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Nuclear does well in propulsion for the Navy and with areal drones, it may work out in the air as well. But it just is too expensive to be considered for a solution to our climate problems. It's opportunity cost is just too high. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-C...

Amory Lovins sees fuel cell vehicles as being competitive well before 2050, so this is an interesting development. http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-cost_reduction_potential_of_powertrains

There are a couple of big ways in which nuclear power does a bad job on greenhouse gas emissions. First, it is expensive and slow. So much so that its opportunity cost is bloated and when effort is ill spent on nuclear power, alternatives which are faster, cheaper and better are hindered. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Second, as we are seeing here, one accident can lead to a massive pullback from nuclear power, both in the affected country and around the world. Even France has announced a planned pullback. When the pullback is rapid, then relic fossil fuel plants rather than new clean energy replacements are pulled into service to make up the difference in generation. This makes nuclear power not just a slow response to climate change, but a retrograde response since these bad accidents are inevitable.

There are other ways it has a bad influence as well, such as pretending to be a silver bullet to the adolescent mind for example, so much time is wasted on fantasy scenarios. But these two big ones are bad enough.

The authors seem to have misunderstood the situation. Nuclear power slows response to climate change owing to opportunity cost. You get much more reduction in emissions by excluding nuclear power than by including it. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

The comparison is not with fossil fuels. "Quantitative analyses show that the risks associated with the expanded use of nuclear energy are orders of magnitude smaller than the risks associated with fossil fuels." The comparison is with other alternatives to fossil fuels.

Further, on their scaling argument, there are huge bottlenecks to scaling nuclear power. There are insufficient large casting facilities, the designs they prefer are unready for deployment and uranium resources are inadequate for a large scale deployment. Tripling the use of nuclear power means building power plants that run out of fuel before the end of their design lifetime.

The lowest cost and most scalable approach is large scale renewables with supportive transmission. A quantitative analysis that looks at the appropriate elements can be found in the book "Reinventing Fire" by Amory Lovins.

Finally, it should be clear that not putting all ones eggs in one basket should not preclude us from avoiding baskets that drop in a particularly messy way. The Fukushima-Chernobyl basket defeats climate action because of the mess.

Where did you miss $0.15/Watt solar? Do you understand the learning curves of these things at all? Nuclear is more expensive than everything else except oil these days http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Interestingly you can, and at lower cost than reliance on nuclear power. http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Electricity_scenarios Everything gets sewn up by about 2050.

Wow, is that little one pager full of assumptions, most of which are not safe ones. Not the least of which is we stick with our current stupid once-through fuel cycle in 60 year old BWR designs.

Interestingly you can, and at lower cost than reliance on nuclear power. http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Electricity_scenarios Everything gets sewn up by about 2050.

Nuclear power has a negative learning curve. France is trying to move away from it. You can read about the opportunity cost of building new nuclear power plants here. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly Even existing nuclear power is turning out to be uneconomical. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf

When you do the math, nuclear turns out to be the most expensive option. http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Electricity_scenarios

You are incorrect. Amory Lovins has done the detailed analysis on this. Large scale renewables with extensive transmission is the absolute cheapest possible system. He prefers more local generation for (esthetic) efficiency and robustness in the face of certain natural disasters and enemy attacks. But, moneywise, big renewbles are the cheapest generating system. http://www.rmi.org/reinventingfire

I'll start taking you seriously when you admit nukes are too expensive. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

The answer to this problem, and also to the problem of grid failure due to extreme weather, is to decentralize power production. Individual homes can often produce as much power as they need with solar and micro-wind turbines. If they tie in to a micro-grid--essentially a neighborhood-level grid--they can load balance against their neighbors.

Decentralizing power production yields many other benefits, too. Individuals save tons of money on power bills (the cost of solar, for example, has been dropping dramatically), the country produces less CO2, and everyone has a lot more money in their pockets they can boost the economy with.

billions of tractors

ORLY?

This doesn't have to happen overnight. All those cars & bulldozers have to be replaced in the next few decades anyway. Electric vehicles are mechanically simpler by far, and amortised full-lifecycle costs at full scale are significantly less than internal-combustion vehicles, even including current batteries.

As for land use, more solar energy than the entire world uses annually falls on just the deserts of the world - every six hours. And there's no reason to limit ourselves to only solar.

If you are interested in costs, Amory Lovins' book "Reinventing Fire" goes into great detail. http://www.rmi.org/ReinventingFire Large scale renewables with new transmission turns out to be the cheapest approach. He still prefers smaller scale methods owing to their robustness to large scale disruption. Nuclear is the most expensive option.

At the current accident rate, in sixty years there will be enough area in permanent exclusion zones that all world nuclear power could be replaced using solar power on that area alone. Seems like a better use of land would be to avoid the future accidents and replace nuclear power now. It would be cheaper. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Buildings as a whole consume 72% of total US electricity (42% of total energy). There's plenty of scope for impact.

Obviously we don't need to reduce energy consumption to zero, just emissions. And it's inevitable that we'll switch to 100% renewable energy eventually, by definition - non-renewable energy isn't renewed, and will run out (or just get too expensive to use).

That's what they achieved when they retrofitted the Empire State Building. Paid for itself in only 3 years, and now delivers $4.4M savings annually.

Insulation, smart energy controls etc do cost money, but the energy savings can more than pay for it over the life of the building. Better designs can save up to 69% of energy costs. And there's a lot of ripple-effect savings too, by reducing emissions and freeing up capital.

Of course, getting completely off coal, oil & gas will eventually cut emissions to zero, but there's a more immediate & guaranteed payoff simply by improving efficiencies.

That's what they achieved when they retrofitted the Empire State Building. Paid for itself in only 3 years, and now delivers $4.4M savings annually.

Insulation, smart energy controls etc do cost money, but the energy savings can more than pay for it over the life of the building. Better designs can save up to 69% of energy costs. And there's a lot of ripple-effect savings too, by reducing emissions and freeing up capital.

Of course, getting completely off coal, oil & gas will eventually cut emissions to zero, but there's a more immediate & guaranteed payoff simply by improving efficiencies.

AGW proponents want us to change transportation, construction, agriculture, etc, making almost everything in life more expensive.

It's odd that so few /.ers seem to know this, but "going green" is actually much cheaper than business as usual. Amory Lovins has been demonstrating this for decades already. RMI makes most of its money by consulting with the likes of 3M, IBM, the Pentagon, etc. on how to save TONS of money by investing in efficiency.

It's time to put this myth to bed, once and for all. Going "green" is NOT more expensive, it's actually much cheaper. And this is why more and more companies are ALREADY investing in this area.

The real issue isn't "going green", it's government dictating the terms of your business and personal life. There is a serious rationality gap between any increase in CO2 and global warming. Stretch that further to "climate change". Now munge it out of shape to "cap & trade". It becomes obvious that we are dealing with politically motivated and intellectually deficient actions.

No one needs to be coerced to save money, only informed about the practical means to do it.

"Cooling business", indeed.

AGW proponents want us to change transportation, construction, agriculture, etc, making almost everything in life more expensive.

It's odd that so few /.ers seem to know this, but "going green" is actually much cheaper than business as usual. Amory Lovins has been demonstrating this for decades already. RMI makes most of its money by consulting with the likes of 3M, IBM, the Pentagon, etc. on how to save TONS of money by investing in efficiency.

It's time to put this myth to bed, once and for all. Going "green" is NOT more expensive, it's actually much cheaper. And this is why more and more companies are ALREADY investing in this area.

You might be interested in reading some actual analysis - the Rocky Mountain Institute has done great research for years on this. Reinventing Fire What you have above is a good case study of a set of logical fallacies. How many can you find?

I was curious about this so I listened to the press conference. They are saying that Fukushima shows that the global nuclear power industry is vulnerable to the worst run nuclear plants. Basically they are afraid that Fukushima will slow the growth of nuclear power which they (mistakenly) think would help with global warming. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center%2FLibrary%2FE09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

The summary is misleading, and it seems that there is much confusion and emotion regarding this issue.

Let's look at the facts, shall we?

54,79% of Italians voted. Of those, 94,05% voted against nuclear energy.

I can't undertand why, but some slashdotters, despite overwhelming evidence, seem to believe that nuclear power is the only way to solve global warming, that it actually provides a considerable amount of relatively safe and clean energy, and that's it's the future. All of these propositions are wrong, based on the scientific data available.

Nuclear power provides about 6% of the world's energy, whereas about 19% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables.

A study published in July 2010 by John O. Blackburn and Sam Cunningham from Duke University details how electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants.

An analysis published in Energy Policy by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis and authored by Mark Z. Jacobson and UC-Davis researcher Mark A. Delucchi states: "There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources", and to power 100 percent of the world for all purposes from wind, water and solar resources, the footprint needed is about 0.4 percent of the world's land (mostly solar footprint) and the spacing between installations is another 0.6 percent of the world's land (mostly wind-turbine spacing). And we can do it before 2050, Jacobson said.

Another analysis shows how solar will become the cheapest source of energy of all, even chapter than coal, in justa a few years, while nuclear costs will keep rising.

From TFA:

Notice in the first chart how steadily manufacturing costs have come down, from $60 a watt in the mid-1970’s to $1.50 today. People often point to a “Moore’s Law” in solar – meaning that for every cumulative doubling of manufacturing capacity, costs fall 20%. In solar PV manufacturing, costs have fallen about 18% for every doubling of production. “It holds up very closely,” says Solaria’s Shugar.

The “Moore’s Law” analogy doesn’t necessarily work on the installation side, as you have all kinds of variables in permitting, financing and hardware costs. But with incredible advances in web-based tools to make sales and permitting easier; new sophisticated racking, wiring and inverter technologies to make installation faster and cheaper; and all kinds of innovative businesses providing point-of-sale financing (think auto sales), costs on the installation side have fallen steadily as well. The Rocky Mountain Institute projects that these costs will fall by 50% in the next five years.

And here's the paper from The Rocky Mountain Institute.

So, if you are still blinded by your emotional attachment to nuclear and can't seem to reason straight, think about this:

That 17 GW installed in 2010 is the equivalent of 17 nuclear power plants – manufactured, shipped and installed in one year. It can take decades just to install a nuclear plant. Think about that. I heard Bill Gates recently call solar “cute.” Well, that’s 17 GW of “cute” ad

Actually, nuclear power increases over all emissions owing to its high opportunity cost which displaces more effective technology. http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library%2FE09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Here is a calculation for maximum possible sea level rise: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/

You should look into the opportunity cost of nuclear power. It is counterproductive. http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library%2FE09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Personally I think H2 is too difficult to handle. I think after a few cars blowup, the consumers will flee. -or- If the manufacturers do manage to make safe, impervious hydrogen cars, the pricetag will be so high (~$100,000) that nobody will be able to afford it. The same flaw that plagues pure EVs.

Because conventional gas tanks never explode, gas engines never catch fire, and we're paying a fair price for perfectly safe gasoline storage and transport?

Never mind the studies showing that hydrogen is safer than gasoline in real-world situations. It's not the safety mechanisms that make the present technology cost $100,000 per car, it's the fuel cells themselves, and the cost will only come down over time because of mass-production and technology advances.

Personally I think H2 is too difficult to handle. I think after a few cars blowup, the consumers will flee. -or- If the manufacturers do manage to make safe, impervious hydrogen cars, the pricetag will be so high (~$100,000) that nobody will be able to afford it. The same flaw that plagues pure EVs.

Because conventional gas tanks never explode, gas engines never catch fire, and we're paying a fair price for perfectly safe gasoline storage and transport?

Never mind the studies showing that hydrogen is safer than gasoline in real-world situations. It's not the safety mechanisms that make the present technology cost $100,000 per car, it's the fuel cells themselves, and the cost will only come down over time because of mass-production and technology advances.

You'll have to say how large a system you are considering and how recently you got a quote. New nuclear will cost you $0.15/kWh or more. http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Wind and solar are pipe dreams. I don't care if I get modded down for saying that. I don't care if it goes against popular opinion, or flies in the face of all the pro-solar, pro-wind propaganda of late. And I don't care if it upsets the environmentalists.

Fucking Karma whore. You know that's *exactly* what many people here feel. I, however, will probably get modded down by all the pro-nuke-ler ignorant arrogant assholes because I'm saying there are better ways to make power WHILE A FUCKING NUCLEAR REACTOR IS IN THE PROCESS OF MELTING DOWN.

It's true. Even if you could come up with enough money to build the infrastructure to deploy and maintain the kind of huge solar and wind farms you would need all over the country/world, they'll still only cover a fraction of our present-day needs.

Bullshit. REAL renewables have yet to see any significant industrial investment and all comes down to political will. Where is your research? I bet you've got none and are just lying. So here is some I've dug up;

Nuclear power: economics and climate-protection potential uses industry and government data and finds that, globally, nuclear power is already being outpaced by better means of electricity production. It finds globally, as far back as 2006, more electricity was being produces from low-carbon and no-carbon competitors. Even without subsidies decentralised electricity generators provide almost three times the output and almost six times the capacity of nuclear power, that's kinetic vs potential energy. Energy efficiency means alone are shown to provide ten times the capacity of the nuclear industry.

Even the pro-nuclear 2003 MIT study found that every ten cents spent to buy a nuclear kilowatt hour (1 kWh) could be used to generate 1.2 - 1.7 kWh of gas fired electricity, 2.2 - 6.5 kWh of co-generation (combined heat and power) from industry or 10 kWh of energy efficiency methods.

Wind power is already whooping nuclear ass. Back in 2004 it globally outpaced nuclear by six times in annual capacity. With short lead times, farmer friendly, rapid technological development I suspect this will grow after the fukushima disaster.

America is blessed with so much wind and sun power you don't even need nuke-ler bower, so why don't people like you have the imagination to utilise this resources that ends your dependency on oil and nuclear.

Oh sure, ask any American if they support solar/wind and they'll say "Yes." But try rephrasing it as "Would you support a 50% income tax increase to pay for investments in solar/wind infrastructure?"

Ask them if they would like a Fukushima style disaster near them with a General Electric reactor commonly installed around the U.S. I bet there is some hidden failure mode waiting in any one of those reactors - Just as the japanese have recently discovered. Tell them they can save money on CHP and then ask them if nuke is a viable alternative when an electricity company will rent their land to put up wind power - and they can still have their crops or cows.

But the more I look at the issue, and the kinds of numbers involved, the more I don't see how it's ever going to be practical (not until the coal runs out anyway).

Please surprise me and share your valuable research with us. Show me the numbers and I'll do some real research.

And that's not even getting into the issue of countries and areas that don't get enough unobstructed sunlight and wind. What's going to happen to them in this utopia?

Reeeaally, altruism is a motivator now, as if. What a serious load of Bullshit you have produced. I bet you feel good getting that load out, karma whore. You pro-nuclear idiots have hit a new low *WHILE* a meltdown is occuring you trumpet the lie for all to hear, fucking pathetic. It's one thing

Every energy source gets government support. And nuclear has received more than most.

When to take away that support, the cost for new electricity for nuclear is $0.11-0.17/kWh depending on the estimate source. Cost for new wind is $0.07/kWh, one of the lowest for any energy source, including coal. And that still includes all the back-end government support nuclear gets for things like waste disposal and a free insurance ride - that without nuclear would be completely unviable.

If you check out the below reference, you can see on the graph on page 13, that one of the key problems beyond the electricity end-cost, is the much higher capitol costs of nuclear. This is a major problem for nuclear, the financing doesn't make sense, you have to leverage big and long.

Nuclear is risky, not just technically, but from a business perspective. The Congressional Budget Office study on the loan guarantees for nuclear concluded that the default rate on the nuclear loans would be "very high—well above 50 percent". This why you've only seen nuclear industries flourish under the skirt of a centralized socialist government program - like France and Japan.

https://old.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNuclIlusion.pdf

Interesting. Have you considered offshore wind production and rated capacity? There seems to be news about that. You can read about the cost of power from various sources here: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly Wind appears to be much cheaper than nuclear power on or offshore.

Nuclear power is an expensive frivolity: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly I doubt that economic hard times could be a help in pushing it along.

"New" Nuclear Reactors, Same Old Story

The dominant type of new nuclear power plant, light-water reactors (LWRs), proved unnanceable in the robust 2005–08 capital market, despite new U.S. subsidies approaching or exceeding their total construction cost. New LWRs are now so costly and slow that they save 2–20× less carbon, 20–40× slower, than micropower and efficient end-use. As this becomes evident, other kinds of reactors are being proposed instead—novel designs claimed to solve LWRs problems of economics, proliferation, and waste. But on closer examination, the two kinds most often promoted—Integral Fast Reactors (IFRs) and thorium reactors—reveal no economic, environmental, or security rationale, and the thesis is unsound for any nuclear reactor.

Some enthusiasts prefer fueling reactors with thorium—an element 3 as abundant as uranium but even more uneconomic to use. India has for decades failed to commercialize breeder reactors to exploit its thorium deposits. But thorium can’t fuel a reactor by itself: rather, a uranium- or plutonium-fueled reactor can convert thorium-232 into fissionable (and plutonium-like, highly bomb-usable) uranium-233. Thorium’s proliferation,i waste, safety, and cost problems differ only in detail from uranium’s: e.g., thorium ore makes less mill waste, but highly radioactive U-232 makes fabricating or reprocessing U-233 fuel hard and costly. And with uranium-based nuclear power continuing its decades-long economic collapse, it’s awfully late to be thinking of developing a whole new fuel cycle whose problems differ only in detail from current versions.

Spent LWR fuel “burned” in IFRs, it’s claimed, could meet all humanity’s energy needs for centuries. But renewables and efficiency can do that forever at far lower cost, with no proliferation, nuclear wastes, or major risks.ii Moreover, any new type of reactor would probably cost even more than today’s models: even if the nuclear part of a new plant were free, the rest—two-thirds of its capital cost—would still be grossly uncompetitive with any efficiency and most renewables, sending out a kilowatt-hour for ~9–13/kWh instead of new LWRs’ ~12–18+. In contrast, the average U.S. windfarm completed in 2007 sold its power (net of a 1/kWh subsidy that’s a small fraction of nuclear subsidies) for 4.5/kWh. Add ~0.4 to make it dispatchable whether the wind is blowing or not and you get under a nickel delivered to the grid.

Most other renewables also beat new thermal power plants too, cogeneration is often comparable or cheaper, and efficiency is cheaper than just running any nuclear- or fossil-fueled plant. Obviously these options would also easily beat proposed fusion reactors that are sometimes claimed to be comparable to today’s fission reactors in size and cost. And unlike any kind of hypothetical fusion or new fission reactor—or LWRs, which have a market share below 2%—efficiency and micropower now provide at least half the world’s new electrical services, adding tens of times more capacity each year than nuclear power does. It’s a far bigger gamble to assume that the nuclear market loser will become a winner than that these winners will turn to losers.

Source: RMI, "New" Nuclear Reactors, Same Old Story

Lovins addresses each of Brand's 4 pro-nuclear arguments in a bullet-point style appropriate for the op-ed page (works for Slashdot too), and as that document says, "Supporting details are at www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/2009-09_FourNuclearMyths.pdf.

Calling Lovins "incredibly naive" isn't the kind of rational argument I was talking about. If you don't know Amory Lovins' work, you might peruse the rest of the RMI website.

For the record, here are the four pro-nuclear arguments Brand makes, and the responses that Lovins has to each.

Nonetheless, Stewart rejects all non-nuclear options, for four fallacious reasons:
Baseload: Wind and photovoltaics can’t keep the lights on because they can’t run 24/7.
Footprint: Photovoltaics need about 150–175 times, and windfarms from 600+ to nearly
900 times, more land than nuclear power to produce the same electricity.
Portfolio: We need every tool for combating climate change, including nuclear power.
Government role: The climate imperative trumps economics, so governments everywhere
must and will do what France did—ensure that nuclear power gets built, regardless of
economics or dissent.
I believe each claim is unsupportable:
Baseload. The electricity system doesn’t rely on any plant’s ability to run continuously;
rather, all plants together supply the grid, and the grid serves all loads. That’s necessary
because no kind of power plant can run all the time, as Stewart says they must do to meet
steady loads. I repeat: there is not and has never been a need for any particular plant or
kind of plant to run all the time, and none can. All power plants fail, varying only in their
failures’ size, duration, frequency, predictability, and cause. Solar cells’ and windpower’s
variation with night and weather is no different from the intermittence of coal and nuclear
plants, except that it affects less capacity at once, more briefly, far more predictably, and
3
is no harder and probably easier and cheaper to manage. In short, the ability to serve
steady loads is a statistical attribute of all plants on the grid, not an operational
requirement for one plant. Variability (predictable failure) and intermittence (unpredictable
failure) must be managed by diversifying type and location, forecasting, and
integrating with other resources. Utilities do this every day, balancing diverse resources
to meet fluctuating demand and offset outages. Even with a largely (or probably a
wholly) renewable grid, this is not a significant problem or cost, either in theory or in
practice—as illustrated by areas that are already 30–40% windpowered.
Footprint. Stewart understates nuclear power’s land-use by about 43-fold by omitting all
land used by exclusion zones and the nuclear fuel chain. Conversely, he includes the
space between wind or solar equipment—unused land commonly used for farming,
grazing, wildlife, and recreation. That’s like claiming that the area of the lampposts in a
parking lot is the area of the parking lot, even though 99% of it is used for parking,
driving, and walking. Properly measured, per kilowatt-hour produced, the land made
unavailable for other uses is about the same for ground-mounted photovoltaics as for
nuclear power, sometimes less—or zero for building-mounted PVs sufficient to power
the world many times over. Land actually used per kWh is up to thousands of times
smaller for windpower than for nuclear power. If land-use were an important criterion for
picking energy systems, which it’s generally not, it would thus reverse Stewart’s footprint
conclusion.
Portfolio. The one paper he cites as proof that we need all energy op

Lovins addresses each of Brand's 4 pro-nuclear arguments in a bullet-point style appropriate for the op-ed page (works for Slashdot too), and as that document says, "Supporting details are at www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/2009-09_FourNuclearMyths.pdf.

Calling Lovins "incredibly naive" isn't the kind of rational argument I was talking about. If you don't know Amory Lovins' work, you might peruse the rest of the RMI website.

For the record, here are the four pro-nuclear arguments Brand makes, and the responses that Lovins has to each.

Nonetheless, Stewart rejects all non-nuclear options, for four fallacious reasons:
Baseload: Wind and photovoltaics can’t keep the lights on because they can’t run 24/7.
Footprint: Photovoltaics need about 150–175 times, and windfarms from 600+ to nearly
900 times, more land than nuclear power to produce the same electricity.
Portfolio: We need every tool for combating climate change, including nuclear power.
Government role: The climate imperative trumps economics, so governments everywhere
must and will do what France did—ensure that nuclear power gets built, regardless of
economics or dissent.
I believe each claim is unsupportable:
Baseload. The electricity system doesn’t rely on any plant’s ability to run continuously;
rather, all plants together supply the grid, and the grid serves all loads. That’s necessary
because no kind of power plant can run all the time, as Stewart says they must do to meet
steady loads. I repeat: there is not and has never been a need for any particular plant or
kind of plant to run all the time, and none can. All power plants fail, varying only in their
failures’ size, duration, frequency, predictability, and cause. Solar cells’ and windpower’s
variation with night and weather is no different from the intermittence of coal and nuclear
plants, except that it affects less capacity at once, more briefly, far more predictably, and
3
is no harder and probably easier and cheaper to manage. In short, the ability to serve
steady loads is a statistical attribute of all plants on the grid, not an operational
requirement for one plant. Variability (predictable failure) and intermittence (unpredictable
failure) must be managed by diversifying type and location, forecasting, and
integrating with other resources. Utilities do this every day, balancing diverse resources
to meet fluctuating demand and offset outages. Even with a largely (or probably a
wholly) renewable grid, this is not a significant problem or cost, either in theory or in
practice—as illustrated by areas that are already 30–40% windpowered.
Footprint. Stewart understates nuclear power’s land-use by about 43-fold by omitting all
land used by exclusion zones and the nuclear fuel chain. Conversely, he includes the
space between wind or solar equipment—unused land commonly used for farming,
grazing, wildlife, and recreation. That’s like claiming that the area of the lampposts in a
parking lot is the area of the parking lot, even though 99% of it is used for parking,
driving, and walking. Properly measured, per kilowatt-hour produced, the land made
unavailable for other uses is about the same for ground-mounted photovoltaics as for
nuclear power, sometimes less—or zero for building-mounted PVs sufficient to power
the world many times over. Land actually used per kWh is up to thousands of times
smaller for windpower than for nuclear power. If land-use were an important criterion for
picking energy systems, which it’s generally not, it would thus reverse Stewart’s footprint
conclusion.
Portfolio. The one paper he cites as proof that we need all energy op

With some eco-aware folks (like Stewart Brand) converting from anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear in the face of global warming, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has consistently and rationally debunked their pro-nuclear arguments.

But much of Lovins' anti-nuclear stance is based on the tremendous cost of nuclear vs. renewables. I wonder if these small plants change that equation significantly.

1. Are you talking about the (so called) problem of renewables being intermittent, or of efficiency? These are separate issues, but you have conflated them.

2. Solar Thermal generates electricity for hours after the sun goes down. Not all night long, but much longer than solar-voltaic. Certainly long enough to deal with much of the people come home, turn on TV and AC's.

3. In any one place, the wind is not always blowing, but the wind is always blowing somewhere. Enough wind power in enough places overcomes the intermittency of wind.

4. Some sources of alternative energy don't suffer from intermittency. Wave, tidal, geothermal, small scale hydro...

5. Energy storage from renewables can be as simple as pumping water up a hill.

6. Experts who have studied energy issues all of their adult lives believe that efficiency is one of the most powerful tools we have. See http://www.rmi.org/ for a good start. Saying they are "seriously deluded" is an ad hominem attack with no real substance to back it up.

6. If you wish to turn off your electricity, I won't stop you. However, I think that coming up with solutions that allow a comfortable modern lifestyle have a better chance of the mass acceptance we need to succeed.

1. Living closer to work does not equal a more efficient car, so you are not making sense right off the bat.

2. If you do have a more efficient car, it is more efficient all the time, even if you end up driving a bit more. The amount of extra driving people are prepared to do if gas prices go down is nowhere near the amount of gas we could save if we doubled passenger vehicle efficiency. People don't have the time to double their driving, but doubling vehicle efficiency is already possible.

3. All transportation energy usage is only 28% of the energy usage of the US. This includes trucks, planes, trains etc... In all of these sectors efficiency can drop usage more than lower prices can increase demand.

4. We are talking about nuclear, which creates electricity. Most vehicles are not powered by electricity.

5. People don't actually care about how much electricity they are using. They care about the services they get from their energy. If energy prices go down because everyone has more efficiency TV's and refrigerators, most people are not going to think "SCORE, let's get ANOTHER refrigerator."

6. In states with high efficiency standards, energy usage per capita, and per unit of economic productivity does down. Better efficiency does in fact work, and we are just scratching the surface of the potential. see: http://ert.rmi.org/research/cgu.html

For further reading, I recommend http://rmi.org/rmi/Reinventing+Fire+Solutions+Journal+Fall+2009

1. Living closer to work does not equal a more efficient car, so you are not making sense right off the bat.

2. If you do have a more efficient car, it is more efficient all the time, even if you end up driving a bit more. The amount of extra driving people are prepared to do if gas prices go down is nowhere near the amount of gas we could save if we doubled passenger vehicle efficiency. People don't have the time to double their driving, but doubling vehicle efficiency is already possible.

3. All transportation energy usage is only 28% of the energy usage of the US. This includes trucks, planes, trains etc... In all of these sectors efficiency can drop usage more than lower prices can increase demand.

4. We are talking about nuclear, which creates electricity. Most vehicles are not powered by electricity.

5. People don't actually care about how much electricity they are using. They care about the services they get from their energy. If energy prices go down because everyone has more efficiency TV's and refrigerators, most people are not going to think "SCORE, let's get ANOTHER refrigerator."

6. In states with high efficiency standards, energy usage per capita, and per unit of economic productivity does down. Better efficiency does in fact work, and we are just scratching the surface of the potential. see: http://ert.rmi.org/research/cgu.html

For further reading, I recommend http://rmi.org/rmi/Reinventing+Fire+Solutions+Journal+Fall+2009

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.

The answer is yes, and Rocky Mountain Institute and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins were featured in a New York Times blog in response to last years Presidential Debate. Energy efficiency, a solution at the core of RMIs work, was discussed as a viable and economically profitable resolution to both energy and economy issues. New York Times writer Kate Galbraith points out that RMI and Amory Lovins have consistently advocated the benefits of a soft-path approach to energy, with efficiency at its core. You can read the article here.

When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and micropower (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!

These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in Forget Nuclear, and fully documented in The Nuclear Illusion, available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio.

Hopefully our vision will help put these widely publicized issues into perspective and move us all toward a better understanding that takes us beyond politically divisive issues to collective and viable solutions.