Could Solar And Wind Replace Fossil Fuels In Australia By 2040?

July 28th, 2013 by Giles Parkinson

This article was originally published on RenewEconomy

Solar and wind energy could replace all fossil fuels in Australia by 2040 if their recent rate of deployment is maintained and slightly increased over the next 27 years – delivering the country with a 100% renewable electricity grid “by default” as early as 2040.

The stunning conclusions come from research from Andrew Blakers, the director of the Australian National University’s Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. It notes that nearly all new electricity generation capacity in recent years has been wind and solar photovoltaics (PV), and demand has also ben falling since 2008.

Blakers says that if this situation continues then Australia will achieve renewable electricity system by 2040, as existing fossil fuel power stations retire at the end of their service lives and are replaced with renewables.

And the cost will be no greater than having fossil fuels because, as Bloomberg New Energy Finance notes, wind is already cheaper than new coal or gas-fired generation and solar soon will be. These are the critical points – because renewables are often painted as expensive when compared to fully-depreciated, 40 years fossil fuel plants. But not compared with the new capacity required to replace ageing fossil fuel fleet.

Blakers says his scenario works even using the more conservative technology cost forecasts prepared by the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics. These forecasts are being updated, but they came to similar conclusions as BNEF on technology cost trends, just not quite as quickly.

The 100% by 2040 scenario is probably not that much different in scope to current trends. Australia was sitting at around 10 per cent renewables in 2010, and will probably end up with at least 25 per cent by 2020, given current trends on rooftop solar and the fixed 41,000GWh target for large scale renewables.

BNEF this week suggested that could jump to 46% by 2030 as wind and solar replace retiring fossil fuel plant, and the rate of those retirements would likely increase in the following decade. Some retirements could be accelerated as inflexible fossil fuel generation found itself squeezed out of the market by renewables and the emergence of storage options.

The scenario painted by Blakers includes:

The currently-declining consumption of electricity stabilises at 2013 levels
New capacity to replace retiring fossil fuel power stations at end of system life is exclusively wind and solar i.e. no new gas or coal plant.
All existing fossil fuel power stations have retired by 2040
Existing hydro and other renewables is maintained but not increased
Capacity factors typical of good sites are achieved for wind (35%) and solar (20%). System lifetimes of 30 years are assumed.

Wind and PV installation rates of 1 gigawatt (GW) per year each are sufficient to meet the Government’s 2020 renewable energy target. Note that about 1 GW of PV was installed in 2012 and about 1 GW of wind will be installed in 2013.

In order to reach 100% renewables by 2040 the following installation rates are needed:
- Wind: 1 GW per year until 2040; AND
- Solar: 1 GW per year until 2020, then growing by 10% per year thereafter.

Blakers notes that South Australia already gets 29% of its electricity from wind and PV, and Tasmania gets almost all of its from hydro. ACT plans to get to 90% renewables by 2020.

This graph shows the rate of deployment out to 2040, with solar increasing by 10 per cent per year from 2020.

While this shows total generating capacity as it grows – in the case of wind and solar – and shrinks in the case of fossil fuels. Note the accelerated decline after 2030.

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Tags: 2014, Australia, fossil fuels, replace, solar, Wind

About the Author

Giles Parkinson is the founding editor of RenewEconomy.com.au, an Australian-based website that provides news and analysis on cleantech, carbon, and climate issues. Giles is based in Sydney and is watching the (slow, but quickening) transformation of Australia's energy grid with great interest.

Bob_Wallace

OK, see you in another discussion…
Bob_Wallace

OK, folks, we have clearly exceeded the carrying capacity of Disqus. New comments are not reliably showing up.

Get your last comments in because I’m going to close this article for new comments.

Don’t be surprised if you comment fails to show. They are not going into the spam folder or being deleted. They show on my monitoring screen as approved and posted but when looking at the actual page they do not appear.
Bob_Wallace

A note to anyone who might be following this discussion.

Disqus has gotten weird. It’s losing comments from time to time. They exist in the database but they aren’t necessarily being displayed on the page. And sometimes they are being emailed out many hours (even a day or two) after they were posted.

I’ve seen this happen before with discussions that get long (> 100 comments).

It might be best to wind it down. We seem to have exhausted the software….
Ross

Now that the fossil fuel versus renewables argument in Australia has been won we’ll probably see the last coal plant there gone long before 2040.
JamesWimberley

Every time you read an article about renewables, not mentioning nuclear, the comments thread is derailed by nuclear sentimentalists. Look, you lost, please go away.

The study reported asumes solar PV installation will pleateau at 1GW until 2020. In what universe is this remotely credible? Module prices will continue to fall, Lower prices mean greater demand.
Shiggity

Australia has over 2.4GW of solar pv installed with 1,000MW coming in the last year alone. They’ve pasted the inflection point, politics may influence the short term, but in the long term, fossil fuels have already lost in that market.
MikeSmith866

There is a fundamental difference between fossil and wind/solar energy. Wind and solar are available less than 50% of the time and not necessarily when you need it. So you need storage devices to get your through those times when to wind is not blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
Nuclear is a green option that gives power 24-7 and It would appear that this should be part of the mix.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  You are correct, Mike. There is an enormous difference between fossil and wind/solar energy.
  
  Wind and solar are available somewhat more than 50% of the time and will require storage and dispatchable fill-in in order to give us power when we need it. (Nothing is available 24/365. Every generation method requires fill-in and backup.)
  
  But wind and solar won’t wreck our climate, put our coastal cities under water, make much of our farmland unusable like fossil fuels are doing.
  
  Nuclear would be a decent option if it were cheaper, quicker to build and didn’t create hazardous wastes.
  
  Since we have renewables and storage which are cheaper, faster to bring on line and safer than nuclear we’re giving nuclear a pass.
  - MikeSmith866
    
    Hi Bob:
    
    Nuclear gets built on time and on budget in China because the government does not meddle in the projects. (see http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=china-goes-nuclear-to-avoid-coal-burning )
    
    In Canada nuclear plants pump out power at 10 cents per kwh which competes very favourably with wind and solar.
    
    SNC Lavalin (a Canadian company) is constructing CANDU 6 reactors in Scotland that can consume spent plutonium from other reactors and end up with non hazardous spent fuel (see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/untested-nuclear-reactors-may-be-used-to-burn-up-plutonium-waste-8061660.html )
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      China is having trouble completing reactors on schedule. The most recent ones are stretching out to six years.
      
      China has a totalitarian government. We will not use the US military to force everyone to get out of the way while we build reactors with government money, so there’s no sense in talking about what China can do as if it tells us anything about building nuclear in the US.
      
      Ten cents is not good enough. And that ten cents does not include the cost of liability nor long term waste disposal. Furthermore we are very unlikely to be able to build nuclear for 10 cents, ignoring the subsidies.
      
      Wind is already under ten cents. Solar is right now about ten cents and falling fast.
      
      Look, Mike, you’re just one in a long string of people who show up here (as if you’re working tag-team) to tell us how wonderful nuclear is. We’ve heard it all before. Several times.
      
      Ask yourself this.
      
      If nuclear is as cheap and wonderful as you seem to think it is, why have not private companies used their money to build reactors (thorium, molten-sale, SMR, pebble-bed, Gen III+, Gen IV, breeder, fast, pick your favorite type) and make fortunes selling electricity to the grid?
      
      It’s a very basic and important question.
      
      The nuclear industry has known about all these various wonderful ways to make electricity in reactors, yet they have build none with their own money.
      
      Why?
      
      And while you’re pondering that simple question let me share a couple of statements from people who are in the nuclear industry and whose companies could build a new reactor with cash on hand.
      
      “Let me state unequivocably that I’ve never met a nuclear plant I didn’t like,” said John Rowe, who retired 17 days ago as chairman and CEO of Exelon Corporation, which operates 22 nuclear power plants, more than any other utility in the United States.
      
      “Having said that, let me also state unequivocably that new ones don’t make any sense right now.”
      
      “I’m the nuclear guy,” Rowe said. “And you won’t get better results (than) with nuclear. It just isn’t economic, and it’s not economic within a foreseeable time frame.”
      
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/
      
      —
      
      “On July 30th, the Financial Times published an interview with GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt on the future of various energy alternatives. For decades, GE has played a significant role in many sectors of the energy business. It makes huge electric generators for electric utilities. It sells wind turbines. It sells solar installations and it recently added oil patch activities to its roster of companies. It has also been a leading supplier of nuclear power generation equipment. So for one of the leaders in that last space to suggest that nuclear isn’t a competitive solution now or going forward is a significant statement.
      
      Mr. Immelt expressed his view that it is almost impossible on a cost basis to justify investing in nuclear power plants for the future. ”So I think some combination of gas, and either wind or solar … that’s where we see most countries around the world going.””
      
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/joanlappin/2012/07/31/ges-immelt-natural-gas-now-much-cheaper-than-nuclear/
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        
        Your references are both comparing nuclear with natural gas not with wind/solar. If you buy into carbon induced Global Warming then you must recognize that natural gas emits half of the carbon of coal per BTU and the world cannot absorb that right now.
        
        I live in Ontario, Canada where we get 57% of our power from nuclear. Our nuclear power companies get 5.5 cents per kwh for their power and the remaining 4.5 cents is retained by the government to pay off the debt. Our nuclear power plants are not subsidized one dime. Its wind and solar that get the subsidies.
        
        I talked to a guy who works in the finance dept of our Bruce Nuclear Power plant. They use just 3.3 cents to pay for their power costs, the remaining 2.2 cents goes for insurance.
        
        You refer to pebble bed, thorium etc. It seems that most nuclear power research has shifted to China and India. Thorium was originally conceived in the Oakridge Research Center in the US but they backed away from it for political reasons. China has taken the Oakridge research and are developing it themselves. If they can get it to work, then the world will have unlimited, safe and cheap nuclear power licensed from China (see http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/thorium-dream/
        
        Here is a reference that you might look at: “An Influential Global Voice Warns of Runaway Emissions” http://e360.yale.edu/feature/an_influential_global_voice_warns_of_runaway_emissions/2537/ )
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Wind and gas are very close in price. Solar is dropping into that price range very quickly.
        
        We also have reactors we built years back and are now paid off. They produce electricity for a nickel or so. Thing is, there’s no way to go back in time and build more and pay them off.
        
        Furthermore, reactors producing at about a nickel are very close to going bankrupt. Between one fourth and one half of our nuclear fleet is only one significant repair from closing. We’ve had four close so far this year because they couldn’t produce electricity cheap enough to sell.
        
        That 2.2 cent insurance policy won’t cover it if you melt one down and take out part of one of your cities. Japan got lucky that the ones they melted were located in a rural area.
        
        Apparently you didn’t consider the question I ask. Sure, we’ve built a thorium reactor before.
        
        Now, why has a deep pocket corporation built one and made money operating it?
        
        Thorium reactors won’t be any cheaper to build. It’s the construction cost and interest that makes nuclear to expensive to be considered. Not the fuel cost.
        
        I’m glad you realize that we need to move fast on greenhouse gas. Obviously it takes too long to build a new reactor. We can get wind on line in months and solar on line in weeks in large amounts.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        The southern US has a very different climate from eastern Canada. You get far more sun so solar makes a great deal more sense for you.
        
        I think you use the fast breeder reactor design while we use the heavy water moderator design. We are pretty happy with it. And our latest design CANDU 6 does not require backup power to cool the moderator fluid if we have to shut it down in an emergency.
        Actually most of Japan’s reactors could have taken the tsunami as well. Fukushima was their first reactor farm built in the 1970’s and it did not have the latest shutdown features.
        CANDU 6 is modular so it can be built largely in off site factories and shipped to the site. This is supposed to help scheduling. We are building CANDU 6 in China. We are not building new nuclear plants in Ontario because we have a surplus of power now because our economy has shifted from manufacturing to service.
        I agree with you about the nuclear lead times. We have built a lot of solar which looks good on the ground but it adds up to only 1% of our power. The people won’t let us build wind turbines on Lake Ontario or just about anywhere else but they provide little resistance to nuclear because they can’t see the plants.
        
        I think nuclear seems to be the least evil option for us.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Most of your heavily populated area is “zone 5″, about 4.2 average solar hours per day. That’s not chicken feed. Germany is doing solar with less.
        
        Southern Company is building two reactors at their Vogtle Georgia plant. They’re doing the modular thing. After one year of construction they are somewhere between 21 and 48 months behind schedule and badly over budget.
        
        We’ll be building wind in the Great Lakes soon. We’ll show you how.
        
        You’ve got wind and hydro. You’ve got solar in the summer. You’ve got biomass. You’ve got biogas. You probably have geothermal, especially if enhanced geothermal develops. You’ve got amazing tidal. You’ve got run of river hydro.
        
        There are other options than nuclear.
        
        No, we don’t use breeder reactors. That’s another idea that sounds good but doesn’t pan out.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Germany produces solar at 20 cents while we pay our producers 50 cents. The Germans flipped when they found out what we are paying. Its worse than the subsidies you give your corn farmers.
        We have no more hydro. If we opened up our penstocks we could shut down Niagara Falls. The big hydro province is Quebec and they sell most of their power to New York and Vermont.
        Let us know how you get along with building wind on Lake Michigan, Erie or Ontario. Cottagers have huge political influence. On our side if we go out more then 2 km, we have to float the wind turbines which becomes very expensive. If you can build them in shallow water over the horizon you will be off to the races. Good Luck!
        
        T. Boon Pickens had high hopes for wind as well but we haven’t heard from him in a while.
      - RobS
        
        Yes but at 3pm on a summer afternoon when demand is highest often coal and natural gas plants selling their power in the market get up to $5 per kwh as prices spike and solar producers still get that measly 50 cents. This effect of solar saving on the most expensive power is called the merit order effect and makes that 50 cent per kwh actually quite the bargain much of the time. Now as costs fall so should the FiT however lets not pretend that solar is getting some sort of outrageous return and other supplies don’t
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Well our backbone is nuclear and they get just 5.5 cents even when the demand is high.
        
        And we buy solar at 50 cents even when we don’t need it.
        
        And with all this the farmers who don’t have a wind turbine or a solar panel on their property get mad because they aren’t on the gravy train so the government loses popularity in spite of the huge subsidies they are dumping into the rural areas.
      - HeterodoxEconomics
        
        Mike, you make some valid points but I still don’t see a good justification for the high set up cost of Nuclear power plants. see: http://www.ecoseed.org/technology/16154-dyesol-and-dye-solar-cells-opening-new-areas-for-solar-power-generation – BIPV will change the industry significantly.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Thanks for the link. EcoSeed does sound very promising.
        Thanks again.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Floaters are in the water in Europe and their cost is not bad.
        
        T. Boone ran into transmission problems with his purposed wind farm. The HVDC line he thought would be installed close to his site wasn’t.
        
        He downsized his Texas wind farm, installed only the turbines which existing transmission could carry, and installed the remaining turbines at other locations.
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        Germany has less sun than most of Canada does. And I don’t think the wind stops blowing just north of the Dakotas? Bay of Fundy has the largest ocean tides *in the world*!
        
        Tidal power, and wave power and small hydro, and biofuels – along with solar and wind can easily supply about 16X as much energy as the world needs.
        
        Sixteen times.
        
        Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Neil:
        
        We are constructing a tidal power plant in the Bay of Fundy.
        
        Here’s another number. We get enough sunshine on the Earth in a day to power it for a year.
        
        But in reality we can’t capture 100% of the power of the sun, wind or anything else. We capture maybe 2% because of available technology. And we need land to build these things when we need the same land to grow crops.
        
        Germany has little sun and has stopped nuclear but they still burn coal and import electricity from France.
        
        The International Energy Agency says we will need nuclear in the mix (see http://e360.yale.edu/feature/an_influential_global_voice_warns_of_runaway_emissions/2537/ ). I am with them.
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        The potential for the Bay of Fundy is enormous, as is wave power in many parts of the globe.
        
        Nuclear power is stupid, frankly. And, we will never have a proper solution for the radioactive waste – we are messing up the climate by burning fossil fuels and we seem to want some magic solution.
        
        But nuclear is finite because of the supply of uranium, and it is doomed to fail – because the climate is warming too much already and cooling towers can’t work. It produces a poisonous and radioactive waste – what could possibly go wrong?
        
        Renewable energy will be here as long as the sun – another 5 billion years or so. It is a ready made fusion reactor – at a relatively safe distance. It transmits it’s energy to us in a perfectly usable form *for free* and it does so everywhere.
        
        Nobody can stop the sun from shining. Nobody has to be paid to keep it shining. No military needs to defend it, and nobody controls it.
        
        Germany is doing great with it, and they have about as much sun as Alaska or the rain forests in British Columbia.
        
        Lets put on our thinking caps and daub on the elbow grease and let’s all get to it!
        
        Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Neil:
        I am with you 100% if you can find the land.
        
        I have already said that the southern US might make a go with solar because of the lower population density and higher sun levels. So lets start there and take full advantage.
        
        Germany is importing energy from France and I am assuming it is because a) they don’t have enough sun or b) they don’t have enough land.
        
        Remember we need land for crops. We need land for forests which absorb carbon and provide construction materials. We need land for people and animals to live. And it would be nice if we had some land for parks.
        
        If we have enough land and the storage capacity and fill in capacity etc. then go for it!
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        Wind and solar overlap very will with farm land. Actually, solar goes best right on the roof of the building and it goes fine along highways, too. Farm animals love the shade, and wind turbines spin happily way above the crops.
        
        Germany is way ahead of schedule, and they will be 100% renewable in just a few decades. Spain and Norway and Costa Rica and Iceland are also making big strides.
        
        Everybody else can too. The Sahara Desert has a lot of sun, I hear. So does Australia, and even sunny places like Washington state have more sun than Germany.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Neil:
        Then lets get on with it. I am not standing in your way.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        No, France is importing electricity from Germany.
        
        Year. F->G. G->F. Net German Export
        
        2010. 9571. 16081. +68%
        
        2011. 10834. 8445*. -22%
        
        2012. 5200. 13985. +63%
        
        * Germany to France drop happened before nuclear shutdown
        
        About 50% net export from Germany to France over the three year period.
        
        Here’s your link –
        http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=83&c=gm&l=en
        
        Furthermore, Germany exported more electricity than it imported in 2012. And it made a profit on it’s exported electricity.
        
        In 2012 Germany exported 66.6 TWh of electricity, earning 3.7 billion euros or 5.6 cents/kWh.
        
        In 2012 Germany imported 43.8 TWh of electricity, paying 2.3 billion euros or 5.25 cents/kWh.
        
        Your link – http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-power-exports-more-valuable-than-imports/150/537/61663/
        
        Germany exported 52% more electricity than it imported. And on the 43.8 TWh they sold and bought back Germany earned a 7% profit.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Good, I did not know this.
        
        Thank you very much for this.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        See that little green rectangle down in the southwest corner of the US? That’s the total amount of land that would be needed if all of North America got 100% of their electricity from PV panels. And that’s with lower efficiency panels than what we now use.
        
        Since Canada has about 35 million out of the roughly 468 million people in North America (your link below) you need to find about 7% of the area of that little bitty green rectangle.
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        
        This is an incredible discovery. I have not seen these calculations before. The calculations are actually at: http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 .
        
        I have not gone through the numbers, but if they are right, we should start right away.
        
        This will create an enormous number of jobs, far more than the Keystone Pipeline and if the numbers are right this is the answer to our prayers.
        
        It would be good if this chart could be fed into the Whitehouse to be part of Barack Obama’s action plan http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/climate-action-plan?utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062513p2&utm_campaign=climatechange
        
        Thanks for finding this. I belong to some other blog groups on Global Warming and I will pass this on.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Here’s one for offshore wind.
        
        And, remember, these are for 100% of all electricity from only one source. No one suggests a 100% solar or a 100% wind or a 100% anything grid.
        
        And you might want to gives this a read…
        
        http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/09/wind-power-land-needed/
        
        And this one…
        
        http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/09/wind-powered-electric-vehicles-space-needed/
        
        The bottom line is that we don’t need to use much land to get off fossil fuels.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I love it!
        
        Thanks again.
      - Hans
        
        Actually Germany is a net exporter of electricity.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Hans:
        
        I am surprised to see that most of Germany’s energy is from fossil fuel (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_Production_in_Germany.svg )
        Some how Germany is being given a gold star for their solar and wind without any mention of this fact.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        You see that green line on the chart you linked, Mike.
        
        Look around your house. Look really, really hard.
        
        See if you can find a clue.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        We’re not surprised that you’re surprised, Mike.
        
        We’re starting to expect little from you in the way of grasping facts and concepts.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        China built a pebble bed reactor.
        
        It didn’t work.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I have my doubts about Thorium too.
        
        But it is scary that the research on next generation nuclear is being done in China largely by American, European and Canadian companies.
        If any of their ideas work, then those same companies will be selling their designs back to us with license fees from China.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        I don’t see anything scary about it. We’re not going to build reactors in the US in any significant number.
        
        China has been in a very unique position. They have grown their economy probably faster than any in the history of the world. They’ve need immense amount of energy. And they’ve realized for some time that coal is problematic for them.
        
        I was in China not long after Mao died and China had very significant air pollution problems then due to coal use.
        
        When China started growing their economy nuclear was a more reasonable financial option than it now is. Wind was more expensive than now and solar was greatly more expensive.
        
        In the last few years the price of wind and solar have fallen significantly. Nuclear has become more expensive post Fukushima as more safety features are now being added.
        
        Additionally China has realized that it has a very significant fresh water problem. They simply don’t have cooling water for more thermal plants. China has decided to build no more nuclear plants inland. They have cut their proposed reactor builds by about one third. They will only build reactors along the sea coast where they can use ocean water for cooling and in places where they can quickly evacuate the local population if they melt one down.
        
        It’s interesting how some people have come to admire the Chinese nuclear industry. China has very significant problems with government corruption and a lack of adequate regulation enforcement.
        
        Remember, that’s what caused the Fukushima disaster. Both the plant owners/builders and the government knew that they were exposing the reactors to a tsunami but decided to build in the tsunami zone anyway to save the company some money. We shouldn’t be surprised if something similar hasn’t happened in China.
        
        I won’t be at all surprised if China melts one in the next few years. After it happens it will probably turn out that some official/inspector turned a blind eye while someone used inferior parts/materials in order to make some extra money.
        
        South Korea apparently has the same problems with their nuclear program.
        
        When we hear of a new nuclear emergency in Asia, don’t be surprised.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        I have great difficulty seeing how you will get off fossil fuels without going to nuclear.
        
        You may have the vacant land in parts of the south to pull it off but in the more highly populated areas particularly in the north it will be very difficult to find the land for enough solar and wind.
        Again, Good Luck!
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Is eastern Canada much different than, say, Pennsylvania?
        
        (Except for having a lot more hydro and tidal.)
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I can’t see where you are going with this question. If you are suggesting that Pennsylvania has enough land to construct solar and wind to replace their coal and gas plants then I would disagree.
        
        Remember that both US and Canada have extremely high carbon emissions per capita at around 17 tons per capita (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita )
        
        In 2008, 7% of your power came from solar and wind, 8% came from nuclear and 85% came from fossil fuels. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States
        
        You can do the math. If you are going to go without nuclear while eliminating fossil fuels, you may run out of land while expanding your wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other low carbon capacities.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        No, I was going to point you to a paper that demonstrates that Pennsylvania and the other northeastern states served by the
        PJM Interconnection could get almost 100% of their electricity from only wind and solar along with some storage to make it work. And that the cost of electricity would be roughly equivalent of today’s ‘all-in’ costs.
        
        The authors used four years of actual minute by minute demand data from the grid and hourly wind/solar data.
        
        They found that the grid would need about 7 hours of natural gas fill-in per year.
        
        https://docs.google.com/file/d/1NrBZJejkUTRYJv5YE__kBFuecdDL2pDTvKLyBjfCPr_8yR7eCTDhLGm8oEPo/edit
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Unfortunately the file won’t open. I click on File Open and it says “Get More Apps”. Is there another link that actually connects to a web page?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        I just clicked on it and the page opened.
        
        I’m using Firefox and I’ve opened it using Chrome.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Yes, I got in. You have to log in to Google in order to read the document.
        I will read it over the next few days and get back to you.
        Thanks very much.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        OK, I have waded through the Budischak study and he states that if you develop wind/solar at 180% of required load and have a small amount of fossil or hydro fill in power that 99.9% of load will be met.
        
        We get 22% of our power from hydro so this would be our fill-in power.
        
        Today we get 3% of our power from wind and 1% from solar.
        
        So if we kept our hydro at 22%, then we would have to bump up wind from 3% to 70% and solar from 1% to 70% to meet Budischak’s parameters.
        
        In other words we would multiply our wind output by 24 and our solar output by 70.
        
        We can probably get away with a great deal more solar without too much reaction but it would bankrupt our province because it is so expensive.
        
        But we could get away with the huge increase in wind because of voter reaction.
        
        I do find the study useful in putting a scope on the various parts and understanding that storage is not a significant element when solar and wind are combined.
        
        It will be interesting to see how this flies in Pennsylvania.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Well, you missed an important part of the paper.
        
        It was an exercise to see if it was possible to run a very large grid on almost nothing but wind and solar.
        
        Budischak and his fellow authors clearly point out that the most affordable grid would include other renewable inputs, power trading with adjacent grids and load-shifting.
        
        Taking wind and solar to 180% of max load was required because other inputs were not included.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I do not know what part of the paper I missed and as usual your negative comments are vague.
        Do you know what the actual plans are for Pennsylvania?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        No, I don’t know what the actual plans for Pennsylvania are.
        
        What does that have to do with anything? Did you not understand what you read?
        
        And exactly what part of my comment was vague?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        Now that I have seen your solar land calculations, I withdraw all objections.
        
        The reason why I was asking is, it is possible for a university professor to come up with a computer model that proves something.
        
        But if the powers that be do not proceed with his recommendations then it might indicate that there are some practical aspects that were not taken into account by the computer model, like land requirements.
        
        I have had a hang up about land requirements for solar but your other link suggests that the land requirements are small, so this is great news.
        
        It would appear that the hurdle is now to get solar construction underway at a grand scale. The Republicans in the US and the Conservatives in Canada will resist because they deny the science of Global Warming.
        
        I will put your link up on the 350.org Facebook page to get them on board.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        IIRC someone ran the numbers for Australia. If they put panels on all their rooftops that slope in the correct direction they could produce 110% of their electricity.
        
        I believe someone ran the numbers for the US and found that we could pretty much do the job with our rooftops and parking lots.
        
        And that’s assuming 100% solar, which we wouldn’t do.
        
        I think it’s pretty much out of the hands of Republicans in the US. Solar is getting cheap enough for it to be competitive without subsidies and subsidies are locked in until 2017. By then solar should be cheap.
        
        All we have to do to make solar cheap in the US is to install it at the same prices we’re seeing today in Europe and elsewhere. All we have to do is catch up with the rest of the world in the next five years.
        
        Wind in the US has reached a point at which is has some political power. Last December we saw Republican governors of red states going to Washington to press for continued support for wind. Their states, counties and towns are making money off the taxes and their citizens are finding jobs.
        
        And right now the Georgia Tea Party is fighting to get the state to allow more solar on line.
        
        Subsidies have just about done their job. They have created enough of a market to get the competitive process moving and the needed infrastructure in place. Now market forces are taking over and should drive the process faster and faster.
        
        We’ll still need subsidies for offshore wind, tidal and other less developed technologies, but onshore wind a solar are beginning to be well-established.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        Its been a rocky, emotional road in this blog but it is coming to a very happy ending.
        
        Thanks for all your stuff.
    - RobS
      
      It’s easy to make power cheaply when you don’t have to account for insurance because the government covers it and you don’t have to account for billions of dollars of decommissioning costs and thousands of years of spent fuel storage. The actual cost if all,of those costs were included is closer to 40c/Kwh for Nuclear power.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Rob:
        Could you tell me where your numbers come from.
        In our experience in Ontario, the spent fuel rods take up very little space and are not a significant disposal problem.
        The major disposal problem is the uniforms and tools that the workers had to carry near the reactor and eventually their count gets too high. These things are all compacted and do become a storage problem because nobody wants a storage site in their area.
        
        We are very close to solving that problem and it will be paid by the power companies without any increase in their bill.
        We really need to get the system I mentioned earlier to work as being tested in Scotland. They hope to be able to burn spent plutonium from other reactors and have zero radioactivity with the spent fuel.
    - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
      
      China has an *excellent* record of human health and safety – just look at their crystal clear air and safe food systems and all the safe drinking water!
      
      [/tongue in cheek]
      
      Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I agree with you, China is building a new coal plant every week and I do not condone this at all.
        But half the nuclear power plants in the world are being constructed in China and this is what I was referring to.
        
        China’s per capita carbon emissions are about one quarter of the US or Canada. Overall their air is not as bad as ours but in some of the larger cities it is atrocious.
      - Nano
        
        I think this is a fascinating thread. I worked on renewable energy system design based on solar and wind years ago, before 2000, but I got turned down by the problem of having a few weeks of low winds and overcast skies, which we have quite regularly in my area (Northwest Europe) esp. during the winter months. During such weeks, solar and wind are useless so you need pretty much a full contingent of conventional power plants. Even if solar and wind would be free, the cost of the storage was just overwhelming.
        However, reading this thread, I guess I made a mistake in my assumptions. I never dreamed that electricity storage would ever be so cheap that you could simply ignore the cost. That really is a game changer. I always thought you pretty much had to use nuclear power to solve climate change, because the alternatives would remain too expensive for the worlds poorest, but I guess times have changed! Energy really has become ‘too cheap to meter’!
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        It’s a different world now than what it was 10, 15 years ago. Back then solar panels were 2x, 3x more than the rest of the system. Now BoS costs are much larger than panel costs.
        
        We need to be thinking much larger energy harvest areas than just NW Europe or eastern Canada, or So Cal. Transmission lines aren’t cheap but once installed they last a long, long time. And the real estate costs, acquisition problems, and permitting difficulties are a one time cost which can be spread over a century or even centuries.
        
        NW Europe needs to install a lot of its panels in Spain and Saudi Arabia. And NW Europe needs to feed offshore wind and hydro into the transmission lines.
        
        So Cal already gets hydro power from the PNW. It’s getting ready to get late afternoon/evening wind from Wyoming. As So Cal installs more solar they can ship some of that good stuff in the other direction.
        
        Everybody will need less extra capacity, less storage.
      - Nano
        
        Hm, in my time, transmission didn’t do much. It didn’t take away the problem of intermittency, unless you do really crazy things like send power halfway around the world – literally. No. It has to be cheap storage. That is key. Long transmission doesn’t solve the problem of wheather variability. Besides, there is not enough political stability to make yourself dependent on a nation far distant. For that reason, getting (baseload) power from the African desert will never happen, for example, even while it might work technicaly….
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        We know that linking wind farms only a couple of hundred miles apart can greatly decrease variability.
        
        We know that wind systems don’t strike all of Europe at once. Some places get the wind early and some places lose it late.
        
        Europe is already connect to North Africa. Morocco to be specific. And Morocco is getting ready to start sending solar back up the transmission lines that it has been using to buy nighttime power from Europe. Thermal solar with storage might be an excellent way for Morocco to create more trade.
        
        If/when Morocco is successful other NA countries will follow.
        
        Cheap storage can/will change the game. But even with cheap storage putting aside power to ride out a several day period of no wind and no Sun will be expensive. It would mean capital invested in capacity that gets rarely used.
        
        If storage can be installed in smaller amounts around a very large grid then it becomes shared storage and the cost drops.
      - mds
        
        Right, that’s why Europe doesn’t get any NG from Russia.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      No, Mike. SNC is not constructing CANDU 6 reactors in Scotland.
      
      Your link states that a proposal to build a reactor was floated back in 2012. I find nothing on the web that says that anything has come from the proposal, certainly nothing about a reactor or reactors under construction.
      
      Furthermore, the construction company, according to your link, is GE Hitachi.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        Perhaps this link will clarify things.
        
        https://oci-aic.org/news/members-in-the-news/candu-proposal-would-see-four-reactors-burning-mox-in-pu-disposi/
        
        Now that we are over that hurdle, what do you think about using spent Plutonium as a nuclear fuel and getting out of our disposal problem?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        That’s a proposal. Not an active building happening.
        
        As for breeders, give this a read….
        
        http://fissilematerials.org/library/rr08.pdf
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        I don’t know if GE Hitachi is proposing a Fast Breeder.
        
        I also note on the last page that the authors are divided on the future of fast breeders.
        
        I think it is really difficult to get into technical debates about one technology over another. I think if the technology is safe, reasonably priced and can be constructed reasonably on schedule than it is OK.
        
        I also agree that if you can do without nuclear and have other competitive options then you should avoid nuclear.
        
        I happen to believe that there are different situations on this planet that require different solutions and we must respect those differences.
- Ronald Brakels
  
  Nuclear won’t be built in Australia. Grid storage at the moment very roughly costs about 5 cents a kilowatt-hour and is getting cheaper. With a 5% discount rate Australia’s newest wind farm produces electricity for about 6 cents a kilowatt-hour. So wind plus storage right now costs about 11 cents a kilowatt-hour which is 4 cents a kilowatt-hour less than the asking price of new nuclear in the UK before the full (and very high) cost of insurance is included. Burning natural gas at current Australian prices and then removing the CO2 from the atmosphere agriculturally is also about 11 cents a kilowatt-hour at current prices. And the economics of rooftop solar and home and business energy storage are even better than grid storage thanks to Australia’s high retail electricity prices.
  
  Then there is the fact that nuclear is a baseload power source with a very high capital cost and a very low fuel cost which makes it almost useless for filling in the gaps in demand left by cheaper energy sources. If one produces electricity from a nuclear plant only half the time it will almost double its cost.
  - MikeSmith866
    
    Hi Ron:
    5 cents per kwh for storage is incredibly cheap. How do you do it?
    - Ronald Brakels
      
      By pumping water up a hill and using it to turn a generator when electricity is needed. The cost is very dependant upon the cost of capital and the physical characteristics of the site. But home and business energy storage should be more cost effective in Australia. A person with rooftop solar may have to pay 30 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity from the grid but can only sell electricity to the grid for 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. This means that modern battery packs that can store electricity at under 20 cents a kilowatt-hour are a better deal for consumers than grid storage. If households receive spot prices for electricity sold to the grid home energy storage becomes even more profitable for households and businesses.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Ron:
        Do you have actual working “pumped hydro” at 5 cents or is this someone quoting from a lab?
        There are so many scenarios kicking around for storage yet I haven’t seen one get off the ground.
        The SmartGrid allowing 2 way metering so people can store their excess solar power in batteries and sell it to the grid may have possibilities but I don’t know of any place where this is actually working.
        Do you have working examples of home storage?
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        We have two pumped hydro systems in Australia and there are plenty more around the world. But you seem confused. You don’t seem to realise that nuclear power needs storage to meet demand. More than solar which matches demand better than nuclear here. Go read what I wrote in my first comment to you about nuclear being high capital and low fuel cost and consider what that means for trying to meet anything but baseload demand.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Yes, I understand that nuclear should have storage but we don’t have any in Ontario. We have Niagara Falls where we could pump water back up the falls to a reservoir but for some reason we don’t do that. Instead we sell our surplus power for 2 cents or less.
        I read your original comment about the capital costs of nuclear. Yes they are huge but the only number I look at is what do they charge and its 10 cents fully loaded.
        We can produce wind at 10 cents fully loaded but in our area, the wind blows only 30% of the time and mostly at night when we don’t need the power. I think in Australia you may have a better wind pattern.
        You may also have clearer skies for solar. We have to pay 50 cents for solar because we don’t get that much sun and the government is gradually giving up on both wind and solar because people don’t like driving by wind turbines 1 km away and solar is too expensive.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        If new nuclear is 10 cents a kilowatt-hour why didn’t the Canadian nuclear industry say, “Hey UK, we accept your offer of a minimum price of 12 cents a kilowatt-hour!” Is the Canadian nuclear industry so stupid it overlooked the chance to make huge profits? It seems that either new nuclear either isn’t 10 cents a kilowatt-hour or your nuclear industry is too stupid to take advantage of a clearly profitable situation, in which case they are too stupid to be trusted with building and operating nuclear reactors. And wasn’t new nuclear asking for 20+ cents a kilowatt-hour to be built in Canada? I guess there are three choices. Canada’s nuclear industry is too stupid to live, Canada’s nuclear industry is too greedy to live, or new nuclear isn’t really 10 cents a kilowatt-hour. Which option do you think it is?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        SNC Lavalin a Canadian company is building nuclear plants all over the world.
        
        See http://www.snclavalin.com/expertise.php?lang=en&id=4
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        I’m going to be kind to you and ask you to name one nuclear power plant currently under construction that SNC-Lavalin is working on. Note that Hinkley C is not under construction. If you are unable to name one I suggest you see your doctor and have yourself checked for idiocy.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Here are 4 nuclear power projects that SNC Lavalin is involved with today.
        
        http://www.snclavalin.com/news.php?lang=en&id=1689&action=press_release_details&paging=1&current_year=2012&start=41
        
        http://www.snclavalin.com/news.php?lang=en&id=1661&action=press_release_details&paging=1&current_year=2012&start=41
        
        http://www.snclavalin.com/news.php?lang=en&id=1518&action=press_release_details&paging=1&current_year=2011&start=11
        
        http://www.snclavalin.com/news.php?lang=en&id=967&action=press_release_details&paging=1&current_year=2010&start=41
        
        If you need anything else before shooting your mouth off please let me know.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Link 1. Refurbishing an existing plant in Canada.
        
        Link 2. Installing a venting system on an existing plant in Romania.
        
        Link 3. Refurbishing an existing plant in Argentina.
        
        Link 4. Replacing steam generator in existing plant in Minnesota.
        
        Congratulations Mike!!!
        
        I don’t recall anyone managing to make four strikes in a single time at bat.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        I’m afraid Mike that you should gather your close friends and family and tell them that you’re an idiot. Note this is not likely to come as a surprise to them. However, their support will be helpful as you pass from idiocy from wisdom. Your ability to write coherent sentences shows you don’t lack the brain power to understand things, it is instead that you have chosen not to understand, which is a true sort of idiocy. Fortunately, it is a kind that can be easily cured. The cure is surprisingly simple, but only a brave few ever take it. It starts by posting the following comment, “I’m sorry I got my information wrong. I will find strong evidence to back up my assertions in the future.”
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Ron:
        It is so sad that you have to descend into personal attacks because you have run out of logical arguments.
        I don’t know if you have read even one link that I have provided. If you find that any of my links have incorrect information please let me know.
        If you would like links for any unreferenced statements I have made please say so.
        But if all you have to offer is personal disparagement for people who disagree with you, you are best to keep those comments to yourself because they are not advancing the exchange of helpful information in this forum.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        Mike, my calling you an idiot was not a personal attack, it was an observation. You wrote, “SNV lavalin a Canadian company is building nuclear plants all over the world.” I asked you to name one. Instead you gave me a list of four projects at existing nuclear plants. That definitely counts as idiotic behaviour here. Doesn’t it count as idiotic behaviour where you are? Does Canada have low standards?
        
        But maybe I am at fault here. Lets start again. Can you name just one of these nuclear plants SNC-Lavalin is building all over the world?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Ronald:
        
        In case you have forgotten the topic here is “Could solar and wind replace fossil fuel in Australia by 2040″.
        
        You have yourself into a loop on berating SNC Lavalin which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic. You are hammering the company when it really doesn’t matter whether they are doing 1 or 100 nuclear projects over the world.
        
        I think you should try to focus on adding information to the dialogue to help others understand your position and you should be of a mind set that others in the group may have something to contribute.
        
        That way I think we will all gain a great deal from participating in this blog.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        Mike, you wrote, “SNV Lavalin a Canadian company is building nuclear plants all over the world.” I asked you to name one. You have not yet done so. Please tell me the names of these nuclear plants SNV-Lavalin is building all over the world or admit that what you wrote was wrong.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Come on Mike. Ronald and the rest of us have been through all this before. You’re the one leading us around the barn with your claims which don’t ring true and which you can’t or haven’t supported.
        
        You’ve shown up here making all sorts of statements that we know are almost certainly flawed and we’re spending time talking you through the issues.
        
        And as I said earlier, you are one of a string of people who turn up here claiming that nuclear is cheaper than dirt. We’ve been through this many times but each time we give the newby a chance to prove their point. Probably you can understand if we get a little weary of the same ol’, same ol’.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        I have given you the links on nuclear pricing in Ontario in a separate comment.
        No need to apologize.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        That was no apology. That was an explanation.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        How about your stuff on nuclear costing 15 cents?
        
        Do you have a get out of jail card that you don’t have to apologize for your misinformation.
        
        I think you should really think about your behaviour in this forum.
        
        Like “we will show you how” to build floating wind turbines like we don’t know Europe has been doing it for years.
        
        Like “sorry you missed the point” of the Pennsylvania study.
        
        You are in here with an attitude to put other people down with the self impression that you are more knowledgeable than the others even though some of your key points are wrong.
        
        Think exactly what you have learned in this forum. Is there one thing that anyone has told you that has been helpful? I suspect not because you are in here with an agenda to convince everyone of your position and you filter out everything else that does not fit with your ideology; and you condescend to people who do not agree with your point of view.
        
        You have the evidence that solar and wind are good. I think you should be working with political groups to get them to implement your ideas rather than ramble around here as the superior professor.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Exactly what misinformation have I posted Mike?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        You say nuclear costs 15 cents or more for new reactors. Where did that come from?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        I answered that request some time ago. Read the replies to your posts.
        
        But I’ll give you the link a second time.
        
        http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2298087/EDF-horse-race-build-14bn-nuclear-plant-Hinkley.html
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Now, I’ll ask again.
        
        Exactly what misinformation have I posted Mike?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I will answer again.
        
        I believe the figure of 15 cents that you keep using is wrong.
        If you feel that you can quote numbers without references.
        But please remember you are the one who has been hammering the hardest in here for verification of any figures that don’t conform to your agenda.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        I posted this to you two hours ago.
        
        “The strike price is the guaranteed minimum price at which power from the plant will be sold.
        
        While EDF and Davey are thought to have come close to a deal on a strike price of about £95 per megawatt hour, the Treasury is believed to have insisted on a lower price of nearer £80,….”
        
        http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/m…
        
        When this was written the pound was trading for around $1.60 which made the EDF price roughly 15c/kWh.”
        
        And then I re-posted the link for you again a half hour later…
        
        “I answered that request some time ago. Read the replies to your posts.
        
        But I’ll give you the link a second time.
        
        http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/m…”
        
        I have made only one link request to you. I asked you for a link to a recently constructed reactor that was producing electricity for 10c/kWh. A claim you have made repeatedly.
        
        I have posted links at your request several times over the last day.
        
        Frankly, Mike, you’re becoming a PITA.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I am resending the link on the 5.8 cents for nuclear power in Ontario http://canadianenergyissues.com/2010/11/17/ontario-nuclear-power-moderates-subsidizes-the-cost-of-gas-and-renewables-an-investigation-into-the-price-of-political-correctness/
        
        The price of 15 cents you quote was negotiated because the operator was going to get a 9 B pound surplus. I would not hang my hat on that single contract as typical. I will do my own research on recently completed nuclear projects which I think will prove more reasonable.
        
        I would rather that you not insert yourself into discussions I have with others and I will not participate in any discussions you may have with me or others.
        
        Good luck with your expansion of wind and solar in your country and I continue to look forward to your floating wind turbines on the Great Lakes so we can learn from you.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        OK, here’s the price stuff from your link…
        
        “The second thing the data tell us is that most
        nuclear-generated electricity comes with an average price of roughly 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. How do I get that number? The output from Bruce units 3 and 4 (the “A” station) fetches something like 7.1 cents per kWh according to Ontario’s Auditor General. Bruce units 5 through 8, a.k.a. Bruce B, fetched 5.8 cents per kWh in the first 9 months of 2010, according to Cameco (which has an interest only in units 5 through 8). Output from Pickering and Darlington gets 5.5 cents per kWh according to Ontario Power Generation.”
        
        Bruce A3 was placed in service in 1978.
        
        Bruce A4 was placed in service in 1979.
        
        Bruce A5 through 8 were placed in service in 1985, 1984, 1986 and 1987, respectively.
        
        “Pickering’ is rather generic. It’s actually a number of reactors which came on line between 1966 and 1986.
        
        Darlington is another cluster which came on line between 1981 and 1993.
        
        Here’s your link….
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors
        
        So, what do we know now? We know that you’ve tried to pass off the cost of electricity from reactors built anywhere from 47 to 20 years ago as the cost of a reactor built recently.
        
        Fail.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        The Bruce Nuclear Plant has been refurbed so we have at least 20 years left from each reactor. It cost several billion dollars for the refurb and they paid for it with the 5.8 cents.
        
        And we have 20 years left.
        
        There are 8 generators (4 for each reactor) each producing 400,000 kw of power.
        
        There are a few hundred acres of land that had to be developed back in the 1970’s for the reactor buildings, generators, generator buildings, calandria, switch yard, water intakes, water outtakes, firehalls, admin building, control centre, communications, waste disposal etc.
        
        We don’t have to spend that money again.
        
        So we can get 20 more years at under 6 cents.
        
        I can see your point of higher costs of power if you have to acquire land and construct all the infrastructure today. I am going to some checking on our recently completed projects in Romania etc. and see what the resulting prices are per kwh.
        
        I don’t think AECL (SNC did not own CANDU technology at that time) was willing to bid on the British proposal because they are not used to fixed prices. So I don’t think the UK got the best possible prices.
        
        After all these years, nuclear power is not a commodity. To get the best prices you have to give them some flexibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        We have around 100 reactors that are producing electricity for about that price and lower.
        
        If the goal is to get fossil fuels off our grids and chose nuclear we would first have to invent a time machine so that we could go back and build more reactors in the 1970s and pay them off.
        
        Otherwise we would have to pay current prices which are at least 10c/kWh and almost certainly higher.
        
        What we are seeing in the US is that even 5.8 cents is not competitive. Our reactors that can’t produce for less than that are going bankrupt.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        That’s fine.
        
        I think its important to remember that every State and Province is different.
        
        The solutions on energy mix must reflect the geography, population density, available energy resources and interests of the people.
        
        One size does not fit all and that must be respected.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        
        I have received a note in a different forum group that I should share with you privately.
        
        My email address is doncaster@cogeco.ca. If you could send me a “here I am” note, I will pass the note on to you.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        “The price of 15 cents you quote was negotiated because the operator was going to get a 9 B pound surplus.”
        
        No, 15c/kWh is what the EDF is insisting that they have to receive, minimum, for every kWh they produce for the next 20 years. They have stated that they will not build a new reactor in the UK unless they are guaranteed that minimum price.
        
        The UK is currently producing both wind and solar electricity for less than 15c/kWh.
      - mds
        
        Like I said above: You’re not really open minded about this. You are already fixated on nuclear.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I have already agreed with the wind/solar proponents in this forum that I would take wind and solar over nuclear if the prices were right.
        We have to pay 50 cents per kwh for solar. We have serious voter adverse reaction to wind.
        What would you do?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        50c for solar is not the cost of solar. It’s an artificial price established for some reason, perhaps to kick start your solar industry. That’s the common reason for high subsidies.
        
        Solar is being installed for around $1.50/W elsewhere. You get at least 4.2 average solar hours per day over the year.
        
        If you get your solar industry as efficient as that of the UK, Germany and Spain you should be producing electricity from solar for around 8c/kWh.
        
        If you have enough political resistance to putting turbines close to where people live then you need to build a honking big HVDC, or better UHVDC, transmission line to where your best wind resources are and ship in wind. That transmission line will serve you for 100 years or more. Spread the cost.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        You may be right. We also have the province of Quebec right next door with tons of water power and we have only limited power exchanges with them. Quebec has cheaper routes to New York and Vermont and that’s where it goes.
        
        I have always felt very strongly that we should contract a major engineering study on the best way to create and share green power. I belong to the Liberal Party in Canada and we prepared a 5 page white paper with 15 pages of references on what we should be doing. The first 5 pages had a lot of pictures, so there was not a lot of heavy reading. They did not need to read the last 15 pages. We sent this to the Energy Critic and we did not even get a thank you note of acknowledgement.
        
        I have stated elsewhere in this forum that we already have the solutions for low carbon energy, what we lack is the influence on government to implement them.
        
        We still give subsidies to the oil industry when we have cancer rates going through the roof for our First Nations living down stream. We have 50 sq mi of tailing ponds in Alberta in concrete lined ponds that leak 3 million litres per day into the Athabaska River. We had major flooding in the Bow, Humber and Don Rivers flooding out the business areas of Calgary and Toronto. You had Katrina and Sandy plus you are running out of water in the Ogallala Aquifer because the farmers are not getting enough rain.
        
        We are fighting among ourselves here about punctuation and spelling when our real fight should be with our political leaders who have about 2 years to save this planet from catastrophic and unstoppable global warming.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        I suspect we need to make our grids much larger.
        
        Canada should be installing its solar panels in Virginia/wherever it’s sunnier and Virginia should be generating with hydro in Canada.
        
        We’re hauling hydro from the PNW to So Cal and had been hauling coal-electricity from Utah to So Cal. Now we’re going to bring Wyoming wind to So Cal using those same routes. And, I would expect, send solar to Wyoming, the PNW and Utah later on. Perhaps solar from Baja.
        
        We shouldn’t look at new transmission lines in the sort of 20 year LCOE way we look at new generation. We need to think of them as highway systems that have significant up front costs but will serve us for 100 years or more.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        
        I don’t know if you read Gwynn Dyer’s Book “Climate Wars” but he was proposing under water DC cables from the Sahara to Europe to deliver solar energy.
        
        I don’t know how far that technology has advanced but for sure longer haul transmission is going to become more popular.
        
        It all comes at a cost and whether we like it or not, it will be a big influence on the decision.
        
        I think the Federal governments in both the US and Canada will have to get more involved in this because States and Provinces on their own will not always make the best long term decisions on projects crossing beyond their boundaries.
        
        I just got this article from “Breakthrough” indicating that the decline in solar rates may be bottoming out. And they still forecast a better future for nuclear than for solar. (see http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/how-fast-are-the-costs-of-solar-really-coming-down/ )
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        It’s already happened. There’s a cable between Europe and Morocco which, IIRC, has been used mainly to send power south. Morocco has started a large renewable push with the idea of supplying themselves and selling power north.
        
        There was a larger plan called Desertec which created a very large European/North Africa grid stretching from Iceland to well into the Sahara. Some large corporations and financial institutions signed on. It has fallen away largely, I suspect, due to the political turmoil currently in NA. It has been partially replaced with a new program called EHighway50 which ties Europe together but little of NA.
        
        Canada and the US are already connected. The US and Mexico are already connected. It’s just a matter of doing more of the same and doing it better.
        
        If by “Breakthrough” you mean the Breakthrough Institute you should should read this piece by Joe Romm.
        
        http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/06/17/204250/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-waxman-markey/
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        My last post isn’t displayed. I warned folks. Let’s see if this one shows up.
        
        Solar panel prices plunged to just about 50c/W as failing manufacturers dumped their panels on the market in a last minute attempt to either survive or at least recover some of their investment. Now they have risen to just about 70c/W.
        
        It is expected that panel prices will soon start their downward movement starting in a few months as the surviving manufacturers install more efficient equipment and compete for market share.
        
        “Breakthrough” is likely the Breakthrough Institute which opposes renewables, fosters fossil fuel and nuclear, and whose roots can be traced back to the tobacco industry’s campaign to fight against regulation.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        So, a single statement that you don’t want to believe is “posting misinformation”?
        
        One statement that you question leads you to –
        
        “Do you have a get out of jail card that you don’t have to apologize for your misinformation.
        
        I think you should really think about your behaviour in this forum.”
        
        You got anything else?
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        Mike, I’m not berating SNC-Lavalin, I’m berating you for idiotically writing, “SNV lavalin a Canadian company is building nuclear plants all over the world,” and then not being able to name a single one. I would say that your inability to admit that writing that was a mistake is laughable except I actually just think it’s sad.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Here is the start up comment by you: “Is the Canadian nuclear industry so stupid it overlooked the chance to make huge profits? It seems that either new nuclear either isn’t 10 cents a kilowatt-hour or your nuclear industry is too stupid to take
        advantage of a clearly profitable situation, in which case they are too
        stupid to be trusted with building and operating nuclear reactors.”
        
        You have used the word “stupid” twice. That may not offend you but it offends me.
        
        Then you say ” If you are unable to name one I suggest you see your doctor and have yourself checked for idiocy.”
        
        Here’s another of your pearls:”When he fails to find one he will become wiser and say, “I am sorry,
        Master. I am but a humble grasshopper. Allow my questions to snatch
        the pebbles of knowledge
        from your hands.”
        
        If you are wondering why I am offended by you and react defensively then you are the one who needs psychiatric help. You are not in here to be helpful, you are in here to berate others. You are behaving like a bully and adding no value to this forum.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        Mike, when you’ve finished crying, do you think you could tell us the names of some of these nuclear plants you said SNC-Lavalin is, “…building all over the world”?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Ronald:
        I should have said nuclear projects rather than nuclear plants.
        Now that you have that straight, please tell me what difference that makes to the discussion.
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        So you meant to write, “SNV lavalin a Canadian company is building nuclear projects all over the world”?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Yes
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        So when you wrote “SNV lavalin a Canadian company is building nuclear plants all over the world” you thought that SNC-Lavalin was building nuclear plants all over the world but you have since changed your mind about that?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Bullshit, Mike.
        
        You waltzed in here and started making “factual” statements and declaring us wrong.
        
        You’ve made a bunch of stupid statements and we’ve spent a lot of our time pointing out where you are wrong. After a while one gets tired of playing whack-a-mole with a know it all who, in fact, knows little.
        
        This statement –
        
        “Is the Canadian nuclear industry so stupid it overlooked the chance to make huge profits? It seems that either new nuclear either isn’t 10 cents a kilowatt-hour or your nuclear industry is too stupid to take advantage of a clearly profitable situation, in which case they are too stupid to be trusted with building and operating nuclear reactors.” –
        
        should have set you thinking why, if nuclear is only 10c, the Canadian nuclear industry didn’t build those reactors Ontario wanted. Or the ones San Antonia wanted. Or the ones Turkey wanted. Or the ones the UK now wants.
        
        You should have asked yourself why your Canadian nuclear industry didn’t step in when those 15c and 20c bids were being submitted and hand in a 10c bid.
        
        And then you make statements about a company building reactors all around the world when anyone who knows jack about the nuclear industry knows that is not true.
        
        Take a look at how you have behaved in this discussion.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        
        Maybe you should consider your own charts (see http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/ )
        
        Nuclear is showing up slightly cheaper than wind and close to what I was quoting you. Nuclear is considerably cheaper than solar. Yet you keep quoting 15 cents with no links and hammer me for links which I gave but you seem to ignore.
        
        You quoted 6 cents for pumped storage in Switzerland. I have been unable to find that link.
        
        You quote solar at 6 cents and dropping without references.
        
        You talk about me waltzing in. I think you should take time to check the cart you are riding in.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Mike, you are starting to become very tiring.
        
        I explained to you that the LCOE for nuclear on the linked site if for installed (think older, paid off) plants. It is not the cost of new nuclear generation.
        
        We have asked you over and over to support your claim of 10c/kWh for new nuclear and you fail to do that. But you request that I give you links to things you question?
        
        “The above cost and income statement can be varied with other assumptions. From the results it is possible to deduce the following rules to Profitability: The less long run pumped storage per year, the greater the difference in price between verpumptem Necessary and produced electricity. Or the more expensive, the pumping current, the greater the energy loss between the pump and producing carries weight, and in turn, the higher must be the price difference. For example, the production time halved in a thousand hours of full load / year, and the price goes up for pumping power from three to six cents / kWh, both of which are quite possible, then the necessary margin increased to ten cents / kWh.
        
        An extreme days there is such high margins. In the long-term average but was the price differential between current band, which is used to pump, and produce peak current, the storage and pumped storage plants, much smaller. And: On the European electricity market, this difference has shrunk to one to two cents per kWh, producing for subsidized solar and wind power plants temporarily surpluses and thus reduce profit of Alpine storage plants.
        
        It needs to sell for at least eight cents per kWh, respectively, a margin of five centimes between pumping and produced peak current. The same result is obtained for the work “Linthal 2015».”
        
        Five centimes converts to about $0.06.
        
        http://www.infosperber.ch/Artikel/Politik/Strom-Wer-zu-fruh-baut-den-bestraft-der-Markt“
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        You hammer others for inconsistencies. Well here we go. Our nuclear plants were built in the 1970’s and refurbed in the last 20 years. You say that old nuclear plants can produce power at 5 cents as per the OPEN EI charts. But when I say that our plants produce electricity at 5.5 cents you say that’s impossible. So I give you a link that says 5.8 cents and you say I have not proved my point properly.
        
        Can you not see where you are being inconsistent?
        
        I ask for a link on the cost of pumped hydro storage and you give me one written in German.
        
        I am sorry you find this so tiring. Think of me having to read your answers that go nowhere.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Give me that link again, please.
        
        This thread has become very long and it’s hard to find stuff.
      - Matt
        
        We as for storage at Niagara Falls it does exist, or did have been there in a long while. It below the falls on the US side.
        
        As another storage that is being used today is thermal storage. Storing cold at night for use in the day has been being used since last century (sorry always wanted to say that). I see “web news” for heat storage but not really seen any. My guess is there are industrial application that would work fine today.Think all the chemical plants in the world with steam line running along the pipes (got to keep the stuff warm to keep it flowing). Large under ground salt tank, heat at night when to much wind and power cheaper, make steam during peak power period.
        
        It isn’t so much a engineering problem at the moment, yes lots of that. But the real issue at the moment is “market forces”. The market is only starting to think about storage and placing a value on it.
      - mds
        
        Solar is not a great resource for Canada. Wind is. Go North young man. Where the tundra grows the wind resource is effected more by the Earth’s rotation and there is plenty of wind. Connect to the South of your country with several HVDC lines.
        Still like nuclear better? What is the clean up cost for Fukushima again?
        I live in the Seattle area. I’ve been up to BC many times. Washington and BC have a superb solar resource that’s called California. It’s already connected be HVDC lines. (Not sure how far up into BC they go or if that power is traded by different lines.) What does Washington and BC have to offer. LOTS of geography for pumped hydro storage. A match made in heaven for California, wouldn’t you say?
        I’m sure you’re still stuck on nukes. Good luck with that. Glad you’re in Canada. There’s already enough people down here wanting us to pay the high prices and take the high risks with nuclear. Not for me thanks. Ever seen a solar spill or solar melt-down?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        What per cent of your power in Seattle comes from wind and solar?
        And what percent comes from fossil?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Generation Type Percentage
        Biomass 0.05%
        Coal 0.52%
        Cogeneration 0.00%
        Geothermal 0.00%
        Hydro 92.39%
        Landfill Gases 0.25%
        Natural Gas 0.18%
        Nuclear 2.52%
        Others 0.00%
        Petroleum 0.01%
        Solar 0.00%
        Waste 0.01%
        Wind 4.07%
        Total 100.00%
        
        http://www.seattle.gov/light/fuelmix/
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Excellent. Thank you very much.
      - UKGary
        
        There are provisional plans for large scale seawater pumped hydro combined with desalination in Western Australia. This has the advantage that only one dam is needed.
        
        http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/pumped-hydro-storage-solution-for-a-renewable-energy-future-91567
        
        This could be a cost effective way of integrating solar and wind power.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Mike, we’ve got 20 GW of pump-up hydro and a GW of CAES in the US that we built back when we were building nuclear. Couldn’t use nuclear without some way to move nighttime production to peak demand hours.
        
        Japan built even more. Quite a bit more IIRC.
        
        Switzerland just priced out a new pump-up system at a 6 cents/kWh storage price.
        
        Vanadium redox batteries are a couple pennies more expensive.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Thanks Bob, I will look into this.
        
        Our government is not driven soley on engineering. We should be doing far more storage if we want low-carbon to be effective.
  - Hans
    
    I think you are too pessimistic. A large part of the windpower can be used when it is produced. So only a part of the windpower will be need to be stored. So your 11 cents really is an upper limit and not a realistic value.
    - Ronald Brakels
      
      It is currently far cheaper to build excess wind and solar capacity (up to a point) than it is to use energy storage or use natural gas and then extract the CO2 released from the atmosphere. But Mike doesn’t need to understand that. He just needs to try to find an example of a new nuclear power plant that can produce electricity for less than 11 cents a kilowatt-hour. When he fails to find one he will become wiser and say, “I am sorry, Master. I am but a humble grasshopper. Allow my questions to snatch the pebbles of knowledge from your hands.”
- http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
  
  Nuclear power is not even *close* to being “green” because it is not close to being low carbon. It uses about 2/3 as much carbon as *coal* in the mining and transport and refining of uranium, and in the materials and construction of the plant, and in the short term and long term storage of the nuclear waste. Decommissioning the plant after 40-60 years of use must also be included in the carbon equation.
  
  WE HAVE NO SOLUTION FOR STORING NUCLEAR WASTE.
  
  None. Zero. Nada.
  
  And nuclear needs to be shut down for refueling, often for 6-8 weeks every 18 months. And, when the air temperature is too hot, the cooling towers stop working properly, and the whole plant has to be ramped down – or shut down for the duration. So, it is hardly totally dependable.
  
  Neil
  - MikeSmith866
    
    Neil:
    
    You might be interested in this link http://www.snclavalin.com/expertise.php?lang=en&id=4
    
    Over its life cycle which includes construction through to decommissioning, nuclear is about the same as hydro and several times better than any fossil fuel.
    
    And we do not have to shut down CANDU plants during refuelling.
    - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
      
      Nuclear is nasty and it would never have gotten off the ground if it wasn’t for the Cold War.
      
      Forget nuclear – uranium supply is finite. They want to mine it in the Grand Canyon fer cryin’ out loud. Talk about peak uranium!
      
      Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        I just don’t think we can make it on hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and biomass.
        
        Nuclear is my last choice after those above. But I still think we will need nuclear to get by.
        
        We are running out of fresh water so we will need desal factories, green houses, hydroponics.
        
        We will need tremendous amounts of electricity as we convert to all electric cars.
        
        It takes electricity to make bio fuel.
        
        And the population keeps increasing.
        
        If we can get by without nuclear as we wean ourselves off fossil fuel, then great. I just don’t think we are going to make it.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Well, you could expend a bit of energy and determine Canada’s solar, wind, tidal, wave, hydro, biomass, biogas and geothermal potential.
        
        Just looking at a wind map tells me you’ve got tremendous wind potential.
        
        Here’s one for wind potential at 50m. We now know that, in general, wind potential is far higher at 80m and we’re now putting our turbines up there.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Let me see if I can post a larger version.
        
        Vast, vast I say….
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Yes, I can spend a lot of energy helping you guys prove your points.
        Canada has 20 times more wind energy than we need at 80 m. We already know this.
        Much of it is over water. Eastern Canada has very little population and there are huge costs to transmit the wind power to Central Canada where it is needed.
        It is cheaper for us to produce nuclear at 10 cents in Ontario than to haul wind power from New Brunswick. I hope you don’t mind if we get our power at the lowest possible price.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Let’s see. In one post you state –
        
        “I just don’t think we can make it on hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and biomass. Nuclear is my last choice after those above. But I still think we will need nuclear to get by.”
        
        Then, shortly after you state –
        
        “Canada has 20 times more wind energy than we need at 80 m. We already know this.”
        
        Hummmm….. What to make of that?
        
        And you state –
        
        “It is cheaper for us to produce nuclear at 10 cents….”
        
        Sorry. I simply don’t believe that you can produce new nuclear at 10 cents/kWh. That number is most likely from a reactor built some years ago or a number pulled out of the nether region of a nuclear industry person and it probably doesn’t include liability costs or long term hazardous waste storage costs.
        
        But you go right ahead and spend your money for more expensive electricity if that is what floats your boat. It’s not coming out of my tax dollars. Neither is the cost of cleanup if you melt one down.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        Remember that our wind blows mostly at night and only 30% of the time so we have to direct it to pumped hydro which adds another 6 cents according to your figures.
        Further our best wind is over Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean where the back haul costs are huge.
        The decision about nuclear versus wind is made on economics not on ideology.
        You may have wind availability, storage and costs that make wind more attractive than nuclear.
        I have also told you that our farmers and coast dwellers don’t like wind turbines. You may not have that problem in Pennsylvania.
        
        I respect that your situation may be different from ours and you may find wind more economical. So go ahead, I will look forward to seeing your turbines on the Great Lakes.
        All the Best.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Well, offshore wind tends to blow pretty danged well during the day and your major cities are located between two very good offshore wind areas.
        
        Nuclear needs storage. You can add only so much to the grid before you run into problems of needing to shift power from low to high demand times.
        
        I suppose if you enter a discussion believing nuclear is the answer and refuse to consider information that undermines that predetermined position you are likely to end up still believing that nuclear is the answer.
        
        Funny how that works.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        And if you dislike nuclear, you will always come up with an answer that wind is better.
        
        I find that you are not phased by numbers. Even when nuclear is much cheaper than solar, you still advocate for solar.
        
        Funny how that works.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        No, Mike. Not in my case at least.
        
        I started a few years ago believing that nuclear was our best way to get off fossil fuels. I decided that having to live with a few melt-downs and the problem of storing hazardous waste was less problematic than climate change.
        
        But then I started watching the price of renewables drop. As wind dropped below the price of nuclear it became clear that renewable were likely to be a cheaper solution. We’ve always been able to store for something less than a dime per kWh. We built all that pump-up for nuclear and we know it works.
        
        And all these years I’ve looked for something that would show that nuclear was affordable. That there was some way to make it cheaper. Nothing has appeared. In fact, the price has risen.
        
        I’ve watched open bids for new nuclear in Canada, Texas, Turkey and now the UK. There is no one bidding 10 cents per kWh like you claim. Most of the claims are around 20 cents with the UK one at 15.
        
        Even at 10 cents per kWh nuclear stands no chance (in a free market situation). I can explain that to you if you’re interested.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Yes, I am interested. Please give me your explanation of prices.
        
        I have read your numbers already in other posts. I am interested more in links to your sources.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Well, I’ll give you what links you would like. Though one might note that you seem to have not yet posted a link to a new nuclear reactor producing electricity for $0.10/kWh. And much skepticism has been expressed.
        
        But, let’s take that mythical 10c. Let’s say you build a new reactor and manage to squeeze juice out of it for 10c/kWh. Of course you know that to avoid bankruptcy you need to sell all the electricity you produce for an average of 10c/kWh. And you need to average that over 24/365 (minus 10% expected downtime).
        
        Now let’s say I build some wind farms and I sell my electricity for 6c/kWh.
        
        (6c/kWh is the median LCOE for wind at http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/ )
        
        The wind blows 50% of the time and I’ve got enough capacity to fill the grid when it is blowing. Now what do you do?
        
        You cannot shut down when the wind is blowing like a natural gas turbine can. Takes you days to come back on line. You’ve got to price your output low enough to force me to curtail production.
        
        Let’s say my variable O&M costs are a bit under a penny per kWh (same source). You’d have to eat a 9.5c/kWh loss in order to sell your electricity at a ha’penny.
        
        So now you’ve got to sell your output during the other 50% of the time for 10c + 9.5c or 19.5c to stay in business.
        
        Ronald looks in, sees a solar opportunity. Installs lots of solar panels which operate only at 10% capacity in not-so-sunny-wherever you live but at $1.50/W and 10% capacity he can sell electricity at 13 cents. So now you’ve got to sell low enough to force him off the grid 10% of the time.
        
        Now you’re having to make up a 9.5c loss for 50% of the time and a 7c loss for 10% of the time. You’ve got to earn well over 20c/kWh or face debtors prison.
        
        Storage is under 10c/kWh. Do you need links for that?
        
        My wind at 6c plus storage at 10c is no more than 16c/kWh.
        
        Goose, meet spit.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        
        Here’s a link that shows that our nuclear plants are paid 5.8 cents per kwh http://canadianenergyissues.com/2010/11/17/ontario-nuclear-power-moderates-subsidizes-the-cost-of-gas-and-renewables-an-investigation-into-the-price-of-political-correctness/
        
        As I mentioned, the Ontario Government charges us 10 cents per kwh and uses the balance to cover the debt.
        
        The nuclear plants currently store their spent fuel rods on site.
        
        We pay our wind farms 11.5 cents per kwh and our solar producers around 50 cents per kwh (see http://canadianenergyissues.com/2010/11/17/ontario-nuclear-power-moderates-subsidizes-the-cost-of-gas-and-renewables-an-investigation-into-the-price-of-political-correctness/ )
        
        Your link on the median LCOE shows nuclear cheaper than wind, so I don’t know where your hangups on nuclear are coming from.
        
        Anyway, I am all for wind and solar and a fill in power like hydro if we have the land. That was my hangup and was the reason I preferred nuclear.
        
        So lets go!
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Mike, those prices are for plants that were built earlier. Many reactors are now around 40 years old, they were built when construction costs were much lower and they are already paid off.
        
        One cannot build a new reactor and sell electricity for those sorts of prices today. Or if it’s possible I have yet to see proof.
        
        Show me 10 cents per kWh for a nuclear reactor built in the last 2-3 years.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Here you go again.
        
        You show me where you get 15 cents.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        And there you go again. Asking for links when you refuse to give them yourself.
        
        Here’s the deal, Mike. I’m going to give you this one. And then I’m going to request that you cease posting until you are willing to back up your claims.
        
        Understood?
        
        “The strike price is the guaranteed minimum price at which power from the plant will be sold.
        
        While EDF and Davey are thought to have come close to a deal on a strike price of about £95 per megawatt hour, the Treasury is believed to have insisted on a lower price of nearer £80,….”
        
        http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2298087/EDF-horse-race-build-14bn-nuclear-plant-Hinkley.html#ixzz2aYPzteUc
        
        When this was written the pound was trading for around $1.60 which made the EDF price roughly 15c/kWh.
        
        Now, go back and read my request again, please.
      - mds
        
        Mr Smith
        Here you seem open minded again, except that you’re clearly not.
      - Hans
        
        “Remember that our wind blows mostly at night and only 30% of the time”
        
        You are confusing capacity factor with relative operation time.
        
        In practice wind turbines deliver power for at least 70% of the time.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Do you have a link that would explain this?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Hans:
        
        I think the official term is “intermittency”. Here is a 5 day chart for several wind farms in Ontario. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ontariowindfarmshourlyoutputover5days.gif
        
        Every day is different. Some days there is almost 100% wind and other days there is almost no wind.
        
        This is just for 5 days. Now that I see this chart, I think we have to be very cautious about using average figures because they aren’t meaningful unless you have pumped storage during the good days or solar as an alternate. Plus you must have fill-in power like hydro or nuclear.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        You stated that the wind blows only 30% of the time.
        
        And then you post data that shows you were wrong.
        
        Are you incapable of looking at a graph and understanding it?
        
        And, yes, wind is “intermittent”. You think that’s news? Averages are exactly how you describe the overall input from a variable source.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:Did it ever occur to you that the 30% applies to capacity not to intermittency?
        
        If you have no interest in the graph then you can ignore it. There is absolutely no benefit to this forum for you to berate me each time I post something.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Each time you act stupid you will be called out for acting stupid.
        
        You claimed that “Remember that our wind blows mostly at night and only 30% of the time”. I copied that from your comment, four above.
        
        It was very clear to me that 30% was likely capacity.
        
        When I pointed out to you that the graph you linked clearly shows wind performing far more than 30% of the time you replied –
        
        “Bob:Did it ever occur to you that the 30% applies to capacity not to intermittency?”
        
        You’ve been caught out over and over spouting nonsense. And then it seems to me that you try to lie your way out of your mistake.
        
        You claimed that Canada didn’t have the renewable resources it needed to avoid using nuclear.
        
        “I just don’t think we can make it on hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and biomass.”
        
        And then when presented with information that Canada could get all it needs from wind alone you reply –
        
        “Canada has 20 times more wind energy than we need at 80 m. We already know this.”
        
        Sorry, Mike. You’re coming across as either stupid, dishonest, or both. Now you can complain about people hurting your fees-fees or you can start behaving more responsibly.
        
        Keep up your crap and you will go away. If you want to stay part of discussions here then engage your honesty module.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Bob:
        You are cherry picking then twisting.
        
        I have clearly explained that hauling the wind power from New Brunswick and Hudson Bay make it more expensive than nuclear.
        
        You are filtering very logical information so you can make my arguments look invalid.
        
        Look at all the facts instead of just the ones you like before commenting on my points.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        No, you have not explained that hauling wind power would make it more expensive than nuclear. You have failed to acknowledge the cost of new nuclear power that has been shown to you and you have failed to produce documentation for a lower number.
        
        You tried to sneak a claim through based on reactors built and brought on line 20 to 47 years ago.
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        Look up Makani Power: http://www.makanipower.com/google/
        
        Their tethered remote flying wing system costs ~1/3 as much as a tower and it resides at ~1/2 mile up…
        
        Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Have you got any figures on cents per kwh?
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        I know one of the folks at the company – I’ll try to find out.
        
        Wind scales up very well, and solar PV scales down very well. Add in biomass – methane from all sewage and all farm waste would make a lot of power AND provide high quality fixed nitrogen fertilizer, replacing chemical fertilizer made from natural gas – and add in wave, tidal, geothermal, small scale hydro – like rain water on roofs!
        
        Renewable energy IS THE ONLY WAY WE FIX ALL the challenges we face.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Neil:
        Actually there is no problem producing low carbon electricity in spite of the heated opinions in this blog.
        The real thing we need is a non-food bio fuel at less than $2 per litre.
        
        Processing sewage may be the answer. I have not heard of anything yet that comes out at $2 per litre. But this is the Holy Grail.
        
        If we can come up with a competitive non-food bio fuel, we are out of the woods.
      - mds
        
        Methane from sewage. It’s already being done with cow dung on hundreds of farms. Nothing is going to beat solar, wind, and EVs/PHEVs though.
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        In Germany, they are using the corn *stalks* to make methane. If they are not using chemical fertilizer synthesized from natural gas to grow the corn, then this could be sustainable. The point is, that ALL farm waste and ALL sewage can be used to make methane.
        
        We can’t just do “low” carbon – we have to to do *no* carbon. No fossil carbon is the only thing that will work at this point.
        
        The price of fossil carbon is almost infinite. What is the price you are willing to pay for almost all life everywhere?
        
        Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Neil:
        I totally agree.
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        Enough of the sun’s energy strikes the earth in 1 *hour* to power ALL of humankind’s needs for A YEAR.
        
        Obviously, we cannot collect all of that energy in just an hour (nor would we want to) but it has been estimated by people like Richard Alley that we could collect enough energy in a month to power all our needs for a year.
        
        South Dakota alone could power ~1/3 of the entire lower 48 states from wind power. Ten percent of Nevada could provide ~1/2 of what the lower 48 states need, using solar heat power plants.
        
        Overall, Dr. Alley estimates (in Earth: The Operator’s Manual) that from all the different renewable sources around the world (solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydro, biomass, geothermal) that we could get 16X what we need.
        
        California is 2X as efficient as the rest of the US already, and it takes more electricity to *make* gasoline than you can drive a typical EV on that same electricity.
        
        Renewables are *totally* able to provide a sustainable abundance of energy. WAY more than we need…
        
        Neil
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Neil:
        Well why don’t they?
      - mds
        
        They will. It is starting first in Hawaii and Australia. California will be next.
      - Nano
        
        What is missing in this discussion – I think – is a consideration of what I like to call the “penetration-dependence of the LCoE of intermittent energy sources”. This is a very important concept which is always overlooked by people seeking to promote solar and wind energy over nuclear.
        
        The LCoE figures for solar and wind that are published in the literature are applicable only to energy systems that have less than about 10% to 20% intermittent sources. Once the penetration of solar or wind increases beyond such a threshhold, the LCoE starts rising exponentially, concurrently with the exponential rise of the need for additional (!) transmission, storage and backup facilities.
        
        So – for example – adding solar energy to an energy system that has 0% solar penetration would cost about equal to the published LCoE for solar. But adding solar to a system that already has a high penetration of solar carries a far higher LCoE.
        
        Nuclear does not have this feature. In France – for example – 80% of electricity is supplied by nuclear because the LCoE of nuclear is independent of penetration up to that level of penetration. But the LCoE of solar (or wind) at 80% penetration becomes overwhelmingly expensive, due to the need for highly costly grid upgrades and storage facilities that are uniquely needed to enable such levels of penetration for solar or wind.
        
        Proponents of intermittent energy need to keep this in mind, in order to maintain the quality of rational discussion. Unfortunately (at least in my experience) they don’t do this. They need to start doing it or be content to position themselves outside the boundaries of rational discussion.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        France has a lot of nuclear. France relies on other countries for their fill-in power when they can’t get what they need from their reactors. When France shuts down reactors during heat waves France purchases electricity from other countries.
        
        Now, what would happen were we to build a 100% nuclear grid?
        
        Nuclear at 10c/kWh. (That’s a low number as it does not include all costs and we have no record of recently built nuclear that cheap in the west.)
        
        We’d need storage to carry nighttime nuclear to peak hours. Let’s guess that we could use 2/3rds of reactor output directly and store the other 1/3rd when it is produced.
        
        I’m going to use 8c/kWh for storage as that seems to be a bit higher than pump-up hydro and about the cost of vanadium redox flow batteries.
        
        So ((67% * 10c) + (33% * (10c + 8c))) = 12.6c/kWh
        
        Now let’s do the same math for a 100% wind/solar grid. Wind at 6c and solar at 10c. 50% of our electricity from wind direct, 20% from solar direct and 30% form stored wind.
        
        ((50% * 6c) + (20% * 10c) + (30% * (6c + 8c))) 9.8c/kWh
        
        Before we could get a new reactor on line (6 to 12 years) the price of both wind and solar would have fallen.
        
        9.8c < 12.6c
        
        Is that rational enough for you?
      - MikeSmith866
        
        But don’t you think there is something wrong with this picture?
        There are special interest groups who promote fossil fuels and have a huge interest on government.
        We have the technology for zero carbon electricity today but we don’t use it when the scientists tell us we have to make huge reductions in carbon emissions to save the planet.
        We can’t wait 20 years. We have about 2 years to start making carbon emission reductions of 5% per year or we will have to turn the lights out for our grand children and their grand children.
      - Nano
        
        I agree completely Mike.
        
        Proponents of wind and solar are putting too much emphasis on supporting these technologies at any cost, while the objective of reducing co2 emissions takes a back seat. We can’t have that. We’ve already suffered decades of propaganda from fossil fuel companies to use their technology at any cost, and now we risk another few decades of suffering from similar propaganda sold by solar/wind proponents. The problem is, we don’t have these decades left to waste. We need to join the Chinese and the Indian’s in getting of fossil fuels quickly, by building the technology that works today and will keep working right up to the point that fossil fuels are made obsolete. What other option is there?
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        If nuclear was cheaper than renewables nuclear still would not work to get us off fossil fuels in a timely manner.
        
        It takes many years to build a nuclear reactor. Optimistically six years. In practice much longer. Our two now under construction are on route to taking ten years or more.
        
        We don’t have the trained and experience engineers, technicians and construction companies to build more than two or three reactors at a time. It would take many years to train the people we would need for a massive reactor build.
        
        Our existing experienced nuclear engineers and technicians are nearing retirement.
        
        We don’t have the ability to replace the reactors that are now going offline. We’ve lost four this year and more are close to failing. It is unlikely we could increase our net nuclear capacity in less than 20 years.
        
        Wind farms are built in less than two years, largely with standard construction skills. Sections of a wind farm can come on line within months.
        
        Solar arrays are installed in months (large utility arrays), days (commercial rooftops) and hours (residential rooftops). Solar requires only standard construction skills.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        First, I am a proponent of wind and solar. They can be constructed more quickly than nuclear, are safer than nuclear and have no disposal problems. In our area, solar is very expensive and many farmers and coast dwellers don’t like looking at wind turbines, so we have had some problems with solar and wind, so we use a lot of nuclear.
        
        In some areas of the world, there is more sun, so solar is more competitive and land is available. So solar should be a first choice.
        
        Similarly, some areas of the world have lots of wind in unpopulated areas, so they can use wind very effectively. So wind becomes another great choice.
        
        One of the issues of solar and wind is they may not deliver power when you need it, so that can be solved with a) fill in power e.g. from hydro if you have it or b) pumped water or other storage such as compressed air, molten salt or flywheels.
        
        What bothers me for every area of the world there are technical solutions but we still burn coal and gas to make electricity when it is overheating our planet.
        
        We should not build the Keystone XL or Northern Gateway pipelines, we must leave the oil in the ground.
      - Nano
        
        Hm, Mike I think you are right. I’ve worked on the question of running a power system on wind and solar (high penetration) quite a few years ago and was completely discouraged by it. Back then, I calculated that even if solar and wind power was free, the combination of low density and intermittency made them still far too expensive to replace fossils with, let alone run synfuel factories on.
        
        Reading a few post here by some optimistic people, I thought perhaps things have changed with new technologies, but it turns out they haven’t…
        For some reason, many commenters on this webpage are using assumptions that have no basis in fact! One guy even claimed that nuclear power causes more co2 emissions than natural gas! And another said that uranium is in short supply! And another than new nuclear cannot cost less than 10 ct/kWh!
        
        I thought this was a serious discussion on internet, but it appears we are free to just pull numbers out of our behinds and call them facts at will here! (like my old professor used to say, politicians do that all the time).
        
        Anyway, I like your comments. At least: what you say conforms pretty much with what I know about the subject of energy. Whatever these other people are blabbering about, I don’t know! Maybe they are politicians!?
        
        Good luck, I hope these other people realize they can learn something from you!
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        The lifetime carbon footprint of nuclear is a bit higher than that of wind and a bit lower than that of PV solar. All three are vastly lower than the lifetime carbon footprint of coal.
        
        http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sustain_lcah.html
        
        ————–
        
        We won’t be running short of uranium any time in the near future.
        
        “Uranium is present at an abundance 2 – 3 parts per million in the Earth’s crust which is about 600 times greater than gold
        and about the same as tin. The amount of Uranium that is available is mostly a measure of the price that we’re willing to pay for it. At present the cost of Natural Uranium ($165 per kg) is a small component in the price of electricity generated by Nuclear Power. At a price of $US110 per kg the known reserves amount to about 85 years supply at the current level of consumption with an expected further 500 years supply in additional or speculative reserves. The price of Uranium would have to increase by over a factor of 3 before it would have an impact of the cost of electricity generated from Nuclear Power. Such a price rise would stimulate a substantial increase in exploration activities with a
        consequent increase in the size of the resource (as has been the case with every other mineral of value). The price of Uranium rose to a peak of over 300/kg in 2007 but has since declined to around $100 by mid 2010. Identified reserves of Uranium have increased by around 100% since the end of 2003.
        
        http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeAvailabilityOfUsableUranium
        
        ———
        
        Now, I’ve backed up my statements. How about you showing us a reactor that has come on line recently and is producing electricity for ” less than 10 ct/kWh!”.
        
        You wouldn’t want us to think that you pulled that number out of your behind, would you?
      - Nano
        
        Bob writes:
        
        “Now, I’ve backed up my statements. How about you showing us a reactor that has come on line recently and is producing electricity for ” less than 10 ct/kWh!”.
        
        You wouldn’t want us to think that you pulled that number out of your behind, would you?”
        
        I never do. I don’t see the point, unless the point is to deceive or sabotage. I have no financial ties with any energy sector. I work for an independent engineering consultancy.
        
        Here is a link showing that the feed-in tariff for new nuclear in China is 7 ct/kWh.
        
        http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/07/china-sets-incentive-feed-in-tariff.html
        
        Separately, it is worth knowing that China has a long-term goal of supplying themselves with more than 1000 GW of nuclear power for less than 2ct/kWh (all-in price). You can read a bit more about the Chinese nuclear program here:
        
        http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China–Nuclear-Power/#.Ufi-bo30GFk
        
        Finally, concerning the uranium supply, to do long-term planning we need to remember that fast reactors and breeders will be used from about the middle of the century onwards, or whenever the cost of uranium increases to about a factor of 5 or 10 above today’s price, or whenever nuclear power regulation is adapted to accomodate the unique safety features of 4th gen nukes. Fast reactors and breeders are not yet commercial today, although the Russian do have a fast reactor model that they are commercialising (i.e. the BNxxx) series). Fast reactors and breeder reactors make the uranium supply effectively inexhaustible.
        
        http://www.mcgill.ca/files/gec3/NuclearFissionFuelisInexhaustibleIEEE.pdf
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Technically you found a reactor producing for less than 10c. But we can’t build for that price in the west.
        
        China has cheap labor. Most likely low cost government financing. No ability for citizens to protest construction. The ability to use their military to move people off the land they want to use. And I would expect a significantly lower permitting process.
        
        The price of wind, solar and storage is dropping. Nuclear is done in the west.
        
        Furthermore, I expect China will start scaling back on their future nuclear builds. China has a very significant cooling water problem. They have none available inland and have canceled plans to build any more reactors inland.
        
        And as the price of wind, solar and storage drop below that of nuclear, well, the Chinese government knows how to do math.
      - MikeSmith866
        
        Hi Nano:
        I don’t think they are politicians because of their quills but they may well be lobbiests for the solar and wind turbine companies.
  - Ronald Brakels
    
    There are carbon emissions involved in the mining and processing of uranium, but they are quite small compared to the emissions from coal power. If it took a large amount of energy to extract uranium then Australia wouldn’t be able to sell it so cheaply. (Of course this does not make nuclear power competitive with renewables.)
    - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
      
      Enriching uranium is non-trivial, as is building the power plant itself. Then there is the decommissioning and the loooooong term storage.
      
      Nuclear power is about 2/3rds the carbon of coal.
      
      We can think of far better ways than a nuclear plant to boil water, I think? Solar heat systems pop to mind… We have underground molten salt storage to keep things boiling for quite a while. Geothermal, as well.
      
      Neil
      - Ronald Brakels
        
        The spot price of uranium is only about $80 a kilogram at the moment. If it took a huge amount of energy to produce it that would be reflected in its price. At the moment $80 will only buy about one tonne of coal and as kilogram of uranium is 0.7% U235 and as about two thirds of that will under go fission a reactor this means that a kilogram should give off about 150 times as much energy as burning a tonne of coal. So if a great deal of fossil fuels had to be burned to produce it that would be reflected in its price.
Matt

I wonder why they assume wind will be flat at the current install rate?
- Bob_Wallace
  
  Doesn’t make sense to me. The cost of wind is also dropping and that should accelerate installation rates.
  - Jouni Valkonen
    
    I think that the reason is that it is uncertain how much potential there is for cost performance improvements on wind, where as the cost performance of solar is following exponential curve.
    
    Solar will be about 80 % cheaper by 2023 where as wind may be only 10–20 percent cheaper. And without proper (EV) storage, wind and solar cannot compete with coal due to intermittency. But we always need coal plants as back up to fill the blanks. And storage is today just too expensive.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      “But we always need coal plants as back up to fill the blanks.”
      
      That is simply untrue. There are a number of ways to fill in around wind and solar. There’s storage, which you recognize. In addition their is hydro, biomass, biogas and load-shifting.
      
      “And storage is today just too expensive.”
      
      Wrong. Pump-up hydro is about 6c/kWh, vanadium redox batteries about 8c/kWh and it looks like EOS zinc-air batteries will be about 10c/kWh.
      
      The EIA projects the cost of coal with carbon capture placed in service in 2017 to be 13.6c/kWh. The cost of burning coal without carbon capture is very much higher.
      
      Wind is already 6c/kWh. Solar is dropping under 10c/kWh and should be at least a couple pennies lower by 2017. It’s not unreasonable to assume we would get 50% of our electricity from wind, 25% from solar and the last 25% from stored wind. I’ll use the median price of storage, 8c.
      
      0.5 * 5c wind + 0.25 * 10c solar + 0.25 * 13c stored wind = 9.25c/kWh.
      
      13.6 > 9.25
      - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
        
        There is also wave power, and geothermal as well! Wave power systems are being built by at least three companies around the world – one in New Jersey, one in Scotland, and one in the Netherlands.
        
        Solar *heat* is another renewable energy that has a well established record, and has a hug potential in Australia – and there are know storage systems, as well.
        
        Neil
      - Jouni Valkonen
        
        your math is somewhat wrong. things are more complicated.
    - Matt
      
      Ok then why is solar install rate constant until 2020? Is there a lock down on new PV workers also?
Christopher Williams

The title suggests quite a miracle, that the article doesn’t support.
- http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
  
  It probably is a typo? Maybe 2040 or 2041 would be accurate?
  
  Neil
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    I’d say that it’s a headline writer error.
    
    The first sentence says “2040”.
    
    (I’ll send Zach a message by carrier pigeon.)
- mds
  
  …with Ron’s cousin having a sprained ankle, I expect 2015 is more accurate
Ronald Brakels

The title needs to be fixed. Not that we couldn’t do it by 2014 if we applied ourselves, but I haven’t been feeling well lately and my cousin has sprained her ankle, so it’s going to be tricky to get the job done in five months.
- mds
  
  Oh man!… I was counting on you two to get this done!
  Actually, what is your hurry? Solar PV will be less than $1/W installed by the end of this decade and should be half that again in another decade or two. You don’t want to be re-installing too many systems to get more power out do you? Let your cousin have a few days off. Man, talking about a good business to be in. Keep up the good work dudes.