Oh. Oh. Nuclear shortage means ENORMOUS RISK FOR EVERYONE ON EARTH.

[NNadir]

Two days ago it was the anniversary of the discovery of the atomic nucleus (by the EVIL NASTY HORRIBLE MAN Ernest Rutherford.)

This discovery caused the ultimate death of everyone on earth from TMI (killed millions), Chernobyl (killed tens of millions) and Fukushima (killed everyone who survived Chernobyl and TMI).

Fuck Rutherford. Fuck Bohr. They were nowhere as noble as ignorant bloggers.


It would have been infinitely preferable to have existed in total nuclear ignorance, since ignorance of nuclear science is the BESTEST POSSIBLE THING EVER INVENTED OTHER THAN THE SOLAR CELLS THAT POWER EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD ON EARTH.

Now we're all going to die from plutonium because of the grand helium-3 shortage:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/helium-3-shortage-could-mean-nuke-detection-disaster/

Helium-3 is a side product from the decay of the tritium that wiped out Vermont, according to our anti-nukes. proving once and for all that fracking for gas is a better idea.

Humanity definitely deserves what it is going to get.

Wired has provided us with a picture of the results of the nuclear war that broke out when the nuclear "terraists" started after they found out we ain't go no helium-3.



As a true lover of ignorance, I'm kind of amused.

[druidity33]

1. It's just as ludicrous

as people declaring Nuclear Power is "completely safe".

:eyes:

[NNadir]

4. Nuclear Power need not be "completely safe" to be better than everything else.

Maybe over in the anti-nuke, anti-science set, they believe that dangerous fossil fuels are "completely safe," but no rational person would make the claim that any form of energy is "completely safe."

Last week, far more people were killed by weather events than by radiation sickness on the entire planet.

5000 people die every day from air pollution.

5000.

When I hear bull from anti-science types that only nuclear power need be "completely safe" and unless it is, everything else can kill at will, I understand completely why humanity is going to get what it deserves.

Have a nice day handing out shit on your "completely safe" computer.

[intaglio]

5. Interesting, no response to a fact based post

posted earlier. So I'll try again.

You claim it is "the anti-nuke, anti-science set" who claim that fossil fuels are completely safe. Well sorry to disillusion you but no-one in the anti-nuke and environmentalist lobby says anything of the sort. What is being said is that renewables are capable of replacing both nuclear and fossil fuel generation. In support of that they can quote GE. Do you think GE are talking out of their asses? You ignore this fact - you do know what that word means, I hope - and instead conduct arguments ad hominem accusing you opponents of being "anti-science". You do realise that environmentalism springs from science and the warnings it has delivered about (for example) DDT, fluorocarbon atmospheric damage and most lately anthropogenic global warming.

Those 5,000 deaths per day due to air pollution (that you quote with such satisfaction) have been recognised due to the efforts medical doctors and environmental scientists. You misuse your statistic ignoring the fact (careful, you need to understand that word) that these deaths are world wide not due to some single accident. The comparison you are attempting to draw is like comparing peanuts with serial killers; peanuts kill far more people than serial killers but no one is saying we have to live with serial killers.

Do you know how many people died of cancer last year or how many of that burden was due to radiation damage in the past? Do you know how many miscarriages of damaged foetuses occurred due to radiation damage? Do you know how many of the Fukushima workers will demonstrate damaged immune systems? Do not lie and say "none" because no-one has that knowledge only estimates, but estimates for deaths from Chernobyl alone go as high as half a million already. The Guardian Disputed deaths

Do you know how many of the residents evacuated from Miyagi prefecture will be allowed to return home? The answer there is none because of the irreversible damage to the water table as well as surface contamination. Do you know how many Japanese fishermen have lost their livelihoods due to the contamination of the sea near Fukushima? I don't know but it will be thousands; oh and don't moan that they can go elsewhere to fish, small fishermen are restricted to coastal waters spending at most 24 hours at sea.

No-one says nuclear power generation needs to be perfectly safe, people are just saying it should not exist because the long term dangers of such plants are insupportable.

All in all you have added another post to your tally of stupidity.

[PamW]

9. California Energy Commission study contradicts you.

What is being said is that renewables are capable of replacing both nuclear and fossil fuel generation.
=========================================

The California Energy Commission released a study that contradicts the contention that renewables are capable of totally replacing both nuclear and fossil fuels:

http://ccst.us/publications/2011/2011energy.pdf

The problem with renewables is that they are intermittent and not "dispatchable". That is you can't count on them to be able to deliver the amount of energy you demand. For example, land-based solar power doesn't work at night - and there's no getting around that. We do not have what the report calls ZELB - Zero Emission Load Balancing technology - a means of storing renewable generated energy so that it is available on demand. ( Pumped hydro is a ZELB technology - but the same environmentalists opposing nuclear also oppose more dams. ) Power from renewables has to be "firmed" with an energy source we can count on. The report cites natural gas as being able to "firm" renewable power. However,
the report states in one of the "key findings" on page 4 highlighted in bold:

If electric generation is predominantly intermittent renewable power, using natural gas to firm the power would likely result in greenhouse gas emissions that would alone would exceed the 2050 target for the entire economy.


Take a look at the long list of distinguished scientists and policy people that authored this study.

Renewables can't solve the problem alone.

PamW

[intaglio]

11. Yes they can, because renewables are not just PV

GE's prediction is actually rather conservative in that they are assuming no measurable increase in PV efficiency and only modest reductions in production cost as a result of economies of scale. Cost would be further reduced if PV installations received the same tax breaks as nuclear

The California report ignores current increases in flow battery capacity and flywheel storage. Please do not imply that all environmentalists are against dams, all are against fossil and nuclear and most recognise that some sacrifices will have to be made. It does surprise me that California made no real discussion of deep tidal/ocean current energy which is not an intermittent source.

[kristopher]

14. You will have to excuse Pam.

She doesn't seem to know that selective quoting to misrepresent the meaning of the original document is wrong. She did the same thing with a National Academy of Science study also.

[PamW]

20. It's a "key finding"

She doesn't seem to know that selective quoting to misrepresent the meaning of the original document is wrong. She did the same thing with a National Academy of Science study also.
============================

I'm NOT "selectively quoting". That is a "key finding". The AUTHORS of the report are calling that out as a "key finding". It is the authors that are saying, "This is an important conclusion".

Coincidentally, it was the same with the National Academy of Sciences report, the one that you refuse to look up because it contradicts your belief system.

PamW

[kristopher]

22. Pam you are relying on people being fools - they are not.

Your partial quote continues:
"Thus, development of a high percentage of intermittent resources would require concomitant development of zero-emisions load balancing (ZELB) to about these emissions and maintain system reliability. ZELB might be achieve with a combination of energy storage devices and smart-grid technology."


Now let's place that into the context of your original claim that the report contradicts the fact that "renewables are capable of totally replacing both nuclear and fossil fuels". The underlined section is the part you left out - and it makes your assertion false.

The California Energy Commission released a study that contradicts the contention that renewables are capable of totally replacing both nuclear and fossil fuels:

http://ccst.us/publications/2011/2011energy.pdf

The problem with renewables is that they are intermittent and not "dispatchable". That is you can't count on them to be able to deliver the amount of energy you demand. For example, land-based solar power doesn't work at night - and there's no getting around that. We do not have what the report calls ZELB - Zero Emission Load Balancing technology - a means of storing renewable generated energy so that it is available on demand. ( Pumped hydro is a ZELB technology - but the same environmentalists opposing nuclear also oppose more dams. ) Power from renewables has to be "firmed" with an energy source we can count on. The report cites natural gas as being able to "firm" renewable power. However,
the report states in one of the "key findings" on page 4 highlighted in bold:

If electric generation is predominantly intermittent renewable power, using natural gas to firm the power would likely result in greenhouse gas emissions that would alone would exceed the 2050 target for the entire economy. Thus, development of a high percentage of intermittent resources would require concomitant development of zero-emisions load balancing (ZELB) to about these emissions and maintain system reliability. ZELB might be achieved with a combination of energy storage devices and smart-grid technology.


Take a look at the long list of distinguished scientists and policy people that authored this study.

Renewables can't solve the problem alone.

All renewable plans build around the need for load balancing - as do nuclear and coal. There are a number of technologies that can fulfill this role and as the need becomes pronounced the economic opportunities for deploying these technologies will increase. Among them are the dispatchable renewables such as hydro, geothermal, biomass, and wave/current/tidal; and the storage mediums such as the batteries in an EV fleet, large scale stationary battteries, used batteries from the EV fleet, pumped hydro, rock batteries, ice batteries, hydrogen, and biofuels.
In no sense can this be construed as a refutation of the ability of renewables to replace coal and nuclear.


Last week the report from CCST was discussed. Here are my comments:

They have based much of their work on two propositions that are mutually exclusive:
The first assumption is that nuclear power can correct its economic problems via a large scale build-out of standardized reactor designs. For California alone they speak of one new reactor/year for 40 years.
The second is the claim that nuclear is a very low emissions technology with the assumption that it will continue in that state as it is scaled up.

There is significant evidence unaddressed in the CCST report which indicates that as nuclear ramps up, the grade of uranium fuel will decline, leading to significant increases in CO2e emissions. Switching to alternative fuel cycles that *might* keep emissions lower than that delivered by lower grades uranium ore would invalidate the economics and present a completely different set of serious external costs that would have to be evaluated.

There is also reason to believe the present day claims regarding the once through uranium fuel cycle GHGe emissions are suspect as valid data for a comparison of generating resource emissions.

Shrader-Frechette** examined claims usually encountered and found two common fallacies. The CCST paper is only guilty of one, but it is enough. Describing her own article, Shrader writes that those who argue for nuclear power based on the necessity to address climate change usually commit at least 2 errors. First they "trim" the GHGe data; and second they do not consider that the "climate-necessity argument" in relation to the merits of renewables which are better energy sources for avoiding GHG emissions.

In this paper CCST in fact did do a comparison with renewables, but we are concerned with the other issue - data trimming. Quoting Shrader,

The nuclear-fuel cycle has 13 stages:
(1) uranium mining,
(2) milling,
(3) conversion to uranium hexafluoride (UF6),
(4) enriching UF6,
(5) fuel fabrication,
(6) reactor construction,
(7) reactor operation,
(8) waste-fuel processing,
(9) fuel conditioning,
(10) interim waste storage,
(11) waste transport,
(12) permanent storage, and
(13) reactor decommissioning and uranium-mine reclamation. When proponents of the climate-necessity argument claim nuclear energy is "carbon free," they err by trimming GHGE data. Even under optimum conditions, only one or two nuclear-fuel-cycle stages — often #(7) — is carbon free...

That paragraph continues with Shrader reviewing the studies available on the topic:

...If one excludes all fuel-lifecycle GHGE analyses that rely on secondary sources, are unpublished, or fail to explain GHGE estimation/calculation methods, 103 fuel-lifecycle, GHGE analyses remain. These calculate nuclear-fuel-cycle GHGE ranging from 1.4 to 288 g carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions per kWh of electricity (gCO2/kWh). Nuclear-industry studies give total GHGE as 1.4 g but consider only one/two nuclear-fuel-cycle stages. Environmental groups give total GHGE as 288 g but appear to double-count some emissions. The mean total GHGE calculated by these 103 studies is 66 gCO2/kWh—roughly what independent university scientists (funded by neither industry nor environmentalists), at places like Columbia, Oxford, and Singapore, calculate <13–15>. These university analyses use current, refereed, published, empirical data on facilities’ lifetime, efficiency, enrichment methods, plant type, fuel grade, and so on. Their calculations (fairly consistent across universities), show the COAL:COMBINED-CYCLE NATURAL GAS:NUCLEAR:SOLAR PV:WIND ratio—for mean, fuel-lifecycle GHGE—is 1010:443:66:32 —a ratio of 112 coal : 49 gas : 7 nuclear : 4 solar : 1 wind. If reasonably correct, these calculations show nuclear emits about 16 times fewer GHG than coal; about 2 times more than solar; and about 7 times more than wind <5>.

Shrader identifies the Kyoto Protocol language as a root source of trimmed data, and since the CCST uses the IPCC for emissions data, the argument used by CCST seems to be based on what Shrader identifies as a "fallacy of composistion" where the CO2e emissions in 1 or 2 stages are accepted as an accurate proxy for the entire, 13 stage fuel cycle;

Because climate-necessity proponents fail to count most nuclear emissions, they commit a fallacy of composition, making an invalid inference from GHGE in 1–2, to all 13, nuclear-fuel-cycle stages. Trimming these data however, may arise partly from Kyoto-Protocol conventions. These conventions assess carbon content in nuclear fuels at their consumption-point (electricity generation) and hence ignore fuel-cycle carbon content.

She identifies another are where data trimming occurs, which is the one related to uranium ore quality I mention at the beginning of this response.

Even when they consider GHGE from most nuclear-fuel-cycle stages, climate-necessity proponents typically trim nuclear-GHGE data through unrealistic assumptions, e.g., considering only nuclear-GHGE associated with higher-grade, not lower-grade, uranium ores. Yet cleaner, higher-grade ores are nearly gone. Nuclear-fuel cycles using ten-times-less-concentrated ore (\0.01 percent yellow- cake) have total GHGE equal roughly to those for natural-gas-fuel cycles; all other things being equal, lower-grade-uranium-ore nuclear cycles release 12 times more GHGE than solar cycles, and 49 times more than wind cycles. Some scientists even claim that low-grade-uranium-ore cycles could require more energy than they produce.

Shrader's conclusion is "Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them."


**Sci Eng Ethics (2009) 15:19–23 DOI 10.1007/s11948-008-9097-y
Data Trimming, Nuclear Emissions, and Climate Change
Kristin Sharon Shrader-Frechette

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=295868&mesg_id=295883

[PamW]

26. I'm NOT counting on people being fools....

I'm NOT counting on people being fools. I can only count on ONE person here being a fool.

I quoted the part of the report that was in bold. You are the one that is being dishonest in your citation. Your post immediately above includes the continuation in bold. That part is NOT in bold in the report. Scholarly honesty would require that YOU add a disclaimer such as "emphasis added" because the emphasis is yours and not the authors.

As far as ZELB technology, if you care to go back to my earlier post, I prefaced my quoting of the report with a comment on ZELB technology. As the report states, we don't have technology at present for practical implementation of renewables with ZELB, firming with gas would be required.

You have a damn BIASED anti-nuke professor in Shrader-Frechette. I've read some of her work and it is clear that she is ignorant of much of the science. I'll give a more complete analysis of her biases and errors in a later post - too voluminous for the time I have now. However, you're wasting your time quoting her to me. It's funny how biased people quote other like-minded biased people and think they are bolstering their case.

But keep up the good work wasting bandwidth.

PamW

[kristopher]

27. You lied about what the report said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=296568&mesg_id=296711

[jpak]

34. Yes you are

and you are not very good at it

:rofl:

[PamW]

40. Kris and jpak

The report is quite clear and I characterized it properly.

I cited the part the report highlights, and supplied a link for all to read the full context.

The report is clear that a 100% renewable portfolio would need to be "firmed" because of the intermittent nature of renewable sources of electric power. Ideally, they would be firmed with something the report calls ZELB - Zero Emission Load Balancing. However, as the report also states, we do not have ZELB technology. I pointed out that the closest thing there is to ZELB technology is pumped hydro - but as the report also states, that is limited by geography and no doubt the same so-called "environmentalists" that oppose nuclear, also oppose the construction of dams. In fact, they want to get rid of some that we have, and not build new ones.

Without ZELB technology, the most benign way of firming the power postulated by the study was to use natural gas. They point out though that doing so would totally blow the 2050 limits they were attempting to meet.

PamW

[kristopher]

43. You made an explicit statement that falsely characterized the study's findings

YOU wrote: "The California Energy Commission released a study that contradicts the contention that renewables are capable of totally replacing both nuclear and fossil fuels"

You then cherry picked a short passage in the paper that appears to support your statement while omitting the context which made it very clear that YOUR EXPLICIT STATEMENT was false.

Your quote:
"If electric generation is predominantly intermittent renewable power, using natural gas to firm the power would likely result in greenhouse gas emissions that would alone would exceed the 2050 target for the entire economy."

Next sentence that was omitted:
"Thus, development of a high percentage of intermittent resources would require concomitant development of zero-emisions load balancing (ZELB) to avoid these emissions and maintain system reliability. ZELB might be achieved with a combination of energy storage devices and smart-grid technology."

That can be construed as nothing but a deliberate effort to deceive. It is precisely the method of falsifying data you used when you misrepresented the findings of the National Academy of Sciences report on Renewables. You said that their report found that renewables COULD NOT provide more than 20% of our electricity, when in fact the report stated that "to provide more than 20% we must..."

ETA: You've also falsely characterized the capabilities of present ZELB technologies. See my post upthread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=296568&mesg_id=296711 for a more complete discussion, but this is the heart:
"All renewable plans build around the need for load balancing - as do nuclear and coal. There are a number of technologies that can fulfill this role and as the need becomes pronounced the economic opportunities for deploying these technologies will increase. Among them are the dispatchable renewables such as hydro, geothermal, biomass, and wave/current/tidal; and the storage mediums such as the batteries in an EV fleet, large scale stationary battteries, used batteries from the EV fleet, pumped hydro, rock batteries, ice batteries, hydrogen, and biofuels.
In no sense can this (The statement about the need for ZELB) be construed as a refutation of the ability of renewables to replace coal and nuclear. <end edit>

You simply do not care about making false claims and presenting them as conclusions from reputable papers. This is another trait you share with Dr. Greg (who also claimed to be an MIT nuclear physics grad). Is that how they teach you to do science there?

[PamW]

21. I hardly think that the eminent panel ignored batteries and flywheels.

The California report ignores current increases in flow battery capacity and flywheel storage.
====================================

I hardly think that the eminent panel of scientists ignored batteries and flywheels. They surely know about them.

However, let's consider what it takes to replace a standard 1 Gwe electric power plant. Solar power, for example, operates on a 25% duty cycle. That is, you don't get any power for the 50% of the day that is night, and the first few hours of the morning and the last few hours of the afternoon, the Sun's angle to the Earth is such that you get very little power then. The bulk of a solar power plant's energy is harvested in a 6 hour period centered on the local noon. Since this 6 hours is only 25% of the day, the solar power plant has to have a storage capacity of about 75% of its daily output.

How much energy does a single 1 Gwe electric power plant put out in a day? That's easy, It puts out, by definition, 1 Gwe-day of energy. ( The product of a power and a time is always a unit of energy. ) So how much is that? If you do the conversion, 1 Gwe-day is about 20 kilotons or about equal to the energy of the nuclear bomb that the USA dropped on Nagasaki.

Now from the previous paragraph, a solar plant has to be able to store 75% of its daily output, which would be 75% of 20 kilotons or 15 kilotons, which is about the energy of the nuclear bomb that the USA dropped on Hiroshima.

So your solar power plant has a building full of flywheels, and those spinning flywheels are storing 15 kilotons of energy. What happens if an airliner crashes into that building, or terrorists blow it up? You have 15 kilotons of energy stored in flywheels, and that energy is not going to simply go away when the flywheels are damaged. No - that energy will be turned into heat.

So you have 15 kilotons worth of heat energy being dumped into the atmosphere at your local solar power plant. Dumping 15 kilotons worth of heat energy into the atmosphere is precisely what the "Little Boy" bomb did in the atmosphere above Hiroshima, and you know the result.

PamW

[kristopher]

25. You desperately need this

Your "example" is refuted in the paper on wind energy myths.

Energy Information for Beginners to Address Myths About Wind and Solar

In this discussion what is important to know about a watt?

If you have a 100 watt light, it uses 100 watts of electricity, right? But what is the "kilowatthour" or "kwh" on your electric bill?

This is a discussion in its own right. One of the best sites I've found for a quick introduction to basic electric terms every consumer needs can be found here. If you aren't cler on the difference between a watt and a watthour, then go here first:

How much electricity costs, and how they charge you

What the heck is a kilowatt hour?

Before we see how much electricity costs, we have to understand how it's measured. When you buy gas they charge you by the gallon. When you buy electricity they charge you by the kilowatt-hour (kWh). When you use 1000 watts for 1 hour, that's a kilowatt-hour...

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html

When we talk about electricity at the national level, the units are larger:

1 GigaWatt (GW) = 1,000 MegaWatts (MW) = 1,000,000 KiloWatts (KW) = 1,000,000,000 Watts.

If a generator or solar array produces 1000 watts, that means at that instant there are "1000 watts" of electricity coming out of the unit (remember this "instant" term). If that rate continues for 1 hour, it has produced "1000 watt hours" or "1 kwh" of electricity, which is how the power companies sell their product. The unit on your residential bill will be the "kilowatt hour" (kwh). (see Micheal Bluejay’s site above if this isn’t clear)

A solar factory (or solar manufacturing facility) or wind turbine manufacturing plant can produce a maximum number of solar panels or wind turbines each year. Let's say one factory can produce enough turbines or panels to produce a total of 1 GW of "instant" power when they are all online, then that factory has a capacity of 1GW/year. Each GW of turbines or panels it produces is added to all previously installed generators to boost the "installed capacity" that is feeding into the grid.

A factory can produce at its capacity for as long as it makes economic sense for it to continue to operate, and each of the wind turbines or solar panels they make will, once installed, produce electricity for 20+ years for wind turbines and 30+ years for solar panels.

If a factory produces 1 GW for 20 years it will produce 20GW of installed capacity, if the factory produces for 40 years it will produce 40GW of installed capacity.

This is different than a conventional coal, nuclear or natural gas plant where it takes between 2 years (natgas) 12+ years (nuclear) to construct each facility for generating electricity. The amount of time devoted to constructing a thermal generating plant is rewarded with the ability to produce electricity any time, day or night no matter the weather. This characteristic of “dispatchability” is the core of how our electric system has developed over time, and is often referred to inappropriately as “baseload” power when critics of renewables point to the variability inherent to the most prominent renewable energy sources



Renewable energy myths promoted daily by the coal/nuclear industry

Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 EEE Power and Energy Magazine Master Serie

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

Questions addressed:
Can Grid Operators Deal with the Continually Changing Output of Wind Generation?
Does Wind Have Capacity Credit?
How Often Does the Wind Stop Blowing Everywhere at the Same Time?
Isn’t It Very Difficult to Predict Wind Power?
Isn’t It Very Expensive to Integrate Wind?
Doesn’t Wind Power Need New Transmission, and Won’t That Make Wind Expensive?
Doesn’t Wind Power Need Backup Generation? Isn’t More Fossil Fuel Burned with Wind Than Without, Due to Backup Requirements?
Does Wind Need Storage?
Isn’t All the Existing Flexibility Already Used Up?
Is Wind Power as Good as Coal or Nuclear Even Though the Capacity Factor of Wind Power Is So Much Less?
Isn’t There a Limit to How Much Wind Can Be Accommodated by the Grid?

Wind Power Myths Debunked
Common Questions and Misconceptions

Introduction:
THE RAPID GROWTH OF WIND POWER IN THE UNITED STATES AND worldwide has resulted in increasing media attention to — and public awareness of — wind generation technology. Several misunderstandings and myths have arisen due to the characteristics of wind generation, particularly because wind-energy generation only occurs when the wind is blowing. Wind power is therefore not dispatchable like conventional energy sources and delivers a variable level of power depending on the wind speed. Wind is primarily an energy resource and not a capacity resource. Its primary value is to offset fuel consumption and the resulting emissions, including carbon. Only a relatively small fraction of wind energy is typically delivered during peak and high-risk time periods; therefore, wind generators have limited capacity value. This leads to concerns about the impacts of wind power on maintaining reliability and the balance between load and generation.

This article presents answers to commonly asked questions concerning wind power.
It begins by addressing the variability of wind and then discusses whether wind has capacity credit. The article addresses whether wind can stop blowing everywhere at once, the uncertainty of predicting wind generation, whether it is expensive to integrate wind power, the need for new transmission, and whether wind generation requires backup generation or dedicated energy storage. Finally, we discuss whether there is sufficient system flexibility to incorporate wind generation, whether coal is better than wind because coal has greater capacity factors, and whether there is a limit to how much wind power can be incorporated into the grid...

Summary
The natural variability of wind power makes it different from other generating technologies, which can give rise to questions about how wind power can be integrated into the grid successfully. This article aims to answer several important questions that can be raised with regard to wind power. Although wind is a variable resource, grid operators have experience with managing variability that comes from handling the variability of load. As a result, in many instances the power system is equipped to handle variability. Wind power is not expensive to integrate, nor does it require dedicated backup generation or storage. Developments in tools such as wind forecasting also aid in integrating wind power. Integrating wind can be aided by enlarging balancing areas and moving to subhourly sched- uling, which enable grid operators to access a deeper stack of generating resources and take advantage of the smooth- ing of wind output due to geographic diversity. Continued improvements in new conventional-generation technolo- gies and the emergence of demand response, smart grids, and new technologies such as plug-in hybrids will also help with wind integration.

Download this open access article free (normally this journal's articles are priced at $26 each) : http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

This source of information is as credible as can be found on these frequently misrepresented issues related to wind power.

List of authors:
Michael Milligan is a principal analyst with NREL, in Golden, Colorado.
Kevin Porter is a senior analyst with Exeter Associates Inc., in Columbia, Maryland.
Edgar DeMeo is president of Renewable Energy Consulting Services, in Palo Alto, California.
Paul Denholm is a senior energy analyst with NREL, in Golden, Colorado. Hannele Holttinen is a senior research scientist with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Brendan Kirby is a consultant for NREL, in Golden, Colorado.
Nicholas Miller is a director at General Electric, in Schenectady, New York.
Andrew Mills is a senior research associate with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, California.
Mark O’Malley is a professor, School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering of University College Dublin, in Ireland.
Matthew Schuerger is a principal consultant with Energy Systems Consulting Services LLC, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Lennart Soder is a professor of electric power systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, Sweden.

Again, you can download the entire open access report here: http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf





What about solar?

**In 2003, when the DOE solar pamphlet below was written, the US was the leader in PV - now we are 5th. Myth #2 identifies a target of 3.2 GWp of US manufacturing capacity as being needed to meet a US goal of 10% of electricity from solar by 2030. The /p/ in GWp refers to manufacturing production capacity.

However since the Republicans have successfully obstructed every policy that would have helped the industry grow here, global solar manufacturing capacity is now the number to look at. Global mfg capacity will reach about 45GWp this year with China's manufacturing capacity alone expected to hit 35GWp, even though they didn't start building solar panel factories until 2007.

To put that in perspective, if China's factories manufacture 35GWp of solar panels each year those panels will produce the equivalent electricity of about 7 or 8 large nuclear power plants. So in 12 years, the amount of now existing factory capacity (in China alone) will manufacture enough panels to equal the output of between 84 - 96 nuclear power plants. And the buildup of manufacturing is just getting started. Within ten years it is hoped/expected/thought that global solar manufacturing capacity will hit 1000GWp/year

(see the slideshow at this solar company website for a graph showing how increased manufacturing directly impacts the price of the electricity produced http://www.1366tech.com/

And before you say it can't be done, consider that in 2007, China wasn't involved in solar manufacturing and now, 4 years later they have 35GWp. After Fukushima, what do you think they are going to do?

Dept of Energy presents "Myths about Solar Electricity" Jan 2003

Myths about Solar Electricity

The area required for PV systems to supply the United States with its electricity is available now from parking lots, rooftops, and vacant land.

Solar electric systems are an important part of the whole-building approach to constructing a better home or commercial building. Although these systems have delivered clean, reliable power for more than a decade, several myths have evolved that confuse the real issues of using solar electricity effectively.

Myth #1
Solar electricity cannot contribute a significant fraction of the nation’s electricity needs.

Solar electric panels can meet electricity demand on any scale, from a single home to a large city. There is plenty of energy in the sunlight shining on all parts of our nation to generate the electricity we need. For example, with today’s commercial systems, the solar energy resource in a 100-by-100-mile area of Nevada could supply the United States with all of its electricity. If these systems were distributed to the 50 states, the land required from each state would be an area of about 17 by 17 miles. This area is available now from parking lots, rooftops, and vacant land. In fact, 90% of America’s current electricity needs could be supplied with solar electric systems built on the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation’s cities.

Myth #2 ** (see prequel note above added by K)
Solar electricity can do everything—right now!

Solar electricity will eventually contribute a significant part of our electricity supply, but the industry required to produce these systems must grow more than tenfold over the next 10 years. In 2001, about 400 megawatts of solar electric modules were produced worldwide. According to an industry-planning document, in order to supply just 10% of U.S. generation capacity by 2030, the U.S. solar electricity industry must supply more than 3,200 megawatts per year (3.2GWp). Most experts agree that with continued research, solar electric systems will become more efficient, even more reliable, and less expensive.

Myth #3
Producing solar electric systems creates pollution and uses more energy than the system can produce over its lifetime.
Producing solar electric systems uses energy and produces some unwanted byproducts. However, most solar electric systems pay back the energy used to produce them in about one year. Because the systems generally last 30 years, during the 30 years of a system's life, it is producing free and clean electricity for 29 of those years.

Production of solar electric systems is regulated by rigorous safety and pollution control standards. In addition, during the lifetime of a solar electric system, pollution that would have been emitted by conventional generation of electricity is avoided. For each kilowatt of solar electric generating capacity, the pollution avoided by not using fossil fuels to produce electricity amounts to 9 kilograms of sulfuric oxide, 16 kilograms of nitrous oxide, and between 600 and 2,300 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year. The annual amount of carbon dioxide offset by a 2.5-kW rooftop residential solar electric system is equal to that emitted by a typical family car during that same year.

Myth #4
Solar electric systems make sense in only a few applications.

Solar electric systems make sense nearly anywhere electricity is needed. Homes and businesses that are already using electricity from the utility, such as homes, businesses, and electric-vehicle charging stations, represent nearly 60% of the market for solar electric systems. The number of these grid-connected applications is growing because they make sense economically, environmentally, and aesthetically. Solar electric systems make economic sense because they use free fuel from the sun and require little upkeep because they have no moving parts. Every bit of electricity produced is used in the home or sold back to the electric utility for use by other customers. Solar electric systems also make sense for the environment and can blend seamlessly into the design of a building.


Myth #5
Solar electric systems are unreliable and produce substandard electricity.

Solar electric systems are some of the most reliable products available today. They are silent, have no moving parts, and have been tested to rigorous standards by public and private organizations. Many solar electric products have been tested and listed by Underwriters Laboratories, just as electrical appliances are. Warranties of 20-25 years are standard for most modules.

Solar electric systems connected to the utility grid generate the same kind of power as that from the power line. Today’s systems must meet the requirements of the National Electrical Code, the local utility, and local building codes. Once these systems are installed according to these requirements, the owner of a solar-electric-powered home has electricity of the same quality as any other utility customer.


Myth #6
It is difficult to make solar electric systems aesthetically pleasing and functional for homes and businesses.

The buildings shown here include solar electric systems serving dual functions: building structure and generation of electricity. These photos represent only a small sample of the beautiful, functional, and energy-efficient buildings being designed with solar electric components. (download for photos- link below)

In the future, people will reflect on our current solar electric technology much as we reflect on the technology of the Model T Ford: with admiration for the pioneering visionaries of the day and perhaps amusement at the technology that seems so primitive compared to what we now enjoy. Researchers believe that in the future, new physics and technologies will be developed that will greatly improve solar energy technology. As for the present day, clean, reliable solar electricity is increasingly popular with home and business owners, which helps to dispel the myths surrounding this technology.

Produced for the U.S. Department of Energy by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a DOE national laboratory
DOE/GO-102003-1671 January 2003

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/32529.pdf

[PamW]

42. GADS = you are "wordy"

If a generator or solar array produces 1000 watts, that means at that instant there are "1000 watts" of electricity coming out of the unit (remember this "instant" term).
====================

I'm a scientist remember. Just say that power is the derivative of energy with respect to time.

You don't have to go on and on and on and on for a paragraph or more to convey to me what power is.

As a scientist, I know a hell of lot more about energy than you do.

You are the one that needs all that blather and verbiage, and you evidently didn't understand much of it either.

PamW

[SpoonFed]

45. Epic. n/t

[kristopher]

46. Kick

[jpak]

35. Umm...PV panels operate on the diurnal curve of solar irradiance

Which in California approximates the daily electrical demand curve. Electrical demand falls greatly at after sunset - when batteries, flywheel storage systems, molten salt solar concentrating systems, biomass plants, pumped storage hydro-electric and wind turbines can take up the slack.

You also do not have a clue about flywheels systems and how they store energy.

And no real MIT trained PhD physicist that works at National Laboratory would ever concoct the stupid and ignorant anti-science delusion that a flywheel frequency regulation plant would blow up like the Hiroshima Bomb.

That is the dumbest thing I have ever read on DU.

Except for the original post.

yup

:rofl:

[PamW]

41. If you are so smart - then tell us what it WOULD DO!!

And no real MIT trained PhD physicist that works at National Laboratory would ever concoct the stupid and ignorant anti-science delusion that a flywheel frequency regulation plant would blow up like the Hiroshima Bomb.
======================================

If you are as smart as you "think" you are - then tell us what it would do.

The conditions are that you have 15 kilotons worth of energy stored in flywheels in a building.
That building is hit by a crashing airliner. The airliner damages a number of flywheels and knock them off their axes so that parts fly out and damage other flywheels. A chain reaction ensues that damages all the flywheels in the building.

Those flywheels were storing 15 kilotons of energy, and the principle of Conservation of Energy says that the energy contained in those flywheels is not just going to disappear and go away.

Flywheels are designed so that when they fail, the energy is dissipated as heat.

So, if you are so "smart", tell me where the 15 kilotons worth of energy goes??

PamW

[kristopher]

44. You are the one that made the false statement.

Your conclusion is wrong and you don't know why, is that the picture? Yet, you didn't present your conclusion as a speculation, you presented it as an established fact.

Now, go do about 10 minutes of google level research and see if you can find the answer.

PS> I do not even accept your setup as to the amount of energy involved. I haven't looked up specific applications and the size of units used for the niches filled by flywheels and I know that you haven't either. You just made up a bunch of bull and acted like you were discussing "science", which you were not. You were writing fiction.

[intaglio]

2. What a load of total nonsense you have posted.

There was and is nothing wrong with investigating the phenomena of radioactivity and theorising about it. What you, in your anger and blind adherence to nuclear power generation have done is to conflate research with with for profit exploitation.

No-one is attacking Rutherford or Bohr. There are no cries of "I told you so!" about Madame Curie and no declarations of hatred for Einstein. There are probably doubts about Fermi's original pile (which acted as a test bed for later enrichment reactors for the military) for but no-one has asked he be exhumed and subjected to a show trial. You, however seem to hate purely on the basis of bad science fiction, where nuclear power is the answer to everything. Despite this real scientists have always doubted the use of nuclear power for "peaceful" purposes because of the horrendous long term damage it does.

That's right, nuclear power is dangerous, not in the short term but in the long term. Radiation produces cancer - have you ever seen someone die of aggressive cancer? Radiation compromises the immune system. Radiation causes miscarriages, embryo reabsorbtion and severe deformities, the latter usually in later generations. Before you come back with the nonsense argument that coal does more damage I am not proposing a return to coal or gas or oil as sources for electrical generation nor am I belittling the terrible effects of unregulated coal burning power stations; nor yet do I minimise the dangers of fracking but I do agree with General f'n Electric.

That's right General Electric you know the guys who have more knowledge about power generation than you will ever have, given your prejudices. What do GE say? Only that Solar power will cost less than fossil or nuclear power in five years. You might wish to ignore that as the source is that terrible propagandist for green tech, Forbes - oh, sorry Forbes aren't.

You end by hiding a rather cowardly little message below the photographs, well all I can say is that I'm glad because if you truly love ignorance you must truly love your own OP

[Beam Me Up]

3. thank you n/t

[PamW]

10. General Electic prophecies aside....

It doesn't really matter who says solar power will be cheaper in the future - that is just a prediction. For the present, solar power is still expensive. When solar power is selling for a couple cents per kilowatt-hour at the bussbar, and is truly dispactable, i.e. available on demand; then you can say it's cheaper. But for now, cheap, and dispatchable solar power remains an unfulfilled pipe dream / fantasy for non-technical types.

Little anti-nukes sure do become "touchy" when their ill-founded beliefs are skewered so thoroughly.

PamW

[intaglio]

12. Ignoring your personal insult

The fact is that nuclear is too dangerous, which I would not have said 3 months ago. I used to support nuclear and used all of the arguments currently echoed mindlessly and endlessly by the worshipers of Cherenkov radiation.

If you want to claim that nuclear is safe, feel free; but don't expect the insurance market to cover the plant.

Mind you if you want to have unfulfilled pipe dreams there is nothing better than nuclear which is little more than a highly expensive than a tea-kettle capable of giving you cancer, aborting your children (miscarriages) and wrecking your immune system.

[PamW]

15. Why not - they already do.

If you want to claim that nuclear is safe, feel free; but don't expect the insurance market to cover the plant.
=====================

Why not - they already do. Evidently you're gullible enough to believe the anti-nuke propaganda that insurance companies won't insure nuclear plants. They do now, and the Price-Anderson Act requires that operators buy that insurance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

Power reactor licensees are required by the act to obtain the maximum amount of insurance against nuclear related incidents which is available in the insurance market (as of 2011, $375 million per plant). Any monetary claims that fall within this maximum amount are paid by the insurer(s). The Price-Anderson fund, which is financed by the reactor companies themselves, is then used to make up the difference.


My comment wasn't meant as an insult; just a statement of fact.

PamW

[intaglio]

17. Fact - I did not think that the US deformed the free market that way

Price Anderson does require plant to be insured, by a statutory insurance scheme that has nothing to do with the "free market". $375 million is not a great deal of money considering how high the claims against such plant can go - indeed it is so far from full coverage the operating companies have to have a back-up pot of money. Do you not find it strange that an act of Congress is required to force the power companies and the insurance industry to cover these dinosaurs?

Mind you nuclear has little to do with the "free market"; tax exemptions on state and national level are the rule in the US and national breaks and exemptions are state policy in France and the UK, (I don't know about other countries but I suspect that it is the same). In the UK subsidy is also given to individual power companies who purchase nuclear generated electricity and, like France and Japan, the state has to insure the plant.

Anti-nuke propaganda is funny because the real propaganda goes the other way. The cover-up of real excess cancers following Windscale in 1957 was real. The follow-up study examined only clean-up workers who still lived in the area and who had been issued with protective gear; it ignored local people who were not protected at the time of the release. Leukemia, thyroid cancer, sarcoma and breast cancer have all been reported as clustering in the area as has the incidence of low level genetic abnormalities and miscarriage.

TMI studies have been strongly criticised but I will leave you to confirm you prejudices when you select your further reading. Let me just note the leukemia, historically low in the counties surrounding TMI despite radon contamination, has shown some rather odd peaks in those counties since TMI.

Chernobyl is the killer, literally, at present there are no reliable estimates of how many excess death there have been but the guesses run from 1000 to 100,000. What the eventual total will be is an even bigger guess.

Using ignorance and weighted studies is but one form of the propaganda used about the nuclear industry - you remember the "too cheap to meter" line? Propaganda. Claiming the plants are environmentally sound is also propaganda; once you ignore the set up environmental costs; downplay the costs of obtaining the fuel, the "we can used decommissioned bombs" line; ignore the environmental cost of decommissioning, the continual burden of of fuel safety and cooling following decommission, the costs associated with more than 10,000 year secure storage of high level waste and hundred year secure storage of medium level waste and you can certainly claim that nuclear plants are "green", you'd be lying - but you can claim it.

The world is not even using the safest type of nuclear plant, the thorium cycle offers many advantages including the possibility (not yet proven) of a fail safe reactor.

Look at Fukushima, the reactors did not fail safe - even before the tsunami hit reactor 1 was in meltdown with probable pressure vessel and containment failure. One other reactor was probably beginning melt down before the tsunami. Fuel pool damage and leakage also began with the quake and was exacerbated by the later hydrogen explosions as was the failure of containment in, at least, reactor 2.

Now examine the history of nuclear plant, despite their comparative rarity there have been many accidents yet even one can be too many for the innocent victims. Ignore if you must the health effects and consider emotional and economic victims. Ukrainians who have lost their homes (to what the nuclear industry would like you to think of as a wildlife park) and the people of Japan who have similarly lost homes and livelihoods. Consider the Lapps who lost the income their reindeer herds gave them and the hill farmers in Wales, Scotland and Cumbria. Think of the farms that will lie fallow, lost for decades or possibly centuries. Think of the fishing grounds and the shellfish and seaweed beds that will not support the people who used to work them.

You will deny all of this, you will claim that even the authoritarian governments are victims of "anti-nuke propaganda", you might even claim that radiation in small doses is good for you. I will admit I was a fool but at least I know that is what I was.

[PamW]

19. ..another ERROR - RIDDLED DIATRIBE...

"Do you not find it strange that an act of Congress is required to force the power companies and the insurance industry to cover these dinosaurs?"

It's not strange in the slightest that Congress passes such a law. It's called regulation. Are you so ill-informed as to think that we don't have similar laws for the airline industry, for example? Nuclear power is by no-means unique in that the regulations force it to have insurance.

How do you think Governments regulate major industries? Do you think that Governments just trust major industries to have the needed insurance? That would be nothing short of naive and childish.

"...France and Japan, the state has to insure the plant."

Well DUH - in France the State OWNS the plant; so of course they have to insure it.
EDF is the State-owned power company.


"you remember the "too cheap to meter" line"

Which was never said by anyone in the nuclear industry. That quote is attributed to a Government official, namely Lewis Strauss, AEC Chairman. At the time he was referring to nuclear FUSION.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter

It is often (understandably but erroneously) assumed that Strauss' prediction was a reference to conventional uranium fission nuclear reactors...However, Strauss was actually referring to hydrogen fusion power and Project Sherwood, which was conducting secret research on developing practical fusion power plants.


"The cover-up of real excess cancers following Windscale in 1957 was real."

Windscale didn't have anything to do with nuclear power. The twin Windscale reactors were production reactors that produced, not power, but materials for the UK's nuclear weapons program. Why the little anti-nukes keep confusing nuclear power and nuclear weapons is a mystery.

I could go on skewering this WORTHLESS, ERROR-RIDDLED diatribe.

PamW

[intaglio]

23. So no answers then

You ignore the necessity of the regulation - i.e. forcing the insurers and the nuclear industry to have a figleaf of coverage and forcing the nuclear industry to put even more money into a sinking fund.

EDF is partly state owned, I know they supply much of the electricity to Cornwall, but even state industries purchase insurance on the open market - but only if the open market can be persuaded to supply it, which they cannot.

I did not say that the "too cheap to meter" line was from a power company, just that it was propaganda in favour of the nuclear industry - which it was.

Nuclear piles for "research purposes" the official line regarding Windscal. Does it matter one iota what type of reactor produced the radiation, when the point raised was regarding the cover-up of illness and death caused by radiation?

By the way don't shout, you'll ruin your caps lock and get spittle all over the keyboard.

[PamW]

24. No answers to someone who doesn't listen...

I did not say that the "too cheap to meter" line was from a power company, just that it was propaganda in favour of the nuclear industry - which it was.

Nuclear piles for "research purposes" the official line regarding Windscal. Does it matter one iota what type of reactor produced the radiation, when the point raised was regarding the cover-up of illness and death caused by radiation?

By the way don't shout, you'll ruin your caps lock and get spittle all over the keyboard.
=======================================

First, I don't recognize the SILLY convention that caps are shouting. I'm from the old school where caps meant EMPHASIS!!

Evidently you didn't understand the section on the "too cheap to meter" comment. Strauss made that comment with regard to Project Sherwood - a nuclear fusion project. There's no fusion industry as of yet.

Yes - it does matter what type of reactor. What happened back in 1957 happened then and there's nothing one can do about it. The only question is there something to be applied from those events today. The answer is no. It wasn't the industry that covered up Windscale. It was her Majesty's Government. Therefore, the nuclear industry did no wrong then. Therefore, there's zero need to hold anything against the commercial industry now.

PamW

[intaglio]

29. So now fusion would not be nuclear power?

And the later continued use of that line by the nuclear industry and politicians doesn't count because someone else used the line first. In any event it matters little because I only picked it as a well known example of the propaganda used by the industry and its government backers. If you want a more modern attempt at propaganda there is the report from the NYT on the efforts to have nuclear power classified as renewable. It failed

In the same way as the origin of a propaganda line, by your lights, affects whether it is propaganda or not; the owners of a source of contamination, in your world, makes all the difference about the health effects of radioactive contamination. This nonsense allows you to claim that because the nuclear pile at Windscale was a government run research initiative, the radiation effects and their subsequent cover-up cannot be compared to commercial releases and cover-ups.

In relation to caps lock, I don't know where you heard that it was for emphasis because when I learnt all caps were for titles; underline and alternate colour were for emphasis. Anyway it is pleasant to see you can follow the modern convention of using bold foe emphasis.

[PamW]

39. You're not as old as I am

his nonsense allows you to claim that because the nuclear pile at Windscale was a government run research initiative, the radiation effects and their subsequent cover-up cannot be compared to commercial releases and cover-ups.

In relation to caps lock, I don't know where you heard that it was for emphasis because when I learnt all caps were for titles; underline and alternate colour were for emphasis. Anyway it is pleasant to see you can follow the modern convention of using bold foe emphasis.
===========================

Evidently you don't know your history. Caps lock was used for emphasis back in the days when we had typewriters. There wasn't any bold html tags. Those are the days that I learned to type in and I think caps are perfectly OK as a way of expressing emphasis. I know how to use the html tags, but the shift key is so much more convenient.

Evidently you also don't parse the English language very well. It doesn't have to do with ownership, it has to do with past behavior. You have the British Government covering up their spill of radioactive material. Now you want to fault the commercial industry just because they have similar material. It's not the ownership of the material, it is who covered up in the past. The commercial industry didn't cover up Windscale, therefore, it is inappropriate to blame them for that cover-up.,

PamW

[madokie]

30. Spittle pretty much says it all

[jpak]

38. PPam!

:rofl:

[jpak]

37. The cost of PV modules has dropped dramatically over the last 30 years and will keep on dropping

and nuclear power still sucks

yup

[Fledermaus]

6. Obvious fear mongering!

[neverforget]

7. nuke supporters sure are having a hard time lately as is evidenced in

this post of frustration

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[intaglio]

13. Are you really so foolish?

The final death toll from any nuclear plant will not be known for centuries - because that is how long they will keep killing.

[ZombieHorde]

16. Wow, almost every sentence is fallacious.

The only non-fallacious sentences are the fragmented ones.

This just might be a record for DU OPs.

[meow mix]

18. also amused to watch your holy religion come crashing down

:rofl:

[Eagle Mall]

28. Despite your weak attempts at Propaganda, the Nuclear Industry is inevitably doomed

How do you like them apples?

[kestrel91316]

31. Well, shit. I though Fukushima had finally shut you up.

[Taverner]

32. Could someone translate this for clarity?

I just see a bunch of sentences and sentence fragments connected by exclamation points and the word 'fuck.'

Not that I have a problem with the word 'fuck.'

It's a fucking fine fuckall of a fucking word, fucking A!

[jpak]

36. meds - or lack thereof

yup

[jpak]

33. "tritium that wiped out Vermont, according to our anti-nukes" - you made that up

just like the NJ molten salt breeder reactor

yup

:rofl: