Nuclear Power is Green! Renewable Energy Wrecks the Environment!
Here’s another one who thinks nuclear power is the energy panacea we all need, and that renewable energy production is, as he states, "a rape of nature." Strong words and I just had to talk about it. The story comes from Science Daily, and there’s also a link to Nuclear Waste Storage that pretty well explains the problem, and takes a good look at the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:55 am
We must first make people (and industry) use less, so less will need to be produced… Past that, in a way he is right, but somebody must first produce a nuclear plant that won’t risk leaks or explosions and come up with a safe way to dispose of the waste…
July 26th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Funny you linked to it. A buddy of mine sent me this article. Here was my (very lengthy) response…
A couple bigger points before I get to the specifics.
1) There seems to be some weird misconception that green power is supposed to supplant all fossil fuel and nuclear energy at once. Good lord, we’ve invested trillions in infrastructure and building the damn fossil fuel plants. Why on earth would we let them go dormant all of a sudden? Even Kyoto just tried to mandate CO2 emissions back to 1990 levels (which had plenty of fossil fuel and nuclear plants). The point of renewable energy is that as it scales up, you’re able to gradually meet the NEW capacity needs, and over time, as other power plants need replacing, you’ll use renewable energy to replace those plants (assuming the $/watt ratio is favorable). Its why it’s a “portfolio” approach - even the aggressive estimates I’m looking at see wind at 20% of total US energy demand by 2030 (from the wind groups no less) and solar (both distributed PV and the utility-scale CSP) at another 20% of total US energy demand by 2030. Ethanol and biodiesel, provided cellulosic comes on as strong as projected by 2015, will supplant a good deal of oil, but again, we’re only talking 20%.
2) Nuclear has been around for 35 years, and does a decent job. Its certainly cleaner than fossil fuel generation. It gets a little frustrating though, when people forget that it’s had literally hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and R&D to get where it’s at. There was celebration at the DOE’s renewable energy group when they were allocated a whopping 3 billion to spread around to R&D for solar. Three! There’s been woefully low investment in wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, ocean power, etc. for the past few decades. Now we’ve seen been a few years of green investment and all of a sudden renewable energy capacity factors are doubling, energy conversion rates are tripling, costs are falling 15% annually - it’s not a coincidence. I understand that, for analysis, all we have are current numbers…but when you’re doing these analyses, you’ve got to be a least a little bit fair.
Now, to the specifics of his argument.
SOLAR
442 nuclear reactors in the world producing 370,000 MW cumulatively means each reactor, on average, produces 7.3 million MWh (megawatt hours) per reactor. Based on a model I put together on solar vs. biomass efficienc (which was PV panels, not CSP), you get about 380 MWh per acre per year. In order to get the same output as an average nuclear reactor, you’d need a 78 square kilometer solar farm. This assumes only an 18% conversion efficiency factor and solar array coverage of 30% per acre, and an average of 4.75 KWh / m2 / day. All those are low. So he’s off by a factor of 2 in Solar. Moreover, the douchebag is ignoring that fact that almost all PV solar goes on rooftops, which are pre-existing and presently uncovered. And yes, there are studies out there that demonstrate there is PLENTY of rooftop capacity. Moreover, I didn’t look at CSP (concentrated solar power) nor did he. There, you’re talking a 40%-50% efficiency ratio, and probably higher coverage per acre. These are the 500MW solar “plants” you’re suddenly hearing about (if you hear about that stuff to begin with)
WIND
General rule of thumb is 50 acres per megawatt installed, only 5% of that land taken by a turbine. Assumption is a relatively high capacity factor (30%-35%) and about a 2MW turbine. So again, he’s off by a factor of 3. Also, the douchebag again doesn’t take into account that only 5% of the land is used, meaning most of our nation’s farmers can install wind turbines and still do other shit. Try grazing cattle on a nuclear plant! Look at what’s happening in texas - all the farmers are installing turbines. Of course, you’ve got T&D issues (transmission and distribution) if all your wind energy is rurally source, but still. See the first argument above.
BIOMASS
Yes, if you grow and harvest biomass for energy it’s a complete waste. I won’t even run the numbers to compare. He’s off I’m sure, but its a very bad ratio nonetheless. But the point is that most of what’s being done with biomass either uses agricultural residue from biomass being used to create biofuels, or forest-derived biomass that doesn’t need to be harvested, or landfill waste, etc. Nothing is being GROWN to power anything here (via biomass - ignore biofuels for the moment). Now, re biofuels, which he doesn’t get into - the arguments get difficult when you’re talking corn. But even there, gallon/bushel numbers are increasing dramatically. All assumptions re biofuels are predicated on cellulosic coming online about 2012 to 2015. Moreover, the argument against biofuels reminds me of a related story. There was a good deal of attention paid to a report recently that posited that it actually took more energy to create a gallon of corn ethanol than it provided when burned (think it was a dude named Pimental). However, if you went through this guy’s numbers, it turns out that (among other things) he was including the energy it took to grow the food that the farmworkers ate who were harvesting the corn as part of the overall energy balance. I mean seriously??? You think the same intricate calculations are being used in nuclear or fossil fuel equations?
ECONOMIES OF SCALE
I’m not sure he understands “economies of scale” or at least he’s using it in a context I’m not familiar with. He talks about “economies of scale” for renewables in terms of energy sources. Never mind that if you actually bought his arguments, you could make the same argument for coal, natural case and uranium. But the bigger picture here is YES, you do get EOS, in terms of increasing conversion efficency and decreasing costs/watt in all renewable technology. The point of “economies of scale” is that as manufacturing for turbines PV silicon and thin film panels, concentrated solar power (CSP) and ethanol refineries ramps up - the (marginal) costs for each decreases dramatically. Moreover, as each industry matures, you get integration across the value chain, which further compresses margins and reduces costs.
NUCLEAR GREEN?
I’ll just cut and paste from the recent California Energy Commission report on the potential for Nuclear Power in the state: “Nuclear power generation poses direct environmental risks, including aquatic impacts from once-through cooling; risk of groundwater contamination with tritium; radiation hazards associated with disposal of radioactive waste; and risks of radioactive releases triggered by earthquakes, tsunamis, accidents, or sabotage,” the report says. “Additional environmental impacts are associated with the full nuclear lifecycle, which starts with uranium mining and extends through reactor construction and operation to spent fuel storage/disposal or reprocessing and finally, decommissioning.”
July 26th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Mr. Ausubel’s analysis was a fine academic exercise but it ignores a lot of hard facts on the ground, from public opposition to nuclear power to the difficulty in building a gazillion plants. And I say this as someone who works in the nuclear industry.
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