So you tell me that you are ignorant of the fact that the 100 TWh of final energy in the electricity production from wind, solar & hydropower are displayed as 100 TWh of primary energy?

Renewable share in the Electricity supply:
Primary Energy = 8%
Final Energy (what matters) = 25%

(B)
You do it again. You suggest that I have no idea what I am talking about. We were not discussing a realistic scenario to meet all energy demands…
We were talking about the over simplified assumption by Mr. McKay in which he discussed the energy requirements for a

Also MacKay has a good section on ground source heating. At least in the UK with high density housing, the ground would quickly lose too much heat if entire rows of homes took it all in the colder months. It has to be replenished by putting the heat back in during cooling seasons with reverse cycle pumps or mixed with air source heating.

On the DOE website there are some interesting advanced forms of air source heating cycles that push the COP factor up even further.

Concentrated solar thermal would be interesting if not for the cost. The Gemasolar scaled up 80 fold would give the same output as 1GWe/yr and it can follow load since it stores heat around 20 hours. But at $325M*80 you get $26B and needs 212000 heliostats to do that on 150sq km of land. The molten salt storage look interesting, it goes up to 500c so it could be useful for industry.

Electricity as a heat source is wasteful unless it is very high grade heat for melting metals etc. Electricity for home heating using heat pumps is very smart, since each Je turns to same Jh and borrows a few more from the environment.

Using electricity that is made from high grade heat, to make heat is very wasteful, it would be better to use the original heat in the first place but that’s the convenience factor of electricity vs the difficulty of moving heat around.

Even if the electricity is off peak, turning it into stored heat is still wasteful, even if it is nuclear in origin, but its probably way better than resistive heating during the peak time.

see “flowcharts llnl gov”

And, of course, electricity.

Since each 3PJh of coal, gas, oil can on avg produce 1PJe, this seems fair too, even though only 1/3 of that chemical energy is used for electrical power plants. The rest is used directly for heating, transport, and industry and the conversion losses appear later on.

This method is used the world over, even in Germany. The purest electrical sources represent only a few % of all energy produced. The /3 conversion factor could be reduced to /2.5, even /2 in some cases, but it will never be 1.

And if you look at all these graphs, you always see about 30% goes to transport and only a part of that is used for internal combustion engines. Presumably some is used for construction and paving of roads with oil products and for all other forms of transport.

It simply isn’t possible to change to a world that is entirely electrical, we need heat for warmth, for industrial processes, even for making food fuel, the world will always be more chemical (life) than electrical (machina).

Chemical or heat energy has its advantages too, it can easily be stored and used on demand and it drives all life.

If we want to make fuels to store energy and do so without carbon fuels we can choose between nuclear or pure electrical sources. Use nuclear and you can use 3PJh directly or use 1PJe and convert to 1PJh and get far less fuels. And fuels are generally made with heat processes.

See “German energy flow” there are 4 pics on google
See “Energy Balance Germany 2012 in million tce”
See “flowcharts llnl gov”

The total km traveld by all vehicles in the UK is in the range of 400 billion km. That’s a fact…

3.2 kWh(e) are 3.2 kWh(e). If they come from wind & solar there is no point in converting them in fictional 7-9kWh(th)… those sources don’t produce 60% waste heat…. that’s why they are underrepresented in primary energy statistics. That’s also the reason why it’s common knowledge that using primary energy consumption to describe how a renewable energy system could is silly.

Look, your word against the word of the Fraunhofer Insititute on this…. and many other individuals & insitutions that study these things.

As a Leaf, 30 miles would be about 9kWh(e) or 20-25kWh(th). For a 7000 miles avg, it would be 5.5kWh(e) and including those that don’t drive it could be 3.2kWh(e) or 7-9kWh(th).

So he starts of with 40kWh(th) for a single car user but by page 204, the five energy plans are using the 40kWh(th) box to cover all transport energy use for all people averaged out.

See “uk primary energy mix” the decc-gov-uk report.

This is an overall summary of the primary energy.

Chart 1 gives 203Mtoe today, but in 2007 it was about 240Mtoe with a UK population only 61M, 1 toe is 42GJ or 11.63MWh.

So 240Mtoe/y is 2790TWh/y and voila 125kWh/d/p (th).

See “energy consumption in the united kingdom” gives much more detail for the various sectors.

In the UK there are approximatly 31.5 million cars. The average milage per car (the thing burning fuel) was 8,430 miles* (13,560km). That makes a total of aprox. 420 billion kms traveld by cars. If these are all traveld using a Nissan Leaf the UK would need 75 TWh of final energy in the form of electricity.
That would be 3.2 kWh per person per year.

Of course this is just cars… but since cars are the top energy consumers when it comes to transport energy this should be considered.

———————-
* http://assets.dft.gov.uk/statistics/releases/national-travel-survey-2010/nts2010-01.pdf (on Page 7)

The UK really does use about 5kWt or 125kWh/d as thermal per person. Germany is a little higher, the US is double.

MacKay has 32% of the UK input converted to electricity at 45%eff giving 18kWh/d. The US is 40% converted at 32%eff from the LLNL graph. The energy flows are similar but the conversions are slightly different.

The remainder is for future generations to add to the grid, so electricity really will increase by 2.5-3 times to be rid of most fossil power.

So the transport 40kWh thermal gives 18kWh electric for 45% conversion eff.

Lets use a Leaf that has a range between 73-100 miles or 84 miles avg for 24kWh. I get 3.5miles/kWh or 5.6km/kWh or 17.8kWh/100km pretty similar to your value.

So 18kWh/d(e) gives 63 miles/d or 100km/d or 23,000 miles/yr. This is about 1.5-4 times what any UK person actually drives. The rest is for buses, trucks, trains, planes, ships etc.

Me thinks you skimmed the book and didn’t pay attention to details.

and 13% from hydro and non-hydro renewables. That claim about getting “virtually all of our low carbon electricity” is erroneous.

Good thing I said virtually instead of literally, huh? Let me rephrase that:

Nuclear power plants are quietly humming along producing 20 percent of the electric power (and 75% of our low carbon non-hydro electricity) to the most energy hungry nation on Earth at competitive prices. From a global warming perspective, it’s a tragedy, really, that it was not able to displace coal and natural gas all of those decades.

Little late in the game to discover that. Maybe you should have followed this link the first few times I offered it: US electricity generation by source.

Hydro, as it turns out, isn’t any more renewable than nuclear, and new hydro is probably one of the most destructive sources of low GHG energy, assuming it is low GHG. Studies suggest that the methane that will be released by damming the Amazon basin is going to be very significant.

Now I’ve run out of steam.

Was that an intended pun?

I know that you think you’ve taught be something, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a single thing.

As an experienced mechanical engineer, and having written over a thousand articles on energy and the environment, I’ve certainly learned some things. Your claim that you haven’t learned a thing means one of two things:

1) You are not being honest
2) Your mind is welded shut like a steel drum.

Not good in either case.

I’ve simply spend a lot of time playing whack-a-mole with another nuclear true believer who doesn’t seem to be able to take on new facts.

…says the nuclear energy denier to the kettle. Like I said several times before, debate is for the audience. That, and a lot of other things didn’t sink in. I.e., I haven’t been “debating” you. And you guys always say that, and you always come back for the last word. See you when that happens.

It’s a crazy mixed up world. Global warming deniers, meet nuclear energy deniers. You have a lot more in common than you realize.

More food for thought:

The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all

The double standards of green anti-nuclear opponents

I simply find you too verbose and misinformed

It pays to resist the urge to go ad hom on your debate partner because that gives him/her the go ahead to retaliate, which often leads to escalation. At times I feared I might be debating a badly misinformed parrot.

Russ, you are right. I don’t read all your comments carefully.

A half truth is better than no truth.

$63k for a residential solar system? The average cost for a residential grid tie system is $5.21/watt. Your’re putting in 12 kW system for a small house? Are you powering a lot of grow lights?

According to the EIA, US average = 920 kWh per month, ours 823 kWh. Not grow lights …Nissan Leaf, which I mentioned previously, and is another example of why it pays to read your opponents comments. Think …boxing match with blinders on. Coincidentally, marijuana use is now legal in this state.

I know that you love nuclear, but nuclear is simply too expensive despite your claims to the contrary.

Love is not the appropriate word to describe why I support its use along with wind and solar in a low carbon grid, but the word hate certainly fits your feeling toward nuclear energy, and nuclear is no more expensive than wind and solar, despite your claims to the contrary.

The utility industry is telling you that if you would care to listen.

Addressed by previous sourced responses, if you would care to listen.

Will England build a lot of new nuclear? That is not settled and as the cost is made clearer to the public resistance is growing. We’ll see how that one plays out.

Exactly how much is “a lot?” Will Japan and Germany really abandon all of their nuclear? That is not settled and as the cost is made clearer to the public acceptance will grow. We’ll see how that one plays out.

Will France continue to be heavily nuclear powered? Possibly not. The current government intends to lower nuclear’s contribution from 75% to 50% over the next few years.

It’s unlikely they will go to 50% but even that sounds heavily nuclear powered to me. Did I tell you

France emits half the CO2 of Germany

? And that was before Germany started phasing out its nuclear.

France may actually be the first to do it right with a mix of nuclear and low carbon renewables. Although Japan got only 10% from nuclear, shutting it down has helped to make an unprecedented trade deficit of $32billion in the just the first half of 2012, which is five times more than it was the prior year. Never mind the significant increase in GHG emissions.

You do know that France is having problems with reactor cooling during the more frequent European heat waves, do you not?

You’ve mentioned the impact of cooling by drought about half a dozen times (literally). I’ve always responded. Thermal power plants (be they solar thermal, natural gas, coal, biomass, or nuclear) have to throttle back or go off line for short periods when cooling water levels are low or too warm. It is and expense but it isn’t a concern. The shutdowns are planned, safe, and grid operators simply adjust. Much easier to do than to respond to clouds or wind speeds. You think it is a problem because almost everything you know comes from our sensationalist driven by profit lay media. Solar panels are also less efficient at high temperatures, which I admit is just as irrelevant as your first point.

If you think communities along the Pacific Coast or Eastern Seaboard would welcome a new nuclear plant then you are God’s own fool.

“Accept” might be more appropriate than “welcome,” but I could be wrong. Some communities would definitely welcome one:

The Town That Wants America’s Worst Atomic Waste.

And here is one titled Population rises near US reactors.

You need to come up with a better insult than God’s own fool. I’m atheistic. If you think the world is going to achieve zero carbon energy with just wind and solar nuclear you are ah, …Satan’s sock puppet.

Nuclear in the US has not grown in many years

.

Decades in fact, and thanks to competition from fossil fuels, not because of renewables. I pointed that out to you and gave the reasons why.

Wind contributed 3.5% of our total electricity during the first half of 2012. That percentage will continue to increase and with the very steep drop in solar prices we will see solar start to contribute at larger rates.

I pointed wind’s contribution out earlier as well. As I’ve said many times before, when you say “wind” you are inadvertently referring to wind-enhanced combined gas cycle power plants, of which wind is one source of energy, natural gas is the other. Wind farms without gas backup are as worthless as a home with solar panels that isn’t connected to the grid.

And as I’ve said many times before, I’m not arguing against wind and solar as being part of a low carbon grid.

I don’t think you understand the problems that nuclear has in an open market

.

Nuclear power plants are quietly humming along producing 20 percent of the electric power to the most energy hungry nation on Earth at competitive prices. You didn’t see that coming for the fifth time?

The US does not need off-peak power which means that new nuclear would lose money and have to raise its price during peak. And have that eaten away by solar.

An energy source that provides less than half of one percent of U.S. energy (solar) can’t eat anything away. The fossil fuel called natural gas can. Translation; several studies have shown that intermittent wind and solar can only scale to roughly 30 % of total electrical energy output. Which is fine, the rest can be filled in with other low carbons sources including nuclear.

I suppose you haven’t read me carefully

.

You can’t be serious …I’ve quoted and addressed everything you’ve said.

…we will take the intermittent step of using natural gas. That’s just an economic reality.

I think you meant to say intermediate, and economic reality are two words I would not use to describe your position.

The best, most likely solution I see is to keep building more wind and solar (along with other renewables

).

The best, most likely solution I see is to keep building more wind and solar until they max out in economic scale, keep nuclear in the low carbon energy mix, and make sure that other low carbon choices are not worse than the cure (palm or soy biofuel stock displacing grasslands or forests, tree farms displacing natural forests to feed biomass thermal power plants, usurping cropland to turn food into fuel, damming of Amazonian rivers, encroachment on existing nature preserves to extract energy from them and on and on it goes).

Let NG push coal off the grid,

NG is a fossil fuel. There isn’t enough of it to push coal and nuclear off the grid, heat homes, displace gasoline and diesel in bus, cab, and garbage truck fleets.

Let fuel-free renewables curtail NG

.

Free renewables? Wind needs NG to operate. See screenshot below.

Down the road finish off NG with cheap storage

.

….finish off with something that does not exist–cheap storage. Your grand scheme has a few missing links. Nuclear energy is real, proven, economical, and zero carbon. It will be used as an adjunct to other low carbon sources.

That tells me [wind and solar can’t do the job alone] that you didn’t bother to read the Budischak paper either

.

What? You didn’t bother to read it either? I suspected as much. Seriously, you mentioned solar 6 times alone in your last comment, yet according to a report on the paper:

…it wasn’t until the researchers asked for a scenario in which energy supply met demand 99.9 percent of the time that solar was brought into the picture.”

You have talked a great deal about the importance of storage, “Down the road finish off NG with cheap storage,” yet according to the paper:

…scaling up renewable generation capacity to seemingly excessive levels — more than three times the needed load, in some instances — proved more cost-effective than scaling up storage capacity, due to the high systems costs associated with storage technology.

Three times the needed load …see screenshot below and picture me buying three times as many panels.

Another highlight from the study:

In the four years simulated, “a handful” of days would not have enough power. The answer? Have “a few” coal or gas plants sitting around doing nothing until needed for those “handful” of days.

I suspect the critics will have a heyday with this one. Nuclear will remain as part of the mix.

You are asking us to bet our children’s futures on a single paper. There have been numerous studies showing that wind and solar can do it all. Given time, those studies were eventually critiqued. The critiques are the most important thing to read, the assumptions made are always the missing links. We will have to wait to see the critiques of this latest study.

BTW, first half of 2013 we got 19% of our electricity from nuclear

Oh, my bad, did I say 20%? …first half of 2013?

and 13% from hydro and non-hydro renewables. That claim about getting “virtually all of our low carbon electricity” is erroneous.

Good thing I said virtually instead of literally, huh? Let me rephrase that:

Nuclear power plants are quietly humming along producing 20 percent of the electric power (and 75% of our low carbon non-hydro electricity) to the most energy hungry nation on Earth at competitive prices. From a global warming perspective, it’s a tragedy, really, that it was not able to displace coal and natural gas all of those decades.

Little late in the game to discover that. Obviously you didn’t follow this link the first few times I offered it: US electricity generation by source.

Hydro, as it turns out, isn’t any more renewable than nuclear, and new hydro is probably one of the most destructive sources of low GHG energy, assuming it is low GHG. Studies suggest that the methane that will be released by damming the Amazon basin is going to be very significant.

Now I’ve run out of steam.

Was that an intended pun?

I know that you think you’ve taught be something, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a single thing.

As an experienced mechanical engineer, and having written over a thousand articles on energy and the environment, I’ve certainly learned some things. Your claim that you haven’t learned a thing means one of three things:

1) You are not being honest
2) You know too little to know how little you know
3) Your mind is welded shut like a steel drum.

I’ve simply spend a lot of time playing whack-a-mole with another nuclear true believer who doesn’t seem to be able to take on new facts.

…says the nuclear energy denier to the kettle. Like I said several times before, debate is for the audience.

It’s a crazy mixed up world. Global warming deniers, meet nuclear energy deniers. You have a lot more in common than you realize.

More food for thought:

The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all

The double standards of green anti-nuclear opponents

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/ticker/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/solarcost.jpg

The problem with his position and yours is the implication that most “greens” are clueless.

But wouldn’t you agree that MacKays little number games are inferiour to the actual work of people and instutions that really know what they are talking about? I mean knowledge as in decades of studies & experience.

Of course you could also think for yourself…for example:
On page 204 he forcasts the energy consumption of the future. In it he puts electricity for transport at 18 kWh/d/ person. In the UK (63Mil.) that would mean roughly 415 TWh of electricity just for electric transportation. (=double the current electricity consumption = NUTS!)

In Germany 85% of the transport energy is consumed by cars. So lets asume it is the same in the UK and that the future cars would use 25kWh per 100km (high value).
In this case 350 TWh translate to 1400 billion Km total vehicle travel… Is that realistic my friend?

A little hint: In Germany it’s about 600 billion km…

I guess 70TWh (20 GW of wind in the UK) to power all km driven by cars in the UK with electricity doesn’t sound too plausible if you write a book about silly greens. So a book full of BS is way better.

At least you are happy

And for the UK which is one of the more densely populated countries, a mostly solar or wind system would need about 10% of all land set aside for all primary energy production. There is no practical possibility of increasing biomass or hydro to anymore than a tiny sliver of power use. In all 5 plans there is a mix of REs. Even the mostly nuclear one is still 20% or so REs of various sorts including bits of hydro, wave, tidal, heat pumps, insulation, some wind, biomass, foreign imports etc.

The current population of the UK is about 10 times too high to go back to the way things used to be 200 years ago where energy largely came form biomass, animals, tiny hydro etc. Once you have no fossil power and fertilizers, land productivity drops.

The British must be quite a bit more pragmatic than the Germans it seems because they do not oppose nuclear like you think, some do, but most don’t.

And why don’t you use your own brain to figure the cost of producing 1GWe baseload or 8.76TWh/yr for each and every power source, you might be surprised. The data is out there for you to find.

Also consider that electrical energy only represents about 40% of all primary energy expressed in We, so fully electrifying all fossil fuel processes is going to increase electricity production 2.5 fold or so,

You need to read the book again, you have misread the intent.

Or you could write your own rebuttal to MacKay and publish it. But can you do the physics though, me thinks your book would be full of hand waving and BS, but the greens would love it.

—

$63k for a residential solar system? The average cost for a residential grid tie system is $5.21/watt. Your’re putting in 12 kW system for a small house? Are you powering a lot of grow lights?

—

I know that you love nuclear, but nuclear is simply too expensive despite your claims to the contrary. The utility industry is telling you that if you would care to listen.

Will England build a lot of new nuclear? That is not settled and as the cost is made clearer to the public resistance is growing. We’ll see how that one plays out.

Will France continue to be heavily nuclear powered? Possibly not. The current government intends to lower nuclear’s contribution from 75% to 50% over the next few years. You do know that France is having problems with reactor cooling during the more frequent European heat waves, do you not?
—

If you think communities along the Pacific Coast or Eastern Seaboard would welcome a new nuclear plant then you are God’s own fool.

—

Nuclear in the US has not grown in many years. It’s role in the energy mix has sagged a bit. We’ve got two plants closing and a couple more that are down and may not come back up. Two plants are being constructed in Georgia and an unfinished one in Tennessee is being finished. That’s not going to lead to an increased role for nuclear.

Wind contributed 3.5% of our total electricity during the first half of 2012. That percentage will continue to increase and with the very steep drop in solar prices we will see solar start to contribute at larger rates.
I don’t think you understand the problems that nuclear has in an open market. I gave you the GMT link, did I not? The US does not need off-peak power which means that new nuclear would lose money and have to raise its price during peak. And have that eaten away by solar.

I suppose you haven’t read me carefully. I want a clean grid. But I know that without enormous public pressure we will not go directly to a clean grid, we will take the intermittent step of using natural gas. That’s just an economic reality.

The best, most likely solution I see is to keep building more wind and solar (along with other renewables). Let NG push coal off the grid, we get a 50% cut in CO2 that way. Let fuel-free renewables curtail NG. Down the road finish off NG with cheap storage.

“As I said four or five times before, wind and solar can’t do the job alone.”

That tells me that you didn’t bother to read the Budischak paper either.
BTW, first half of 2013 we got 19% of our electricity from nuclear and 13% from hydro and non-hydro renewables. That claim about getting “virtually all of our low carbon electricity” is erroneous.

Now I’ve run out of steam. I know that you think you’ve taught be something, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a single thing. I’ve simply spend a lot of time playing whack-a-mole with another nuclear true believer who doesn’t seem to be able to take on new facts.

So, you have a nice day.

That ten year inverter thing might be an urban myth. I know a lot of people who have been off the grid for 20 – 30 years. I know of no one who has had to replace an inverter. Some of us went from modified square wave to sine wave inverters 10 – 15 years back but only to get a more efficient unit and better formed power.

There’s at least one article on the site that breaks down the cost of installed solar into components. Labor is a surprisingly small portion.
Germany is installing at an average of $2/watt. That includes a lot of residential roof solar. We’ll get there. While we do they will be heading toward $1/watt.

Russ, we are not going to find some sort of shared understanding unless you are willing to accept what I believe are the facts of the moment.

I would say the same to you Bob, that isn’t what debate is about. I have no illusions of convincing you of anything. From my previous comment:

” …debate partners never convince each other of anything. ..Debate is to inform an audience.”

Also from my previous comment:

” “As is typical, you know a debate is drawing to a close when repetition sets in.”

But that’s OK because with each iteration, I get an opportunity to reiterate my points and because in many cases I can cut and paste my previous responses, it becomes less and less time consuming. I’ve had debates that degenerate to the point where my last comment consisted entirely of remarks cut and pasted from previous responses to the same argument.

It has become obvious to me that you aren’t reading all of my responses, which is fine …and somewhat understandable. I hope you don’t start falling back on that word believe “…to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.”

“Facts of the moment?” That insinuates that facts change with time, which is true and a good point:

1) The construction of large, custom built, capital intensive, baseload, one of a kind nuclear facilities in this country has been on a decade’s long hiatus primarily because they couldn’t compete with coal and natural gas, which isn’t necessarily a good thing because look at all of the emissions that have resulted from that. If nuclear had managed to displace our 40% coal use, we would already be very close to a zero carbon grid. It’s remarkable that those nuclear plants are still providing 20% of the electric power for the most energy hungry nation on Earth, and almost all of our zero carbon energy.

2) A carbon tax would make nuclear into the front runner because wind and solar need a lot of fossil fuels to smooth out their intermittentcy, unless of course you combined some of this affordable storage you keep mentioning with nuclear, in which case nuclear with storage could smooth out their intermittentcy and we would be well on our way to a zero carbon grid.

3) The department of energy is funding the development of small modular reactors (with low upfront costs) that can be strung together and dropped into place in a low carbon grid where it would be most cost effective to shore up things like wind and solar.

Based on all you’ve said in this exchange the only thing you have convinced me of is that a zero carbon grid isn’t really your highest priority. Hopefully, any readers who may stumble on this exchange, and actually read it will see that as well.

New nuclear reactors are too expensive

I’ve literally lost track of how many times you have made that declaration. Translation; like wind and (solar , nuclear is also more expensive than fossil fuel competitors.

You’ve decided to focus on cost because you think it’s your strongest suit. You are pretending to care about cost. What evidence do I have to say that? Your response to my recent bid of $63,000, with $32,000 in government subsidies, to put solar on my modest 1,500 square foot home (see screen shot below):

I really don’t care what your personal costs might be.

You would be against the integration of new nuclear with wind and solar regardless of cost. Nuclear, wind, and solar share a lot more in common than just the fact that they are low carbon, they are also not as cheap as the completion, natural gas.

A very large portion of western societies do not want nuclear reactors around them.

From my previous response There is hope …

…of reducing their irrational fears through education in blogs and in comment fields on the internet and in the media. It was the media that created that irrational fear. I suspect it can do much to alleviate it as well.

The Town That Wants America’s Worst Atomic Waste. And here is one titled Population rises near US reactors.

Bob continues:

You should be able to look for yourself at what is happening in several parts of Europe for evidence …

From my previous response:

France, where they get roughly 70% of their electricity from nuclear, emits half the CO2 of Germany.

Britain has also chosen to expand the use of nuclear in its low carbon mix.

George Monbiot was the first to note that this isn’t the first time the United States, France, and Great Britain have been on the opposites side of Germany, Japan, and Italy. The irony.

Those appear to me to be facts. I can again give you supporting evidence for #1[for the high cost of nuclear] if you want.

I’m pretty sure I already have whatever studies you want to proffer stored on my hard drive. I can also provide supporting evidence if you want. Sometimes that’s referred to as a link war. You send a supporting link gleaned off the internet that nobody reads, I send ten back that nobody reads. The internet is a wondrous thing, but because anyone can find many links to support anything they want to believe (and I do mean anything), the fact that a debate partner can produce supporting links does not mean much anymore.

And tell me where along the Pacific Coast of the US might you be able to build a nuclear reactor without massive resistance? Where along the Eastern Seaboard?

And tell me where along the Pacific Coast of the US might you “not” be able to build a nuclear reactor without massive resistance? Where along the Eastern Seaboard?

I’ll give you the Confederacy.

Well, that’s a start. But nuclear power does not have to be located adjacent to a coast line:

Due to its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. 20billion US gallons (76,000,000m³) of treated water are evaporated each year. This water represents about 25% of the annual overdraft of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Phoenix Active Management Area. At the nuclear plant site, the waste water is further treated and stored in an 80 acre (324,000m²) reservoir for use in the plant’s cooling towers.

You just cannot hardly get more environmentally friendly than that.

You and energyguy and all the other proponents of nuclear can describe all the wonderful technology that amazes and excites you and how some day we could have factories cranking out cheap, totally safe reactors. But the fact is – we do not now have them. Unless they have been produced and are up and running they are fiction. They exist only in YouTube videos, line drawings and hand-waving sessions. If someday someone makes one then they will become real and we can decide whether or not to include them in our energy mix.

Maybe we are on different planets and just don’t realize it? Totally safe reactors are in our mix already and more are being built.

Like I said before, nuclear power plants are quietly humming along producing 20 percent of the electric power (and virtually all of our low carbon electricity) to the most energy hungry nation on Earth at competitive prices.

You and all the other nuclear energy detractors can describe all the wonderful affordable storage technology that amazes and excites you and how some day wind and solar will stand alone without help from nuclear, but the fact is – we do not now have that. Unless it has been produced and up and running it is fiction. It only exists in YouTube videos, line drawings and hand-waving sessions. If someday someone makes affordable storage, then wind and solar will be able to stand alone and we can decide whether or not to exclude nuclear from our mix.

Roughly 25% of them [ existing nuclear power plants] are no longer competitive in an open market.

…says the guy who said “I really don’t care what your personal costs might be.” See see screen shot below.

Is it the less than half of one percent of the energy we are getting from solar, or the less than three percent that we get from wind that has purportedly made all of these paid for nuclear plants “no longer competitive in an open market?”

As I have already said literally five times now, the competition is with fossil fuels, not between nuclear wind and solar.

We can talk about wind, solar and geothermal because we’ve built a lot recently and we have data.

I am a big fan of solar but see see screen shot below.

We can talk about natural gas generation, turbine or combined cycle, because we have them, they work, we know what it costs to run them.

Ah, we also have nuclear, it works, and we know what it costs to run them. Your fear and loathing of nuclear has forced you to become a bit of a fossil fuel apologist (natural gas here, coal in Germany).

You can argue that storage would work for nuclear. It would. We built around 20 GW of pump-up in order to shift nuclear to peak hours.

I didn’t argue that but I see you are learning something from this exchange, either that or you have called in back up and I’m now debating a team. See this EIA link and note the Pumped Storage column.

But it comes back to cost once more.

It amuses me the way you ignore so many of my comments and in some cases, even send them back to me as it they were your own insights. From my previous response:

A real world example of this might be a nuclear power plant located between two large water reservoirs, one of which is located hundreds of feet higher than the plant. Part of the plant output would pump water uphill into the higher reservoir. The rest of the output would serve as baseload. When wind died, or clouds arrived, valves would open sending the stored water through power turbines to meet peaking demand.

The catch is that pump and turbine losses will consume almost all of the energy diverted to the reservoir.

Wind costs a nickle or less. Nuclear costs somewhere upwards of 12 cents. The math is simple. 5 + storage < 12+ storage.

The math is right but garbage in = garbage out. As I said four or five times before, wind and solar can’t do the job alone. Wind turbines are a component of a combined cycle natural gas power plant, connected via wires. No gas, no wind turbine. The wind turbine enhanced combined cycle power plant is a fossil fuel power plant.

Cost. Just on cost alone, nuclear is not being built and as the price of renewables continues to fall it becomes less and less probable that nuclear will be built in an open market with private money.

Bob, you’ve shown your hand already. Fight repetition with repetition I always say:

Your response to my recent bid of $63,000, with $32,000 in government subsidies, to put solar on my modest 1,500 square foot home (see screen shot below):

I really don’t care what your personal costs might be.

An energy grid is made of many components where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Some components of a grid will cost more than others. Gran Coulee cost a great deal more than any combined cycle natural gas power plant. Any power plant will cost more than any substation and on it goes.

He has basicly written a book trying to show the simple minded why renewable energy does supposedly not work. He does this by trying to supply an unrealistic amount of energy (primary energy consumption) with outdated renewable technology. is not neccessary once the energy system is adapted to run on renewable energy source.

If his book & lectures would be a honest he would start by saying that most of the energy consumption today is an uneconomical waste of ressources (lack of efficency). Then he would calculate how applying todays technology & standards would effect future energy needs.

After that he could try to cover those energy needs with renewable energy sources and voila…VERY different picture.

But while he does include a chapter showing that energy needs would fall dramatically when modernizing the energy system at the end of his book, he never goes back to his earlier numbers.

So a guy that tries to convince the public that his recommendations for the british government to build new Nuclear at all costs are wise… yet nobody really wants to build those power stations it seems.

BTW:
Yes, in 2010 there were 14 GW of fossil power stations under construction and most of them will propably go online… but since Wind & Solar are on course to double by 2020, nobody wants to start building new coal power stations.

So keep quoting uneducated articles and DON’T use your own brain… Less nuclear = more coal… that’s all investors care for… they don’t give a damn about profitability of their investments or how often they can produce electricity in a market in which renewables have priority on the grid…