Renewable Energy Production Surpasses Nuclear In the US

mdsolar writes "Renewable energy production has surpassed nuclear energy production in the U.S. according to the latest issue of Monthly Energy Review (PDF) published by the Energy Information Administration. ... During the first three months of 2011, energy produced from renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, hydro, wind) generated 2.245 quadrillion Btus of energy equating to 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production. During this same time period, renewable energy production surpassed nuclear energy power by 5.65 percent. In total, energy produced from renewables is 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production."

Comments

That's really ironic

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Since solar-caused skin cancer kills more people every year than leaks from nuclear energy plants does.

Re:That's really ironic

[MrEricSir]

And don't forget that wind energy is blowing Earth off its orbit.

Re:That's really ironic

[Culture20]

chemicals used in the manufacture of solar cells

Not only are they chemicals, but I hear that the chemicals are made up of protons and neutrons (also known as Alpha particle radiation) wrapped in electrons (aka Beta particle radiation). So these chemical laden solar cells house two types of radiation, and a third type (electromagnetic radiation) is used to excite the stored radiations to make them unstable (the Beta particles move). Just imagine if there were a tsunami! DiHydrogen Monoxide Everywhere!

Re:Cost?

[maxume]

It just includes installed hydroelectric.

There ain't more big rivers.

Hydro?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Hydroelectric has been a big part of the US electric grid for the better part of a century now (Roll on, Columbia roll on). I realize it's "renewable", but lumping it in with the newer renewables (biodiesel, wind, et. al.) - the electric production of which is miniscule compared to that of hydro - and then pretending it's us making strides towards a great green future is a tad misleading.

Re:Hydro?

[Curunir_wolf]

Note that they are also lumping in ethanol, which has already been shown to require more fossil fuel to produce that it can replace (or close to it, depending on the way it's calculated. And ethanol is 10% of all the fuel in all the cars, and is heavily supported by subsidies, so it's not only inefficient, but can't even pay for itself.

Re:Hydro?

[ildon]

Not to mention that no new nuclear power plants have been allowed for like 4 years, so nearly all our increased demand since then has been met by non-renewable natural gas and coal. This milestone is fucking meaningless. Wake me up when it surpasses coal.

Way to grind that axe, buddy

[Dachannien]

"Notwithstanding the recent nuclear accident in Japan, among many others, and the rapid growth in energy and electricity from renewable sources, congressional Republicans continue to press for more nuclear energy funding while seeking deep cuts in renewable energy investments," said Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. "One has to wonder 'what are these people thinking?'"

I have to wonder what he's thinking, because the best solution to US energy needs looking forward involves expansion of nuclear power as well as renewables. We still haven't really made a dent in the roughly half of US electricity production that comes from coal. And that huge base load need isn't going to be solved by intermittent power sources like solar or wind. Underfunding nuclear power development will only result in delays in bringing up safer newer plant designs.

Re:Way to grind that axe, buddy

[shutdown -p now]

This is mdsolar - check his comment history, and pay attention to the link in the sig. He runs a company which installs solar panels, so he's not exactly an impartial figure. I'm surprised you haven't seen him before, since he pops up in pretty much every story about nuclear with similarly misleading comments.

Re:Way to grind that axe, buddy

[Dasher42]

Obsolete information. People are largely unaware of the full gamut of renewable energy technologies. Even so, the Department of Energy did an extensive study that said that Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could supply the country's full energy needs from wind energy alone, but we're not just talking solar panels and turbines.

We could slash building energy requirements drastically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design
Move to peer-to-peer microgrids which by the redundancy of many diverse small energy sources would fill gaps in baseload, reduce the need for redundant large powerplants and losses to electric resistance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/09/uk-island-micro-grid-wales
Consider alternatives for urban and suburban transit that would on today's grid be the equivalent of 300MPG cars: http://www.jpods.com/
For 24/7 baseload, use offshore wind and concentrated solar thermal: http://www.solarreserve.com/
Not to mention use solar thermal for hot water, a highly affordable approach: http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=12850

These are proven solutions with excellent working examples. You can also look at kites: http://ecoble.com/2008/08/26/wind-power-generated-from-kites/ for cheaper material costs or extending power generation to altitudes where the wind is constant, panels of windbelts for smaller-scale solutions as on http://www.humdingerwind.com/ and artificial photosynthesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis

They're also making great strides towards net-positive fusion using lasers: https://www.llnl.gov/str/Petawatt.html

I think the full range of these makes nuclear strictly a question of how to use the remaining nuclear fuel to the fullest extent with less waste left over. I don't understand the enthusiasm for nuclear in the light of the above, or the recent disasters.

Re:Way to grind that axe, buddy

[Lanteran]

Nuclear is going nowhere thanks to people spewing FUD like, hm, you? If it weren't for people opposing every little thing, we would have thorium reactors putting out tiny amounts of waste that degrades in decades or centuries, not tens of millennia, and burning off that existing waste for power. Global warming would be at a point where it's easy to stop if the US and china were mostly nuclear- the major polluters then would be cars, which could then be migrated to electric without the paradoxical dirty power generation. Nuclear power is the replacement for coal, and could have done so by now if not for anti-nuclear hysteria. Solar and wind energy have their place in the world, but that place is not base load power generation. That is much better filled by nuclear and geothermal plants.

Re:So then.

[bill_mcgonigle]

We can basically say renewable energy fsckin works, now ?

Of course it works. The open question is, "can it scale?"

Good luck tripling the amount of hydro or getting woodstoves into cities.

Re:So then.

[MichaelSmith]

Admittedly more effort would need to be put into load and supply management with a large proportion of renewable power. Hydro power is a good candidate for filling gaps in supply. It can operate around the clock and it can be brought on line quickly. It can also be used to store energy with reasonable efficiency.

Great, but ...

[goodmanj]

This sounds like great news for renewable energy buffs, except for one thing: if you're thinking this represents a success by high tech new power sources like wind, solar, etc., you're wrong.

The two biggest components of "renewable energy" in EIA's report are hydroelectric dams and biomass -- the biomass sector is mostly industrial wood and paper plants which run on waste wood, plus people using wood-fired stoves at home. Good for them, but it's not exactly high tech.

In 1990, before the wind-and-solar revolution, things broke down this way:
Nuclear: 6.1 exajoules
Hydro+biomass: 5.7 EJ
Wind+solar: .09 EJ

In 2000:
Nuclear: 7.8 EJ
Hydro+biomass: 5.8 EJ
Wind+solar: 0.12 EJ

In 2010:
Nuclear: 8.4 EJ
Hydro+biomass: 6.8 EJ
Wind+solar: 1.03 EJ

Or to put it another way: The "wind and solar revolution" that's taken place in the past 20 years now produces 1 EJ of energy per year. The nuclear power industry has managed to increase output by *twice* as much, without building a single new power plant, just running existing plants a little harder.

This isn't intended to support nuclear power or to knock renewables. My only point is that wind and solar are much less significant than people on both sides of the debate think they are, and if we intend to use them as serious industrial power sources, we're going to have to start building them in a serious industrial way. What we're doing now is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Re:So then.

[MagusSlurpy]

It also requires a massive amount of salt. Sodium thiosulfate, one of the favored salts for thermal energy storage due to low cost, practical melting point, high heat of fusion, and low toxicity, takes over one ton to store the energy required by the average household for one day. You can reuse it each day, of course, but that's still a buttload of salt for just one city.

Re:So then.

[Anonymous Coward]

PROTIP: Operation DESERTEC.

Yes, it does scale. And with 400 km^2 of CSP we can power the entire world. (Including nighttime through hydroelectric pumped-storage and winters.)
(Connected with high-voltage DC lines to minimize losses btw.)

To be honest, I think this project is awesome. Cheap, simple, elegant, easy to repair, only made of abundant and recyclable materials, never (well, not in any imaginable time frame) running out energy source... It's hard to imagine a better solution.

And the best part: The mirrors allow water from the air to condense on them, moisturizing the ground below, which creates a whole flora and fauna thriving on it. So it's not only neutral to nature, but has a positive effect.

P.S.: I have nothing against nuclear power, and know pretty well how it works. I don't think it's bad. I just think this is so much better! :)

Re:Growth in nuclear is really prior waste.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly. Since TMI, domestic construction of new nuclear power plants has ground to a halt here in the US. Since building a new plant hasn't been politically feasible, operators have learned how to squeeze every joule out of the existing fleet. Steam generator upgrades and thermal power uprates have increased the fleet's output substantially. Taking fuel to higher burnups through better in-core fuel management has allowed operators to squeeze a bit more energy from the fuel bundles. But mostly, plant operators have pretty much perfected the art of running a light water reactor. Capacity factors (the percent of time that the plant is operating and generating power) averaged around 75% or so in the US back in the 1970s. Last year it was more like 91%. That's like getting a few reactors "for free."

It's not that operators in the 1970s were incompetent, it's that we've been continuously raising the performance bar. Par for the course is 90%+ capacity factors these days -- totally unheard of, and deemed impossible back then.

Meaningless comparisons

[yarnosh]

Why are they comparing the production of ethanol (48% of "renewables") with nuclear? That doesn't make any sense. Nuclear is for electricity. Ethanol fuels cars. And what happens when they factor in all the petroleum used to produce all that ethanol. Last I checked, ethanol barely breaks even. Woops! And what would it even say if the comparison was meaningful? That people are scared of nuclear? No surprise there.

And then they go to compare "renewables" with domestic crude oil. First, why just domestic crude? Why not talk about ALL the crude consumed in the US? Why include anything but ethanol in that comparison? What sense does it make to compare hydropower with domestic crude oil? They're totally different markets.

Re:Can it scale?

[Shadow99_1]

No one will let nuclear power scale. We haven't actually built a new nuclear plant in 30 years. With old ones simply wearing out means nuclear is on a decline that just can't be stopped without new plants.

That said, most of the US energy supply still comes from coal and gas (in that order), with 'renewables' as a group taking a distant third, and nuclear still chugging along in a close fourth. We don't seem to really be decreasing coal and gas use, which are real problem areas and instead focus on the perfectly adequate nuclear as what needs to go away.

I'd really rather they replace some of those craptastic coal and gas power plants that make up the bulk of our energy production.

Re:Cost? - Actuall the growing bit is corn ethanol

[sien]

Ironically the troll at the top of the comment tree is correct.

The growth in renewable is actually primarily in biofuels, the majority of which is corn ethanol, which is produced, as Paul Gigot pointed out, by combining corn and taxpayer dollars.