Should Nuclear and Renewable Energy Supporters Stop Fighting?

Lasrick writes "A debate is happening in the pages of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that started with their publication of 'Nuclear vs. Renewables: Divided They Fall,' an article by Dawn Stover that chides nuclear energy advocates and advocates of renewable energy for bickering over the deck chairs while climate change sinks the ship, and while the fossil fuel industry reaps the rewards of the clean energy camp's refusal to work together. Many of the clean energy folks took umbrage at the description of nuclear power as 'clean energy,' so the Civil Society Institute has responded with a detailed look at exactly why they believe nuclear power will not be needed as the world transitions to clean energy."

Comments

No, because they are not compatible

[indros13]

Wind and solar have variable output, so they need to be partnered with flexible power generation. Nuclear is fundamentally inflexible because you can't quickly ramp up or down electricity output from a nuclear power plant. See this short video for a nice explanation of the incompatibility: http://www.ilsr.org/coal-nucle...

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

You could vary price of the energy depending on the time of day. Factories would then align energy usage to peak production hours. You always have a few nuclear reactors giving you a baseline of power.

I am not sure how you would regulate consumer usage at 6-7pm, when it is highest. If you can figure out how to store it for a few hours, you will make bank.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[pixelpusher220]

In the short term anyway. Variable sources need a method to store the energy for when the supply is low. This is the biggest thing holding back renewables right now.

In regards to climate, nuclear is the only viable option (and I *hate* nuclear!) going forward until we have new technology that stores energy more densely, more efficiently and cheaper than is available today.

A wild guess is probably 100 years or so before we can truly move to renewable sources only, for base line grid power.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[Joce640k]

The GP is presenting a false dichotomy.

You can store the excess output from those inflexible nuclear power plants in a way that it can be released quickly to smooth out spikes in demand.

We do that by (eg.) pumping water uphill to reservoirs then letting it flow downhill through turbines when the adverts come on TV and everybody goes and makes a cup of tea... (or grabs a beer from the fridge, or whatever else they do in the uncivilized world).

The real problems come on cloudy days when there's no wind. On those days you need enough capacity in you nuclear plants to make up the deficit.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[kenaaker]

You use the wind power to run the pumps on reservoir storage, or to electrolyze water to run Sabatier reactors which generate hydrocarbon gases like methane. Feed the hydrocarbon gases into the existing natural gas pipelines which feed the gas turbine peaking plants. The natural gas pipeline system can maintain at least several days worth of supply for the whole nation.

There are more ways, those two are my favorite candidates. Just keep T. Boone Pickens away from the natural gas.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[DaveV1.0]

Your statement is false and shows a lack of knowledge of nuclear reactor design and operation.

It is quite easy to ramp up electrical output from a nuclear power plant. A good example if a nuclear powered ship or submarine, both of which need to be able to accelerate quickly. Both use electric motors to turn the screws which move the vessel through the water. The electricity is provided via generators connected to steam turbines which are fed steam provided by steam generators heated by the nuclear reactors.

If more electricity is needed, increase the steam flow and the power output of the plant. The stored heat in the reactor coolant maintains the steam output while the reactor ramps up heat production.

If less electricity is needed, decrease the steam flow and the power output of the plant. The excess heat is stored in the reactor coolant as increased heat and pressure. This can be bled off by running the reactor at a lower power level.

If you are wondering how I know this, it is because I have actually training in nuclear reactor plant design and operation.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[cheesybagel]

Its bullshit. The French vary their reactor power output from 30% to 100% capacity and they can vary output by 5% per minute. Nuclear does not have any problem coping with load demands from daytime to nighttime. How did you think the French handled the loads to begin with when over half of their production was nuclear?

The problem is having power on demand. I want to turn on the heating *now* now wait until the wind blows of the sun shines. If I could wait until the sun shined I wouldn't need heating to begin with. Duh.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[ShanghaiBill]

they have seen much lower energy cost rises than some of their neighbours (particularly the UK).

Baloney.
Average price of electricity in Germany: 0.35 USD/kwHr
Average price of electricity in UK: 0.20 USD/kwHr

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[The123king]

Add to that the fact that our currently operating nuclear plants where not designed to throttle and you can understand why it's not a good idea ... Nuclear plants have longer lead times because changing power output of the nuclear core requires more engineering effort than a fossil fueled burner does which needs more effort than your hydro-electric plant. But it is *extremely* difficult to plan electrical power requirements far enough in advance to use our current 30 year old nuclear power plants which where designed to run for decades at static power outputs.

The biggest problem most countries using nuclear power have, is the plants that were built are now much older than they were originally designed to be. On top of that, many of these nuclear plants are using first generation nuclear technology. That is, technology developed not long after the second world war. These plants are inherently dangerous, and the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear disaster proved what can happen when something goes wrong. The thing is, it's not like we haven't developed much safer plant designs since, it's just that since incidents like three-mile island and chernobyl, many people have been against the building of new nuclear plants.To me, this seems crazy, because now many countries are trying to increase the operating life of some very old and unsafe reactors, where we could have built fresh new reactors, which are much safer, more energy efficient, and will most likely age much better. If the anti-nuclear protesters 20 years ago could have seen the impending peak oil crisis, and the global warming crisis, i'm pretty sure they would have shut up and we would have much safer, more flexible, and longer-lasting nuclear plants than the 30-40 year-old reactors many countries are still relying on today.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[Ex-MislTech]

40% of US energy goes to heat and cool buildings, that could be easily changed.

I agree with the tax break for upgrading insulation in buildings.

I'd like to see a tax break for those thermal imagers that detect heat/cold
leaks spots in your house similar to what they use to find hot spots
in wiring harnesses of major server rooms.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[floobedy]

That is exactly the problem. The article makes it seem as if pro-nuclear and greenie types are attacking each other. In fact, the attacks are entirely in one direction: from the greenies, toward nuclear power. I don't see many pro-nuclear people protesting the construction of new wind farms. Nor do pro-nuclear people attack solar power. Usually, pro-nuclear people are comfortable with both nuclear and renewables, and want both.

The greenies insist that power generation must be renewable only, and if they don't get exactly that, then they'd rather just burn coal and have global warming (witness Germany).

From the article:

Meanwhile, it’s time to stop wasting ammunition on friendly fire. If activists care about the climate as much as they say they do, they should focus on their areas of agreement, rather than their differences.

But greenies obviously do not care about the climate as much as they say they do. It's not among their top priorities. Their first priority is shutting down nuclear power even if that makes climate change worse (witness Germany). Their second priority usually is making sure that food is grown without fertilizer (??). Climate change is usually about their 10th environmental priority, to be sacrificed for any higher priority.

In California, where I live, greenies protest the construction of new solar power plants. Apparently, solar power plants would ruin the desert. Just solar power isn't good enough. It must be solar power exactly where they want it (apparently not in the desert?), or it's just back to burning fossil fuels.

Re:No, because they are not compatible

[Firethorn]

Average losses from line loss is 6.6%, so I think that 30% would be a worst of the worst case scenario, something indicating that the grid is operating under abnormal circumstances that are normally avoided. For example, if Fairbanks suffers a generator failure, there's a feeder line to gain power from Anchorage.

Checking up more: a 100 mile 765 kV line carrying 1000 MW of energy can have losses of 1.1% to 0.5%. A 345 kV line carrying the same load across the same distance has losses of 4.2%..

Roughly speaking, any power generation system is going to put the necessary transmission systems in to keep losses to under 2%. Even a thousand kilometer transmission line should be under 7% East Coast to West Coast is about 4.5k km.
HVDC is even better at only 3.5% per 1k km. So you're only looking at 16% for transmitting power from one coast to the other for use.

"relatively" and "differently" clean

[davidwr]

Nuclear is far from clean, it's just a different kind of dirty.

Solar/wind/hydro/etc. are "relatively" clean and may be "literally" non-polluting once the plant is built, but they rarely have anything close to zero ecological impact.

One nearly-inherent aspect of renewables is that they won't "run out" like fossil fuels and uranium. Some carbon-based fuels, such as burning fast-growing plants, are "renewable" in this sense but are far from pollution-free.

Like hand and glove

[Maury Markowitz]

http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/why-solar-is-nuclears-best-friend/

Been obvious to everyone from the start.

Economic problems with hydrogen power

[sjbe]

Come on, there have been a ton of advances around storing hydrogen, and building fuel cells generally - also around extracting Hydrogen.

Not enough to base our infrastructure on those advances. Hydrogen powered cars face three obstacles - one technological and two economic. The teachnological one is developing a functioning technology. There are hurdles to overcome but there is reason to believe they could be overcome. After all, fuel cells and the like are already in existence and prototype vehicles have been made. The much bigger problem is economic. The first economic problem is that hydrogen powered cars are expensive because there is no manufacturing economies of scale, supporting industries and a limited manufacturing base. Absent some sort of subsidy they cannot be produced for a price in the near term that is competitive with existing vehicles. The second economic problem and the real killer is that there is no fuel infrastructure in place and developing one would be hugely expensive. We have infrastructure in place for natural gas, petroleum/diesel products and electricity. Anything that doesn't use one of those three things is essentially starting from scratch.

The truth is that if you want every person to own an electric car, Hydrogen is the only way you get there.

Not even remotely. Hybrids are the path of least resistance (no pun intended) towards electric vehicles. Electric vehicles based on batteries become practical once you solve the charging time problem. Basically you have to get charging time down below about 10 minutes for at least 200 miles of range. We're almost there technologically already.

You cannot manufacture a literal ton of batteries per person across the globe

Actually you probably can. Every vehicle made already has at least one battery in it and it wouldn't be all that complicated to scale up production unless there is some sort of raw material limitation.