> There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction
They don't. They have 22 under construction, where "under construction" is something from "we have the signed paperwork" to "we're putting in the switchyard".
And the reason is widely recorded - they wanted to put their coal plants out of business because they're poisoning everyone. Of course a nuclear plant doesn't really compete with coal economically (few things do) so to do this the plan was giving the plants free money and cheap fuel. If this were true here, the same would be happening.
However, as the cost of wind and solar plummeted, these plans are rapidly changing. The plans used to be based on a 400+GWe nuclear buildout by 2050, but these have been scaled back to 60GW with another 30 at the outside. Meanwhile, wind power has already reached 115GW at the end of 2014, more than the nuclear plants. Current install rates for wind are far greater than the peak installation rate for nuclear would have been even at the highest end of the original projections. Since 2012, much of the planned nuclear capacity of the earlier plans has been moved to wind. Gansu alone is expected to grow to a staggering 20 GW.
> That way the neighbors can conduct a full jihad against Israel without worrying about losing their capital cities.
Considering that three of its neighbours lost parts of their capital cities, and two others were under serious threat, Israel doesn't need nukes to do that.
And now that we're 50 years in the future, the neighbors have a lot more to worry between each other than Israel. There will be no repeat of '67.
> Cost over-runs are rampant, they never cost what is projected, often this is 2 to 10 times projected, > but maybe that's just in the USA where the winning lowest bid forces unrealistic expectations.
Cost overruns in Canada were 100%, both on initial construction and refurbs. Current cost overruns in Europe are the same.
If there is a *real* theoretical problem with nuclear power is that its economics scale with size. To compete with wind or gas they have to make really large plants. That complicates financing and construction. Construction becomes so complex that you end up with many critical paths, as we're experiencing with Vogtle. Wind power may not be a panacea, but it's highly modular so you can build out slowly. It's a lot easier to get $25 million for a turbine than $25 billion for a nuke.
The providers are dumping nuclear for that reason. All that's left of Europe's industry is Areva, which just lost more than it's entire book value in one quarter. The other German, French and UK companies have all left the industry. In the US, Westinghouse is bankrupt, Betchel, Babckock and General Atomics are all out of the industry, leaving only GE and the zombie "Westinghouse" (Toshiba). Canada sold off AECL's design side for negative $750 million.
> Roughly a quarter of the cost of nuclear power in the US stems directly or indirectly from paying lawyers to go away.
I keep hearing this number, but I can't find a trustworthy source for it. The recent documents I've seen, covering Crystal and Vogtle put the entire compliance load around 5 to 6%.
> and current designs are expected to last up to 60 years
No, they are designed to run for about 30 to 25 years, then be torn apart and re-built from new. All that remains is the containment building and the parts outside the nuclear island. This is supposed to get you a new reactor good for another 25 to 30 years (because now those other parts and breaking down) for about 50% of the cost.
However, those that have actually tried this have a 100% rate of overrunning the budgets, to the point where it's >100% of the original cost. That's why people are shutting down their reactors instead of refurbing them. The new designs are supposed to avoid these problems, but we won't really know for another 40 years.
> I'd also like to know how this compares to hydro, gas, coal, solar, wind, tidal, and any other generation method currently in use.
Page 2 of this: http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf
According to that, this is an *extremely* competitive plant. If you turn to Page 11 you'll see the problem - it seems *HIGHLY* unlikely that the plant can actually be built for this number. This is *well* below the worldwide average. They may be quoting the wrong number, this might be the overnight costs, which would put the total CAPEX (which is what's on page 11) into the 8 range depending on the financing, which makes it much more in-line with other examples.
> Still, the over-arching point that I felt was useful was that criticism is not well-received at Apple
But what proof? The examples in the article were all about *end users* complaining about his posts. Fanbois. Just tune them out.
The evidence that *Apple* takes action (or even gives a crap) about these articles is tenuous, at best. I think Laporte at least has a claim, but this seems largely handwaving.
> There simply isn't enough wind in many areas to even consider it.
There is 10 times as much wind power in the US as needed to power everything in it. http://www.windenergyfoundation.org/interesting-wind-energy-facts
> We don't have enough sunshine in may parts of the country either
There is 100 times as much sunshine in the US as needed to power everything in it. http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/20/solar-energy-power-u-s/
And before you start typing your ill-informed response, it doesn't make a difference what you think, because solar and wind are outpacing all other forms of power generation both in the US and the world. So you're wrong. Period.
> On the wind side there are substantial additional costs over dispatchable sources
No, there are not. I posted the numbers. Integrating wind is cheap, and the numbers keep going down because the equipment is getting better. The vast majority of "the equipment" is a PC running software you can buy from IBM.
When they invented coal fired power in the 1880s do you know what the interconnect cost was? Infinity. That's because they didn't have a grid, and the plants went up and down all the time. In spite of this, they built it out successfully anyway. They figured out how to interconnect two generators that would otherwise be running out of phase, how to keep voltages under control, how to handle generators going offline out of the blue.
Now after over 100 years, do you think we know more or less about how to hook up generation to the grid? More? Well if infinity was small enough to handle 100+ years ago, how can you possibly believe it's a) more difficult, or b) more expensive?
This isn't theoretical. We're actually adding this capacity as I type this. The grid is not failing. The companies are not going out of business. Everything is working just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. And invariably by someone who is a rocket guy, like this one. Wagging the dog, every time.
This stupid idea gets floated every few years. It doesn't work, even in theory. Do the math yourself.
https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-maury-equation-redux/
> There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction
They don't. They have 22 under construction, where "under construction" is something from "we have the signed paperwork" to "we're putting in the switchyard".
And the reason is widely recorded - they wanted to put their coal plants out of business because they're poisoning everyone. Of course a nuclear plant doesn't really compete with coal economically (few things do) so to do this the plan was giving the plants free money and cheap fuel. If this were true here, the same would be happening.
However, as the cost of wind and solar plummeted, these plans are rapidly changing. The plans used to be based on a 400+GWe nuclear buildout by 2050, but these have been scaled back to 60GW with another 30 at the outside. Meanwhile, wind power has already reached 115GW at the end of 2014, more than the nuclear plants. Current install rates for wind are far greater than the peak installation rate for nuclear would have been even at the highest end of the original projections. Since 2012, much of the planned nuclear capacity of the earlier plans has been moved to wind. Gansu alone is expected to grow to a staggering 20 GW.
Read all about it:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Power/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25623400
> But don't let the scientific facts get in the way of your new religion
Take your own advice.
You're quoting someone who is a professional writer and has no experience in the sciences.
His book on the topic was widely panned for taking comments out of context. It took a good 300 years for that to happen to Jesus.
So spare us your chosen savior and the holier-than-thou BS.
> I wonder how quickly NIMBY becomes IMBY if electricity were actually provided free
> for the people and properties and businesses near the plant.
Works wonders for the wind industry.
"A light bulb made from graphene"
It is not made from graphene.
"said by its UK developers to be the first commercially viable consumer product using the super-strong carbon"
There are a wide variety of consumer products that *clime* to use graphene. http://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-products
"Manchester University, where the material was discovered in 2004":
Ok, they got this right.
"It is said to cut energy use by 10% and last longer owing to its conductivity."
LED bulbs die when their electrocaps fry. Improving the conductivity of the LED (and I can't imagine how it would do this) would not change this.
"It is expected to be priced lower than current LED bulbs, which cost about £15 (~$22) each."
Current LED bulbs are widely available in the UK for £5 to 10. http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/shelves/Light_Bulbs_in_Tesco.html
> That way the neighbors can conduct a full jihad against Israel without worrying about losing their capital cities.
Considering that three of its neighbours lost parts of their capital cities, and two others were under serious threat, Israel doesn't need nukes to do that.
And now that we're 50 years in the future, the neighbors have a lot more to worry between each other than Israel. There will be no repeat of '67.
> Cost over-runs are rampant, they never cost what is projected, often this is 2 to 10 times projected,
> but maybe that's just in the USA where the winning lowest bid forces unrealistic expectations.
Cost overruns in Canada were 100%, both on initial construction and refurbs. Current cost overruns in Europe are the same.
If there is a *real* theoretical problem with nuclear power is that its economics scale with size. To compete with wind or gas they have to make really large plants. That complicates financing and construction. Construction becomes so complex that you end up with many critical paths, as we're experiencing with Vogtle. Wind power may not be a panacea, but it's highly modular so you can build out slowly. It's a lot easier to get $25 million for a turbine than $25 billion for a nuke.
The providers are dumping nuclear for that reason. All that's left of Europe's industry is Areva, which just lost more than it's entire book value in one quarter. The other German, French and UK companies have all left the industry. In the US, Westinghouse is bankrupt, Betchel, Babckock and General Atomics are all out of the industry, leaving only GE and the zombie "Westinghouse" (Toshiba). Canada sold off AECL's design side for negative $750 million.
> Roughly a quarter of the cost of nuclear power in the US stems directly or indirectly from paying lawyers to go away.
I keep hearing this number, but I can't find a trustworthy source for it. The recent documents I've seen, covering Crystal and Vogtle put the entire compliance load around 5 to 6%.
> and current designs are expected to last up to 60 years
No, they are designed to run for about 30 to 25 years, then be torn apart and re-built from new. All that remains is the containment building and the parts outside the nuclear island. This is supposed to get you a new reactor good for another 25 to 30 years (because now those other parts and breaking down) for about 50% of the cost.
However, those that have actually tried this have a 100% rate of overrunning the budgets, to the point where it's >100% of the original cost. That's why people are shutting down their reactors instead of refurbing them. The new designs are supposed to avoid these problems, but we won't really know for another 40 years.
> I'd also like to know how this compares to hydro, gas, coal, solar, wind, tidal, and any other generation method currently in use.
Page 2 of this: http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf
According to that, this is an *extremely* competitive plant. If you turn to Page 11 you'll see the problem - it seems *HIGHLY* unlikely that the plant can actually be built for this number. This is *well* below the worldwide average. They may be quoting the wrong number, this might be the overnight costs, which would put the total CAPEX (which is what's on page 11) into the 8 range depending on the financing, which makes it much more in-line with other examples.
> Price per watt for solar is in the $5 range, not counting discounts for massive purchases.
Yeah, in 2011. Today, small residential installs are around $4.00 a watt, commissioned. Large industrial installs are $1.50.
Page 11 of this: http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf
Given that he has driven DB development for several decades, it's surprising this award took this long.
> Still, the over-arching point that I felt was useful was that criticism is not well-received at Apple
But what proof? The examples in the article were all about *end users* complaining about his posts. Fanbois. Just tune them out.
The evidence that *Apple* takes action (or even gives a crap) about these articles is tenuous, at best. I think Laporte at least has a claim, but this seems largely handwaving.
Quebec, with 8.2 million people, goes 365 days on hydro all the time.
Considering they doxed ISIS fighters, does anyone find it surprising they're returning the favour?
Lazy morons don't try to support their BS points.
> If carbon is as real a problem as claimed, this in the long run will not be enough.
It most certainly will. Do your math.
200? Try 60:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog
~4000 dead.
> Fail. Completely. Yet again.
Yes, you did.
> There simply isn't enough wind in many areas to even consider it.
There is 10 times as much wind power in the US as needed to power everything in it.
http://www.windenergyfoundation.org/interesting-wind-energy-facts
> We don't have enough sunshine in may parts of the country either
There is 100 times as much sunshine in the US as needed to power everything in it.
http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/20/solar-energy-power-u-s/
And before you start typing your ill-informed response, it doesn't make a difference what you think, because solar and wind are outpacing all other forms of power generation both in the US and the world. So you're wrong. Period.
>Nice if you've got a bit of land and don't give a flying fuck about poor people's electricity bills.
As opposed to "nice if you're BP and don't mind spilling oil while hovering up government money".
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/27/wind-power-subsidy-fossil-fuels
Oil and gas received 3.6 billion in 2010, renewables got 1.4, wind got half of that.
> wind should be less efficient than energy from solar due to thermodynamics
Whoa... wind is the result of heating taking place over the entire planet. Or more accurately, millions of square meters.
> Why then is solar more expensive
Because a solar panel only collects what falls on 1.6 square meters, not millions.
> On the wind side there are substantial additional costs over dispatchable sources
No, there are not. I posted the numbers. Integrating wind is cheap, and the numbers keep going down because the equipment is getting better. The vast majority of "the equipment" is a PC running software you can buy from IBM.
When they invented coal fired power in the 1880s do you know what the interconnect cost was? Infinity. That's because they didn't have a grid, and the plants went up and down all the time. In spite of this, they built it out successfully anyway. They figured out how to interconnect two generators that would otherwise be running out of phase, how to keep voltages under control, how to handle generators going offline out of the blue.
Now after over 100 years, do you think we know more or less about how to hook up generation to the grid? More? Well if infinity was small enough to handle 100+ years ago, how can you possibly believe it's a) more difficult, or b) more expensive?
This isn't theoretical. We're actually adding this capacity as I type this. The grid is not failing. The companies are not going out of business. Everything is working just fine.
> will add almost 4.5 times as many MWs of utility-scale capacity as solar in 2015
But utility-scale is on;y about 1/3rd of the PV installed. So in terms of *totals* it should be closer to 1:1.
This is unlike wind, or practically any other source, where something like 99% of the installs are utility-scale.
Just click on the link I posted earlier, they have all the numbers there.
> Costs: Wind: 6 cents/kw [snip] , solar 60 c/kw, natgas 9 c/kw, coal 7 c/kw, nuclear 12 c/kw, hydro 3 c/kw.
Ummm, no. Using actual numbers from an industry source, this one specifically:
http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf
It's wind at ~5 cents/kWh, PV around 7 cents, natgas around 7, coal around 9, nuclear around 11.
And maybe get your units right?
>(but 30 c/kw with infrastructure)
OMG where did you get that figure? The American Tradition Institute maybe?
The cost of integrating wind is at worst about 20% more than the cost of integrating dispatchable sources. The EIA says it's only 3.8% more:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf