I don’t usually go for political articles, but this one deserves mention for the wholesale idiocy about energy on display.
Don Monfort writes: Submitted on 2011/10/01 at 10:24 am
Sorry to stray off topic, but I was flabbergasted by something I just read:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html
The most flabbergasting part; our energy policy is based on fantasy:
When it was Mr. Hamm’s turn to talk briefly with President Obama, “I told him of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC. I wanted to make sure he knew about this.”
The president’s reaction? “He turned to me and said, ‘Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to green and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.’” Mr. Hamm holds his head in his hands and says, “Even if you believed that, why would you want to stop oil and gas development? It was pretty disappointing.”
America is still going to use oil in 5 years, but I’d rather it be domestic than foreign, wouldn’t you? Alternate technology takes time to develop and there’s zero chance we’ll all be driving electric vehicles in 5 years.
Obama said this when he was running for office:
Obama pledges to end oil dependency
Friday, August 29, 2008 (KGO ABC7 Television)
“I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years we will finally end our dependence on oil in the Middle East,” said Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.
…
“If he means what it sounds like it means, it’s impossible,” said Stanford University Professor James Sweeney.
I guess we know what he meant by that now.
When the presidential limo becomes an electric vehicle, I’ll take his pledge seriously.
The vehicle fuel consumption is about 8 miles per gallon which on metric system corresponds to around 30 litres/100 km – source specs
I’ve heard about the logical fallacy “appeal to authority” before, but I believe you have discovered another one: Appeal to the Stupid.
David L. Hagen, you reference The Oil Drum, a place where Peak Oil believers congregate and scare each other. Boo!!!
I live in the real world, not some fantasy where boogey-men jump out and scare the children.
Get the facts, as I’ve demonstrated on my link. Oil reserves are growing, despite increased annual productions. Does that sound like we are running out? Technology is improving rapidly for finding and producing oil. Oil prices are still where they were in 1980, after adjusting for inflation. Does that sound like a commodity is in scarce supply? Do the laws of economics not apply to oil? High price equals scarcity? The only reason oil today is priced at $80 per barrel is that the Saudis chose $32 per barrel in 1980 – and that was the most they could obtain without triggering the US converting our coal to liquids projects.
In a world where there is ample, ample, abundant supply of a commodity, why would anyone ever choose to bring more to market just to depress the prices? That is exactly where we are with oil, and will likely be for hundreds more years. The Earth’s crust is like a stack of pancakes, and our oil exploration thus far is like sticking a fork into only the top-most pancake. There is plenty of oil, and plenty of places not yet explored for oil. Ask any petroleum geologist who works for an oil company. Many of my friends do exactly that, and they know.
It is amazing to me how much faith the greenies put in future technology development for non-fossil energy: nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, but have so little faith in the proven success of oil and gas technology.
You might be able to scare the children with talk of oil running out and Peak Oil. But not the grownups in the oil industry. We know better.
Matthew says:
October 2, 2011 at 9:50 am
“Cute. Maybe with some hand-waving and Ron Paul 2012 stickers, we’ll solve everything!!!!11!”
DirkH says:
October 2, 2011 at 10:12 am
“A core argument of the warmists is, as past climatic changes were too big to be explained by TSI changes, […]”
Looks like I lost Matthew. But I’m here to help; so maybe an MIT professor can explain it better. Former IPCC lead author Dr. Richard Lindzen:
J Martin says:
October 2, 2011 at 10:25 am
>>It’s a 313 MPG VW.
—-
No, it isn’t 313 MPG. Their factory claim is 313 MPG combined. If I read this marketing-speak correctly, what it means for a 2.2 gallon tank is that you should get 650 miles from a fully-charged 120 pounds of batteries plus a teeny tank of gas. On gas alone you get considerably less.
Also, read your own story. It reports getting 340 miles total out of the lot, not 650 miles. that’s under 150 MPG on gas alone. What would you get out of a California street-legal version at real speeds and loads? Less than 100, I suspect.
But there have been real production light-duty 90+ MPG vehicles for decades. This is nothing new. Check out Messerschmitts from 1955 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200 ). Or motorcycles, for that matter. Airplane expertise always helps.
But real cars you can get 300 MPG out of? That is a claim only a salesman could love.
Smokey says:
October 2, 2011 at 10:40 am
******
Again, just because we are less dirty than developing countries does not make us clean. I don’t understand what’s difficult about that. I’m not some spoon-fed hippie who’s “regurgitating” information I’ve read on some Greenpeace activist’s blog. I’m not actually that radical. I never suggested that we cut our oil consumption to zero – just that investing in cleaner technologies isn’t a bad thing just because it’s usually the Democrats who suggest it. Also, pollution haven hypothesis is barely supported by the available data, and it’s just as easy to suggest that it doesn’t actually exist. See Michael Porter at Harvard for more on that. Maybe he’s uninformed and ignorant, too, since he doesn’t agree with you…
————————
Catcracking says:
October 2, 2011 at 10:55 am
******
You’re being silly. It’s obvious that what I was saying was that even a high school student who’s taken an economics class understands that pollution is a negative externality and that it’s absurd to argue otherwise. A byproduct either has to be good or bad. What are the “positives” of CO2, sulfates, methane, etc etc? Enlighten me, please.
reply to:
Ferd is exactly right. The more cheap abundant energy a society has, if not overly fettered by government, the higher the standard of living for all in that society. Pull enough up high enough, and now they’ve got the time, inclination (we all want better environments to live in) and the money to begin worrying and doing something about pollution. Before that point, it’s all you can do to scratch out a minimal living any way possible – even if that involves creating a lot of pollution. And of other’s actions create a lot of pollution, you either don’t have the time to worry about it or perhaps it even directly or indirectly keeps you from starving or dying of exposure, so where’s the choice?
Raise the standard of living high enough, and people can send their children for more years of education – rather than the kids having to go to work ASAP in order to help keep from starving – or help get out of that dire slum. Raise the level enough, and now extended education becomes desirable and possible, there is a lessened need for physical labor, lower levels of infant and child deaths occur because you/the society can afford health care, and family size begins dropping.
What allows all of that, what spurs those changes? Cheap, abundant, energy.
David Hagen
Maybe the reality you need to consider is provided in the link below
Anyone who is aware of the reality in the US knows that the oil production is restricted by the political process not the resources that are availble to us. The production capability is artificial constrained by pure politics. The lisl of locations in the US that are declared off limits by those who want to restrict our oil production is beyond belief, then they turnaround and claim peak oil. . The creativity of the anti oil lobby and politicians to manufacture excuses is unbounded. The technology in the fossil fuel discovery/development is really incredible and more and more fossi fuel discoveries are realized every day versus the scant energy development via the biofuels and other renewables.
check this out:
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/N-American-oil-output-could-top-40-year-old-peak-2193837.php#loopBegin
“North America appears headed for an oil renaissance, with crude production expected to hit an all-time high by 2016, given the current pace of drilling in the U.S. and Canada, according to a study released by an energy research firm this week.
U.S. oil production in areas including West Texas’ Permian Basin, South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale, and North Dakota’s Bakken shale will record a rise of a little over 2 million barrels per day from 2010 to 2016, according to data compiled by Bentek Energy, a Colorado firm that tracks energy infrastructure and production projects.
Canadian crude production is expected to grow by 971,000 barrels per day during the same period, with much of the oil headed for the U.S.
Combined, the U.S. and Canadian oil output will top 11.5 million barrels per day, which is even more than their combined peak in 1972.
Goldman Sachs has estimated the U.S. could move from being the No. 3 oil producer behind Saudi Arabia and Russia to the No. 1 spot by 2017”.
This does not even consider the potential in Alaska and off shore Atlantic.The other consideration is that Countries like Venzuela are declining in production because of Chavez and his socialistic government that has killed new production of their vast resources. Recent articles have indicated that all the talent and expertise have moved on to Colombia and they have been very sucessful in increasing their oil production from rich heavy oil fields adjacent to the Venzuela Orinco belt.
http://www.lbhcolombia.com/viewnews/liquids/colombia-could-become-major-oil-producer
Finally what country is stupid enough to restrict offshore drilling in their waters while Cuba, using the Chinese are sucking all the oil out of a rich oil site? Sounds suicidal to me.
DirkH says:
October 2, 2011 at 1:17 pm
******
Yeah, I suggest you take a look at the Fourth Assessment Report. Here’s a link to the summary: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
“Palaeoclimatic information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century
is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years. The last time the polar regions were signifi cantly
warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 m of sea level rise.”
Do you want me to find a famous professor to tell my side of the story, too? Stop calling me names, friend. I’m at least as “educated” as you.
Wendy is exactly right. And for a serious reply to Juice, see: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/22/study-picking-up-the-gulf-oil-permitting-pace-could-result-in-230000-jobs/
A few excerpts:
[since the Obama drilling moratorium] “There is what we call an activity gap under the new regulatory environment and this activity gap is created by the difference in the capacity of oil regulators to oversee oil exploration and development activity and the industry’s capacity to invest. What we found is congestion in the regulatory capacity that is holding back the creation of jobs and domestic oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Specifically, compared to historical trends, pending oil exploration plans are up by nearly 90 percent, but approvals are down by 85 percent — and the approval process has slowed from an average of 36 to 131 days. Over the past year or so, the backlog of deepwater plans pending approval has increased by 250 percent. Drilling permits for both shallow- and deepwater have declined by 60 percent.
Aligning the permitting process with the industry’s production capacity could result in 230,000 American jobs and more than $44 billion in U.S. gross domestic product — all by 2012.[emphasis added, and other articles address the billions in lost tax revenues – and the Obama permitting slowdown is not only for the gulf, but across the industry]…
Since 1998, new discoveries in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico have, on average, contributed more than one billion barrels of additional oil reserves each year. Thanks to the moratorium and the slow pace of permitting, no new discoveries were made in the past 12 months. Discoveries that might have been made would be contributing to production for future years. The lack of discoveries will have significant implications for future supplies from the Gulf of Mexico (and, presumably, for oil and gas prices)….
Wow!
Congratulations!
reply to: Roger Sowell says: October 2, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Nope, but they do what they are designed to do – produce electricity – beautifully. In the USA, they’ve safely, reliably, and with virtually no pollution produced about 20% of our nation’s electricity for decades now. In France it’s about 80%, also for many decades. It’s clear you don’t favor them from your comments, but the fact is that they are one of, if not the, safest way to produce electricity when the full lifecycle is considered, including coal, oil, wind, solar, and hydro. And yes, that’s still true including Chernobyl, Fukushima, and TMI. (even tho including Chernobyl is sort of apples and oranges). All of which is even more amazing when considering that the plants responsible were based and built on 60 to 40 year old designs and technology.
Modern “advanced reactors” are vastly improved, including in terms of passively safe emergency design. Then as someone else has already mentioned, there are micro reactor designs that hold great promise for some situations. Some of those are such that they are self contained, require no maintenance, and sealed so they could be used in places where the population doesn’t have the education or technical know-how to safely run a reactor. There are also small reactor designs that are somewhere inbetween.
For where we (e.g., the world) stand with ‘advanced’ designs – some of which are already built and operating – see http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
For info on “small” and “medium” reactors” see http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html
Those are a good start for solid technical information, and there is, of course, more information on that site and you can branch out from there.
Doug October 2, 2011 at 7:57 am – “As seductive as all those peak oil curves seem they have a fatal flaw—they ignore price.”
Before we get deeper into the discussion, can we first check that we’re working from the same definition of Peak Oil : “Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline”.
Under this definition, to avoid “Peak Oil” the rate of extraction has to reach new highs from time to time, ie. in simple terms it has to keep increasing. It doesn’t mean we physically can’t produce oil faster, just that we don’t actually produce oil faster.
Yes, price is important. Just about everything ends up being counter-balanced in the price. [As technology improves, the cost of production comes down, thus potentially reducing the price, which can lead to more demand, which in turn puts upward pressure on the price. If the price stays high enough, then new more difficult exploration areas can be developed, thus potentially increasing supply, thus …….]
Yes, we have been brilliant at finding new fields, developing new technologies, etc. There is undoubtedly a massive amount of oil still to be found. But the new oil tends to be more expensive to produce than the old oil was (that’s basically why the old oil got produced first). On top of that, the production rate of the old oil is declining, so the bar is being raised all the time (we have to produce new oil faster just to stand still). Then, at some point, other sources of energy become economically competitive for some uses, and raise the bar even further. In the end, Peak Oil may indeed be determined by price – the price of oil relative to the price of other sources of energy.
I am not claiming that we are at Peak Oil right now (although I do think that we probably are), just that Peak Oil has to occur at some time. In the case of oil, the peak surely cannot be too far off – though I’m open to arguments that have numbers in them. In the case of coal and gas I have no real idea but suspect that their peaks may be very many decades away, maybe even a century or more.
@ur momisugly Roberto
What the salesmen eventually claim for the mpg will be restricted to the government mpg test which are the only figures a car company and it’s adverts and salesmen are legally allowed to quote once the vehicle goes on sale. We can but wait until then (2013 ?).
I see that the Volkswagen website are quoting .9 litres per 100km, that translates to 260 miles per US gallon, and 313 miles per UK gallon. I get 55 miles per UK gallon from my diesel car, that’s about 45 miles per US gallon.
How likely is it that a German car manufacturer is going to lie about the test mpg of one of their on the road test vehicles ? and if they did what do you think that would do to their credibility and subsequently their sales.
No doubt Mr and Mrs average driver won’t see those consumption figures, but no doubt a keen magazine test driver might. It’s a free World (sort of) and you can be sceptical. Me, I’ll wait with an open mind and see what the official test figures turn out to be. I doubt that I’ll ever buy one, especially if it is going to cost £30,000 for that you can get a Jaguar XF.
The word “combined” in the UK at least, refers to one of the standard UK miles per gallon tests, a combination of urban driving and motorway driving or something along those lines. I always get better than the official fuel consumption figures.
http://www.volkswagenag.com/vwag/vwcorp/info_center/en/themes/2011/01/Volkswagen_XL1_Concept.html
@Rational Debate on October 2, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Re nuclear power for electricity.
You have apparently swallowed the pro-nuclear line of “nuclear is good.”
I disagree, and for the good reasons I’ve long written about on my blog, and at times, in comments here on WUWT.
In short, EVEN IF nuclear power were safe, did not produce deadly and very long-lasting toxic byproducts, it is still far too expensive to ever consider building such power plants in a rational world. I’ve read just about all the literature over the years, and followed the arguments pro and con, and can see clearly that those who advocate running nuclear power plants because they are “safe” and “designed properly” are very badly mistaken. I’ve been on an engineer-guided tour of a nuclear power plant and have seen the thing close at hand. I’ve had the classes in nuclear technology in undergrad engineering. I’ve worked with and helped design various power plants over the years.
And I’ve written quite a bit about it on my blog.
The fact is that natural gas is a far superior fuel for generating electricity, especially when compared to nuclear power. For more on my views, please see
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/reconsider-nuclear-power-is-it-ever.html
For what it’s worth, I’m all for the Navy to have nuclear propulsion systems.
Matthew says:
Again, just because we are less dirty than developing countries does not make us clean. I don’t understand what’s difficult about that.
You must still be wet behind the ears to believe the nonsense you’re spouting here. I recall when the air in Pittsburgh was so smoggy you couldn’t see across the rivers. Cleveland’s river, the Cuyahoga, was so polluted it caught fire. Today the air around Pittsburgh is clean and you can see for miles. The EPA has stated that fish caught in the Cuyahoga are now safe for human consumption. The U.S. has cleaned up over 99% of its pollution since the 1950’s. That makes the U.S. a clean country. Sorry you have a need to see the glass as being half empty.
Finally, you ask: “What are the ‘positives’ of CO2, sulfates, methane, etc etc? Enlighten me, please.”
Enlightenment coming up. [I’ll just stick with CO2, because the entire AGW scare is based on demonizing “carbon”.]
First off, there is no testable evidence, per the scientific method, showing any global damage or harm from the added CO2. None. Therefore, by definition, CO2 is harmless. QED.
More CO2 is a positive benefit to the biosphere. More is better. Agricultural productivity has substantially increased due to the added CO2:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
Inescapable conclusion: CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better.
I’m sure someone in this big list of comments pointed out that the car still has to be charged with something.
Roger Sowell
Re: “talk of oil running out”
Again you misquote with scare tactics. Oil production models show the peak production rate occurs at about 50% to 55% of ultimate resource. That is NOT “running out” – but HALF WAY out. That is where average production begins to decline.
You are avoiding the fact that 60% of oil producing countries are PAST PEAK LIGHT OIL as shown by the published data.
Re: “Oil reserves are growing, despite increased annual productions.”
Only in the rarified SEC definition of “proven resources” (or with the equivocation that bitumen = light oil It takes about $100,000 per bbl/day to upgrade “bitumen” to a syncrude equivalent of light oil.)
See Jean Laherrere of TOTAL Backdating is the key on the difference between “current” increases versus “backdated” to the original date of discovery. Yes 1 P “proven” reserves show ongoing increases. However, when you backdate the “technical” resources of 2P “proven plus probable” to the original discovery, we see that most crude oil discoveries were in the mid 1960s. See Jean Laherrere
Global oil reserves peaked about 1980. Since then, we have been drawing on previous discoveries with production exceeding discovery. Global discoveries are currently only about half of production. That results in an inevitable down hill slide for that light oil resource with that technology.
“No economy grows, nor can it grow, at much above 3 percent per year for very long. A temporary growth spurt might occur of 7 or 8 percent for a year or two, but this is not sustainable.”
The USA GDP in constant $2000 grew at 3.3%/year from 1950 to 2005. See above: Tad Patzek Hubbert Peaks
However, oil production grew 9.1%/year from 1980 to 1940.
China grew 9%/year for the last decade.
Strategic Transitions:
When OPEC used its “oil weapon”, causing the 1973 & 1978 Oil Crises, France took the strategic decision to convert it’s oil driven electricity production to nuclear power. Consequently it now obtains 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, and none from oil. Denmark similarly converted its electricity production from being 80% on oil to natural gas.
What is now needed is the national gumption to make these strategic
In your post: Saudis to Build Nuclear Plants at $7 Billion Each you say:
Please enlighten us as to how you arrive at that conclusion. Please show where your assumptions are different from internationally published costs at: The Economics of Nuclear Power where electricity costs are on the order of $0.03/kWh to $0.06/kWh internationally for new nuclear power.
Nancy Noonan challenges: Once Upon a Time in America: A troubled nation needs a real leader, not a storyteller.
The availability and price of oil hurts the poor the most. The poor in the lowest quintile spend twice as much on energy as those with median income, and four times those in the rich in the top quintile. See: Poverty up? Blame oil prices.
The oil crises strongly increased those in poverty. See: Energy Poverty American Style
Life is Like a Broken Record
When all the coal and oil run out
We’re just going to have to find
Another tiny winy envelope
And crawl inside
And start pushing
All over again.
@ur momisugly David L. Hagen on October 2, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Ok, you asked. You shall receive. Work out the required price for electricity for any power plant, regardless of fuel type, that produces 1,000 MW of power, a capital cost of $9 billion plus interest on construction loan of 10 to 15 percent per year, and an 8 to 10 year construction period. A prominent nuclear-knowledgeable CPA did just that, by the name of Craig A. Severance. I wrote on his work on my blog. I would cite you a link for the Severance paper, but it was apparently only published on climateprogress, Joe Romm’s old blog and now defunct. Perhaps someone else knows of a link.
I will offer you the same challenge I have long offered others: Go to any financing source, a bank, a multi-billionaire, whomever you like, and attempt to obtain financing for such a project. Tell them you have contracts lined up to sell electricity for, what was it you used? 3 to 6 cents per kWh. Use the high end of 6 cents per kWh. Tell them you will borrow $7 or $8 billion to get the project rolling, and you won’t be finished with construction for at least 8 years. You are willing to pay them interest on the loan at a reasonable rate of 15 percent per year. Tell them you are quite willing to pay back the loan amounts plus interest with the proceeds of power sales, and from no other source. Let us all know how you make out.
Finally, here’s another challenge for you. Tell me why small islands don’t use nuclear power plants to bring down their costs of electricity. There are many islands that presently pay far, far more than 6 cents per kWh, typically 25 cents. Why don’t they install a nuclear power plant and bring their costs down? see http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuclear-plants-on-islands-nutty-idea.html
This challenge does not consider large islands such as Taiwan, nor the UK. This is limited only to islands with populations of approximately one million.
If what you advocate were anywhere close to being true, that nuclear power plants sell power for 3 to 6 cents per kWh, then we should see a utility rate request for a LOWER rate whenever a nuclear power plant is built. The fact is, that never happens. Instead, what you are quoting is the variable cost of nuclear power, fuel plus maintenance plus labor, not the fully-costed number that includes cost to construct.
Roger Sowell says:
October 2, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Well, let’s see Roger … this is one area where Chinese competition actually matters.
See …
First Shipment of AP1000® Nuclear Reactor Vessel to Sanmen Power Plant in China Is Complete
PITTSBURGH, July 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Westinghouse Electric Company, its consortium team member The Shaw Group Inc., China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) and Sanmen Nuclear Power Company Ltd., today announced that the first AP1000 nuclear reactor vessel successfully arrived at the Sanmen nuclear power plant in China’s Zhejiang province.
Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction manufactured the reactor vessel, which weighs approximately 340 tons and measures 4.5 meters in diameter by 12.2 meters in length. The reactor vessel successfully arrived at Sanmen after a long journey from Doosan’s in-house port at its Changwon Plant in the Republic of Korea. The vessel, when installed in the Sanmen Unit 1 AP1000 plant, will undergo installation and operational testing before starting commercial operation in late 2013.
Senior Vice President, Westinghouse Nuclear Power Plants, Deva Chari said that the successful shipment of the reactor vessel shows that Westinghouse, its partners and Chinese customers, are committed to bringing China’s first four AP1000 units online in a timely and safe manner.
“All key project milestones of the Sanmen project were met in 2010, and the project continues to work towards successfully completing all 2011 key project milestones this year,” he said.
Executive Vice President Habang Kim at Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction said, “By successfully producing the AP1000 reactor vessel for the first time in the world, we have demonstrated our world-class technology in the main facility field.”
Westinghouse and The Shaw Group Inc., signed landmark contracts with Chinese customers to provide four AP1000 pressurized water reactors in China, two in Sanmen in Zhejiang, and another pair in Haiyang in Shandong province.
The first AP1000 unit at Sanmen will become operational in late 2013. The remaining three units are expected to come online in 2014 and 2015.
http://westinghousenuclear.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=286
Why are the Saudis building nuclear plants?
The biggest problem with all energy projects is that no one really knows how much oil Saudi Arabia actually has (as well as the rest of OPEC). And therefore what oil will cost in say 20 years time.
The Saudis themselves will have a better idea and presumably they are confident electricity from nuclear will be cheaper than from oil/gas in 20 years time.
” …… equivalent to 130 mpg”
balderdash, poppycock and just plain BS. Gasoline delivers about 600 watt hours per pound to the drive wheels. Lead-acid batteries deliver less than 10wh/lb and cost about $2/lb. Li-ion may deliver 20 wh/lb (real data is hard to obtain.) at a cost of $20/lb. A small all electric requires at least 500 lbs of Lead-acid batteries. A semi-electric like the Ford Focus uses about 65 lbs of li-ion. The Volt apparently employs about 500 lbs of li-ion. And CO2 is much less of a problem than preached by the IPCC.
Roger Sowell
Georgia Power accepts Vogtle loan guarantee
DOE Delivers Its First, Long-Awaited Nuclear Loan Guarantee
i.e. $14 billion for 2200 MW (2×1100 MW) for the Vogtle project or $6,360/kW (vs the $3000/kW for 2008).
As of November 2010, the US EIA formally published: Levelized Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2011 projecting $0.1139/kWh in 2016 for “Advanced Nuclear”.
For interest, the prime rate is currently 3.25% That seems a bit lower than 10-15%. Yes increasing the interest rates by three to four times would probably increase costs! Even the stock market only expects 15% long term – when 70% or more of the project is on a loan with say prime plus 2%.
Regarding “an 8 to 10 year construction period”, see:
Economics Nuclear Power:
Yes doubling the construction time would substantially increase costs.
Yes engineers seek practical solutions, rather than dragging projects out and increasing risks for projects. Perhaps as a lawyer you could give us examples of how lawyers are strenuously working for the common good by strongly reducing delays in construction, expediting application processes, and minimizing the risks of major risks from subsequent lawsuits? (or is national interest no longer a a motivating factor?)
Re island usage, scattered populations, low incomes, low average usage. Typically diesel driven with fuel costs much higher due to transportation.
Maybe that would be a good application for Bill Gates’ small nuclear systems.
PS Keep up your good work on global warming issues and Pierre LaTour.