McCain's Utter Disdain for Meaningful Energy Plans

Architecture2030 is a tremendous group, with concepts that should be seized and acted upon as part and parcel of moving forward toward an Energy Smart future. Recently, they've made a bit of a name for themselves with excellent graphics that call out just how sensible John McCain's energy policy proposals are for changing the nation toward a better path forward.

Today, they just released the graphic to the right.

Yes, according to their work, 20 years from now, John McCain's 45 nuclear power plants would provide just over two percent of business-as-usual electricity generation.

I suggest checking out their latest news, including an energy quiz. Notice that offshore drilling provides even less in the liquid fuel domain than what nuclear power would for electricity.

[John McCain's] proposed "Bold Energy Plan" would supply a meager three percent of the 118 QBtu of energy that the Energy Information Administration projects America will consume in 2030. The 2030 Blueprint, a three-pronged solution centered on building energy efficiency, homeowner choices and renewable energy, would supply as much as 37% of America's total energy consumption, replace 100% of its fossil-fuel-generated electricity and reduce its imported oil by as much as 89%.

Hmmm ... maybe we should look to Architecture 2030 and not Sarah "Energy Expert" Palin for meaningful advice about solviing America's energy challenges.

NOTE: Architecture2030 used a rough average of today's nuclear power plants to produce the numbers of productivity of 45 plants in 2030. This might, in fact, understate the likely power input of 45 nuclear power plants by about half. Half sounds like a large amount, which it is in many ways, but doubling the output from 45 plants still does not make nuclear power a solution for global warming.

Comments

[Architecture 2030]

Architecture 2030: Additional Information
Post 3 of 3

7. Because of the US economic meltdown, tight credit and escalating nuclear facility construction cost, Architecture 2030 believes that new nuclear plant construction will eventually be built in the mid-range of capacity (if at all). Therefore, we used an average nuclear unit capacity of 820 MW to create the graph for US Electricity Consumption.

8. Even if one assumes an average new unit capacity of 1100 MW to create the graph, the total energy, i.e. primary energy (delivered energy plus losses), would be between 3.75 QBtu and 4.0 QBtu. (The delivered energy would be between 1.25 QBtu and 1.32 QBtu.) This is still a drop in the bucket compared to the 118 QBtu of total (primary) energy (85 QBtu delivered) that the EIA projects the US will consume in the year 2030.

[Architecture 2030]

Architecture 2030: Additional Information
(post 2 of 3)

5. A new report from Standard and Poor's this week (10/15/08), "Construction Costs To Soar For New US Nuclear Power Plants", states that any new nuclear reactor contracts are not expected to have a fixed timeline or overall fixed construction cost, making it impossible to estimate the actual cost of a reactor. The cost to build a reactor has risen 173 percent since 2000.

6. The projected cost of building a new nuclear plant is staggering. From the Wall Street Journal May 12, 2008, "FPL Group, Juno Beach, Fla., estimates it will cost $6 billion to $9 billion to build each of two reactors (1100 MW each) at its Turkey Point nuclear site in southeast Florida. It has picked a reactor design by Westinghouse Electric Co., a unit of Toshiba Corp., after concluding it could cost as much as $12 billion to build plants with reactors designed by General Electric Co." This was the cost in May 2008 (before the economic meltdown and tight credit) and does not include land costs, cost of new transmission lines, support facilities, nuclear waste storage and decommissioning.

[Architecture 2030]

Architecture 2030: Additional Information
(post 1 of 2)

1. The EIA estimates that 1 QBtu of delivered energy is equal to the delivered energy of thirty-seven to forty 1000 MW (capacity) nuclear plants (actual number depends on the year).

2. There are 103 nuclear reactor units operating today in the US with an average unit capacity of 930 MW. Reactor units range from 476 MW to 1335 MW.

3. As of June 30, 2008 there were a total of nine new commercial nuclear license applications under review for fifteen reactor units - ten at 1117 MW, two at 1400MW, one at 1520MW and one at 1600MW. These applications were submitted before the current US credit crisis and economic meltdown.

4. New nuclear reactor designs are now coming in all sizes from the the Toshiba 4S (10 to 50 MW capacity) to the Westinghouse PBMR (180 MW capacity), IRIS (360 MW), AP 600 (600 MW), AP 1000 (1100 MW) and AREVA NP EPR (1600 MW).

[MHT73]

A very helpful graphic. What seems to be omitted from this discussion is the cost of protecting nuclear power plants from terrorism. How would that affect the cost and payback of an investment in nuclear energy?

[jackie2]

I do know that those 45 nuclear power plants would cost 9 billion dollars each, or 405 billion dollars total-

[Akacia]

that might be part of the problem??? But anyway, there is still so much of the adoring McCain we can all look over some major faults.

[Indedave]

Just as Gov. Palin finds the news regarding her candidacy depressing, I find the lack of commentary on this issue appalling. The extraordinarily harsh reality of the end of the petroleum era has already begun, yet one candidate, who would be the leader of the most intensively energy-consuming country on Earth, treats this problem as mere window dressing, and then only to appease that small fraction of his constituency who may actually care. Thankfully, Sen. Obama has given energy independence the same status as JFK's goal of a successful manned moon mission. I hope that once the election is over, Sen. Obama makes good on this policy.

[GRLCowan]

Apologies, I shouldn't post first thing in the morning. They probably aren't traitors, aren't getting telephoned instructions from the ghost of Admiral Tojo, and Siegel probably doesn't think of them as such.

They do give electrical BTU and thermal BTU the same vertical scaling on their graph, however.

--- G.R.L. Cowan, author of 'How fire can be tamed'
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan

[GRLCowan]

Siegel probably understands that 'Architecture2030' are traitors -- gas shills -- but he appears not to understand the particular deception they are attempting with the graphic he quotes. They are comparing electricity to heat as if these were the same.

Increasing the USA's nuclear power capacity by more than half will increase the nuclear share from 20 in 100 to something like 32 in 112, unless, as the graphic assumes, new construction of fossil-fired plant continues unslackened. It won't. That, no doubt, is what has the sponsors of many astroturf groups concerned. There was a brief time, in the early 70s, when nuclear power was increasing and coal was declining. They know that time will return.

Right now it's mostly displacing gas. That's actually more exciting because gas is so much more expensive. When the nuclear sector starts to eat coal's lunch, antinuclearism will be getting closer to being its own reward.

--- G.R.L. Cowan, author of 'How fire can be tamed'
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan

[A. Siegel - Huffpost Blogger]

"Traitors ..."???

The point to be taken away from this is not a for/against nuclear power but the fact (FACT) that the 45 nuclear power plants, which are at the core of John McCain's energy discusssions, will not "solve global warming" nor end America's oil addiction. That the 45 plants, whether one uses 800 mw or 1.6 gigawatts per plant, will represent only a relatively small share of America's electricity demand in 2030 under business-as-usual case. (My rough estimate has been that the 45 plants would represent, perhaps, 15 percent of today's electricity demand (roughly 75% or so of today's production from 104 plants) -- about half the business-as-usual increase in electricity demand over the coming 20 years.)

In any event, additional nuclear power is baseload -- where the most significant 'competition' is coal. For my part, I have, in the past, included a nuclear component as part of a comprehensive path to eliminate coal from the electricity equation by 2030 or earlier. (see: http://getenergysmartnow.com/2008/02/28/eliminating-coal-from-the-electricity-equation/)


Re "traitor" ... don't know what to say.

[AndrewInToronto]

It would seem that the amount of thought which Sen. McCain gave to this idea was in the same vein as that he gave to the realization of this plan during the debate: that we could produce energy from new nuclear power plants just like that. Poof, and they're they are. Like so much of his policies (from economic to foreign policy) they seem to be based more in his confidence that if he speaks them with a steadfast tone, he can will them into reality. Clearly from that which you have written, this is not so at all...once again. (I remember during the debate he mentioned an idea of reducing revenue (a tariff) to help balance the budget. Totally nonsensical.)

[mjt218]

No kind of power plant solves America's oil addiction. Oil is a transportation fuel issue, and has almost nothing to do with power generation.