161–170 of 182 posts
This is nuts. I wonder what the effect of spending $1T on nuclear would be in comparison. I bet it's enough money to get to practical nuclear fusion in a decade, which would largely obviate the need in most other energy generation methods.
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According to the Lazard estimate of levelized cost of energy, spending the same money on nuclear fission would produce one third of the power.
Germany vs France Full research http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2019/7299-system-costs.pdf Short https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05... Nuclear safer, cheaper (in short and long term) and produce less carbon emission
He is so pro nuclear and anti renewables that he simply makes stuff up in order to show $50 is less than $5. Oh look, he's branded the graphs with his lobbying outfit logo. Why is he not comparing with other countries that are getting it right? Ah because the conclusion was determined before he wrote a single word.
He was drastically wrong on the Amazon recently too: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/michael-shellenbergers-slo...
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Solar and wind won't be the solution for the foreseeable future. The price of energy creation is good, but storage just isn't there. Consider a city like New York. How much solar power are you going to get in the winter when a big blizzard rolls through. Or how about Miami when a slow moving tropical storm comes through. You need to be able to store a more than a week's worth of energy for these huge cities. Nuclear…
Why is nuclear the only option? NYC just made a deal with Quebec to buy hydro power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany vs France Full research http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2019/7299-system-costs.pdf Short https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05... Nuclear safer, cheaper (in short and long term) and produce less carbon emission
Michael Shellenberger, founder of pro-nuclear lobbying outfit Environmental Progress. He is so pro nuclear and anti renewables that he simply makes stuff up in order to show $50 is less than $5. Oh look, he's branded the graphs with his lobbying outfit logo. Why is he not comparing with other countries that are getting it right? Ah because the conclusion was determined before he wrote a single word. He was drasticall…
Also that don't rely on hydropower. That's something limited by geography.
Also, the paper was from the OECD NEA, nothing to do with Shellenberger.
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When you spend $1T on building nuclear plants, you will be manufacturing in bulk and improving every year. Let's assume that a single fission plant costs $5B (if you're building hundreds of them, you can take advantage of some economies of scale). For $1T, you can build 200 of them. New fission plants have something like 2 GW capacity on average. 2 GW times 200 is 400 GW. Now, US uses 13 quads of BTU worth of electri…
> if you're building hundreds of them Where is the waste being stored and how safe is that location against the drastic climate change which is now beginning to occur?
Where is it "beginning to occur"? And if you do really believe this, wouldn't you want to shut down the second largest emitter of carbon worldwide as soon as possible by the most efficient means available to us?
Oil and gas ("energy") companies are investing a lot into wind energy. They know they have to adopt. In the end they just want profits and they have the capital to make the right investments. I really wish the environmentalist movement saw them as just another money hungry corporation instead some evil villain out to destroy the planet. They would love to diversify their revenue stream, now is a good time to work wit…
> why don't wind turbines have more than one "wheel" Which I take to mean more than one set of blades? In which case it's because they interfere with each other, and reduce the power generation possible in all surrounding turbines. Wind farms come with a minimum separation that is something like 5 or 10 blade diameters spacing, depending on prevailing winds. That spacing gives every turbine clear air free of induced…
Oil and gas ("energy") companies are investing a lot into wind energy. They know they have to adopt. In the end they just want profits and they have the capital to make the right investments. I really wish the environmentalist movement saw them as just another money hungry corporation instead some evil villain out to destroy the planet. They would love to diversify their revenue stream, now is a good time to work wit…
> another money hungry corporation instead some evil villain out to destroy the planet. Greed can destroy the planet all the same. So money hungry is hardly an excuse for evil behavior.
Also,geopolitics: the west won agai at oil and gas? Cools, CNOOC,Gazprom and Aramco will supply most of the planet that can't afford to buy green cars and switch their electric grids to green sources, make their ships green,etc... Dying American geopolitical strong arming can only take you so far.
Oil and gas ("energy") companies are investing a lot into wind energy. They know they have to adopt. In the end they just want profits and they have the capital to make the right investments. I really wish the environmentalist movement saw them as just another money hungry corporation instead some evil villain out to destroy the planet. They would love to diversify their revenue stream, now is a good time to work wit…
The industry seems like a good fit for specialist contractors (many of which also work for oil companies) rather than an integrated oil company. They may have access to lots of capital, but that is hardly unique. Arguably their real talent is dealing with market volatility, which could come to renewables when strike prices and subsidy levels get reduced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Michael Shellenberger, founder of pro-nuclear lobbying outfit Environmental Progress. He is so pro nuclear and anti renewables that he simply makes stuff up in order to show $50 is less than $5. Oh look, he's branded the graphs with his lobbying outfit logo. Why is he not comparing with other countries that are getting it right? Ah because the conclusion was determined before he wrote a single word. He was drasticall…
Which countries are getting renewables right and have lower power costs than, say, France with similarly low electricity prices? Also that don't rely on hydropower. That's something limited by geography. Also, the paper was from the OECD NEA, nothing to do with Shellenberger.
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20 year is the guarantee period for wind and solar. Considering wind and solar are turn key provisioned, it is a reasonable assumption. Also consider than these sites are then habitually repowered. Which in the last 20 years would give you double the power on a site or more. Depending on the tower choice up to a third of the cost of wind park is in raw metal costs. This does not lose value over all the years. Metal t…
Thanks for an informative comment. I assume that if a wind turbine has to be replaced every 20th year, then it stands to reason that the turbines in a nuclear reactor has to be replaced just as often? Especially since they are driven by steam and must be spinning very fast.
It's more like buying an router for the office, deprecating it in 3 years but running it for 7. The 3 years is the 20 off the windmill. How long it will actually last depends more on circumstances than on it actually being ok to keep on going.
Major reasons to repower are new tech, as in your network. Upgrading from 100Mbit to 1Gbit is a bigger reason to upgrade a commodity like a windmill or a router. That it still being under warranty. Putting a 3.4 MW where you had a 900Kw is good value for money. Especially if maintance costs are lower, yields are higher, it's quieter and can do more regarding grid stability etc.
For the router to fail after 4 years is ok. Next day new one arrives. For a windmill to fail after 25 years is ok, two months later you have a new one.
For a nuclear powerplant to fail in year 65, means you don't have a country left ;) (NL here)