Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

[Last of the Fraggles]

but a wind farm or solar station would not now be threatening millions of lives.
it would simply be off line.

Where are millions of lives being threatened?

No, there was no such comparison by me. What i did was to compare the capacity of wind and solar with the real amount of electricity fed into the grid during one year, and put that in relation to what an average nuclear power plant has as capacity and feeds into the grid. Which turns out to be 85%-90% of the capacity of a nuke can be fed into the grid as electricity, and about 10% of the capacity of wind & solar combined can be fed into the grid, both over the course of one year. I even used a pessimistic 85%-90% figure for the nuke, and as another poster noted, that figure may be higher actually, giving an even better outcome for the nuke.

But yes, it would be interesting to have a comparison how many materials and work is required to produce and install one nuke, and how much of the same would be required to get the equivalent in windmills and solar panels. And that then has to include storage facilities, like hydro storage, to really have a 24/7 supply of energy.

But i guess there is a reason why you will never see such figures from the anti-nuke people.

Greetings,

Chris

I have looked for and never found an independent cradle-to-grave assessment of environmental impact and economic concerns for various different energy sources.

This should be a relatively easy to answer empirical question if we have the data, surely?

There's no shortage of iron, and copper is mostly used in dynamos and distribution, which is no different for nuclear stations.

Agreed, but if the discussion is about nuclear versus renewable (and I'm sure we can all agree that coal and oil for generation is not sustainable for much longer) then it's really not relevant.

Windmills are designed to be no more easily damaged than nuclear power stations. Any installed technology requires maintenance, and it's likely to be cheaper and easier for windfarms and solar farms than for nuclear. The technology is simpler to start with, and the protective clothing required would be familiar to any sailor.

If we decided tomorrow that we're going to make all our energy from wind power we'd have many issues with resources:

1. We'd suddenly be short of materials like steel and copper
2. We'd have no capacity to manufacture the things
3. We'd run out of raw materials for the magnets
4. We'd have no capacity to install them (nor sites to put them on)

Given that most new wind power in Europe at least is heading offshore I think you under-estimate the issues with maintaining these things too.

The infrastructure simply isn't there for a grand scale and quick wind energy roll out and won't be for quite some time, if ever.

5-10MW per windmill.
Full-power hours about 3800 per year for off-shore windparks, means you need two MW windmill for one MW nuclear power.
1 MW windmill means about 1 Million Euro investment.
To replace 1000MW nuclear power you need 2000MW wind power.

Plus some form of storage technology.

 

[Kuko 4000]

Who wants to see this becoming more popular in the scenery? Not me.

(btw. this is supposed to be a pro windmill picture, at least it's from a pro wind power article):

 

[Capsid]

Who wants to see this becoming more popular in the scenery? Not me.

(btw. this is supposed to be a pro windmill picture, at least it's from a pro wind power article):

http://img.mtv3.fi/mn_kuvat/mtv3/uutiset/yleiskuvia/luonto/954412.jpg

Was there an outcry against electricity pylons when they were first erected? I can't find any information about it.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Who wants to see this becoming more popular in the scenery? Not me.

(btw. this is supposed to be a pro windmill picture, at least it's from a pro wind power article):

http://img.mtv3.fi/mn_kuvat/mtv3/uutiset/yleiskuvia/luonto/954412.jpg

I personally think windfarms are a lovely sight. Don't know what people have against them.

 

[babycondor]

I'd rather see those than these:

 

[macdoc]

I have looked for and never found an independent cradle-to-grave assessment of environmental impact and economic concerns for various different energy sources.

Brave New Climate has extensively researched case studies on the total cost of various energy types.


••••

:

I'd rather see those than these:

why ? 0 you are in a science forum ....make your case opcorn

 

[Aepervius]

I'd rather see those than these:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_181544d8763d65c04c.jpg[/qimg]

The difference being, you see those in your post rarely, whereas the wind pylone would be pretty wide spread (since there is a factor of nearly 1000 wind pylone to replace one of those you posted the image).

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Brave New Climate has extensively researched case studies on the total cost of various energy types.


••••

:

why ? 0 you are in a science forum ....make your case opcorn

Do you have a link to the right page of that BNC site?

As for your second point, I find wind farms far more aesthetically pleasing than your typical power plant. I don't for a second think that's a good argument for building one or the other though.

 

[babycondor]

Brave New Climate has extensively researched case studies on the total cost of various energy types.


••••

:

why ? 0 you are in a science forum ....make your case opcorn

Purely on grounds of aesthetics.

 

[Belz...]

I personally think windfarms are a lovely sight. Don't know what people have against them.

They're not a lovely sound, from what I understand.

Especially not thousands of them.

 

[Belz...]

Purely on grounds of aesthetics.

Of course. Why bother with practicality ?

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

They're not a lovely sound, from what I understand.

Especially not thousands of them.

Well I guess that's up to the individual to decide. I have no issues with them.

Of course. Why bother with practicality ?

To be fair, the original post we answered was based on the aesthetics of wind turbines and not their practicality.

 

[jayh]

I personally think windfarms are a lovely sight. Don't know what people have against them.

Quackery, new age enviro and woo crusader Robert Kennedy jr was fighting against windmills in his offshore backyard until the publicity caught up with him.

 

[lomiller]

5-10MW per windmill.
Full-power hours about 3800 per year for off-shore windparks, means you need two MW windmill for one MW nuclear power.
1 MW windmill means about 1 Million Euro investment.
To replace 1000MW nuclear power you need 2000MW wind power.

You need to be careful about that. You actually need 3-4 X the *nameplate* capacity for wind but numbers cited for a wind farm may already have this calculation take into account so if you blindly apply it again you will not get a valid result. (SoT has been seen trying to apply it multiple extra times just for good measure!). As a minimum you need to know if it's nameplate capacity, but sometimes you will also get specific information on load factor for the farm which will differr based on location.

Another caution in comparing Nuclear vs Wind is overnight vs installed cost. For nuclear the installed cost (real cost) is much higher (2+ times) the overnight cost while for wind the overnight cost is quite close to the installed cost, so you can’t directly compare overnight cost of wind to the overnight cost of nuclear. For a valid apples to apples comparison you have to compare installed cost, but some of the people who take a less sceptical approach to promoting nuclear power (Again SoT being one of the worst offenders) will always try to compare overnight costs even though such comparisons don’t hold up.

(The reason why you can’t compare overnight costs is that it takes a long time to bring a nuclear plant online so you don’t begin to receive any cash flow from your investment for up to a decade. Your investors/bondholders/bank however don’t care they expect you to pay financing charges from the moment you borrow the money so in addition to what you spend on the reactor you also have to pay a decade’s worth of compounding interest. For wind on the other hand when you pay for a turbine you can have it installed and producing power and a return on investment very quickly.)

 

[CORed]

Who wants to see this becoming more popular in the scenery? Not me.

(btw. this is supposed to be a pro windmill picture, at least it's from a pro wind power article):

[qimg]http://img.mtv3.fi/mn_kuvat/mtv3/uutiset/yleiskuvia/luonto/954412.jpg[/qimg]

I think a lot of the advocates of wind and solar power have no grasp of the scale of infrastructure necessary to produce the energy necessary to support industrial civilization, and many of them would balk at it if they did know.

I think a lot of people in the environmental movement have the idea that everybody will put a solar panel on their roof, and a little wind turbine in their back yard and have no further need of the bib bad power companies, but it just isn't going to work that way. I, for one, think renewables can make a significant contribution to energy production, but it's not going to happen overnight, and it's not cost,competitive with either nuclear or fossil fuels now.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

(SoT has been seen trying to apply it multiple extra times just for good measure!). (Again SoT being one of the worst offenders)

No, just a failure on your part to understand the difference between planting enough turbines to produce the same amount of power in the same time frame and actually using wind turbines to provide actual baseload generation
.

 

[lomiller]

No, just a failure on your part to understand the difference between planting enough turbines to produce the same amount of power in the same time frame and actually using wind turbines to provide actual baseload generation
.

The energy produced by a wind farm is:
Nameplate capacity * load factor
Where load factor is typically between 0.25 and 0.35 depending on location

This is of course consistent in my post above, but thanks for proving my point that you and only you seem to want to keep re-applying the load factor over and over until you get a number you like.

 

[Aepervius]

The energy produced by a wind farm is:
Nameplate capacity * load factor
Where load factor is typically between 0.25 and 0.35 depending on location

This is of course consistent in my post above, but thanks for proving my point that you and only you seem to want to keep re-applying the load factor over and over until you get a number you like.

I think I understand what he meant : the load factor of 0.25 (or 0.35) is an average. You'll have peak , and you'll have lull with wind turbine. The problem is that this average would leave you with brownout if you use exactly at that.

So a nuke plant with 1000 MW, cannot be remplaced with 4000 turbine 1MW with a load factor of 0.25, because that 0.25 is an average and would not provide with 100% certainty the 1000 MW baseload.

So you would probably need 5000....6000... Maybe even more turbine 1MW with a LF of 0.25 to reach your 100% sure 1000 MW nuke plant.

And an industruial baseload *need* the stability of the minimum available. ETA: in other word to make sure you have 1000 MW *always* as baseload , you need more than 4000 turbine of 1 MW with LF of 0.25, because the 0.25 LF is only an average.

 

[lomiller]

So a nuke plant with 1000 MW, cannot be remplaced with 4000 turbine 1MW with a load factor of 0.25, because that 0.25 is an average and would not provide with 100% certainty the 1000 MW baseload.

So you would probably need 5000....6000... Maybe even more turbine 1MW with a LF of 0.25 to reach your 100% sure 1000 MW nuke plant.

If you search the thread I was referring to he clearly and repeatedly says he wants the load factor applied again even after he is told it's already included in the numbers.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184354&page=3


In any case to what you are saying, this is an issue that doesn't exist at all when wind is a small percentage of generating capacity, peaks and valleys of wind generation become insignificant compares to the normal demand fluctuation.


For higher levels of wind power generation it completely ignores how wind power should be done. Things like matching it with solar (peak demand usually occurs during peak solar availability), having an HVDC "backbone", smart billing to allow hybrid/electric cars to change when free power is available, etc. Note that these are all good things to have anyway, they just take on greater importance with wind.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

If you search the thread I was referring to he clearly and repeatedly says he wants the load factor applied again even after he is told it's already included in the numbers.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184354&page=3

Yes. Please go to lomillers link where he dishonestly repeatedly ignores me saying "baseload generation" over and over again.

Solar/wind zealots like Lomiller and Kevin Lowe simply do not get baseload and load following.

If they did, they would be pro-nukers.

For higher levels of wind power generation it completely ignores how wind power should be done. Things like matching it with solar (peak demand usually occurs during peak solar availability), having an HVDC "backbone", smart billing to allow hybrid/electric cars to change when free power is available, etc. Note that these are all good things to have anyway, they just take on greater importance with wind.

At an expenditure of tens of billions of dollars per gigawatt of peak capacity from trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.