There are extant examples of wholly carbon free electricity grids. They all rely on favorable geology (hydro, geotermal) and nuclear. And these technologies can be scaled up to meet a future with very high electricity demand, so these are the technologies we should deploy. We know this will work, because it already does. In this context, wind is, basically, nothing but a distraction. The concrete in the bases would be better poured into containment domes, and the steel better used in pressure vessles.

(note that I am not really a fan of the extant nuclear industry either. Its not ambitious enough, by far. We need to increase our build rate by orders of magnitude)

The International Energy Agency (which I'd described as mildy pro-nuke, and mildly anti-wind) provided this in its 2007 outlook:

So: fairly comparable costs for wind and nukes.

French numbers (by the DGEMP) tend to be lower, but French numbers are critically dependent on public or quasi-public cost of funding for the investment - and using such cost of funding for wind would also do wonders for its cost (and thus my recommendantion to do such public funding in both sectors).

Altogether, I'd say that well-run, publicly funded nuclear MWh are somewhat cheaper than wind, but the range for nuclear cost, both for uncertainty and to discount for less-well run organisations, is much higher for nuclear.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

firstly, as you scale up wind to a bigger proportion of the grid, the quality of your sites degrades quickly

So what? That's an argument against trying for 100 % wind, which is a crude straw man that nobody is defending.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

Two problems with this: firstly, as you scale up wind to a bigger proportion of the grid, the quality of your sites degrades quickly, and this is really bad for their economics (this is why nearly all current danish build is at sea or replacement of existant turbines, all quality sites are in use) Secondly..
Eh, well, it appears you are wrong. At least in europe. The eocd, EU, and IEA studies I just googled again to check, all site prices per kwh for new nuclear a bit below that of wind, and while both wind and nuclear really do require pumped storage for optimal operation, the storage needed for nuclear should be much smaller, and thus cheaper than that needed for wind. The numbers I can find for the US look a heck of a lot more favorable for wind than the european ones, I will freely grant, but we have neither a great plains to place windmills on, nor a legal system that allows opponents to increase capital costs via nusiance lawsuits.

1.  Quality of sites degrade quickly, using tiny Denmark as an example?  Straw man AND false.  Of course in Europe coastal sites have stronger mean annual winds, but "degradation" doesn't equal unviable. Long-term cost of energy calculations for wind include the less productive inland sites, which also have lower O&M costs. Secondly, the industry has developed a generation of multi-megawatt scale turbines to take advantage of inland winds, with shifted power curves and larger rotors. Third, even in northern Germany, so-called packed, there's enough virgin sites remaining for years of intense build-out.  The situation is actually a socio-political one, solved as people become more at ease living with windparks.

There is barely a replacement industry in Denmark, and it's because of government policies, not lack of sites.  Reality is the political and utility will has CHOSEN to go offshore, partly because we need to anyway, but also to avoid the socio-political issues.  And inland sites don't have "bad economics" when properly sited, simply not as good as coastal areas, which have other mixed use problems.  Further, for those who constantly analyze actual data, a significant portion of "degradation" comes from poor siting, which is easy to remedy.

2.  In most places in the world, and this discussion is global, not just nuclear in Denmark, we are so far from site saturation that the quantifiable effects won't be apparent for 15-20 years.  Europe doesn't need the Great Plains, simply fill where the resource warrants, AND grow the virtually separate offshore industry. But even in Europe, the scale of the resource not yet developed is significant.

3.  Wind and nuclear require pumped storage to be optimal?  No, generation requires optimal to be optimal, and usually, that's a very dynamic mix of a host of both supply and demand-side technologies.  Of which one might be pumped storage, with the right siting as in large hydro.  And since we're not near the levels of wind penetration necessitating storage technologies yet, why not just develop the grid marginally as it comes, step by step, instead of comparing today with 12-15 years down the road?  By that time compressed air is just as likely to be viable as pumped hydro.

4.  Costs.  Wind costs of course are well known, but that doesn't mean the IEA etc. properly accounts for them.  Real nuclear costs depend completely upon the assumptions used, and in the case of nuclear, are far more likely to be off than for wind.  Even so, there is considerable debate on the accuracy of externalities (discussed downthread) at present, when indeed all externalities are even included. I have yet to see a nuclear study which properly accounts for cooling water externalities, for example. (He'll take the bait on this one.)

US costs "heck of a lot more favorable for wind than European ones?" Europe and the US both have a wide mix of wind resources, even if the Great Plains is the US's Saudi Arabia.  When one factors in proximity to load, transmission issues and grid upgrades, and distance in general, Europe has it all over the US.  Further, turbines in Europe are currently 2-5% more efficient than when the same turbines are placed in the US, when adjusting for wind differences.  This is because of turbulence (minor) and infrastructure (major.)  The European infrastructure advantage will disappear over time, but turbulence issues will remain.

Bottom line on costs, as Colman pointed out, I'm one who uses the costs that are current, knowing that there's a huge margin of error remaining.  In the case of nuclear, it never goes down, and no one can yet assume externalities are properly accounted for.

5.  "increase capital costs via nuisance lawsuits?"  Wave your true colors here, Thomas.  We're not talking about customers not knowing how to hold a cup of hot coffee.  We're talking about the right of the citizenry to demand true accounting, and science-based environmental impact statements which include real assessment of externalities.  That's only a nuisance in dictatorships, or perhaps centralized control of power generation. Say what you will, the nuclear industry has been guilty of lying and malfeasance throughout the world, on a major scale, to this day.  It's even too soon to know if France is the exception or not, but everywhere else in the world the evidence is in, and the track record of deceit is appalling.  Every month for the past three decades another example of lies and cover-ups is reported, the latest being yesterday's fine to Babcock and Wilcox for not reporting an emergency according the US NRC regulation.

Given the half-lives involved in the technology, calling what remains of the system of legal redress a "nuisance" denotes a certain lack of reality in your viewpoint, or at best a world view needing some enlightenment.

Though you won this round, as I spent over nearly three hours reading and writing here, when i should have been focused on reality.

Skennah Kowa

i installed that quake extension for firefox, it is quite eye-opening, though i set it low at 3.

i'm not that far from l'aquila, and in a 400 year old house, so i do think about it a lot.

i don't have the stats, do you?

the fact that it's prophesied by numerous seers from many cultures is not adding to my concern, at least on a conscious level, lol.

try the extension, the popups are interesting enough as you realise how much rocking is going on globally.

when the screen starts shaking, (local quivers), as it has the last two days in a row here, i start coiling my muscles, ready to spring somewhere safe(r).

i know science can't predict earthquakes very well yet, but it's getting good at linking the information. having indonesia and l'aquila last year, and haiti this year may be no formal trend, but it's walking and quacking, i'll be thinking about statistics i'm sure as i leap from a window!

ireland is unusually blessed with stability in this regard...

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

that is not tenable if the technological basis for improving the standard of living is not one that can be reproduced.

or god forbid it makes them dependent on maintenance wot ain't there.

great point, Bruce, one that seems obvious, but isn't mentioned enough.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

Similarly, given the tendency for the world to follow the 'most advanced countries', would this make the poor countries discount wind/solar as options if the rich discounted them?
Typical colonial mindset. Brown and yellow people can think for themselves, they don't need us to tell them what to do.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

As I noted upthread, nobody within shouting distance of sanity will want to go all-wind, all-nuclear or, indeed, all-anything. For the same reason that you won't want to go all-wheat or all-rice or all-potato when it comes to food production. Monoculture is inherently vulnerable to systemic shocks.

And in terms of wind, solar and hydro R&D, a 35/20/30/15 wind/solar/nuclear/hydro mix isn't substantially different from a 44/30/25 wind/solar/hydro mix.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

How does that support the argument that a complement of technologies including nuclear power that allows a country to be energy sufficient in support of its standard of living is as reproducible internationally as a complement of technologies other than nuclear power

It doesn't, because it isn't. The more components you add into an energy supply mix, the less reproducible the whole package will be. The point is that the whole package doesn't have to be reproducible, so long as large enough parts of it are.

Or, to put it another way: If a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo can have light on demand from electricity produced by a dam or a windmill, why should he care that a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany can have light on demand from electricity produced by a nuclear reactor? Light on demand is light on demand - the electrons don't care where the potential gradient comes from, and neither does most of the end users.

It seems as if you are taking physical limitations on the energy that can be obtained from a particular technology in the complement as equivalent to social limitations

In the short term, they are.

In the medium term, social limitations are more amenable to betterment than physical limitations.

In the long term, we're all dead.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy