Nuclear Has Scaled Far More Rapidly Than Renewables

[FBaggins]

Over the past couple of weeks there's been more than a little crowing about Australia's one millionth rooftop solar installation amid the long running genuflection at what has been called Germany's solar miracle.

Solar and renewable apostles should keep in mind that if Germany meets its targets and reaches 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050, it will have taken about 50 years from the time it began its feed-in tariff in 2000.

...snip...

Let's compare the speed of per capita electricity generation growth in a few countries for renewables and nuclear. I'm guessing nobody will object if we use the German wunderkind as a top performing renewables example. We'll plot the last 11 years of wind and solar growth, starting 12 months after the beginning of their feed-in-tariff scheme. We'll also throw in the last 11 years of Chinese per capita electricity growth from all sources. This is just to put their coal/wind/nuclear/solar/hydro build in proper per capita context.

All of our comparison cases, except one, are historical. They aren't plans, they are achievements. Anti-nuclear campaigners are fond of finding particular nuclear power stations with time or cost overruns to ‘prove’ how slow or expensive nuclear electricity is to roll out. Cherry picking examples is a time-honored strategy when objective argument fails.



http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/nuclear-has-scaled-far-more-rapidly-than-renewables/

[kristopher]

1. More of the Breakthrough Institutes rightwing garbage

Last edited Mon Jul 1, 2013, 10:32 AM - Edit history (1)

No wonder you left out the link. I guess you at least learned something from that Heartland Institute style solar article every reputable person ran from.

Validity, the Breakthough Institute knows you not.

The Breakthrough Institute, 'Next Gen' Right Wing Energy and Climate Propaganda
"We admit there's a problem and then steer you back to business as usual"

The Breakthough Institute - working hard to maintain the status quo.

Like all the other rightwing propaganda outlets since the Tobacco Institute pioneered the strategy, the Breakthrough Institute pretends to objectivity, then tells the biggest whoppers you've ever seen. They're the next stage of the Koch Brothers inspired fight against action on climate change. The wrap "their" recommendations in a cloak of "science" by admitting what simply can no longer credibly be denied - climate change is real. They then proceed to promote policies that are designed to ensure business as usual.

See also:
Critics of Nuclear Power’s Costs Miss the Point
www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1961.cfm

Nuclear Power Needed to Minimize Lieberman–Warner’s Economic Impact
www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1944.cfm

[FBaggins]

2. Can't deal with the facts...

... shoot the messenger instead.

Still looking foolish pretending that nuclear supporters are all right-wing... despite all evidence to the contrary.

[Buzz Clik]

3. All options need to be on the table.

[FBaggins]

4. Exactly right

Nuclear/Solar/Wind/Hydro/etc are each very small portions of the national economy, and while they all involve the consumption of resources (steel/concrete/etc) that compete for supply with other parts of the economy, the real constraint is the infrastructure for each flavor of carbon-free generation and the capital necessary to expand the portfolio.

None of these technologies can get us to a decarbonized future anywhere nearly as quickly as all of them together can. Offshore wind costs more than nuclear and you love nuclear? So what!? Build both! Offshore wind doesn't get cheaper until we build lots of it (and learn to improve the process). Bite the bullet and recognize that we can't build enough nuclear power to get us to the finish line. The same goes for the rest.

[GliderGuider]

8. Almost right

You say,

"None of these technologies can get us to a decarbonized future anywhere nearly as quickly as all of them together can. "

That sentence can be dramatically improved in its probable truth value, by shortening it:

"None of these technologies can get us to a decarbonized future."

The reason they can't is that their energy is (so far) addititive to the 87% base provided by fossil fuels. The only way our future can be decarbonized is by reducing fossil fuel consumption, not by adding other energy to it.

[FBaggins]

9. You've confused two different discussions

We can table the malthusian "we need to return to tents by Friday or we're all dead" spin on the conversation and return to the simple fact that we don't get to a decarbonized future until we produce LOTS more carbon-free (or essentially carbon-free if you insist) power.

The total amount consumed might be less than what we currently consume... but we don't turn off coal/gas until something else can handle whatever the final load is.

[GliderGuider]

10. I know. It's just that unless my issue gets resolved, yours is irrelevant.

If the final load keeps growing as fast or faster than we're putting in low-carbon sources or any or all sorts, we're running the Red Queen's race. That's what's happening, and I've seen nothing but statements of faith that it's going to change in the next 30 years.

I have no idea when or if "we're all dead", I'm just saying that expecting to decarbonize a global economy by adding low-carbon sources to the margins of a world that's running on fossil fuels is a pipe dream - no matter whether the sources are wind or nuclear.

[bananas]

7. Nope - nuclear isn't needed at all.

In fighting against the Republican War on Science, some of the talking points you hear:
1. Global warming isn't real.
2. It would be too expensive to stop anyway.
3. It can't be stopped without nuclear energy.
4. It would be too expensive to stop without nuclear energy.

None of those are true, and a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences disproves those last two.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/pifc-rnp092812.php

Public release date: 1-Oct-2012
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Restricting nuclear power has little effect on the cost of climate policies

Incremental costs due to policy options restricting the use of nuclear power do not significantly increase the cost of even stringent greenhouse-gas emissions reductions

"Questions have been raised if restricting nuclear energy – an option considered by some countries after the accident in Fukushima, Japan – combined with climate policies might get extremely expensive. Our study is a first assessment of the consequences of a broad range of combinations of climate and nuclear policies," lead author Nico Bauer says. Restrictions on nuclear power could be political decisions, but also regulations imposed by safety authorities. Power generation capacities would have to be replaced, but fossil fuels would become costly due to a price on CO2 emissions, this in sum is the main concern.

<snip>

For their study, the scientists looked into different nuclear power policies. These cover a range of scenarios from "Renaissance", with a full utilization of existing power plants, a possible refurbishment for a lifetime expansion and investments in new nuclear power capacities, to "Full exit", with a decommissioning of existing power plants and no new investments. They contrasted each scenario with climate policies implemented via an inter-temporal global carbon budget which puts a price on carbon emissions. For the budget, the cumulative CO2 emissions from the global energy sector were limited to 300 gigatons of carbon from 2005 until the end of the century. This represents a climate mitigation policy consistent with the target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

"A surprising result of our study is the rather little difference between a 'Renaissance' or a 'Full exit' of nuclear power in combination with a carbon budget when it comes to GDP losses," Bauer says. While the 'no policy case' with a nuclear phase-out and no carbon budget has only negligible effect on global GDP, the imposition of a carbon budget with no restrictions on nuclear policy implies a reduction of GDP that reaches 2.1 percent in 2050. The additional phase-out of nuclear power increases this loss by about 0.2 percent in 2050 and hence has only little additional impact on the economy, because the contribution of nuclear power to the electricity generation can be substituted relatively easy by alternative technology options, including the earlier deployment of renewables.

###

Article: Bauer, N., Brecha, R.J., Luderer, G. (2012): Economics of nuclear power and climate change mitigation policies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition)

The paper is free at http://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/16805.abstract
(no longer paywalled)

The lead author has a critique and rebuttal on his webpage at http://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/nicolasb/

[bananas]

5. Nuclear has been in decline since 2006, and of declining importance since 1993.

Nuclear generation peaked in 2006,
and it's percentage of electricity generation peaked in 1993 at 17%,
declining to 11% of electricity generation in 2011.

Nuclear isn't scaling up, it's scaling down - and has been for a long time.

The Breakthrough Institute are cherry-picking with the intent to mislead.
And you fell for it.


http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status.html

[FBaggins]

6. Got anything that refutes what they're actually saying?

As opposed to some strawman?

They don't claim that current construction rates (which are substantial) exceed those of 40 years ago (and thus new development would exceed retirement)...

They're refuting the oft-repeated-here nonsense that renewables scale up faster than nuclear can.

Why don't you run that chart back to the 70s/80s and see how rapidly nuclear TWhs grew back then... then compare it to recent years' renewables growth?

But we both already know why... don't we?

Nuclear most definitely is "scaling up". It's just a question of at what point the new expansion exceeds the old expansion.

[joshcryer]

11. This result is sort of misleading. Brilliant seeming, I admit.

Sweden has 10 operating reactors. 6 of those were built between 1975-1986. In 1975 Sweden's population was 8.1 million. 1986? 8.3 million. Source.

A fully developed country. Low population growth. "Scaling" here is sort of absurd when looked at in these factors. If you say "for developed countries with low populations and following a nordic economic model, it scales tremendously" then you might be on to something. Belgium and France have had a similar population trend, and it's the same with their reactor development.

I still suppose the building of Gen IV reactors, but to say they "scale better than renewables" is clearly confined to certain circumstances.

Feed in tariffs, of course, I will say are an abject failure and the only way to really get the markets to adopt renewables in a sane way is full stop a carbon tax (or at the minimum a loophole free cap and trade, simple system; I'm still against it, because I know that the loopholes will be made, just like with other emissions). There's just no other way to get us there.