Guest essay by Eric Worrall
University of Sussex and Vienna School of International Studies are concerned that countries with policies which favour nuclear power aren’t making enough effort to reduce CO2 emissions by installing solar power and wind turbines.
University of Sussex Press Release;
Pro-nuclear countries making slower progress on climate targets
With Hinkley Point deal hanging in the balance, study casts fresh doubts over future of nuclear energy in Europe
A strong national commitment to nuclear energy goes hand in hand with weak performance on climate change targets, researchers at the University of Sussex and the Vienna School of International Studies have found.
A new study of European countries, published in the journal Climate Policy, shows that the most progress towards reducing carbon emissions and increasing renewable energy sources – as set out in the EU’s 2020 Strategy – has been made by nations without nuclear energy or with plans to reduce it.
Conversely, pro-nuclear countries have been slower to implement wind, solar and hydropower technologies and to tackle emissions.
While it’s difficult to show a causal link, the researchers say the study casts significant doubts on nuclear energy as the answer to combating climate change.
“By suppressing better ways to meet climate goals, evidence suggests entrenched commitments to nuclear power may actually be counterproductive.”
Professor Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the University of Sussex, said: “Looked at on its own, nuclear power is sometimes noisily propounded as an attractive response to climate change. Yet if alternative options are rigorously compared, questions are raised about cost-effectiveness, timeliness, safety and security.
“Looking in detail at historic trends and current patterns in Europe, this paper substantiates further doubts.
“By suppressing better ways to meet climate goals, evidence suggests entrenched commitments to nuclear power may actually be counterproductive.”
The study divides European countries into three, roughly equal in size, distinct groups:
Group 1: no nuclear energy (such as Denmark, Ireland and Norway)
Group 2: existing nuclear commitments but with plans to decommission (eg Germany, Netherlands and Sweden)
Group 3: plans to maintain or expand nuclear capacity (eg Bulgaria, Hungary and the UK)
They found that Group 1 countries had reduced their emissions by an average of six per cent since 2005 and had increased renewable energy sources to 26 per cent.
Group 2 countries, meanwhile, fared even better on emissions reductions, which were down 11 per cent. They grew renewable energy to 19 per cent.
However, Group 3 countries only managed a modest 16 per cent renewables share and emissions on average actually went up (by three per cent).
The UK is a mixed picture. Emissions have been reduced by 16 per cent, bucking the trend of other pro-nuclear countries. However, only five per cent of its energy comes from renewables, which is among the lowest in Europe, pipped only by Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands.
The team say that the gigantic investments of time, money and expertise in nuclear power plants, such as the proposed Hinckley Point C in the UK, can create dependency and ‘lock-in’ – a sense of ‘no turning back’ in the nation’s psyche.
Technological innovation then becomes about seeking ‘conservative’ inventions – that is new technologies that preserve the existing system. This is, inevitably, at the expense of more radical technologies, such as wind or solar.
Professor Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy and Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex, said: “The analysis shows that nuclear power is not like other energy systems. It has a unique set of risks, political, technical and otherwise, that must be perpetually managed.
“If nothing else, our paper casts doubt on the likelihood of a nuclear renaissance in the near-term, at least in Europe.”
Lead author Andrew Lawrence of the Vienna School of International Relations said: “As the viability of the proposed Hinkley plant is once again cast into doubt by the May government, we should recall that — as is true of nuclear fallout — nuclear power’s inordinate expense and risks extend across national borders and current generations.
“Conversely, cheaper, safer, and more adaptable alternative energy sources are available for all countries.”
Read more: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressrelease/id/36547
The abstract of the study;
Nuclear energy and path dependence in Europe’s ‘Energy union’: coherence or continued divergence?
Since its initial adoption, the EU’s 2020 Strategy – to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, increase the share of renewable energy to at least 20% of consumption, and achieve energy savings of 20% or more by 2020 – has witnessed substantial albeit uneven progress. This article addresses the question of what role nuclear power generation has played, and can or should play in future, towards attaining the EU 2020 Strategy, particularly with reference to decreasing emissions and increasing renewables. It also explores the persistent diversity in energy strategies among member states. To do so, it first surveys the current landscape of nuclear energy use and then presents the interrelated concepts of path dependency, momentum, and lock-in. The article proceeds to examine five factors that help explain national nuclear divergence: technological capacity and consumption; economic cost; security and materiality; national perceptions; and political, ideological and institutional factors. This divergence reveals a more general weakness in the 2020 Strategy’s underlying assumptions. Although energy security – defined as energy availability, reliability, affordability, and sustainability – remains a vital concern for all member states, the 2020 Strategy does not explicitly address questions of political participation, control, and power. The inverse relationship identified here – between intensity of nuclear commitments, and emissions mitigation and uptake of renewable sources – underscores the importance of increasing citizens’ levels of energy policy awareness and participation in policy design.
Read more: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14693062.2016.1179616
Even James Hansen, former NASA GISS director and arguably the originator of the global climate movement, believes nuclear power is an essential component of the path to a low carbon future.
Unless you are lucky enough to have the right geography for large scale hydro, nuclear is the only proven low carbon means of producing reliable biddable baseload power.
To argue that countries which have a strong commitment to nuclear power are not “doing their bit” to reduce CO2 emissions in my opinion is total lunacy.
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Drat those conservatives who frustrated environmentalists’ righteous attempts to promote nuclear power generation.
Speaking of renewables: The lineup of speechifiers for the 2016 symposium on solar energy which will be at UC Davis this year, is now available. In case any of you want to attend this no charge day long event you can register for it at:
There will be a gaggle of California Politicos to proselytize and some industry and academia types.
I only go to jawbone with Prof Roland Winston. the world leading expert on non imaging optics for solar energy roundup (photon herding) or also for photon stampeding, which is relevant to the solid state lighting field.
If anybody goes; I will be there and all wear a name tag so do stop me and say Hi.
Some times there are DOE people or people from NREL and they are usually well informed.
I’m dying to ask somebody smart, about Ivanpah.
G
that’s
http://ucsolar.org/2016-solar-symposium
Countries with nuclear power have more people who can do basic MATH.
+1
Nuclear power is renewable regardless of what the eco-nuts want to claim. Same goes for hydroelectric power. Smart countries are not putting all their eggs into wind and solar boondoggles.
Agree – I thought the rationale for the wind/solar stuff was to reduce CO2. Seems to me that anything that produces power without involving making CO2 meets that goal completely. Hydro is a form of solar and nuclear is the direct conversion of mass to energy. Whats to not like as a FIRST choice?
How renewable is the mining\refining process? Are we making more Uranium or Plutonium naturally anywhere in the solar system right now? No? And direct conversion of mass to energy? Where is that happening? do you think we even get a single percent of the decay heat to convert to electricity by boiling water and spinning a big turbine? No? hmmm seems like we AREN’T getting the direct energy from mass conversion are we… so far we have no real way to do that.. the best we got is the direct transfer of heat to electricity… like the RTG… and that technology is as old as the steam locomotive. Way to go Nuclear! Keeping people in the steam age for the last 70 yrs! Einstein said (paraphrased): “Its a Hell of a way to boil water!”
Reply to Graham. Let us say we build two cities both in areas with very cold winters and very hot summers. All buildings are constructed the same whether efficient or not (preferably inefficient for this example). One city is fueled exclusively on wind and solar, the other exclusively on nuclear. Which one would you prefer to live in?
Especially in the US, the attitude of the greens toward nuclear power leads me to doubt their belief in CO2 caused global warming. I think the green blob has other interests than the environment as such, and nuclear is only one example of this.
We will, almost certainly, get a sermon from Roger Sowell on how good “renewable engergy” is, and how bad nuclear is, and refresh everyones memory of green fantasies. Shipstones are science fiction, still, and all the handwaving won’t make it so.
Bingo
I think of it a bit differently. If a greenie wants wind and solar, but admits that nuclear, if made safely enough, should also be a part of the mix, I tend to think of them as simply naive and silly and uninformed, because safe nuclear power can do all that the wind and solar can do at less expense. But if they want wind and solar ONLY, then I begin to think of them as evil and misanthropic, ready to sacrifice a huge part of the world’s economy and population to their green wet dreams.
The ultimate goal of the greenies is to deindustrialize the entire world, which would cause massive human death. They are evil cubed, and must be resisted at every turn.
Lets see now, AGW = ∑ Lunacy. Yep, that equation works. I wonder if it is in the IPCC climate models?
RicD
“AGW = ∑ Lunacy”
Indeed.
Between 0 and 97%.
Auto, channeling maths classes from about 1970.
“Experientially-gifted old fart” I hear you all think.
The latest chant from the Greens is “WTFAW?” when, yet again, they get lost and are desperately trying to navigate in the confusing high grasslands of their ideological wanderings, continuingly encountering unreasonable factual obstacles that keep blocking their progress. It’s a call copied from the birds milling around in similar fashion who live in similar but natural environments!
Countries with nuclear power and the political will to continue using nuclear power won’t need much less reliable renewables costing three times as much. Duh!
The countries that had nuclear power were already not producing CO2 to the extent of the others, of course they haven’t reduced their output by as much. They were ahead of the game, to put it another way. This guy is contorting the figures to represent his world view. Entirely disingenuous.
France which has a high proportion of its energy from nuclear has a CO2 per capita footprint far lower than other comparable European Countries (Germany, UK, Italy, Spain etc).
The only viable option for the time being that produces no or near zero CO2 emissions is nuclear. If the greens truly considered cAGW to be the greatest threat to this planet, they would be pushing hard for governments to go nuclear.
Worrying about the production of CO2 merely plays into the hands of the eco-freaks. CO2 is plant food, and does not contribute to climate change in any measurable way.
I guess James Hansen has gone completely off the reservation: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
He actually believes that renewable energy is there to address cliamte change, and climate change is real and dangerous and man made?
Bless!
Hansen left the reservation years ago! We need more not less nuclear power. Relying on wind and solar for long term energy will take us back to the dark ages.
Wasn’t the point of the Paris Treaty to reduce CO2, not install renewable? Since when did renewable become the target? First you must show that renewables actually reduce CO2, which has not been demonstrated. Due to thermodynamic inefficiencies caused by low energy density they are typically as bad or worse than the fossil fuels they are trying to replace.
Sure the wind and sun are free, but so are oil and coal and uranium and thorium. Lying in the ground, minerals cost nothing. What costs the money is to extract energy from them. So for all the hype about renewables, expect the Law of Unintended Consequences to rule the day. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
ferdberple —
Really good point you made. Wind, solar, coal, oil, gas and radioactives are all free. The cost is in the extraction. And the extraction costs of wind and solar seem to be about three times higher than for the others.
Seeing the obvious is an aspect of genius. You the man.
Eugene WR Gallun
The real killer for wind power, and to a lesser extent solar power, is the normal total life cycle cost estimate of a complete base load power generation system including Wind Turbines and Solar Panels. You need to compare such base load systems with other base load systems not including WT’s or SP’s. This is needed to properly and honestly compare reliability, total costs and even total CO2 benefits. The renewable industry never provides this and simply goes on about WT’s and SP’s acting alone, and simply because any publication of the real overall efficiencies, the overall costs, the real CO2 benefits and the actual reliability and security of the base load systems always needed using WT’s and SP’s is massively negative or at best globally insignificant compared to systems not using them, regardless of how much R&D money is thrown at them!
I can understand that politicians may not understand the science, thereby not appreciating the weakness in the science, and may fall for the lobbying and what appears to be good intentions of powerful lobby groups such as Greenpeace. However, what I cannot accept is that even if one is sold up to cAGW, that politicians fail to appreciate that renewables fail on their primary purpose.
Because renewable energy is not dispatchable and is intermittent, thus requiring 100% backup by conventional fossil fuel generation, windfarms and solar do not reduce CO2.
The entire raison d’etre for wind and solar is the reduction in CO2, not its reliability as an energy source, or the cheapness of supply, and thus if it fails to deliver a reduction in CO2 then it is a complete and utter failure at even the most basic of levels. This is patent and should be readily appreciated by any politician.
The UK and Northern Europe are a good illustration. Peak energy demand is winter evenings. The sun does not shine at night. It does not shine when peak demand is required. Even a school child knows that the sun does not shine at night, the hours of sunlight is small, and the powers behind its rays are weak in winter (one cannot get a sun tan sun bathing on a December day (unless high in the Alps). in addition, in winter these places are often cloudy. Any politician should appreciate from these facts that solar is a non starter and back up by fossil fuel generation will be required at most times, particularly high energy usage times.
The same is so for wind. Often when very cold weather is experienced and the need for power is at its greatest, there is a blocking high situated just NW of the UK. This becalms the UK and North West Europe and little wind energy is produced just when power is needed most.
Windfarms appear on average to produce about 21 to 29% of their nameplate capacity. One might reasonably at first blush consider that this will therefore result in a 21 to 29% reduction in CO2. However in practice there is no such saving and that is because the way in which back up energy is supplied. With old coal fired generators they have to be run 24/7 365 days a year and therefore produce CO2 whether their energy is being drawn down by the grid or merely dumped (the grid being obliged to take wind energy when available). So no savings in CO2 hear. With newer generators (gas0 then these do not need tom produce energy 24/7, but they are being used in ramp up/ramp down mode which is very inefficient and consumes as much fuel as if they were running at a constant output 24/7. Every politician should readily understand this fact since it applies to cars. A car has better fuel consumption when running at a steady speed on the freeway, and has a poor fuel consumption in urban environments when being used in start/stop mode. Politicians have no excuse for not understanding and appreciating that because of the manner in which required backup energy is delivered to the grid, having windfarms producing intermittent non despatchable energy does not result in the reduction of any meaningful CO2.
I am convinced that they know this. It is just a PR stunt. What they fail to appreciate is the consequence of this PR stunt, expensive energy which is a drain on industry leading to uncompetitiveness and job losses, and pushes many people into fuel poverty, and it is also pushing the grid to breaking point where brown outs and blackouts will be experienced.
Politicians should be held fully responsible for this. It is more than time that there was full and proper accountability for actions taken in public office. There has been wholesale deriliction of duty by our public servants and they should be forced personally to make redress for this. .
Because renewable energy is not dispatchable and is intermittent, thus requiring 100% backup by conventional fossil fuel generation, windfarms and solar do not reduce CO2.
They do in fact, but not by nearly as much as is claimed.
A study done in Ireland discovered that about 50% of the potential emissions reductions were lost by operating gas turbines in inefficient regions of their power-time curves.
Of course it changes, but does not invalidate the substantive conclusion, that of all the ways of reducing emissions that there are, intermittent renewables are the most expensive and the least effective,
which is why Leo the Irish grid is starting to invest in grid storage – that allows the batteries to take the strain as wind (predictably) ramps down, allowing the gas plant to be used more efficiently.
Except that demand varies anyway. Some power plant in the system has to ramp up and down in the normal course of events, even if there are no solar or wind generators in the system. Not all of that inefficiency can be attributed to the renewable sources.
The assertion that a unit on standby uses as much fuel as one that is producing electricity is equivalent to the assertion of a perpetual motion machine. If a generator is producing electricity it has to be using more fuel than if it is not. The fuel demands of the machinery in varying conditions is well known and is expressed in an efficiency curve available from the manufacturer.
It is also not true that any unit must be producing nothing. No dedicated standby is needed. There must be excess capacity available in the system but that does not need to be any particular unit dedicated to the function. Matching variation from renewable in a well operated system is more like ramping several units between 60 and 95 percent capacity, not ramping one unit between 0 and 100.
There are technical problems and disadvantages with renewable sources, and disadvantages, but keep the discussion realistic.
Griff:That’s great spend trillions on batteries won’t have any impact on the cost of electricity.
PS: As always, you are ignoring the inefficiencies involved in charging and discharging those magical batteries.
Chris: The change in electricity demand is predictable and can be planned for. While solar and wind cut in and out unpredictably and often.
MarkW: According to Mid-American Energy who operates such things in a large system, wind power output can be predicted within 15% a day in advance and more closely as the hour approaches. They do have weather forecasters and monitors and some idea as to how wind output relates to weather. It is in their interest to do so.
By extension: it would likely be the same with solar.
MarkW
solar and wind output is perfectly predictable up to 24 hours ahead…
The point of battery grid storage is not to save money, but to provide faster response and mean that gas plant can be operated most efficiently. A renewable/gas grid with some grid storage will ramp its gas plant up and down less often/quickly and will save on spinning reserve – means a lot less gas burnt, gas plant life extended
Griff: “solar and wind output is perfectly predictable up to 24 hours ahead…”
More arrant nonsense.
Stop making stuff up.
Griff,
forget the solar, the wind, the battery. Just use the gas plant.
Wasn’t the point of the Paris Treaty to reduce CO2, not install renewable? Since when did renewable become the target?
Profitable Renewable energy and political control of energy was always the goal of ‘climate change’
Of all the potentially disastrous things that might happen, why Climate change?
Because the case that it was man made could be constructed, and then the case for it being man unmade could be made, if you give us lots of money and lots of power….
Its a skilfully constructed piece of BS that has in the end one purpose, Global control of energy. If you control a nations electricity supply, you control the nation.
Imagine living a single day without electricity. Imagine living a week, and then six months. My best guess is that 3-6 weeks without electricity would see 50% of the average urban population dead. Remember even gasoline and diesel need electric pumps…to get it out of the refineries..and to your gas station.
You don’t need war when you are – say – at the far end of an interconnector whose existence is necessary for a nation on the other end.
Or can manage a network of smart switches installed in peoples homes to deprive them of electricity…
“Wasn’t the point of the Paris Treaty to reduce CO2”
The point of the Paris Treaty was to get all the Very Important People together for a photo op.
Installing renewables, which means buying from the anointed green companies who are by definition not money grubbing capitalist pigs, was always the goal. This is just the first time they have admitted it out loud. You see crony capitalism is evil(tm), unless the cronies are your cronies.
bugenator —
The left in power does not practice “crony capitalism”. Its economics should more aptly be named “crony socialism”.
Socialism has always been about redistributing wealth — taking it from the powerless and redistributing it to the powerful. After a new socialist country “burns off its capitalist fat” poverty begins to stalk its streets.because wealth is constantly being vacuumed upward. See Venezuela for a textbook example.
All the government waste chasing after renewables is “crony socialism:”.– not “corny capitalism”.
Eugene WR Gallun
Ferdberple. “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” And as Thomas Sowell said “by Harvard Graduates”.
“pro-nuclear countries have been slower to implement wind, solar and hydropower technologies”
i thought hydropower was supposed to be a “methane bomb” and therefore not clean energy.
“Recently, the generation of hydroelectric power, ordinarily thought to be a green energy source, has been found to be a source of anthropogenic methane because its production involves converting flowing river water into still water in reservoirs that retain the vast quantities of vegetation that were flooded when the reservoir was formed. Such bog-like conditions are known to favor methane emissions and these emissions have been documented (Fearnside, 2015) (Giles, 2006) (Magill, 2014) (Santos, 2006) (Delsontro, 2010)”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2674147
Once the plants that were there before the lake have rotted, then this methane production ends.
As to suspended solids in the water, they would have sunk and decomposed once they reach the sea anyway. No change in amount, just where sourcing.
PS: Let some evil capitalist harvest the trees prior to filling the lake. Problem solved.
Countries that make enough nuclear power don’t need your silly “renewables”, you idiot. Can you really be that stupid? Does one really believe that a pile up of solar panels and a wind “farm” are safe in wind, war, and rain?
Someone take these fools out back and let them move to a country we all hate.
And one conventional bomb on a nuclear reactor?
Your typical lack of precision defeats the possibility of a fully-formed answer, but the general response to your scenario would be: Nothing. Nuclear reactors tend to be bomb-proof.
OTOH: One conventional bomb on a solar farm….an awful lot of mess – and NO power.
have to be a damned big bunker buster bomb e-griff. And very accurately delivered.
Not exactly a terrorist weapon.
And that alone would do more damage than the nuke.
Griff,
And one conventional bomb on a large hydro dam?
Good for 171,000 people killed in China by a hydro dam break:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
11 million people lost their homes…
Nuclear until now: 50 or so killed directly, mostly emergency workers, in Tsjernobyl. No more fatalities, including cancers to be expected, as any excess cancers are in the noise of all cancers.
Several thousands evacuated mostly due to overblown limits, Tsjernobyl is essentially free of excess radiation after 30 years en Fukushima is already largely free after a few years, except for the reactors themselves and just beyond.
Ferdinand – that’s the point – renewables aren’t less vulnerable and prone to cause damage in a war than a reactor or dam and no different than a coal plant or gas plant.
In fact a micro grid, like those being installed in New York state would be more likely to keep you running in war or natural disaster
Would not even come close to penetrating the containment building.
Are you really as dumb as your posts make you sound?
MarkW: “Are you really as dumb as your posts make you sound?”
Dumber.
catweazle
Unfair.
I was raising a glass when I read your comment.
Monitor survived – not sure both lungs did.
Awesome one-word comment! Thanks!
Auto – stil coughing . .
Remember when we were told by scientists that butter was bad, and margarine was good. That butter caused heart attacks and margarine would prevent them. Remember?
Only problem was that before margarine was introduced there were few people dying of heart attacks, and after margarine was introduced there was an epidemic of heart attacks.
And even to this day countries like France that eat tons of butter and smoke like chimneys and eat almost no margarine have low heart attack rates, while countries that continue to eat lots of margarine have high heart attack rates.
But of course the scientists know better and 97% of them agree, margarine is the healthy alternative. It is our unhealthy lifestyle that is the problem. So for sure you can believe this study as well, because after all scientists are peer reviewed and thus never make mistakes.
Taste like butter, but it’s not ! It’s Chiffon !
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“Unless you are lucky enough to have the right geography for large scale hydro, nuclear is the only proven low carbon means of producing reliable biddable baseload power.
To argue that countries which have a strong commitment to nuclear power are not “doing their bit” to reduce CO2 emissions in my opinion is total lunacy.”
Couldn’t agree more.
Most Research Findings Are False for Most Research Designs and for Most Fields
John P. A. Ioannidis
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Article: “A strong national commitment to nuclear energy goes hand in hand with weak performance on climate change targets, researchers at the University of Sussex and the Vienna School of International Studies have found.”
Well, what’s your objective, to reduce CO2, or build windmills and solar plants? We don’t need windmills and solar power to reduce CO2, nuclear powerplants can do that job, and supply *much* more reliable electric power than those alternatives at the same time.
So admit it, the primary objective is not to reduce CO2.
I used to be a nuclear engineer.
OMG!!! I thought nuclear power was so AWESOME!!! Then Greenpeace happened.
The Canadian Nuclear reactor was safe and reliable.
Deep down inside I still believe that domestic electricity needs can easily be supplied if we convert to nukes.
If we do this, real pollution (ash soot SO2 SO3 NOx (not CO2)) will be literally a thing of the past. AND electric cars might make sense.
So Nuke power is a means to an end in the long view for smart people. Renewable is green ephemeral religion.
Well said.
Thanks Paul, +1
“If we do this, real pollution (ash soot SO2 SO3 NOx (not CO2)) will be literally a thing of the past.”
Excellent point, Paul. This point should be brought up in every conversation on this subject.
Let me see if I get this right —
Nuclear power is bad because it works — and thereby will stifle research in wind and solar that may someday make wind and solar viable. Therefore what works now must be banned and what doesn’t work must be promoted.
Ok, so this is like saying antibiotics that work must be banned because they will stifle research into homeopathic medicine which someday may work.
If these people would just look in a mirror they would see the stupid on their faces.
Eugene WR Gallun
Wind will never be viable.
Wind is old technology (windmills were around 500 years ago). We Know in sufficient detail everything that needs to be known about rotor/propeller design, laminar flow, gearboxes, generators, the problems with wind shadow etc.
There can be no economy of scale unlike the transistor radio and the IC chip. These structures by necessity have to be large and sited well spaced from one another. One knows when a technology has run its course and that is when new design ceases to be more compact and smaller. Look at how computers (which used to fill a room) or valve radios/valve TVs and mobile phones have changed. However with wind, if one requires more output from the wind turbine the solution is to build a bigger turbine. Wind turbines have been getting bigger not smaller, and that demonstrates that the maximum efficient per unit size has already been reached.
One could only make the windturbines significantly more efficient by utilising exotic means such as super fluidity/super magnets etc. (and that would be prohibitively more expensive).
The fact is that there is little energy in wind (witness what happens when a water pistol runs out of water) and it is this limitation that means that wind power will never become significantly more efficient, It is not a viable source of energy, and never will be (but for the likes of sailing yachts).
The only thing that would make wind worthwhile is if there was a cheap and viable means of storing power produced by wind. If cheap storage was possible, it would not matter that wind energy is low grade and inefficient.
The future for wind, if it has a future, is in energy storage. That would be a game changer. There may be some gains to be had with solar but that has its own obvious drawbacks not being a 24/7 source and clouds etc. Fossil fuels are stored solar in concentrated form and we are lucky to have these available to us. Fossil fuesl have set us free and have created the developed world and all the things we take for granted in our daily life. Fossil fuels should be revered, we owe them a most enormous debt.
…Even with cheap storage, wind and solar are still not viable….You would need twice as many turbines/panels…half to power the grid and the other half to charge the batteries…
One could only make the windturbines significantly more efficient by utilising exotic means such as super fluidity/super magnets etc. (and that would be prohibitively more expensive).
ER no, that might make them a bit smaller but not more efficient.
They are mostly limited by aerodynamics. Betz’s limit etc etc.
The truth is that after a thousand years or more of development windmills are as cheap and as efficient as they are ever going to get.
And they are still rubbish.
Where I used to live, on the east Anglian fens, in the 19th century there was a windmill to about every ten acres. Pumping water up into the rivers.
Te arrival of steam reduced that to a massive coal fired pumping engine every couple of thousand acres.
Now there a small electric motor in a teeny hut doing the pumping that runs completely unattended and can handle the needs of a thousand acres or so. What makes the electricity? 1.2GW of nuclear power stuck on the Suffolk coast.
My point? Windmills are worse than even a 19th century steam engine.
many years back, Australians used small wind powered generators made by the DUNLITE company
little windmill style ones they were connected to altenators? and charged car?truck batteries
the homes were wired to 32voltdc I think marine setups?
and we ran kerosine fridges
neither was superb but BOTH beat having no light bar kero lanterns or rotten food
I was too small to know the exact setup but I lived on farms they were in use.
richer folks ran stationary engines for a few hrs a night.
theres a surprising amount of those engines around and being restored and still running shearing plant.
Well here are the latest and biggest wind turbines…
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/10-biggest-turbines
Pretty effective.
And each photo of the wind turbine has the blades not moving.. so their name plate power number may be a relatively big number, but the actual power produced at this point is zero.
One could only make the windturbines significantly more efficient by utilising exotic means such as super fluidity/super magnets etc. (and that would be prohibitively more expensive).
That would be an improvement on the generation side — you’d still be getting the same mechanical energy out of the blades, just converting it to more electricity. Those same improvements would apply equally to any other rotating generation technology. So even if you posit a breakthrough, it would result in no net advantage for wind.
It’s even possible that wind would fall behind as a result. How much is it worth retrofitting existing wind turbines to get 5% more output? On the other hand, squeezing 5% more power from a large conventional thermal plant would certainly get you invited to make a presentation.
“While it’s difficult to show a causal link, …”. Well, finally someone in the AGW / CC world is admitting it, and in writing.
This is absolutely ridiculous, I’m absolutely gob smacked by their lack of simple logic.
The renewables are the drivers: solar and wind. The consumables are photovoltaic panels and windmills… and large-scale disruption of environments inhabited by flora and fauna.
Ya can’t make omelette without cracking eggs. Idealists are blind to the fact that for every action that occurs in nature or economics there are benefits and costs
Yes nuke has its problems but should the human race wish for continued rapid development it is the best option (IMO)
Michael Carter —
“Ya can’t make omelette without cracking eggs.”
The problem here is we have some “CRACKED EGGHEADS” making omelette.
Eugene WR Gallun
The renewables are the irregular drivers: solar and wind. The consumables are photovoltaic panels and windmills… and large-scale and progressive disruption of environments inhabited by flora and fauna.
I surprised France is no mentioned more, 75% of electricity from nuclear on average. It is at 90% right now. If the French can make it work why not everyone. Especially with 3rd/4th generation plants, then 5th.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
France have plans to reduce it to 50% as they promised their environmentalists.
I was going to make that point. #
If they go ahead with this plan, then France will see a significant increase in their CO2 emissions. This might prove a point to environmentalists.
France is going the wrong direction with their intention to reduce their nuclear power generation. What are they thinking? It’s really hard to understand why they think this is a good idea.
so if France does that?
then wheres UK going to suck power when theirs drops out?
that could be “fun”
I hear on Aus radio today that Duarte in Phillipines is talking about trying to resurrect a never used nuke plant that was judged unsafe when newly built… and sits on a faultline and is a few km’s from a volcano caldera and Manila city.
sounds like a plan;-)
They are having to spend 55 billion euros by 2025 in their ‘grand carenage’ refit to keep their reactors going…
…and the fact that after the Greens in Germany got their nukes closed, Germany bought energy…from France.
Caligula – Germany exports more power than it imports – including at times to France.
In historic development terms, countries like Norway and Sweden had adequate hydro resource and chose it over nuclear. Why bother with renewables?
The logic of these authors is too poor to even bother reading them.
Geoff
Geoff,
Sweden has nuclear too, some 33% of power production (at the nuclear plant they were the first to detect the Tsjernobyl disaster), as their hydro is not sufficient to cover all power use. Moreover they receive a lot of excess wind power from Denmark if there is overproduction at no cost and let them pay a lot if they have shortages for lack of wind… A win-win situation for Sweden (and Norway) and a loose-loose situation for Denmark…
Besides nuclear, they use a lot of organics (black liquor, wood rests) from the paper and wood industry.
Norway is 99% hydro, 1% is from using the off-gases from the blast furnaces in mid-Norway. They have plans to get all new cars electric in 2020, but that means they have to import some 70% more power, while they are now exporting…
It is late, I’m recovering from surgery, I’m on an unholy mix of pain killers, so please forgive my confusion.
The article seems to be claiming that using 0 emission nuclear power doesn’t reduce emmissions, but 0 emission solar and windmills do. No one could make that claim with a straight face, so the fault is clearly mine. Is there something I didn’t understand? Or is there a power source with emissions of less than 0? What am I missing? Perhaps Roger Sowell could explain it to me?
The study implores euro-folks to drink more climate kool-aid.
You’re doing just fine Mr Hoffer. Be well.
You are thinking too clearly, David. You need to increase your dosage and then you will be on the same page as the authors. On second thought, not even that would put you on the same page, would it. 🙂
I love the Wyoming legislature’s approach to renewable wind power – slap a tax on it, not a subsidy.
Power Company of Wyoming has applied to the BLM to build approximately 1,000 wind turbines in an area located south of Rawlins, Wyoming, in Carbon County. The project is proposed to generate 2,000 to 3,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity and construction may take 3–4 years with a project life estimate of 30 years.
Wyoming is the only US state to tax wind power. This tax will likely make the PCoWy venture unprofitable, and thus may stop it.
Go Wyoming!
Taxes are one approach. I think just pricing wind and solar on the basis they are intermittent and non-dispatchable, I. E. deeply discounted, would have a much larger effect (and fit my prejudices about taxes).
The Wyoming windturbine builders want to export the power to California, where they are prepared to pay 3x the going rate for a MWhr of Wyoming coal power.
Wyoming just doesn’t want 1000 wind turbines marring its landscape for a 100 miles so Cal’s green looney-tune climate idots can feel good while putting their windturbines in someone else’s backyard.
What I would like to see is for Wyoming to build a whole bunch of windmills. Little ones. Enough to run an LED light bulb at the top of each one. Then they could tie them into a massive “backup” coal fired power plant. Sell the whole package to California as wind power, complete with conventional backup for when not enough energy is being generated by the windmills at a price that “conventional windmill systems” can’t compete with. The plan might fail if Californians figure out that the power is coming from coal all the time, but Anth_ny ain’t gonna tell them, and lord knows they are unlikely to figure it out on their own.
I think it’s also worth considering WY sells natural gas, oil and coal in very large quantities. There isn’t much incentive to subsidize wind. I’m sort of surprised they’re talking about Carbon county, maybe the proximity to I-80? Good quality sustained winds are around Crowheart (The Wind River isn’t called the Wind River for nothing). The eastern slope of the Rockies is where you want to put a wind farm. Carbon County would be seriously stupid.
David,
Actually that is a brilliant Idea to make the appearance of “renewable” power.
It’s Brilliant not because California’s green lobby is not intelligent enough to to figure out the scam being handed to them to pass on to electric rate payers (they are).
It’s a brilliant approach because Cali’s green crowd obviously loves being lied to.
I retract the “seriously stupid” comment”. I’m not a real wind advocate but I do recall laminar flow is important and I suppose if you get far enough east into the flatlands of Carbon county it might be better for wind.
But it truly howls between Dubois and Crowheart most of the time.
David,
Actually that is a brilliant Idea to make the appearance of “renewable” power.
It’s Brilliant not because California’s green lobby is not intelligent enough to to figure out the scam being handed to them to pass on to electric rate payers (they are).
It’s a brilliant approach because Cali’s green crowd obviously loves being lied to.
davidmhoffer — You have an evil mind. — Eugene WR Gallun
“I love the Wyoming legislature’s approach to renewable wind power – slap a tax on it, not a subsidy.”
Is it a tax or a lease?
Wyoming has a unique (and in my opinion superior) model for managing public lands. When the state was subdivided, they set aside every tenth section (1 square mile) as a “school lease” and that’s how WY pays for K12 education; the sections are leased for livestock and the proceeds pay for schools. It’s the best system I’ve ever lived in.
So are they really taxing wind or just leasing the land? I sold my ranch a few years ago and I only get this stuff second hand now.
Bart,
The wind turbine folks want to put the towers on federally controlled BLM land. Wyoming legislature has enacted taxes on renewables, just as they do for coal and gas-generated power. The tax makes the renewable-generated power unprofitable for the wind turbine operator and their financial backers.
Yes, go Wyoming! That’s 1,000 ugly windmills you don’t have to look at, and no telling how many birds you will be saving. And your electric rates won’t go up. Keep up the good work.
Windmills are a big deadend. Even if we had unlimited storage capacity, windmills would still kill the birds and bats, so they should be rejected because there are much better alternatives that do not, such as new nuclear powerplants, that can do the job without creating enormous problems in other areas.
Just make sure to save some of that tax money in a fund to pay for tearing those things down when their useful life ends.
MarkW – what useful life? There is not a day when those things are worth it. Not a day, not an hour, not even a minute.
Nuclear power plants are giant mills that use genotoxic radionucleides to boil water and move turbines. No safe way to dispose of the waste. More ning , milling, processing uranium and plutonium is fossil fuel intensive. There are no deep clay repositories of nuclear waste. The glass particle method has not been proven safe for disposing of nuclear waste. High level waste generates decay heat through the radioactive decay of radionuclide’s. This decay heat causes chemical reactions in material and water around the waste. Even casking generates hydrogen gas in the casked waste. Sellafield nuclear waste is stored above ground and leaks to the seas.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-20228176
The French have never dealt with their waste and currently pipe plutonium onto the beach and into the sea at Normandy.
http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/environment/humans/nuclear_du_radiation/news.php?q=1418400951
Radioactive waste is mostly stored in water close to npps.
There have been nuclear waste explosions at wipp and in nuclear waste in Nevada.
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/tag/nuclear-waste-explosion/
There is a huge amount of nuclear waste in a municipal dump in the backyards of residents of Westlake in St. Louis, Mo.
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/state-wins-approval-test-groundwater-near-radioactive-waste-west-lake-landfill
Periodically nuclear waste and medical isotopes are found in dumps around the world.
Most uranium milling and mining operations around the world have never been cleaned up.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/XIPI9uChfRaHeKpFu2GhiK/Dying-kids-in-Jhakhands-Jadugora-uranium-mines-and-a-myste.html
More paranoid scientifically illiterate bollox…
More bollocks…
Well it is Sussex University. Since it first opened in the 60s it garnered a reputation for being full of left wing idiots. What’s more it is situated next to Brighton, a town full of Green Party morons.