Yeah, it is baffling. Hey ho. Progress marches on regardless….

All the best, mate.

This helps to connect the dots.. still baffling, tho

I suspect this is what happened to Monbiot: http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2006/grimstonbio.htm – that’s his old school chemistry teacher who he has kept in touch with and recently partnered in nuke / climate debates – http://www.thereaction.net/explore/The-Nuclear-Debate/ + http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/london-climate-change … Monbiot’s output is now chock full with nuke lobby talking points. Puzzling and disappointing in equal measure. :/

But that is an awesome quote — hadn’t seen it.

I’ve posted on Into Eternity, and watched several trailers, but haven’t watched the film yet.

“Hey, future generations – we left you this glowing pile of highly toxic sh|t to keep an eye on! Make sure you keep testing your drinking water! Pass the message on. LOL!!”

Before Monbiot went AWOL on energy, he offered this:

> “If, as a result of slow leakage into the groundwater, radioactive materials from a burial site kill an average of only one person a year for one million years, those who made the decision to bury them will – through their infinitesimal and unrecorded impacts – be responsible for the deaths of a million people.”

But what do we know? We’re just fear-mongering eco-fascist hippies.

If you’ve not seen it you must watch http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/ – beautifully filmed, devastatingly simple and to the point. The reactions of the nuke executives who are interviewed and asked what happens in thousands of years time is priceless.

Cheers,

David.

I’m really arguing from the perspective of ‘the way things should be’ – which is a holistic analysis… from cradle to grave. And the 800-lb gorilla in the room is nuclear waste – how much is that going to cost to store and manage for the next 100,000+ years?!

I don’t think the 20-year LCOE is the key to widespread public support – solar PV on your roof has massive advantages over anything a grid-scale utility can do… not to mention the ‘feel good, cool and trendy’ factor that often drives the emotional part of buying things.

Friendly neighbour rivalry is also a force: “Hey Bob, how much was your energy bill this month? Mine was ZERO!!”

Similarly, a community can buy a wind turbine that would provide most or all of their power at a cost that a large utility could not compete with. It’s just a matter of time before more and more people realise this.. provided they can work around the protectionism that the big energy utilities have stamped in to legislation in many countries.

Solar is already a no-brainer in many (most?) parts of the world – we just need to wait for most people’s brains to catch up!

Solar certainly has the lowest maintenance costs. Hydro is probably second from the bottom.

Wind is probably cheaper to maintain than coal or nuclear. All three have moving parts, but coal and nuclear are also dealing with heat stress on their machinery and cooling costs. And the costs of dealing with waste streams.

It would be nice to see someone with a good handle on lifetime costs to work up numbers for all our energy options.

& yeah, think i need to drill that one more (and using the numbers)

Or the cost of nearly infinite storage, something we can’t adequately calculate.

That’s been done and that’s why we know that burning coal is our most expensive way to create electricity.

Long term is not a consideration made by many. If it were then wind and solar would really win. After the 20 year loan payoff the price of wind drops to a couple of pennies per kWh. And modern wind turbines should have a good 20-30 years in them post payoff. Solar, after payoff, drops to about a penny per kWh. Panels should last another 30+ years but will lose a bit of performance over time (about 0.5% per year, max).

Renewables are going to have to win on a 20 year LCOE basis before most people will accept them as the cheapest way to make new power.

If we went to ‘lifetime’ pricing then renewables would already win. Right now solar is $0.154/kWh, large rooftop installations in the ‘sun belt’. Spread that cost over 50 years, allow $0.01/kWh for maintenance, and the price is $0.075/kWh including panel degradation and maintenance.