few centuries. The problem is that they're all mixed up with the unspent fuel, wh
Re: (Score:3)
They are economical and they are safe.
The problem with nuclear power is hippies. Yup, hippies, you can blame it all the smelly hippies from the 1960s. Actually, if you take it to the extreme you can blame just about every problem we have today from world hunger to climate issues on a pack of smelly hippies.
You see hippies started protesting nuclear weapons, which is good. But being the uneducated lot they are they didn't just stop there, they also protested peaceful development of nuclear power. Th
Re:Externalized Costs (Score:5, Informative)
The model does not include the cost of nuke plants that melt down, even though we know they do that periodically.
Come on, man, this is just blatant FUD. "Periodically" meaning 3 real incidents, EVER. Compare deaths from nuclear to constant deaths from solar (workers falling off roofs), wind (workers falling of turbines), hydroelectric (workers falling off dams, dams failing and wiping out entire towns), natural gas (workers dying in fires), coal (workers dying in fires AND dying in mines AND bystanders dying from lung disease), and you see that nuclear is far and away the safest energy source out there. Three completely separate references for you, all of which concur:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
https://ourworldindata.org/wha... [ourworldindata.org]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
There are a few good reasons to be wary of nuclear - frequent schedule/budget overruns being chief among them. There's also a huge cost for facility decommissioning that hasn't really been handled adequately. But safety concerns are outright lies - nuclear energy is literally and provably the safest form of energy that exists. That argument is bad and you should feel bad for making it.
Two problems with that (Score:5, Informative)
b. Nuclear disasters are much, much worse and they affect everyone around for miles, not just the people in the immediate vicinity of the disaster.
There's a reason NIMBYism exists. It's irrational rationality. Running an unsafe nuclear power plant because you don't like paying taxes and don't trust the government is irrational. But if you've already accepted that level of irrationality then the next rational thing to do is not run the plant in the first place.
It's a catch 22 in the literal sense of the word. You'd have to be crazy to do it but you'd have to be crazy to not do it.
Re:Two problems with that (Score:5, Insightful)
It's irrational rationality. Running an unsafe nuclear power plant because you don't like paying taxes and don't trust the government is irrational. But if you've already accepted that level of irrationality then the next rational thing to do is not run the plant in the first place.
If I understand what you're saying, you're suggesting that nuclear power plants will be privatized, and therefore unsafe? Maybe you are suggesting this because of what happened with Fukushima?
The thing is, a majority of nuclear power plants in the U.S. are already privatized (but heavily regulated). That exact arrangement has provided the extraordinary safety record that we observe from nuclear energy. Why would you think things would be any different in the future? There's no movement I'm aware of to abandon those proven safety regulations, and so the most reasonable expectation is that nuclear energy will continue to demonstrate the same, exceptional level of safety and reliability that it always has.
Re: (Score:2)
It's irrational rationality. Running an unsafe nuclear power plant because you don't like paying taxes and don't trust the government is irrational. But if you've already accepted that level of irrationality then the next rational thing to do is not run the plant in the first place.
If I understand what you're saying, you're suggesting that nuclear power plants will be privatized, and therefore unsafe? Maybe you are suggesting this because of what happened with Fukushima?
The thing is, a majority of nuclear power plants in the U.S. are already privatized (but heavily regulated). That exact arrangement has provided the extraordinary safety record that we observe from nuclear energy. Why would you think things would be any different in the future? There's no movement I'm aware of to abandon those proven safety regulations, and so the most reasonable expectation is that nuclear energy will continue to demonstrate the same, exceptional level of safety and reliability that it always has.
Why would we think things would be any different in the future? Because whenever the damn Republicans start handing out deregulation cool-aid it has a tendency to end badly. It just plain scares me to think of what may happen if the Republican deregulation brigade ever ever decides to aggressively deregulate the energy industry with the usual set of dumb ideas like: "you can't pass a new a regulation unless you abolish three old ones", and then decide this should apply to nuclear safety regulations as well
Re: (Score:3)
Why would we think things would be any different in the future? Because whenever the damn Republicans start handing out deregulation cool-aid it has a tendency to end badly.
These are general fears based on an overall Republican ideology, but to be honest all signs suggest that their current political dominance will be very short-lived, and they have made no gestures whatsoever towards removing nuclear safety regulations. Point to something specific that you're concerned about, otherwise it just seems like you are flailing about to try to make this a partisan thing when it really isn't.
I dislike Trump as much as the next guy, but so far his administration has demonstrated prett
Re: What signs are that? (Score:3)
It's kind of amusing how so many people think the left own the mainstream media, and others believe just as fervently that it's the right.
It's pretty obvious that the large media outlets tend to be run by people who are left of center. Even just taking population statistics into account, most of them are based out of large cities, and large cities contain populations which are more left-leaning than the nation as a whole. Ergo, unless the outlet is intentionally looking to hire conservatives (fox news), or unless some other factor results in conservatives disproportionally getting those jobs, the networks are going to end up being managed a
Re: (Score:3)
As mentioned I'm well aware this isn't rational behavior. But that's the point. None of this is rational. If human beings were rational we'd stop making tanks and build solar farms & desalination plants instead.
Can I just say, as someone who is generally allied with liberals, that this kind of shit is why you guys get a bad rap? Your argument is LITERALLY: "People are doing irrational things, so I will embrace my own variety of irrationality."
To paraphrase: A stupidity for a stupidity makes the whole world stupid. This is the postmodernist trash-thought that has systematically rotted (some pieces of) academia and totally eaten away at the soul of America. Demand EVIDENCE! Go to the data FIRST, BEFORE you make your
Re: (Score:2)
If you want cheap power plants built on time, you should go to Rosatom or maybe to Areva in a pinch.
Re:Externalized Costs (Score:5, Informative)
The model does not include the cost of nuke plants that melt down, even though we know they do that periodically.
They do? Periodically? Like continuously every couple of years or something? To date there has been one meltdown due to insanity, one due to equipment failure, and one due to a natural disaster.
Interestingly 2 of the 3 scenarios are not possible with any Gen III reactor design let alone Gen IV and the third one isn't possible with most reactors.
I think you need to look up the word "periodically" in the dictionary. ... Or look up how nuclear disasters happen and why your comment is silly.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The model does not include the cost of nuke plants that melt down, even though we know they do that periodically.
The US has had exactly one reactor undergo partial meltdown since nuclear power became a thing roughly fifty years ago. To say you "know" nuclear plants experience meltdown "periodically" is utter nonsense and unsupported by any facts you can cite.
Or perhaps you want to cite Chernobyl? Gee, what happens when you turn off all the safeties and try to run a reactor with a positive void coefficient in a haphazard manner? Never mind that no reactor currently in operation in the US has such a design. Never min
Re: (Score:2)
...making more babies which is a net increase on the resources of the planet.
That's an optimistic view of "more mouths to feed."
Re: (Score:2)
3. Every room inside a suite/unit of a building has it's own independent second source Heat/Cooling system. So if you like your unit 1 degree warmer than everyone else, you pay the extra money to run the gas fireplace or electric heaters (which waste a shit tonne of money)
Do you not have thermostatic radiator valves in the USA? Even in my small house I have different rooms at different temperatures with only one temperature of circulating heating water. While living in Scotland I have no requirement for air
Re: (Score:2)
In my limited experience, radiators are not common in the USA. Most houses where I have lived use central air heating and cooling systems. I haven't seen thermostatically controlled air outlets for such systems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That would be every town in the United States from May to August.
I'm not kidding either.
WHOOOOSH is not just the sound of everyone's A/C being turned on in the summer...
Re: Absolutism has a cost? (Score:5, Informative)
... (the rich, the Pelosi supporters, etc.) will be assigned July and August while the "bad" families (Trump supporters, NRA members, etc.)...
You have strange fantasies [wikipedia.org].
Re: Absolutism has a cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong: Coal power is. It's destroying the planet, and yet we're still using a lot of it.
You have price confused with "cost"-- our energy markets are no where near sane about capturing externalities (with the possible exception of nuclear, where we insist on paying full-life cycle charges up front, including waste handling).
Re: (Score:2)
by "almost" I assume you mean cheaper than all coal, other than old super dirty coal (which is on par), gas and biomass. In fact nuclear is not really all that expensive. It is the startup costs that kill nuclear, not the TCO. Pretty much the only thing cheaper than nuclear is natural gas and geothermal currently.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It does. Proper Environmentalism, isn't being a crazy hippy, but looking at the risks and rewards of all available options. And going back and reevaluating to see if any factors have changed.
Back in the early 1900's the Gasoline Automobile was an environmental benefit. Because of the health risk of keeping horses in a City Environment. The Toxic (much more Toxic then today) exhaust was known back then to be harmful, however being that it was in the open air, it was considered much better then the Environ
Re: (Score:3)
>Please identify any actual gas subsidies
Every war in the Middle East for the last century? We weren't there for the weather.
Every tax credit given to fossil fuel companies? Sure some will argue "tax credits aren't subsidies", but at the end of the day they give the same economic advantage to a particular business as they would get by leaving the taxes in place and adding a subsidy, so the end result is pretty much the same.
Every environmental impact indemnification we give to fossil fuel companies? O
Re: (Score:2)
Monetary cost is just one factor. There are long term costs to health, environment, and so forth to be taken into account. Then there is the major problem that non renewable power is... not renewable. We WILL run out of coal and oil someday. Do we want civilization to collapse when this happens, or do we want alternatives to ramp up before this happens?
100% carbon capture from coal does not solve that problem, or other problems with coal. The big political push for coal is only about jobs, and those jobs
Re:Breaking News! (Score:4, Interesting)
There are two sides of such an argument.
1. Just because it works in Europe it doesn't mean it will work in the USA.
2. Just because it works in Europe it doesn't mean it will not work in the USA.
We were able in the past make a trans-continental railroad, an Interstate system, That connects every state together. Nearly every home has access to Clean Water, Electricity, Telephone... These improvements while cost a lot, helped build the United States into an Economic Power house. Because the 325Million people have access to a wider infrastructure and be part of society, while having the property and space to utilize their own means.
This was all fine and good until the stupid Abortion Debates, where peoples view on the topic, painted the other side as morally deficient. Calling the Other side Misogynists or Baby Killers. Which after a few generations of this, has created a polarized society where working with the other side is considered bad. Even if it for all best interests.
Re: (Score:3)
this, 90% this (not sure on the genesis, but the out come is very real).
Now both sides on every single debate in politics see those who disagree with them as morally deficient and evil. :(
Re: (Score:2)
You know, it's rather interesting, but I think that I see worse intolerance on the right than on the left. Both sides are intolerant, but the folks on the right are more likely to swing into violence while the ones on the left are just screaming. Given historic trends I suspect this is because the police look the other way when the right gets violent, but come down hard when the left does, but whatever the reason, that's what I see reported.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh right, it worked in Germany, a country with a population density 2.5x the USA (which ranks 180th...)
Those numbers are more interesting if you look at the median population density (i.e. the population density where most people live). The clustering of the US population in costal cities means that it's often higher than European cities. Something may not work for 100% of the population of the USA, but if it works for 70% or so then that's a big impact.
Re:Breaking News! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Textbook Diminishing Returns (Score:5, Informative)
It has also become clear that renewables are an equally poor tool for full power satisfaction.
Except actual studies show that grids get *more* reliable when renewables are added. Funny thing about the sun, it doesn't go out all at once the way a 500MW coal plant does when a turbine overheats. Tesla's Big Battery in South Australia has compensated for several fossil-plant shutdowns much quicker than spinning reserve can--eventually they will be able to reduce the amount of spinning reserve in favor of batteries. But you're absolutely right, we don't have anything to worry about until we actually hit that 80% mark, and by that time we're likely to have even more solutions available.
Re: (Score:2)
The cost of that last 20% is steeper on a percentage basis, but the aggregate cost is definitely not more (much less "much more") than the aggregate cost of the first 80%.
And part of the solution is not to demand that only solar and wind be used. Nuclear should still be in the mix (licenses are available for any capitalist who wants to build one) for example. There are a lot of options that could cover that last 20% (biofuels, carbon capture, nuclear as cited) and competition and innovation will push us tow
Re: (Score:2)
and competition and innovation will push us toward the lowest cost way of doing it.
You still believe that myth?
It worked wonders for the american fast food industry. ...
For housing/rent in the center of NYC not so much.
Neither for health care or student tuitions
Most bills in the long term go up, they don't go down.