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Thread re-opened after cleanup of a PMM discussion.
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Two firms said they were willing to build offshore wind farms for a subsidy of £57.50 per megawatt hour for 2022-23.
This compares with the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant securing subsidies of £92.50 per megawatt hour.
More than one million people per year die from pollution from coal power plants alone. That is not "most", but it is a notable fraction (~2-3%) of all deaths, and one we could avoid quite easily.Clark Magnuson said:But the scare in college was that by the year 2000, most people would by dying of pollution. I think we averted that.
Checking live generation (2pm EST), percent CF wind:rootone said:Right now there is a large anticyclone sitting in the North Atlantic,
Minimal wind is expected for several days in most of Europe.
I think I linked it a few times in this thread already:OCR said:Where did you find those statistics ?
Oh, no... the question wasn't intended as a rebuttal...mfb said:I think I linked it a few times in this thread already:
mfb said:Call it 1 million if you think "more than 1 million" is too high.
It always makes me smile when someone states «It would be easy». If it were, it would be done already.mfb said:More than one million people per year die from pollution from coal power plants alone. That is not "most", but it is a notable fraction (~2-3%) of all deaths, and one we could avoid quite easily.
It seems that other people look at other factors than death toll, which is probably why it's not such an easy decision:mfb said:If all these coal power plants would be replaced by nuclear power plants with the historic average death toll, the number would go down to 900 per year, and if we use US standards everywhere it goes down to 1 per year.
Need not be, but why not? France has been 80% nuclear. Another 20% load following nuclear is possible, if inefficient.jack action said:cannot be all nuclear).
High national shares of clean power have been done already, multiple times. France, Switzerland, Ontario. These are the only non hydro examples of large decarbonized power grids. Nothing else comes anywhere close.jack action said:would be done already.
A court in western http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/germany.htm says an ancient forest near the Belgian border can be chopped down to make way for a coal strip mine
So, right, it depends on what one means by "easy". It is easy from an economic and technical perspective (considering the fact that it has been done, by France), which is what matters to me. It is extremely difficult from a political will perspective.jack action said:It always makes me smile when someone states «It would be easy». If it were, it would be done already.
It seems that other people look at other factors than death toll, which is probably why it's not such an easy decision:...
I'm not saying I'm against nuclear, I'm just saying I don't believe it is «easy».
Unfortunately many media outlets and journalists encourage the notion, that sporadic RE does provide a path.russ_watters said:What annoys me most is that the most of the same people who oppose nuclear are supposedly environmentally conscious, yet their plans do not contain a pathway to a clean grid. So no matter how hard one thinks nuclear is, it is much easier than other options that are in essence impossible
Clean Break: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation and What Americans Can Learn from It
I'm working on a reboot of this thread, and while doing it I fantasized about writing a book on the subject. So I looked into what was already out there. Most is of course advocacy driven, not problem/solution driven. But I did find a great one: "Energy for Future Presidents":mheslep said:Unfortunately many media outlets and journalists encourage the notion, that sporadic RE does provide a path.
If it's such a good a example, how come it's the only one? There must be something missing if there are not that many followers. China is developing at an incredible rate and tries to show they're the best by using the latest technologies all the time, how come nuclear power will be only 4% by 2020 of the total electricity production in China while renewables will be 16%? (Again, these are questions, not arguments.)mheslep said:Need not be, but why not? France has been 80% nuclear. Another 20% load following nuclear is possible, if inefficient.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/09/why-nuclear-energy-may-not-be-our-best-alternative-option-to-fossil-fuel/#75f1b7e875d0 said:France built expensive follow-the-load nuclear which basically wastes all of the generated heat without generating electricity. As France’s new President Macron has said, he used to run that ministry and even he doesn’t know how much they spent on nuclear or how much it costs.
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-costs-us-france-korea said:To be fair, France hasn't totally solved the cost problem. Areva's newest generation of massive EPR reactors have recently been plagued by delays and budget overruns in France, Finland, and Britain. And some French politicians are now calling for a partial shift away from nuclear.
What did you think about the article Why Nuclear Energy May Not Be Our Best Alternative Option To Fossil Fuel, which is pretty recent? The author is obliviously biased toward renewable energy, but some points might look pertinent.russ_watters said:So no matter how hard one thinks nuclear is, it is much easier than other options that are in essence impossible.
Is that realistic? Because 80% renewable sounds better than 80% nuclear. If that is the case, why waste valuable resources (time and money) on nuclear? If I was a politician, I would have difficulty turning the whole country nuclear (which is cost-effective only in the long run), while just as we finished the transformation, we have to redo it again with renewable technologies. It doesn't sound like an «easy» decision to make based on the pleas that are made right now. (Again, these are questions, not arguments.)https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/09/why-nuclear-energy-may-not-be-our-best-alternative-option-to-fossil-fuel/#75f1b7e875d0 said:The big kerfuffle recently about whether we can get to 100% renewables by 2050 or not was very interesting for one reason. Everyone involved agreed we could easily get to 80%. The question was how hard the last 20% would be.
Not everything that is easy is done. You need someone with the will to do something.jack action said:It always makes me smile when someone states «It would be easy». If it were, it would be done already.
That is true for all renewables as well, construction and installation are the largest part of the cost.jack action said:Nuclear cost might be low over time, but it must be mostly paid in advance (construction)
A great luxury problem to have.jack action said:The best way to use nuclear cost-effectively is to choose one standard, one method, one technology and stick to it: Which one should we choose? That will never be an easy decision to make, especially if we think globally;
You don't actively have to invest money into nuclear power. Unlike renewable energies, which need hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to be installed at more than a few selected places.jack action said:
- The more money we invest in nuclear now, the less there is for renewable energy solutions (or even energy efficiency);
It is checked what happens with the material.
- Nuclear waste facilitate building nuclear weapons;
This is a different "easy" here, because it would come with significantly increased cost.forbes opinion piece said:Everyone involved agreed we could easily get to 80%.
There are others, Ontario, Switzerland, Sweden, though I agree nuclear is not expanding quickly. Since the existence of high share nuclear shows it *can* be done, I contend the most likely reason it is not done more often is political opposition. The two largest opponents, IMO, are fossil fuel groups and several of the more misanthropic environmental groups.jack action said:If it's such a good a example, how come it's the only one?
Cough cough.jack action said:Nuclear cost might be low over time, but it must be mostly paid in advance (construction); That is the worst kind of spending because if you make a mistake, you loose a lot;
jack action said:What did you think about the article Why Nuclear Energy May Not Be Our Best Alternative Option To Fossil Fuel, which is pretty recent?
Freudian slip?...The author is obliviously biased...
That is an oddly specific number. At 80% they just cost 12% more, at 70% just 28% more, small differences compared to the range of costs discussed.gmax137 said:I think he takes it too far, though, when he says the nuclear units are uneconomic at anything less than 90% capacity factor.
I think it's safe to say that the actual 'practical economics' can't really handle any matter which has a relevant timespan above 20-30 years.gmax137 said:The economics gets tricky I think, for units that may run for 80 years.
Just an objective observation after checking out how the author also answered other questions on Quora. Who is answering and the words chosen are good indicators of the quality of the response. That is why I get suspicious when someone uses words such as «It's easy». Doesn't mean they're wrong, but such comments need to be challenged.gmax137 said:Freudian slip?
The uranium ore has been dangerous for hundreds of millions to billions of years, and it stayed where it was for that time with very low leakage rates (otherwise it would be gone by now). We know where uranium ores are, even without previous written records. And we understand the long-term behavior of these sites.jack action said:Not an expert on the subject, but I cannot believe that disposing safely of a waste that can be dangerous to life for centuries is easy. I can't imagine that in a few hundred years, everyone will know where are all of those sites. I can't imagine that we understand fully the long time effect of those sites
mfb said:Anyway, I'm a fan of transmutation, ideally accelerator-driven.
jack action said:Just an objective observation
jack action said:The author is obliviously biased
I didn't get that at all as spell-checking did not caught it (That is a pair of similar words that I did not know existed). Thanks for bringing it up.gmax137 said:I was just making a little joke. You saidA typo, you said "obliviously" where I think you mean "obviously."
"Obliviously biased" would mean biased without realizing it... Which describes the author of the study you linked to.
Amen.jack action said:You cannot let yourself get into a spiral of consumption.
jack action said:... How I see the energy crisis? I think it is a beast that feeds itself. The more you try to resolve the problem, the more you dig the hole. ...
From my experience, you give people a machine that consumes or pollute less and they think: «Hey I can do more with it; It won't be worst than before.» What they don't realize is: 1) It was already too much before and 2) They often use it so much more that they do more damage than they were before.
... The problem is over-consumption. You have to consume less, not by using more efficient machines, but by ... consuming less. It has a lot more to do with self-discipline than with a technical difficulty.
... You cannot let yourself get into a spiral of consumption.
jack action said:... That is why I don't like how some present solutions as «magically» being zero-emission. It's not that I don't like the machines, but when we're told they are all zero-emission and no drawbacks can come from them, I think it is just encouraging people to waste resources without thinking (urban sprawl and leisure traveling comes to mind).
... Let him drive a full-electric car and he doesn't realize that it is actually powered by a internal combustion engine miles away and just brags how good and kind he is to the Earth. Even if it is more efficient, it is far from being zero-emission. If the electricity was produced by, say, hydro-power, still the more you use the car, the more it wears and that requires more resources to build new ones.
...