Renewable Electricity is Our Only Viable Option
First, a quick tutorial (details can be found in Chapter 1 of Simple Solutions for Planet Earth accessible through one of the boxes on the right):
1. In reference to producing electricity, there is really dirty coal (remember acid rain and the Clean Air Act?), dirty coal (what is largely the practice today) and clean coal (nothing has really worked yet, but give them time). Further, along two tracks, there is the "clean" system that mines for coal but attempts to remove the carbon dioxide from the stack gas and store it underground, and the longer term option, which I worked on more than three decades ago at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, called in-situ coal gasification (and oil shale retorting), where everything happens in-situ or in place. This technology was appearing to make a comeback when oil shot pass $100/barrel, but has been understandably quiet as of recent. You think we have a lot coal? Yes, we do, but we are also the Saudi Arabia of oil shale.
2. There are two types of nuclear power: fission (think Atomic Bomb), the currently utilized process, and fusion (Hydrogen Bomb and our Sun), the so-called cleaner and safer form, which in all pathways, seems to be a decade away from breakeven, as it has been since I worked on this concept in the 1970's. Thus, the engineering and economics are at least a generation away from commercialization, unless something like heavy ion fusion can suddenly gain credibility.
What will new nuclear and clean coal-fired electricity cost? If you go to traditional fossil and nuclear sources, you will see prices between 2 cents and 3 cents per kilowatt hour. So, as the average selling price of electricity today is 10 cents/kWh, why don't we just build more of these facilities? Well, for one, that's only from old facilities. Today, there are concerns about global warming and nuclear waste/terrorism. A whole new set of requirements needs to be met. Thus, it turns out that there will almost surely be a much bigger problem: Economics.
Consulting recent studies, projected electricity costs from new nuclear and coal plants seem to have jumped by a factor of at least three and as much as ten:
1. Joseph Romm earlier this month reported the cost of electricity from new nuclear facilities at from 25 cents to 30 cents / kWh, about triple the current price of electricity in the country, citing the study of Craig Severance.
2. Romm also said last summer that the California Public Utilities Commission placed the cost of power from new nuclear plants at 15.2 cents per kWh. They also put the cost of coal gasification with carbon capture and storage at 16.9 cents per kWh.
3. In mid-2007, a Keystone Center nuclear report, funded in part by the industry, estimated capital costs between $3600 to $4000/kW, including interest. The report noted that the production cost would be 8.3 to 11.1 cents/kWh. In December 2007. Retail electricity prices then averaged 8.9 cents/kWh, so there would be no profit.
4. In October 2007, Florida Power and Light, a leading nuclear utility, presented its detailed cost estimate for new power plants to the Florida Public Service Commission, concluding that two units totaling 2,200 megawatts would cost up to $8,000 per kilowatt, more than double that reported in the Keystone Report.
Why have these nuke costs escalated so much? Time (takes ten years from announcement to operation, and therefore, uncertainties about funding), fickle fuel fees for uranium, environmentalists and negative public sentiment, higher cost of materials and labor, waste storage nightmares, fear of terrorism, and more.
So from "too cheap to meter" to something anywhere from 9 cents/kWh to 30 cents/kWh, potential new nuclear power electricity rates now rest somewhere between solar photovoltaic and solar thermal electricity. Wind power is at half those costs, or even lower, and is sufficiently below the average cost of electricity to be on the cusp of being competitive with conventional coal.
Now, if global warming is real and coal-fired electricity with carbon capture/storage and new nuclear facilities are both in the conservative range of 15 cents/kWh, the solution becomes obvious: abandon building any new uranium/plutonium and coal power plants, and install as many wind farms and residential and utility-scale solar thermal systems as fast as possible. Also toss in geothermal energy into this mix. Assist in the promised coming of solar photovoltaics, and certainly, accelerate research into ocean thermal energy conversion, for this is the only baseload marine option of major promise. Offshore wind energy conversion systems are also beginning to show potential. I worry about wavepower, but there is hope for tidal and current power at a few choice sites.
If global warming is a true concern, economics alone can justify this renewable electricity pathway. If you disagree, let me hear of your better solution. In any case, the more difficult problems are associated with developing sustainable fuels/systems for ground and air transportation. Several of my earlier HuffPos have addressed this challenge.
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Patrick- its a lot more difficult to build nuclear power plants in the US than in most other countries because our regional utility companies are typically not as large as the large typically 'national' utilities in foreign countries. And nuclear facilities are typically very capital intensive. We also want nuclear power plants to compete against other power sources 'with there hands tied behind their backs' since politics could easily delay and drive up the cost or even cancel billions of dollars of private investment in a nuclear facility.
But once a nuclear facility is built, they are incredible money makers that create a lot more jobs than renewable energy facilities plus they last a life time (60 to 80 years) rather than the 20 to 30 year lifetime of a wind power facility.
But we've hardly tapped the full potential for nuclear power since the wasted off-peak electricity from current nuclear facilities could be used to manufacture synthetic hydrocarbon fuels: methanol, gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and dimethyl ether using water electrolysis to produce hydrogen and CO2 from air technologies.
And even the waste heat from nuclear power plants could be utilized to produce fresh water from seawater. Or nuclear power facilities could supply waste heat for greenhouse and hydroponic farming, technologies that could dramatically reduce the land use of the agricultural industry and dramatically reduce the agricultural pollution of our coastal waters from nitrogenous waste.
Marcel F. Williams
http://new
Yes, Japan can build an operable nucear power plant at less than half the time we take in our country, and, considering that they experienced Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that is amazing. So, yes, this process delay and resultant uncertainty can escalate costs. But this issue is beyond mere cost. The masses personally favor wind farms and solar energy over nuclear. The fact that Obama beat McCain will no doubt further delay consideration for new fission facilities in America. By the way, the Hawaii State Legislature last week killed the nuclear bill and sentiment in California is two to one against this option.
Polls show that most Americans want to build more nuclear power plants-- even Democrats. But people love wind and especially solar right now because there is very little of it. But there is already a growing resistance against wind power in the US and in other countries from local communities and environmentalist that just don't want them.
I predict that once wind power grows from its current 1% of our electrical capacity up to 10 or 20% of our electrical capacity that wind will experience as much resistance from local communities as nuclear power does today.
Check out the Stop Ill Wind website at:
http://www
which also features some interesting quotes from some environmentalist:
"I was asked to open the windfarm at Delabole. At that time nobody was talking about a gigantic programme, getting 15 or 20 per cent of the country's energy from wind turbines. It was a kind of nice green gesture. I think, now that I know as much as I do, I wouldn't have touched it with a bargepole.
—James Lovelock, the founding historical and cultural leader of environmentalism for environmentalists around the world and originator of the GAIA concept.
A question for you, Marcel: can you show a reference that compares number of jobs created for nuclear and renewables? Say, per kWh produced or per MW capacity. While our President has been touting the large number of green jobs to come from solar energy, I have always thought that the weakness of renewables was that it was too people intensive. I can't believe that in the 30 year life times of a 1000 MW wind farm and a 1000 MW nuclear power plant, the latter would have a higher labor cost. But if you're right, this would be good to know, and a solid reference would be useful.
Hi Patrick. I really wasn't referring to temporary construction jobs. I was referring to permanent jobs. And in the case of new nuclear plants, that would mean jobs lasting 60 to 80 years at a single facility.
After a nuclear power facility is completed, each nuclear power reactor (~ GWe ) provides between 400 to 700 permanent high paying jobs. On average, a 1 GWe coal facility provides about 220 jobs, 1 Gwe of natural gas power facilities: 60 jobs and a 1GWe wind farm would provide about 90 permanent jobs.
But I do have links to how many construction jobs are created by the nuclear industry along with a link to the stats on permanent nuclear and wind jobs:
http://www
http://www
http://www
http://djy
snilon- how is the nuclear industry preventing solutions to our energy crisis when there hasn't been a 'brand new' nuclear power plant built in the US in decades while France, China, and Japan have continued to order and build new power plants?
The problem in the US is not that we're building too many nuclear power plants; the problem is that we've hardly built any new nuclear power plants over the past few decades-- mostly due to an irrational fear of nuclear energy technology, IMO .
France supplies nearly 80% of its electricity through nuclear power and has the lowest carbon footprint of any nation in Europe. And so called 'green' Germany now imports nuclear electricity from France and is seriously thinking about building more dirty coal power plants. The US needs to learn for the French experience if we are really serious about dealing with global warming.
But any irrational fear of technology could be a recipe for cultural and economic decline and eventual environmental disaster .
Marcel F. Williams
http://new
Marcel,
If my fear is irrational, it in not because of my knowledge of technology, nor is it because of my experience. I lived under the cloud of Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania in 1979 when it had a partial core meltdown . For many years after, my family paid taxes to cover the cost of that nuclear disaster. And while I will give you that nuclear technology has come a long way since then, it is still a means to and end.
I am not suggesting that we take down the nuclear plants that exist today, I am suggesting that it is within the best interest of our country to move in another direction when it comes to energy. If I do have a fear, it lies within the vested interest of the nuclear and coal industry to protect their domain and influence our government. Large industries, such as the ones that I have just mentioned along with the oil industry and the automakers, have had a strong hold over us for a very long time. I believe that empowering others to produce alternative energy will enable us to break free from that strong hold. Need I remind you of what happened in the 1970's when we were doing just that?
S. Nilon
http://www
It's not the cost effectiveness that seems to be the issue, it's the amount of money already put into Nuclear and Coal. These industries are long established and hold a large interest in keeping the solutions to our need to end our use of Fossil Fuel away from renewable energy. They have the finances to support their argument and influence our legislative representatives.
We need to take a good look at which legislators are supporting the nuclear and coal industry before we allow them the opportunity to decide where the stimulus money is going. In Florida, we have a local congressman - Rep. Paige Kreegel, who fought hard last year to kill a piece of legislation that would allow our state to adopt an energy plan that would have strict vehicle emissions guidelines, very simular to Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan for California. Rep. Kreegel received financial contributions by the auto industry at that time. Gov. Crist's plan went no where.
My point is: logic is not always the winner when it comes to the battle of common sense, special interest is.
You bring up a key point. In my second Huffpo eight months ago, I said, don't blame the oil companies, Detroit, President Bush or the Congress..
First of all, there are probably enough terrestrial resources of uranium to power nuclear reactors at current levels for more than 200 years. And it doesn't seem likely that nations like Canada, Australia, and South Africa would would stop exporting their uranium resources to the US and the rest of the Western world. Further uranium exploration and improved extraction technology could double the amount of uranium reserves. That would give us more than 400 years of uranium at current use.
Secondly, reprocessing spent fuel and using higher enriched fuel could more than double the efficiency of uranium use. So this would give us an 800 year supply of nuclear fuel.
Of course we are not limited to merely to terrestrial uranium. There is enough uranium in natural seawater to supply current nuclear capacity for more than 60,000 years and the Japanese are currently leading the development of that technology.
See my recent blog article: How long will uranium last? at:
http://new
I don't want to sound like a raving anti-nuke maniac, because I have worked on fusion at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, but here we have different opinions on fission, and I respect you on your position. My point of view is that we won't need to worry much about conventional nuclear power making any serious inroads because, if the utilities and public utility commissions are right, these facilities have too much risk and will be too expensive to build. As an aside, one of projects I help kill when I worked in the U.S. Senate nearly 30 years ago was the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. This happened not long after the Three Mile disaster, so it was an almost natural repercussion. I've wondered since then if that was a smart move, but, anyway, as I indicated, nuclear power plants will just be too expensive to build without heavy government support, and I don't think that the Obama Administration will give more than lip service to that possibility.
Another source of base-load energy is salinity gradient energy at river-sea interfaces. The theoretical maximum is about 3 MW/m3 per second, and about 1MW/m3 per second is converted to usable work. According to Statkraft of Norway, global potential is about 1600TWh. The Rhine river has a potential of 6GW alone, so this 24/7 power deserves more research. Current research in Norway and Holland utilizes expensive petroleum-based membranes, but vapor pressure differences similar to open cycle OTEC are a possibility.
Geothermal is definitely the underdog and is taking off in odd places like Germany where expectations are being exceeded (80ºC deep-wells), which is a better temperature delta than OTEC (maximum temperature delta=20ºC). Google.org is also investing in geothermal as the fastest route to producing 1GW of renewable energy cheaper than coal RE
I have a section in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth on salinity gradients, and if the premise that we need every clean option we can find to combat Peak Oil and Global Warming can come with financially supported externalities, certainly, this alternative should be researched and developed. My quick calculations, though, place this technology at the edge of reality, but probably better than wave power, which will only be applicable, I think, where the natural conditions can protect the facility without building it like a fort, which then becomes very, very expensive. I am watching how well that Portuguese-Scotch experiment progresses, for those machines are not all that well protected from major storms. I seemed to have worked on everything, but I was also one of the reservoir engineers for the Hawaii Geothermal Project, and we did succeed in drilling, at that time, the hottest geothermal well in the world on the Big Island of Hawaii, producing 3 MW. Unfortunately, anti-technologists who recently re-located to the site area, marijuana growers, rain-forest freaks and religious groups effectively ended serious development in Hawaii. There will, however, be considerable growth around the world, and hot-dry rock is rather intriguing.
I see you worked with OTEC among your many endeavors and was wondering what happened to the open cycle mist-lift OTEC proposed by Stuart Ridgway who received 2 patents in the late 70s and early 80s? It seemed like a great solution having a floating platform offshore generating power, eliminating the large turbine necessary for the low-density vapor pressure to generate power.
Patrick, can you imagine the benefits of point of use solar. If 50% of all users in the US had the solar capability where they live, there would be a freeing-up of the needed power from the utilities. Don't you agree?
Some day, I expect this to occur. The problem today is that solar photovoltaics remain a bit , if not a lot, too expensive for the normal household. Germany mandated that residential owners can sell their electricity back to their utility for more than 50 cent/kWh, so, rather suddenly, this country became #1 in the world. But Germany is not a particularly sunny nation, and this policy is under fire and has a sunset clause. While I strongly feel that we sort of blew it after the second energy crisis in 1979 when we did not put on a full court press to do as you suggest, the reality is that oil/gasoline prices dropped to an all time low (in current dollars) in 1998, and would do so again if crude drops below $30/barrel this year. Fickle energy prices have regularly destroyed good intentions.
Biowaste from cities, towns, farms, and forest could probably provide an additional 15% of electrical capacity. Small hydroelectric facilities might be capable of raising hydro power from 7% to 10%. And the energy department believes that wind could supply 20 or 30% of our electricity by 2030. So a nuclear and renewable energy economy could completely free us from carbon dioxide polluting electric energy production in just a few decades.
Marcel F. Williams
http://new
I would prefer that we use all available biomass for biofuels, preferably biomethanol, not ethanol.
The capital cost of nuclear energy in the US are purely speculative since we haven't built a brand new reactor in the US in decades. The new generation of reactors such as the Westinghou
Nuclear power plants currently produce 20% of our electricity while wind produces about 1% of our electricity. Right now, the best way to reduce the capital cost of nuclear power plants is to build new reactors on existing sites. There is more than enough room on existing nuclear sites in the US to more than triple nuclear capacity which would increase nuclear power production to more than 60%. Additionally, off-peak nuclear power could be used to manufacture methanol from the electrolysis of water and CO2 extracted from air or from the flu gas from garbage power plants. The methanol could then be used for peak-load electric energy production or back up energy for renewable wind and solar facilities which currently use carbon dioxide polluting natural gas.
If both Florida Power and Light and the California Public Utilities Commission officially have indicated that nuclear power will be costing something on the order of 15 cents/kWh, why bother with this option when, first, nothing has been built in decades, but, more importantly, you will have huge uncertainties with storage, terrorism and public outrage.
Uranium is not very abundant and lots of it is not in the US.
We produce only 2.5%. Global reserves are adequate for at least 85 years - not thousands of years.
Roughly speaking, home solar electric panel systems provide power for an investment cost of about $2000 per kwh in areas where there is good sun.
For $20,000 an individual could have 10 kwh per day, whenever the sun is shining. This is kind of the minimum for a house that does not need electric air conditioning. This is a rough figure, an individual system could be cheaper or more expensive, but probably not much more expensive.
There are other ways to do solar electric cheaper. Grid-tied systems do not require any capital outlay or maintenance for batteries. Utility-scale systems are cheaper per kwh. Concentrating solar power plant systems are cheaper.
The new Federal and State incentives enacted have finally made Solar Power a reality for many homeowners. In most cases, the incentives will pay for 60-75% of the total installed cost.
Additionally, New York City provides a tax abatement on your property for 4 years when you install Solar PV to generate electricity. An average sized system costs $25,000. With the new incentives, this cost drops to less than $5000.
What we need to do is eliminate or reduce the upfront out-of-pocket costs, and allow homeowners to pay for the system over time. Some states (California) allow a leasing plan, removing a significant barrier to adoption.
.//A.
http://gre
I am generally in favor of developing solar PV, but I fear the current technology remains too expensive, for the best cost I can find is an optimistic 20 cents/kWh (and this could well be closer to 25 cents/kWh) when utility-scale solar thermal is half this cost and wind farm power about a quarter. Nanosolar and other companies tout "cheaper than coal," but until I see something a bit more competitive, I can only express mild support for this technology. Now, if our society can accept externalities such as security, global warming credits, de-centralization, etc., then, PV begins to look attractive. Our country and the world at large, are, though, not quite there yet.
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