How about we put forth the effort to improve our K-12 system instead? You are correct that college is worlds apart from what kids are learning by grade 12. There is no reason that kids can't get the practical value out of their current K-12 education done by the end of their Sophomore year. Let the last 2 years of high school be for CC equivalent classes for those so inclined or for an apprenticeship in the trades and crafts.
The isotopes with the 250K year half-life do not produce much heat. You can hold uranium in your hand and it is not radiologically dangerous nor is it any warmer than than any other rock. The reason why freshly discharged spent fuel needs to be cooled in a pool is because of all of the short-lived isotopes. After 1 year the fuel is safe for dry cask storage, though it is often kept in the pool for at least 5 years just to be safe.
The great thing about the dry cask storage is that the casks do include shielding and you can stand right next to them, give them a hug, and be just fine. There is no possible way for any animal or insect near the cask to pick up any contamination and transport it. The waste at Hanford is not contained in storage casks plus there is contamination in the dirt. This contamination is what the animals pick up and transport.
Spent fuel is actually quite stable and does not readily disperse in the environment. Combine that with the insane engineering that is incorporated into the casks and there is little danger of contamination spreading from the spent fuel.
Here is a good article that covers mortality rate by power source. The comment section is also insightful. The numbers that are included in the survey do include TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Part of what keeps the death rate so low is how heavily regulated the industry is. Just to use a ladder to change a light bulb you have to go through training and be a certified ladder operator.
Solar pricing has a lot of perks. On many grids it is guaranteed sale. This means that if the solar plant is producing electricity it has priority option and gets purchased, even if the supply is not needed. This screws over all of the other utilities that have to sell their production at a negative price point. If solar was predictable then the other providers could adjust their output accordingly. Solar isn't predictable, other providers get screwed.
You then talk nonsense about your magical electric grid. I say it is nonsense because any grid that has that kind of storage would be magical. There is no provision for large scale storage of excess electricity on our grid. Now, we have the technology to build storage, but that would increase the cost well above your quoted 9 cents. In addition, you would have to increase your solar capacity to charge the storage. Typical figures indicate that if you wanted a solar grid you would have to install 4-5x the generation that is required (ie. you want 1000 MW you need to install 4-5000 MW capacity). Again, there goes your 9 cent figure.
Just for an idea of the cost of storage, look at the battery system in Fairbanks Alaska. It is 2000 sq meters, 1300 tonnes, 400 MW, and will provide enough power for 12,000 homes for 7 minutes. All for the low cost of $35 million.
The economics of food prices around the world isn't the only reason to abandon biofuels. The problem with biofuels is that they don't make sense from an energy balance point of view. Photosynthesis is horribly inefficient, we have solar panels that do a lot better (mandatory xkcd ). However, plants are amazing, they can gain additional energy for growth from the ground. We have found a very good way to supercharge plant growth by giving them growth enhancing energy drinks in the form of fertilizers.
This use of fertilizers to aid plant growth is the big problem. Fertilizers come from fossil fuels. Converting fossil fuels to fertilizers to be used to grow plants to be converted to fuel is a lot less efficient use of energy, land, water, etc. than just using the fossil fuels as fuel directly
Aside: this is one of the reasons I like electric vehicles. We have the technology to put them on the road today and then we only have a few large, stationary fossil fuel "engines" to focus on instead of millions of small mobile ones./Aside
There is a wonderful article that has been written on the inefficiency of biofuels pdf warning
I agree with your list of changes but would make a couple of adjustments. Renewing a copyright every year would be a hassle. I agree with your idea of limiting the duration of the copyright based on the type of work and think that copyrights should be initially granted for the full term. With that said, there should also be a stipulation that the copyright ends with the death of the creator. I think it is an abomination that works are still not in the public domain decades after the creators death.
Somehow though, I think these kinds of changes would be hard to push through. The best that I can hope for is that copyrights terms will be limited to 20 years max and then after that will be allowed for free release for "non-incidental use" but that any commercial use would still be subject to royalty payments. While that would still suck, it would at least be an improvement.
There is no way we can morally demand countries like North Korea and Iran not develop nuclear weapons unless we do all in our power to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
When it comes to countries with nuclear weapons I imagine an old West saloon scene after a gun fight has broken out. Bullets have been fired, many of the customers have pulled their guns and all is still as everyone is looking around the room waiting to see who is going to fire the next shot. In the calm, people are beginning to realize that everyone drawing their guns is a bad idea and will only result in chaos. Those that have their guns drawn are trying to keep everyone else from drawing and just adding to the tension. Since those with guns drawn don't completely trust each other they won't put their own guns down, but as signs of good faith they are starting to remove bullets from their cylinder.
Right now, this is about where the world is at. Those with nuclear weapons realize that it really isn't a good idea to have every country pointing nuclear weapons at each other. If we can convince those without nuclear weapons to not develop then we can work on reducing our own inventory. I agree that it seems hypocritical for the US to have nuclear weapons and tell another country that it can't, but I think it can be agreed that the fewer nuclear weapons that exist, the better off everyone will be.
The problem that many non-religious folks seem to have trouble grasping is that religion is more than just the stories from the Bible. Religion is a code of ethics that define a way of life. Religion is not something that can be proved with science, so why bother trying. The few scientists that try proving religion through science just end up looking crazy.
Religion is a lot closer related to the social sciences and as such isn't tested the same way that we would test a hypothesis in chemistry of physics. The real test of religion is, do my beliefs make me a better, happier person? If so, then the test comes back positive then I can say that the religion is good for me. Even if at the end of my life I were to discover that my religion was completely false and that there was no God I would still be glad that I practiced religion. Having a set of ethics that I subscribe to, encouraging me to treat others kindly, to be a good parent, to be honest, to work hard, complete with a support group has made me a better person.
Religion doesn't have to be a repressive organization. If the religion is trying to get you to adhere to certain standards out of fear of some punishment then the religion can't possibly make your life better. However, if the religion develops in you love for your fellow humans and all creatures and makes you want to be better out of love, then it is a good thing.
Sorry for such a long response but I get tired of the non-religious classifying religion based on the few loud-mouths that seem to crop up on TV or the internet. Religion doesn't have to make a mockery of proper science since both are addressing different questions. And yes, I am an actively religious scientist.
I agree that conserving energy is a good thing, there is no point in being wasteful. However, conservation will only get you so far. You can only insuate a house so tight, energy efficient appliances can only go so far, etc. The question is where do we get the rest of our energy from? Two major factors in considering where we are going to get our energy from are cost and pollution. You can become as efficient as possible, reduce your monthly consumption by 25%, but if your energy costs are doubled then you are still paying more. Likewise, if you go for cheap and replace nuclear and renwables with coal then even with conservation you still end up polluting more.
As nations increase their standard of living the demand for energy will only increase. Nuclear is the best option we have to provide clean, affordable energy.
For us as consumers it is better to save energy. It costs less and the money is spent improving our homes and our lives directly.
I agree that we should not be wasteful in our energy usage, but why should I have to give up some comforts that I enjoy just because we are too afraid of the unknown (nuclear)? I enjoy having a home that gives my kids room to run. It is nice to be able to run a dishwasher to do my dishes for me. It is really nice to have a clothes dryer for all of the laundry that inevitably comes with having young kids.
Nuclear can supply us with inexpensive, clean energy. Everyone talks about the extensive nuclear subsidies, but the subsidies are nothing compared with what renewables get. And it is nothing compared to the indirect subsidies that coal and natural gas yet by not having to deal with their waste stream. The very fact that nuclear plants are able to be reasonably competitive in price (current low natural gas prices aside) is absolutely amazing considering that nuclear plants are paying a "tax" to cover the cost of waste disposal. In addition nuke plants are required to maintain a decommissioning fund to cover the cost of cleanup when the plant shuts down.
Compare that to coal, gas, and renewable sources. Coal and gas emit tons of pollution freely. There are abandon wind and solar farms where the owners just walked away leaving their crap to pollute the land. Yet these costs have never been added into the subsidy calculation.
If we want cheap, affordable, clean power then nuclear is the only way to go. Unfortunately the public is largely ignorant about the realities of nuclear and instead has been fed a steady diet of Hollywood and environmentalist propaganda that over hypes the terror potential and completely misses the boat on even the most basic technical points.
We also have a Congress and NRC that includes a bunch of ignorant louses that also fail to grasp a basic understanding of the way a nuclear plant works or the actual effects of radiation. The result is insane regulations that cause plants to spend millions and millions of dollars on safety equipment to protect from 1-in-a-million type scenarios. They are able to push through endless regulations but can't manage to assess and promote new technologies in reactor design and waste management to deal with the real problems that do currently exist.
The science and technology is there to make nuclear a great asset. Unfortunately we are stuck with ignorant politicians and public that are driven by smarmy propaganda and hype.
However, the waste issues at the Hanford site are nothing like the waste issues that arise from commercial power plants. The Hanford waste is an agglomeration of all kinds of sludge from different processes. No tank has the same composition as another tank. This diversity of content makes designing a remediation system difficult. It isn't that no one wants to clean it up, look at the billions of dollars being invested in clean up. It isn't that people are dragging their feet on the plant since it is a cash cow. There are technical issues that are difficult to overcome.
Contrast this now with waste from commercial power plants. Waste from commercial plants is in a solid form and almost all of it is contained in zirconium rods (steels and other materials have been used to fabricate fuel rods, but these are not common and are no longer in use). The UO2 fuel form is quite stable, just look at Pena Blanca in Mexico, it has large deposits of uranium oxide exposed to the elements and yet it is still there after millions of years. The waste is actually one of the points that people should be arguing in favor of using nuclear energy. The waste is extremely regulated and so the nuclear plant operators have to make sure that they contain all of their waste. The waste form is stable, and despite all of the politicizing, we can contain waste for the duration of its hazardous life. How many other industries have such stringent controls on their waste streams and have their hazardous byproducts become less hazardous with time?
The thing is that there are still a number of technical issues to work out. Yes, the vitrification technology is old, heck France has been doing it for years. The difference is that in France, there feedstock is consistent and known. In the Handford tanks, the junk that is in there is neither consistent from tank to tank and all the details about what is in them isn't necessarily known. One of the biggest issues that they are facing is how to pump the sludge in the tanks through the pre-treatment facility. Often, the contents of the tanks are described as liquids, but this is a gross over simplification. Many (if not most) of the tanks have a hard salt layer on top that has to be broken up. There is also generally a layer of nice Newtonian fluids, but there also tends to be a significant volume of thick, sludgy, non-Newtonian fluids that make modeling the flow of this stuff a nightmare.
As some of these issues have arisen the question of the viability of vitrification has been raised. However, they are so far along in this plant that it is nearly inconceivable that they would scrap the project and start again with a different technology.
But by the time that you take physics, you understand the underlying math. I was tutoring a relative in math and she was using her graphing calculator to solve basic algebra. Yes, the calculator was able to give her correct answers but she didn't have any idea on how to rearrange basic equations, isolate a variable, or anything like that. Being able to use a calculator was, in my opinion, a great disservice to her. Without being able to understand the basics of equation solving she will struggle if she takes any more advanced math or science courses.
It isn't even so much as they deserve anything. They are offering a service that lets you message people you are not friends with. Now, they could offer that service for free, but that would allow for all kinds of abuse and would result in their service being flooded with spam. The idea is to set a price point high enough that makes the ROI too low for spammers, yet keep the price low enough that people are still willing to use the service. Since it is their service and they have to impose a fine on valid users to prevent the service from being abused the fee is theirs to collect. It would be nice if they were to use the money to support a charity or reduce advertising on their page, but it is their money to spend how they want.
The exclusion zones themselves are way overblown in terms of size. Most of the land around Fukushima is perfectly fine for occupation. Heck, the doses in many areas in the exclusion zone have lower radiation levels than places like Denver. Even the "Dead Zone" around Chernobyl is overblown. There is a great article on the women who defied the evacuation order around Chernobyl and many of them are still alive and there are few reports of any of them having cancer.
I completely agree with you. My comments were focused on addressing the problems of wide adoption of solar generation by people who are still connected to the grid and expect the grid to provide whatever they cannot.
As far as solutions go, I believe that we are going to need a wide variety of energy sources. I am not a global warming denier and I think that wee need to pursue any clean source that we can. Renewables are great, but I think that we can only expected limited contribution from them, economically. I think that storage needs to be included as part of renewable systems to help level out demand usage. If I were to build a home I would include a solar thermal system for heating. I would also set up a DC system in my home, powered by PV with a storage system, to run LED lights and electronics.
I am a strong supporter of nuclear power and would love to see more deployment of nuclear to offset much of our coal burning. I think that we do need to spend the money to upgrade our infrastructure, but even with the possible upgrades I still don't see how it would be possible to power the US with just renewables. As we upgrade the infrastructure I think we need to make room for electric vehicles. I know electric vehicles aren't for everybody but I believe that it is possible to have electric vehicles in the near future that will be able to offset 50% of our vehicles on the road (excluding semis).
Snow clearing has been given a great deal of attention, the phenomenon that we face is freezing rain. When that mixes with snow, it doesn't come off. I really don't think that this is much of an issue for most people and will probably only affect certain regions for a few days out of the year.
The point isn't that utility companies need to have any more infrastructure, the point is that the utility companies need the SAME amount of infrastructure. As solar use increases the utilities have the same infrastructure to support but they are selling less electricity. In an ideal world for a utility company the demand curve is flat across all time. The idea with the development of a smart grid is to try and level out the demand curve, turn on major appliances when the demand on the grid is low. The addition of heavy solar generation does just the opposite, it adds more noise to the demand curve. This additional noise does not oscillate as predictably as current demand curves. The oscillation is a lot slower, over the period of weeks instead of a day. But it comes with sunny days reducing demand and cloudy days increasing demand. On sunny days, the utilities infrastructure sits idle, but they have to have it for the cloudy days.
In the perfect world yes, additional power generation goes out beyond the local area. However, what if an entire region has heavy solar usage and the entire region is having sunny days? You can keep looking further and further out, but comes a point where there just isn't the system to transfer that kind of load and the losses are just too large.
Yes, utility companies have to build for peak usage today, but adding heavy solar usage exacerbates the difference between peak demand, average demand, and minimum demand. The larger those differences are, and the more unpredictable the demand curve is, the more electricity is going to cost.
Let me try to address some of your points. First, while it is true that solar panels are dark and absorb sunlight and they are angled to help snow slide off, that only works if it is a nice, dry, powdery snow. For those people that live in areas that get ice storms and heavy, sticky snow there are times that the snow won't just slide off. So while the GP is correct, I am not sure how many people it affects and for how long.
The next point is the concern over what will happen to the utilities. The problem with solar is that it is not reliable. Imagine this scenario. You have a city that, during peak consumption, requires 1000MW of generation to meet demand. Now, the inhabitants of that city want to be able to use their 1000MW peak no matter what the weather is like. (Aside: It can be argued that in the summer if it is cloudy then people will need less AC to cool their house and therefore demand will drop. However, in the winter, if it is cloudy then the demand for heating will increase. End Aside) Now, imagine that this city goes green and 50% of their peak power is produced by solar. Now, during peak hours the city only needs 500MW of production.
The big question now is, what happens on cloudy days? If the residents don't have their own grid storage system, then they will rely on the utility to provide the full 1000MW. Thus the utility has to have the capacity to provide 1000MW of power, even though on sunny days it can only sell 500MW. This is expensive for the utility. Now lets take this analogy one step further. Imagine that the city is really into solar panels and they install 110% peak capacity. Now, during peak time the city is selling back to the utility company 100MW of power. The problem is, the utility has to buy it, but it doesn't need it. In addition, the utility still has to have the full 1000MW generation capacity for the days when the sun isn't shining.
This is one of the big concern about large scale adoption of solar. If people decide to go fully solar then I think that they should have to go completely off the grid. The cost associated with the utility having such a large flux in demand would be astounding. For the few poor souls that didn't have solar panes for whatever reason, their electric bill would skyrocket as the utilities attempted to recover their operating costs.
Also one point that the anti-nukes often omit is that not all forms of cancer are linked to radiation. Many people who use the cancer argument against nuclear power forget all of the other factors that influence cancer growth and detection and seem to ignore statistics. My favorite reply to them is to note that about half of the counties around nuclear power plants have above average instances of cancer*. They get all worked up and see that as proof that the plants are dangerous without realizing that by the law of averages about half need to be above the average for there to be an average.
*This is a mostly made up statistic but it is close enough to accurate since, hey, its an average.
Yet it still isn't as bad as what people will often tell you. Often ignored are the people who still live inside the exclusion zone around Chernobyl and are doing just fine. One of the major fear factors with nuclear accidents is that we really just don't know what effects continuous exposure to low-level doses of radiation will have on the human body. There are those who claim that there is a linear-no-threshold relationship to high doses and that any radiation received is bad. There is also the camp that claims that chronic exposure to low-level radiation has a hormestic effect. Judging by those still living in the exclusion zone and not having cancer I would have to say that the LNT model may not be all that accurate.
You are correct, but the smart meter would be able to know the exact make, model, and serial number of your appliances. Some people don't like broadcasting information about themselves and may be afraid that utilities might try to sell the information
One additional area of concern are with the HAN enabled smart meters. These smart meters can communicate with any appliances on the Home Area Network. The idea behind the HAN is that large appliances such as air conditioners and refrigerators can communicate with the grid and monitor demand so that you don't suddenly have 50 air conditioners in one neighborhood turning on at once. The area of concern is that since the appliances can talk to the utility company then the utility company knows exactly what appliances (fridge, microwave, tv, etc) you have in the house.
Is this a bad thing? Depends on how much you value your privacy. Is it possible that the system could be upgraded to provide utilities with more information? I guess so, but then you start getting into slippery-slope arguments and that is all pointless speculation.
The baseload power argument is alive though. Yes it is true that if you diversify your renewable portfolio sufficiently and provide for enough grid storage then yes, renewables can handle demand. However, for all the costs of renewables that people are spouting off, no one adds in the extra costs of redundant generation and grid storage. Renewables have a capacity factor of around 20%. This means that they are producing their total rated capacity about 20% of the time. To consistently produce 1MW of electricity you need to have installed about 5MW of generating capacity. Nuclear plants do experience unexpected down time, but even with that factored in the capacity factor of nuclear is around 90%. To consistently get 1MW of electricity you need to have about 1.1MW of nuclear.
Personally, I am excited about the idea of the driverless car and can't wait until I don't have to do the driving to go somewhere. However, I don't think that the driverless car will work well until the majority of the cars are driverless and can communicate with each other. I could just imagine that many problems with the driverless car could be managed much better if the cars were all communicating and letting the other cars know what lane they needed to be, that they were turning in 3 blocks, that there was an accident/pothole/other road hazard up ahead. Until then, I guess that we would just have to put the systems in cars and have them factory disabled until a vast majority of the cars had the technology. Until then, maybe we ditch the HOV lanes on freeways and designate them for driverless cars.
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How about we put forth the effort to improve our K-12 system instead? You are correct that college is worlds apart from what kids are learning by grade 12. There is no reason that kids can't get the practical value out of their current K-12 education done by the end of their Sophomore year. Let the last 2 years of high school be for CC equivalent classes for those so inclined or for an apprenticeship in the trades and crafts.
The isotopes with the 250K year half-life do not produce much heat. You can hold uranium in your hand and it is not radiologically dangerous nor is it any warmer than than any other rock. The reason why freshly discharged spent fuel needs to be cooled in a pool is because of all of the short-lived isotopes. After 1 year the fuel is safe for dry cask storage, though it is often kept in the pool for at least 5 years just to be safe.
The great thing about the dry cask storage is that the casks do include shielding and you can stand right next to them, give them a hug, and be just fine. There is no possible way for any animal or insect near the cask to pick up any contamination and transport it. The waste at Hanford is not contained in storage casks plus there is contamination in the dirt. This contamination is what the animals pick up and transport.
Spent fuel is actually quite stable and does not readily disperse in the environment. Combine that with the insane engineering that is incorporated into the casks and there is little danger of contamination spreading from the spent fuel.
Here is a good article that covers mortality rate by power source. The comment section is also insightful. The numbers that are included in the survey do include TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Part of what keeps the death rate so low is how heavily regulated the industry is. Just to use a ladder to change a light bulb you have to go through training and be a certified ladder operator.
It is hardly free energy. Nuclear power produces electricity more reliably for less money while being clean and safer. Why take a step backward
Solar pricing has a lot of perks. On many grids it is guaranteed sale. This means that if the solar plant is producing electricity it has priority option and gets purchased, even if the supply is not needed. This screws over all of the other utilities that have to sell their production at a negative price point. If solar was predictable then the other providers could adjust their output accordingly. Solar isn't predictable, other providers get screwed.
You then talk nonsense about your magical electric grid. I say it is nonsense because any grid that has that kind of storage would be magical. There is no provision for large scale storage of excess electricity on our grid. Now, we have the technology to build storage, but that would increase the cost well above your quoted 9 cents. In addition, you would have to increase your solar capacity to charge the storage. Typical figures indicate that if you wanted a solar grid you would have to install 4-5x the generation that is required (ie. you want 1000 MW you need to install 4-5000 MW capacity). Again, there goes your 9 cent figure.
Just for an idea of the cost of storage, look at the battery system in Fairbanks Alaska. It is 2000 sq meters, 1300 tonnes, 400 MW, and will provide enough power for 12,000 homes for 7 minutes. All for the low cost of $35 million.
The economics of food prices around the world isn't the only reason to abandon biofuels. The problem with biofuels is that they don't make sense from an energy balance point of view. Photosynthesis is horribly inefficient, we have solar panels that do a lot better (mandatory xkcd ). However, plants are amazing, they can gain additional energy for growth from the ground. We have found a very good way to supercharge plant growth by giving them growth enhancing energy drinks in the form of fertilizers.
/Aside
This use of fertilizers to aid plant growth is the big problem. Fertilizers come from fossil fuels. Converting fossil fuels to fertilizers to be used to grow plants to be converted to fuel is a lot less efficient use of energy, land, water, etc. than just using the fossil fuels as fuel directly
Aside: this is one of the reasons I like electric vehicles. We have the technology to put them on the road today and then we only have a few large, stationary fossil fuel "engines" to focus on instead of millions of small mobile ones.
There is a wonderful article that has been written on the inefficiency of biofuels pdf warning
I agree with your list of changes but would make a couple of adjustments. Renewing a copyright every year would be a hassle. I agree with your idea of limiting the duration of the copyright based on the type of work and think that copyrights should be initially granted for the full term. With that said, there should also be a stipulation that the copyright ends with the death of the creator. I think it is an abomination that works are still not in the public domain decades after the creators death.
Somehow though, I think these kinds of changes would be hard to push through. The best that I can hope for is that copyrights terms will be limited to 20 years max and then after that will be allowed for free release for "non-incidental use" but that any commercial use would still be subject to royalty payments. While that would still suck, it would at least be an improvement.
There is no way we can morally demand countries like North Korea and Iran not develop nuclear weapons unless we do all in our power to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
When it comes to countries with nuclear weapons I imagine an old West saloon scene after a gun fight has broken out. Bullets have been fired, many of the customers have pulled their guns and all is still as everyone is looking around the room waiting to see who is going to fire the next shot. In the calm, people are beginning to realize that everyone drawing their guns is a bad idea and will only result in chaos. Those that have their guns drawn are trying to keep everyone else from drawing and just adding to the tension. Since those with guns drawn don't completely trust each other they won't put their own guns down, but as signs of good faith they are starting to remove bullets from their cylinder.
Right now, this is about where the world is at. Those with nuclear weapons realize that it really isn't a good idea to have every country pointing nuclear weapons at each other. If we can convince those without nuclear weapons to not develop then we can work on reducing our own inventory. I agree that it seems hypocritical for the US to have nuclear weapons and tell another country that it can't, but I think it can be agreed that the fewer nuclear weapons that exist, the better off everyone will be.
The problem that many non-religious folks seem to have trouble grasping is that religion is more than just the stories from the Bible. Religion is a code of ethics that define a way of life. Religion is not something that can be proved with science, so why bother trying. The few scientists that try proving religion through science just end up looking crazy.
Religion is a lot closer related to the social sciences and as such isn't tested the same way that we would test a hypothesis in chemistry of physics. The real test of religion is, do my beliefs make me a better, happier person? If so, then the test comes back positive then I can say that the religion is good for me. Even if at the end of my life I were to discover that my religion was completely false and that there was no God I would still be glad that I practiced religion. Having a set of ethics that I subscribe to, encouraging me to treat others kindly, to be a good parent, to be honest, to work hard, complete with a support group has made me a better person.
Religion doesn't have to be a repressive organization. If the religion is trying to get you to adhere to certain standards out of fear of some punishment then the religion can't possibly make your life better. However, if the religion develops in you love for your fellow humans and all creatures and makes you want to be better out of love, then it is a good thing.
Sorry for such a long response but I get tired of the non-religious classifying religion based on the few loud-mouths that seem to crop up on TV or the internet. Religion doesn't have to make a mockery of proper science since both are addressing different questions. And yes, I am an actively religious scientist.
I agree that conserving energy is a good thing, there is no point in being wasteful. However, conservation will only get you so far. You can only insuate a house so tight, energy efficient appliances can only go so far, etc. The question is where do we get the rest of our energy from? Two major factors in considering where we are going to get our energy from are cost and pollution. You can become as efficient as possible, reduce your monthly consumption by 25%, but if your energy costs are doubled then you are still paying more. Likewise, if you go for cheap and replace nuclear and renwables with coal then even with conservation you still end up polluting more.
As nations increase their standard of living the demand for energy will only increase. Nuclear is the best option we have to provide clean, affordable energy.
For us as consumers it is better to save energy. It costs less and the money is spent improving our homes and our lives directly.
I agree that we should not be wasteful in our energy usage, but why should I have to give up some comforts that I enjoy just because we are too afraid of the unknown (nuclear)? I enjoy having a home that gives my kids room to run. It is nice to be able to run a dishwasher to do my dishes for me. It is really nice to have a clothes dryer for all of the laundry that inevitably comes with having young kids.
Nuclear can supply us with inexpensive, clean energy. Everyone talks about the extensive nuclear subsidies, but the subsidies are nothing compared with what renewables get. And it is nothing compared to the indirect subsidies that coal and natural gas yet by not having to deal with their waste stream. The very fact that nuclear plants are able to be reasonably competitive in price (current low natural gas prices aside) is absolutely amazing considering that nuclear plants are paying a "tax" to cover the cost of waste disposal. In addition nuke plants are required to maintain a decommissioning fund to cover the cost of cleanup when the plant shuts down.
Compare that to coal, gas, and renewable sources. Coal and gas emit tons of pollution freely. There are abandon wind and solar farms where the owners just walked away leaving their crap to pollute the land. Yet these costs have never been added into the subsidy calculation.
If we want cheap, affordable, clean power then nuclear is the only way to go. Unfortunately the public is largely ignorant about the realities of nuclear and instead has been fed a steady diet of Hollywood and environmentalist propaganda that over hypes the terror potential and completely misses the boat on even the most basic technical points.
We also have a Congress and NRC that includes a bunch of ignorant louses that also fail to grasp a basic understanding of the way a nuclear plant works or the actual effects of radiation. The result is insane regulations that cause plants to spend millions and millions of dollars on safety equipment to protect from 1-in-a-million type scenarios. They are able to push through endless regulations but can't manage to assess and promote new technologies in reactor design and waste management to deal with the real problems that do currently exist.
The science and technology is there to make nuclear a great asset. Unfortunately we are stuck with ignorant politicians and public that are driven by smarmy propaganda and hype.
However, the waste issues at the Hanford site are nothing like the waste issues that arise from commercial power plants. The Hanford waste is an agglomeration of all kinds of sludge from different processes. No tank has the same composition as another tank. This diversity of content makes designing a remediation system difficult. It isn't that no one wants to clean it up, look at the billions of dollars being invested in clean up. It isn't that people are dragging their feet on the plant since it is a cash cow. There are technical issues that are difficult to overcome.
Contrast this now with waste from commercial power plants. Waste from commercial plants is in a solid form and almost all of it is contained in zirconium rods (steels and other materials have been used to fabricate fuel rods, but these are not common and are no longer in use). The UO2 fuel form is quite stable, just look at Pena Blanca in Mexico, it has large deposits of uranium oxide exposed to the elements and yet it is still there after millions of years. The waste is actually one of the points that people should be arguing in favor of using nuclear energy. The waste is extremely regulated and so the nuclear plant operators have to make sure that they contain all of their waste. The waste form is stable, and despite all of the politicizing, we can contain waste for the duration of its hazardous life. How many other industries have such stringent controls on their waste streams and have their hazardous byproducts become less hazardous with time?
The thing is that there are still a number of technical issues to work out. Yes, the vitrification technology is old, heck France has been doing it for years. The difference is that in France, there feedstock is consistent and known. In the Handford tanks, the junk that is in there is neither consistent from tank to tank and all the details about what is in them isn't necessarily known. One of the biggest issues that they are facing is how to pump the sludge in the tanks through the pre-treatment facility. Often, the contents of the tanks are described as liquids, but this is a gross over simplification. Many (if not most) of the tanks have a hard salt layer on top that has to be broken up. There is also generally a layer of nice Newtonian fluids, but there also tends to be a significant volume of thick, sludgy, non-Newtonian fluids that make modeling the flow of this stuff a nightmare.
As some of these issues have arisen the question of the viability of vitrification has been raised. However, they are so far along in this plant that it is nearly inconceivable that they would scrap the project and start again with a different technology.
But by the time that you take physics, you understand the underlying math. I was tutoring a relative in math and she was using her graphing calculator to solve basic algebra. Yes, the calculator was able to give her correct answers but she didn't have any idea on how to rearrange basic equations, isolate a variable, or anything like that. Being able to use a calculator was, in my opinion, a great disservice to her. Without being able to understand the basics of equation solving she will struggle if she takes any more advanced math or science courses.
It isn't even so much as they deserve anything. They are offering a service that lets you message people you are not friends with. Now, they could offer that service for free, but that would allow for all kinds of abuse and would result in their service being flooded with spam. The idea is to set a price point high enough that makes the ROI too low for spammers, yet keep the price low enough that people are still willing to use the service. Since it is their service and they have to impose a fine on valid users to prevent the service from being abused the fee is theirs to collect. It would be nice if they were to use the money to support a charity or reduce advertising on their page, but it is their money to spend how they want.
The exclusion zones themselves are way overblown in terms of size. Most of the land around Fukushima is perfectly fine for occupation. Heck, the doses in many areas in the exclusion zone have lower radiation levels than places like Denver. Even the "Dead Zone" around Chernobyl is overblown. There is a great article on the women who defied the evacuation order around Chernobyl and many of them are still alive and there are few reports of any of them having cancer.
I completely agree with you. My comments were focused on addressing the problems of wide adoption of solar generation by people who are still connected to the grid and expect the grid to provide whatever they cannot.
As far as solutions go, I believe that we are going to need a wide variety of energy sources. I am not a global warming denier and I think that wee need to pursue any clean source that we can. Renewables are great, but I think that we can only expected limited contribution from them, economically. I think that storage needs to be included as part of renewable systems to help level out demand usage. If I were to build a home I would include a solar thermal system for heating. I would also set up a DC system in my home, powered by PV with a storage system, to run LED lights and electronics.
I am a strong supporter of nuclear power and would love to see more deployment of nuclear to offset much of our coal burning. I think that we do need to spend the money to upgrade our infrastructure, but even with the possible upgrades I still don't see how it would be possible to power the US with just renewables. As we upgrade the infrastructure I think we need to make room for electric vehicles. I know electric vehicles aren't for everybody but I believe that it is possible to have electric vehicles in the near future that will be able to offset 50% of our vehicles on the road (excluding semis).
Snow clearing has been given a great deal of attention, the phenomenon that we face is freezing rain. When that mixes with snow, it doesn't come off. I really don't think that this is much of an issue for most people and will probably only affect certain regions for a few days out of the year.
The point isn't that utility companies need to have any more infrastructure, the point is that the utility companies need the SAME amount of infrastructure. As solar use increases the utilities have the same infrastructure to support but they are selling less electricity. In an ideal world for a utility company the demand curve is flat across all time. The idea with the development of a smart grid is to try and level out the demand curve, turn on major appliances when the demand on the grid is low. The addition of heavy solar generation does just the opposite, it adds more noise to the demand curve. This additional noise does not oscillate as predictably as current demand curves. The oscillation is a lot slower, over the period of weeks instead of a day. But it comes with sunny days reducing demand and cloudy days increasing demand. On sunny days, the utilities infrastructure sits idle, but they have to have it for the cloudy days.
In the perfect world yes, additional power generation goes out beyond the local area. However, what if an entire region has heavy solar usage and the entire region is having sunny days? You can keep looking further and further out, but comes a point where there just isn't the system to transfer that kind of load and the losses are just too large.
Yes, utility companies have to build for peak usage today, but adding heavy solar usage exacerbates the difference between peak demand, average demand, and minimum demand. The larger those differences are, and the more unpredictable the demand curve is, the more electricity is going to cost.
Let me try to address some of your points. First, while it is true that solar panels are dark and absorb sunlight and they are angled to help snow slide off, that only works if it is a nice, dry, powdery snow. For those people that live in areas that get ice storms and heavy, sticky snow there are times that the snow won't just slide off. So while the GP is correct, I am not sure how many people it affects and for how long.
The next point is the concern over what will happen to the utilities. The problem with solar is that it is not reliable. Imagine this scenario. You have a city that, during peak consumption, requires 1000MW of generation to meet demand. Now, the inhabitants of that city want to be able to use their 1000MW peak no matter what the weather is like. (Aside: It can be argued that in the summer if it is cloudy then people will need less AC to cool their house and therefore demand will drop. However, in the winter, if it is cloudy then the demand for heating will increase. End Aside) Now, imagine that this city goes green and 50% of their peak power is produced by solar. Now, during peak hours the city only needs 500MW of production.
The big question now is, what happens on cloudy days? If the residents don't have their own grid storage system, then they will rely on the utility to provide the full 1000MW. Thus the utility has to have the capacity to provide 1000MW of power, even though on sunny days it can only sell 500MW. This is expensive for the utility. Now lets take this analogy one step further. Imagine that the city is really into solar panels and they install 110% peak capacity. Now, during peak time the city is selling back to the utility company 100MW of power. The problem is, the utility has to buy it, but it doesn't need it. In addition, the utility still has to have the full 1000MW generation capacity for the days when the sun isn't shining.
This is one of the big concern about large scale adoption of solar. If people decide to go fully solar then I think that they should have to go completely off the grid. The cost associated with the utility having such a large flux in demand would be astounding. For the few poor souls that didn't have solar panes for whatever reason, their electric bill would skyrocket as the utilities attempted to recover their operating costs.
Also one point that the anti-nukes often omit is that not all forms of cancer are linked to radiation. Many people who use the cancer argument against nuclear power forget all of the other factors that influence cancer growth and detection and seem to ignore statistics. My favorite reply to them is to note that about half of the counties around nuclear power plants have above average instances of cancer*. They get all worked up and see that as proof that the plants are dangerous without realizing that by the law of averages about half need to be above the average for there to be an average.
*This is a mostly made up statistic but it is close enough to accurate since, hey, its an average.
Yet it still isn't as bad as what people will often tell you. Often ignored are the people who still live inside the exclusion zone around Chernobyl and are doing just fine. One of the major fear factors with nuclear accidents is that we really just don't know what effects continuous exposure to low-level doses of radiation will have on the human body. There are those who claim that there is a linear-no-threshold relationship to high doses and that any radiation received is bad. There is also the camp that claims that chronic exposure to low-level radiation has a hormestic effect. Judging by those still living in the exclusion zone and not having cancer I would have to say that the LNT model may not be all that accurate.
You are correct, but the smart meter would be able to know the exact make, model, and serial number of your appliances. Some people don't like broadcasting information about themselves and may be afraid that utilities might try to sell the information
One additional area of concern are with the HAN enabled smart meters. These smart meters can communicate with any appliances on the Home Area Network. The idea behind the HAN is that large appliances such as air conditioners and refrigerators can communicate with the grid and monitor demand so that you don't suddenly have 50 air conditioners in one neighborhood turning on at once. The area of concern is that since the appliances can talk to the utility company then the utility company knows exactly what appliances (fridge, microwave, tv, etc) you have in the house.
Is this a bad thing? Depends on how much you value your privacy. Is it possible that the system could be upgraded to provide utilities with more information? I guess so, but then you start getting into slippery-slope arguments and that is all pointless speculation.
The baseload power argument is alive though. Yes it is true that if you diversify your renewable portfolio sufficiently and provide for enough grid storage then yes, renewables can handle demand. However, for all the costs of renewables that people are spouting off, no one adds in the extra costs of redundant generation and grid storage. Renewables have a capacity factor of around 20%. This means that they are producing their total rated capacity about 20% of the time. To consistently produce 1MW of electricity you need to have installed about 5MW of generating capacity. Nuclear plants do experience unexpected down time, but even with that factored in the capacity factor of nuclear is around 90%. To consistently get 1MW of electricity you need to have about 1.1MW of nuclear.
Personally, I am excited about the idea of the driverless car and can't wait until I don't have to do the driving to go somewhere. However, I don't think that the driverless car will work well until the majority of the cars are driverless and can communicate with each other. I could just imagine that many problems with the driverless car could be managed much better if the cars were all communicating and letting the other cars know what lane they needed to be, that they were turning in 3 blocks, that there was an accident/pothole/other road hazard up ahead. Until then, I guess that we would just have to put the systems in cars and have them factory disabled until a vast majority of the cars had the technology. Until then, maybe we ditch the HOV lanes on freeways and designate them for driverless cars.