It is worth noting that the uranium from seawater idea is flawed by the huge amount of ocean current you'd need to get at the uranium. It becomes a project with climate implication owing to disturbed currents.
Plato urges a foundation of music and athletics in an education that produces a brave populace. Music produces a soul strong enough for bravery and athletics produces a habit of valor. Both also form a mind prepared for more abstract learning so that fear can be confronted with contemplation. Perhaps we are not doing enough in these foundational areas.
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.
It is meant here to be in the lead, doing the kind of things the President's executive order will encourage before the executive order was promulgated. From TFA:
"The White House underscored that point on Friday when it issued a new executive order directing federal agencies to help states and communities prepare for the effects of climate change, including sea-level rise, storms, and droughts."
Net metering gets settled up annually in most places. In Arizona, excess generation is compensated at the avoided cost rate, however much getting that free electricity reduced costs for the utility. This can be less than the market wholesale rate. A supercapacitor or anything else does not help with what to do with an annual excess. It might make the grid irrelevant though.
System size can't be larger that 125% of a customer's normal use and customer/generators only get paid at the avoided cost rate, not the retail rate for power generated beyond their annual use.
One path might produce liquid fuels in the doldrums for easy shipping http://www.solar-islands.com/ with gasification carried out at a convenient natural gas hub. Wind off Iceland also looks attractive for non-grid exploitation through hydrocarbon production as scale drives down the cost of floating turbines.
Already, curtailment of renewably generated electricity makes such projects interesting, especially for wind where the production tax credit is left on the table otherwise. Carbon is a viable solution to the storage problem in the hydrogen economy and hydrogen is an otherwise efficient battery. So long as the carbon is non-fossil, this also helps with climate.
So, snakes are responsible for our ability to recognize the difference between good (no snake) and evil (SNAKE!!!). Where have I heard that one before?
Methane produced from hydrolysis and the Sabatier reaction will be cheaper than gas from the ground. The infrastructure will be re-purposed to renewable energy.
Nobody is rebuilding TMI, Fukushima or Chernobyl yet that dam was rebuilt because they needed the flood control. It is precisely because the land is habitable that they need the flood control. Your analogy is very flawed.
We're reducing reliance on both coal power and nuclear power. I think you are confused. My point is that nuclear safety is a difference is kind, not degree. Failure of safety efforts has much larger and more permanent consequences for nuclear power. There is brittleness for the industry itself as well. Fukushima has pushed several countries to abandon nuclear power entirely. TMI capped the fiscal failure of nuclear power in the US leading to an end of new license applications for decades. Nuclear accidents can't be shrugged off.
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Except they are not excluded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy#2011_agreement
CAFE Standards are more important. They are capping demand.
You seem to be standing up for sportsmanship now.
estimates 72 years at the current rate of use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium#Pessimistic_predictions
It is worth noting that the uranium from seawater idea is flawed by the huge amount of ocean current you'd need to get at the uranium. It becomes a project with climate implication owing to disturbed currents.
Wind power sometimes puts the wholesale price of electricity down to zero in Texas. http://cleantechnica.com/2011/10/20/wholesale-price-of-electricity-drops-to-0-00-in-texas-due-to-wind-energy/ So natural gas may simply be acting a the medium through which wind discourages nuclear power. This has been the case in the Midwest. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf Wind power has cut off the top of the gas generation price curve and forced a reactor to close down there through the subsequent lowering of the wholesale electricity price. Gas can still be expensive if the less efficient turbines are used. Wind lowers demand for those.
Plato urges a foundation of music and athletics in an education that produces a brave populace. Music produces a soul strong enough for bravery and athletics produces a habit of valor. Both also form a mind prepared for more abstract learning so that fear can be confronted with contemplation. Perhaps we are not doing enough in these foundational areas.
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.
It is meant here to be in the lead, doing the kind of things the President's executive order will encourage before the executive order was promulgated. From TFA:
"The White House underscored that point on Friday when it issued a new executive order directing federal agencies to help states and communities prepare for the effects of climate change, including sea-level rise, storms, and droughts."
Thanks for the correction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_tide
Four of five members of the state’s energy regulator are tied to the conservative anti-clean energy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/01/2873071/arizona-solar-battle/
You're starting a whisper campaign aren't you....
Sound travels in a medium not empty space.
Utilities already have connection fees. Should they not just get the accounting right?
In Arizona the compensation is at the avoided cost rate, in Maryland it is confiscated, for example.
Net metering gets settled up annually in most places. In Arizona, excess generation is compensated at the avoided cost rate, however much getting that free electricity reduced costs for the utility. This can be less than the market wholesale rate. A supercapacitor or anything else does not help with what to do with an annual excess. It might make the grid irrelevant though.
The Arizona net metering policy is already very protective of utilities' interests. http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=AZ24R&re=1&ee=0
System size can't be larger that 125% of a customer's normal use and customer/generators only get paid at the avoided cost rate, not the retail rate for power generated beyond their annual use.
In New Mexico, First Solar is selling power at 5.79 cents a kilowatt-hour http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/first-solar-may-sell-cheapest-solar-power-less-than-coal.html so it seems hard to believe that this campaign is anything but a way for the Koch brothers to shake down APS.
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
You may be a little behind the times on this sort of thing. http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas If the Navy can get that kind of cost structure using their expensive to run reactors, $0.15/Watt solar will make synthetic fuels very cheap.
One path might produce liquid fuels in the doldrums for easy shipping http://www.solar-islands.com/ with gasification carried out at a convenient natural gas hub. Wind off Iceland also looks attractive for non-grid exploitation through hydrocarbon production as scale drives down the cost of floating turbines.
Already, curtailment of renewably generated electricity makes such projects interesting, especially for wind where the production tax credit is left on the table otherwise. Carbon is a viable solution to the storage problem in the hydrogen economy and hydrogen is an otherwise efficient battery. So long as the carbon is non-fossil, this also helps with climate.
So, snakes are responsible for our ability to recognize the difference between good (no snake) and evil (SNAKE!!!). Where have I heard that one before?
For Indian Point, it is a danger. For some others there is less at risk. It is easy to do the math.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
I can indeed. Though gas lagged wind last year. The point is that wind and solar are in the running, nuclear and coal are not. What do you suppose happens to natural gas infrastructure when solar panels come in a $0.15/Watt? http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2013/09/flat-out-major-advance-emerging-solar-cell-technology
Methane produced from hydrolysis and the Sabatier reaction will be cheaper than gas from the ground. The infrastructure will be re-purposed to renewable energy.
In the Midwest, wind power is helping to shut down nuclear power. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf
In 2013 Q1-3, solar is the second leading source of new generating capacity. http://solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13358
You seem to have assumptions that are misleading you.
Nobody is rebuilding TMI, Fukushima or Chernobyl yet that dam was rebuilt because they needed the flood control. It is precisely because the land is habitable that they need the flood control. Your analogy is very flawed.
We're reducing reliance on both coal power and nuclear power. I think you are confused. My point is that nuclear safety is a difference is kind, not degree. Failure of safety efforts has much larger and more permanent consequences for nuclear power. There is brittleness for the industry itself as well. Fukushima has pushed several countries to abandon nuclear power entirely. TMI capped the fiscal failure of nuclear power in the US leading to an end of new license applications for decades. Nuclear accidents can't be shrugged off.