Top Diaries

That is not the problem with load balancing wind with nuclear, the "problem" is that the existance of enough nuclear capacity to do the job makes building any wind whatsoever utterly pointless. All costs of nuclear capacity are fixed, save fuel, and fuel costs essentially nothing. So if you have sufficient nuclear capacity to cover demand during dead wind, building windmills adds.. no utility or value whatsoever, because it costs exactly the same to have the nukes supply electricity 365 days a year as it does to have them supply backup capacity.

The cheapest and cleanest way to fix the UK short term energy shortage is, as someone already suggested, to build pumped storage facilities and time shift French surplus night time generation to UK daytime consumption, since unused nuclear capacity is for all intents and purposes free electricity, but the problem is of course that the french will charge a non-zero amount of money for this, and it only goes so far, at some point the frogs will catch on and build their own electric mountains, forcing the UK to build their own nukes in any case.

(Honestly, financially speaking? Fuck wind. Costs too much per tonne of co2 displaced. Nukes and pumped storage is where its at.)

by Thomas on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 03:10:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There is some incompatibility (none / 1)

Wind is a great way to save water in the dams and gas in the gasturbines. If nuclear should be as profitable as possible, you need to run it at full blast at all times, and to do that you need peakers. If you can save money by adding wind to reduce the gas consumption and be able to use the water at times of higher demand, wind is a great idea.

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

by Starvid on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 04:21:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The problem with this logic is that wind doesn't die down during the night.
Lets say that you build nukes equal to base load- they produce 100% of your nighttime demand, and 40% of peak daytime demand. This works out to some 50% of your total electricity carbon free and cheap. Now, how to cover day time peak: Cheap option is just to build gas turbines and run them during the day. This isnt green, but it works, and then you decide to reduce the damage your are doing by adding some windmills. During the day, all is fine and dandy- when the wind blows, you are burning less gas. But when the wind blows during the night, windmills still produce power, and there is no market for it, so now you got to loadfollow your nukes, and if you are willing to do that, why on earth build the gas turbines and windmills in the first place? it would be overall cheaper, and less polluting, to overbuild nukes and go to a wholly atomic gird...

by Thomas on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:51:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

In an all-nuclear grid, you don't build 100 % peak demand nuke capacity and load-follow. You build 110 % average demand and load-balance with smart grids, interruptible delivery contracts, heat baths, pumped hydro, etc.

Now, in some places, it will be cheaper to build 110 % of average demand in wind, hydro, biochar, waste incinerators, solar or some combination of all the above options.

Nuclear simply isn't always cheaper pr. MWh, even when you include the load-balancing costs of wind and solar. In some places it will be cheaper, and in some places it will not be. It would, after all, be silly to suppose that any single power source is always and everywhere cheaper than everything else.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 06:00:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There is some incompatibility (4.00 / 4)

All costs of nuclear capacity are fixed, save fuel, and fuel costs essentially nothing.

Well, no:

Particularly not when you consider waste post-processing and final storage (which normally faces substantial cost overruns). And it is not altogether self-evident that current storage solutions can be scaled up arbitrarily without hitting a point of escalating costs, as they are every bit as dependent on limited geological resources as oil extraction is.

Oh, and uranium prices do not necessarily reflect the full social and ecological cost of extraction, when said extraction is done in third-world countries where both life and pollution are cheap.

And while we're at it, nukes also require idling backup plants, because you cannot expect to always be able to schedule maintenance in periods where the plants are not needed (and that's just the scheduled maintenance - any emergency shutdowns, which kinda by definition cannot be scheduled, come on top of this). Since nuclear comes in somewhat bigger chunks of generating capacity, it is not really self-evident that nuclear needs less backup capacity than wind.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 04:24:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Particularly not when you consider waste post-processing and final storage (which normally faces substantial cost overruns).
The cost is very small, even with the overengineered solutions developed, and can be taken from cashflow. Cost is about 0.1 cents per kWh over the lifetime of the plant.

And it is not altogether self-evident that current storage solutions can be scaled up arbitrarily without hitting a point of escalating costs, as they are every bit as dependent on limited geological resources as oil extraction is.
Not in the slightest. Good enough bedrock is by no means rare. They are limited in the same way the global supply of gravel is finite.

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

by Starvid on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 04:28:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

€ 1/MWh is still a 3 % increase in total cost, according to the above figure. And something on the order of a 30 % increase in the variable cost, which goes from being on the order of 10 % to being on the order of 13 %.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:35:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There is some incompatibility (4.00 / 2)

Since nuclear comes in somewhat bigger chunks of generating capacity, it is not really self-evident that nuclear needs less backup capacity than wind.

Furthermore, because it comes in such large chunks, with such long lead times for installation nuclear is always behind or ahead of the demand curve and spends of lot of time stranded. Whereas, wind and solar can be added almost continuously with demand making them even more attractive.

by njh on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:18:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

No, not really. Nuclear has such low variable costs that it will displace other sources of generation (except wind and hydro) even if it is added to a grid with surplus capacity. Furthermore, lead times need not at all be long. In a national effort with a solid competence base the plants will be built in about 5 years. The Japanese even manage to do it in 4 years at times.

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

by Starvid on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:27:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

In the four year lead time ... (none / 1)

... that is at best a four year lead time to produce the number of plants a country is presently equipped to produce. Otherwise the lead time includes the lead time of building the production capacity.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 02:53:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: In the four year lead time ... (none / 0)

One need only look at the French (and Swedish) examples to see that needn't be a problem.

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

by Starvid on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 03:19:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: In the four year lead time ... (none / 1)

The issue is not whether its "a problem", the issue is whether a four year build out of a planned expansion in share of nuclear capacity is a realistic number. Citing the French case, if the decision was around 1974, 1984 looks far more like the target share than 1978.

Not installing wind turbines which will begin to be delivering power later in year one of the build-out on the promise that in four years the first power will begin to be delivered and in ten years you'll be getting close to your target is just a substantially different case to evaluate than not building wind turbines on the promise that in four year you'll be getting about the amount of power you want from nuclear.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 03:37:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: In the four year lead time ... (none / 0)

Four years is the minimum time to build one reactor. The French peak reactor construction year was 1982 (6 reactors) IIRC. Going from 0 % to 75 % nuclear took about 15 years IIRC. Hardly a long time.

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

by Starvid on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 05:50:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

'Four years is the minimum time to build one' (4.00 / 2)

Compare the first statement to the final statement:

Furthermore, lead times need not at all be long. In a national effort with a solid competence base the plants will be built in about 5 years.

Four years is the minimum time to build one reactor.

We've gone from a statement that in the most direct reading suggests that all reactors desired may be built by a country "with a solid competence base" in about five years, so long as its part of a national effort, to one that makes it clear that four is an absolute bare minimum time to build one reactor.

Whether fifteen years is a long or short time, it is appreciably longer than five years.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:42:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: 'Four years is the minimum time to build one' (none / 0)

We've gone from a statement that in the most direct reading suggests that all reactors desired may be built by a country "with a solid competence base" in about five years
I never claimed that.

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

by Starvid on Mon Jan 18th, 2010 at 03:42:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I'm not anti-nuke at all (4.00 / 2)

but it's not obvious to me at all that new-build nuclear is cheaper than wind, given identical financing conditions.

Wind makes less sense in France than elsewhere, given the given capacity, but that's certainly not true elsewhere.

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 04:43:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Exactly. Wind has a place and so has nuclear. It makes no sense to build an EPR on Aruba.

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

by Starvid on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 04:50:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

My "Anti-every-thing-but-nukes-and-large-hydro" attitude is a tad extreme, but I feel that it is, in fact, well grounded. See if you can spot any major holes in this logic:
Think in terms of "what would it take to decarbonize the grid"
Wind has an average capacity factor of 35% for on-shore mills - meaning that on any given day, a windmill will be producing between 0 and 100% of its nameplate capacity, averaging 35%. Now, lets say that you are the CEO/dictator supreme of a utility. and wish to use wind to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity. Okay, so as a first step, you order that windmills are built until nameplate capacity equals base load. At this point, on windy nights when your turbines produce at their nameplate capacity, they meet 100% of nighttime demand.
This, unfortunately means that over the course of a year, wind covers some (scribbles..) ca 15% of your annual demand for electricity, with the remainder coming from a zillion gas turbines.. This clearly isnt doing much to reduce carbon intensity.
Second step: You order windmills built until nameplate capacity is equal to average day-night demand, and pumped storage enough to loadbalance 24 hours of production. This means that during windy periods, your mills + storage meet demand exactly. Unfortunately, it also means you meet a percentage of your annual demand equal to the capacity factor of your windmills, EG; 35%. With the remainder still produced by gas turbines. Still utter fail, from a global warming perspective. Finally, you order enough windmills and storage built to match average output with average demand, with the result that the revolutionary council for public safety orders you hanged from the nearest lamp post, as this would utterly bankrupt the nation.

Wind will not cut it. It is, simply, too fracking fickle.

by Thomas on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:33:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Uh... so build wind so that the nameplate capacity is 300% of the average demand and enough pumped hydro to loadbalance 24 of production...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:41:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

if your do that, you get hanged by the the aforementioned revolutionary council of public safety as a public safety hazard because you are now generating 3 times as much electricity as demanded on windy days, and you have nowhere to put it. This is.. Not safe. And you still need backup gas generators for quiet days.

by Thomas on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:59:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Um, which part of "continent-spanning electrical grid," "uncorrelated fluctuations," "interruptible delivery" and "pumped storage" do you fail to understand?

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 06:01:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

well, (4.00 / 4)

you can turn some wind farms off when there's too much power produced. This is not difficult to do
what is the problem with having lots of gas-fied plants that you use very little? The problem is burning the gas, not having the gas-fired plants.

You have to stop thinking only in MW and think also in MWh! In the old centralised world, talking of MW was enough, but that doesn't translate well to a world with wind, gas peakers, interruptible demand and other similar tools.

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 06:05:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The problem is that wind is not, in general, more expensive pr MWh actually produced than nuclear. The fixation on nameplate capacity and capacity factors is a red herring.

Load balancing is an issue, but not an insurmountable one, as the Danish experience demonstrates. It will probably prevent 100 % wind penetration, but nobody within shouting distance of sanity will want to base their entire energy supply on a single set of technologies anyway...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:45:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

In that case, Ive left sanity long ago.

The basic point I obviously did not communicate clearly enough is that when name plate capacity exceeds demand, actual production will also exceed demand on windy days.

This means that your total build of wind capacity cannot exceed a nameplate capacity equal to your base demand unless you are willing to throw part of your electricity production away, or have a way to store that surplus.

And the gap between average output and nameplate capacity always gets filled by gas.

Thus a decision to rely on wind, is in fact a decision to rely mostly on gas, with some wind power thrown in, and this will hold true until the day someone invents a battery far beyond anything we have.

by Thomas on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 06:13:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

This means that your total build of wind capacity cannot exceed a nameplate capacity equal to your base demand unless you are willing to throw part of your electricity production away, or have a way to store that surplus.

I am and I do.

The point which I have apparently repeatedly failed to get across is that even including the pumped storage facilities and the losses on windy days a good wind location will provide cheaper MWh than nuclear plants.

Thus a decision to rely on wind, is in fact a decision to rely mostly on gas, with some wind power thrown in, and this will hold true until the day someone invents a battery far beyond anything we have.

Pumped hydro. Gravitational potential energy is the lowest-loss energy storage known to man.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 06:40:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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.

by Thomas on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 07:46:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Hmm.. further notes: The base issue is that I belive global warming is a serious issue, and that it needs to be solved. "doing some good", "gradual improvements", "20 % decrease in carbon emmisions"- all these are things that strike me as "Not fracking good enough".
Carbon has to be entirely removed from electricity production, because nothing can really be done to clean up transport, industry or heating without clean electricity. Further, we need to not only clean up electricity production, we need to clean it up while anticipating and accomodating a vast increase in electricity demand. Conservation is all well and good, but any decrease in electricity consumption your gain from more efficient appliances and tvs, ect is going to evaporate when you plug in your electric car to your mains, not to mention what asking industry to burn as little gas and coal as possible will do to demand.
If the future is low carbon, it is also, nessesarily,a world of extremely high electicity consumption.

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)

by Thomas on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 08:09:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Don't forget (4.00 / 2)

that the likely new uses for electricity, in particular for personal transport via electricla cars, will be highly compatible with wind as they will provide for highly flexible decentralised storage capacity...

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 08:30:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Don't forget (none / 0)

why not run that extra night time energy to biodiesel-from-algae factories?

double plus good...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:25:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

This also applies to ... (none / 1)

... plugin hybrid buses of various sizes for extending the range of dedicated transport corridors - they plug in for shorter intervals through the day, and then for an extended spell overnight so they can off the battery for the first part of their service day.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 12:22:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"doing some good", "gradual improvements", "20 % decrease in carbon emmisions"- all these are things that strike me as "Not fracking good enough".
Carbon has to be entirely removed from electricity production, because nothing can really be done to clean up transport, industry or heating without clean electricity.

Then I flatly fail to comprehend why you take issue with wind and solar. To achieve that target - which seems like a sensible and responsible thing to do - you'll need to mobilise a considerable fraction of our industrial capacity. Ignoring an entire class of energy technology strikes me as a poor way to mobilise industrial capacity swiftly.

any decrease in electricity consumption your gain from more efficient appliances and tvs, ect is going to evaporate when you plug in your electric car to your mains

Cars are never going to be economical for bulk transportation over middling to long distances. The thermodynamics favour rail and water too massively for that. So no, there will not be a massive migration to electrical cars. There will be a considerable migration to electrical trains, but they are more energy-efficient than cars pr. person-km and ton-km. By around an order of magnitude...

not to mention what asking industry to burn as little gas and coal as possible will do to demand.

Presuming that industrial production continues at its present pace and energy intensity. Which is a dubious assumption, since we are entering a century of widespread raw material scarcity (not just energy, though that is certainly the most pressing constraint).

And, frankly, much of what is being produced is worthless garbage that we would be better off without.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 09:09:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

wind vs nuke costs (4.00 / 2)

While there is reasonable consensus on wind costs, the range for nukes is a lot bigger, and it's often hard to know what's the hidden bias of the organisation doing the estimate.

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 08:29:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 08:59:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Well, the issue is that I am advocating that the world should move to a "french" energy mix of "Nukes + hydro" only as a strategy to combat global warming, and people invariably respond with "we should build wind instead". in that context, the relevant cost of wind is the cost of wind in a wholly wind+hydro grid. Yes?
Otherwise the response is entirely besides the point.

by Thomas on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 09:48:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The relevant comparison is between grids with different mixes of wind, solar, nuke and hydro.

You propose a 0/0/80/20 mix.

I tell you that this is unlikely to be economical, and is susceptible to all the normal risks of monocropping vis-a-vis systemic failures.

A 80/0/0/20 mix is equally unlikely to be economical, but that is irrelevant, because no sane person proposes this mix. Personally, I could see a 45/25/10/20 mix, if solar matures rapidly, or a 45/10/25/20 mix if it does not. Give or take ten to twenty percentage points.

Alternatively, one can consider the marginal cost of adding capacity. Since nuclear has already harvested all the economies of scale that are likely to apply, you are facing constant or increasing marginal cost as you add nuclear to the energy mix. Wind has harvested much but not all of its economies of scale, so for a while you're going to see declining marginal cost before they start going up again.

Now, in any scenario where you have two or more factors of production that all have constant or rising marginal cost, it makes sense to diversify. This is really, really simple arithmetic...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:00:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Shorter version: (4.00 / 3)

"We should build wind instead" is a straw man. We should build wind as well.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:02:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Is there somebody here who is defending a 100% wind+hydro solution? Most people here seem to be in favour of a heterogeneous solution appropriate to the locality - so smart grid, whatever renewables are available and reasonably cost efficient (wind, hydro, wave, biofuels, whatever).

There is an issue around nuclear power: some people see it in terms of cost benefit analysis and some simply believe that the risks are such as to exclude it - they effectively belief the costs are unbounded. You can't solve that by talking about cost.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:01:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Given that France relies on balancing via its exports to Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, the French model is not transferable to the entirety of the world or even just Europe, the same way US/UK capitalism isn't.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:18:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I am aware of that- France has not invested nearly enough money in pumped storage, vis-a-vis nukes. The mix, if you will, is somewhat off. This however, isnt really an insurmountable problem, but rather a question of proper planning.

by Thomas on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:40:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Thomas:

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.

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.
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.
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.)

Again, you include pumped storage when comparing nukes and wind, and that's also a straw dog.

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.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 02:44:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I use Denmark as an example, because its where I live, and the actual, historical and projected, results of denmarks choice of wind over nukes - and that was explicitly the political choice made - has been catastropic for the enviorment. Denmark has the highest per capita emissions of any country in the union due to this choice, and looking at the future planned and projected build, we will catch up with where france is now.. The sunday after never.
Thus whenever I hear someone advocate wind and efficiency as a answer to AGW, I see red. This isnt useful, because said rage shines through in every argument I make, which makes me less persuasive.

Adressing a few of your points:
I include pumped storage because I am in no way interested in what the cost of a given energy source is in a grid that loadbalances with natural gas. I consider natural gas burning for power a grossly unacceptable waste of a valuable resource, a irresponsible risk to the climate, and absurdly expensive. With current technology, that means supply-side loadbalancing has to be done with hydro or throtthling of nukes. If we invent a cheaper solution for energystorage, that would be wonderful, but its not really relevant for generation.

The US economics are more favorable because the US is less densely populated, which means that all else equal, it has more good wind sites per capita.
Mackay made a very illustrative graph about this, sec..
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/business/energy-environment/29iht-sustain.html

Increasing nuclear cost via nusiance lawsuits was, and remains, an explicit strategy of american anti-nuclear activists. They do not hide or deny this. I can go qoute hunting, but it isnt very relevant for a discussion of global energy strategy as it is simply an unique economic hazard specific to the US nuclear industry, and equating it to due dilligence hearings in europe or elsewhere would be wholly false, in either direction.

Externality studies are an obsession of mine, and ExternE is in fact what converted me to a nuclear advocate, because it put numbers on exactly how much damage our current, coal and gas based grid is doing year in, year out. Every coal plant in operation is a slow-motion disaster. and looking at the actual methods used, arguing with a straight face that these studies are in any way lowballing the damage of nuclear is impossible. There are uncertainties, yes. But they are of the "we have no good feel for how much we are overstating the danger of nuclear here". kind.

.. Waste heat ecological impact? Ehh.. there is one. Any heat engine of this size is going to heat the water body it uses for cooling, which shifts ecological balances of which species thrive in that strech of water. For plants near the sea, this essentially doesnt matter, because the sea is too big a heat sink to affect, and if you are directly replacing a coal plant with a nuke plant in the same location, it doesnt matter either, since after decades of operation, the local water system will have adapted to the warmer water, and removing the heat source would be the disruptive act. This is not, in general, a very worrysome type of enviormental impact, however. as the footprint is minute, and non-toxic.

by Thomas on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 04:47:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Now, if you want to talk about Denmark, and want to talk about political decisions, you are remiss in not mentioning that if there had been a caretaker government during the last ten years, we would have had a higher wind penetration and a lower CO2 footprint.

Disallowing nuclear power is not the only conscious political choice Denmark has made. Disallowing new wind farms is another conscious political choice. Banning congestion charges is another conscious political choice. Building two new highways every time we do maintenance on one railway line is a conscious political choice.

So let's not pretend that Denmark is an example of a wind/conservation strategy. That was almost true in the 90s, but elections have consequences. Specifically, the election of the current crop of anti-wind, pro-car, anti-conservation, neoliberals had disastrous consequences.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 05:33:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I'm not anti-nuke at all (3.50 / 2)

Thanks for a polite and reasoned response, considering your wind rage, but your underlying assumptions still are quite strange.

I have no idea about per capita emissions in Denmark, but it is not because of wind. one doesn't begin with a clean sheet and build out from there, one starts with what already exists, it's called reality. Existing fossil plants matter, the game is the degree with which wind supplants their operation. Period. One then has the future to restructure the game. And you seem to be ignoring a decade of weird and backward political decisions in Denmark, which have far more to do with DK emissions than the lowering which wind continues to provide.
Wind catastrophic for the environment? In which parallel universe does that occur?
Wind and efficiency as an answer to AGW makes you see red? Given that globally, historically, and in any study ever published efficiency (advanced motors, insulation, double glazing, etc.) is the cheapest source of heat and power, you undercut your arguments by relying on your own blind spot.
Not being interested in load-balancing with natural gas ignores current reality around the globe. We start from where we are, again, not with a clean slate. Since gas plant exists, we begin by cutting it back.
wind sites per capita? Brilliant, you've developed an obfuscating statistic which not only has no bearing on energy decision-making, but ignores cabling costs (transmission) which, in the case of electricity, have something to do with long-term cost of energy. McKay's "illustrative graphs" also have nothing to do with reality, because while watts/m2 of say, rotor diameter, is a useful number when properly framed, it's a useless number for policy decisions because the land itself doesn't use energy. not to mention his numbers for wind just happen to be wrong.
That anti-nuclear activists use the system of laws to make their case is a function of democracy, just as pro-nuclear lobbies are allowed obscene advertising budgets. Neither negates the functioning of a free society, though obscene budgets do distort the system. Why, the court system is also used by scientists and engineers, and even whistleblowers, to make their case. But you're right, dictatorships with no right of redress can be more efficient, even if disastrous. So yes, i do equate it with due diligence, which is part of our society.
ExternE. How exactly did you get from pointing out the dangers of coal to "arguing with a straight face that these studies are in any way lowballing the damage of nuclear is impossible. There are uncertainties, yes." Unfuckingcertainties? You slay me, master. "we have no good feel for how much we are overstating the danger of nuclear here". That's your best yet. Consensus studies from Japan, the US, Russia, North Korea and Mars show that nuclear power dangers have been overestimated by approximately 23%.
You obviously don't give a shit about ecological impact, because while in an equation a sea as a heat sink is big, the funny thing is just like the atmosphere, which has microclimates, so does ecology have micro environments which are integral parts of the chain. By your logic, taking the top off 20 mountains doesn't matter if 200 are left pristine. PS, given the data from water tables around the world, you should be very careful how you banty about the words minute and non-toxic. Scientific heavyweights might have your arguments for lunch.
All this brings up the question of who you are. What is your job, or how do you support yourself? Who pays for your diligent efforts to parse irrelevant data, and make arguments based upon, umh, something? More to the point, do you receive any funds from a particular lobby group, or industry association, or corporation?
Well, you won again, given the time i've taken. Though i haven't even mentioned the points from my previous comment which you haven't addressed.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 06:30:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re 9: now now! Except for you and Jérôme, all who argue energy on ET are from outside the energy sector, yet do spend diligent effort to parse relevant or irrelevant data and argue passionately without being paid. (While I too am perplexed f.e. how the Danish wind energy situation could be mis-represented this much, I think politicial bias or being young could explain it too.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:30:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

i apologize if that seems harsh, in reality i'd merely like to know where Thomas is coming from, and given some of his statements, he should disclose that to the community here. He should also realize that this is not anti-nuclear site, but has advocates from several viewpoints, including pro-nuclear.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:35:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Are you going to assume anyone who is a pro-nuclear advocate is a paid shill?

Thomas' position is not unusual, including his tone. Do you remember Ustenzel?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 08:10:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Hold on, there was no assumption, just a legitimate question, so far ignored. And i don't have any recollection of Ustenzel.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:02:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Uztenzel was extremely pro-nuclear and abrasive. I believe he was a computer scientist, not an oil shill. He was a fan of John Mc Carthy if I am not mistaken.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:46:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The decisions not to expand wind further in denmark have a hell of a lot to do with the costs of loadbalancing it. That is one reason I keep bringing up storage - In the nordpool electricity market, the windspeed in Denmark moves the price of power a lot, which means that peak electricity from wind is given away for free, or sold at outright negative prices, while cover for low winds provokes high spot prices on electricity. This means that for denmark, the marginal cost of adding more wind to the system are in fact very high, since it would make this situation worse.
This one. The energy debate in Denmark post the 70s oil crisis was explicitly between a bet on nuclear and a bet on renewables. Looking at the actual consequences of the choice made, when compared to the people who came down on the other side of the fence, IE: Sweden, France, the wrong side won in Denmark.
efficiency is shiny, but it tends to induce jevrons paradox effects, so I dont trust it as a solution to AGW. Better energy efficiency will make mankind richer, it will only reduce actual energy use if future generations behave in ways no past generation of mankind ever has, and use machines less while they get cheaper to use..
still dont care. Gas has to go.
The point I am trying to make is that wind is a less appropriate technology in tokyo than it is in Texas. Which part of this is controversial?
I have no objection to due dilligence, or the role of the legal system in holding polluters accountable. That has nothing to do with the perversion of the legal system some groups have engaged in. And boasted off. Note that I am not engaging in conspiracy theory here, the activists themselves publically stated that they sued to raise nuclears costs.
Have you read externe? Mostly I am talking about things like the calculation of casualties from c14 emmisions. Summing casualties over a projected future population of nine billion over the next 100000 years while assuming cancer survival rates equal to todays, with a 0 discount rate is... Silly. Thats not a possible future. If mankind is still about in a thousand years, noone is going to be dying from cancer, and if we arent, noone will be dying of cancer either.
Say what? I bloody well hope noone runs cooling, for any powersource, off water drawn from the watertable. That would be criminal. There are plants that use grey water, but thats not the same thing.
Tech support! For electronics. Also student, but that doesnt pay any bills.

by Thomas on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:34:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

1) the balancing is rather easy technically as there is a lot of hydro in the Nordpool. Denmark selling power at low prices and buying it a higher prices from Norway or Sweden does not negate the benefits of wind, it's just a question of who gets that benefit. Thereality is that wind brings down prices, on average (via the merit order effect), with an overall benefit to consumers (ans a loss to traditional power generators) which is larger than the cost of the feed-in tariff for wind.

So, irrespective of the cost to Danish generators (and you should be happy about coal-plants oweners losing money, right?); it's a positive to Danish consumers and taxpayers.

3) that's an argument not to do anything.

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:07:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The energy debate in Denmark post the 70s oil crisis was explicitly between a bet on nuclear and a bet on renewables. Looking at the actual consequences of the choice made, when compared to the people who came down on the other side of the fence, IE: Sweden, France, the wrong side won in Denmark.

You could make this the topic of your first diary.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:15:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

No, but it is a reason to expect that if a plan for future energy supply includes "and then electricty demand drops by 20%" at any stage, its probably not going to work out well.

by Thomas on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:42:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The decisions not to expand wind further in denmark have a hell of a lot to do with the costs of loadbalancing it.

The decision not to continue expanding wind in Denmark has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with the fact that Fogh and that ~~useful~~ idiot he installed as minister for the environment hated Sven Auken's guts. Therefore, any project that Sven Auken liked was bad simply by virtue of the fact that Sven Auken liked it. Sven Auken liked wind. Therefore, wind was bad.

(Yes, for more than half a decade, Denmark based our policy in a vital strategic sector like energy supply on "not invented here" and personal animosity towards the outgoing administration. Yes, Danish right-wing politicians really are that petty and stupid.)

efficiency is shiny, but it tends to induce jevrons paradox effects

Only under laissez-faire. In a properly managed industrial production economy, there is nothing which prevents you from adjusting product taxes to compensate for lower cost.

And as far as heat and electricity goes, Jevron's effects are minor to negligible, because heat and electricity are infrastructure, not consumer goods.

If mankind is still about in a thousand years, noone is going to be dying from cancer

And by 2010, we'll have nuclear-powered airplanes. Oh, wait...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:22:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Thomas, thanks for letting me know something about you. Me, pioneer in windpower from the 70's on (that's 1970's), developed first utility-scale wind park in the world, and have been influential in energy policy at both Federal and State policy levels. One of my teachers is a father of windpower in DK, and former head of RISO Labs. Once found an entire set of blueprints and binders for an Oregon nuke plant in someone's garbage. and read them.

Are you open to changing your views when confronted with evidence, i am.

Annual costs are the marker for evaluating electricity prices, not short-term spot prices high or low or negative. Your marginal cost of adding DK wind is not calculated upon spot prices, nor does it include what most other people believe are benefits. But i'll let the Danes here contest this point.
Point conceded. Wind IS a catastrophe for the environment, you are correct, especially as you have evaluated the "actual consequences" of the two technologies so well, and so far into the future.
Perhaps you don't trust energy efficiency, but then you wouldn't trust a half century of science, engineering and financial analysis which says otherwise either.
Correct again, gas has to go. But if it's the cleanest of all the fossils, when should it go? Tonight? After we C4 all the coal plants tomorrow morning? Perhaps you should care, then you might be helpful in enabling a reasonable transition.
Now you wrapped the knot around your neck. Who's advocating wind in Tokyo, or Christiania for that matter, and how does that relate to your previous statement regarding wind/capita and watts/m2? Which part controversial? The parts that make no sense.
Well, they are certainly good activists, if they raised nuclear costs all by their lonesomes. You should hire those guys to your side, no? Or perhaps the utility lawyers were drunk, and didn't give it their best shot?
Have i read ExternE? I was one of the leading players working years to get externalities mentioned, much less accurately accounted, including testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission and Congress. You could say that ExternE came out of the work I and many others performed to set the stage. So yes, i've read that and others, as well as those who investigate its shortcomings.

Your future cancer discussion is pretty absurd, so i'll let it stand on it's own.

No one said ground water was used for cooling. Cooling discussion was about your myopia on what a sea or air ecosystem is, and ground water contamination is a very real and separate issue.
again, thanks for answering, now we know a bit more about you. But i'm betting you have some better goal in life, and that tech support is not it, it's just a job for now. What do you want to be doing in ten years?

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 11:02:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Am I the only one that finds

But i'm betting you have some better goal in life, and that tech support is not it, it's just a job for now. What do you want to be doing in ten years?

slightly patronizing?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 11:27:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

no i don't find it patronizing, others may. once i found out he's a student i ask such questions, same as i'd ask a waitress, partly because i'm actually interested in where Thomas is heading.

Poor phrasing, yeah, grant you that.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 12:40:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

i'm actually interested in where Thomas is heading

Yeah, right, just in your previous comment you were questioning his motives.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 12:59:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

no, you interpreted it as that. i asked because it was a possibility, period.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 01:32:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I think this subthread has just passed the official EU heat/light threshold for electrical equipment...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 01:38:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

CH, if I may (none / 1)

While I'm generally with you on the substance of the argument, I think you are using a rather too combative tone here.

We have a lot of arguments to defend the qualities of wind power and critique some of the claims made by Thomas, so let's focus on these rather than on ad hominems. While partial to nuclear, Thomas' arguments are rational and follow traditional lines that we are all-too-familar with, so let's just respond as we know we can rather than question his motives or good faith.

Don't forget that even within the wind industry, many of the points we regularly make here on ET are not that well known (such as the size of merit-order effect on prices of wind).

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 11:49:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: CH, if I may (none / 0)

You may, and well-taken. Except for the part of rational argument. if you go through the thread, there's a host of statements that are not rational, spinned opinion at best, which of course he's entitled to. But then he's also entitled to a sharp answer.

i think i'll just leave it alone.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 12:37:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: CH, if I may (none / 0)

Dude, which part of this is rational argument exactly? I see argument by authority, argument by derision, argument by intimidation, argument by CV...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 01:03:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: CH, if I may (none / 0)

Migs, i'm not going to post what i wrote in answer to this. Just know that it's obvious from my very first comment on in what direction i was going here, and that's writerly, not rationally on a very serious issue to me. I welcome your interpretation, just don't call me Dude when it's a serious comment again.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 02:06:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

3. efficiency is shiny, but it tends to induce jevrons paradox effects, so I dont trust it as a solution to AGW. Better energy efficiency will make mankind richer, it will only reduce actual energy use if future generations behave in ways no past generation of mankind ever has, and use machines less while they get cheaper to use.

The Jevons paradox goes beyond a normal division of the gains of efficiency between demand and supply to an increase in quantity demanded of the final product exceeding the efficiency gain.

However, where Jevon first observed it, it was in a market for a product where large numbers of low income consumers faced a tight budget constraint, and reduction of the price of coal-fired heat allowed switching to coal burning furnaces from, eg, wood.

Its a common abuse of the Jevon's paradox itself, as well as the far more common cases where Jevon's effect does not apply but the reduction in consumption of the input is less than the efficiency gain, to take it from arguing against sole reliance on efficiency gains - the techno-cornucopian position - to arguing against the benefit of pursuing efficiency gains at all.

We already know that efficiency gains alone are not going to be enough, because as we mine the easiest to reach inefficiencies, the result is a more efficient system with less inefficiency to be mined.

But that is no argument against replacing policies that support and encourage inefficient energy use with policies that support and encourage more efficient use. Its just an argument that efficiency on its own is not sufficient.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 11:48:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The decisions not to expand wind further in denmark have a hell of a lot to do with the costs of loadbalancing it.

Demonstrably, utterly false. Why do you keep pushing this fantasy? The policy decisions of the Fogh cabinet (which I listed in a previous comment, and which you didn't deny but switched to criticise the present policy of parties) and their justifications are well known, as are their effects. And it is also well known that the Danish public utilities themselves prepared studies already back then showing that wind with 50% grid penetration can be easily be integrated in the current grid.

Gas has to go.

Yes, and before it, coal. While gas plants are less CO2 intensive and cheaper for load balancing than coal or oil, on the long run we need CO2-free peaker plants/energy storage, whatever will provide baseload. Now: are you advocating inaction on baseload until 100% replacement of peaker plants is possible?...

wind is a less appropriate technology in tokyo than it is in Texas

This is not an argument but flashy rhetoric. Europe is not one single megapolis like Tokyo, and suburban sprawl USA (including large swathes of Texas) is not a wilderness area like you imagine Texas.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 03:37:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Increasing nuclear cost via nusiance lawsuits was, and remains, an explicit strategy of american anti-nuclear activists.

If those lawsuits are without merit, and the activists lose them, then it's the activists' costs that increases, not that of nuclear. If the lawsuits are with merit, then what exactly are you complaining about? They are only turning externalities into internalities.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:07:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The cost of the lawsuit to the activists doing the suing is the cost of lawyers fees, which is often pro-bono, and if the judge takes particular offense at the waste of time, they get stuck with court costs as well. The cost to the utility are lawyers fees, distruption to construction schedules, interest accumulated on building loans for 3 billion dollar projects, and the purchase of electricity from merchant operators to cover the commitments the not-yet-operating plant isnt meeting. This is not a symmetrical cost, and it was successful in deterring any build whatsoever in the us for decades. If the laws congress has recently passed in the nuclear area seem strange, its because they are designed to counter this tactic.

by Thomas on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:03:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Utility legal fees are built into overhead costs (and to some degree rate-recovered), activist lawyers are not often pro-bono, there is no construction schedule prior to permits being issued (just a plan), there are no electricity commitments which must be covered by merchant plants or any other sources. And the US Congress doesn't pass laws to counter activist tactics, though it may pass laws to streamline the nuclear permitting process.

What deterred US nuclear build for decades had little or nothing to do with activist tactics, rather cost and safety issues, as well as little utility desire to counter the prevailing zeitgeist. Add to that the ease of developing various nat gas, because of artificially low fossil prices, and ease and cost of financing.

Please feel free to rejoin reality at any time.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:15:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]

If those lawsuits are without merit, and the activists lose them, then it's the activists' costs that increases, not that of nuclear.

Not necessarily. Not all American states have anti-SLAPP statutes on the books, and the winning side is not always awarded compensation for their costs.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:03:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

denmarks choice of wind over nukes

Sigh. That was the nighties. Then came the naughties, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen made sure to change the credits system so that on-shore installations practically stopped (they only had a second boost thanks to a time-limited repowering programme, which proveed uncomfortably successful for the government); and he halted the projecting of the next off-shore farms in the schedule made law by the previous SocDem government, with the excuse that Denmark already reached the foreseeen share of renewables. (Yes, projecting began again five years later, but you'll see its effects on Denmark's CO2 emissions only in the coming years.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 07:14:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The overall failure of the drive for wind cannot be blamed on Fogh, much as I would like to - The energy plans of every party actually elected to the folkting are publically available, and noone in spitting distance of the levers of power advocate a mix, or for that matter, a level of investment, that would actually allow us to dynamite the coal plants.

(I watched bits of connie hedegårds confirmation hearing this morning. Depressing as fuck, as she was standing by the danish consensus on energy policy, and it is a consensus that has failed to deliver)

by Thomas on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 08:54:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

For suitable definition of "spitting distance."

SF has a coal phaseout policy.

Now, if you subscribe to the theory that SF is firmly installed in S' back pocket, that doesn't matter. But if you subscribe to that theory, you really rather need to take a look at the last EP and municipal elections...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:03:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The overall failure of the drive for wind cannot be blamed on Fogh, much as I would like to - The energy plans of every party actually elected to the folkting are publically available

Don't mix past and present. I don't know what the parties current plans are, but the overall failure over the past decade can be blamed 100% on Fogh. The previous SocDem plan was all-out.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 03:18:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Danish emissions (none / 1)

What can be said is that a partial commitment to wind was not sufficient to reduce high existing emissions sufficiently (but the question of how the emissions were reduced compared to coal-dominated BAU is an open one)

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:48:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

If balancing needs it, you can shut down wind farms the same way they are shut down in storms. Throwing away potential electricity production? You always have to do that with peaker plants.
The larger an area you consider, the more unlikely it will be that all wind farms will run at 100% (or 0%) capacity at the same time. That is, in effect, we could say that the nameplate capacity of wind power for a large area is less than the sum of nameplate capacity for the individual turbines.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 04:19:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Thomas:

have a way to store that surplus.

that's where the electric cars in everyones' garages come in, topping up all night long.

or have downtown daytime charging stations for all the office workers' parked cars, that themselves are charged up during the windy nights.

having 300% of nameplate would also lower the price to the public, no?

lowered tax revenue from utilities' lower income could be boosted in compensation, by schemes like industrial locations to attract new business investment in low footprint businesses, offering extra low electricity rates, especially for night time automatised production facilities.

i don't see why a simpler, lower-tech version could be offered to small, poor countries with wind too, with weights lifted through electrical power at night, left to descend during the day, and geared to turbines that would charge transport batteries or generate current for daytime use on windless days.

all the shoreline communities with exposure to the trade winds would qualify, i imagine.

in a planet that is moving into a more active seismical cycle, might it not be foolish to think we know the future costs of storing nuclear waste are going to remain stable?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:14:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

in a planet that is moving into a more active seismical cycle

What?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:15:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Maybe a Mayan calendar reference?

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 14th, 2010 at 10:24:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

well, is that bullshit? you can say so, as you know!

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...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:24:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I have no reason to think it isn't bullshit: you're proposing the idea, you provide the evidence.

It sounds like you're saying that because you're more aware of quakes there must be more of them, which would be bullshit. I assume that's not what you mean.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:45:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

i don't have the stats, do you?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 09:49:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Are Earthquakes Really on the Increase?

USGS:

Are Earthquakes Really on the Increase?
We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.
A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite. This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.
According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 - 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year.

Also, some stats here.

The stats are interesting - numbers for catastrophic quakes remain relatively constant, very small earthquake numbers have dropped, and there was a trend and spike for mid-sized earthquakes that peaked in 2008.

I'm not totally convinced that was an effect of improved monitoring. You'd need to check info about the total number of monitoring stations to know for sure.

This was 2000 to 2010 only. Numbers for previous decades are available, if anyone wants to dig through them.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 10:22:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

thanks TBG, very interesting.

apologies to all for not being fact based, and thanks to Colman for calling it out.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 11:23:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

There are likely more efficient means of load shifting than trying to store energy with mechanical weights - eg, off-peak AC in the fancy part of downtown provided by making ice off-peak and circulating air through the iceblocks for cooling during the day, and further development of the lower capital cost Ammonia production techniques than the traditional one, which are powered by electricity - given the energy intensity of Ammonia production, switching cells offline when conserving load and running at 100% when there is what would otherwise be stranded wind is a promising line.

In the larger cities of most low income countries (and in most low income countries, electric grids are most commonly in place in the larger cities), the excess in demand over supply capacity is addressed by system wide brown-outs and rolling black-outs, and as a result, there is widely dispersed energy storage to cope. If substantial wind capacity is added, the intermittent brown-outs become less frequent, as does the number of days per month that any given neighborhood is blacked out.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jan 15th, 2010 at 03:03:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

That's like arguing that because no one has solved the problem of nuclear waste, nuke plants aren't viable.

The obvious hole in the logic is that no one - not even Jerome - is suggesting that wind should supply 100% of average power.

The less obvious hole is that if you apply simple conservation strategies - insulating houses and buildings, adding smart distribution systems, hanging people who buy kw plasma TVs from lamp posts, forcing everyone who works on Wall St to get a proper job - the required average load can be decreased significantly.

Add microgeneration, or even basic passive solar for hot water, and you can create local energy independence which enhances national and international energy policy.

Unreliability isn't an issue for wind. If you have a network of ten or more farms with reliable but intermittent wind profiles, the statistical distribution more or less guarantees a supply that's steady enough for the base load.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 at 05:55:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]