Two Google Engineers Say Renewables Can't Cure Climate Change

_Sharp'r_ writes Two Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein and David Fork, worked for Google on the RE<C project to figure out how to make renewables cheaper than coal and solve climate change. After four years of study they gave up, determining "Renewable energy technologies simply won't work; we need a fundamentally different approach." As a result, is nuclear going to be acknowledged as the future of energy production?

Comments

Environmentalists is why we still pump carbon

[sinij]

Ironically, environmentalists and their 'spooky nuclear' protests is why we are still so reliant on fossil fuels and still pumping carbon into atmosphere. Nuclear technology, especially breeder reactors that produce minimal waste, is how you eliminate emissions. Wind and solar are unsuitable for base load due to variability, and require often non-renewable backups.

If and only if

[i kan reed]

You assume that economies can't lose any money in transition.

This is a flawed idea in that just refuses to consider political action in response. When you can't imagine a government putting the externalized costs of fossil fuels on fossil fuel consumers, this conclusion is a natural one.

That's not to say a nuclear heavy solution is bad, either. The real amazing thing here is that there are so many solutions that simply require not keeping the status quo, and we can collectively bring outselves to do none of them.

Re:It boils down to energy storage costs

[MightyMartian]

I'd say solving our economic need for oil far outstrips billions of dollars.

Deliberate

[sycodon]

Nukes need to move forward in a deliberate manner.

1. A few reference designs need to be established, accounting for some reasonable subset of possible sites such as coastal, inter coastal, inland, etc.
2. These designs would be vetted by the Industry, the feds, and what the hell, invite the Greenies.
3. Once approved, the designs should be exempted fro EPA meddling and some reasonable level of lawsuit immunity...as in the construction can't be delayed decades by lawsuit after lawsuit.
4. Operators should undergo the same rigorous training as military nuke operators...subs, ships, etc. Not the same, but just as rigorous. We don't need fucking button pushes on the night shift. They have to understand the plant, the theory and they consequences of each action they take.
5. Parts should be manufactured in factories using standard methods and specifications. Parts should be interchangeable from site to site. Minimize customizations as much as possible.

The Free Market is great, but this is one of those things he Feds can and should do.

Oh, and none of this jetting into D.C. for 1 day a month for hearings crap. Get all the experts into the same room and lock the door. Make it into a Manhattan Project kind of thing...get it done and get it done right.

Re:Deliberate

[jenningsthecat]

...nuclear is still completely unaffordable and only gets built with massive, and I really do mean massive subsidy.

It's a case of paying now or paying later, and with the latter option we'll be paying a ruinous rate of interest that keeps climbing. The economic consequences of AGW are already devastating in some areas of the world - as time goes on it will only get worse. As much as I dislike the nuclear option for a whole host of reasons, it may be the only thing that can save us from ourselves. So yes, I think masive subsidies are in order, if that's what it takes to get the job done.

Re:Deliberate

[Firethorn]

The EIR and lawsuits are the result of demanding perfection for what is inherently a very dangerous process with catastrophic consequences for any mishap and this is technically not possible. So it is a technical failure. You can design a system that will work perfectly most of the time. You can't design a system that will work perfectly all of the time.

"Inherently a very dangerous process" - If it was really so dangerous, why do we have more deaths because of steam accidents than nuclear ones?
"catastrophic consequences for any mishap" - Bull. There only catastrophe for most mishaps in nuclear plants is the paperwork that has to be filled out as a result.

I agree with the last statement, but that's what redundancy is for. One failure is covered by another control. We need to balance risk and reward. Pollution from coal plants kills thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, every year. We'd save lives going nuclear even if we had a Chernobyl every year.

That being said, my 'ideal' non-fossil fuel electric grid ratio is roughly 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% 'other'. Nuclear provides baseload, solar covers the extra power demand of the day, 20% wind is about what we can support without extensive modification. Though the way things are going 30-10 in favor of solar might be more likely. Other includes hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, and such. It's most of your peaking power outside of the extra solar online during the day.

Re:Deliberate

[Zordak]

That's true but nobody has been able to solve these problems. The EIR and lawsuits are the result of demanding perfection for what is inherently a very dangerous process with catastrophic consequences for any mishap and this is technically not possible. So it is a technical failure. You can design a system that will work perfectly most of the time. You can't design a system that will work perfectly all of the time.

A coal plant, working absolutely perfectly according to its design parameters, will cause much more environmental and health damage than even a "catastrophic" nuclear failure. So no, it's not a technical issue. It's an emotional issue. We have all but cut off access to the cheapest, most abundant "green" energy source we have. It's like God handed us a big chunk of nearly-free magical energy and said, "Here, use this." Then Jane Fonda said, "But it's scary!" She's done more harm to the planet over the past 35 years than BP ever did.

Re:It boils down to energy storage costs

[i kan reed]

Okay, you're the third person to misunderstand

To rephrase:

The cost of solving this problem other ways is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The cost of solving this problem by launching enough solar satellites is in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

All I'm saying is that launching spacecraft is really expensive. Prohibitively.

Re:Is Nuclear going to be acknowledged?

[David_Hart]

Yeah, because nuclear is real clean and stuff.

The spent fuel is piling up at a rate of about 2,200 tons a year at U.S. power-plant sites. The industry and government decline to say how much waste is currently stored at individual plants. The U.S. nuclear industry had 69,720 tons of uranium waste as of May 2013, with 49,620 tons in pools and 20,100 in dry storage, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute industry group.

Spent nuclear fuel is about 95 percent uranium. About 1 percent is other heavy elements such as curium, americium and plutonium-239. Each has an extremely long half-life — some take hundreds of thousands of years to lose all of their radioactive potency.

And all of those sites are close to 50 years old with no maintenance and with no fuel storage because of the veto of Yucca mountain, etc....

Yes, there are some nasty by-products of nuclear power. But we have the technology to clean these sites up and store or re-process the waste. The only reason why these sites are left to fester is due to politics. It's pretty bad when the people who complain about these sites and nuclear power are the exact same people who block the solutions....