Coal? No. Ethanol? Not yet. Here's one reader's case for nuclear
The electric car movement has, for the foreseeable future, a problem explaining how to best generate the massive amounts of electricity that plug-in hybrids and pure electrics will need. Right now, coal and nuclear the two most common ways to generate electric power in the U.S., and, while there's a lot of work being done on cleaner renewable sources, these two will be with us for a while yet. ABG reader Rolf Westgard wrote a column for the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota where he makes his case for nuclear (Westgard is also a portfolio manager who focuses on investments in the oil and gas industry and a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists). Starting with the image of watching 100+ car trains full of Wyoming coal headed to an electric plant, Westgard explains why we need nukes.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike coal from an environmental standpoint. In fact, I can't think of any reasons why coal should be the power source of choice unless all you factor in is the cost. It's a dirty fuel, and getting it out of the ground isn't pretty (watch an eight-minute movie about mountaintop removal after the jump. It's got Woody Harrelson in it). But what does nuclear power offer? Some very serious problems, in my view, but Westgard make his case in favor of more nuke plants this way:
No CO2, ground level ozone, acid rain or particulates. Not a lot of accidents ("Radiation release to the public at Three Mile Island was trivial," he writes). And it's politics, not technology, that's holding up new plants. You can read the entire thing here.
I'm not convinced by Westgard's arguments that we need to be building more nuke plants. As one of my fellow ABG writers pointed out to me, "There is no need to build nuclear reactor. We already have one. It is called the Sun. Wind power, solar PV power, conservation seem to me the way to go to avoid the admittedly low risk/high lethality nuclear event." No kidding. There's a lot of untapped power in the sun. Let's hope we see some serious movement in this direction before BEVs and PHEVs become more and more available. Otherwise, we'll just be filling our tanks with coal and/or nuclear power instead of dinojuice.
[Source: Rolf Westgard / St. Cloud Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tony Belding 10:31AM (7/02/2007)
I've said this before, and I'll keep saying it. . . We need to fund Dr. Bussard's "Polywell" IEC fusion reactor. There's a very good chance it might work -- but nobody seems willing to commit the relatively minor resources ($5 million for another test reactor) needed to find out.
These things wouldn't produce any significant amounts of radioactive waste, and there would be no chance of a Chernobyl-style meltdown. The fuel (Boron-11) is plentiful. There is no downside.
The only problem I can see is that nobody will fund it because, I suppose, it sounds too good to be true. Skepticism is healthy up to a point, but when one of the world's most reputable and accomplished fusion researchers says it will work and he has the experimental data to show it, somebody should at least investigate further.
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Jimmy 11:16AM (7/02/2007)
I think the important lesson is that current electrical generation has a huge environmental impact. Too many people believe that cars and trucks are the sole cause of pollution and global warning; they mistakenly assume that electricity is "clean".
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art vatsky 7:31PM (7/02/2007)
Glad you used my comment but I should have written "low probability/high lethality" instead of "low risk". The point is, sure, there is a low chance of something actually going wrong but, if it does . . .
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Chris 12:03PM (7/02/2007)
And what about uranium mining? That's pretty bad and always ignored until one's going up in your community.
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Mike Miller 12:25PM (7/02/2007)
I would like to point out a few things:
Energy efficiency – new technology is making products more energy efficient, reduces demand. Examples are LCD tv/monitors, newer refrigerators, laptop vs desktop computers, etc. changing out light bulbs to CFLs everywhere would reduce the need for most new power plants.
Cost – energy is too cheap in the US so we do not even think about it. Increase the price and you will reduce demand. Americans use 2x as much energy on average as Europeans.
Nuclear and coal plants require huge amounts of water. Do you want your drinking water to be run through a nuclear plant? Not me. This is particularly a problem for arid climates where you can’t water lawn, yet the nuclear power plant is running and sucking all the water.
Nuclear plants produce large amounts of heat via water = global warming
Nuclear plants are not sustainable because there is only so much uranium on the plant.
Solar efficiency is increasing and the cost is coming down. Most places in the US have enough solar radiation to allow solar to work, at least in part. Summer is when we need more electricity for cooling any way.
Geothermal heat pumps will work in many areas including the Midwest. All you need is a constant ground temp, even 50 degrees F will do. Can be drilled wells or trenched in. 400% efficient.
Eventually we will end up with solar/wind/geothermal/ocean energy any way so why not now? We should at least exhaust this option before we try to build new plants of any kind. We should encourage everyone to take their energy into their own hands with incentives for improvements/reductions and disincentives for doing nothing.
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ug 12:55PM (7/02/2007)
Dinojuice? That sounds like The Land Before Time pr0n.
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middleoroad 1:18PM (7/02/2007)
Added to the obvious sea,sun,wind and hydrogen power, the continual improvement in biofuels(tyson + phillips=chicken fat diesel)and nuclear looks more and more obsolete.
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Mike Z 1:17PM (7/02/2007)
Mike Miller:
First you argue that nuclear uses too much water, then call for geothermal power, which uses large amounts of water too? Huh????
Second, Saying energy is too cheap is a two sided coin. After all, PHEVs depend on cheap electricity to make their economic case. Take that away and gas is here to stay.
Third, to argue that nuclear is unsustainable is on par with arguing that solar is unsustainable because the sun will die in five billion years. In fact, I remember talking to one nuclear engineer who commented that it is likely that we have a longer supply of nuclear fuel than the sun will last. Who is sustainable now?
To the editor: Solar is important, but let's not kid ourselves--Take your electric bill and multiply the cost by five. That's solar right now. While their are hopes of bringing the cost down, I for one don't get on mere projections about the future. Also, remember that we still need nighttime generating capacity for all those PHEVs.
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Mike Z 1:24PM (7/02/2007)
No, no one is seriously talking about using biofuels to generate large amounts of electricity.
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susan.kraemer 3:55PM (7/02/2007)
The electric car industry DOES NOT require vast new amounts of electricity: you recharge at night on unemployed electricity from baseload plants that its more expensive to shutter every night.
When the utilities must buy electricity if its made - from whatever source makes elecricity: wind wins. Google Spain and "feed-in tariffs"
These feed-in tariff laws will jumpstart green energy in the US just as it is in Spain, Denmark and Germany. Since it is cheaper and quicker to put up wind than nuclear, and the taxpayer is not burdened with covering it, (no insurance company in its right mind will cover nuke plants) green enrgy will win.
It is the fossilfuel and coal industry written legislation that holds up green energy. They prevented us from adopting "feed-in tariffs" with Reagan era legislation to shut out competition.
Even more important than the Senate Energy bills RPS which failed because of the Brown States resisitance we should get "feed-in tariff" laws here and make money selling green energy.
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Joseph 3:45PM (7/02/2007)
"The electric car movement has, for the foreseeable future, a problem explaining how to best generate the massive amounts of electricity that plug-in hybrids and pure electrics will need"
Electric cars do not require very many new power plants. Electric cars/PHEVs will most likely be charged only at home, and only at night since there is no need to charge them during the day as they can go at 100+ miles.
At night there is much less electrical demand, and so electric cars are there to fill that electric demand. Studies have shown that if 70% of all cars were to become PHEVs over night, that the electric grid could support all of it safely without catastrophe. Also, a small, yet signifigant amount of people would charge their EV from solar panels, taking no affect on the grid.
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Mike Z 4:17PM (7/02/2007)
Feed-in Tariffs obligate utilities to pay above market-rate for certain sources of power, and does not penalize the generator for unreliable power output.
For example, a Feed-in Tariff obligates a utility to purchase wind power, even if it does not need it, and if the source fluctuates too much and therefore requires a gas turbine to balance the load, the utility is required to pay.
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Joe 4:23PM (7/02/2007)
@ Mike Z.
When talking of electricity costs, why not resort to an official source for real figures:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/wf01.html or
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat7p4.html
As you can see, the government reveals US average energy costs for electricity at roughly 10-13 $ct per KWh.
In Germany (known to have the world's highest electricity prices), there is a Greenpeace subsiduary which produces electricity. They produce fully green electricity for just under 20 Euro ct. While this roughly equals a US price of $ct26, you must remember that the German price already includes all kinds of taxes (follow the link for an illustration: http://www.greenpeace-energy.de/strom_preis.php attention: German language :-) ).
Included are
VAT (sales tax: 19% or 3,2 Euro ct.), 2,65 Euro ct Eco tax (which is ironically charged by the (stupid) German government: charging a green electricity provider a tax which was drawn up to punish dirty coal, now somebody figure this one out...), a further 5,8 Euro ct goes to "renting" the electricity lines from one of the privatized majors who own the networks to be allowed to deliver electricity to nationwide homes.
Now after deducing these taxes that leaves us with price of (calculator anybody) exactly 8,25 Euro ct. This converts to roughly 11 $ct.
Cheap green electricity anybody? Is seems possible. The Greenpeace energy mix is lso interesting: http://www.greenpeace-energy.de/strom_mix.php
Translated: Hydroelectric 75%, 10% Wind, 1% photovoltaic and the rest is biomass and other renewables (law defined mix).
I accept that you probably have to add some of the line rental costs again, as any utility needs to invest in maintenance, but is is generally acknoledged that these line rental fees are about five times the real amount (litigation is proceeding against it from all sorts of alternative energy providers.) This leaves us with the same electricity price as in the US but for all-green juice.
Now I think the same kind of production would be possible anywhere in the world. Add new super efficient 40% decentralised solar energy production on everybody's rooftop and a bit of switching to more efficient home appliances and there we go.
Cheap (read the same as now), stable and plentiful electricity supply for homes, computers and cars.
Now, how can Greenpeace manage this? No treehugger arguments please, this firm makes is profitable, but the big difference is that this firm does not require any mega profits other than to cover their (legally required) new investments into more/new energy production facilities and pay their staff.
It should also be noted that at the same time Greenpeace even provides a great transparency about their energy production. Every 15 minutes you can go and check how much waterpower is generated etc. (some technical caveats still apply).
All in all, it works, no more to say. Let's do it!
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Mike Z 5:13PM (7/02/2007)
Your making two implided assumptions:
1. The Greenpeace example could scale up profitablity at that cost structure.
2. That those 40% solar cells are viable commerially, in reality the complex junction stucture of them is likely never to find it's way into mass-production.
It's an important step, but don't confuse it for being something being right around the corner. Also, what happens with all that solar power at night? What provides power then? Batteries are too expensive, and wind would still require other base-load source?
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werepants 5:46PM (7/02/2007)
I hate these anti-nuclear tirades. There are green-freaks who are against wind power because it hurts birds, and nuclear because it is "dangerous", and so on and so forth. It is a shame to realize even the supposedly environmentally conscious crowd is often swayed by politically minded sell-outs, rather than looking at the true pros and cons of power sources.
The thing is, nuclear operates on a scale that is not really feasible with most other power methods. We're talking gigawatts with nuclear, an order of magnitude higher than the largest competing plants.
Additionally, nuclear has room for improvements in efficiency that will lower costs and increase output. All that water you complain about? Energy could be further reclaimed with current, more advanced methods, doing things like growing algae for biodiesel and so on, and then recycled back into the plant instead of being used in an open-cycle steam system.
For a while now, all new plants have been built so it is physically impossible for a meltdown to occur. Of course, there are always better fools, but you have to consider that failing powerplants of any kind can cause damage to the nearby area, and fission has been singled out because of association with the atom bomb.
Do some research on the current state of Chernobyl, and you'll see that animals are actually thriving there, as opposed to the area being a wasteland as predicted.
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Bill 5:49PM (7/02/2007)
Not a good example - they're not any more efficient than CRTs.
>Examples are LCD tv/monitors
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Joe 6:00PM (7/02/2007)
For clarification:
1) This company is profitable already. Growing in size is an issue that does need addressing with any new technology, only time will tell. They at least say, they can "go large", which means they currently have enough sources to purchase green power from. Currently they produce at a surplus, but their terms of business and articles of association require that they make an investment into new energy production for the demand of every new customer they make within 5 years. So, if I join today (surplus production) they are going to build some new plant that will cover my personal energy demand from an all new plant at the latest in 5 years. I think this is a sustainable way of growing, given the current speed of develoment of alternatives.
b) The greenpeace solution does currently only use 1% of solar power. Thus, the 40% efficient panels are not included in neither their nor my own calculation and can only make things better/cheaper. Nothing depends in this, however.
Of course, this technology is not in mass-production yet. It will be though, or maybe an even better one. Only today I have read two press articles in the Financial Times on researchers developing new solar technology (one of them with a potential for more than 40% efficiency http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=1337).
A lot of these technologies can be turned into mass-production, but a) further research needs to be done and b) commercial production must start.
The common problem that these two points face is "financing". Who sponsors (potentially financially risky) research and who provides the cash for building production sites afterwards? This is the issue to address.
Now, if governments changed their ways and used our tax money that they have to save as an insurance for their nuclear plants and finally cut coal subsidies (EU issue) and take this money and fund high-tech solar research, and give tax-breaks for private solar investments, then we would be talking.
As it is, these companies are not interesting for many investors as they do not have a strong market share yet, produce/invent a so far not wide-spread technology and are normally founder/owner-run (so that they will not be squeezed for 25% return on equity for any money in the world), and so on. At the same time, investments in other ventures work well with high pay-offs (Chinese firms, job-slashing global multies, telecoms etc.)
I hope I only have to wait another few years until my SolarWorls stocks are going to make me rich :-) and we can live in a solar run world (and at night, well batteries develop, too. Remember Vehicle-to-Grid, Altairnano, A123and the like..)
Only a matter of time.
If only I was not such an impatient character :-)
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Mike Miller 8:05AM (7/03/2007)
For clarification:
Mike Z
I was talking about geothermal heat pumps that would be used for residential/commercial buildings not full blown geothermal plants. besides, the large geothermal plants recirculate the water, they do not use fresh clean water.
10-13 cents is the cost they are selling it at, but this does not take into account the externalities (pollution, nuclear waste, health realted issues caused by pollution, nuclear decommissioning, etc) and subsidies. If you took all that away and leveled the playing field, only then can you compare wind or whatever vs nuclear.
You talk giga watts and wind is too small. If it takes 10 yrs to build a nuclear plant and you could install one wind turbine a week that is 1.5 MW for 10 yrs, you would have 0.78 GW. No fuel, no waste, no expensive decommissioning, more jobs created, ........
Why are you so offended by decentralized power. If you use electricity where it is created then you need less because there is no transmission losses.
So we are willing to pay for expensive batteries in our cars but not for our homes? Yes prices are high now, but there will be solutions.
We are just getting started siting wind turbines (large) and getting solar more efficient. I have faith that the engineers of the world will figure out ways to get past these little barriers of cost, productions, etc. It may not happen today, but nor will electricity flow from your new nuclear plant. The point is we can do better than dirty or hazardous energy producing plants in most areas.
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Dave 1:06PM (7/03/2007)
1. Breeder reactors are sustainable. Fuel never runs out. It is just a matter of cost.
2. Nuclear reactors are the right answer in certain locations. They are the wrong answer in others.
3. The cooling water can be used to produce power. It is just a matter of cost.
I'd like to see the Mojave desert covered in solar collectors to cover peak daytime loads. And if ocean currents can produce power without destroying shipping channels and picturesque views, I'm all for it.
But for baseline loads, nukes will always be part of the mix. Operated properly, nukes are cleaner than oil, coal, and even natural gas.
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mikeinBuilding7 9:54PM (7/03/2007)
The only viable solutions now are Nuclear and Solar/Wind.
- Nuclear has the big disadvantage of the Proliferation, accident Risk, and it's Waste problem. We may need it for a base line.
But, according to Scientific American Energy study,
Solar is Ready NOW. Solar Furnaces( Stirling Engine ) can be built and run from 2 to 12 cents per kilowatt.
Solar panels only seem to need mass production to bring their unit cost down. And like the Computer Industry, you may have yearly equipment updates to move to Version 2, then 3, 4, 5, as the efficiency increases.
Finally, Electric engines put the most power to the road with the Highest Efficiency, you can plug them in, and you may NEVER kick in a Series Hybrid's Gas or Bio-Diesel Engine.
We need a Political Party with no ties to the Legacy Oil and Coal Industry to move the U.S. into the Future? Into the NOW.
http://rael.berkeley.edu/files/2006/Kammen-SciAm-Renewables-9-06.pdf
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