Apple Delves Deeper into Renewable Energy, Offers Wind Energy Storage Concept

Dr. A. Cannara
January 29, 2013

Thanks Gary. If you're interested in reducing CO2, then nuclear is faster than wind, because of more than construction -- advanced nuclear can make carbon-neutral fuels from air & water. Wind cannot.

You suggest a common misunderstanding of nuclear energy & radiation -- radiation stems from unstable nuclei which are eliminating excess internal energy by emitting particles or X & gamma radiation. Thus, radioactive materials are disappearing & becoming stable, non-radioactive elements over time. Some do this in a split second. Some do it in billions of years, like the Potassium40 inside you, me and every other living animal.

Chemicals, in superfund sites, generally don't go away -- like PCBs, DDT... or pharmaceuticals, which directly influence living creatures as hormones, etc.

Chemistry is the source of far more threats to life than is nuclear power -- remember Bhopal? It still hasn't been cleaned up. Nor has the Hudson River near Poughkeepsie; nor Minimata.

The Japanese near Fukushima can now return to almost all the evacuated lands, as studies have indicated. The thousands killed by the quake & tsunami never will. No one was killed by Fukushima radiation, partly because nature has dealt with radiation for a few billion years -- back to when radiation was naturally far higher than today.

Fukushima is an example of how corporate greed & governmental weakness can expose people to danger, & so is the Japanese government's poor land-use policy, which killed over 10,000 that we know of & displaced hundreds of thousands. Are you reading the accounts of how the government even ignored hundreds of years of warnings about Sendai tsunami regions? For a short picture, see 17 Oct 2011 New Yorker, Eric Osnos.

If you wish to learn, try "radiation and Health" by Allison. Study realities... tinyurl dotcom/42wvr9l
forbes dotcom/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
scientificamerican dotcom/a

Gary Richardson
January 29, 2013

@Alex,
Interesting point about Calera, I doubt they are standing still though with one static product.
Neverless the value Calera might offer, windmills offer the opportunity of paying back it's carbon footprint rapidly and payback of investments quickly as well. However, your objection based on nuclear as being a better alternative is based on lower CO2 yet just as safe?
When people question the safety of nuclear, a strawman argument is claimed either because of misrepresentation or exaggeration of facts. There are many displaced homeowners and workers that lived and worked near meltdown sites such as fukushima that would be interested as to why you feel it is such as an exaggeration and cared more about keeping their home than being compensated for the loss of their residence. Especially older people who have lived there probably most of their lives and all their memories are now inaccessable due to the radiation hazard.
Some may argue that the Hydropower dams which also displace people from their homes is proof of acceptable loss but if you remove the dam the land is habitable once again. So how about nuclear? When disaster strikes, when can people move back to that site? How much does it cost to clean it up?
Another point to make is some superfund sites may have more acute hazards than nuclear and higher fatalities but one of their saving graces is the ability to clean up the mess is within reach if not being done already.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 25, 2013

Sure /Gary, Calera has been around for quite a while, and it's fine. However, if you were an engineer you'd ask a few questions, like:

a) how much energy is expended per ton of poured concrete?

b) How strong is the concrete compared to standard?

c) How much does concrete use actually contribute to CO2 emissions.

For c), cement production only accounts for less than 1/12 of total carbon emissions, so even eliminating it is not going to make much difference. It does make a difference when comparing power technologies, of course.

It turns out, Calera's stuff isn't yet as good as standard concrete,, so either more of iit must be used per structural element, or standard concrete must be called in for key parts.

Also, the word "aggregate" means mining, crushing & transport of rock, so that isn't reduced. Nor is the transport and mixing of Calera's product versus standard concrete changed, except to increase such emissions when Calera's isn't strong enough.

I live about 50 miles from Calera's first experimental site, by the way.

Gary Richardson
January 25, 2013

@Dr. Alex,
I don't think you will have to worry about CO2 from cement production going into the future.

http://novacem.com/

http://www.voanews.com/content/green-cement-captures-co2-80919747/163345.html

Additionally, legislation can be encouraged to locate Nuclear or Solar Thermal heat sources for cement production.

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-solar-thermal-cement-carbon-dioxide.html

Dr. A. Cannara
January 24, 2013

re BobW and "the Easter Bunny" sourcing nuclear fuel.

Of course not Bob, is this straw-bunny argument you're now reduced too?

Do you have any idea how much more is required for the steel & concrete and roads and transport across oceans, etc. for a wind farm, in relation to even the 100 toins of fuel used start up a nuke on Day 1?

Remember, I dave you a windmill vendor os you could get some numbers for your calculator. every windmill needs thousands of tions of iron ore, coal, limestone aggregate... Get your calcs going, Bob.

At this rate, maybe you'll be done by the time the French have finished producing new fuel from old for just one reactor!
']
By the way, Bob, we're still ready to hear your technical qualifications.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 24, 2013

Fred says: "A sentence must have a subject and a verb."

Oh?

Hmmm, that's a sentence too. Back to English composition class, Fred?
;]

Dr. A. Cannara
January 24, 2013

Thanks very much for the Danish link, Gary. I've also shared it with a Dartmouth prof who's been documenting actual perfoirmance of all power sources.

So, if we look at the figures, we see that these "most productive wind turbines in the world" in 12 'farms'. At Ronland I, the machines have run 9 years at 90% average (capacity factor) so Danes, their hospitals, their factories, their businesses & government would have had no thought to worry about weather, birds, shipping...

These being the "most productive wind turbines in the world" illustrate best why windmills are a fool's errand regarding energy and the environment.

The Danes, by the way, must maintain about 300MW of generation at standby to cover their next-day wind forecast if it's off by less than 1 meter/second. That backup, as in most places, is fossil fuel, or nuclear.

Might want to listen to Dieter again...
www.policyexchange.org.uk/modevents/item/fixing-climate-policy-with-professor-dieter-helm-cbe (Helms)

Gary Richardson
January 24, 2013

Here are some more things to chew on,
Danish offshore windfarms with capacity factors approaching 50%...

http://energynumbers.info/capacity-factors-at-danish-offshore-wind-farms

Fred Linn
January 24, 2013

A sentence must have a subject and a verb. Adverbs are not necessary to make a complete sentence.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 24, 2013

Yes Fred, the correct sentence is "Japan is made/composed/an-assemblage... of islands".

Now the class is over.

Fred Linn
January 23, 2013

-----" Then there's Fred, discovering Japan "IS islands" -- hated English class?"------

The subject of the sentence is Japan---Japan is singular. The verb is must agree with the subject, if the subject were plural, the verb would need to be are.

Japan is(exists as)islands.(there are 4 main islands and numerous smaller islands) is correct.

Japan are islands. incorrect

Class over.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

We didn't get that existing nuclear fuel from the Easter Bunny, Alex.

It had to be extracted and refined at some point in time. And since CO2/carbon which had been sequestered for millions of years is now going to be part of the surface/atmosphere carbon cycle for centuries.

Will we get a 'second pass' by recycling spent fuel? Perhaps, but so far we aren't doing much of that. We're parking our spent fuel in 100 year lifetime casks and encapsulating it in melted glass. I think that tells us that there may not be much of a second life.

Were we to recycle our used fuel it would lower the lifetime CO2 footprint of nuclear. It might even give it a lower footprint than wind or solar, but since all three are adequately low, it simply would not matter.

As for cost, the cost of nuclear fuel isn't what kills new nuclear plants. It's the cost of the plants plus the cost of financing those plants. We simply are not building new nuclear without using government money and ripping off citizens, making them pay for the construction.

Reprocessing simply drives up the cost of nuclear and it's already too expensive to make sense.

"The relative economics of reprocessing-waste disposal and interim storage-direct disposal has been the focus of much debate over the past ten years. Studies[37] have modeled the total fuel cycle costs of a reprocessing-recycling system based on one-time recycling of plutonium in existing thermal reactors (as opposed to the proposed breeder reactor cycle) and compare this to the total costs of an open fuel cycle with direct disposal. The range of results produced by these studies is very wide, but all are agreed that under current (2005) economic conditions the reprocessing-recycle option is the more costly.[38]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing

Building breeder reactors in order to produce lower cost fuel simply doesn't make nuclear affordable.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

Ahhh, finally, BobW, I was hoping for...

"Mining and refining nuclear fuel has a very high CO2 footprint which makes the lifetime CO2 footprint of nuclear higher than either wind or solar."

Wind is and always will be less efficient and higher in CO2 burden than solar PV/hot-water, for sure. Nuclear power derives from about a pound of Uranium consumed per hour per city. Where we get that pound from is key.

Right now, we have ~10,000 tons of spent fuel appearing each year. That 'waste' is about 1% pure Uranium235 fission fuel and about 95% Uranium238 for fabricating new fuel, as the French have long done.

So, what our existing 'spent' fuel is is a fuel bank, for either current reactors or advanced ones. That means at worst, 5% of 10,000 tons per year might not be reusable. That means ~95% of your calculated CO2 burden for nuclear fuel for present reactors is wildly incorrect, Bob.

But, given what you've put up here already, no one expected you to know that.
;]
In fact, all the Uranium ever mined and sitting around in old fuel of depleted Uranium from enrichment, is fuel for advanced reactors and for the US for over 100 years -- no mining needed anymore.

Oops.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

I made two mistakes here...

"The EIA estimates the cost of wind placed into service in 2015 to be $112.2 per megawatt hour and nuclear at $118.7. Wind remains cheaper."

The year should be 2017.

And the total LCOE of wind should be $96.0 not $112.2. Which makes it even cheaper than nuclear.

Sorry.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

Mining and refining nuclear fuel has a very high CO2 footprint which makes the lifetime CO2 footprint of nuclear higher than either wind or solar.

But, again, all three are so much lower than fossil fuels that the differences between them is of no consequence. If CO2 avoidance was the only criterion for picking our future energy technology then nuclear would be acceptable.

--

Crop losses due to wind. Link some studies Alex.

And, please, don't get into the bird kill issue. That's long ago been disproved, except where some bad installations actually killed a few birds and those mistakes have been corrected.

I am getting so tired of playing whack-a-mole with you.

If you want to engage in serious conversation then at the minimum start performing up the the level of an upper class undergraduate.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

Ahhh, tricky, BobW you didn't answer with what you were asked long ago to provide, now did you?

Why not just do your windmill CO2-burden calcs, so we can check them?

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

BobW, still trying to sell the CO2 burden for thousands of concrete & steel windmills, plus transmission towers, converters... is lower than that of one equivalent reactor? Remember, you can get the numbers from the vendors and do you CO2 calcs yourself.
;]
Then there's this beauty: "There are no crop losses except for the <2% of farmland used for turbine foundations" -- at least you, unlike others, realize there's a large foundation under each windmill of ~200 tons of concrete & steel per peak MW (per 300kW average). Which by itself creates an emissions burden for producing 600,000 tons of concrete & steel just to provide the foundations of a wind farm barely equivalent to a single reactor. Double those numbers to actually put up a tower with a prop generator on it. Remember, I gave you a vendor reference to check, Bob.

And if you want to account for crop losses follow the various studies being done now, and the estimate for our mid western wind plans that they'll cause more $ losses from predator kills than the value of the electricity generated -- AAAS Science will be publishing some.

And again, tell us why your background suggests anyone should listen to you?

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

OK, Alex, tell us what Mark's numbers were and what, in your opinion, the real numbers are.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

No BobW, your quote is correct, but the meaning isn't quite what you think. Jacobson admitted, at an IEEE presentation where we questioned him, that his numbers for nuclear costs, in particular, were not meant to be fully accurate.

You simply show how easily you can be fooled, Bob.

Still awaiting your technical background!

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

Interesting, Gary -- "Some people estimate that around 11 or 12 windfarms like the one proposed above will replace the capacity of the 4.7GW Fukushima " -- sounds Fox Newsish ("some people").
;]
Since Windfarms are low power density and necessarily widely distributed, they incur not just small capacity factors, they incur large transmission/conversion ,losses and in Japan's case, would pose large maritime dangers.

It's interesting that a few hundred acres of nuclear pl;ants that operate 24/7 independent of weather would somehow be viewed less desirable that vast dispersal of low-efficiency, low average-power machines that provide wide physical dangers.

Foe example, the absurd idea that had been broached in England for wind to supply Brit power would require ringing all the British Isles with a band 4km-deep of windmills. The exposure to maintenance & shipping accidents, apart from all the power-loss issues, is mind boggling. That's, of course, the conclusion of folks who indeed think carefully...

www.policyexchange.org.uk/modevents/item/fixing-climate-policy-with-professor-dieter-helm-cbe

By the way, German emissions increases for political reasons are not kindly viewed...
www.thegwpf.org/poland-czech-republic-ban-germanys-green-energy/

Interesting that you conflate nuclear weapons with nuclear power. Was WWII ended because of nuclear power? Was the Cold War engaged in because of nuclear power? Oh yes, US reactors converted Russian weapons to power.

If you want to argue waste, then that's fine, because advanced nuclear systems use our old waste and create very little new waste. And, unlike PCBs, DDT, Mercury, etc., all nuclear waste disappears. So the goal in advanced nuclear power is to avoid long-lived wastes and consume short-lived ones in reactor.

And this is what the combustion industry has given us all for decades...
www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf30.html

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

"LCOE, in other words, is a fake number that no true accountant would be satisfied with. but it's great for those who just care about subsidy $ rather than the environment. That's a fundamental Jacobson flaw, by the way. Oops, I gave you too many hints! "

No, Alex, what you gave is even more proof that you haven't read (or at least read with any comprehension) the Jacobson and Delucchi paper.

Let me copy something for your edification...

"For each technology, we calculated how much it would cost a producer to generate power and transmit it across the grid. We included the annualized cost of capital, land, operations, maintenance, energy storage to help offset intermittent supply, and transmission."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030&page=4

What you apparently do is to grab a second hand opinion from someone who says something that pleases you and post it as if you knew something.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

"LCOE doesn't include carbon cost"

No, but lifetime CO2 footprint does. And wind's is lower than nuclear's.

"doesn't include grid-interface/flexibility costs"

Now your talking about "total LCOE".

The EIA estimates the cost of wind placed into service in 2015 to be $112.2 per megawatt hour and nuclear at $118.7. Wind remains cheaper.

Of course it will be more like 2020 before we see any new nuclear come on line and by then wind will be even cheaper.

"doesn't include costs to surroundings -- roads, transmission vias, transmission losses, insurance for damages/species-loss, noise pollution, crop loss, etc."

Road costs are included. Insurance costs are included. There are no crop losses except for the <2% of farmland used for turbine foundations. Noise pollution is not an issue except in very rare situations where turbines were installed too close to residences.

Want to add in the beauty surrounding Chernobyl, Fukushima and the next reactor to get Homered?

Now, Alex, enough of your petty games. Time for you to put up or shut up. Or, at the minimum to be recognized as the fraud you certainly seem to be.

You put up claim after claim only to have people chew them to bits and spit them out. Just another shallow-thinking radiation fanboy.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

BobW, you sure have a lot of time to waste here, and don't care to answer questions asked of you, while you expect others to answer your odd queries.

You know what I said about giving you my Jacobson comments. When you do that, you'll get them, Just as he, Sci. American and the Stanford Provost did.

But, by wasting time here, you've gotten answers already, but appear not to know it, perhaps because you don't read?

I gave you a lead to how to calculate the CO2 burden of a windmill, even to a manufacturer, if you can't find data sheets. That's your job, because now that you raise LCOE of wind, you prove you don't get it.

I'll give some help -- LCOE doesn't include carbon cost, doesn't include grid-interface/flexibility costs, doesn't include real maintenance cost, decommissioning cost, missed-opportunity cost (the wind-to-electricity conversion curve) and doesn't include costs to surroundings -- roads, transmission vias, transmission losses, insurance for damages/species-loss, noise pollution, crop loss, etc.

LCOE, in other words, is a fake number that no true accountant would be satisfied with. but it's great for those who just care about subsidy $ rather than the environment. That's a fundamental Jacobson flaw, by the way. Oops, I gave you too many hints!
;]

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

Alex, there's some sort of concrete math you want me to do, but since you have been unwilling to state what you feel are the problems with Jacobson and Delucchi (2009) I didn't even bother to read your request.

But let me point out a few things.

1) The lifetime CO2 footprint of wind is smaller than nuclear.

2) The median overnight cost of new wind is $1.56 thousand per kWh. The median overnight cost of new nuclear is $3.10 thousand per kWh.

Since new wind farm capacity is running 40% or better and nuclear is around 95% we can see that overnight cost per kWh is roughly equal.

3) The LCOE of new wind is less than new nuclear.

http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/

Now, what do we make of those facts?

1) Wind may or may not use more concrete than nuclear. If it does the CO2 released by manufacturing the extra concrete is not sufficient to give wind a higher lifetime CO2 footprint than nuclear.

2) The extra concrete, if used, is not increasing the cost of wind farms enough to make them as expensive as nuclear plants. Remember, the time it takes to build a new nuclear facility causes very significant interest compounding which causes new nuclear to be priced off the table in a free market environment.

Wind uses more fiberglass than does nuclear. That does not make wind more expensive nor more polluting.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

Good tries BobW, but remember, you still haven't deigned to share your science/engineering expertise with us. So your comments above show that you not only don't get why 1GW of wind isn't 1GW of power, but you can't allow your mind to actually process simple math.

Yes, the Germans are causing more CO2 emissions, and they and the Swiss buy nuke power from France. Yes, solar installs are nice,m as I've long said, but which you carefully avoid acknowledging.

So you just want windmills all over, fine Bob. You indeed don't need any science or engineering or even climate concern to advocate that.

We don't care to be so shallow, however.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

"Since Japan's reactors have been running long before even mildly-practical windmills were available, what does that sentence actually mean?"

It means that Japan should have started installing wind, solar and geothermal years ago rather than let the nuclear industry corrupt their government.

Japanese citizens are now paying the price of being nuclear-stupid.

Both the Japanese government and Japanese nuclear industry was aware that the Fukushima reactors were not adequately protected from tsunamis. That area has been struck previously by very large waves and the reactors were not sited high enough nor was an adequate sea wall built to protect them.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

OK, phony doctor Alex. Let's check your links.

#1 talks about new coal plants coming on line. It was written in June 2011.

Here's the post from this site, written in September 2012 which includes the coal plants which are being closed which negates your #1.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2012/09/the-truth-about-germanys-coal

#2 suffers the same fatal error as #1. It talks only about the new, more efficient builds and not about the closures. BTW, those decisions to build were made prior to the decision to shut down nuclear.

#3 also fails to mention the plants scheduled to close and the fact that the build decision preceded the decision to shut down nuclear.

That article (published by World Nuclear News) states that it "could" cost Germany as much as $1.8 trillion to move to renewable energy by 2030. I suspect it would be safe to assume this is very much a "worst case" number.

18 years. $100 billion per year.

Germany is installing solar for $2/watt so with one year's money they could install 50 billion watts of solar per year. 18 million Germans. 2.8 kW per citizen.

Assuming an average solar day of four hours that would mean 4,088 kWh per year per capita.

Electric power consumption (kWh per capita) in Germany was 6778.66 in 2009.

So in two years that would pay for enough solar panels to provide every German citizen 1.2x as much electricity as they use.

Then with a third year's money they could use the $100 billion to install wind. Wind is even cheaper than solar per kWh so perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that Germany would now be producing 3x as much electricity as needed.

That would leave them 15 years x $100 billion to build storage and geothermal.

I'm just not finding that $1.8 trillion very credible.

--

Please check my numbers. I've had only half a cup of coffee and errors could abound.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

OMG, BobW's still fluffing: "Japan's CO2 emissions wouldn't be up at all had they done the smart thing and installed renewables and shut down their reactors."

Since Japan's reactors have been running long before even mildly-practical windmills were available, what does that sentence actually mean?

And, since Bob has yet to add up all the fossil-fuel emissions in building each windmill's tiny MW, the sentence couldn't even eb correct today, nince a common nuke has a lower CO2 burden than an equivalent wind 'farm'.

Keep trying, though, Bob. It's great that you expose your lack of engineering knowledge.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

Then there's Fred, discovering Japan "IS islands" -- hated English class?

And, best of all: "...they are not all that badly in need of nuclear power. They seem to be doing just fine without it." -- wow, talk about lack of study, Fred! Here's a starter...

www.fepc.or.jp/english/energy_electricity/supply_situation/index.html

They turn off heat & lights and burn oil, gas and wood chips to make up for shut reactors. So shutting reactors has also put them in conflict with China & S. Korea over gas/oil fields around contested southern islands. There you go, have a war instead of safe nukes!

Fortunately, one Japanese utility is indeed moving ahead with improved reactor designs.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 23, 2013

Oops, we see BobW fudging stats again -- the Germans just announced a 2.2GWe lignite-burning plant (equiv to ~6.6GW peak wind) and the worst possible emissions choice, and the cost of their extra emissions will fall on the rest of the world...

www.pointcarbon.com/aboutus/pressroom/pressreleases/1.1552105
www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-23/utilities-plan-79-billion-of-power-plants-in-germany-bdew-says.html
www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Eye_watering_cost_of_renewable_revolution_2301121.html?utm_so

This was cute though...
http://rt.com/news/germany-reactors-cold-weather-927/comments/?d=1?

But we know BobW doesn't care or understand the science & engineering, right Bob?
;]

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

Japan's CO2 emissions wouldn't be up at all had they done the smart thing and installed renewables and shut down their reactors.

The quarter trillion dollars to clean up Fuku plus all the economic disruption costs would have been better spent on wind, solar and geothermal.

--

"If we want zero CO2 emissions, we just need to kill everyone and when they stop breathing, we achieve zero CO2 emissions."

When you post stuff like that Cliff you earn standing as a silly person best ignored.

--

Looking forward to you describing what a non-CO2 emitting energy system for the world might look like.

Your version of Jacobson and Delucchi (2009).

Cliff Claven
January 23, 2013

Japan's CO2 emissions for 2011 were up 2.5% over 2010. Any guess what they will be for 2012? http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2012/may/name,27216,en.html. I can't find Germany's 2012 emissions, but Germany is burning more lignite coal than ever before and generating more of its electricity from coal. Their CO2 emissions for electrical power were up 4% in 2012 from 0.49 to 0.51 kg CO2/kWh net according to estimates by the German BDEW e.V. (Federal Association of German Energy and Water Management) Describing a non-CO2 emitting power system is easy--it's a corpse. If we want zero CO2 emissions, we just need to kill everyone and when they stop breathing, we achieve zero CO2 emissions. Nature's solution since the beginning of life is to balance CO2 exhalers with CO2 inhalers (i.e., plants and algae and plankton). Energy efficiency and per-capita CO2 reductions come from economic evolution of societies as they transition from industrial to services-based economies. The US and EU are already on the downward slope of energy and CO2 intensity. We need to help, not hinder the world's billions to rapidly progress past the same knee in the curve by building up the capital of their civilization with high EROI sources. Forcing use of low-EROI sources only wastes energy and prolongs the agony of languishing economic development. While we are working on making the human side more efficient, we should also be increasing the Earth's green biomass to consume more CO2. We should be working water efficiency and land reclamation and figuring out how to restore to the Sahara the lush greenery it once possessed. We should cover our homes and high-rise buildings with plants and gardens, not solar panels. We should ban all use of fossil fuel-sourced and N2O GHG emitting ammonia fertilizers for non-food crops. We should end our disastrous promotion of biofuels that is destroying forest land around the world. It's not about zero, it's about balance.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

OK, Cliff.

How about describing what a non-CO2 emitting energy system for the world might look like?

Cliff Claven
January 23, 2013

I have never claimed global warming was a hoax. You are setting up a straw man. Go ahead and debate your caricatures of the evil global warming deniers and greedy tar-covered oil mongers. That is also part of your fantasy world. I am advocating courses of action that actually lower total GHG emissions, and minimize environmental impact, and preserve a clean earth and a healthy nation for our descendents. Things today are so complex and interconnected, and the consequences of decisions so far-reaching that they must be made on the basis of measurements and facts and documented performance, not celebrity opinions or bandwagon biases or emotional appeals. That is why it is so important to look at credible studies of lifecycle emissions of all GHGs and pollutants and all the external costs of all alternatives. And that is why I must point out the cognitive dissonance of you and Bob and Japan and Germany in celebrating the closure of nuclear plants and trumpeting wind and biofuels when the environmental and GHG consequences are so severe and so obvious. You are dancing while huge economies are shifting to increase their use of coal and oil and natural gas. The vitriol you both display at every data point and every use of mathematics is not suited to solving 21st century problems.

Bob Wallace
January 23, 2013

Cliff -

Germany's new coal burning plants are replacing (not adding to) the older plants that either have been or will soon be decommissioned.

By 2020, 18.5 gigawatts of coal power capacity will be decommissioned, whereas only 11.3 gigawatts will be newly installed.

Furthermore those plants will be more efficient, releasing less CO2 per unit electricity produced than are the ones they are replacing.

Germany gets its natural gas from Russia. It would be politically dangerous to build their fossil fuel component around an undependable supply. Furthermore their new coal plants are capable of load following to some extent, which will further reduce the amount of CO2 they produce.

The citizens of Germany decided that they would accept slowing their reduction in CO2 in order to get nuclear reactors out of their backyards. They live next door to Chernobyl, they still experience the nuclear fallout.

After seeing a technologically advanced country like Japan melt some down they decided that they did not wish to live with this danger any longer. Other European countries have made the same decision.

I suppose we'll have Homer one of our plants into a pile of smoking radiation before we figure it out in the US. We are just so "superior" that we have a difficult time learning from other's experience.

BTW, Germany is still on track to be CO2 free by 2050.

Fred Linn
January 23, 2013

cliff-----------" just like Fred and Bob, they are using Global Warming as a front argument for what is really a lifestyle choice."------------

Well Cliff, if global warming is a hoax as you claim----then using NG or wind instead of nuclear doesn't matter does it?

--------" Watching the cellulosic ethanol start-ups like Primus Green Energy and Coskata and Calysta abandon biomass and chase NGTL instead reveals that, just like Fred and Bob, they are using Global Warming as a front argument for what is really a lifestyle choice."---------

Well Cliff, then YOU of ALL people, the fervent prophet of doom against the use of ethanol as a fuel, should be totally delighted. You've ranted and raved against the use of ethanol for as long as I can remember. And you've ranted and raved about anything anyone suggests that would mean a change. You should be jumping with joy.

Well, the same Fischer-Tropsch process that makes natural gas to liquid fuels possible is also readily usable with synthgas made from biomass. Synthgas made from biomass is exactly the same as synthgas made from natural gas----natural gas IS biomass. Once the F-T facilities are up and running, we can switch between using biomass or natural gas anytime we want by altering the input handling----no problem. The synthgas output that feeds the fuel production process is exactly the same.

--------" Damn the CO2 emissions, damn biodiversity and habitat, damn industrial footprint, full speed ahead! We have to destroy the planet to save it!"------

Yes, Bob and I are out to destroy the world. But not the planet. We are out to destroy YOUR world of industrial/financial greed, unsustainability and privilige. And nuclear power along with fossil fuels lead the pack in the environmental and economic destruction and bondage.

It's a little late for you to start crying about Kyoto accords now.

Cliff Claven
January 23, 2013

Since they shutdown their reactors, Japan is sucking up fossil fuel like crazy. Remember the Kyoto protocols--BLOWN AWAY. Germany with her new coal plants and Japan with her new LNG and petroleum imports are undoing all the CO2 savings of the EU and USA combined. Watching the cellulosic ethanol start-ups like Primus Green Energy and Coskata and Calysta abandon biomass and chase NGTL instead reveals that, just like Fred and Bob, they are using Global Warming as a front argument for what is really a lifestyle choice. Fred and Bob hate nuclear power and fossil fuel. Start-ups chase cash and ethanol subsidies. Damn the CO2 emissions, damn biodiversity and habitat, damn industrial footprint, full speed ahead! We have to destroy the planet to save it!

Gary Richardson
January 23, 2013

Some people estimate that around 11 or 12 windfarms like the one proposed above will replace the capacity of the 4.7GW Fukushima Daiichi reactors. That's fine!

Increases in capacity factor, efficiency, conservation efforts (passive house), Rooftop solar thermal/pv are definitely worth investment due to the potential sustainable job engine it could create from a free resource.

Nuclear may act as a buffer (for now) but future use may be reserved for secure things like military, space programs, data centers and research.

When pro-nukes find a way to clean up sites like 3-mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, blast testing sites (not bury it) and then move all their families there for decades, then I'd be more comfortable with the risks involved with nuclear.

So is this wind farm worthwhile? Absolutely!

Fred Linn
January 22, 2013

Well Al, the last time I checked, Japan IS islands, several as a matter of fact. And, since all 58 of Japan's nuclear reactors were shut down from May 2011 until Sept 2012, at which time 2 were started up---I'd say they are not all that badly in need of nuclear power. They seem to be doing just fine without it.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 22, 2013

Read the whole piece, Fred? "1GW output"?

That's maybe 300kW average, so about 1/2 of one of the 6 Fukushima old GE reactors, which ran 24/7 for decades.

Wonder what the costs of insuring against the maritime collisions will be? Even our Coast Guard has estimated US projects planned will suffer more than 1 collision per year.

The Japanese have little land to sacrifice, so any power source must be compact or at sea. Nuclear provides both, as the Russians are deploying 300MW reactor ships to help develop their Siberian coastline -- longest in the world.

If nothing else, this piece shows the folly of windmills, anywhere except on a remote farm or island -- oops, expensive vacation islands don't like them,
;]

Fred Linn
January 22, 2013

Japan to replace nuclear plant with world's largest wind farm

http://current.com/19h2okc

Dr. A. Cannara
January 22, 2013

BobW, sounds like you can't do anything but try to insult, when you can't provide facts. Your choice. Others have seen your blathering, your failure to do the basic calculations for wind inefficiencies & resource consumption, and your desperate behavior as your own "brat".

Bob Wallace
January 22, 2013

Alex, the number of degrees I have, the universities where I earned them, the number of years I spent doing research, the number of papers I've published, the universities at which I held faculty positions and my fields of expertise have no bearing on these discussions. I have no need to share.

These sorts of discussions rise and fall on the ability of the participants to engage in honest exchanges of information, not dick-measuring.

Now, you've spouted off about how wrong Jacobson and his fellow researchers are but after numerous requests you've been unable to post anything of merit to back your claims. The best you have been able to do is to post a link to a page of junk. Just stupid comments which anyone with even a masters in any branch of science would have been ashamed to use.

You posted BS after BS. You're a waste of time because you apparently don't have the intellectual ability or honesty to discuss issues in a forthright manner. You don't understand experimental methodology. You seem to have a large case of "sophomore-itis", you know a little bit about a few things and you try to act like you know it all. But when called upon to backup your claims, you fail.

You're a joke, Alex. You're the kind of annoying brat that any real graduate school would toss out the first month.

Have a nice day....

Fred Linn
January 22, 2013

-------" Not clear, given what I said you needed to do to match my and Fred's sharing of backgrounds.

Gonna man up, bob?"---------

I haven't seen any sharing on your part AlexC.

FYI---radiation exposure is cummulative. Once you are exposed, you are exposed for life. Any further exposure is in addition to previous exposures.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 22, 2013

BobW, we all know you can spam, and cut & paste, but can you read? Not clear, given what I said you needed to do to match my and Fred's sharing of backgrounds.

Gonna man up, bob?

Bob Wallace
January 21, 2013

Alex - please clearly state what you believe to be incorrect in Jacobson and Delucchi's 2009 Scientific American paper.

Here's the link if you need to refresh your memory...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

(Sixth request.)

Dr. A. Cannara
January 21, 2013

Just noticed GAry's mating with Bob on "cherry picking data".

Since the only links to data & books I've provided are publicly available and exhaustive of the engineering facts re wind, you two might better read your own fruit pickings above, that ignore science & reality. Remember the data sheets you were supposed to study, Bob?
;]

Dr. A. Cannara
January 21, 2013

Not sure what you're looking for Gary, but there's no disagreement about electrification of as much of industry and life as possible. Businesses have long seen the efficiency gains from electrifying production, etc.

As for concrete, having a large Calif (mandated) recycling facility near here, it's actually quite CO2 intensive, given the fuels used to break up, transport, then crush concrete so that it may be combined as a small portion of new concrete for structures, or simply as aggregate for road foundations, etc.

If you want to get the full scoop on why wind is meaningless as a CO2 reducing technology, you can refer to the analysis I linked to before, and you can look at data sheets, unlike BobW, from the various vendors. Mid-American Energy actually has a nice graphic for calling out the various concrete & steel components of a basic 1.5MW peak windmill -- unfortunately, you have to dig deeper to find out how many hundreds of tons of steel are needed for the tower.

The offshore wind systems require more concrete & steel than land-based. And the new 'floating' windmills used in the North Sea, etc,. require even more as ballast for their very long, sub-sea tower sections.

Obviously, a technology that doesn't require hundreds of tons of fossil-fuel-processed material per average MW installed, is what we prefer. That's exactly what local solar PV/hot-water provides. And, it's why programs like the Calif "million solar homes" initiative are increasing around the world. Having a more reliable & predictable source that consumes no land, threatens no species and builds a more robust grid is a great benefit. And, since windmills (prop-generators) have little possible efficiency improvements, while solar PV has at least another doubling in efficiency, there really is no need to waste subsidies, resources, and Chinese lungs on windmill production.

Bob Wallace
January 21, 2013

Alex - please clearly state what you believe to be incorrect in Jacobson and Delucchi's 2009 Scientific American paper.

Here's the link if you need to refresh your memory...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

(Fifth request.)

Dr. A. Cannara
January 21, 2013

BobW seems to think spamming about other topics, like Chinese pollution (which we all lament), allowed s him to hide his background, as Fred & I have not. So be it. Bob doesn't seem to have a science & engineering grasp of why any particular technology is better or worse than any other.

Stiill awaiting your manning up with even a basic bio, Bob.
;]

Gary Richardson
January 21, 2013

@Bob Wallace
Yes, you are right about the "Ever so Credentialed" Dr. Alex cherry picking data. He even has the credentials to do it.....statistics

Gary Richardson
January 21, 2013

One other fact I'd like to add is over 91 MILLION tons of cement is produced in the United States alone. How many tons of concrete will be used in offshore?
Another factor to look at is what is the difference beteween cement and concrete and it's CO2 output?
People tend to throw out figures for one or the other and give confusing results that shy people away from finding real numbers and ways to compare it to others. The truth is some of the numbers I listed above are older numbers and some improvements have been made and others are being made as we speak.

I recommend checking out these sites for some reference as well...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cement-from-carbon-dioxide

http://concretethinker.com/technicalbrief/Concrete-Cement-CO2.aspx

And finally, if concrete is such a big deal in CO2 output, there are offshore rigs that don't have any concrete at all. But at least look at what concrete has to offer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_concrete_structure

http://www.concreteconstruction.net/concrete-construction/salt-water-concrete.aspx

Gary Richardson
January 21, 2013

@ Dr. Alex
I also believe that electrification of mining, processing and transport will make a big impact as well. Especially here on the Pacific Coast I believe such operations will dramatically offset any CO2 from concrete.
Furthermore, it seems that CO2 from 1000 tons of concrete (equal to approx 513 gallons of gasoline CO2 output)is marginal compared to how much can be removed by electrifying the transportation infrastructure.
Additionally, the cement that makes up the concrete has 40% of the CO2 from combustion and the other 60% is from calcination of which 85% is reabsorbed over 100 years.
Recycled concrete also further reduces the CO2 numbers, so I don't see this figure as being that signifcant despite the scary 1000 ton figure thrown out there for us to chew on.
Also, offshore wind and advancements in windmill design bring higher capacity factors and with more maturation of the offshore market, the maintenance costs will come down.
The same can't be said for nuclear which has been a mature market for many years.
As a result, I see offshore wind with offshore pumped storage a worthwhile risk to take both economically and environmentally.

Fred Linn
January 21, 2013

Fred Linn

BIO: Fred Linn

I am a cardiopulmonary technologist and registered respiratory therapist. I have been a practitioner and teacher of allied health sciences for 40 years. I have been a teacher in the didactic fields of physics and chemistry and active as a clinical supervisor to interns and practitioners. I have also been a dog breeder and trainer for many years. I have worked mostly with working and hunting breeds, currently German Shepherds and Weimaraners. I have in the past gone professional with training and breeding. My interest in energy concerns is mainly in the area of bioenergy. I think that industrialization is causing widespread and irreparable damage to the earth's biosphere. This can be mitigated and reversed by creating a biologically based system that works with nature to provide our needs rather than destroying our home out of greed and short sightedness.

This is my bio. I don't remember exactly when I posted it, but it has been up there for you or anyone else to see for at least a couple of years. That is my real name. And the dog's names are Enka(Weim) and Dixie(GSD).

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/u/fred-linn-151968

I stand by what I say.

Bob Wallace
January 21, 2013

"Chinese officials here at the conference said the government was worried about polluted water, polluted air and radioactive residues from the rare earth industry, particularly among many small and private companies, some of which operate without the proper licenses. While rare earths themselves are not radioactive, they are always found in ore containing radioactive thorium and require careful handling and processing to avoid contaminating the environment.

Most of the country's rare earth factories have been closed since early August, including those under government control, to allow for installation of pollution control equipment that must be in place by Oct. 1, executives and regulators said.

The government is determined to clean up the industry, said Xu Xu, chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, a government-controlled group that oversees the rare earth industry. "The entrepreneurs don't care about environmental problems, don't care about labor problems and don't care about their social responsibility," he said. "And now we have to educate them.""

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/business/global/china-consolidates-control-of-rare-earth-industry.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

"China has the richest rare earth reserves in the world, with Baotou in the north and Ganzhou in the south as major reserve zones.

Growing awareness of the dangers of mining rare earths has galvanized the Central Government to act.

At a press conference addressing new government measures to control errant rare earth mining operations, Su Bo, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), outlined a series of new government regulations to rein in the sector."

http://www.bjreview.com.cn/Energy/txt/2012-08/13/content_478923.htm

Bob Wallace
January 21, 2013

Please be specific as to what the external costs of wind might be.

We know about the external costs of coal and the external costs of nuclear. Fill us in on wind.

And, no, a polluting process which could easily be cleaned up is not an external cost.

Oh, and Alex - please clearly state what you believe to be incorrect in Jacobson and Delucchi's 2009 Scientific American paper.

Here's the link if you need to refresh your memory...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

(Fourth request.)

Dr. A. Cannara
January 21, 2013

"Motivation", Bob? Since your motivation in hiding your background is unclear, let me review that my motivation as always is to bring facts to the table. That's what leads to progress in any realm.

You seem to bridle at any facts that don't agree with your bias -- fine. I don't care what you think. My only purpose is to counter your misinformation with facts.

One of wind power's marketing attributes is externalization of true costs. That's a fact, a sad one.

Bob Wallace
January 21, 2013

If you follow Alex's link to the article here's what you find...

"This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what's left behind after making the magnets for Britain's latest wind turbines..., This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what's left behind after making the magnets for Britain's latest wind turbines..."

Is Alex trying to dump on wind by claiming that it is necessary to manufacture rare earth magnets in an environmentally disastrous manner or does he not understand that this is nothing more than a dirty plant that needs to be, and can be, cleaned up?

We'll leave it up to others to attempt to guess Alex's motivation.

(I'm betting it was a smear-wind attempt.)

Dr. A. Cannara
January 21, 2013

Gary, yes, it would be nice to reduce the CO2 from making all the components of windmills and wind 'farms', because that would translate to other technologies as well.

Presently, there are alternatives to the coal-intensive steel-making processes, which could aid that, but the problem remains that about 1000 tons of concrete must be made for each windmill and transported to the site. That, plus all the other mining processing and transport across the Pacific for wind components creates another huge CO2 deficit -- plus pollution from the various processes and the high pollution in shipping.

A single nuclear reactor also needs steel & concrete, and present reactor vessels are mostly fabricated in S. Korea as single forged units. So all power systems need full, honest accounting of production operation and decommissioning costs.

The big, long-term problem for wind is sensitivity to climate change, as the Chinese have begun seeing in slowing winds from the Himalayan Plateau. Once this happens, the huge investment is moot and the re is no -re-commissioning elsewhere. Wind externalizes more costs than most other, non-combustion power sources. For example..
www dot dailymail dot co dot uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale dot html

Nuclear and others obviously lack the relocation problem. This is why local solar and other efficiency opportunities are so important -- they have staying power, with low environmental impacts.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 21, 2013

Gary, yes, it would be nice to reduce the CO2 from making all the components of windmills and wind 'farms', because that would translate to other technologies as well.

Presently, there are alternatives to the coal-intensive steel-making processes, which could aid that, but the problem remains that about 1000 tons of concrete must be made for each windmill and transported to the site. That, plus all the other mining processing and transport across the Pacific for wind components creates another huge CO2 deficit -- plus pollution from the various processes and the high pollution in shipping.

A single nuclear reactor also needs steel & concrete, and present reactor vessels are mostly fabricated in S. Korea as single forged units. So all power systems need full, honest accounting of production operation and decommissioning costs.

The big, long-term problem for wind is sensitivity to climate change, as the Chinese have begun seeing in slowing winds from the Himalayan Plateau. Once this happens, the huge investment is moot and the re is no -re-commissioning elsewhere. Wind externalizes more costs than most other, non-combustion power sources. For example..
www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

Nuclear and others obviously lack the relocation problem. This is why local solar and other efficiency opportunities are so important -- they have staying power, with low environmental impacts.

Gary Richardson
January 21, 2013

Dr Alex states in comment 60,

'You do know that each MW of installed wind needed ~700 tons of fossil-fuel-processed resources, like coal, iron ore, limestone, rock... right?'

I'd like to know how much of these fossil-fueled-processed resources can be alternatively produced and subsequently bring those CO2 numbers down.

Additionally, a push to electrify our transportation infrastructure can offset additional Fossil Fuel use and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, windpower has new opportunities cropping up in energy storage solutions such as in this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/17/belgium-island-idUSL6N0AM7GU20130117?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=43

Instead of building an island, perhaps existing offshore wells drained of their oil can be used for pumping water in and out of them if someone is smart enough to prevent cross contamination of untapped oil and keep deep sea pumping/turbine costs low.

Another question I have is to see if windmills and wave power can effectively increase our marine population by increasing oxygen levels in areas plauged by low levels. A direct coupling hydraulically of the turbines and pistons will efficeintly transfer more pumping of air to the affected areas.

Bob Wallace
January 20, 2013

Alex, please clearly state what you believe to be incorrect in Jacobson and Delucchi's 2009 Scientific American paper.

Here's the link if you need to refresh your memory...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

(Third request.)

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

BobW -- "I'm not posting my background and education. I'm not the one who presented themselves as a "Dr." and has not been able to show any signs of the education or abilities expected from someone with a Ph.D."

No guts no glory, Bob.
;]

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

And, BobW, when you come clean about your background, as Fred has, then I'll happily share my critique sent in re Jacobson's paper.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

Very good, Fred. So you know radiation can burn, whether it's from a fire's infrared or a medical accelerator's particles.

But your crocodiles will kill you,, while even a nasty radiation burn will heal. That latter is why those folks who get radiation treatments have them prescribed -- their tissues heal, while their cancers get killed. So their cancer experiences the croc, which is why they were given radiation treatments to live. Right?

Your radiologist counterparts know what they're doing often, right Fred? Or, will you just refuse your own radiation treatments should they ever be prescribed?

Note that including all artificial radiation we receive (nuke plants, Xrays...) yields less than nature's exposure of us by a factor of about 5...
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

Which itself is far less now than it was millions & billions of years ago, for our ancestors in life.

You might then be interested in studying up on actual radiation and its effects. And, you might note these research results...

http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png

Which illustrate how eating a banana is as challenging to us as living near a nuclear plant (or sleeping next to someone), but far less challenging than living near a coal plant's radioactive emissions and ash dust -- check out the combustion industry's NORM Exemptions, for example. They worked hard lobbying for them.
;]

Fred Linn
January 20, 2013

I'm a Certified Cardiopulmonary Technologist and a Registered Respiratory Therapist.

I have a career that spans 40 years in the medical field from operating a heart-lung pump for open heart surgery, combat medevac, research and development, diagnostic testing and theraputics.

I have worked every area of practice including surgery, ER, Intensive Care, NeoNatal csre and all aspects of medical and surgical care from neonates to geriatrics. I am well familiar with radiation induced burns and trauma----I saw it nearly everyday.

I have had many patients who suffered from extensive acute radiation burns---both accidental and intentional(radiation treatments).

Given a choice of severe radiation burns, or jumping into a river full of 16 foot crocodiles----I'd choose the crocodiles. Because I KNOW what radiation can do to you.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

Wow Fred, how do you really feel? Unfortunately, your statements are most recently shown wrong by the latest UN report on radiation and nuclear safety.

But, you could already have determined that from the Swiss analyses of all power sources in 1998...
httpslashslash tinyurl dotcom/42wvr9l

Or, you could have just kept up with the regular news...
www dot forbes dotcom/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
httpslashslash nextbigfuture dotcom/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source dot html
www dot scientificamerican dotcom/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy

The UN report is particularly revealing of the 66-yer-old myth about radiation...
www dot forbes dotcom/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

But since Ma Nature has been dealing with radiation as well as chemistry for a few billion years, we might expect she knows something, eh?

So you now show us you too aren't a scientists or engineer, Fred?

Bob Wallace
January 20, 2013

Alex, please clearly state what you believe to be incorrect in Jacobson and Delucchi's 2009 Scientific American paper.

Here's the link if you need to refresh your memory...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

(Second request.)

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

Wow Fred, how do you really feel? Unfortunately, your statements are most recently shown wrong by the latest UN report on radiation and nuclear safety.

But, you could already have determined that from the Swiss analyses of all power sources in 1998...
httpslashslash tinyurl.com/42wvr9l

Or, you could have just kept up with the regular news...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
httpslashslash nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy

The UN report is particularly revealing of the 66-yer-old myth about radiation...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

But since Ma Nature has been dealing with radiation as well as chemistry for a few billion years, we might expect she knows something, eh?

So you now show us you too aren't a scientists or engineer, Fred?

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

Wow Fred, how do you really feel? Unfortunately, your statements are most recently shown wrong by the latest UN report on radiation and nuclear safety.

But, you could already have determined that from the Swiss analyses of all power sources in 1998...
httpslashslash tinyurl.com/42wvr9l

Or, you could have just kept up with the regular news...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
httpslashslash nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy

The UN report is particularly revealing of the 66-yer-old myth about radiation...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

But since Ma Nature has been dealing with radiation as well as chemistry for a few billion years, we might expect she knows something, eh?

So you now show us you too aren't a scientists or engineer, Fred?

Bob Wallace
January 20, 2013

Alex, I'm not posting my background and education. I'm not the one who presented themselves as a "Dr." and has not been able to show any signs of the education or abilities expected from someone with a Ph.D.

--

Now, clearly you're wrong about the attractive nuisance/fence issue.

You can go to this site, scroll down to some of the US wind farm views, zoom in and see if you can spot a fence around either individual turbines or the entire farms.

http://www.thewindpower.net/media_satellite_en.php

All that is needed to avoid liability is to make the towers very difficult to climb. Like any other utility structure. You, as an energy expert, should know that.

I'm sure that wind turbines are covered by liability insurance. Wouldn't be able to get financing without it.

Of course the liability for wind turbines is so low that the cost can be covered and power still sold for $0.05/kWh or less. Unlike nuclear which can't afford to pay for its own risks and they have to be assumed by taxpayers.

The citizens of Japan sure are taking it in the shorts....

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

Wow Fred, how do you really feel? Unfortunately, your statements are most recently shown wrong by the latest UN report on radiation and nuclear safety.

But, you could already have determined that from the Swiss analyses of all power sources in 1998...
http://tinyurl.com/42wvr9l

Or, you could have just kept up with the regular news...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy

The UN report is particularly revealing of the 66-yer-old myth about radiation...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

But since Ma Nature has been dealing with radiation as well as chemistry for a few billion years, we might expect she knows something, eh?

So you now show us you too aren't a scientists or engineer, Fred?

Fred Linn
January 20, 2013

Bob Wallace-------sarcastic, argumentative, legalistic sounding bull$chmidt from Dr(???)AlexC aside...................

You are right, he is wrong. Nuclear is dangerous. And the potential damages from nuclear dwarf those of any other power source.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

We're all still awaiting your disclosure of your technical education & experience, BobW. You were very concerned with mine, remember, Bob?

Also, I finally realized why you were complaining about the one critique of wind 'farms' including trespasser deaths -- you want to hide them.

So Bob, familiar with liability law? See, if you put a kids' play structure on your front lawn and don't properly fence it, you're liable for any kid who trespasses and gets hurt. What you did was create an "attractive nuisance", like putting ExLax in kids' Halloween candy. It's also the reason why swimming pools must have fences around them, regardless of other property fencing.

So yes, thousands of acres of spinning windmills are "attractive nuisances" & subject to liability. That means not only must their fencing cover thousands of windmills, their insurance must cover their various liabilities.

Now, a 100-200-acre nuke has a fence too, but the Exclusion Zone behind it is mostly undisturbed, natural reserve. When one tries to get near the dangers of such a plant, one is confronted with active security as well as fencing, but only surrounding a few tens of acres, not many thousands, for an equivalent average-power wind system. That's why trespasser injuries at nuclear plants are about zero, while they are significant at wind 'farms', as documented.

The rest of your arguments about wind vs nukes are about as vapid, Bob. You should know it, if you were a scientist or engineer.

You can, for instance, get a Siemens, Vestas... data sheet &look up how the must be erected, their site density, their steel & concrete requirements, road requirements, transmission-line & control & grid-interface requirements, etc. You can also look up how much CO2 all that concrete and steel caused to be emitted, whether from mining, ore shipping, kilning, coking, product shipping, etc. Just for a clue, the tonnage to be processed per peak MW installed is about 2000 tons/MW average.

Bob Wallace
January 20, 2013

Alex, please clearly state what you believe to be incorrect in Jacobson and Delucchi's 2009 Scientific American paper.

Here's the link if you need to refresh your memory...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

Dr. A. Cannara
January 20, 2013

You seem to do whatever your mind wants to, Bob. You evident;y aren't an engineer or scientist and so why do you think anyone who is should automatically bow to your distorted wishes?

My discussions re Jacobson's errors cover more than just wind and are in the record at Stanford's publication sites holding his papers. Go find them yourself. It's publicly-funded work.

And do let us all know what your educational and experiential credentials are that let you make the mistake of saying an electrical engineer has "no academic background specifically related to the energy field."

Remember, Jacobson has only a CE degree.

Now's your turn, if you have any energy-relevant background, Bob.
;]

Bob Wallace
January 19, 2013

I seem to have ripped your linked page to pieces.

If you think I'm wrong bring the facts.

And what's your personal critique of Jacobson's work?

Dr. A. Cannara
January 19, 2013

BobW, you =certainly retired "long ago, and have time on your hands to write here rather than study!

You continue to display ignorance by saying someone with multiple electrical engineering degrees has "no academic background specifically related to the energy field."

You certainly make clear that you don't have any background or education to support your blind adherence to wind, including the masses of 'wind' you emitted above!

Keep trying. Bob.
;]

Bob Wallace
January 19, 2013

RE: The Barton critique linked on that page is a low point for Charles. He's usually one of the more sensible people in the "I love radiation" camp.

Just a few points -

It's unlikely we'll build much thermal solar. The price of PV has fallen a lot and probably priced thermal off the table so we needn't worry about thermal's water usage. We should worry about nuclear's water usage - it's one of the things that is cramping nuclear.

In 1999 Charles and friends couldn't imagine wind even as low as 7 cents and solar under a dime by 2030. We're already there.

"with wind generated electricity dropping to as little as 4 cents per kWh, by 2020, and solar generated electricity with 24 hour a day storage dropping to about 10 cents per kWh."

New wind is now 5 cents and solar, at German installed costs, are already under 10 cents. And it's seven more years before we get to 2020.

Yes, wind will require new transmission lines. As would new nuclear. The EIA estimates that new transmission for nuclear would cost about 33% as much as for new wind. That gives nuclear no cost advantage as it is already "too expensive to consider".

"The least-cost solar option would require 400 times more land area and emit 20 times more CO2 than nuclear power."

Well, if you put panels on bare land rather than rooftops/parking lots and ignore the real estate used for uranium extraction. And if you ignore the CO2 footprint of nuclear fuel.

Solar will take little in the way of transmission. Most will go rooftop and parking lot. Charles calls this one wrong as well.

"(O)nly nuclear power can save us in that short a time frame" - there's a crock. It's taking the most experienced nuclear construction company in Europe over a decade to build a single reactor. We build wind farms in less than a year.

The claim that tidal has no role in the future. Tell that to the tidal turbines now in operation.

Charles fails.

Bob Wallace
January 19, 2013

Notes on the Brook web page:

1. Criticises the Jacobson and Delucchi paper because other people have previously published parts of the data. Not a legitimate complaint which would have made it past a review board.

2. Criticises the a lack of specificity of which renewable source in what amount in specific locations. Beyond the scope of the paper. This was a general/global overview, not a "what we should build where" paper.

3. Dismisses Jacobson's nuclear CO2 footprint data, along with all the other nuclear footprint data, with some "back of the envelop" numbers also published only on his web page. His numbers have not been presented for review.

He ends up showing that wind and nuclear have close to equal CO2 footprints (his Vattenfall graph). The solar footprint on that 1999 graph is badly out of date.

Again, lifetime CO2 footprint are not significant problems for wind, solar or nuclear. Compared to fossil fuels any would be a wonderful replacement. CO2 is not what makes nuclear fail.

4. He dismisses Jacobson's point that building reactors increases the danger of a nuclear war. Might we take a look at what is happening right now in Iran? Want to see some religious extremists get their hands on a nuclear weapon or two? Think we should simply dismiss that problem with a wave of our hand?

5. His wind capacity numbers are incorrect and he uses the incorrect number incorrectly. Clearly he hasn't read Archer and Jacobson. Or at least did not understand it.

6. He makes a very bogus statement that if the prediction that wind and solar costs will drop then we should make the same predictions for nuclear. There's no rational basis for making such a prediction. The price of wind and solar have been falling and the route to lower prices is well understood. The price of nuclear has been rising and took another significant jump following Fukushima.

The blog post is a fail.

Your using it in an attempt to disprove Jacobson is a fail.

Bob Wallace
January 19, 2013

Thanks, Alex. We now know for certain that you have no academic background specifically related to the energy field.

Since you asked - I make no money from anyone. I made my money early and retired a long time ago.

I'll dig through your linked paper. Since it is not published in a recognized peer reviewed journal but posted on a pro-nuclear energy web page I suspect you realize that it doesn't rise to the level of my request.

Bob Wallace
January 19, 2013

Alex - the wind industry laid out a path to eliminate all subsidies by 2018. They requested full 2012 level subsidies for 2013 and 2014 and then an annual reduction until subsidies cease at the end of 2017.

Nuclear is only built with enormous government support. Nuclear plants in the US can't be built without taxpayers guaranteeing the loan, otherwise private money will not loan at an affordable rate.

Most of the meltdown liability has to be assumed by taxpayers.

And even then money has to be seized from customers to get a new reactor built.

--

There are no Gen IV nuclear plants. There are pipe dreams of more advanced reactors, but none have been built so they are nothing but speculation. Remember how pebble bed reactors were going to be the solution and then failed?

--

Call us silly, but what the world is installing is wind and solar. The price of both continues to fall.

Nuclear plants are being built at rates which won't even replace the ones that are going out of service. Kewaunee is in the process of being closed. Oyster Creek is scheduled to close down in the next few years. San Onofre and Crystal River are down and possibly won't come back up.

Roughly 1/4th of all US reactors are struggling to stay in business due to competition from natural gas and wind. Their operating expenses are close to the wholesale price of electricity. They are one significant repair bill from being closed. Their profit margins are too low to allow them to service an additional loan.

Even China, the only country building nuclear at any significant rates, has scaled back their nuclear plans and greatly increased their wind and solar goals. China, following the Fukushima disaster, will only build reactors at secluded coastal sites where there is a reasonable opportunity to evacuate the local population and no fresh water supplies might be contaminated if they Homer one.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 19, 2013

BobW, you may think you're the Inquisitor! If you want to see critiques of Jacobson, look at his publications and the comments raised in their journals about what he's written. Here's one that's available outside the journals...
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/wws-2030-critique/

My own critique was given him personally and his responses were inadequate, so we engaged in a debate overseen by the Stanford Provost for Academic Research. He was never able to refute the criticisms.

As a Staford grad myself, the whole thing was disheartening.

Since you're intrigued by degrees, note Mark is a Civil engineer, that's it. My 4 Stanford degrees are in electrical engineering, statistics and computer systems. My BS is in electrical engineering from an eastern school.

So, what were you saying about windmills, Bob? Do you understand them in detail? Or, are you just making $ from them? 'Fess up, Bob.

Bob Wallace
January 19, 2013

OK, Alex. Show us your stuff.

Give us a published paper that contradicts Mark's lifetime CO2 data. And not some blog entry.

Mark has only one degree from Stanford. His Ph.D. is from UCLA. You could have a BA in fine arts and another in Middle Ages literature and have more Stanford degrees than Mark. It still wouldn't make you anything but a pretender.

What you do seem to be fairly good at is cherry-picking. Some of the early turbines which were installed offshore have not held up well. That's why designed have been improved, including moving to direct-drive turbines. The original turbines installed at Altamont Pass held up for about 30 years before their maintenance costs led to their being replaced.

And you attempt to skate past the CO2 footprint of nuclear fuel. Wind turbines do use steel and concrete, but they don't require fuel and that's where nuclear produces most of its CO2.

But there's no reason to spend much time on whether wind, solar or nuclear have the largest lifetime footprint. Nuclear, while having the largest of the three, is still low enough to make nuclear a reasonable way to produce electricity. It's the cost, time to construct, problems of siting, and danger/waste issues that are killing nuclear.

--

Oops. Checked Mark's Wiki page. He has a BA and a MS from Stanford. A MS and Ph.D. from UCLA. You could have a degree in sports ed or something and still be ahead....

Dr. A. Cannara
January 19, 2013

...Cont'd for BobW -- now to decommissioning. Unless wind farms that go out of wind, as climate can sadly have all their 700 tons of resource/MW dug up & recycled, wind folks should tsay mum on nuke de-commissioning. See, a present-day nuke, lasting 60 years until its reactor may need replacement, is still most all good, for a new, Gen-IV reactor or more -- they're more efficient.

Even and existing coal/gas/oil plant can be refurbished with a Gen0-IV reactor. But again, an old LWR has lots of concrete & steel. Only the fuel, reactor vessel and maybe some plumbing needs change-out when it's too old. The site and that main structures and the transmission yard and lines to the world are still usable. In fact, again, more than 1 Gen-IV reactor can be put inside an old LWR's massive dome, so, in fact, new nukes take up less space than old nukes and, unlike wind, more nukes can go into the same footprint.

Wityh local solar, EVs, efficient storage and new nukes, there's no need at all for windmills hogging hundreds of tons per MW -- of iron ore, coal, steel, limestone, aggregate, thus concrete, steel, and all manner of expensive generator materials and control systems and new transmission lines and new roads, and...

So Bob, thanks -- you've just shown how silly wind folks can be, in their hunt for subsidies rather than solutions to our problems.
;]

Dr. A. Cannara
January 19, 2013

Very funny BobW! You got tricked into Mark Jacobson's admitted fibbery on nukes! Note he's not publishing that anymore.

People around the world realized he was simply a wind promoter and never did properly account for wind's CO2 & other burdens.

So now your turn for "comprehension", Bob, ol' boy. See, Mark & I know each other. His keyboard is 2 miles from mine. He even has fewer Stanford degrees than I. He has never been able to support the paper you read about wind relative to nuclear. He couldn't even do it properly for local solar and he couldn't help his grad student properly cost the student's wind & wave combo thesis.

Still listening, Bob? Now we know for sure you're no engineer or scientist, certainly when you write:

"Plant construction – cement, steel, and complex electronics – is carbon intensive. The nuclear fuel cycle – mining, milling, enriching, fabrication, transport, and processing nuclear waste – is carbon intensive. Halogenated compounds used in uranium refining have a greater impact on global heating than carbon dioxide. Finally, when a nuclear plant's 40-to-60 year life is over, decommissioning adds more carbon costs and leaves a radioactive, lifeless blotch on the landscape"

In one paragraph you don;t get what the resources are that go into each windmill, even from a standard Siemens data sheet. And you don't get that the life of wind generators is now documented as more near 12 years than the advertized 25. And you don't get the overhead & missed-opportunity cost of massive new transmission/onversion losses and wind-speed sensitivity. The Chinese have sadly been learning even more about that one, as climate changes & winds fade in some of their vast 'farms'.

And, you cap it off with silly talk about decommissioning & waste, neither of which you understand. Our present stock of reactors are 1946-patent machines and indeed their fuel is not fully used, so spent fuel now is valuable, future fuel for newer reactors...

ANONYMOUS
January 19, 2013

ya gotta be kidding, right? Ya still think yur gonna change global warming compared to the last solar flairup of 160 diameters of the earth in sized, and not account for all the UV to IR to magnetic flux variations that ARE MELTING MARS ICE CAPS TOOOOOOOO ! -
2)
Did ya read the universe is accelerating? Did ya ever stretch a rubberband on yur skin? Does it get hotter? Right! it does, just like a change in speed and accelerating a universe... WHO CARES WHAT WE NAME THE FORCES ! IT IS HAPPENING and the net result is an entire universal warm-up !!!!!!!!!

ANONYMOUS
January 18, 2013

Rif :
Getting away from this above raffffffffghghhfhghhfhghrr-----

Any kinetic to potential of many kinds could be derived from the windmill : Long lo=ive QIXOTE! Hydro, a big weight, comprss gas, move a cable to pull mass transit, whatever direct mechanical "pick-up-stop-reusable-potential for kinetic" device would be a far cry better than the rediculous attempt at patent...
HEY! What is the heat content of the big stones of a mill at the end of a day just grinding nothing but themselves face to face! Quick call the atty's !

Bob Wallace
January 18, 2013

Let repeat my statement for you Alex. Read slowly and with comprehension...

"Nuclear has a higher lifetime CO2 footprint than does either solar or wind."

--

Nuclear energy is not low carbon

The industry claims that nuclear energy is "carbon free" because while a nuclear plant operates, it does not directly burn hydrocarbons. However, from a life-cycle analysis, nuclear energy is a carbon hog. Plant construction – cement, steel, and complex electronics – is carbon intensive. The nuclear fuel cycle – mining, milling, enriching, fabrication, transport, and processing nuclear waste – is carbon intensive. Halogenated compounds used in uranium refining have a greater impact on global heating than carbon dioxide. Finally, when a nuclear plant's 40-to-60 year life is over, decommissioning adds more carbon costs and leaves a radioactive, lifeless blotch on the landscape. Many studies confirm that nuclear electricity is not low-carbon; here are three:

A study of carbon and nuclear power by the Australian government and Sydney University, found that nuclear plants emit about 60 grams of carbon-dioxide equivalent per Kilowatt-hour of electricity 3-times the comparable emissions from wind turbines.

The International Energy Agency's 2006 World Energy Outlook, a pro-nuclear report, found that among the alternatives – wind, solar, hydro – nuclear power yielded the lowest emission reductions.

At Stanford University, Dr. Mark Jacobson compared the lifetime CO2 emissions of energy sources, "Review of Global Warming Solutions," and found nuclear electricity to be the highest non-hydrocarbon option, emitting between six and 60-times more carbon than wind and concentrated solar.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/nuclear-delusions/blog/35617/

Dr. A. Cannara
January 18, 2013

Reaally Bob? That's the best you can do is to say current cost figures are "weak"" and provide no basis for saying wind's embedded CO2 is bigger than nuke's or even solar?

C'mon Bob, we know you're not a scientist or engineer, but we know you can read.

So why not do that. Here, look at the latest analyses for wind's wastefulness, starting on p132... http://tinyurl.com/cxplxx3

YOu csan start there, since we don't want to overload you. But, if you're cheap & want a PDF of just that analysis, I can send it by email.

Keep trying, Bob. Maybe you'll get some facts right!
;]

Bob Wallace
January 18, 2013

"Wonder what the deathprint of burning Electrovaya lithium ion batteries at a substation is?"

Probably wipe out some ants and spiders.

Nothing like Chernobyl. Or a refinery fire. Or a coal mine collapse.

Or the 10,000+ annual US deaths from coal pollution.

Bob Wallace
January 18, 2013

The problem with your LCOE numbers are numerous Cliff.

The coal number does not include the external cost of coal pollution which drive the cost of coal to around 20 cents.

Several of the numbers are not useful for deciding which generation to build. They do not represent the cost of generation to be put into operation.

Utility solar is now somewhere in the 10 to 12 cent range.

New nuclear would be very conservatively 11 cents and more likely closer to 20 cents.

Onshore wind is now installing at 5 cents.

You are correct that two new reactors are being built in Georgia. The State of Georgia has allowed the utility companies to overcharge utility customers for their electricity. And allowed Southern Company to use the seized funds to build those reactors.

BTW, those reactors are already over budget and running late. That's the history of nuclear - under bid and under deliver.

It's an interesting disclaimer you post. Perhaps you should have included that no one should take the numbers as true.

Cliff Claven
January 18, 2013

Latest numbers from the experts in the field who do this for a living. (Inwood, S. Program on Technology Innovation: Integrated Generation Technology Options. Electric Power Research Institute, June 2011. http://publicdownload.epri.com/PublicDownload.svc/product=000000000001022782?errorpage=http://www.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/ProductAbstract.aspx.)

Table 1-2 - Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) Estimate for 2015 (cent/kWh):
Coal PC: 5.4 - 6.0
Coal IGCC: 6.8 - 7.3
Natural Gas NGCC: 4.9 - 7.9
Nuclear: 7.6 - 8.7
Biomass, Bubbling Fluidized Bed: 8.4 - 14.7
Wind On-shore: 7.5 - 13.8
Wind Off-shore: 13.0 - 15.9
Solar Thermal: 15.1 - 19.5
Solar Photovoltaic: 24.2 - 45.5

And new nuclear is still a viable and cost-effective option. Brand new Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors are currently under construction (http://southerncompany.com/nuclearenergy/gallery/new/)

Disclaimer: data and opinions above from experts who work daily with actual operating full-scale commercial technology are provided only for those of a disciplined scientific mind swayed by facts and logic and opinions that bear up under scrutiny with coherence across many dimensions of analysis. They are not expected to influence or quiet those who hold their worldviews as articles of faith on a foundation of emotion and Luddite hatred of humanity or the very technology that has enabled the progress of human civilization and enabled an unprecedented increase in human lifespan.

Cliff Claven
January 18, 2013

Wonder what the deathprint of burning Electrovaya lithium ion batteries at a substation is? http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_northern_az/flagstaff/FD-Firefighters-battling-transformer-fires-in-Flagstaff.

Bob Wallace
January 18, 2013

Forbes simply reposts the questionable Wang data.

I'm stating that trespasser deaths are included in the wind death data that Wang uses.

Nuclear has a higher lifetime CO2 footprint than does either solar or wind.

Your cost page is a pile of horse dung. You can't use the price of electricity from nuclear and coal plants built decades ago as the price of plants yet to be built.

Your site gives old and high prices for wind and solar. Solar, for example is listed at about 22 cents per kWh. It's now being sold at the utility level for under 10 cents.

Sorry Alex, your game is weak.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 18, 2013

Bob, here are your troublesome Forbes links...
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

And costs...
http://nuclearfissionary.com/2010/04/02/comparing-energy-costs-of-nuclear-coal-gas-wind-and-solar/

Why are you claiming wind deaths from trespassers have anything to do with anything, Bob? Windmills don't need fake arguments to explain why they're inefficient, wasteful of land, species & resources; and high in maintenance and 24/7 energy loss, not to mention the costs of the rest of the grid having to put up with wind variability. You do know win 'farms' consume grid power when the wind is too slow or too fast, right? You do know that each MW of installed wind needed ~700 tons of fossil-fuel-processed resources, like coal, iron ore, limestone, rock... right?

So, it should be no surprise that a 1GWe, 24/7/365 nuke has a lower carbon footprint than any wind system one could build to supply the same average power. Local solar uses no land, is more efficient and lossless, so with efficient storage + baseload nuke, hydro... there's no future for windmills at all.

Bob Wallace
January 18, 2013

BTW, have you ever looked at the wind death database?

It includes someone riding on a snowmobile who ran into a wind farm fence.

It includes someone who snuck onto a wind farm and committed suicide.

It includes a delivery truck driver who was killed when his truck overturned on a county road.

It includes a sky diver who parachuted into a turbine.

It includes a child killed while playing on her father's wind tower which was laying on the ground.

It includes a handful of residential wind tower owners who fell, not wind industry workers.

It includes five Chinese officials who were killed while setting up a display at a wind farm for a PR event.

It includes a cat operator who rolled his machine while cutting an access road.

It includes a crop duster who ran into a piece of test equipment.

I'd love to see that sort of accounting for nuclear. When we've got a complete listing of everyone who died on a nuclear plant site, everyone who died at an uranium mine, everyone who died transporting materials, everyone who died during the initial research into nuclear energy then we can do some accurate comparisons.

Right now we've only got garbage in - garbage out numbers.

Bob Wallace
January 18, 2013

I've seen the "Next Big Future" stuff before and I can't find where he included construction deaths for nuclear.

Your first link just leads back to a comment you made and the Forbes comment link is broken.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 18, 2013

Bob, you had links above to reports that tell you that. Why didn't you read them? Afraid they might challenge your bias?

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

How many radiation deaths have we had in the nuclear industry since we started figuring out how to turn it into an energy source Alex?

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

"Nuclear energy is dangerous. So far we haven't killed too many people, but we have cooked a few. And we risk killing many."

Keep going Bob, all you do is show you will gab without knowing facts.

Don't worry, there are adults in the room to make up for your fluff.

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

No, Alex, I read you just fine.

I read the dishonesty in your argument. You are defining out the events you don't want to recognize in an attempt to make a bogus claim.

Nuclear energy is dangerous. So far we haven't killed too many people, but we have cooked a few. And we risk killing many.

No other form of electricity generation carries the risk level of nuclear energy. No other form of electricity generation leaves us with a similar hazardous waste problem for which we have no acceptable solution.

Those are simply the facts. If you want to play doctor then step up your game and treat facts with respect.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

You don't really read, do you, Bob?

There are no people killed by radiation in western nuclear plants -- no one even in Fukushima, or haven't you kept up with the science and the UN reports, Bob?

"Some have been killed by radiation as in the case of Chernobyl " -- right, and if you studied the reports, those workers were exposed beyond 10 times the allowed radiation per year for such a worker. They were heroes. What are you. Bob?

You simply bluster without knowledge, Do you know why Chernobyl is irrelevant to world nuclear power Bob? Tick, tock, tick, tock...

The RBMK reactor design used by the Soviets was and is illegal outside the former Soviet Union. You can look up why, right Bob?

However, several RBMKs are safely operating today, because they're better regulated by more careful management and staff training. Why no more "out of control" reactors, Bob?

Sounds like you're just hoping to see some nuke deaths there, ol' Bob.
;]
Despite your puffery, nuclear power has been and remains the safest form of mass generation ever deployed by man.

You don't understand? You don't like it? You don't bother to study it?

Too bad, I'm not trying to convince you of anything, Bob. I only care that accurate info gets in front of others here, while you bluster away about things you make clear you don't care to study.
But watch your banana intake, Bob, they radiate you as much as does that nuke in the next town.
;]

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

The point is, Alex, the number of people killed in nuclear plants is greater than zero. Some have been killed by radiation as in the case of Chernobyl and some have died from other causes including steam leaks and falls.

We have no way to compare the rate of deaths per GWh of power produced by all the different energy technologies. I would be willing to guess that coal is the highest, but lacking data that is only a speculation.

If you had any sort of a research background this would be so obvious to you that you would have never made your previous post.

No data = no conclusion.

And cherry-picking data, oh, that's so sad....

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Really Bob? We burned 8 people to death in San Bruno too, again not a nuclear accident, but gas. So how many die each year in any place where there's steam, gas, oil, coal, Bob? Rancho Seco isn't even an operating nuke. Would be good if it were, since San Onofre is down because its steam generator was poorly replaced. Again, not a nuclear cause. So Bob, 'so far, we haven't lost control of too many reactors. But that does not mean that nuclear is safe.' -- while you were writing that, how many of us died from air, car, bus, or bike accidents? How many on escalators? By the way, how many of the 400+ western-nation power reactors and 100+ naval reactors have we 'lost control of', Bob? Your argument is so easily quashed just from 50+ years of reality -- no power source has ever been as safe as nuclear, not even slavery! Here, you say you read (remember to replace httpcolonslashslash and dotcom)... httpcolonslashslashtinyurl dotcom/42wvr9l httpcolonslashslashnextbigfuture dotcom/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html www.forbes dotcom/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ www.scientificamerican dotcom/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy Aw, but what do Swiss scientists know compared to you, eh Bob? What do Nobel guys & gals know? Folks like you have contributed to the US falling behind in nuclear power while increasing disease and death from other forms. Gonna pay up, Bob? The combustion folks love anti-nukes. ;]

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Really Bob? WE burned 8 people to death in San Bruno too, again not a nuclear accident, but gas. So how many die each year in any place where there's stem, gas, oil, coal, Bob?

Rancho Seco isn't even an operating nuke. Would be good if it were, since the steam generator at San Onofre is down because its steam generator was poorly replaced. Again, not a nuclear cause.

So Bob, "so far, we haven't lost control of too many reactors. But that does not mean that nuclear is safe." -- while you were writing that, how many of us died from air, car, bus, or bike accidents? How many on escalators?

Your argument is so easily quashed just from 50+ years of reality -- no power source has veer been as safe as nuclear, not even slavery! Here, you say you read...

http://tinyurl.com/42wvr9l
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy

Aw, but what do Swiss scientists know compared to you, eh Bob? What do Nobel guys & gals know?

Folks like you have contributed to the US falling behind in nuclear power while increasing disease and death from other forms. Gonna pay up, Bob?
;]

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

" Our 4 reactors killed/injured how many in decades? -- 0."

We scalded two workers to death at Rancho Seco.

We know nuclear workers have died in CA. We just don't have a complete accounting, there could easily be far more. Without that accounting we can't compare the relative danger of working in a nuclear facility vs. wind farm vs. solar array.

Nuclear is dangerous. To argue otherwise would be to completely ignore containment domes, emergency shutdown systems, emergency cooling systems, emergency backup generators, armed guards, evacuation plans, stockpiles of iodine tablets, etc.

All you can argue is that, so far, we haven't lost control of too many reactors. But that does not mean that nuclear is safe.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

BobW, "And I can read through you." -- really?

So you know what experience & degrees I have? You don't seem to read much in the engineering & science world, given what you write incorrectly, so how do you know if I'm a Dr. of anything or not? Inquiring minds want to know, Bob.
;]

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Lauryn, maybe my grump was because Apple has long known better and my a) - c) has often been repeated here.

Now to "weighing the risks of nuclear power". We lost 2 Californians to wind last year just in one site. Our 4 reactors killed/injured how many in decades? -- 0.

Ever seen how windmills are erected or maintained? Especially now that we known stats showing wind generators don't last anywhere near the 25 years proponents have advertized, continual maintenance is continual emissions and continual exposure of workers to danger. Perhaps we can forget the species damages, but that too looms as very expensive in croplands, as reported oin AAAS Science last spring.

Worldwide, the UN has reevaluated even Chernobyl's effects to be far less than previous estimates, partly because radiation standards were have been wrongly set since 1946...

www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

To avcoid the site's spam cop, put httpcoloslashslash in front of all the following links and convert "dotcom" appropriately...
pandoraspromise dotcom

And some enviro folks have the right idea...
thoriumforum dotcom/pro-nukes-environmental-movement#comment-261

Nuke safety...
tinyurl dotcom/42wvr9l (PSI ENSAD)
nextbigfuture dotcom/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
www.forbes dotcom/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Nuke cost...
www.scientificamerican dotcom/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy
theenergycollective dotcom/barrybrook/103871/talking-turkey-nuclear-costs
tinyurl dotcom/3tjvc9q

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Lauryn, maybe my grump was because Apple has long known better and my a) - c) has often been repeated here.

Now to "weighing the risks of nuclear power". We lost 2 Californians to wind last year just in one site. Our 4 reactors killed/injured how many in decades? -- 0.

Ever seen how windmills are erected or maintained? Especially now that we known stats showing wind generators don't last anywhere near the 25 years proponents have advertized, continual maintenance is continual emissions and continual exposure of workers to danger. Perhaps we can forget the species damages, but that too looms as very expensive in croplands, as reported oin AAAS Science last spring.

Worldwide, the UN has reevaluated even Chernobyl's effects to be far less than previous estimates, partly because radiation standards were have been wrongly set since 1946...

www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/

To avcoid the site's spam cop, put httpcoloslashslash in fornt of all the following links...
pandoraspromise.com/

And some enviro folks have the right idea...
thoriumforum.com/pro-nukes-environmental-movement#comment-261

Nuke safety...
tinyurl.com/42wvr9l (PSI ENSAD)
nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Nuke cost...
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy
theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/103871/talking-turkey-nuclear-costs
tinyurl.com/3tjvc9q

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

M- "How did the Earth get to its present state with 7,000 ppm in the atmosphere then?"

So M- ever been to a museum or a website, or read a book about what things were like in the Cretaceous, etc?

Thought not.

Remember the exhibit of the 18-foot centipede in the Cretaceous forests in the NY Museum of Nat. History?

How about leaning about some pre-history & science before showing you haven't?
;]
Next thing we know you'll be chortling about how we go here from Earth;s prior frozen stages. Oops, don't want to give that away, eh M-?

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

I can read. And I can read through you.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Bob, can you read? I said it was an idea posed in the late '60s.

Does "fake" help you some way when you don't know what you're talking about, Bob?

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

Show us the math of where that tree real estate is and where we get the necessary water, Fake Dr. Alex.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Thanks for the "planting trees" suggestion, M. That actually was a suggestion in a plan given Congress in the late 60s -- plant 1 trillion new trees/year -- ~200/capita.

And, in the very early '60s, even our President knew what to do: http://tinyurl.com/6xgpkfa

Problem was (and now is) a subsequent President was scientifically inert, but politically devious, so the trees and the next-gen nukes got shelved... http://tinyurl.com/73p7ler

So now the Chinese, Czechs, Norwegians... are taking our '60s successes and running with them, while we flop around. Plus ca change...

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

"BTW I wouldn't trust a thing the Chinese government says about what they are doing. A new coal plant a week is a fact."

When it comes to installing renewable energy China has exceeded each goal it has set for itself and then set a new, higher goal. China intends to install 10 GW of solar in 2013.

A new coal plant a week - do you have a link for that? It's higher than any numbers I've seen.

--

"Eventually subsidies for AE will go away and that industry will collapse. Remember the post Carter years? I favor ending all energy subsidies."

US federal solar subsidies cease in 2017 and I have heard no one in the solar industry argue that they will need to be extended. Solar should easily be a grid parity by then.

The wind industry recently asked for full 2012 level subsidies for 2013 and 2014 and then a phase out with no more subsidies after 2017.

You can bet that oil and coal will still be getting subsidized.

--

I well remember the Reagan years. That jerk set our country back two decades in terms of renewable energy and sound fiscal policy.

Make that three decades. We're still crawling out of the Reagan/Bush "we don't need no stinkin' regulations" recession.

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

"Two new companies starting shipping in the last couple of months."

Aquion and Electrovaya.

Beacon did go bankrupt. Their assets were purchased by another company and their technology continues. Flywheels don't seem to be optimum for long term storage for for grid smoothing/frequency regulation.

Your numbers for renewables don't make sense. Let's look at the alternatives. NG is running 5 to 7 cents per kWh(median). New nuclear would cost 12 cents or more. New coal isn't going to happen. New hydro is not going to happen on a large scale. Geothermal is running about 6 cents but it's geographically limited.

So what wind and solar plus storage need to hit is something cheaper than 12 cents. Wind is 5 cents. Solar has dropped below 10 cents.

Let's do some back of envelop math. Say we get 33% of our electricity straight from the wind farm at 5 cents. We get 25% straight from solar panels at 9 cents. Cost would average about 7 cents. Then the other 40% or so would be from stored 5 cent wind and as long as it is less than about 14 cents the entire package would be cheaper than new nuclear.

Aquion has stated that based on their initial prices they would be storing at about 4 cents per kWh. They expect that to drop to 1 cent.

5 cent wind plus 9 cent solar plus 4 cent storage is cheaper than 12 cent nuclear.

http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/ LCOE tab for generation numbers

M. SIMON
January 17, 2013

"Nuclear is already priced off the table."

That would put AE in the basement (not just off the table) at current prices.

Eventually subsidies for AE will go away and that industry will collapse. Remember the post Carter years? I favor ending all energy subsidies.

BTW I wouldn't trust a thing the Chinese government says about what they are doing. A new coal plant a week is a fact.

I agree with you in general. If there is nothing we can do - planting trees say - then we should do nothing. It is cheaper given that we have no control over China.

M. SIMON
January 17, 2013

"Right now, at this very moment, we are installing grid storage. Two new companies starting shipping in the last couple of months."

And no names. Why? You do realize Beacon Power (the best hope for low cost storage - and that was only for 15 minutes worth) has gone belly up? Bought out by another company after its demise. And the new company is only completing its last project.

What is the cost of the new storage per KWh? Have you done the engineering thing and run the numbers? Can AE be produced for less that one cent per KWH (to make up for its intermittent nature? It will probably have to get down to around .2 cents a kilowatt hour to make up for intermittent production and the cost of storage. Do you have any idea how far away from that we are now? Hint: about two orders of magnitude. And the cost curve is flattening. We have already done the easy stuff.

How much will two or three days of electrical power storage cost (to cover no wind periods)? Have you run the numbers?

I dunno. Utopians seem to have great difficulty with numbers. And systems. Or even looking at the problems other countries are having. Germany - to make AE work - relies on French nukes to take up the slack. And then there is Spain.

I do favor continuing work on AE. But it is not ready for mass roll out. Look at the current lifetime for wind turbine gear boxes in the US for one example. You can make them last longer. But that makes them heavier. Requiring more material for the towers. Or smaller generators. Making the economics worse in either case.

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

I just wrote a long comment. I had 19 characters left and this crappy software deleted it and told me that it was too long.

---

I'm going to telegraph my answer.

We're already shutting down reactors during heat waves. When we need the electricity the most.

Air cooling makes reactors harder to site and more expensive. Nuclear is already priced off the table.

CO2 continues to be the main driver of rising planetary temperatures. We've known about the role of carbon black/soot all along, it's just getting some media attention.

China and India are installing a lot of wind, solar and hydro. We, in the US, are the among the people who put most of the CO2 into the atmosphere, not the Chinese and Indians. Their CO2 output per capita is significantly lower than ours.

We do not have enough available land to plant enough trees. That math has been done.

We have moved ourselves out of the atmospheric "sweet spot" that we've enjoyed for a long time. We are almost certainly going to be dealing with more extreme storms, more extreme droughts, more flooding, more killer heat waves. If that's what you want then keep hoping for even more CO2 releases.

Just plan on spending more tax dollars for disaster recovery. Spending more of your household budget for food, and everything else as the cost of food drags everything else up with it. And don't complain when you get hit with a super-storm.

M. SIMON
January 17, 2013

And we have already crossed the threshold of permanent damage? Puhleeze. How did the Earth get to its present state with 7,000 ppm in the atmosphere then? Or 2,000 ppm? Or 1,000 ppm? Or even 500 ppm?

In any case stasis is not an option. It never was an option. It is impossible to preserve things as they are.

My preference is for temperatures like the Medieval Optimum. Higher than now. If more CO2 will help get us there I'm all for it.

M. SIMON
January 17, 2013

Note: the cheapest immediate adaptation to CO2 is planting trees.

It is a wonder that the enviro movement has not adopted trees. Could it be that it is because the US is carbon negative (absorbs more than it produces) if trees are counted?

I think what is going on is most similar to the "War of Currents" between Edison and Westinghouse/Tesla. i.e. the information coming out is biased. Thankfully Tesla won. Which is why we are an AC nation. DC - until recently - was not viable for long distance transmission.

M. SIMON
January 17, 2013

"We can pretty much forget about building many more reactors inland due to rising temperatures"

If CO2 is not driving temperatures (every new report drives the CO2 contribution to climate down - other factors are contributing - the latest is soot - from diesels mostly and China) then the rising temperature part of your comment is moot. And if CO2 is the problem we had better figure out how to get nukes on line faster.

I like Polywell Fusion. No steam plant required. Direct conversion is possible. And because no steam plant is required they could be turned out quickly - if they work. That is still TBD.

BTW long long ago I was a Naval Nuke. So I know a fair amount about the tech. I don't care much for current designs. I like some of the new designs better.

In any case if CO2 is it we had better figure out how to adapt. Because China and India are not going to stop increasing production of it.

And note: air/water cooled nukes (like the one in Byron, Illinois) use much less water than a total water cooled plant.

I really wish people giving opinions had a much better understanding of technology. But the world is what it is.

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

Well, you were going great until you started pushing the nuclear solution. We need solutions that are faster to implement, cheaper and bring no unnecessary risks to our neighborhoods.

We simply do not have the ability to build nuclear reactors fast enough to significantly cut our CO2 levels quickly.

We also do not have enough usable sites which provide ample cooling water. We can pretty much forget about building many more reactors inland due to rising temperatures and extended droughts.

That leaves only coastal areas and most people what nothing to do with a reactor in their neighborhood. You can argue that thorium reactors (if we actually knew how to build one) would be safe, but you'd be fighting an enormous battle to get one permitted close to most cities.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 17, 2013

Bob is quite right -- 350,org has chosen a meaningless target for CO2. Having discussed this brieflky with McKibben, it;'s also clear that they have limited interest in figuring out what;s the best path and what are the biggest threats.

For example, until talking with McKibben twice last year, there appeared to be no recognition that ocean acidification is the most imminent catastrophe. Apparently, their focus on air CO2 content blinds them to where it ends up for ultimate recycling to subterranean storage -- sea creatures using carbonate, dying and making limestone to be subducted under continents.

As a result, McKibben, unlike Hansen, doesn't get that all enviro groups need to not just attack carbon sources, but to support good alternatives.

The Carbon Cycle cannot be fooled, but we have indeed overwhelmed it by a factor of about 30. In other words, we've already guaranteed thousands of years of tragic results for our descendents, even if some miracle turned off all combustion today and 350ppm was reached tomorrow.

Study the DePaolo group's papers, for example...
http://energyseminar.stanford.edu/node/461

Hansen and other wise environmentalists do get it, however...
http://thoriumforum.com/pro-nukes-environmental-movement#comment-261
--
Dr. A. Cannara
650-400-3071

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

Yep. China has a huge pollution problem. They're working on it.

While China does not have an elected government their leaders realize that if the people get too unhappy they will toss them over.

Fred Linn
January 17, 2013

Air pollution in Beijing goes off the index

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/13/air-pollution-beijing-china/1829935/

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

"Without storage and tremendously lower prices (to make up for the intermittent nature of AE) AE will be a niche market. Pity. I liked the idea when I first looked into it in 2002. But as I learned more...."

Then learn even more!

Right now, at this very moment, we are installing grid storage. Two new companies starting shipping in the last couple of months.

Prices will fall as economies of scale kick in.

It is no longer 2002....

Bob Wallace
January 17, 2013

Some climate scientists say that we should get CO2 levels back to 350 ppm. Others are saying that at 350 ppm we will still take a very large hit.

China has capped the amount of coal they will burn each year starting in 2015. They have closed around 9,000 dirty coal plants and scrapped their coal powered trains. The coal plants they have built are 'state of the art' and are as efficient as coal plants can be built.

At the same time China is putting a huge push on building more hydro, solar and wind. China leads the world in installing renewable energy. China is also beginning a major push to put drivers into EVs.

India is progressing a bit slower. But India is also installing a lot of solar and wind. They are shutting down diesel generators. India is installing over 1,000 small solar systems per day for people who live away from the grid and depend on kerosene for lighting. By eliminating kerosene and diesel not only is CO2 reduced but there is also a reduction in carbon black (soot) which is the second largest cause of global warming.

M. SIMON
January 17, 2013

fred,

I suppose the age of the dinosaurs was not very productive what with the warm waters and >1,000 ppm CO2. The acid rain from that high CO2 level is what killed them off. Sure.

But OK. What is your target level for CO2? And while we are at it what is your target level for planetary temperature? And what is your target level for Chinese CO2 production? How do you think we should enforce it? And while we are at it what should be done about India?

Just how do you intend to solve this "problem"?

And you have another little problem. Temperatures are not rising despite rising CO2. They have been flat for about 15 or more years. The models failed to predict this. I was under the impression that CO2 was dominate. And that the models were skilled.

BTW the NYTs is closing their climate desk. Because the issue is soooo important.

So will it be OK with you if CO2 rises and the oceans cool?

Say. Is it possible that a LOT of the CO2 we are experiencing came out of warmed oceans? End of the Little Ice Age and all.

And what are you going to do about China? And India?

Without storage and tremendously lower prices (to make up for the intermittent nature of AE) AE will be a niche market. Pity. I liked the idea when I first looked into it in 2002. But as I learned more....

Fred Linn
January 17, 2013

m simon----------' Killing the planet? I hear CO2 and warmer temperatures are very good for plants. '------- Cold water holds more gases than warm water. That is why a cold soda left sitting out overnight loses its fizzie-----the warmer water can't hold the gas. This includes oxygen as well as CO2. This means that cold waters are required to be the most productive. This is why whales and other large predators must migrate. They live in cold waters because that is where the food is----they only go to warm waters to mate and produce calves----and they do not eat while they are there, there is nothing there for them to eat. When CO2 dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid. Get enough acid and nothing can grow. This is seen on land as acid rain. And we are already seeing this happening in the oceans with shell fish and coral reefs. 70% of the earth's surface is ocean. Screw up the oceans and we will be in a pickle---literally----and it won't be a sweet one.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 16, 2013

Wow, Apple gets to patent how James Watt first measured the thermal energy equivalent of mechanical power!

This is almost as good as the patent on using laser pointers to amuse cats. Maybe not as good as the app for iGadgets that lets the user know when to get in line for the next veriosn of the iGadget they just paid Apple for.

We are really dumb, in Apple's eyes. We already know the Patent Office has fallen to historic lows, though.

Ignobel Award candidate?

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

--

We've been subsidizing oil and coal for 100 years. We've been subsidizing wind and solar for about 30 years. So you're idea of creating an even playing field is to cut everyone, giving oil and coal an extra 70 years of assistance? Got it.

Here's the funny thing. During those 100 years the price of oil and coal have continued to climb. During those 30 years the price of wind has dropped abut 6x and the price of solar panels has dropped about 200x.

The price of wind and solar have dropped so much that the wind industry has stated that it can get along fine without subsidies after 2017. And in 2017 US subsidies for solar disappear. No one is suggesting that there will be further need to subsidize solar either.

So, in about four years we'll have reached the point at which wind and solar will no longer be subsidized. Oil and coal will still be on the public tit.

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

m- When plants get too warm they quit growing. And when it gets warmer still, they die. There may be some short term gains for agriculture in some locations, but at the same time things will be getting worse in other places.

After a while we run out of good places to farm. Notice how South America and Africa get significantly thinner as we chase the climate southward? Notice how as we go northward in North America we encounter lots of mountains and forest lands with little farm-able topsoil? Notice how Siberia is a great big swamp?

--

Less expensive than coal? Is that before or after we add in the external costs of coal?

If before, and using EIA median costs - wind, geothermal, hydro, biofuels, natural gas and nuclear are cheaper than coal.

http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/

If we add in the external costs which we pay in tax dollars and health insurance premiums then all generation technologies are cheaper than coal.

--

Global warming hasn't stopped. You've been sold a baloney sandwich. The people who make that claim are cherry-picking data and telling a dishonest story.

M. SIMON
January 16, 2013

Let me add that the biggest thing killing AE in the eyes of the public are the subsidies.

The difficulty for AE is that the market will not pay enough for intermittent undispatchable energy to make it profitable at the current levels of technology.

M. SIMON
January 16, 2013

Killing the planet? I hear CO2 and warmer temperatures are very good for plants.

And I note that despite rising CO2, temps are not rising.

http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_Temperature2012.pdf

Maybe CO2 doesn't work as claimed.

And do the several things that are better than coal produce no CO2? Well of course nuclear. Although it has its problems.

To be better than coal - i.e. get willing adoption - it will have to be less expensive per BTU. Can you name such a source?

=============

Green energy has been so oversold that I fear we will end up with another post Carter debacle. Green will be seen as just another scam run by crooks. Which will kill further development for another 20 years.

And the global warming scare is dying out. It peaked around 2000 - 2005. It is still declining.

There is an easy way to bring AE back - make it profitable without subsidies. What about the traditional energy subsidies you say? I say kill all subsidies. Then let reality sort it out.

====

Personally I like Polywell Fusion. If it can be made to work.

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

m- Several things better than coal have already come along.

What do I have against coal? It's killing some of us every day with the pollution it produces and it is killing the planet for all of us via the CO2 produced by burning it.

Is any of that news to you?

M. SIMON
January 16, 2013

Bob, What about the rest of us. Don't we deserve the evidence? And what do you have against coal? It is keeping a lot of us alive until something better comes along.

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

Sorry, Cliff. I did not defend "the 20MW" in post 11. I pointed that you were making stuff up once again.

And I do not for one minute believe that you"want to keep abreast of the state-of-the-art". You have a long and inglorious history of being anti-renewable energy.

You want to argue based on facts and evidence? Then start posting factual information and not twisted coal-friendly stuff.

Cliff Claven
January 16, 2013

BW: In post 11 you were defending the 20MW. Now you argue it's a mistake. I simply pointed out it would be an extraordinary achievement if possible and greatly surpass existing performance. Everyone has a right to be skeptical and say "show me the evidence." Facts are stubborn things. Please argue with facts and evidence instead of personal attacks. I want to keep abreast of the state-of-the-art and if you can show better performance, than please share it with all of us.

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

What does 200 acres have to do with anything? Are we running short on available land? No we are not.

Now, apparently Meg made a mistake when she wrote that Apple was planning on producing 20 MW of wind from their 200 acres. That is not in the article she linked. The article says "To increase the amount of solar energy they're able to generate, Apple just bought 200 acres of property in Catawba County for $3 million."

http://www.cultofmac.com/191838/apple-expands-n-c-solar-farm-to-make-data-center-use-100-renewable-energy/#gM2ZM8KvjkqhYi3W.99

I suspect you've managed to get your bloomers in a twist over nothing. You're going to have to find a new way to attack renewables.

Cliff Claven
January 16, 2013

BW: Simply explain how you or Apple are going to get 20MW out of a 200-acre parcel. How many turbines of what capacity at what spacing at what capacity factor. I'm just asking for a real-world solution, not snake oil and fantasy. Enlighten us with the state of the art based on a real installation somewhere.

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

Well, duh, Cliff. Of course wind turbines can't be set too close together. Apple wind-beaters would have the same issue.

Why do you refuse to acknowledge the very small footprint of wind turbines? Would doing so interfere with your anti-renewable energy campaign?

98%+ of all wind farm land remains unchanged for the original use farming/grazing/wildlife. I suspect, based on the drawing at the top of the page, that the wind-beaters would use more than 2% of the farm's real estate.

And, do you not understand central tendency statistics? The median of all operating wind turbines is not indicative of latest tech/siting turbine capacities. The median is pulled down by older, lower-mounted, less developed turbines some of which are 30 years old.

Furthermore, capacity is not a very useful statistic when comparing electricity generation technologies. Cost per kWh and time of delivery/dispatch-ability are the important statistics.

I'm not telling people to disregard math. If the math is based on good inputs. But hand-picking garbage for inputs yields garbage outputs.

Cliff Claven
January 16, 2013

BW: As you know, wind turbines can't be set too close together because of mutual interference with wakes and masking. My numbers are from a 2009 NREL report of large farms installed after 2000 (Denholm, Paul, Maureen Hand, Maddalena Jackson, and Sean Ong. Land-Use Requirements of Modern Wind Power Plants in the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, August 2009. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/45834.pdf) and the latest information posted online at the Open Energy Transparent Cost Database (http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/). The actual median onshore wind capacity factor is currently 38%. A capacity factor of 100% only gets you 2.3MW out of 200 acres.

Telling people to disregard math is par for the course for REW, but poor advice for investors or those who care about the energy future of this country.

Bob Wallace
January 16, 2013

Cliff - what we don't know is the actual footprint of this device.

It could easily be the case that the Apple wind-beaters would take more than the <2% area that typical wind turbines use.

I'd suggest you park your math until you have adequate facts.

BTW, 25% of all wind farms are running at 43% or better capacity. The 38% median capacity number includes all turbines, even those much older and poorly sited.

Cliff Claven
January 16, 2013

If Apple has a way to get 20MW out of 200 acres of wind farm, that is what they should patent. With a 39% capacity factor, The largest and newest US wind farms only manage to generate 1.1 W/m2. That's just under 1 MW for Apple's 200 acres. Apple is likely as thermodynamically challenged as REW. But they have to keep up with Google and their sponsorship of CoolPlanet's equally dubious performance claims for their bio-oil process.

Alex Pucacco
January 14, 2013

It's amusing to see that Apple continue to collect patents like football stickers. The type of low grade heat produced by braking, already practiced in higher end German manufactured cars is a subsidy rather than "a fossil fuel backup" at best this can be used in residential heating schemes which for wind resource is far from urbanised areas. However a positive article, the more coorporations that make statements with renewable power the better. I imagine the main reason for Apple to invest in solar and the such is to control their costs of which power is a huge one.

ANONYMOUS
January 12, 2013

A process that first transfers kinetic energy from a wind turbine shaft to thermal energy in a fluid, and then later converts that thermal energy in the fluid back into kinetic energy to drive an electrical generator would not seem to be an efficient process. It would be far more efficient, lower cost, and more flexible to use pumped hydro for large scale energy storage.

Of course, Apple would probably not be able to patent a pumped hydro storage system. Nor would a low-tech pumped hydro storage system sound as sexy in a press release to shareholders.

M. SIMON
January 12, 2013

Sparkboom,

You can't beat Carnot. Even with a Sterling engine. BTW I know of no MW Sterlings.

As I said. Thermo is not a strong point around here.

David Robinson
January 12, 2013

There is another more efficient way that Apple or others could use low grade heat to generate electrical power other than the steam turbine and that is by using the Stirling Engine, Here are two examples:
www.coolenergyinc.com
www.sunvention.com (See "SunPlus Electric" tab).

Solar Stirling the Solution without Pollution.
D.R.

Richard .
January 12, 2013

It should be noted that using a wind turbine to stir a liquid in order to generate heat and as heat storage is prior art. In the 1990's a Danish company Calorius attempted to market such a wind turbine heat design, however it was not commercial successful in the long term. However from past experience with how broken the US patent system is, it will not surprise me if aPple receives a patent for this.

Bob Wallace
January 12, 2013

"bad news in the long run for development of any novel ideas"

I'm feeling agreement here. Perhaps we need to revisit patents and institute a "use it or lose it" requirement.

M. SIMON
January 12, 2013

I know thermodynamics is not this magazine's strong suit. But I'm sure you could run Carnot and figure what the turn around cost (in energy) of this system is. I'd be surprised if it was as high as 20% return of the energy input in theory. In practice it will be less. Maybe much less.

And a thermal plant? Do you have any idea what the lead time of those is? Or how likely running 10,000 of those plants unattended is? And suppose this magic working fluid is mercury?

You might just as well burn natural gas. Continuously when you need to. This Apple idea is a solution in search of a problem.

marty wolf
January 12, 2013

Actually the patent game is in full swing..try and develope anything close to this and apples legal team with lots of money backing them will take you to court and claim its their patent..the science behind it is universally available but these organizations continue to hoard it..may be bad news in the long run for development of any novel ideas..its happened in the seed business and certainly the technology field is littered with law suits...this may be the next step for corporate control of ideas...hope not..

Bob Wallace
January 11, 2013

I suspect the only reason these line drawings are receiving any attention is because they are somehow attached to "Apple".

Take the solar laptop. Someone is going to sit out in the sunshine and strain to see their screen while charging their batteries?

And they're going to buy solar panels and toss them away in 3-4 years when they're done with the laptop?

Buy a solar panel and enough cord to reach outside. Better yet, install solar panels on the roof and let them power the grid for 30, 40, 60 or more years.