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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."
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...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
In their own words,
We commissioned studies to show
That isn't science, that's paying for confirmation bias.
No, the problem is that we use way, way way too much fossil fuels, producing way, way, way too much carbon dioxide.
Nucelar power has problems and if we were to use it as much as we use fossil fuels, it would cause the same problem.
The same problem exists with ALL fuel sources, including so called "renewables". Solar power uses rare metals whose use could be just as bad as fossil fuels. Similarly, if we just used hydroelectric, then we could cause major problems with rivers.
Nuclear is very clearly part of our energy solution, and it is time that we, as green environmentalists, accept that.
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Should we prevent the spread of headlines that end in a question mark?
Enigma
Then they would have to stop fund-raising and find productive jobs.
The rebuttal loses me with this line:
"Nuclear power plants (large or small) and renewables are not compatible technologies. A distributed grid design with high penetrations of variable renewables requires flexible technologies for balancing the system. Both nuclear and coal plants are inflexible. "
Maybe they don't get what people mean by "flexible" in regards to the grid?
When people say coal and nuclear are flexible, they don't mean you can move the plant, or install and remove plants at will. What they mean is that the energy production can ramp up quickly when 15,000 people all get home from work and cut their AC on at the same moment...
yes renewable sources are improving how they can scale and ramp up.
Nukes are already there. I'm also annoyed at how articles claim normal tax items (vehicle fleet depreciation, etc) as subsidies for one industry, but then say industry X doesn't get subsidies. EVERYONE gets some form of tax breaks when you fill out your taxes. If you don't claim them, well, then that's on you.
The original article is right. We SHOULD push for more nukes as well as more renewable sources. Getting off of coal / diesel should be the first priority. Eventually if we can wean from nuclear? cool...
I am 31337 or something.
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.
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http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/why-solar-is-nuclears-best-friend/
Been obvious to everyone from the start.
If there has not been such huge pushback on nuclear reactors for decades, there would be far fewer coal fired plants now across the world.
Look at what France has done, the rest of the world could be just as clean. But we are not, and you can thank supposed "environmentalist" for direct harm for the very thing they claim to want to help.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Actually France has some major problems. Apart from a string of low level but concerning accidents over the years they suffered from power cuts when the weather got too warm for the plants to operate. At first they tried dumping hot water into lakes, killing much of the wildlife living there, but had to stop and just idled the plants instead.
The only thing that saves them now is being able to import energy from other countries, particularly Germany where it gets very cheap during warn periods.
Being reliant on a single source of electricity is a really, really bad idea. One of the biggest strengths of renewables is their diversity and distributed nature. People actually died in France due to those shut downs.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes, but the Greens have way too much influence to be safely ignored. Politicians don't like throwing away votes that other parties will easily catch.
It is variable, but it has to be precisely controlled. Given what's at work, generous safety margins should be employed as well. What this means, in practice, is that it takes time.
Sometimes, you need a lot more power during the next 10 minutes and then you go back to your baseline. Nuclear isn't fast enough. Hydro is and that's why it's so popular as storage.
concrete used to build the stations
Its a building. Its build using stuff used to make buildings. It could have been brick if you wanted to. Lets stop making buildings because they pollute too.
energy used in the mining, extraction and refining processes
Yes because solar panels and windmills aren't made of materials which need mining operations. Silicon wafers are magically turned with no energy from what is essentially silica sand into crystal ingots. Not.
It can take more than 6 years to mitigate the energy used in building of the facility, let alone the actual construction costs
Bunk. Plus they last for over 4 times that time.
negative learning curve of nuclear power
More bunk. Costs increase with inflation. Plus if you don't build reactors in series but only make a prototype or two... of course the per unit costs will be more expensive. For more information on this phenomenon Google 'Augustine's Laws'.
it really is very dated technology
Not as dated as wind power which dates from BC.
flow batteries
Been available since forever. They don't generate energy only store it. Plus they are usually made of acids and similar not very pleasant liquids.
don't need to have peaking power plants paired with the renewables. You just need more renewables
Its a matter of cost effectiveness. Resources you devote to unproductive things are resources you don't use for other things. Period.
That said, yes we need to be plowing money into renewables, it's an investment that will pay itself off many times over...but unfortunately over a number of decades and so private industry simply isn't going to do that.
I think you will find that Ecotricity [http://www.ecotricity.co.uk] is providing wind generated electricity to the UK domestic market. I think the revolution has started...
Well, you are wrong.
We are talking about very very high voltage DC.
AC loses energy by radiation and by inducing low currents into nearby conductors, DC does not. That is why modern long range lines are DC.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hydrogen is actually a terrible solution for cars for a number of reasons.
1. Creating hydrogen from water is very inefficient and prohibitively expensive for transportation.
2. Creating hydrogen from natural gas is at best around 70% efficient due to the laws of physics, then there's all that CO2 left over.
3. Compressing hydrogen consumes at least 20% of the energy contained in the hydrogen. Cryogenically cooling it is far more energy intensive.
4. Fuel cells such as the type used in cars are at best around 40% efficient. Fuel cells also must maintain a certain temperature range, even when not in use. They must never freeze or they will be destroyed. They also must maintain a certain internal humidity level.
5. Transportation of hydrogen is expensive. For pressurized hydrogen the tanks are quite heavy. A truck carrying enough hydrogen for around 200 cars will weigh around 13 tons due to the tanks.
6. Existing pipelines cannot be used. Hydrogen embrittles metal so the pipes must be specially lined.
7. Safety is a concern for refueling. The Alameda County hydrogen filling station for the fuel cell busses already had one fire due to a failed valve and this refueling station is not open to the public.
8. Hydrogen is extremely flammable and burns with an almost invisible flame. A hydrogen leak in an indoor area could be catestrophic. Hydrogen also will leak through virtually any joint. Hydrogen is also explosive over a very wide range of mixtures with air, more so than even natural gas.
9. A diesel powered car is more efficient than a hydrogen fuel cell and will produce less CO2 since virtually all hydrogen comes from cracking methane.
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